Excursion to the Orkney Islands

PLANS FORMED.

“Now children,” said Mrs. Morelle, while she and the children were at breakfast, “since we are safe on shore, we can begin to talk about our plans. It is now about the middle of June. Mr. Morelle will not arrive in London until September. So that we have two months and a half to spend in rambling about. And the question is where we shall go.”

“You must decide that mother,” said Florence.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Morelle, “I will decide it, but first I wish to hear what you all have to say about it. You may all propose the plans which you would prefer, and then I will take the subject into consideration and decide.”

The children then all began to talk about the different tours which they had heard the passengers speak of on board the ship, toward the end of the voyage, when they had become well enough to take out their maps and guide-books, and to consult together about the tours which they were to make. Florence said that there was a beautiful region called the lake country, full of mountains and lakes, which lay to the north of Liverpool, in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland. The Isle of Wight was proposed too, which is a very charming island lying off the southern coast of England, and a great place of resort for parties travelling for health or pleasure.

John said that for his part he would like to go directly to Paris. His motive for this was partly the long and rapid journey by railway and steamboat which it would require, but chiefly because he wished to see the performances at the Hippodrome, a famous place in Paris for equestrian shows, of which he had heard very glowing accounts before he left America.

When it came to Grimkie’s turn to propose a plan, he said that what he should like best, if he thought that his aunt and Florence would like it, would be to go to the Orkney Islands.

“To the Orkney Islands!” exclaimed Mrs. Morelle in a tone of surprise; “why they are beyond the very northern extremity of Scotland.”

“Yes, Auntie, I know they are,” said Grimkie; “that is the reason why I want to go and see them.”

Mrs. Morelle paused a moment, and seemed to be thinking.

“Florence,” said she, at length, “go into our bedroom and get my little atlas. You will find it on the table there. I took it out of the trunk this morning.”

Mrs. Morelle always carried a small atlas with her, especially when travelling with the children, for she found that occasions were continually arising in which it was necessary, or at least very desirable, to refer to the map.

Florence went out, and in a few minutes returned bringing the atlas with her.

Mrs. Morelle took the atlas and opened it at the map of Scotland. After examining the map attentively, she turned to the map of North America.

“The Orkney Islands extend as far up as latitude fifty-nine and a half,” said she, “and the lower point of Greenland is only sixty. So that you would take us to within half a degree of the latitude of Greenland.”

“Yes, Auntie,” said Grimkie, “that is just it. To think that we can go so far north as that and have good roads and good comfortable inns all the way.”

“But we should have to go a part of the way by sea,” said Mrs. Morelle. “The Orkneys are islands at some distance from the main land.”

“Only six miles, Auntie,” said Grimkie. “It is only across the Pentland Firth, and that is only six miles wide.”

“But are not the seas in that region very stormy?”

“Yes, Auntie,” said Grimkie, “they are the stormiest seas in the world. Those are the seas that the old Norsemen used to navigate, between the coasts of Norway and Scotland, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands and Iceland. The Norsemen were the greatest sailors in the world. They lived almost always on the water, and the harder it blew the better they liked it. I want to go and see where they used to sail.”

Grimkie had recently been studying history at the Chateau, and it was there that he had learned about the wonderful exploits which those old sea kings, as they were sometimes called, used to perform in the ships in which they navigated these stormy northern seas. They were very rude and violent men, and they seemed to consider that they had a right to everything that they could find, no matter where, provided they were strong enough to take it. The richest or the most daring among them, who found means to build or buy one or more vessels, would enlist a party of followers, and with this horde make descents upon any of the coasts in all those regions, and plunder the people of their cattle, or seize their little town. Sometimes they would take possession of certain places on the coast and make agreements with the people living there, that if they would give them a certain portion of their cattle every year, they would protect them from any other marauders who might come to rob them. This the people would consent to do, and thus the foundation was laid for territorial governments, on the different coasts adjoining these northern seas.

In process of time the Norsemen and their descendants extended their incursions not only to the islands north of Scotland and to Scotland itself, but also to the coasts of England and Ireland, and at last even of France, where they settled a country, which, from their occupancy of it, received the name of Normandy, which name it retains to the present day.

It was among these rude men, and in these boisterous and terrible seas, where a dismal twilight reigns almost supreme for half the year, and winds and fogs and ice, and sweeping and impetuous tides, have almost continual possession of the sea, that the progenitors of the present race of British and American seamen had their origin. The case is often referred to in history, as affording a conspicuous illustration of the effect which the encountering of difficulty and danger produces, in stimulating the exertions of men, and developing the highest capacities of their nature.

