Having tied the two ropes securely together, we looked for a convenient point at which to make the descent. We went out to the furthest part of the embayed cliff, and looking over to the opposite precipice saw a suitable spot less steep than the rest, and where also, some distance below the brink, there was a projecting pinnacle of rock which might serve as a pillar round which to secure the rope.
We took the climbing line and cast one end of it over the cliff, letting it fall as far down as the pinnacle I have mentioned. Robbie then held the rope, with the help of a boulder of rock round which he secured it, and I proceeded to lower myself down the steep. It was easy work getting to the pinnacle; but this was only the beginning. I whistled up to Robbie when I had gained a sure footing, and he let down the rest of the rope. And now I had to manage everything else unaided, for Robbie could not, with what contrivances he had on the top of the cliff, have been of any further help. Before I had cast the rope over the point of rock, he was across at the far side of the embayment, where he could watch my progress and give me directions.
Having passed the line over the rock pillar and allowed the two ends to hang down in equal lengths, I climbed over, and with considerable difficulty caught hold of the double rope, by which I let myself slowly and cautiously down, now holding to the face of the rocks with hand and foot, now swarming down by the ropes alone, until a cry from Robbie warned me that I was coming to the end of the lines. Fortunately I was able to reach a ragged point where I could once more get a firm foothold.
Resting there, I reflected that I was not yet halfway down the precipice; and now I had to think of how I should manage to haul the rope down and secure it to another projecting rock. The only suitable point I could see was some yards away from me to the right side, and I had to climb upward again before I could find a shelf by which to approach it. After a tedious attempt--during which my magic stone came very near to proving its power--I at last reached the desired place. A gull fluttered away with a wild cry as with bleeding fingers I held on to the ledge of rock; and there I found, nestling upon their bed of moss and weeds, a pair of woolly little chicks which stared strangely at my intrusion.
My safety, perhaps even my life, depended upon my getting astride of that small rocky point where the young gulls sat. In my extremity I took hold of one of the chicks, intending to throw it down the cliffs; but the mother bird flew towards me with such piteous cries that even in my danger I could not be so cruel, so I removed the little ones to a crevice close at hand and seated myself upon their nest, thankful of the refuge it afforded. And now I heard a shrill whistle from Robbie Rosson, by which I understood that, seeing my comparative safety, he was going to find some place where he could get down to the beach, there to wait until I should bring the boat round for him.
But I must say that I thought my chances of ever getting round to him were very small. I was not by any means so safe as he seemed to think, for being once seated on that shelf of the cliff I found that my next difficulty would be to turn round with my face to the rock in order to continue the perilous descent.
I had now to get my rope down from the height above me. First then I tied one end of the line round my body so that the rope might not fall, and, allowing the other end to hang slack, began to haul away. Things went well for a few moments, and the rope answered to every pull I gave. But, alas! there came a check. I had let loose the wrong end, and the knot by which we had connected the two lines had caught in some crevice. Try as I might I could not loosen it; yet I was not certain that its hold was firm enough for me to venture climbing up again by the portion of the rope that I held in my grasp.
My thoughts were fearful. Here was I, stranded on this ledge of rock, midway up the face of a steep precipice, the sea roaring far beneath me, and with no obvious means of escape either above or below.
My boat looked small away deep down there as she tugged at her mooring line and tossed wildly about in the rising tide. O, how I wished that I was seated at her helm, and in sight of my beloved Stromness!
Instinctively I felt for my magic stone. It hung safely under my knitted shirt. I trusted in the security it gave me, and my courage was renewed. The way out of my predicament was so hopeless, my danger so great, that I solemnly resolved, should I ever reach home again, to attribute my escape from this peril to the intervention of the viking's talisman.
Long and wearily I waited, contemplating the difficulties of my situation, and in the end I almost determined to hazard the further descent without the help of the rope, trusting merely to the skill of my hands and feet.
My first endeavour was to get back along the shelf of rock until the rope should hang perpendicularly. Accordingly I restored the young seagulls to their nest, turned myself round with my face to the cliff, and, with much difficulty, retraced my way for some distance. I was in a half-creeping position, holding by the right hand to niches of the cliff, when, a sharp corner of stone digging into my knee, I stumbled, and would surely have fallen far down upon the rocks of the beach, had I not still held firmly to the rope.
The sudden jerking, however, did one good thing; it loosened the knot from the place where it had been held in the rock above, and the rope itself came down by its own weight until it hung from my waist where I had tied it.
The further descent was now performed with comparative ease, and in the manner I had at first intended. I hung the rope at half its length over a point of rock, seeing now that it had a free run, and allowing the two ends to fall. Then I swarmed down the double line until I found another suitable place for hanging the rope by. Thus making the descent by repeated stages, I stepped at last upon the level rocks of the beach, sincerely thankful for my escape from so great peril.
When I scrambled over the rocks towards the boat I found she was floating in full three fathoms of water, so that my only course was to swim out to her. This, however, was a small matter after what I had gone through. I stripped myself on one of the outlying rocks, and plunging into the water soon reached the boat and clambered over the stern. I was obliged to "slip the anchor," for the painter was tied deep below the water and had to be sacrificed. But I did not take long to recover my clothes and dress myself, and then I took to the oars with a will and rowed along the shore in search of Robbie.
Steep and frowning looked the great cliff that I had come down. I regarded it with a new interest, and felt some sense of pride and satisfaction in my narrow escape from so serious a danger. Again I took my viking's stone in my fingers, and my faith in it was complete.
Robbie was patiently waiting for me seated on one of the outer rocks in a further bay. His face brightened as he saw me rounding the point.
"Man, Ericson," he exclaimed joyfully, "I'm real glad to see ye again! I e'en thought ye'd met wi' some mischance. I was terribly feared!"
"Feared, were you? Well, so was I; but I managed all right, you see, thanks to the viking's charm."
Robbie brought on board the gun, with his rabbit and the dead gannet. And then we rowed back to Stromness. It was long past sundown when we rounded the Ness point, and the beacon lights were streaming over the bay, but we reached the little quay at the end of the Anchor Close without any mishap. Both of us were very hungry after our sport.
On that evening, I remember, I spent a very happy time at the home fireside. My uncle Mansie was there, with my father, and my mother, and Jessie. It was almost the first occasion on which I was permitted to join in the conversation with my elders. But the evening has ever since had a pathetic interest in my memory; for, as it turned out, it was the very last time that our family sat together in an unbroken circle.
"Ye're gettin' to be quite a good boatman, Hal, to gang all that way under sail," said Mansie; and then he turned to my father, saying, "When are we to hae the lad aboard the Curlew, Sandy?"
"Weel," replied my father, putting his great brown hand with affection upon my shoulder, "I hae been thinkin' it was about time he joined us. The lad has been at the school lang enough, mebbe.
"Are ye at the head o' the class yet, Halcro?"
"Nay, father, he's no that yet," interposed Jessie, "for Thora is aye before him."
"Thora can read better than I can," I said, "and she kens mair geography. She's better at the Latin, too; but the dominie says I'm the best at history, and writin', and accounts."
"Ye'll no need very muckle Latin to be a pilot, however," said my father. "But it's a pity ye're not better at the geography. How many islands have we in Orkney? Can you tell me that?"
"Seventy-two--twenty-eight islands and forty-four holms."
