sport it would have
afforded me had I been still a schoolboy!

On a certain fine morning, soon after the holidays commenced, I was
very busily employed at the work of helping in our sheep
shearing--not that I myself ventured to handle the shears; my part
in the business was simply to carry the wool into the loft, and to
assist in bringing out the sheep from the pens as the shearers
required them. My mother, who had been born and brought up on
Lyndardy farm, was, however, an expert hand at sheep-shearing, and
I believe there was no other woman in the whole parish of Stromness
who could do the work with such speed and neatness.

I was admiring the skill with which she stripped a sheep of its
fleece, and standing near her at the same time, with a black-faced
ewe between my knees, ready to pass the animal to her when she was
ready for it. Letting the shorn ewe escape, she stood up and looked
over the moorland in the direction of Stromness.

"Hullo! here's some stranger coming up the brae," she said, shading
her eyes with her hand. "Who in the world can it be, Halcro? Surely
it's not the dominie?"

But the dominie it was. He came up to where we were at work, and
sat upon a heathery knoll near my mother, with whom he engaged in
some ordinary gossip.

"But," said he, after a while, "it was Halcro himself that I came
up to see."

"Me!" I said. "What can ye want to see me about, Mr. Drever?"

"To tell you that I'm to gang to Edinburgh," he replied.

"To Edinburgh!" I exclaimed, wondering what his mission could be.

"Ay, Halcro, I'm to be there for a few weeks, partly on pleasure
and partly on business, concerning our auld friend Jarl Haffling.
The museum folk there are anxious to have the viking's treasure,
and I hae gotten permission to deal wi' them in the matter. I dinna
ken what money they will gie me for the things; but, ye see,
whatever it be, Halcro, a third part of it will come to Hercus and
Rosson and yersel', to be divided among ye. Do ye agree to that?
Will ye trust me to transact the business for ye?"

"Oh, certainly, sir. But surely it's ower muckle trouble to put you
to?" I said.

"Trouble! Dinna think o' trouble, lad. Why, these auld coins and
things hae been mair pleasure to me than I can tell; for, look ye,
all the time I hae had the keeping o' them, I hae been studying
them; and--and, Halcro, I hae even written a little book about Jarl
Haffling's grave, and I shouldna be surprised though that boo