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In Strathnavern and in the upper valleys of its rivers, and also in Caithness in the uplands of the river Thurso, and in a large part of Sudrland the Pictish family and clan of Moddan in its various branches subsisted all through the Norse occupation, and it is hoped to show good reason for believing that the family of Moddan, with the Pictish or Scottish family of Freskyn de Moravia in later times, was the mainstay of Scottish rule in the extreme north until the shadowy claims of Norse suzerains over every part of the mainland were completely repelled, and avowedly abandoned.
Moddan "then dwelt in Dale in Caithness, a man of rank and very wealthy," and "his son Ottar was jarl in Thurso." Frakark, a daughter of Moddan in Dale, was the wife of Liot Nidingr, or the Dastard, a Sudrland chief, and during the half century after Thorfinn's death Moddan's family seems to have owned much of Caithness and Sutherland, where the Norse steadily lost their hold.
His note-book contains "nothing of general interest," says Knapp, except an imperfect outline of the journey, showing that he was at Oban, Tobermory, the Mull of Cantire, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dingwall, Tain, Dornoch, Helmsdale, Wick, John o'Groats, Thurso, Stromness, Kirkwall, and Lerwick.
Approaching the Orkneys from Thurso the first things that struck us were certain great structures crowning the mounded hills. These, we discovered afterward were so many great farmsteadings, protected from the wind by cinctures of high walls, many of the Orcadian holdings being at once rich and extensive, and commanding very high rentals.
The motion of the armature in both of these instruments takes a sensible time, but Alexander Bain, of Thurso, by trade a watchmaker, and by nature a genius, invented a chemical telegraph which was capable of a prodigious activity. The instrument of Bain resembled the Morse in marking the signals on a tape of moving paper, but this was done by electrolysis or electro-chemical decomposition.
To lay aside this embargo and to speak to such a large congregation, face to face, was like coming back again into the great communions of humanity after a long and private fellowship with the secluded quietudes of Nature. At four p.m. the next day, I took the Thurso coach and passed over in the night the whole distance that had occupied me a week in travelling by staff.
He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg. Again, at Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his broadsword, and put them to flight.
"Got the message off Dunnett Head, and we'll run you to Thurso," replied the rescuer, motioning them to enter the boat. "Come on our commander's got some word or other for you. What's all this been?" he went on, gazing at Audrey with youthful assurance as they moved away from the shore. "You don't mean to say you've actually been kidnapped?" "Kidnapped and marooned," replied Vickers.
Here, then, after weeks and months of travel on foot, I was at the end of my journey. Through all the days of this period I had faced northward, and here was the Ultima Thule, the goal and termination of my tour. The road to the sea diverged from the main turnpike, which continued around the coast to Thurso.
It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso the old town of Thor for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret Sinclair."
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