“Aweel, then,” he continued, “I opened the door at Crua Breck, just as I would open any door in Orkney, be it rich or poor.  But wad they let me in, think ye?  Na, na.  Carver was sittin’ yonder, as he aye does on the rainy days, when there’s nae gettin’ aboot the farm, preachin’ away before a bonnie fire.  But the auld hypocrite wouldna let me in.  What cares he for the Holy Word?  If it werena for his goodwife, he’d never open the Scriptures.  Ay, but it’s a lang while he’ll be preachin’ any good into yon blackguard son o’ his.  There’s not a house of harder hearts in all the Mainland than Crua Breck.  They all take after Carver; ilka body o’ them, except peerie Thora.”

“Yes,” I said feelingly, “Thora’s kinder than all the rest.”

“Kinder!  Ay is she.  She’s no’ like ane o’ the same family.  I mind ae stormy night in the last winter, when Carver had shut the door in my face, Thora cam’ after me and, ‘Colin,’ says she, ’come away here, and I’ll gie ye a bed in the byre;’ and with that she took me in among the kine and gied me some oaten bannocks and a flagon o’ warm milk.  And then she made up a bed upon the hay, wi’ a good warm plaid to wrap mysel’ in.  ‘See there, now, Colin,’ says she.  ’Rest ye here, and I’ll let ye out before my father rises i’ the mornin’.’  Now wasna that kindness for ye, Halcro?”

“Ay, Colin, that was just like wee Thora.”

Whilst Colin was telling me these things I was busy trying to kindle the fire; but try as I would, it could not be done.

“Oh, never mind the fire, Colin!” I said.  “Just come along wi’ me to my uncle’s farm at Lyndardy.  Ye’ll get good shelter and food there.  That’s far better than staying in this ruined place.”

So the old man got up on his feet, and we walked together to the farm.

My sister Jessie, who frequently came up to Lyndardy to stay over the Sabbath, was in the kitchen when we arrived, and while we were drying our clothes before the fire she got some good warm broth ready for us, and some new-made scones.

Over our meal I told Jessie of my adventure with the otter, and the death of my dog.  She wanted to dress my ankle again, but Thora had bound it up so skilfully that there was nothing more to be done.

“I wonder that the otter should bite you like that, Halcro,” Jessie said.  “Why, I thought the old viking’s stone was to save ye frae the like o’ that!”

I had myself wondered at the same circumstance.

“Ah! but, Jessie,” I said, suddenly comforting myself with an excuse for the apparent failure of the charm, “Mr. Drever didna tell me that the stone would be o’ any use against such a beast as an otter.”

“No, I ken that.  But did he not say it would protect ye from all harm?  Surely an otter shouldna be left out o’ the reckoning.”

But here Colin Lothian, to whom the virtues of the viking’s talisman had been explained, suggested that I perhaps needed to have some secret communication with the stone in my own mind—­that I perhaps needed to think of the charm at the very moment of danger, and to call upon it for aid.  He had heard of such things, he said.