THE RIVER THOR 41 



grey cloud. That is the impression of a Caithness 

 landscape on one alighting at Halkirk station on a 

 February noon. 



No scene more forlorn or inhospitable could be 

 found within the British Isles. The prevailing 

 brown tones of the land are hardly more varied 

 than the steel grey of the heavens ; brown heather, 

 brown peats, brown stone houses ; even the roofs 

 most of them are of brown flags, though the great 

 whisky distillery of Gerston strikes a noisier key 

 with its covering of purple Welsh slate. The 

 ploughed land is brown too, and the wan pastures 

 nearer pale brown than green. Through the great 

 plain winds a sullen river, the Thurso, whose 

 waters, though snow-fed, are brown also. Its course 

 is silent, save where, at long intervals, brown 

 barriers of rock oppose and work it into sudden 

 short-lived roar of wrath. Else there is no sound 

 but that of the wind, rising from sigh to shriek, and 

 falling back again to sigh and sob. Rows of rust- 

 coloured Caithness flags, square and smooth as 

 tombstones, separate the fields, so that it seems as 

 if this were in truth a land of the dead, set with 

 unending graveyards. Where the crofts have made 

 way for large farms, leagues of barbed wire inter- 



