But I did not pass my hours in idleness.  Whenever an outward-bound ship came into the harbour I sought her captain, and asked for a berth aboard.  Sometimes I would even walk as far as Kirkwall to see if in that port I could get what was so difficult to procure in Stromness.

One cold, wintry day, when the wind was blowing strong and cutting from the north, I found myself in Kirkwall.  Walking along the wharf, looking down upon the decks of the vessels that lay against the old stone quay—­brigs, barques, and schooners, some of them bound foreign, but most of them from Scotland—­I came to a little coasting schooner that I had often seen in the harbour of Stromness.  She was named the Falcon.  I was looking down at the green copper plating near her cutwater, when I heard a gruff but cheery voice calling out: 

“Hullo! there, young Ericson!  Are ye not coming aboard, lad?”

“Hello, Davie!” I responded, jumping down upon the deck.  “Here’s a cold day for ye, eh?”

He was a little, thick-set man, with a rippled, weatherbeaten face.  He wore a dirty, red, knitted cap, from which escaped a few curls of iron-gray hair.  A short pea jacket was closely buttoned over his chest, and a pair of immense sea boots reached high above his knees.

This was David Flett, the same jovial old mariner who, it will be remembered, warned me against the Jew on Stromness quay.  He removed a short black pipe from his lips as I joined him near the companionway.

“Have ye walked from Stromness the day?” he asked.  “Ay, lad, but ye’ll be tired, I doubt.  Come away below to the fire and warm yersel’.”

And he led the way down the ladder and into a close little cabin, where a rousing wood fire was burning under a good pot of potatoes.

Captain Flett had spent most of his early days at the Greenland whale fishing, but he had now settled down upon his own quarterdeck to make a comfortable living for himself by helping others; providing for the Orkney islanders, what they much needed, a market of exchange for their native commodities.

The Falcon was called a cargo packet; but David Flett was a man of singular enterprise, and styled himself a general merchant.  He had, indeed, become quite an important trader in his own way by speculating in quantities of seemingly worthless goods, and reserving them until time gave him a chance of disposing of them at a profit.

If a farmer in Ronaldsay told him he was badly in want of a plough or a pony the skipper would speedily find a farmer in another island who had a plough or a pony to sell, and by thus bringing buyer and seller together he made himself a friend to both.  Nothing was out of Flett’s way.  He had a genius for commerce.  He would buy an old anchor or a piece of sailcloth from someone in want of ready money, and keep them in the hold of his schooner till he could find a customer in some skipper whose anchor had been slipped or whose sails were in need of repair.  I believe he made it his business to find out exactly what every person in Orkney was most in need of, and straightway to set about getting it.