Chapter 23

About midway along the crooked, narrow street of Stromness stood the one house of entertainment of the port--Gray's Inn--where the wind-bound sailors and idle fishermen usually regaled themselves and spun yarns. The host, Oliver Gray, who was himself a retired seaman, had sought to attract his customers by hanging out over his front door a sign which was calculated to win the good opinion of all seafaring folk. It was a representation of a clipper in full sail on a raw green sea. Oliver took great pride in this picture, and it was commonly believed that he had had a hand in the painting of it. When it was praised he was profuse in his acknowledgments; but if a critical captain asked him how it was that, though the ship was sailing before the wind, yet her colours were all flying aft, or inquired whether it was grass or cabbages she sailed upon, Oliver was less eager to claim any artistic ability, and hurried the critic into the house lest he should also discover that the shrouds had been omitted by the painter.

Gray's Inn was not an ordinary public house, and beyond the signboard announcement that "Spiritis and aile is retailed here" there was little to indicate its commercial character. The parlour was a large room with a window at each end--one facing the street, the other being so situated that the seamen sitting at the large centre table could look out at their ships riding at anchor across the bay. There was no counter or bar, and the liquor was brought "ben" by Oliver or his sonsie wife.

One Saturday morning I had to go there to see old David Flett about a boat that Captain Gordon wanted to buy from him. I found him at the inn before me, sitting there with a goodly company of Stromness men and skippers, whose ships were, like the Lydia, undergoing repairs or waiting for fair winds.

When I went in he was talking with a skipper whom he was evidently well acquainted with. This was Captain Wemyss of The Duncans, outward bound for Bombay. Wemyss had been lying in the harbour for over a week, and now that fair weather had come, and the wind was veering round to a favourable quarter, he was contemplating weighing anchor. His vessel was a full-rigged ship, the largest in the bay; and all the other skippers seemed to pay him a degree of respect equal to the size of his ship. They looked upon him with such deference, indeed, that not one of them would think of heaving anchor until he led the way.

In the mornings, when they turned out, they never looked at the sky or the direction of the wind; they instinctively turned to The Duncans, and if the Blue Peter was not at her fore peak they made arrangements for spending still another day among the Orkneys.

What in Wemyss tended to call forth a good deal of respect was that he seldom mixed with the other captains, but condescended to take only a single glass with a select few. I noticed that he preferred the company of Bailie Duke, or of Lloyd's agent, and other magnates of the town.

Flett received me with a friendly welcome when I went into the inn, ordering a cup of coffee for me, and bidding me sit beside him until Captain Gordon should join us. He spoke of me to Captain Wemyss, and at that the whole company present fell to talking of the accident in the Sound. They were in the midst of a discussion as to the cause of the disaster when Captain Gordon entered, accompanied by Bailie Duke.

Gordon was somewhat of a stranger to them all, so Captain Wemyss gave the names of the others, including Lloyd's agent, Captain Miller of the Albatross, and Captain Abernethy of the brig Enterprise, the last of whom, I may tell you, was the officer my father had described to Gordon as knowing so little of navigation that he had, after cruising out of sight of land for some months, mistaken the Mainland of Orkney for one of the West Indian Islands.

Bailie Duke, whose happy face wore a constant smile, and whose bright eyes seemed ever to be asking questions, took his seat in the armchair, and passing his snuffbox round the company, very soon took the lead in the conversation. He was the chief magistrate of the town, but he did not assume any undue dignity on that account. Indeed, his long life among the simple fisher folk of Stromness, and his business connection with ships--for the bailie was a shipping agent--had given him a sympathy with all persons connected with the sea which quite overrode his dignity as a magistrate. He could talk of ships as learnedly as any of the captains, and of every vessel that had been in the harbour for the last twenty years he could tell the name and history whenever he saw her again. As for his knowledge of freights, duty, stability, and the ordinary affairs of shipping, he was the one man in Stromness whose word was taken above all others.

When Bailie Duke was comfortably settled in his easy chair, and there was a lull in the noise of conversation, he turned to Captain Gordon and asked him to tell the company how he had come by the hurt in his head, and what sort of a time he had had in the recent storm.

"Well, ye see," said Gordon, taking a glance round his hearers' faces, "it was a most unlucky affair from the first. I was warned before I left Stromness that my masts were too high, and in addition to the fear of losing them I was troubled by my men declaring that the ship was bewitched. We were overrun with mice, d'ye see. Well, I got a cat, a wild-like animal, from old Grace Drever here. Young Ericson brought the beast aboard, but what became of it I cannot exactly tell, for no man could find it, though we could often hear its wild squealing at night.

"From the moment Pilot Ericson left us outside the Sound we encountered misfortune. We reached Cape Wrath after a struggle against contrary winds, and off the Butt of Lewis we lay to for two days. The men swore that the cat down the hold was possessed of some evil demon, and that we would never make any progress on the voyage unless we turned back and took the animal home. Well, we beat about until we sighted St. Kilda, where wet weather came on, and a gale from the west sprang up. We made no headway, and the island lay like an impassable rock on our beam for three days. The sea came rolling on from the west--great snow-topped mountains of waves--and the spray and the cutting sleet were hard to stand against. One night we shipped a heavy sea, which carried away our port bulwarks and stanchions and sent me into the lee scuppers, where I was stunned by a blow on the head. The same sea smashed the jolly boat.

