ce Among Three.
Chapter XLIII. Thora's Answer.
Notes.

Chapter I. In Which I Am Late For School.

On a certain bright morning in the month of May, 1843, the little
port of Stromness wore an aspect of unwonted commotion. The great
whaling fleet that every year sailed from this place for the
Greenland fisheries was busily preparing for sea. The sun was
shining over the brown hills of Orphir, and casting a golden sheen
over the calm bay. Out beyond the Holms the whaling ships lay at
anchor, the Blue Peter flying at each forepeak, and between them
and the town many boats were passing to and fro.

I remember the day, not so much in connection with the whaling
ships themselves as by the fact that their sailing fixes upon my
memory the date of other more personal events which I am about to
set forth in the following pages. Indeed, I was altogether
unaffected by the departure of the ships. As I sat on the edge of
one of the tiny stone piers that support the old houses along the
shoreline, my bare feet dangling above the clear green water, I
thought only of my fishing line and of the row of bright-scaled
sillocks that lay on a stone at my side, being quite unmindful that
the school bell had long since begun to ring.

A small boat passed within a few yards of the jetty, rowed by Tom
Kinlay, one of my schoolfellows.

"Now, then, Ericson," he cried out as he saw me; "d'ye not hear the
bell? Hurry up, lad, or you'll be late again. Aha! I'll tell the
dominie that you're sitting there fishing when you should be at the
school. Come away now, or ye'll get your licks."

Without seeming to hear his warning, I drew in my line with a good
young coal fish at the end of it, and quietly counted my catch.
There were just three-and-twenty fish, and I could not resist the
temptation of making up the even two dozen; so I baited my hook
again and cast it into the water, meditating as I did so upon
Kinlay's unnecessary interference.

Now Tom Kinlay, I must tell you, was some twelve months older than
I, and, as I had reason to remember, much taller and stronger. In
our early school days he had exercised a tyranny over me which I
even now recall with feelings partly of indignation against him,
and partly of shame in myself for having so foolishly bent under
the yoke of his oppression. When we went bathing, as we frequently
did, out on the further shores of the bay, he would not scruple to
lead us younger lads into the dee