"And can ye name them all, the twenty-eight islands?"
"Yes, the dominie taught us them last Martinmas;" and I proceeded to name them, from the North Ronaldsay down to the Muckle Skerry of Pentland.
"Very good!" said my father; "and d'ye ken ony thing about the sounds? Where's the Sound o' Rapness?"
"There's a puzzle for ye, Hal," said my mother.
"Ah! I warrant the laddie kens it," said Mansie.
"Is it not between Westray and Fara?" I ventured doubtfully.
"Right again!" exclaimed Mansie, slapping his knee. "Oh! we'll mak' a pilot o' the lad yet."
"Ay," said my father, "we maun hae him aboard the first fine day."
"Dear me, father," objected my mother, "d'ye really think it wise to tak' the laddie frae the school, an' him gettin' on sae weel wi' the dominie?"
"Tut, goodwife," said he, "the laddie maun begin to learn the piloting some time; an' the sooner the better, say I.
"Hand me over the tobacco jar, Jessie."
A few days after the sailing of the Lydia the weather broke. The morning mist lay heavy on the islands, and the lofty Ward Hill of Hoy hid his crown in the lowering clouds; the Bay of Stromness was glassy calm. High above the rain goose shrieked its melancholy cry, and the sea mews and sheldrakes, even the shear waters and bonxies, flew landward to the shelter of the cliffs. On the upland meadows the cows sniffed the moist air and refused to eat, and the young lambs sought the protection of their parents' side.
My sister Jessie, with evident thought of Captain Gordon, noticed these signs of approaching storms.
But if to her they portended ill, to me they meant good sport; for what could be more favourable to a day's fishing than a sprinkle of rain and a good westerly wind?
Telling my mother one Saturday morning that I would stay over Sunday at my uncle Mansie's farm at Lyndardy, I started off with my fishing tackle and my dog, with the intention of catching a few trout in the stream I had so strongly recommended to the schoolmaster.
The dog was certainly no necessary companion for a fishing excursion; but Selta had learned to follow me on such occasions without interfering with my sport, and I got into the way of talking with her, and found comfort in her dumb companionship.
Passing through the hamlet of Howe, I reached the Bush at a point where that wide stream runs into Scapa Flow by the Bay of Ireland. This, I had found, was a favourite resting place for sea trout before running into the lochs, and here I enjoyed good sport for the whole morning.
I fished upstream--as I think a true angler should do--for though, as Andrew Drever held, fishing downward was the easier method of the two, especially with the wind at his back, yet I preferred my own way, just as I preferred fishing with artificial fly to fishing with bait, merely because it was more difficult and more surely exercised my skill.
The third cast I made filled me with an enthusiasm I long had known. A sudden jerk at the line and a fish was hooked. I paid out more line as the trout darted off, then drew in as it slackened again. Once more, as the fish felt the strain, he plunged off. I saw him jump, and his scales flashed in the gray light like a bright blade of steel, a loop of line gathering round him. At length the prize was taken, and a fine sea trout was brought exhausted to the bank.
Thus I fished, now wading to the knees in the rapid stream, now sitting on a large stone readjusting my flies. Before noon the rain fell heavily, but by the time that I reached the Bridge of Waithe my basket was full, and I walked along the road as far as Clouston, the dog following in the wet with drooping, draggling tail, and ears dripping with the rain.
My clothes were wet through and I was cold, and, wishing for shelter and a bite of food, I turned across the heath to Jack Paterson's croft. I opened the door of the little cottage without knocking, and found Jack and his wife Jean at home, with their family of six waiting for their midday meal. Hilda, the eldest girl, was arranging some wooden dishes on the table ready for the potatoes.
Poor as the place was, I received a true and simple welcome, and I was glad of the shelter and the warmth, for the wind was whistling round the eaves and the heavy rain pelting against the little window.
Jack Paterson was a poor crofter, who added to his scanty means by going to the deep-sea fishing, or, out of the fishing season, by burning kelp. These occupations, combined with the produce of his croft, made up, I am afraid, a very poor living. The cottage was small, so small that I always wondered how so large a family could live in its one little room with any comfort. In the middle of the clay floor, on a stone slab, was a large peat fire, the smoke of which escaped by a hole in the roof, where the rain came through. By the side of the fire were two large high-backed chairs entirely wisped round with straw, so that none of the framework could be seen. In a great three-legged pot, which hung over the flaming peats by a chain from the bare rafters, some potatoes were boiling, and whilst they were cooking Jean Paterson cleaned and fried some of my fish, which came, I think, as a welcome addition to the family's meal.
Jack Paterson was a very tall, muscular man, with a long red beard and soft brown eyes. His hands were the largest I have ever seen; but the right one wanted a finger. This, I believe, was the only exception that one could make in saying that Jack was absolutely perfect in his great manhood. He would have made a splendid man-o'-war's man, and the press gang had more than once tried to secure him.
Not till long afterwards, when, as pilots, we were out at sea together one clear starlight night, did he tell me how his finger was lost. It happened at a time when the press gang were more than usually busy in Orkney pressing men for a frigate that lay in Stromness harbour. The blue jackets had had their eyes upon Jack Paterson, but Jack, who was just about to be married to Jean Nicol, did not intend being caught; and he said to Jean one day that rather than enter the navy, he would cut one of his fingers off, and so make himself unfit for service.
One dark night he was walking along one of the country lanes with his sweetheart when a body of tars fell upon him, and, after a sharp fight, carried him off to an old stable in the town that served as a temporary lockup. Very early the next morning Jean Nicol knocked gently at the stable door.
"Are ye there, Jack?" said she.
"Yes," replied Jack; and his warders, who were two foretop men, allowed him to speak with her through the keyhole.
"I've brought your release," said Jean. "Put your hand under the door and I'll give it to you."
Jack put his right hand through under the door, and felt something cold placed across his forefinger. Then there was a knock as of a mallet upon a chisel, and with a cry of anguish he drew in his hand streaming with blood. Jean had cut off his finger. Now, a man with a lame hand is of small account in the service, and so when the lieutenant came and saw Jack's condition he released him, with a round curse at having lost so fine a man, and the frigate sailed away.
Jean got her punishment, however, and so did Paterson. Soon after their marriage, and when Jack's hand was healed, he one day met a man-o'-war's man who belonged to Stromness, and had been among the pressed men. Jack heard from him of the cruise of the frigate, and of a fight with the enemy, and a great store of prize money that every man had shared. That prize money was a sore lump in Jack's throat ever afterwards.
While I was talking with Paterson in his cottage, my dog sat comfortably before the warm fire, the steam rising from her wet hair. She did not appear to like leaving the cosy place; but when we had finished the meal, and I was once more dry and warm, I started off again in the pouring rain and the rising wind.
I did not wish to continue my fishing in such boisterous weather, but contemplated a hasty walk over to my uncle's farm. Our way lay westward in the face of the wind. The walk over the wet peat moss was difficult and tiring, and when I reached the Ring of Brogar I was glad to avail myself of the shelter afforded by the giant Druid stones that stand and wait by the loch of Stenness.
All was desolation around: not a house was to be seen, nor any living thing but my dog and a few wild birds that flew quickly past. The only sounds were the beating of the rain and the distant roar of the Atlantic waves upon the coast.
