414 THE NEW CEMETERY. CHAP. xxm. 



seamen and fishermen, shoemakers, merchants, pavement- 

 cutters, and the general public ; followed the remains 

 to the cemetery. It was one of the largest, most impres- 

 sive, and remarkable funerals, that had ever been seen 

 in Thurso. 



The new cemetery, in which Eobert Dick's remains 

 were laid, is about a mile from the town. It overlooks 

 the banks of boulder clay on which the geologist had 

 spent so much of his time. The place where he had 

 discovered the Hierochloe borealis is near at hand, on the 

 sward by the river-side. Far off is seen the entrance to 

 the river Thurso, the ships in the offing, Dunnet Head, 

 and in the distance the island of Hoy in the Orkneys. 

 He was laid in the midst of the scenes which he knew so 

 well, and where he had spent so many nights of patient 

 and toilful plodding, while so many others were enjoying 

 their peaceful repose. 



After the funeral came the winding up of Dick's 

 affairs. We have said that he was a poor man. At 

 his death he owed a considerable sum over 72 to his 

 flour-merchant in Leith. His mind was much troubled 

 before he died about how this amount was to be paid. 

 There were,however,the flour in his bakehouse, the books 

 in his library, and his furniture, such as it was, as security. 

 He was never able to repay his sister the sum of money 

 which he had borrowed from her on the shipwreck of his 

 flour ; but he had the sum in his clothes-chest, in sove- 

 reigns of many coinages, which his brother-in-law thinks 

 he intended to repay. But he never found himself in cir- 

 cumstances sufficient to enable him to return the amount, 



