A RAID ON SUTHERLAND. 449 



meant had red feet, a red lill, and dived. Its colour also was 

 black, with a white patch on the wing. The black guillemot, 

 thought I ; but then the red bill. " Are you sure of the 

 colour of the bill ? " He passed his word that it was bright 

 as vermilion. 



To secure this red-bill I eagerly ordered his boat to be 

 ready at nine next morning. " What can that bird be ? " I 

 said so often during the evening, that my son compared my 

 curiosity to that of the old Caithness laird, who never could 

 rest without knowing everything about everybody. When 

 travelling north with a friend, he stayed the night at a small 

 inn. " Yell be frae Caithness ? " says he to the maid-of -all- 

 work. "No," rather curtly. "Frae Sutherland, then?" 

 " No," a little sulkily. " Ou, I hae't ; ye're frae Eoss-shire ? " 

 "No," still. "Ye maun be frae the Mearns, then?" The 

 "No" was nearly smothered by the slamming of the door. 

 All the evening the laird was thoughtful and abstracted, and 

 when he took his candle to go to bed, made the earnest 

 appeal to his companion " Whaur can that lass-ie be frae ? " 



Macleod honestly told us that the sea-eagle had not built 

 on Handa last season, nor this, so far as he knew. He gave 

 their correct titles to the common guillemots, razor-bills, puffins, 

 cormorants green and black, &c., and was only a little con- 

 fused about the gulls. What, then, could this sea-pigeon be ? 

 If I could only get him to give way on the carnation beak 

 but catch him ! 



The breeze had lulled, but it was still from the east. The 

 two boatmen, therefore, were yet unable to say whether we 

 could round the outer rocks of Handa until they cleared the 

 farthest mainland cape. They then began to shake their 

 heads, " There was ower great a swell to gang within shot 

 o' the cliffs, but we might try the land-locked creek and bays 

 first, an' maybe it wad moderate by the evenin'." The calm 

 water, too, was best for " sea-pigeons " and stormy-petrels. 



With slow pull the men crept along the coast, while, on 



2 F 



