Chapter 4

My home was close beside the school. There were only a few steps to skip across the narrow main street, and a turn into the Anchor Close brought me to my mother's door. Many of my companions, however, had several miles to travel. Tom and Thora Kinlay lived at Crua Breck farm, distant from Stromness four miles; and little Hilda Paterson, the youngest girl in the school, lived at her father's croft away beyond Stenness, and walked the five miles--barefooted--twice a day.

When I got home the brose for dinner was cooling on the windowsill, and my mother was frying the fish I had caught in the morning. My sister Jessie sat near the window plaiting straw--an industry common in Orkney at that time.

"Hello, Hal! back already?" Jessie exclaimed, putting her work aside as I threw my books and slate in the corner beside her. "Come away and look out for father. He has just brought in a new ship."

We went out upon the little jetty where I had fished in the morning, at the extremity of the passage in which our house stood, and there we waited and watched for my father's boat.

With this stone pier my earliest recollections were connected. When I was but an infant my father had carried me out in his great strong arms, and for the first time showed me the sun rising over the furrowed hills of Orphir. He had directed my childish eyes to the deep green of the sea water as it rippled gently against the wall of our house. It was here that, as a boy, I had, by rolling over the pier like a ball, made a more intimate acquaintance with the element that was to be as familiar to me as my native air. Here, too, I had caught my first fish, and hence despatched to unknown lands my little fleet of wooden boats with their quaint paper sails.

The ship that my father had just brought into port was a trim barque, with high, tapering masts and a bright-green hull.

"What's her name, Hal?" inquired Jessie as the vessel was brought to.

I had accustomed myself to make out ships' names at great distances, and as the barque swung round with the stream I could read the words "Lydia of Leith" painted on her counter.

"Yonder is father, and there is Uncle Mansie," said Jessie, as the two men climbed over the ship's rail and swarmed down into the boat. Then up went the brown sail, and the little Curlew sped blithely past the whaling ships and across the broad bay, and it was not long ere she was moored alongside our jetty and father stepped ashore.

My father was a tall, muscular man, with a long, fair beard, and blue eyes as clear and deep as the summer sky. He was a worthy representative of the old Norse sea king, from whom he was descended, and his descent was shown in his great love of the sea. He was the chief pilot of the port of Stromness, and no man knew so well as he all the dangerous currents and shoals of the Orcadian seas. There was not a flow or a sound between the North and South Ronaldsays, or from Bore Head in the west to the Start in the east that he did not know as well as the eagle knows her corrie, or which he could not navigate on the darkest night. The perils of the whirlpools, of the sunken rocks, and of the wild winter storms which beat in fury upon our iron coasts, were part of his life; and I have heard it said that he had saved more ships from destruction than any other man in Orkney or Shetland. If you had asked anyone in Stromness, What man in all Pomona could least be spared? the reply would have been given, "Sandy Ericson, the pilot."

I need not say that for these reasons I was proud of my brave father. But it was not from him I learned these things, for he would never say a word in his own praise, and, had I not heard of his hardy bravery from other lips, he might have been to me no more than the gentle, affectionate parent that he ever was.

We left the four men who were the crew of the Curlew to look after the boat, while Uncle Mansie and father came into the house to dinner.

When, being the youngest of the family, I had said grace and we were supping our brose, Uncle Mansie looked over to me and asked: "Well, Hal, are you coming out in the Curlew with us to see the whaling ships away?"

I replied in true Orkney fashion by asking another question:

"How far are you to take them?"

Mansie turned to father, who said: "Och, we'll take them as far as the Braga Rock anyway. If you'll come wi' us, Hal, we'll stow you snugly in the bow o' the Curlew, and you'll get a fine sail. What's an Orkney lad, whatever, if he's not to have a taste o' the dangers o' the sea? There's more for him to do than daunder about the hillside with a trout wand over his shoulder."

"'Deed, I dinna ken about that, father," said my mother, helping me to a plateful of fried sillocks. "If it's danger you're wantin' the laddie to seek, he's seen o'er many dangers already, I'm thinking. It's nearly drowned he was, only a week ago, in the Barra Flow, swimming out after a dog that wasna worth the saving; and I have seen him mysel' dangling over the Breckness cliffs, like a spider, at the end of a rope I would not have trusted to hang Lucky Drever's cat with! Danger, forsooth! the laddie is always in danger."

It was like my mother to object to my taking to the sea, even for the pleasure of a sail. Although she well knew that it was the only life open to an Orkney lad, yet she was ever anxious to delay its beginning, and at these words from her my father did not urge me further, but quietly watched me as I rose from the table and took from a rack over the window a small harpoon, the sharp point of which I tested by pressing it against my thumb.

"Oh, there's a lad!" exclaimed Jessie. "Off to the sealing when he might have a fine sail in the Curlew. I wish I could get such a chance."

"All right, lad!" interrupted my father. "Away with you to the sealing. You'll get many another chance of a sail. Who's going with you?"

"Robbie Rosson and Willie Hercus and--" I added with some hesitation, "Tom Kinlay," for I knew my father did not entirely approve of Tom as a companion.

"Kinlay again?" he muttered, knitting his brows. "I would advise you not to go with that lad so often. But then you dinna ken what his father is, I suppose."

It was seldom that I heard my father speak an ill word against any man. I did not ask him any question, but his brief warning was enough to show me that there was some serious cause of enmity between him and Tom's father, Carver Kinlay.

"Father," I said, "I'll not go with Tom if you object."

"Object!" said he. "What care I for the lad? It's the father that's my enemy. His bairns may be better than he. Away to the sealing with you, and may you get good sport!"

And he followed me to the door.