Select language, opens an overlay

Quotation

To their right, the peatbog drifted into a hazy infinity, punctuated only by stoic sheep standing firm against the Atlantic gales. To their left, the ocean itself swept in timeless cycles on to beaches and into rocky inlets, creamy white foam crashing over darkly obdurate gneiss, the oldest rock on earth. The outline of a tanker, like a distant mirage, was just discernible on the horizon. === Some comedian had obliterated the s from the “To the Shore” sign pointing toward the harbour. === “What was he doing here? Protecting sheep from being molested after closing time on a Friday night?” Gunn laughed. “It would take more than an animal rights campaigner to put an end to that, Mr. Macleod.” === An Sgeir, they called it. Simply, the Rock. Three hundred feet of storm-lashed cliffs rising out of the northern ocean. Encrusted every year at this time by nesting gannets and their chicks.