Chapter XXV.  A Family Removal.

I was one evening walking over the heathery braes of Lyndardy, in the direction of Stromness, with my sister Jessie.  The soft breeze from across the sea played with her brown hair, which was bound by the silken snood usually worn by the Orkney girls.  A scarlet bootie shawl covered her shoulders.  In her hand she carried a basket filled with kitchen vegetables from the farm.

As we walked our attention was directed to a number of fishing boats putting out to sea, and to the slow and mournful song of the fishermen as they set out, with the creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music of their voices.  Then the red mainsails were hoisted to catch the light breeze blowing over from the region of the setting sun, and we stood and watched the boats.

But presently, as I looked further down the hillside where we were, I saw the figure of a man leaning upon a low stone wall.  He was looking across to the wild headland of Hoy, where the red beetling cliffs reflected the sunlight.

“Jessie,” I said, “is that Captain Gordon standing down there?”

Jessie turned her eyes in the direction I pointed, and her cheeks were flushed with the red light that fell upon them.

“Oh, Halcro!” she exclaimed, “I’ve forgotten to bring the butter.  We must go back to the farm.”

“Never mind, Jessie; I’ll run back for it,” I said, though I would have been glad to see the captain again.

She, however, made no objection, but let me go back to Lyndardy, while she continued her way towards Stromness.

I had been gone something like a half hour, and as I was returning, walking briskly over the heathery braes and skipping across the rippling burns, down the hillside in front of me I saw Jessie standing with Captain Gordon, and his arm was round her waist.  I stopped suddenly, wondering if I should proceed further and interrupt them.  And now I understood how it was that Jessie had forgotten the butter, and how she had so calmly agreed to my going back to the farm.  I seemed also to understand how it was that Captain Gordon had spoken so much about my sister during our drive to Kirkwall.  And with these explanations in my mind I took my way homeward by a roundabout path along the cliffs, and so passed unobserved, reaching Stromness just in time to see Jessie and the captain parting at the end of the town.

On the following day the Lydia set sail.  It pained us to see the vessel taken out of port by Carver Kinlay; but when she had rounded the Ness, Jessie and I went up to the head of the cliffs and watched the white sails over the sea, until they became a mere speck on the far horizon.  Then, as we were coming back, and I remarked the tears in Jessie’s eyes, I learned what I had already partly guessed—­that Captain Gordon had asked my sister to be his wife.