Chapter 25

I was one evening walking over the heathery braes of Lyndardy, in the direction of Stromness, with my sister Jessie. The soft breeze from across the sea played with her brown hair, which was bound by the silken snood usually worn by the Orkney girls. A scarlet bootie shawl covered her shoulders. In her hand she carried a basket filled with kitchen vegetables from the farm.

As we walked our attention was directed to a number of fishing boats putting out to sea, and to the slow and mournful song of the fishermen as they set out, with the creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music of their voices. Then the red mainsails were hoisted to catch the light breeze blowing over from the region of the setting sun, and we stood and watched the boats.

But presently, as I looked further down the hillside where we were, I saw the figure of a man leaning upon a low stone wall. He was looking across to the wild headland of Hoy, where the red beetling cliffs reflected the sunlight.

"Jessie," I said, "is that Captain Gordon standing down there?"

Jessie turned her eyes in the direction I pointed, and her cheeks were flushed with the red light that fell upon them.

"Oh, Halcro!" she exclaimed, "I've forgotten to bring the butter. We must go back to the farm."

"Never mind, Jessie; I'll run back for it," I said, though I would have been glad to see the captain again.

She, however, made no objection, but let me go back to Lyndardy, while she continued her way towards Stromness.

I had been gone something like a half hour, and as I was returning, walking briskly over the heathery braes and skipping across the rippling burns, down the hillside in front of me I saw Jessie standing with Captain Gordon, and his arm was round her waist. I stopped suddenly, wondering if I should proceed further and interrupt them. And now I understood how it was that Jessie had forgotten the butter, and how she had so calmly agreed to my going back to the farm. I seemed also to understand how it was that Captain Gordon had spoken so much about my sister during our drive to Kirkwall. And with these explanations in my mind I took my way homeward by a roundabout path along the cliffs, and so passed unobserved, reaching Stromness just in time to see Jessie and the captain parting at the end of the town.

On the following day the Lydia set sail. It pained us to see the vessel taken out of port by Carver Kinlay; but when she had rounded the Ness, Jessie and I went up to the head of the cliffs and watched the white sails over the sea, until they became a mere speck on the far horizon. Then, as we were coming back, and I remarked the tears in Jessie's eyes, I learned what I had already partly guessed--that Captain Gordon had asked my sister to be his wife.

Hard was the struggle that we had at home, after the first weeks of mourning and grief that followed the loss of my father and uncle. We had now no regular source of income, beyond the few shillings every week that my mother and sister earned by the straw-plaiting industry. This was work that was common in Orkney at that time; but the English hat manufacturers, for whom the straw was plaited, were not always liberal in their payments, nor prompt; and it was only by very hard work that these few shillings could be earned.

My father had been thrifty, and had saved some little money; but when we came to calculate the full measure of our resources, we discovered that several alterations would have to be made in our mode of living. Not the least important of these changes was the necessity of an early removal to Lyndardy.

Lyndardy farm had been leased conjointly by my father and my uncle Mansie; and when there was no occasion for them to be out in the boat, the two men were in the habit of working together in the fields, as most of our neighbours worked. It was from Lyndardy that we were supplied with all our oatmeal, our eggs, cheese, butter, and vegetables. Fresh fish we could always procure in abundance from the sea and the lochs, and I was able sometimes to add to the general stock of provisions by the aid of my gun. The feathers and oil from the wild sea fowl I shot were sold or bartered for other commodities; and the wool of the few sheep we kept, and the flax we grew, were helpful in supplying us with clothing and other necessaries.

It was not long after my father had "gone before" that we removed from the old house in the Anchor Close.

Much of our familiar furniture was sold. My boat, too, was disposed of. Many a heart pang it cost us to leave the home at the waterside, but we all took kindly to the new life at the farm and its various duties. Jessie soon became skilled in the work of attending to the cows; and as for myself, I readily learned how to mend a gate, to dig potatoes, to look after the sheep, and even to follow the plough. Thus I busied myself until, in after-time, I was able to take to the sea.

When the warm weather came round, the boys and girls of Andrew Drever's school were dismissed for their holidays. Sometimes, when I saw some of them passing along the cliffs with their climbing ropes over their arms, I confess I felt some twinge of regret that I was no longer a schoolboy, and that my duties on the farm no longer permitted me to join in the pleasures of a bird-catching expedition. My fowling piece was now hung up in the barn, and few were my opportunities of taking it down. What sport it would have afforded me had I been still a schoolboy!

