"What I wonder at is this," said our young Doctor with a curious grim smile, that we had learned to know, coming over his face, "that the solan, with that extraordinary supply of phosphorus to the brain, should have gone on remaining only a bird, and a very ordinary bird, too. Its brain-power should have been developed; it should be able to speak by this time. In fact, there ought to be solan schoolboards and parochial boards on the Bass Rock; and commissioners appointed to inquire whether the building of nests might not be conducted on more scientific principles. When I was a boy—I am sorry to say—I used often to catch a solan by floating out a piece of wood with a dead herring on it: a wise bird, with its brain full of phosphorus, ought to have known that it would break its head when it swooped down on a piece of wood." The Laird sate in dignified silence. There was something occult and uncanny about many of this young man’s sayings—they savoured too much of the dangerous and unsettling tendencies of these modern days. Besides, he did not see what good could come of likening a lot of solan-geese to the Commissioners of the Burgh of Strathgovan. His remarks on the herring-fisheries had been practical and intelligible; they had given no occasion for jibes. We were suddenly startled by the rattling out of the anchor-chain. What could it mean?—were we caught in an eddy? There was a scurrying up on deck, only to find that, having drifted so far south with the tide, and the tide beginning to turn, John of Skye proposed to secure what advantage we had gained by coming to anchor. There was a sort of shamed laughter over this business. Was the noble _White Dove_ only a river barge, then, that she was thus dependent on the tides for her progress? But it was no use either to laugh or to grumble; two of us proposed to row the Laird away to certain distant islands that lie off the shore north of the mouth of Loch Hourn; and for amusement’s sake we took some towels with us. Look now how this long and shapely gig cuts the blue water. The Laird is very dignified in the stern, with the tiller-ropes in his hand; he keeps a straight course enough—though he is mostly looking over the side. And, indeed, this is a perfect wonder-hall over which we are making our way—the water so clear that we notice the fish darting here and there among the great brown blades of the tangle and the long green sea-grass. Then there are stretches of yellow sand, with shells and star-fish shining far below. The sun burns on our hands; there is a dead stillness of heat; the measured splash of the oars startles the sea-birds in there among the rocks. _Send the biorlinn on careering,_ _Cheerily and all together,_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ _A long, strong pull together!_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ Look out for the shallows, most dignified of coxswains: what if we were to imbed her bows in the silver sand?—