xJ FIELD AND FERN. 



every inch of available carpet in the cabin. One 

 voice of the night put in its feeble protest against our 

 " using a head for a football" ; another groaned 

 piteously when its owner was roused at Wick and 

 told that he was resting over the mail-bags in the 

 floor ; and a third had the presence of mind to sug- 

 gest whisky at 3 a.m. for " buckling oil a gentle- 

 man's boots." 



Wick was fast asleep, but its lightermen knew no 

 slumber, while we give out flour and meal from the 

 hold enough for a beleaguered city. A navy of tan 

 or chocolate-sails studded the ofiing. One by one 

 they came slowly into harbour, some with hardly 

 the tenth of a cran, or only a cod-fish to mock 

 their toil, and others with their richly-laden net- 

 tresses glistening in the moonlight, like a sheet of 

 molten silver. Pour hours more, and we are at the 

 entrance of Kirkwall Bay, and passing the long, -low 

 island of Hellersay. A heron is perched on the ruins 

 of its Picts House, and here too is Thor, the Shet- 

 land bull, whose namesake was supposed to fish with 

 a bulFs-head bait for the Sea Serpent. There is quite 

 a jubilee on the Kirkwall-pier, while the packet is 

 unlading; but the thought of thirty-odd leagues 

 between us and Shetland sternly declines to be 

 smothered. 



Newspapers are a slender solace to begin with. 



We read languidly among the telegrams that The 



Banger has won the Great Yorkshire, and Golden 



* Pledge the Ebor ; and, again, ' ' it is four years since 



