You would hardly expect to find an ancient cathedral up in those Orkney Islands that one usually sees huddled away in a spare corner of the map, and made to look even smaller than they are by the exigencies of space. It is curious to think of: once, long ago, strange ships with monstrous figure-heads and painted sides, full of the northern actors of history, crawled with their lines of oars into the sounds and bays of these islands, till for centuries they became the stage for dramatic events and stirring personages. Some of the players bore names that any history book tells of. Harald Hardrada, old King Haco, Bothwell, and Montrose have all played their parts. And there are others, earls and prelates, and northern kings, and old sea-rovers, who were really far better worth knowing than half the puppets with more familiar labels. Then, gradually the lights went out and the audience turned away to look at other things, and the Orkneymen were left to observe the Sabbath and elect a County Council. One by one the old buildings toppled down, and the old names changed, and the old customs faded, till the place of the islands in history became their place upon the map; but time and men have spared one thing—this old cathedral church of St. Magnus in Kirkwall. [Illustration: _In Kirkwall._ 1. Earl’s Palace. 2. Bridge Street. 3. Albert Street. 4. Bishop’s Palace.] On the ancient houses of the little borough and the winding slit of a street, the old red church still looks down benignly, and sometimes (of a Sunday, I think, especially) a little humorously. Over the gray roofs and the tree-tops in sheltered gardens, and the black mites of people passing on their business, its lustreless Gothic eyes see a wide expanse of land and a wider and brighter sweep of sea. The winding sounds and broadening bays join and divide and join again, through and through its island dominions. Backwards and forwards, twice a day, the flood tide pours from the open Atlantic, and each channel becomes an eastward flowing river; and then from the North Sea the ebb sets the races running to the west. Everywhere is the sight or the sound of the sea—rollers on the western cliffs, salt currents among the islands, quiet bays lapping the feet of heathery hills. Out of the two great oceans the wind blows like the blasts of an enormous bellows, and on the horizon the clouds are eternally gathering. It is over this land of moor and water and vapour that the cathedral watches the people; and though from the difficulty of passing through so narrow a street it has never moved from the spot where it first arose, and has never seen, one would suppose, the greater part of its territories, yet it knows—none better—the stories and the spirit of all the islands. Crows and gulls cruise round the tower familiarly, and perhaps bring gossip; but eyes so long and narrow, and of so inhuman an anatomy, may very likely see through a hill or a heart for themselves.