The ship that my father had just brought into port was a trim barque, with high, tapering masts and a bright-green hull.

“What’s her name, Hal?” inquired Jessie as the vessel was brought to.

I had accustomed myself to make out ships’ names at great distances, and as the barque swung round with the stream I could read the words “Lydia of Leith” painted on her counter.

“Yonder is father, and there is Uncle Mansie,” said Jessie, as the two men climbed over the ship’s rail and swarmed down into the boat.  Then up went the brown sail, and the little Curlew sped blithely past the whaling ships and across the broad bay, and it was not long ere she was moored alongside our jetty and father stepped ashore.

My father was a tall, muscular man, with a long, fair beard, and blue eyes as clear and deep as the summer sky.  He was a worthy representative of the old Norse sea king, from whom he was descended, and his descent was shown in his great love of the sea.  He was the chief pilot of the port of Stromness, and no man knew so well as he all the dangerous currents and shoals of the Orcadian seas.  There was not a flow or a sound between the North and South Ronaldsays, or from Bore Head in the west to the Start in the east that he did not know as well as the eagle knows her corrie, or which he could not navigate on the darkest night.  The perils of the whirlpools, of the sunken rocks, and of the wild winter storms which beat in fury upon our iron coasts, were part of his life; and I have heard it said that he had saved more ships from destruction than any other man in Orkney or Shetland.  If you had asked anyone in Stromness, What man in all Pomona could least be spared? the reply would have been given, “Sandy Ericson, the pilot.”

I need not say that for these reasons I was proud of my brave father.  But it was not from him I learned these things, for he would never say a word in his own praise, and, had I not heard of his hardy bravery from other lips, he might have been to me no more than the gentle, affectionate parent that he ever was.

We left the four men who were the crew of the Curlew to look after the boat, while Uncle Mansie and father came into the house to dinner.

When, being the youngest of the family, I had said grace and we were supping our brose, Uncle Mansie looked over to me and asked:  “Well, Hal, are you coming out in the Curlew with us to see the whaling ships away?”

I replied in true Orkney fashion by asking another question: 

“How far are you to take them?”

Mansie turned to father, who said:  “Och, we’ll take them as far as the Braga Rock anyway.  If you’ll come wi’ us, Hal, we’ll stow you snugly in the bow o’ the Curlew, and you’ll get a fine sail.  What’s an Orkney lad, whatever, if he’s not to have a taste o’ the dangers o’ the sea?  There’s more for him to do than daunder about the hillside with a trout wand over his shoulder.”