26 FIELD AND FERN. 



himself up on a small knoll, among the calves, hard 

 by a whole Mason tribe from Gulnare. The old red 

 cow is there, with the roan Queen of Cruickshank's 

 Empress descent, and great in the milking vein ; and 

 the udder of a beautiful black and white Shetland 

 dame prophesies still more decisively of Scotch pints 

 to come. The starlings rise in a cloud as we scale 

 the stile, and stand among the Timothy- grass on 

 the farm of Agricola. Beneath us is Kaiserklett, or 

 Ca3sar's Rock, where, according to tradition, Agri- 

 cola's trireme was wrecked, and left its only sign in 

 the hilt of a dagger with Neptune's figure strug- 

 gling through verdigris. But there is a more peace- 

 ful tie with the past. A Pict's house was found in 

 what was once a small loch, but where oats are now 

 waving, on the top of Nearhouse Field ; and the very 

 next year after it had been drained, two plots of wild 

 mustard, the infallible sign of old cultivated ground, 

 sprang up on each side of the ruins. 



Half the North isles of Orkney lie in a map be- 

 fore us : the dark heath of Edey, the rich pastures of 

 Phurey and Westrey, Egilsey, with its old Pictish 

 tower, the scene of the martyrdom of St. Magnus ; 

 the thriving Rousay, once the home of wild hogs ; and 

 the hill of Gairsay, whose barley has not lost its good 

 name since Swein Asleifson brewed his own ale for 

 those cruises to Cornwall and the Northumbrian 

 coast, which filled Orkneyinga Saga with his exploits. 

 The remains of the castle of Kolbein Hruga, a rival 

 Viking, are still to be seen on Wyre, the low, green 



