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.