A slight lull in the tempest urged me on, and soon I had left far behind me those mysterious old stones, that seemed through the misty rain to waken into life. Like a procession of priests they appeared to pass with bent heads and slow and stately pace along the margin of the great stretch of water.
Crossing the swollen burn which connects the lochs of Cluny and Stenness, and thinking only of my destination, I was called back by a sharp bark from my dog. I turned, and found her encountering a large otter that had been slipping down to the stream. Now, I had the angler's hatred of otters, which abounded in these waters. Many a time had I seen a prime fish lying dead on the banks with a single bite taken out of the shoulder, and I looked upon the otter as the common poacher of the neighbourhood. I went to the help of Selta, for the dog was crouched down ready to spring upon the otter when it should run out from behind the large stone where it had retreated.
I cautiously removed the stone, and the animal slipped downward towards the water.
"Now, now, Selta!" I exclaimed; and the dog made a rush at its prey.
The otter, thus intercepted, showed fight. Selta made a snap at its back, and raised her forepaw to hold her enemy down. The otter caught the foot in its mouth, and I heard the bones crunch in the vicious bite. Selta lost hold and fell over the otter's back; her foot was released; but the otter, bringing up its head between the dog's front legs, grasped Selta's throat with its sharp teeth. With a piteous whine the dog tried to spring away, but her leg was too much broken to support her, and the two animals rolled over on the flat stone, the otter uppermost, still with its teeth in the dog's throat.
And now I saw my first chance of interfering. I grasped the otter by the back, and tried to drag it away. I had no boots on my feet, or I might have used them. All I could do was to plant my foot on the animal's back, and stand with all my weight upon it. The otter thereat turned savagely upon me, and, unfortunately for myself, not even the possession of the viking's charm could save me from those sharp teeth.
With a fierce snarl the otter took hold of the back of my ankle, its teeth penetrating the skin and tearing it over. I had sense to bend down and grasp the animal with my hands and rapidly snap its backbone, finishing my work by dashing a heavy stone upon its head. Forgetting my own hurt, I then turned to look after my dog.
Selta was lying upon the wet stone, the blood trickling from her throbbing neck. I knelt down beside my faithful companion, and took the injured foot in my hand. The dog had strength only to raise her head in recognition, with a mournful look in her pleading eyes.
"My poor doggie!" I moaned, utterly cast down; and my falling tears were mingled with Selta's blood. The dog was dead.
My first thought on leaving the scene of this combat was to let the dead otter lie where it had fallen; but I remembered that young Thora Kinlay had once in my hearing expressed a wish to have an otter's skin, of which to make a pair of gloves, and I determined to make use of the animal I had killed. But I could not carry both the otter and my poor Selta, whom I had already determined to lay to rest in the sea, and my only course was to strip the otter of its skin then and there. This I did with help of my pocketknife, and in spite of the heavy rain that poured in streams down my back.
You will imagine the physical discomforts of my further journey. The ground was marshy and sodden, and I sank deep into it at every step I took. My clothing was wet through and through, and my dog, which I carried over my shoulder, was a burden so heavy and inconvenient that only my love for my late companion and respect for her lifeless body gave me sufficient strength to bear it for so great a distance. And then the rain fell incessantly, and the wind was full in my face.
Carver Kinlay's farm of Crua Breck was on my way to my uncle's, and I thought I would stay there a few moments as I passed, to leave the otter skin for Thora, and maybe get shelter and a drink of warm milk. But not till I was almost at the door did I remember about my recent fight with Tom.
In its exposed position on the bleak hillside the farmstead felt the full force of the gale as it beat in fury against the front of the house. The rain and the salt spray from the sea pelted upon the windows, and laid low all Thora's flowers in the little garden. The large fuchsia bush, which in summertime dangled its drooping blossoms in rich profusion, seemed the only plant capable of withstanding the rough blast; and the great gaunt jaws of the Greenland whale, that formed an archway at the gate, trembled in the tempest.
I went up to the door, and opening it stood within the shelter of the porch for a while, and heard someone reading aloud. Soon I gathered courage enough to approach the inner door, and look through its little window into the room. A rousing fire of peats and dried heather was blazing on the hearth, around which the family were gathered in a half circle. In an armchair, with a open book on his knee, sat Carver himself. By his side sat his wife knitting a stocking, the firelight glinting on her fair hair. Near to her were a ploughman and a herd boy, also a young woman who did the light field work on the farm and milked the cows, made butter, and helped in the house. Tom sat by the fire opposite his father, and I could see that he was polishing with a piece of leather one of his silver coins. Thora, whose silken hair and beautiful face I regarded with greater satisfaction than any other feature of this group, sat apart from the others, as though she did not care, or had not been invited, to draw her stool nearer to the warmth.
Carver Kinlay, black bearded and hoarse of voice, was reading aloud to his family, and seemed to be expecting from them an attention to the Holy Word which he certainly did not sincerely give to it himself. When he came to the end of a passage which he considered required expounding, he would take off his reading spectacles and wipe them with a corner of his wife's white apron.
"Now, I have explained many times before about this, bairns," he was saying as he looked towards Thora and Tom. "It is a rule, a golden rule, that the merest child might understand. Nothing can be more beautiful or more important, and it just contains these few words: 'Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.' Now keep this precept in mind, all of you, for ye canna misunderstand it. But, just to make the thing clear--
"Never mind the cat, Thora; just pay attention to the lesson--
"Just to make the thing clear, let us suppose an example. Now, then, supposin', for instance, that Thora here saw a basin full o' milk with thick cream on the top o' it, and that her teeth were watering for just one lick. She ought to say to herself: 'Now, here's a basin full o' good cream; I'd like fine to take one lick of it. But it's the cream for making the butter of. Now, supposin' I was your mother, how would I like my daughter Thora to come and--'"
"Oh! Look, look!" cried Thora, "pussy's tail's burnin'!"
"Confound you, Thora!" exclaimed her father, angered at this interruption. "Can you not pay attention, and let pussy mind her own tail? I say, if you were your mother, how would you like your daughter Thora to lick the cream?"
"Tut, goodman!" interposed Mrs. Kinlay, "what does the lass ken about being a mother? Go on with the reading."
"Odd, goodwife, I'm but supposin' the thing; and the plainer it is the better, and the easier to understand. However, what verse was it, Thora?"
"It was the fourteenth you left off at," said Thora.
"Aweel, then, the fifteenth: 'Now, when he'--Odd, but I think we read that before."
"Nay, you didna read it before, father, for it was the fourteenth verse you left off at."
"Nay, I'm sure it couldn't be that, for I remember readin' 'Now, when he,' before."
"But I'm sure, father, ye're wrong," persisted Thora. "Look you if the fourteenth doesn't end with 'people,' and 'people' was the last word you read."
"'People, people!'" said Carver, searching for the place. "Odd, lassie, I see no 'people.' There's one verse that ends with 'people,' but it's not the fourteenth. It had been that, ye silly lass, instead o' the fourteenth."
"Well, well, goodman, what dos't matter what verse you left off at," said his wife. "A good tale's none the worse of being told twice."
"Nay, but," said Thora, "just look for fun and see what the fourteenth verse ends with."
"Fun, lassie! fun!" exclaimed Carver, as though he was seriously shocked. "Would you speak o' fun and the Holy Scripture lying open before you?"
