h?"

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.

A Hoy crofter once said to his master (whether in jest or earnest I
know not):

"Eh, sir, but Flett's a wonderfu' man. I thought I had met wi' a
sore misfortune, twa months syne, when I lost both my cow and my
wife over the cliffs; but I went to Davie, and he has gotten me a
far better cow and a far bonnier wife."

David Flett's habits were well k