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.

Hard was the struggle that we had at home, after the first weeks of
mourning and grief that followed the loss of my father and uncle.
We had now no regular source of income, beyond the few shillings