"O, but, father, I had no mind. A body canna aye be minding. Look and see not for fun, then."
"Tut, tut!" said the mother, becoming impatient, "can you not begin at the fifteenth verse? What dos't matter if ye read it before?"
"Aweel, then, the fifteenth verse, 'Now, when he'"--
"Listen, father!" cried Thora, again interrupting, "did you not hear something?"
"Well did I hear something, and I hear it yet--the rain pelting on the window. I'm sure you've heard it this two hours and more."
"Nay, but it was like something twirling at the handle of the door."
"You hear things nobody else hears, Thora. Who could be at the door on a day like this? You just think you hear things. I was sure 'people' was not the last word."
Carver listened, however, for a time. The rain beat harder than ever on the windows, and from the neighbouring cliffs came the sound of the waves like a rumbling of distant thunder. But as he looked up from his book I knocked gently on the door.
"Who's there?" he asked in a gruff tone that had in it no echo of charity.
Thora rose from her seat and came towards the door, where I stood in a stream of water that ran from my wet clothes.
"Oh, Halcro!" she exclaimed as she looked down at my cold, bare feet and saw the blood issuing from the wound in my ankle. "Oh, Halcro, what has happened?" and she opened wide the door to admit me.
"What does the lad want here?" asked Carver.
I had never been asked such a question before. I had been accustomed to go about the island all my boyhood, and to walk in at any door I came to with the assurance that no person would question me as to what I wanted. At length, without going further than the threshold, I said:
"I was thinking you would give me shelter for a short time on a day like this."
"On a day like this," replied he, "none but a fool would think of travelling; and if it's shelter you're seeking here, young Ericson, I say no!" and the unfeeling "No" was echoed by all the others in the room, with one exception. That exception was Thora.
I saw the girl's hands quickly clench when she heard this unkind dismissal, and in her blue eyes the tears welled up and stole gently down her fair cheeks.
I felt that the "No" could be easily withstood, but the tears in Thora's eyes overcame me. I gave her a look of thanks, closed the door behind me, and again faced the storm, first going round to the back of the house to take up in my arms the body of my poor dog. I hung up the otter's skin on a hook in the byre, where I believed Thora would discover it, and so make what use of it she might.
I carried the dog still further, however. Taking it down to a small creek that gave entrance to the seashore, I came to a rock that was washed by the deep waters, and here I tied a large stone around Selta's neck and silently lowered the body into the sea, where the great waves of the Atlantic murmured a solemn requiem.
Then, regaining the top of the cliff, I stood for a time looking seaward, where the curling waves swept in from the west and dashed with terrible strength against the hard rocks of granite. There was no sail to be seen as far as my sight could penetrate through the driving rain mists; but I knew that the storm would be fatal to many a brave fisherman and sailor, and many a strong-built ship.
My sad thoughts and the noise of the breakers so much absorbed me that I felt conscious of nothing so much as my utter loneliness. But as I stood there in my wretchedness, suddenly a hand was laid gently on my shoulder, and I looked round, to see Thora at my side, with a great cloak thrown about her, and her hair streaming in the wind.
"Halcro," she said, "it is not this way I can see you turned from my father's door in the rain and the wind, and with that wound in your foot. Pm sorry he spoke to you like that, for I'm sure you'll be tired and weary.
"I have brought you some oatcake--see. Eat it, while I mend your foot."
Then she knelt down before me on the wet, mossy rock, took a piece of clean linen from under the cloak that covered her, and wiped clean my wound. With her fingers she gently drew over the torn skin, and taking another piece of white cloth bandaged it neatly round my ankle.
While she was so employed I informed her of my fight with the otter and the loss of my dog, and her gentle sympathy was sweet to my troubled spirit. And then I told her where she might find the otter's skin, and how she should make use of it.
"There, now," she said, putting a pin through the bandage and rising to her feet, "that will serve till you get home."
"It's real kind of you to do this for me, Thora," I said, touched by the girl's tenderness, "and I will not forget this. No, not as long as I live;" and I think there was a tremor in my voice--at least I felt what I said.
"But," I continued, "what will they say to you at Crua Breck, if they hear you have done this thing?"
"Halcro, I have done nothing but what I have been told to do. Before you knocked at the door, my father was saying we should aye 'do as we'd be done by.' In that I have obeyed him. But I must run back now, or they will miss me. See you give care to the foot. Fare ye well!"
And with that she hastened back to the farm, leaving me to ponder over her manner of applying that golden rule which her father had, while teaching it, so grievously failed to practise.
I made my way onward to Lyndardy--sadly, it is true, but with a strange new feeling in my heart for this blue-eyed maiden who, in defiance of her family, had helped me in my weariness and distress.
A short distance from the place where Thora left me, I came to the ruined cottage of Inganess. As I approached I heard a click-clicking noise, by which I surmised there was some person within the ruined walls. A dog came out to meet me at the door, wagging its tail in welcome. It was the very counterpart of my own dead Selta, and I knew well whom to expect in the cottage even before I entered.
Seated on the floor under shelter of a part of the roof that had not fallen in, was an old man, with locks of silver hair appearing under his blue bonnet, and hanging with a curl about his neck. The clicking sound I had heard proceeded from a flint and the back of a knife, with which the old man was endeavouring to strike a light to kindle the little pile of faded heather that lay in a corner. When I looked in he raised his eyes and said with surprise:
"Ah! Halcro, lad. Travelling on a day like this? Why, ye're as wet as myself. But come in, come in here. It's a poor house; but ye're real welcome. And where's your dog?"
I was downcast at this question, for it was this same old man before me--this Colin Lothian, the wandering beggar--who had given Selta to me, and the dog that was with him was Selta's brother.
"Colin," I asked, when I had told him of my dog's death, "why is it you come to this poor place for shelter when every house in the Mainland is open to you? Why do you not go to my uncle's at Lyndardy?"
"Weel, ye see, lad, I dinna mind where I gang. One place is as good as another, and this is very well in a shower of rain. I was west at Crua Breck when the rain came on sae heavy; and I hae been here these twa hours tryin' to strike a light, but ye see the tinder's wet--
"Try you if ye can do it, lad;" and the old man handed me the flint.
"Aweel, then," he continued, "I opened the door at Crua Breck, just as I would open any door in Orkney, be it rich or poor. But wad they let me in, think ye? Na, na. Carver was sittin' yonder, as he aye does on the rainy days, when there's nae gettin' aboot the farm, preachin' away before a bonnie fire. But the auld hypocrite wouldna let me in. What cares he for the Holy Word? If it werena for his goodwife, he'd never open the Scriptures. Ay, but it's a lang while he'll be preachin' any good into yon blackguard son o' his. There's not a house of harder hearts in all the Mainland than Crua Breck. They all take after Carver; ilka body o' them, except peerie Thora."
"Yes," I said feelingly, "Thora's kinder than all the rest."
"Kinder! Ay is she. She's no' like ane o' the same family. I mind ae stormy night in the last winter, when Carver had shut the door in my face, Thora cam' after me and, 'Colin,' says she, 'come away here, and I'll gie ye a bed in the byre;' and with that she took me in among the kine and gied me some oaten bannocks and a flagon o' warm milk. And then she made up a bed upon the hay, wi' a good warm plaid to wrap mysel' in. 'See there, now, Colin,' says she. 'Rest ye here, and I'll let ye out before my father rises i' the mornin'.' Now wasna that kindness for ye, Halcro?"
