“I found him up at the dominie’s,” she explained.

And then she held out her hand to Mr. Gordon.

“Fare ye well, Captain Gordon!” she said; “fare ye well, and a good voyage to you!”

And she glided past him into the house.

“Was the lass speakin’ wi’ you, skipper?” asked my father.

“Yes,” said Gordon.  “She was telling me that my barque’s masts are too high.”

“Ay! but it’s no’ sae often that she’ll speak wi’ a man.  She’s a blate lass wi’ maist folk.  But what kens she about a vessel’s masts, I wonder?”

My father, with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, then stepped down to the jetty and looked through the darkness towards the Lydia.

“Ay, but I’m no that sure about it either, Skipper.  The masts are higher than ordinary.  But ye’ll come ben the house and smoke a pipe, maybe?”

“Thank you, pilot, I don’t mind—­just for a half hour before I go out to the ship.”

My father thereupon led the way within, and placed an easy chair for Mr. Gordon under the large hurricane lamp that hung from the low ceiling, and cast its yellow light about the room.  The skipper glanced rapidly at the dark, old-fashioned furniture, at the high-backed chairs, cushioned with the skins of seals, the strong teak-wood sideboard, and the heavy round table, upon which stood a quaint Dutch spirit bottle and a couple of horn drinking cups.  He looked at the several pictures of ships battling with terrible storms, and at the pensive porcupine in its dusty glass case, and then at the array of firearms and harpoons above the door of the press bed.  My dog Selta lay sound asleep upon a large polar-bear skin before the fire.  Had he approached her and looked up the wide chimney he might have seen there the remains of our winter stock of smoked geese and hams hanging in the midst of the “reek.”

“I suppose you have been sailing foreign a good deal in your time, pilot?” said Mr. Gordon, when he was seated.

He had got this notion, no doubt, from having observed the many foreign ornaments and weapons about the room.

“No,” said my father, “I hae never been abroad.  All my life has been spent in the Mainland.”

“You mean Scotland—­the mainland of Scotland?” said the captain, not seeming to understand the meaning of the “Mainland,” which I may here explain is our local name for Pomona island—­the largest of the Orkneys.

“No, I didna mean Scotland, skipper—­though, to be sure, I hae been over there many a time.  We call this the Mainland, where we are just now.  Many folks make the same mistake about that.  I mind of a skipper named Jock Abernethy.  Jock had a brig o’ his ain, though he kent naething aboot navigation, whatever.  Weel, a lang while past it is noo, he was takin’ his brig frae Portree, in Skye, across to the West Indies.  His crew was nae better nor himsel’.  Weel, when they had been at sea twa or three months, Jock cam on deck ae mornin’, and, ‘Donald,’ says he to his mate, ’d’ye not see land yonder to starboard?’