“He belongs to the Lydia, the barque that cam’ in this forenoon.”

“Aw, yes, I ken his ship, but I dinna ken the captain.  Yes, yes, he’ll get a taste o’ the troot, I warrant him that.”

Then turning to Mr. Gordon, she continued:  “Ye were never in Stromness afore, captain?  No?  Ye maun speak loud—­it’s terrible dull o’ hearing I am.”

The captain looked at Grace as she applied a strange, shell-like horn to her right ear, and went closer to him.

“The Lydia has a great many mice on board,” said the captain.

“Ay, you’ll be takin’ it out to America for the black folk, no doubt.  It’s terrible hot in America, they say.  But where got you the ice?  Not from Leith?”

“He didna say ice,” interposed Andrew.  “The captain says his ship’s full o’ mice.”

“Ah, mice!  What for does he not get a cat?”

“It’s your own cat he was wanting to get,” said Andrew.

“My cat! my Baudrons!  Troth, I dinna think I could part with Baudrons.  I’m terrible fond of Baudrons.  Was there not a cat in Stromness forbye mine?”

Grace said this as she selected some of the largest trout and took them away to clean.

As I sat on a chair near the door, weary after my long tramp with the heavy burden of silver and the dead hawk, and somewhat bruised by my fight, Mr. Drever and the captain engaged in a long conversation relating to the Orkneys.  But during an interval of their talk I ventured to draw the schoolmaster’s attention to the dead bird that I had brought for him.

“We caught this bird over on the moor the day, sir,” I said, “and I brought it, thinking ye’d like to put it in one o’ your glass cases.”

“Man, Halcro, but that’s a bonny specimen!  A harrier, a hen harrier, I declare!  ’Deed but it will be a right fine addition to our collection.  And what way did ye kill it, d’ye say?  Not wi’ a gun, surely?”

“No; it was flying after a peewit, and the dog caught it.  Willie Hercus thrawed its neck.”

“Well, well, that’s most amazing.  How I wish I’d been with you.  I’d rather hae caught a harrier than a hundred sea trout.”

“Did ye get some good fishing at the Bush, sir?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, ay, very good, very good; thanks to those hooks o’ yours, Halcro.  I left a dozen trout wi’ Jack Paterson’s wife, and a dozen wi’ Mary Firth, and these I brought home.  That’s no sae bad, is it?”

Then, when he had satisfied his admiration of the dead hawk, he took us into the schoolroom, to show the captain his cases of stuffed birds and animals.  Already he had determined that he would mount the hawk in the attitude of swooping down upon a lapwing.

It turned out that Captain Gordon was interested in birds, and knew a good deal about their habits.  I remember he told us of a swallow which had once flown on board his ship when they were over a thousand miles from any land, and of how the bird, exhausted by its long flight, allowed him to hold it in his hand and feed it with small insects taken from the decayed timbers of the ship.