"Ay, Colin, that was just like wee Thora."
Whilst Colin was telling me these things I was busy trying to kindle the fire; but try as I would, it could not be done.
"Oh, never mind the fire, Colin!" I said. "Just come along wi' me to my uncle's farm at Lyndardy. Ye'll get good shelter and food there. That's far better than staying in this ruined place."
So the old man got up on his feet, and we walked together to the farm.
My sister Jessie, who frequently came up to Lyndardy to stay over the Sabbath, was in the kitchen when we arrived, and while we were drying our clothes before the fire she got some good warm broth ready for us, and some new-made scones.
Over our meal I told Jessie of my adventure with the otter, and the death of my dog. She wanted to dress my ankle again, but Thora had bound it up so skilfully that there was nothing more to be done.
"I wonder that the otter should bite you like that, Halcro," Jessie said. "Why, I thought the old viking's stone was to save ye frae the like o' that!"
I had myself wondered at the same circumstance.
"Ah! but, Jessie," I said, suddenly comforting myself with an excuse for the apparent failure of the charm, "Mr. Drever didna tell me that the stone would be o' any use against such a beast as an otter."
"No, I ken that. But did he not say it would protect ye from all harm? Surely an otter shouldna be left out o' the reckoning."
But here Colin Lothian, to whom the virtues of the viking's talisman had been explained, suggested that I perhaps needed to have some secret communication with the stone in my own mind--that I perhaps needed to think of the charm at the very moment of danger, and to call upon it for aid. He had heard of such things, he said.
This explanation appeared to me very reasonable, and with the suggestion in my mind I determined, should I ever have another opportunity, to put it in practice.
Such an opportunity presented itself sooner than I could have expected.
Colin Lothian remained at Lyndardy until the following Monday morning. He slept out in the byre, where such wayfarers as he were always welcome to a supper and a bed, and in the evenings he would come in to the kitchen to sit with my uncle and talk over the affairs of the island, or to read us a chapter out of the well-worn Testament that he carried with him on his wanderings. For Colin was a religious man and loved his Bible. He knew most of the Psalms by heart, and often gathered groups of islanders about him to hear him repeat them. Idlers sometimes scoffed at his fondness for the epistle on Charity; but no one who heard him repeat it could fail to be impressed by its teaching or to recognize the poor wanderer's sincerity.
Colin was the recognized newsmonger of the Mainland, and it was his habit to travel from parish to parish retailing the gossip of the countryside. At farm towns which were situated in remote places he was always a welcome guest. He was well acquainted with the condition of the markets and the state of the fishing and the crops. He knew the price of butter and of oatmeal, of cattle and of sheep, and his information was often of great value to the farmers in adjusting the values of farm produce. With the old men he would laugh over the jokes of days that had been; tell them how laird had gone to law with laird, or how poor crofters had been evicted from their holdings for failing to pay their taxes or their rents. The young women were always ready to hear from him who was to be married at Martinmas, or how Nell So-and-so had been jilted; and he often entertained the young people with strange tales of the brownies, the trows, the kelpies, or other supernatural beings. In this way he supplied the place of newspapers and books, which were scarce commodities in those old days; and he further made himself useful by doing odd work about the steadings and cottages--such as building the peats into stacks for the winter, mending a thatch, or even doctoring a cow.
On the Sunday evening at Lyndardy, while the storm still beat upon the land, Colin sat with us round the fireside and smoked with my uncle Mansie. The talk drifted round to the subject of Carver Kinlay, whose new boat was to be brought from Kirkwall that week. My uncle did not know for what purpose that new boat was built.
Kinlay was a man who had no settled occupation outside his farm. Sometimes, it is true, he went out to the herring fishing when the fish were plentiful, and he thought he could make some money by it, and he often made secret passages over to Scotland for no one knew what trade. But it was for none of these purposes that the new boat was required, for it had been built with a deep keel and a lugger rig, with a view to being a quick sailer.
Now if anyone should know of Carver's purpose, it would be Colin Lothian, and my uncle questioned him on the subject.
"Colin," said he, "they tell me that Carver is gettin' a new boat frae Kirkwall. D'ye ken what he means to do wi' it?"
"That's piper's news," said Colin. "I heard that three or four weeks syne; and I hae seen the boat mysel', on the stocks at Allan Dewar's boatyard. Ay, and a bonnie boat she is! As to what Carver means to do wi' it-- Weel, I dinna ken if it be true; but I hae heard that he intends to start as a Stromness pilot in opposition to Sandy Ericson."
"A pilot!" exclaimed Mansie. "Carver Kinlay a pilot! Man, Colin, ye astonish me. Why, the man hasna gotten a certificate!"
"Maybe ay and maybe no; but I assure ye, Mansie, that a pilot he means to be."
Mansie dismissed this notion incredulously; for though Kinlay knew the coast very well, yet the idea of his starting with his limited experience as an Orkney pilot was droll to one who, like my uncle, had been all his life at the work, and knew every fathom of the waters.
But the character of Carver Kinlay--"Crafty Carver" he was called by those who knew him well--was a problem which had not yet been solved. I had myself gathered many incoherent hints relating to him, and, bit by bit, I heard fragments of fact as to his first appearance in Pomona; but on this Sunday evening, as I sat with Lothian and Mansie, I added to these hints some certain knowledge which enabled me afterwards to better understand this man.
The noise of the storm raging outside--the wind and rain beating on the windows, and the sound of the waves breaking against the cliffs--brought the two men to talk about the ships that had from time to time been wrecked on our neighbouring coast. Said Mansie:
"'Twas on a night like this--d'ye mind, Colin?--that the Undine went to pieces on the Gaulton Craigs."
"Ay," said Colin, "weel do I mind it, and weel, I reckon, does Carver Kinlay mind it."
The conversation regarding the incident was disjointed. Let me, therefore, tell the story in my own words.
My father had with his gallant crew gone out to sea one stormy night in the pilot boat. A stiff westerly wind was blowing, and the headland of Hoy was hidden in mist and spray. The Curlew was steered out into the open sea in the hope of falling in with any ship that required piloting into the safe haven of Stromness. Beaten about on the heavy sea, the boat was brought along the outer coast of Pomona until she stood off abreast of the Head of Marwick. Along the coastline of Sandwick, as she sailed back towards Stromness, the waves rose in angry foam against the rugged cliffs. None but men thoroughly accustomed to the terrors of the storm-swept Orkneys could have taken that little craft through such a surging sea, and it was only by the help of the light that was always kept aglow in the windows of Lyndardy farmhouse that they were able to guide the boat in safety.
When the Curlew was abreast of Inganess, Willie Slater, the lookout man at the bow, reported a ship in sight; and as my uncle Mansie lighted a rude torch, made of old rope steeped in the oil of sea birds, my father peered into the darkness and saw a large barque heading towards the land. The blazing light of the torch was presently waved as a warning signal to those on the ship.
The meaning of this was understood too late, for before the vessel could turn she was driven swiftly upon the North Gaulton rocks, and there smashed like a bottle of glass.
