An archipelago of fifty-six islands lies scattered over the water, with only half of them inhabited, but not all the rest habitable; if, like Sancho Panza, you are looking for an island, you will not find the isle of heart's desire here. The scant inhabited twenty odd are not over filled with population; these islands are not hospitable to large numbers, not even of their own. They came to us through Margaret of Denmark, queen to James III, and were confirmed when Anne of Denmark came to be queen to James VI.
The sail over the Pentland Firth may be taken on a still day when the historic waters, as vexed as those of the Bermoothes, lie like glass. The rage of water, of any water, is not the frequent mood; but always it is the memorable. Blue above and blue below was the day of our going, twenty miles past high "continental" shores, like Dunnet's head, and between the outliers of the Orcadian group, at the end of a summer day that never ends in this North.
Yet I cannot think how I should ever again approach "Mainland" and the port of Kirkwall with such indifference to everything except the exquisite cool softness of this Northern air of mid-summer, with an indolent interest in the land ahead, hardly quickened into active interest which is the traveler's right, when we approached Scapa in the twilight.
I did remember that the Vikings were once here as kings. And when King Haakon of Norway was returning from the defeat at Largs in the west where his fleet suffered the blow repeated later against the Spanish armada, one ship was sucked down into a whirlpool near Stroma. And Haakon died here of a broken heart. All these seemed like old, far-off things that are not unhappy. Yet there was a suggestion of fate in the place; perhaps there always is in a Northern twilight. To approach Kirkwall after this, will always be to remember the Hampshire, going to its death in a water more dangerous than that of whirling Stroma, and Lord Kitchener going with it.
Kirkwall is a pleasant old town; or was, till war made it busy and new. It lies inland a mile or two across the isthmus, but no doubt stretching actively down to the south pier at Scapa during the years of the great war, when all the British fleet hovered about.
The town is gray, like all Scottish towns; nature does these things with perfect taste. And, in the midst, man has builded for his worship a church of red sandstone, the Cathedral of St. Magnus, older and in better condition than churches of Scotland more exposed to the change of faith; with a long dim interior that speaks the North, with massive Norman arches; one wonders how the reformed faith can conduct itself in this dim religious light.
EARL'S PALACE, KIRKWALL.
But the Earl's Palace remains a thing of beauty. Earl Patrick builded it, the son of Robert who was half brother to Mary. If the palace had been built in Mary's day I should, in truth, have lamented that she did not come hither after the escape from Loch Leven, instead of going to defeat at Langside. Mary was valiant, and the stern North was, after all, in her blood.
But Patrick as "jarl" came a generation later, and he taxed the islands mercilessly to build this very beautiful palace. The roof is gone, but the beauty remains, oriel windows, fireplaces, and towers and turrets. No doubt when "the wind is blowing in turret and tree," Patrick's palace can be ruined enough. But on a day when the blue sky is sufficient vaulting, the palace is a place to dream in.