Chapter 5

I lingered about the little quay while my father and the crew were hoisting sail. For a moment I questioned if I should not be happier in the bow of the Curlew, than tramping half a score of miles over rough uninteresting moorland on the chance of capturing a seal; but in the end I was satisfied in keeping to the plan arranged by my companions. I waited only to see the boat bend over in the fresh breeze as she sailed outward to the ships; then, armed with my harpoon and a knobbed stick, I hastened out of Stromness, followed by my dog.

Selta (so called after one of our native streams) was a long-bodied, long-haired animal, with a touch of the otter hound in her nature. I got her from Colin Lothian, an old "gaberlunzie" man who travelled our countryside. He gave me the dog when she was a young thing, and he had another of the same litter which followed him wherever he went about the island.

Selta was notable for her shaggy brown coat and ungainly head, and for her keen scent. One day during the previous winter I had been over to Russadale for my mother, and in coming home I was caught in a snowstorm. The mist was thick and the way obscured by the driving snow, but Selta lowered her nose and led me over the hills in a beeline to Stromness.

She had never before been out with me at the seal catching; but I took her this day, thinking she might prove useful--as indeed she did.

The direct way to Skaill lay along an almost straight road to the northward, by Hamla Voe and the western shores of the loch of Stenness, past the Druid standing stones.

On this May afternoon, as I walked along the familiar road, there was little to attract my attention. The gray stretch of water lay still and cold, and the ploughed fields beyond it were brown and barren. In a more southern clime every tree and bush would be, at that season, putting forth fresh verdure, and the budding hedgerows would be bursting into green beauty; but to me, at that period of my life, the sweet-smelling hawthorn, the golden-fingered laburnum, and the full, rich blossom of an apple orchard were unknown delights. I had never yet seen a real tree, and our highest bushes in Pomona reached scarcely to my shoulder. The land was all gray and barren.

At the old mill of Cairston I was joined by Robbie Rosson, and, instead of continuing by the road, we cut across country, climbing the stone dykes and jumping over the gurgling streams. A walk of three miles brought us to Crua Breck, a small farmhouse on the hillside of the same name, overlooking the Pentland Firth. The ridge tiles of this house ran precisely north and south, and it was a superstition amongst us that this same ridge had the power of deciding whether the north wind should blow towards the German Ocean or the Atlantic; just as King Eric of Orkney could, in his time, change the direction of the winds by altering the position of his cap.

Crua Breck was at least a mile from any other house--unless, indeed, the ruined and tenantless cottage of Inganess merited the name. Carver Kinlay had lived there as long as I could remember; but the fact that the fisher folks often spoke of him as a "ferry jumper" implied that he was still regarded as a foreigner on Orcadian soil.

I had never been inside the Crua Breck house, nor, I may say, did I much covet a visit there, for the inmates of the farm were not distinguished for their friendliness or hospitality, and, with the one exception of Thora, whom I always regarded with a sense of kindliness, and Tom, who was my class fellow, I had little acquaintance with the family.

Had I been more warmly inclined towards them I would have gone up to the door at once and asked for Tom, instead of sitting on the dyke side with Rosson and waiting till he chose to come out to us.

As we sat there, however, Thora Kinlay came past us, driving before her a hen and her brood of chickens, which she had found straying along the cliffs, and of her we asked for Tom. She at once offered to run to the house and bring him, but ultimately Robbie Rosson went instead, with my terrier at his heels.

"How is it you are not at the fishing, Halcro?" inquired Thora when we were alone. "I saw the schoolmaster away down at the Bush just now as I came past. He seemed to be catching very little, though."

"Ah!" I said, "I doubt it's too clear a day for the trout. We're off to Skaill Vie to see if we can catch a seal."

"That will be fine fun," said Thora, with a touch of envy in her voice. "I wish I was going with you. Will you not take me?"

"Indeed," I returned, not unwilling that she should join us in our sport, "I'd be real glad if you would come. But here's Tom, we'll ask him."

Robbie and Tom approached across a plot of potatoes. Tom was eating a huge piece of oatcake, and slashing, with a long stick he carried, at the heads of the thistles that grew, all too plentifully, among the potatoes.

Tom was a tall, large-boned lad, and his feet, which were encased in rivlins, or rough hide shoes, projected several inches below his trousers; his arms, too, seemed to have grown far beyond the length of his jacket sleeves. His untidy black hair and dark eyes contrasted strangely with the fair and delicate beauty of his sister Thora. A stranger might have taken Thora to be of pure Norse family, and her adventurous spirit would have justified the belief. But Tom took after his father, whose type was that of a race not uncommon in the north of Scotland, and called--for I know not what reason--"The dark men of Connemara."

"Tom," I asked when he was beside us, "what do you say to Thora coming with us to the sealing?"

"What! Certainly not," replied Tom, who was ever jealous of his sister and loved not to favour her in any way. "What would a lassie do at the sealing? Let her go back home and do her lessons, and try if she can win to the head of the class again."

