Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl. Bidding farewell to the rocky Farnes, we sail past Budle Bay, into which runs the Warenburn and the Elwick burn, and underneath whose sandy flats is the buried town of Warnmouth, once a busy seaport, to which Henry III. granted a charter. Approaching Lindisfarne, “Our isle of Saints, low-lying on the blue breast of the curling waters, is hushed and silent in the lightly-purple mists of morning, like the wide aisles of a great cathedral at daybreak, before the feet and tongues of sightseers disturb the solemn stillness. The tideway is covered with water, and the footprints of the pilgrims who came yesterday to the shrine of St. Cuthbert have passed into oblivion like footmarks on the sands of time.” (_Galloway Kyle_.) The modern pilgrim to Holy Island generally takes train to Beal station, and from there walks to the seashore, and crosses the long stretch of sand between Holy Island and the mainland. The governing factor in the possibility or otherwise of making the journey is the state of the tide, for these sands are entirely covered by the sea twice a day, so that Holy Island can only be said to be an island at high tide. “For with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle; Dry-shod, o’er sands, twice every day The pilgrims to the shrine find way; Twice every day the waves efface Of staves and sandall’d feet the trace.” There are dangerous quicksands on the way, too, and a row of stakes points out the proper course to be taken. We have already seen that St. Aidan settled on Lindisfarne and have treated of him in connection with Bamburgh. After his death another monk of Iona, Finan, succeeded him and carried on his work; and after Finan came Colman, who resigned after the Synod of Whitby had decided to keep Easter according to southern instead of northern usage. St. Cuthbert was Prior of Lindisfarne at this time. Later, the seat of the bishopric was removed from Lindisfarne to York, when it was held by that restless and able prelate, Wilfrid, for a time. Then the bishopric was divided and a see of Hexham formed, as well as that of Lindisfarne, which included Carlisle, out of the northern portion of the diocese of York.