“There is another reason,” said Grimkie, “why I should like to go now to the Orkney Islands, and that is because it is so near the summer solstice. I have a great desire to get as far north as I can in the time of the summer solstice. Even here the sun rises now between three and four, and it is quite light at two. In the Orkneys there can scarcely be any night at all.”

Grimkie it seems had been studying astronomy as well as history, at the Chateau, and so he was quite learned about the summer solstice and other such things. It may be well, however, for me to explain, for the sake of the younger portion of my readers, that the phrase summer solstice refers, for the northern hemisphere, to that portion of the year, when the sun, in his apparent motion, comes farthest to the north, as the winter solstice relates to that portion of the year when the sun declines farthest to the south.

The summer solstice occurs on the twenty-first or twenty-second of June, and the winter solstice on the twenty-first or twenty-second of December.

In the summer solstice the days are longest and the nights shortest. In the winter solstice the days are shortest and the nights longest—that is, to all people living in northern latitudes.

Now it is a very curious circumstance, the cause of which it would be somewhat difficult to explain without showing it by means of a globe, that the difference in length between the days and the nights increases greatly the farther north we go. On or near the equator the difference is very little, at any part of the year. The days throughout the whole year are very nearly twelve hours long, and the nights too. At the pole, however, if it were possible for any one to reach the pole, the day would continue during the whole twenty-four hours for six months in the year, and then the night would continue through the whole twenty-four hours during the remaining six months. In the latitude of the southern part of Greenland, the days, at the time of the summer solstice, are more than eighteen hours long, and the nights not quite six.

There is another remarkable phenomenon too, to be observed in high northern latitudes, in the time of the summer solstice, which Grimkie was very desirous of verifying by his own observation, and that is the long continuance of the twilight, and the very early appearance of the dawn. The reason of this is that the path of the sun is so oblique to the horizon, or in other words the sun goes down in so slanting a direction, that it is a long time after sunset before he gets low enough to withdraw his light entirely from view.

“I should think,” said Grimkie, “that in the Orkney Islands it would be light nearly all night. The sun does not set there now till after nine o’clock, and it rises again before three, and so I should think the twilight would not be over before the dawn would begin. And I want to go and see if it really is so.”

“It would be very curious indeed,” said Florence, “to have it light all night, and no moon. I should like to see it myself, if it really is so.

“But then,” she added, after a pause, “we should have to sit up all night to see it.”

“No,” said Grimkie. “We might get up from time to time, and look out the window. Or perhaps we might be travelling all night somewhere, and then we should see it.”

After some farther conversation, Mrs. Morelle said that she would not decide at once in respect to Grimkie’s plan, but would wait until she had obtained some farther information.

“Or rather,” she said, “until you have obtained some farther information for me. After breakfast you may go to a bookstore and buy a good travelling map of Scotland, and also a railway guide. Florence and John may go with you, if they please. Then some time during the day you may study out the different ways of going, and see which you think is the best way. You must find out where the steamer sails from too, to take us across the six miles of water. Then at dinner to-day you can tell me what you have found out, and show me by the map, exactly which way we shall have to go, and what sort of conveyances we shall have for the different portions of the journey. Then when I have all the facts before me I can decide.”

Grimkie accordingly bought the map and the guide book, and he spent more than two hours that day in studying them so as to make himself as thoroughly acquainted as possible with every thing pertaining to the route. Mrs. Morelle did not assist him in these researches. In fact she was out shopping during most of the time while Grimkie was making them. Besides she thought it best to leave him to investigate the case as well as he could himself, in the first instance, without any aid.

Accordingly, when the party were assembled for dinner that day, and just before the waiter brought the dinner in, Mrs. Morelle asked Grimkie what sort of report he had to make about the way of reaching the Orkney Islands.

“I have some bad news for you, in the first place,” said Grimkie. “We shall have a great deal more than six miles to go in a steamer.”

“How is that?” asked Mrs. Morelle.

“Because there is no steamer that goes across in the shortest place,” said Grimkie. “There is a sail boat that goes that way, to take the mails, but we could not go in the sail boat very well. The only large steamer is one that goes from Edinburgh. The only places where it stops are Aberdeen and Wick. Wick is the last place it touches at. And from Wick to Kirkwall, which is the town where we land in the Orkneys, it is about sixty miles. So that we should have a steamer voyage of five or six hours to take.”

“That is bad news indeed,” said Mrs. Morelle.

“But then there is one thing favorable about it,” continued Grimkie, “and that is that there is only six miles of the voyage that is in an open sea. We should be sheltered by the land on one side all the way, excepting for about six miles. We might at any rate go as far as Wick, and then see how the weather is. If the sea is smooth and calm, then we might go on board the steamer. If not we might wait for the next steamer or give it up altogether. All the way from here to Wick there will be no difficulty. It will be a very pleasant journey.”