Then the sail of the Curlew was lowered, and the boat taken as close as possible to the wrecked ship. The cries of the people on board were heard in the tempest, but there was little hope of saving life. Yet the pilot crew were undaunted by any risks. Four of the men were at the oars; Mansie was at the bow with his flaming torch, and my father at the tiller. They got within hail of the ship, and after an infinite amount of trouble succeeded in saving four precious lives. These four persons were a seaman, a gentleman passenger--who was picked up suffering from a wound he had received in the head when the vessel struck--Mrs. Kinlay, and my schoolfellow, Tom Kinlay.
When they were brought into the boat, Mrs. Kinlay entreated my father not to leave the wreck until he had saved her husband and her infant girl. But after much searching of the water the chance of saving any more lives was so small, and the danger to the Curlew so great, that the boat was brought to the beach at Inganess Geo, where its suffering passengers were landed and carried up to the neighbouring farm of Crua Breck.
The Curlew was then taken back to the wrecked barque. One of the ship's boats had been launched by the skipper and some of the crew, who had endeavoured to save all they could; but the little craft was too frail to stand against the heavy sea; it was dashed against the sunken rocks and all were drowned. My father and his men remained by the vessel until daylight. Among the jagged rocks, when the tide went down, they found the body of a very beautiful woman with the shattered body of a child still clasped in her arms. The infant seemed to have been hurriedly taken from its bed. This fair lady was afterwards recognised as the wife of the owner of the ill-fated vessel-- the gentleman my father had rescued--who had been returning with her and their infant daughter to Denmark. The lady's name was Thora Quendale, and it was her tomb that I had seen in the old graveyard of Bigging on that evening when we shared the viking's treasures.
Her husband had remained in Orkney only until he had laid her and the child to rest, when, gathering the few remnants of his property that remained to him from the wreck of his ship, he took a passage in a vessel that happened to touch at Kirkwall for repairs, and with the sailor who had been saved with him he set sail for Denmark. My uncle Mansie said that this Mr. Quendale had promised to my father and others that he would be back again in Pomona in a few months, but since that time he had never been heard of.
Now it happened that on the fifth day after the wreck of the Undine (for such was the vessel's name) my father was taking his small boat round to Borwick, a little hamlet two miles south of Skaill Bay. On passing the place where the vessel struck, now calm and peaceful after the storm, he shortened sail and rowed inshore. A little distance up the face of the red cliff, above the high-water mark, and hidden by a projecting rock, there was a "scurro," or fissure, which opened into a large cavern. He had discovered this cavern when he was a boy, on some bird-nesting expedition; and now, scarcely knowing why he did so--except, perhaps, for the passing thought that some of the wreckage had been washed into it by the high waves--he climbed up from his boat and entered the cave. To his astonishment he found there a half-starved man, who had been on board the Undine at the time of the disaster. Having found the cave in his endeavours to scale the cliff, this unfortunate man had contrived to live there during the five long days and nights since the wreck by subsisting on shellfish, seaweed, and a few sea-birds' eggs.
What surprised my father more than all, however, was that the man had as a companion a helpless little child. Someone on the ship had placed the infant in an empty packing case, which had drifted into the cave. The pilot conveyed the two waifs ashore and took them up to Crua Breck.
The man thus rescued by my father was Carver Kinlay; the little child was Thora.
All that I could learn from my uncle and old Colin concerning Carver, further than this, was that he was a native of the north of Scotland, and that he and his family were passengers on the Danish ship, which was to have put in at the haven of Wick, in Caithness. Careless where he settled down, however, when cast upon the shores of Pomona, he had taken root here, like a weed in a flower garden. He seemed to have had a store of money in the big chest which he claimed from among the wreckage, and circumstances enabled him to purchase the little farm of Crua Breck, together with a fishing boat. The fishing, and a previous knowledge of the Orkney channels, had given him some experience of local navigation; and it was upon the strength of this experience that, having built his pilot boat, he intended to start in opposition to my father.
The greater part of what Mansie and Colin said, as they sat in the comfortable kitchen of Lyndardy, was entirely new to me. I felt a strange pleasure in hearing now, for the first time, that Thora Kinlay owed her life, in some sort, to my own father. When he carried the little girl up to the farm, with a seaman's jacket covering her from the cold--for the women and children had all been in their beds when the ship struck--she was at once claimed by Mrs. Kinlay. They named her Thora, after Mrs. Quendale, who had shown some kindness to her during the voyage, by reason of a resemblance that existed between the two children--Mrs. Quendale's own child and the child of Mrs. Kinlay--both of whom were of a like age.
The story of the wreck of the Undine gave me many matters to ponder over. But the one practical thing that I learnt was this existence of a cave in the North Gaulton cliffs. I had not known that there was such a cave at that spot, although, indeed, I prided myself upon my knowledge of the whole coastline from Rora to Birsay. I accordingly determined to explore the cliff at some future time.
I must not omit to mention that Willie Hercus and Robbie Rosson duly delivered up to Mr. Drever their shares of Jarl Haffling's treasure. The dominie was, I believed, already in communication with the proper authorities concerning the claims that would be imposed according to what he called the law of treasure trove. But there were many delays in coming to an agreement, owing, as I understood, to official indifference and to the difficulty of determining the value of the relics, which Mr. Drever contended were worth more than their mere weight in silver. Meanwhile, the schoolmaster, anxious to keep the collection, as he said, intacto, for preservation in some museum, still held possession of the antiquities, and was nightly burning much oil in his absorbed study of them.
Since Tom Kinlay had left the school Mr. Drever had not seen him. But, betimes, a message was sent by Thora to intimate to Tom that we others had given our parts of the viking's treasure into his charge, and advising that Tom should send in the remainder without delay. But Tom, who now owed no direct duty to the dominie, resolutely refused to give up his share of the treasure.
On a windy Saturday morning--a week after the death of my poor dog--I was loitering about the quays in the port, when I was attracted towards a little crowd that had gathered round an old capstan. The crowd consisted of several sailors and fishermen, with a sprinkling of townsfolk, who were evidently much interested in something that was going on in their midst.
I walked towards them and elbowed my way in beside old Davie Flett, the skipper of a coasting schooner, with whom I was slightly acquainted.
"What's all the stir, Mr. Flett?" I asked.
"Och, it's just an auld Jew doing some business," he replied; and I pressed my way further into the crowd.
In the middle of the group there was a withered little man, bent with age, with a long ragged beard and a nose like the beak of a hawk. He wore a great black coat that was very shiny and reached almost down to his ankles; and in his skinny fingers he held what I soon recognized as the large red stone that Tom Kinlay had found at Skaill. Tom himself was standing near the old Jew, and bargaining with him for all the treasure that had fallen to his share.
The Jew had made some offer for the gem when I came up, and Kinlay was deliberating whilst listening to the advice of the fishermen.
"Take his offer, lad," advised Jack Munroe.
"Ay, take it, Tommy," added another. "Ye'll mebbe never hae anither such chance again."
"Nay, dinna be a fule," said Jim London. "The auld swindler kens the thing's worth mair than he offers. Gar him gie ye anither ten shillings."
"No, no," protested the Jew, speaking in broken English. "I not want ze ting. Wot use I make of it?"
He was about to hand it back to Tom.
"Well, well," he continued, again examining the gem. "If you not satisfy, den I gif you six shilling more; wot you say, eh? Dat make ten pound and six shilling, English. It not worth one penny more, I tell you."
"Mike it ten guineas," urged Kinlay.
