d for by a mind desiring
rest? Uppat, indeed, in June and July was like a land

Where all trouble seems
Dead winds, and spent waves riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams.

Lord Amherst, as a rule, spent most of the day fishing. Lady Amherst, I,
and two other visitors very often bicycled. On other occasions we all
made our way to purple fastnesses, and lunched where birches lifted
their gleaming stems. The only movements discoverable between earth and
sky were the sailing wings of eagles, and our own activities below, as
we applied mayonnaise sauce, yellower than any primrose, to a sea trout
or a lobster. We dined at nearly nine o'clock by a strange, white
daylight; and in the outer quiet there was very often discernible a
movement of stags' antlers above the wall of a near orchard. We read the
newspapers till very nearly midnight without lamps or candles. We
watched the blush of sunset, visible, like a dying bonfire, through a
gap in the Caithness mountains, and this had not faded completely till
it seemed as though someone had lighted beyond a neighboring ridge a
bonfire of saffron--the faint beginning of sunrise. No retreat could
have been a retreat more complete than this.

Another retreat in the north was vouchsafed to me some years later. I
was lunching with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Saxton Noble, in London, and
they told me that, instead of taking, as had been their custom, a
country house for the autumn, they had taken a yacht of about five
hundred tons, and were going to spend their time in a leisurely cruise
round the western coasts of Scotland. I mentioned to them that I had
just been reading a very interesting description of Noltland, a curious
castle in the remotest island of the Orkneys. We talked of this, which
apparently was a very remarkable structure, containing the most
magnificent newel staircase in Scotland. Suddenly Mrs. Noble said, "Why
won't you join us?" My own plans for the autumn had been mapped out
already, and I did not at first take her suggestion seriously. I laughed
and said, "Yes, I'll come if you will go as far as Noltland." Both she
and her husband at once answered: "Yes. We promise to go to Noltland.
Let us take your coming as settled."

Accordingly, toward the end of July we left London by the night mail for
Greenock, where the yacht would be found waiting for us. Next morning,
in the freshness of a salt breeze, we were transferring ourselves from
Greenock pier to a trim