Chapter 28

The unfortunate occurrence which deprived us of our little flock of sheep brought an increase of sorrow and hardship to our family, whose resources had already been so greatly impoverished; and when the gloomy winter days came on, with their biting frosts and keen cold winds, the prospects at Lyndardy grew as dull as the leaden clouds that hung in the sky. Our mother's woeful sighs were painful to my ears, while I felt how helpless I was to soften her sorrows. Sometimes, when I saw the tears in her eyes, I would silently wish for her sake that I was older and could do more towards filling my father's place.

But work of the kind I was fitted for was scarce in Orkney. Had I been able to choose for myself I should have been, like my father, a pilot. But the chain of circumstances which had made this the vocation of my family for three generations was now broken. Carver Kinlay and his crew were having things all their own way, and in the meantime I was doing that most trying of all work--waiting and hoping for what seemed to become every day less probable.

But I did not pass my hours in idleness. Whenever an outward-bound ship came into the harbour I sought her captain, and asked for a berth aboard. Sometimes I would even walk as far as Kirkwall to see if in that port I could get what was so difficult to procure in Stromness.

One cold, wintry day, when the wind was blowing strong and cutting from the north, I found myself in Kirkwall. Walking along the wharf, looking down upon the decks of the vessels that lay against the old stone quay--brigs, barques, and schooners, some of them bound foreign, but most of them from Scotland--I came to a little coasting schooner that I had often seen in the harbour of Stromness. She was named the Falcon. I was looking down at the green copper plating near her cutwater, when I heard a gruff but cheery voice calling out:

"Hullo! there, young Ericson! Are ye not coming aboard, lad?"

"Hello, Davie!" I responded, jumping down upon the deck. "Here's a cold day for ye, eh?"

He was a little, thick-set man, with a rippled, weatherbeaten face. He wore a dirty, red, knitted cap, from which escaped a few curls of iron-gray hair. A short pea jacket was closely buttoned over his chest, and a pair of immense sea boots reached high above his knees.

This was David Flett, the same jovial old mariner who, it will be remembered, warned me against the Jew on Stromness quay. He removed a short black pipe from his lips as I joined him near the companionway.

"Have ye walked from Stromness the day?" he asked. "Ay, lad, but ye'll be tired, I doubt. Come away below to the fire and warm yersel'."

And he led the way down the ladder and into a close little cabin, where a rousing wood fire was burning under a good pot of potatoes.

Captain Flett had spent most of his early days at the Greenland whale fishing, but he had now settled down upon his own quarterdeck to make a comfortable living for himself by helping others; providing for the Orkney islanders, what they much needed, a market of exchange for their native commodities.

The Falcon was called a cargo packet; but David Flett was a man of singular enterprise, and styled himself a general merchant. He had, indeed, become quite an important trader in his own way by speculating in quantities of seemingly worthless goods, and reserving them until time gave him a chance of disposing of them at a profit.

If a farmer in Ronaldsay told him he was badly in want of a plough or a pony the skipper would speedily find a farmer in another island who had a plough or a pony to sell, and by thus bringing buyer and seller together he made himself a friend to both. Nothing was out of Flett's way. He had a genius for commerce. He would buy an old anchor or a piece of sailcloth from someone in want of ready money, and keep them in the hold of his schooner till he could find a customer in some skipper whose anchor had been slipped or whose sails were in need of repair. I believe he made it his business to find out exactly what every person in Orkney was most in need of, and straightway to set about getting it.

A Hoy crofter once said to his master (whether in jest or earnest I know not):

"Eh, sir, but Flett's a wonderfu' man. I thought I had met wi' a sore misfortune, twa months syne, when I lost both my cow and my wife over the cliffs; but I went to Davie, and he has gotten me a far better cow and a far bonnier wife."

David Flett's habits were well known to me, and on seeing the good man's genial face I at once thought of a way in which he could be of service to me. It is always well to have a friend in court. Why should he not be asked to get me a berth on one of the outgoing ships?

"Tak' a seat, now," said he, as he placed a stool for me in a warm corner of the cabin. "Tak' a seat and tell us a' that's passing in Stromness this while back, and then we'll get something to eat."