"What! ten guineas? Himmel, mine child, you make me ruined!" exclaimed the Jew.
"Give the lad the ten guineas and be done with it, Isaac," said a young seaman who appeared to know him. "You'll get your own price in Amsterdam."
"Well, ten guineas I will gif--two hundred and ten shilling!"
And the old Jew slowly counted out the money from a dirty canvas bag that he took from his belt. I saw his little black eyes glitter as he dropped the sparkling gem into the bag and buttoned up his coat, before handing over the money.
Kinlay pocketed the sovereigns, and then looked round the crowd of faces about him with an air of extreme satisfaction. At the same time old Isaac turned to a Dutch sailor who was addressing him in their own language. By the fox-like look in the Jew's eyes I understood that he, on his part, was not really discontented with the bargain he had closed.
But Tom had evidently not disposed of all his valuables, for, just as Isaac was slipping away, he held him by the sleeve and showed him a handful of the viking's coins and rings, whereupon the old Hebrew renewed his bartering, with the result that Tom disposed of all his remaining store for the sum of two additional pounds.
The crowd was breaking up, and the Jew again slipping away, when I called out to him, thinking I would tell him that there were some more of these things in Stromness, and believing for the moment that Mr. Drever might have some wish to deal with so generous a purchaser. Isaac could at least tell him what the treasure was worth, I reflected.
"Will ye buy any more o' these things?" I asked, when he came to my side.
"Well, I want nossing more, mine young friend," he replied. "I haf make a very bad bargain already. But what have you? Any more of dose pretty tings?" and he indicated the gem that he had bought from Kinlay.
I thought at once of my magic stone that was suspended at my neck under my guernsey. I produced it, though of course I did not mean to let him have it at any price.
"Is this worth anything?" I asked.
But I had no sooner brought it forth than I felt a tugging at my sleeve. I turned round and saw old Davie Flett frowning at me meaningly.
"Don't have anything to do wi' the auld thief!" he whispered, dragging me aside. "Come away, lad, an' let me tell ye something."
But the Jew was already examining my little black stone, and asking me to take the cord that held it off my neck. He scratched its smooth surface with his long finger nails, and then took out an old knife from his pocket and was proceeding to insert the blade under the gold ring that encircled the stone. I snatched my precious talisman from him, and replaced it under the collar of my knitted shirt. The Jew looked surprised; but without heeding him I turned away with Captain Flett, who walked with me some distance from the dispersing crowd.
When we were alone beside one of the sheds he said:
"It's all right now, Ericson, my lad. I wanted but to save ye frae makin' a fule o' yersel, like Carver Kinlay's lad."
"Why," I said, "Kinlay has made a very good bargain, has he not?"
"Simpleton!" said the skipper. "Ye didna hear what yon Dutch sailor said to the auld Jew, eh?"
"I heard, captain, but of course I didna understand," I said.
"Weel, my lad, I understood," said he. "The Dutchman asked him what kind o' gem it was he had gotten frae the boy.
"'It's a ruby,' said the Jew.
"'Oho!'said the Dutchman. 'It's a rare big one, though. How muckle might ye be expectin' to get for it across the water--a couple o' hundred?'
"Then the auld Jew gave the Dutchman a wink, and said, 'Maybe a thousand dollars, mynheer.'
"So ye see, Ericson, if the auld swindler could count upon gettin', let us say, two hundred pounds English for the stone over in Amsterdam, ye can hardly say that young Kinlay got a big price for't, can ye?"
I was astounded at this information. Such unfairness appeared to my boyish mind as criminal in the extreme. But a wider knowledge of the world has since taught me that in commercial transactions things are not always bought and sold at their proper value.
I thanked my skipper friend, while telling him that I had myself had no intention of dealing with the merchant.
Scarcely had I left Mr. Flett two minutes before I heard someone walking hurriedly behind me. I was quickly overtaken by old Isaac and Tom Kinlay.
"Ericson," said Tom with a friendly tone in his voice, as though we had never quarrelled. "Let the old man hae a sight o' that thing ye've got round yer neck, will ye?"
I put my hands in my trousers pockets, and made no reply.
"I gif you tree shilling for it," said the Jew.
"Keep your dirty money, sir," I said, turning on my heel.
Then, as though he did not wish Kinlay to overhear his offer, he followed me, taking me by the sleeve:
"Ah! mine friend," he said coaxingly, "I see you know wot it is. Very well, den, I gif you a sovereign."
"A sovereign!" I exclaimed aloud.
And Kinlay, who had now come up to us, opened his eyes in surprise.
"Take the money, man," he urged.
"Nay, nay," I said. "If you like to give the value of two hundred pounds in exchange for ten guineas, I am certainly not so green. Besides, ye ken weel enough that those things were not rightly yours. Mr. Drever has told you that."
He did not appear to notice the latter part of what I said.
"Two hundred pounds!" he exclaimed, looking from me to the Jew. "Two hundred pounds! What d'ye mean?"
"I mean," I said calmly, "that you have been swindled. It's a ruby stone ye hae sold him, a ruby worth two hundred pounds."
I will not soon forget the expression that came into Tom's eyes when he heard this. It was a look first of incredulity, as though he supposed I was simply playing upon him. Then it changed to a look of defeat as he realized how much he had been cheated by the crafty old Jew. He turned round to vent his indignation upon Isaac, swearing and uttering threats of vengeance.
"Ye auld long-nosed deevil!" he exclaimed. "Ye heathen swindler! Gie me back the stone!"
But Isaac had already slipped away from the spot like a startled trout. We saw his long coattails disappear round the corner of an alley that led down to the harbour. Kinlay followed him, still swearing and threatening, and got down to the quay just in time to see the old Jew jump into a boat that had been waiting for him. The boat belonged to a Dutch brig that was putting out to sea, and when old Isaac got aboard, the anchor was already at the cat head and the sails were bellying in the wind.
Frustrated in his revenge upon the Jew, Kinlay now turned upon me his indignation. He accused me of willingly allowing him to sell the ruby below its value. I simply told him that it was no business of mine, and quietly asked him where he had got the gem.
"But I needna ask you that," I added, "for I well ken where you got it."
"Where did I get it?" he inquired, his face turning as red as the ruby itself.
"You got it from the old viking's helmet," I replied, "for I saw you put the thing in your pocket, though you did deny that you had it that day over at Skaill. But ye'll see what Mr. Drever will say to your selling what didna rightly belong to you."
"I carena that for Mr. Drever," he said, snapping his fingers. "Nor for you neither, ye young sneak."
At this he turned from me without further words. But I think there was more malice against me in his heart than he allowed to appear on the surface. This incident, and my advantage over him, had at least the effect of increasing the enmity between us.
The little haven of Stromness was ever a quiet place, but never did it seem so quiet as during the calm which succeeded the storm of the past week, especially as that calm came on a Sunday, that quietest of all days in the North. Even the twittering of the sparrows on the quaint housetops seemed less noisy than usual, and the women who stood in groups in the narrow street, with their clean mutch caps, their crimson hubbie jackets and coarse blue gowns, suppressed their voices almost into whispers as they talked of the growing quarrel between my father and his new rival, Carver Kinlay. The solemn stillness of the June Sabbath was everywhere apparent. The healthy scent of the peat smoke, mingled with a certain fishy odour, permeated the little town, while the cool, fresh smell of the seaweed, and the sweet perfume of the Dutch clover, came from the shores of the bay. The few men who were in port lounged about in sight of the sea, looking lazily outward at the anchored ships.
