had
begun to suck them up--suck them up into the very home of life and
thought; and the mind, sodden all through, was presently below the
surface, sharing the doom of limpets, and weeds, and worlds."

CHAPTER XV

FROM THE HIGHLANDS TO NEW YORK

Summer on the Borders of Caithness--A Two Months' Yachting
Cruise--The Orkneys and the Outer Hebrides--An Unexpected
Political Summons.

During the five years occupied in elaborating these philosophical works
I enjoyed two intervals of relaxation, which in the landscape of memory
detach themselves from other kindred experiences, and one of which--the
second--had a quite unexpected ending.

The first was indirectly connected with the Coronation of King Edward.
On a certain evening, while the event was impending, I found myself
sitting at dinner by a friend, Lady Amherst (of Montreal), who told me
that she and Lord Amherst were shortly going to a shooting lodge which
was close to the borders of Caithness, and which they rented from the
Duke of Sutherland. For some months past Lady Amherst had been unwell,
and her doctor had urged her to avoid the crowds of London, for which
reason she and her husband had determined to find quiet in the north. I
told her I thought she was a very enviable woman, all unusual crowds
being to myself detestable. "If you think that," she said, "why don't
you come with us? A few others will be there, so we shall not be quite
alone." I accepted the invitation with delight. I said good-by to London
on the earliest day possible. In a train which was almost empty I
traveled much at my ease from King's Cross Station to Brora. Not a
tourist was to be seen anywhere. Except for a few farmers, all the
Highland platforms were empty. I felt like a disembodied spirit when I
found myself at last in a land of short, transparent nights which hardly
divided one day from another. Uppat, Lord Amherst's lodge, was one of
the roomiest on the whole Sutherland property. Parts of it were old. It
had once been a small laird's castle. Round it were woods from which
came the noise of a salmon river. Among the woods were walled plots of
pasture, and beyond the woods were the loneliest of all lonely
mountains. In the kitchen was a French _chef_, and when on my arrival I
found Lady Amherst in the porch, her homespun toilet showed that France
produced artists other than French cooks. To elude the world without
eluding its ornaments--what more could be praye