CHAP v. CONCHOLOGY. 41 



remitted 5 ; but his old master said " he need not re- 

 mit the balance, as he would have need of the money." 

 In fact, three years elapsed before Eobert Dick could 

 send him the balance of the account. 



When Dick's bread was sold, or while his sister Jane 

 was watching the shop, he went out to walk along the 

 shore. He crossed the river by the stepping-stones while 

 the tide was out, and was at once in Thurso East. He 

 passed under the castle and walked along the shore, some- 

 times as far as Dunnet Bay. He delighted to see the 

 long rolling waves come thundering in and break upon 

 the shore in clouds of spray. The broken surge, churned 

 into foam, rushed rapidly up the beach with the speed 

 of a racehorse, and then rushed rapidly back again. 

 Even in calm weather, there is a ceaseless moaning of 

 the surge, indicating the remnant of some storm far away 

 in the Atlantic. When the storm comes nearer the 

 land, the waves are stronger and louder, spending their 

 billows on the shore. " Sometimes," says Dick, " the 

 noise of the bay is heard booming over the town with a 

 terrible roar." 



His walks along the shore awakened in him a taste 

 for conchology. He gathered shells by the score, and 

 arranged them in a cabinet. He gathered up numerous 

 things besides shells. He found a specimen of the nut 

 of the cow-itch shrub of the West Indies, such a 

 nut as the brother-in-law of Columbus found floating 

 near Madeira, which led the great navigator to infer the 

 existence of a western continent. He found also wood, 

 drilled by the Teredo navalis, and many specimens of 