While he was asking questions and listening to my replies, I quietly observed the miscellaneous contents of the cabin. A curious place it was--half cabin and half shop. From the ceiling hung many hams and pieces of bacon, smoked geese, pots and pans, bundles of tallow candles, and strings of onions. On two shelves nailed athwart the compartment were rows of canisters containing coffee, tea, rice, and other luxuries and necessaries, besides bottles of drugs, bars of soap, squares of salt, and other articles of commerce, to be retailed to customers in the remote islands.

Presently a seaman, who was addressed as Jerry, came below and took the potatoes from the fire, while the skipper drew a small table to the middle of the floor and set it ready for dinner. The potatoes were placed in a large dish in the centre of the table where we could all reach them, and a joint of corned beef was added, with plenty of oatcakes, cheese, and salt butter.

When all was ready for the meal the mate appeared, from I know not where, and took his seat opposite the skipper, and I drew my stool between them, while the man Jerry sat nearer the fire on an upturned cask.

The mate, whose name was Peter Brown, was a red-faced little man with a nose that had a decided list to the starboard, very untidy in his dress, and given a bit to swearing, but a real good sort of fellow, as I afterwards found, and a capital seaman. He had served in English ships in the Baltic trade, but getting knocked about in a storm rounding Cape Wrath, breaking his arm and his nose, he had been put ashore at Kirkwall, where he had met with Captain Flett and joined the Falcon, thirteen years before this time.

"And now, my lad," said Flett, blowing a hot potato that he held in his horny hand, "what brings ye all the way to Kirkwall on a cold day like this? Ye didna tell us that."

"Well, captain," I said, looking down at my platter and wondering how I could eat its plentiful contents, hungry though I was, "I just sauntered along to see if I could get some work. My mother's sorely needin' help now, ye ken, since father was drowned, and I maun be doing something."

"Ay, ye're right there, lad; ye're right there. But what kind o' work were ye seekin'?"

"I carena what it be, if it's just work," I replied. "But I was thinkin' I'd go in one o' the Kirkwall ships if there was one wantin' a lad."

"Weel, that's just most amazing!" exclaimed Flett, dipping his hand into the dish and bringing forth another steaming potato. "For our lad, Jack, has taken a strange misliking to the Falcon, and run away to a bigger ship.

"Jerry," he asked, turning to the seaman, "did ye hear onything o' young Jack this mornin'?"

"Ay," said Jerry. "He sailed yestreen in the Foaming Wave, the lazy rascal."

"We'll need a lad in his place then," said Peter. "Could Ericson come aboard when we're round in Stromness?"

"Ye see, Ericson," said the skipper, looking kindly at me and casting another slice of meat on my platter, "Ye see the Falcon's but a wee slip o' a craft, considerin'. But maybe ye'd get along wi' us weel enough till a better offers. So, if ye like, Jerry here'll make up a bunk to ye, and I'll see that your mother, puir soul, doesna want for onything. Sandy Ericson was a good man, as everybody kens, and his widow maun be cared for."

Now this unexpected offer of employment was a thing that I had reason to be very grateful for, as I did not neglect to show. While wishing, with true Orcadian love of the sea, to sail for foreign countries in one of the large vessels I had so often seen in the haven of Stromness, I yet believed that there was no place in all the world like the Orkney Islands--no cliffs so high, no sea so blue, no homes so dear--and this new possibility of sailing with Davie Flett in the Falcon among our own islands was more agreeable to me, since it would not necessitate any very long absence from my home, three weeks or a month being the usual extent of the voyage.

Before I left the schooner that afternoon, therefore, the matter was fully arranged. The Falcon was to be round in Stromness Bay in a few days' time, and I was then to join her.

Passing through Finstown on my way home, I was overtaken by Oliver Gray's man in the inn gig. He gave me a lift as far as Stenness, and thence I hurried to Lyndardy to tell my mother the joyful news.

For the next few days, whilst my mother and Jessie were occupied with the business of providing some warm clothing for me, for use on the cold nights at sea, and in other ways preparing for my leaving, I sought to add to our stock of winter provisions by a free use of my gun. The eider ducks, or dunter geese, as we call them in Orkney, are always plentiful in the winter time, and valuable not only for their flesh, but also for their rich downy feathers, and I managed to procure a good number of these. Over at the fresh-water loch of Harray, too, several teals and sheldrakes were taken. And then, when my sport was over, I hung up my gun in its place in the warm byre, believing that I was now a man.

So passed the time pleasantly and profitably until, much to my satisfaction, the good ship Falcon arrived in the bay and dropped anchor off the jetty.