OF A GEOLOGIST. 403 



CHAPTER XL 



THE " upper storey" of the bishop's palace, in which grim old 

 Haco died, thanks to the economic burghers who convert- 

 ed the stately ruin into a quarry, has wholly disappeared. 

 Though the death of this last of the Norwegian invaders does 

 not date more than ten years previous to the birth of the 

 Bruce, it seems to belong, notwithstanding, to a different and 

 greatly more ancient period of Scottish history ; as if it came 

 under the influence of a sort of aerial perspective, similar to 

 that which makes a neighbouring hill in a fog appear as re- 

 mote as a distant mountain when the atmosphere is clearer. 

 Our national wars with the English were rendered familiar 

 to our country folk of the last age, and for centuries before, 

 by the old Scotch " Mdkkaris" Barbour and Blind Harry, 

 and in our own times by the glowing narratives of Sir Walter 

 Scott, magicians who, unlike those ancient sorcerers that 

 used to darken the air with their incantations, possessed the 

 rare power of dissipating the mists and vapours of the historic 

 atmosphere, and rendering it transparent But we had no 

 such chroniclers of the time, though only half an age further 

 removed into the past, 



" When Norse and Danish galleys plied 

 Their oars within the Frith of Clyde, 

 And floated Haco's banner trim 

 Above Norweyan warriors grim, 

 Savage of heart and large of limb." * 



