CHAPTER XXI. 

 DICK RECOMMENCES A COLLECTION OF FOSSILS. 



" I AM not beat yet!" said Dick. " I have resolution, 

 will, and ability to work. Let me try again." 



His flour was wrecked on the 9th of March. A 

 few months later (May 18th), we find him by the sea- 

 shore, about six miles east of Thurso, where he had found 

 his last fossil fish. He had to a certain extent got rid 

 of his rheumatism. " I have got the use of my feet," he 

 says, " and am blest in comparison. It was terrible to 

 be hampered like a hen with a string round its leg. 



" Though I did not discover much, yet I am sur- 

 prised that I found so much. I have dug out of the 

 rocks what no one else ever got out of them. It is 

 cheerless, cold work. Lonely work too. But no good 

 work can be done in company." 



He next visited a hill near Thurso, from two to three 

 hundred feet high, where at one spot the fossil fish lie 

 by the score, fish over fish, packed like herrings in a 

 barrel. With the insight of the poet, he saw the 

 sepulchres of the past beneath his feet. 



" Tell me, thou dust beneath my feet, 



Thou dust that once had breath, 

 Tell me how many mortals meet 

 In this small hill of death. 