"Indeed," said Thora with suppressed indignation, "it is you who should try to do that, Tom. You're the eldest and biggest lad in the school, and have never yet been at the head of the class, dunce that you are! But away with you to the sealing. I do not care, for I have adventure of my own. I know where there's a hen harrier building her nest on the Black Craigs, and it's not you I will tell where it is, my lad."

This was a successful parting shot from Thora. She well knew that any lad in Orkney would envy her the discovery of a falcon's nest, and that Tom, more than any other, would be jealous of her finding what he might have searched for in vain.

"Just fancy that lass finding a harrier's nest!" he murmured as we went along. "I wonder if it's true! I bet she only said that out of spite because we would not let her come with us. But who wants a slip of a girl at such work? She'd only frighten the seals and prevent us from catching any. It's my opinion we have enough of the girls in the school without them joining us in our sports. What do you say, Ericson?"

"I don't know about that," I said. "For my part I shouldn't have objected to Thora coming with us. As for the hen harrier, I don't doubt that what she said was quite true. It's well known that she's one of the best cliff climbers of us all."

"Tut! you always side with the lassies, Ericson. That's because you're aye beside them at the head of the class. What was it that old Duke gave her this morning? Was it a bawbee?"

"I took no notice of what it was, Tom," I replied. "But it was very kind of him to give her anything."

"It was a sixpence he gave her," said Robbie Rosson. "I saw the colour of it."

"A sixpence!" exclaimed Tom. "The sneak that she is! Let's go back and make her give us a share of it."

"Get away, man," said Robbie. "What is it to us though the bailie gave her a dozen sixpences? He'd have given it to any of us if we'd been at the head of the class."

The discussion upon Thora ended here, and we continued our walk in comparative silence.

Willie Hercus was waiting for us when we reached the hill of Yeskenaby. Hercus was a barefooted, red-haired boy, with gray eyes that were almost hidden in the fatness of his cheeks, and totally so when he laughed, as he invariably did on the least provocation. His brow and nose were covered with brown freckles, like a turkey's egg; and he wore a large sea jacket that had belonged to his father, one of the crew of the Curlew.

We walked leisurely along the brink of the Black Craigs--a line of steep cliffs bordering the western portion of the Mainland. At times a hoodie crow would fly across our path, or the red grouse be startled from their nests in the freshly-budding heather; and sea fowl in large numbers sailed gracefully over our heads or deep down the cliffs, making the chasms echo with their ceaseless screaming.

We made no attempt to kill or capture any of the birds. One bird, however, we did take, and that more by accident than intention. It happened this way:

My dog was trotting before us, with her nose to the ground, when suddenly she made a run through the short heather after a lapwing, which was, or pretended to be, unable to fly. I think it was trying to decoy the dog away from its nest. As we watched the chase, Tom cried out:

"Look, look, there's a hawk after them!"

And, indeed, so it was. The lapwing ran with wondrous speed, and before Selta had time to snap at it a hawk had nipped in before the dog's nose in the attempt to rob her of her prey. Unfortunately for the larger bird, however, the dog's snap, intended for the fugitive, came upon the hawk's outstretched neck. The lapwing escaped unhurt, and flew screaming into the air, but Selta held to the hawk till we ran up and helped her. I managed to secure the bird's wings, which flapped about with surprising strength, while Tom held its struggling legs.

"Thraw its neck, thraw its neck!" cried Rosson, now coming up to us.

Selta loosened her hold, and Willie Hercus took the hawk's head in his hand, carefully guarding against its sharp beak, gave its neck a rapid twist, and the bird was dead.

"What kind of a bird is it?" eagerly asked Kinlay, whose knowledge of our native birds was as imperfect as his knowledge of Latin conjugations.

"Can you not see it's a harrier--a hen harrier?" I said, as I stretched out the large and beautiful wings of gray-blue feathers and proceeded to bind the bird's feet with a string.

"The very same that Thora spoke of, I'll be bound!" Tom exclaimed with satisfaction, as he evidently thought of his sister's secret of the nest on the Black Craigs.

"What'll we do with it?" asked Hercus. "Is it good for eating?"

"Nonsense, Willie!" said I. "Surely we've birds in plenty without eating hawks! Let's give it to the dominie."

"Ay, let's give it to the dominie," chimed in Robbie Rosson, always ready to agree with whatever I proposed.

"The dominie! What for would you give it to the dominie?" objected Kinlay. "It's my bird. I first saw it."

"Your bird! your bird, indeed!" exclaimed Hercus, putting his hands in his pockets and assuming an attitude of indignant surprise. "Is it the man who first sees the whale that has the blubber? No, no, Ericson's dog caught the bird. Let Hal do as he likes with his own."

I have no doubt that Tom coveted the dead falcon in order to persuade his sister that he had discovered her harrier's nest. When we agreed to keep the bird for the schoolmaster, he accordingly grew gloomy, and the rest of the journey to Skaill was accomplished without his joining in the merry talk, of which there was no lack, you may be sure.