"I was insensible for a couple of days, and when I crept on deck again I found the other boat had been stove in. The fore and main topgallant masts were gone. I was standing on the quarterdeck, when, just at midnight, I was startled by a most unearthly caterwauling, as though all the furies in the infernal regions had broken loose. I looked in the direction it came from, and, behold! there stood the cat like a frightful apparition. He seemed four times his original size, and his eyes were like two gleaming fires. Even now I am not sure if it was the flesh-and-blood Baudrons or his ghost come to explain the mystery of his disappearance, and vent his displeasure at me for having taken him from his comfortable home. As I looked at the goblin cat my head reeled and I fell on the deck.

"Next morning all was calm and bright; but we were disabled, and it was necessary to put back for repairs. You may think what you like, mates, but as sure as we're here, it was nothing but the cat that brought on the gale and gave me my ill luck; the worst calamity of all being the loss of the pilot and his crew."

"Ay," said Bailie Duke, "but the cat had nothing to do with the loss of the pilots. Nobody can be blamed for that but Carver Kinlay."

"No," added Oliver Gray, "a greater rascal than Carver never set foot in Orkney, nor a braver man than Ericson."

"Well," said Captain Wemyss, "this Kinlay may do as he likes, but I for one will have no business with him."

"Nor I neither," said Captains Johnson and Miller at once.

"He's no proper pilot," said Gray, "and has no right to run a boat."

"I'm afraid, gentlemen," put in Lloyd's agent with a tone of authority, "you're a wee bit too late in bringing forward your objections, for I'm informed that Kinlay has already taken out all necessary papers, and is now a duly certified pilot."

"What!" exclaimed Abernethy. "I'd sooner employ young Ericson here than Kinlay; I'm sure the lad kens more about the coast."

"I'd trust that lad to take my ship through any channel in Orkney," added Captain Gordon. "He brought us through on Sunday, and I never saw a pilot--except his father--handle a ship with greater skill."

Mr. Gordon was speaking thus in my praise, when who should walk into the inn but Carver Kinlay himself.

Carver had on a new suit of clothes of blue cloth, and his high boots, reaching above the knees, were newly polished with oil. At his waist he wore a leather belt from which was suspended a long sheath knife. He walked in with a jaunty air of self importance, but with a slightly unsteady gait, which showed how he had been celebrating his appointment. He approached Captain Wemyss, and addressed him.

"Ye'll be weighing anchor on Monday morning, captain, I suppose? What time shall I come aboard?"

"I never asked you to come aboard my ship, my man," said Captain Wemyss. "What is it you want?"

"Why, d'ye not know I'm the pilot?"

Captain Abernethy interrupted him, and drew him round by the shoulder to face the company, saying:

"You'd not be the pilot if you hadna gotten the post by your crafty, sneaking, murderous villainy, Carver Kinlay. What business had you putting out to the Lydia on Sunday?"

"What business is that of yours?" was the response.

"Every one has business in a case like this," said Abernethy, "and I'll wager a thousand pounds if you hadn't gone out the accident wouldn't have happened. It was nothing else than the fear that you'd get aboard before them that made the men think of boarding the barque in such a hurry, and so far out. I knew the men well, poor fellows, and they were all decent men and good pilots, every one of them."

While Abernethy was saying this, Kinlay was venting a torrent of oaths and words in disparagement of my father and his men.

"You villain! you rascal!" continued the skipper, "if you say another word against Sandy Ericson I'll pitch you out at the window!"

At the same time Bailie Duke stepped forward and said:

"Now just hold your filthy tongue, Kinlay. You've been trying for years to do what you've done now. You've gotten your wish; what more do you want?"

The bailie succeeded in quieting him, and Carver slunk off to a corner of the room. The company, after this interruption, dispersed, leaving only Captain Gordon, Kinlay, Captain Miller, and myself.

No further words had been exchanged before a stalwart fisherman entered. I immediately recognized Jack Paterson. Jack was, as I have before said, a powerful man. He came in with a firm resolution in his step, and looked around the room. We watched him closely, for there was something strange in his look.

On seeing Kinlay he walked straight up to him, laid a big hand on his shoulder--the hand that wanted a finger--and, without a word, dragged him to the middle of the room. Kinlay turned quickly round, and putting his hand on his sheath knife drew the weapon. Without hesitation Paterson stepped forward and dealt a tremendous blow with his fist on Carver's nose.

"Ye ken what that's for--I needna tell ye," said Paterson; and Kinlay reeled over and fell upon the floor, while Jack Paterson walked quietly into the street.

The explanation of this swift chastisement was this. There had that morning been a small indignation meeting of Stromness fishermen. They were all determined that Kinlay should see they had no sympathy with him, and the purpose of the meeting was to determine what form of vengeance they should employ.

Their method was simply that which Jack Paterson had carried out, in boldly confronting Kinlay with closed fists; and when Jack's fellow fishermen heard what he had done their revenge was satisfied, and they returned to their daily duties with accustomed quietude, only agreeing in this, that thereafter Carver Kinlay was to be recognized as the common enemy of all true Orkney men; that he was not to be molested, but that none was to give him help in any way soever.