On that evening, I remember, I spent a very happy time at the home fireside.  My uncle Mansie was there, with my father, and my mother, and Jessie.  It was almost the first occasion on which I was permitted to join in the conversation with my elders.  But the evening has ever since had a pathetic interest in my memory; for, as it turned out, it was the very last time that our family sat together in an unbroken circle.

“Ye’re gettin’ to be quite a good boatman, Hal, to gang all that way under sail,” said Mansie; and then he turned to my father, saying, “When are we to hae the lad aboard the Curlew, Sandy?”

“Weel,” replied my father, putting his great brown hand with affection upon my shoulder, “I hae been thinkin’ it was about time he joined us.  The lad has been at the school lang enough, mebbe.

“Are ye at the head o’ the class yet, Halcro?”

“Nay, father, he’s no that yet,” interposed Jessie, “for Thora is aye before him.”

“Thora can read better than I can,” I said, “and she kens mair geography.  She’s better at the Latin, too; but the dominie says I’m the best at history, and writin’, and accounts.”

“Ye’ll no need very muckle Latin to be a pilot, however,” said my father.  “But it’s a pity ye’re not better at the geography.  How many islands have we in Orkney?  Can you tell me that?”

“Seventy-two—­twenty-eight islands and forty-four holms.”

“And can ye name them all, the twenty-eight islands?”

“Yes, the dominie taught us them last Martinmas;” and I proceeded to name them, from the North Ronaldsay down to the Muckle Skerry of Pentland.

“Very good!” said my father; “and d’ye ken ony thing about the sounds?  Where’s the Sound o’ Rapness?”

“There’s a puzzle for ye, Hal,” said my mother.

“Ah!  I warrant the laddie kens it,” said Mansie.

“Is it not between Westray and Fara?” I ventured doubtfully.

“Right again!” exclaimed Mansie, slapping his knee.  “Oh! we’ll mak’ a pilot o’ the lad yet.”

“Ay,” said my father, “we maun hae him aboard the first fine day.”

“Dear me, father,” objected my mother, “d’ye really think it wise to tak’ the laddie frae the school, an’ him gettin’ on sae weel wi’ the dominie?”

“Tut, goodwife,” said he, “the laddie maun begin to learn the piloting some time; an’ the sooner the better, say I.

“Hand me over the tobacco jar, Jessie.”

Chapter XVI.  Wherein I Go A-Fishing.

A few days after the sailing of the Lydia the weather broke.  The morning mist lay heavy on the islands, and the lofty Ward Hill of Hoy hid his crown in the lowering clouds; the Bay of Stromness was glassy calm.  High above the rain goose shrieked its melancholy cry, and the sea mews and sheldrakes, even the shear waters and bonxies, flew landward to the shelter of the cliffs.  On the upland meadows the cows sniffed the moist air and refused to eat, and the young lambs sought the protection of their parents’ side.