erson can know more than
a limited number of them; and even of this limited number I, in a volume
like the present, can mention only a few. I will take them in the order
in which for geographical or architectural reasons they most readily
recur to my own memory. I may begin with two which deserve to be coupled
together on account of the positions which they occupy--namely, the
extreme northeast of Great Britain in one case, and the extreme
southwest in the other. I allude to Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland, and
St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall.

The whole population of the great county of Sutherland is hardly so much
as two-thirds of the population of Wimbledon, and, except for some
minute portions, was, prior to certain recent sales, a single gigantic
property. Dunrobin Castle, with a million silent acres of mountain and
moor behind it, looks down from a cliff over the wastes of the North
Sea, but is on the landward side sheltered by fine timber. At the foot
of the cliff are the flower beds of an old-world garden. The nucleus of
the house is ancient, but has now been incrusted by great modern
additions, the Victorian regime expressing itself in windows of plate
glass. But through the plate glass on one side is visible a prehistoric
habitation of the Picts and a cavern in which gypsy mothers are even now
brought secretly to give birth to their offspring. On the other side are
visible the slopes of a barren hill, inhabited till lately by a witch
who gathered herbs by night under the influence of certain planets, and
of whose powers even the doctor at Golspie went in half-acknowledged
terror. At dinner two pipers played on a landing outside the dining
room. So remote is this great house from any center of modern industry
that the carts, dogcarts, and wagonettes used by the estate and the
family were built and repaired by a staff of men on the premises. My
first visit to Dunrobin was in the days of the Duchess Annie. The duke
was away on his yacht, but during my visit he returned, and the duchess
and I went to meet him at the station--a private station in the grounds.
Those were the early days of agrarian agitation in the Highlands--an
agitation which was vehemently applauded by the Radical press of London.
One Radical correspondent reported in tones of triumph that the duke had
been openly cursed by his tenants on his own private platform. The
nonsensical nature of such statements is sufficiently illustrated by
what happened