On the little jetty at the Anchor Close my father sat on an upturned herring creel, smoking his pipe, and watching a flock of sea mews floating gracefully on the green water. Occasionally these birds would rise in the sunny air with long outstretched wings, and give utterance to cries not unlike the mewing of kittens. Some wind-bound vessels lay at anchor in their own reflections, keel to keel, with gay colours streaming from their mastheads. I had never before seen the bay looking so still and beautiful. But from the outer shores of the Ness came the prolonged murmur of the Atlantic waves, falling upon the ear like an everlasting sigh.
I was seated in the stern of the Curlew, as the boat lay against the pier upon which my father sat smoking. Looking over her side down into the clear water, I could see the small fish dart about like flashes of silver light in the emerald depths, where the many-coloured seaweeds swayed softly to and fro with the motion of the tide; while far below, on their sandy bed, the bright shells, the sea urchins, and the green mossy stones gleamed like brilliant gems. And the low swish of the tide against the stone pier made a pleasant, sleepy sound.
Sometimes, as I sat there dreamily, my eyes would wander across the smooth blue water to the distant hills, following the steady, swooping flight of an eagle. Nearer at hand, the flight of a flock of sea larks along the links of the shore would attract my attention, while once I heard the splash of a solan goose diving in the bay, and saw the spray rise in a glittering column high above the water.
Suddenly my dreamy meditations were interrupted. Hurried footsteps sounded in the silent street, and looking up the passage of the Anchor Close I saw a company of men quickly passing. Among them were Carver Kinlay and his son Tom.
I told my father who they were, at which he expressed much wonder, and tried to assign a cause for their hurrying. But soon our questioning was fully answered by the unexpected appearance of my sister Jessie.
"Father!" said she, very much out of breath, for she had walked very quickly from Lyndardy, where she had been staying during the whole of that past week.
"Well, lass?" said my father, looking round at the girl's agitated face. "What have you seen that you look so scared?"
"I've seen from the cliffs," gasped Jessie. "I've seen the Lydia makin' for Stromness. She has surely put back, for her masts are away, and her bulwarks are wrecked."
"The Lydia! What, Captain Gordon's ship? Ay, lass, but ye're telling me a strange thing. You'd better gang and tell Mansie to get the men out. There'll be a race wi' the new pilot, I'm thinking."
And he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and came down into the boat to get her ready.
Jessie, however, had no need to go and tell the crew to get ready, for she had hardly turned away when my uncle Mansie and the men hurried down the jetty and sprang into the Curlew.
The day was so fine and bright that my heart yearned for a sail in the boat, and I was about to ask my father if I might go out with him, when he forestalled me by ordering me to be seated among the ropes in the bow.
The quietude of the Sabbath was now changed to bustle and excitement. The oars and rowlocks were put in place, the sail made ready for hoisting, and soon all was trim and ready to start.
My father's pilot boat, the Curlew, was strongly built and of great breadth of beam. It was of a pattern and rig peculiar to the Orkneys, much after the fashion of a whaling boat, and called a "sixter," from having a crew of six men. It was propelled by either sail or oars, as either was most convenient, but the Orcadian boatmen never employed the oars when the sail could be used.
The boat's crew was a picked one, and seldom could six finer men be seen together. The skipper, my father, was himself a picture of manly strength, handsome and agile. His father and grandfather had been pilots; the latter, indeed, had been the chief pilot of Stromness in the year 1780, when Captain Cook's ships, the Discovery and the Resolution, lay in the harbour on their return from the South Seas.
My father's shipmates, as he called them, were also fine stalwart men, each of them competent to take the skipper's place, but each willing to sacrifice anything for Sandy Ericson. My uncle Mansie was mate, and sat forward in the bow. The stroke oar was usually taken by Tom Hercus, a man of singular daring. Willie Slater was an old whaler, who could stand any hardships with perfect indifference. Then there was Jock Eunson, a good-humoured Orphir man, who, on many a dark night, had kept his mates merry as they beat about in the outer sea in search of ships; and Ringan Storlsen, of Finstown, who had been at school with my father, and with whom he had had many an adventure.
"Hurry along, my lads; there's Kinlay started," said my father, seating himself in the stern sheets.
With that the ropes were cast off and the sail hoisted. Then the boat was pushed off from the pier, and as she caught the light breeze she glided slowly into the bay among the sailing shadows of the summer clouds.
When we were out in the deep water I looked along the line of the shore for the opposition boat; but I found she was already further out than ourselves, looking like a pleasure yacht, with her newly painted hull and clean white canvas--a contrast to the dingy brown sail and the scratched and worn hull of the Curlew.
My uncle Mansie, who sat quite near to me, told me that the new boat was called the St. Magnus--after the patron saint of Orkney--and I noticed that he spoke very lightly of her as a sailer. I asked him if he did not think she would beat us in this race; but he assured me there was no fear of it, for that though Kinlay had the start of us, yet he had not the advantage of a well trained and disciplined crew, and his ropes were too new to run free.
There was little chance of a race, however, in the calm bay, and my uncle, not wishing Kinlay to see that we were taking any interest in his movements, drew my attention away from the St. Magnus by asking me some questions about my viking's stone. He said that, now I had made a start in coming out in the boat, I might stand a better chance of proving the virtue of my talisman, more especially if I should be bold enough to come out on some dark, stormy night, when there would be some danger. Then some of the other men, hearing us, asked me to show them the magic stone, and it went round the whole company for inspection.
By the time they had all had a good look at it, and I had hung it round my neck again, we had got full into the breeze of the outer bay. My father, who held the tiller, managed to get to the weather side of the St. Magnus, and when we reached the Ness point, where a number of people had already gathered from the town to watch the expected race, the two boats were bow to bow.
Beyond the point we brought up at the same moment as the St. Magnus, and steered westward on the starboard tack, with a southwesterly breeze swelling our sails. The Curlew now bent over to leeward, our bow plunging into the waves, dashing them aside and sending the foam surging in a long track far astern. With a strong outrunning current in our favour we sped through the channel between Stromness and Graemsay, the St. Magnus being now to windward of us and several lengths behind.
Tom Kinlay was sitting on the weather gunwale near his father, who was steering. It was easy to see that they were all suppressing their excitement in the race; yet their craft was brought bravely along in our track, and there was still a chance of their reaching the ship before us. The result depended upon good steering, and upon the readiness of each crew to lower sail at the right moment.
From watching the St. Magnus I turned my attention to the approaching barque, which, by her green-painted hull, I soon enough recognized as the Lydia. She was struggling slowly onward against the rapids of Hoy Sound, with the wind on her starboard quarter, and as we got nearer her I could see the extent of the damage she had sustained in the late storm. She had lost her fore and main topgallant masts, and her port bulwarks were stove in. The quarter boat was missing and her jolly boat was gone.
She came along at the rate of about two knots, under close-reefed topsails, storm trysails, and spanker. We could hear Captain Gordon's voice directing the working of the ship, and once I saw him on the quarterdeck, leaning over the rail to watch us. His head was bandaged as if from some accident. On the forecastle deck the mate and some men stood watching our approach, with ropes ready to throw out to us.