On a certain fine morning, soon after the holidays commenced, I was very busily employed at the work of helping in our sheep shearing--not that I myself ventured to handle the shears; my part in the business was simply to carry the wool into the loft, and to assist in bringing out the sheep from the pens as the shearers required them. My mother, who had been born and brought up on Lyndardy farm, was, however, an expert hand at sheep-shearing, and I believe there was no other woman in the whole parish of Stromness who could do the work with such speed and neatness.

I was admiring the skill with which she stripped a sheep of its fleece, and standing near her at the same time, with a black-faced ewe between my knees, ready to pass the animal to her when she was ready for it. Letting the shorn ewe escape, she stood up and looked over the moorland in the direction of Stromness.

"Hullo! here's some stranger coming up the brae," she said, shading her eyes with her hand. "Who in the world can it be, Halcro? Surely it's not the dominie?"

But the dominie it was. He came up to where we were at work, and sat upon a heathery knoll near my mother, with whom he engaged in some ordinary gossip.

"But," said he, after a while, "it was Halcro himself that I came up to see."

"Me!" I said. "What can ye want to see me about, Mr. Drever?"

"To tell you that I'm to gang to Edinburgh," he replied.

"To Edinburgh!" I exclaimed, wondering what his mission could be.

"Ay, Halcro, I'm to be there for a few weeks, partly on pleasure and partly on business, concerning our auld friend Jarl Haffling. The museum folk there are anxious to have the viking's treasure, and I hae gotten permission to deal wi' them in the matter. I dinna ken what money they will gie me for the things; but, ye see, whatever it be, Halcro, a third part of it will come to Hercus and Rosson and yersel', to be divided among ye. Do ye agree to that? Will ye trust me to transact the business for ye?"

"Oh, certainly, sir. But surely it's ower muckle trouble to put you to?" I said.

"Trouble! Dinna think o' trouble, lad. Why, these auld coins and things hae been mair pleasure to me than I can tell; for, look ye, all the time I hae had the keeping o' them, I hae been studying them; and--and, Halcro, I hae even written a little book about Jarl Haffling's grave, and I shouldna be surprised though that book be printed. Think o' that, lad! A book written by your ain dominie printed! Nay, nay, Halcro, dinna speak o' trouble."

"And what is being done about Tom Kinlay, sir?" I asked.

"Weel, as to that, ye see, the lad has broken the law by appropriating his part o' the treasure, and selling it. I can do nothing mysel', beyond stating the nature o' his offence. The law must tak' the matter into its own hands. Beyond a doubt it will do so; and ye'll see, Halcro, that it was far better for you and the other two lads to put the viking's treasure into my hands, instead o' makin' fools o' yersels as Tom Kinlay has done."

"I am sure, sir, I am perfectly satisfied," I said. "And now, Mr. Drever, I suppose you will wish me to give up my magic stone? Must it go to Edinburgh with the rest?"

"The talisman? Weel, I hadna thought that. Ye see, it isna worth muckle. No, I think ye needna send it now. But keep it wi' care, dinna lose it, just in case it is wanted. Of course I hae written about it in the book, and it may be claimed; but keep it for the present, Halcro."

The schoolmaster left me to continue my work, and three days afterwards I heard that he had started for Edinburgh in a trading sloop that plied between Kirkwall and Leith.

He was absent in Scotland for nearly two months, and when he returned I received a message from him asking me to bring Willie Hercus and Robbie Rosson down to the schoolhouse on a particular evening. He welcomed us with much affection, and during tea he related to us many of his experiences in Edinburgh.

But his chief reason for having us with him on that evening was, as he said, to give us an account of his stewardship in regard to the viking's treasure. He had had several interviews with the authorities of the Antiquarian Museum, with whom he had finally left the curiosities, receiving in return a due share of money to be delivered in equal portions to the three of us.

I believe that the Jarl Haffling's treasures may be seen to this day in the Antiquarian Museum of Edinburgh; but I have seen only the catalogue, in which the curiosities are enumerated and described as having been found by some boys playing on the shore of Skaill Bay, Orkney. Be that as it may, the money brought back by Mr. Drever--which was greatly in excess of our expectations, and allowed to each of us a share much larger than Tom Kinlay had received from old Isaac--came as a great help not only to my mother, but also to the widow of Tom Hercus, to say nothing of Mrs. Rosson, whose rent had fallen so far in arrear that she had been threatened with an eviction from her cottage, and was only saved by this timely assistance.