50 FEBRUARY 



marsh and crag, return on foot over the dark plain 

 in time for the morrow's baking. 



At other times Dunnet Head would be the goal, 

 where the flags are richest in fossil fish. A neigh- 

 bour found him prying and hammering one day in 

 a quarry. * What are you seeking there, Eobert 1 ' 

 he asked. 'Fish,' quoth Robert; and straightway 

 the wayfarer bore the tale to Thurso how Dick, the 

 baxter, was gone clean demented, for he was looking 

 for fish in Gerston quarry. 



Dick, however, had his moments of ecstatic re- 

 ward, such as are known only to intellectual workers. 

 One such came when he discovered the little northern 

 grass, Hierochloe borealis, till then unknown as a 

 British plant. Another was when Sir Eoderick 

 Murchison, attracted by reports of Dick's collection 

 of Old Red Sandstone fossils, travelled to Thurso to 

 inspect it. One may picture the tremulous delight 

 of the obscure but faithful disciple, all unused to 

 exchange thoughts on the subject ever uppermost in 

 his mind, hovering round the great man, and laying 

 up every syllable that fell from his lips, to be mused 

 over and repeated in many a long, lonely ramble. 



A sad calamity overtook the solitary student. 

 He was no longer, as he had been at first, the only 



