over which Caithness
Castle rises preeminent, can scarcely be imagined. Flora turned from the
contemplation of the stony waste with an inward thanksgiving, "That it
was not her home." But when they rounded Duncansby Head, the scene
before so tame and sterile, became more grand and picturesque every
moment. They were now in the stormy Pentland Firth, threading their way
with the aid of a pilot through its romantic labyrinth of islands,
driven onward by a spanking wind.

The bold outline of the coast was so different in its character from
that to which she had been accustomed from a child, that it made a
powerful impression upon her mind, and quickly associated itself with
all the legends of the wild and marvellous which she had ever heard or
read. Those beetling crags, those ocean caves, into which the wild
sea-waves rushed with such a fearful din, seemed fitting habitations for
all the evil demons that abound in the Scandinavian mythology, once
dreaded as stern realities in a darker stage of human progression.

How tame beside these awful sublimities, appeared the gentle sloping
cliffs at ----, and her little cottage fronting the quiet bay--

"Green lie these thickly timbered shores,
Fair sloping to the sea."

But here, rocks upon rocks in endless confusion, reared their craggy
heads towards heaven, their frowning shadows casting a Stygian gloom
upon the billows that leap and roar around their massive base. A
perpetual war of ages these billows have waged against the iron barrier,
that with silent, motionless, resistless force repels their
white-crested phalanx, scattering them into shining fragments of snowy
spray. Ocean will not be defeated--he calls his legions again and again
to the charge, only to be broken and beaten back as before. They retreat
with a sullen roar of defiance, that seems to say, "You have beaten us;
but we will try our strength against you once more. The day is coming
when one of us two must yield."

The rocks assumed all hues in the fiery beams of the setting sun. The
red granite glowed with tints of crimson, violet, indigo, and gold,
these colours assuming a greater intensity when reflected in the
transparent waters of the Firth. It was a scene to see, not prate about,
and the memory of its brilliancy still lies enshrined like some precious
gem in Flora Lyndsay's heart.

As headland after headland flew past, revealing at every point some
fresh combinations of grandeur and beauty,