ached the top of the Head, and our trouble was
over, we sat down on the breezy front of the hill and looked far
away across the restless water, where the sea line melted into the
blue haze of the Scotch coast. Nearer to us the water itself was
blue, then pale green with bands of purple above beds of weed, and
over all the white waves curled into foaming crests, silent to us
as snow. Southward, along the cliffs, a high steeple rock--the Old
Man of Hoy--stood like a sentinel guarding the coast, his head on a
level with the cliff behind him; and rounding Rora Head were the
brown sails of a few fishing craft making for Stromness.

"Come, Robbie," I said, when we had feasted our eyes on this scene.
"Come, we must be getting home. The tide has turned this long while
past, and we'll be hungry before we're back to Stromness."

We were, indeed, already somewhat hungry, and regretted we had not
brought food with us instead of the climbing ropes, which had not
so far been required. To think of getting anything to eat where we
were was needless, for we were on the most desolate part of the Hoy
island, and not a house was there for miles away.

The walk back along the ridge of the cliffs was easy, the ground
sloping downward in our favour. About a mile further on we came to
the cliffs below which our boat was moored. But, alas! we had been
sadly out in our reckoning. The boat was afloat, deep down there,
tugging desperately at her rope and grinding her sides against a
rock. To get down to her was now a problem. From our high position
we could see how the tide had risen well above the rocks by which
we had climbed from one bay to the other, and our only course was
to descend by the steep precipice surrounding the creek wherein the
boat was moored. There was no possible way down except by the use
of the ropes, and this was an extremely difficult and dangerous
undertaking, for the cliffs rose fully three hundred feet in
height, and our lines, of which we had two, would scarcely, when
joined together, measure more than half that length. For we used
them for the cliffs of Pomona, which are not in any place so high
as those of Hoy.

We had a long consultation first, as to which of us should make the
descent. Robbie offered to go down, as he was the lighter weight
and I the stronger for holding the upper end of the rope. Yet I was
a little afraid of letting him undertake so difficult an adventure,
being conscious that he had had less