426 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



cared-for portion of the community which education has 

 not yet reached. I broke off late on Saturday night in 

 the little inn of Huna ; the Sabbath morning rose clear 

 and beautiful ; I never saw the Orkney Islands look so 

 near from the main land; their little fields, at the 

 distance of many miles, gleamed yellow in the sun ; and 

 the tall Old Red Sandstone cliffs of Hoy, cliffs nearly a 

 thousand feet in height, were sharply relieved against the 

 sky, and bore a blood-hued flush of deep red ; while the 

 Pentland Frith, roughened by a light breeze, was in- 

 tensely blue. I walked on after breakfast to the Free 

 Church, and heard from Mr Macgregor two solid, doc- 

 trinal discourses. The congregation, however, was very 

 thin ; but I ought not to judge of it, I am told, by 

 present appearances, as many of the men connected 

 with it are at the herring-fishery. Still, however, it is 

 only half a congregation at best, the other half congre- 

 gation of the parish being in the Established Church. 

 Papa and his friends could not help being Free Church- 

 men, as you will learn when you get older ; we could 

 not avoid the Disruption ; but papa does sometimes 

 regret that the Disruption should in so many parishes 

 have, as it were, made two bites of a cherry ; that is, 

 broken up into two congregations a moiety of people 

 that would have made one good one, but no more. 

 After sermon, and after dinner, I walked on in the cool 

 of the evening towards Wick, which I reached about 

 nine o'clock. The little inn at Huna is far, far from 

 any butcher's shop ; and so a poor hen had to die every 

 day papa was there, in order that papa should dine. 

 There is an album kept at it, as I told Harriet two 

 years ago, in which all visitors write their names, and 

 whatever else may come into their heads ; and so it 

 contains, as you may think, a great deal of nonsense ; 



