d she
did.

The direct way to Skaill lay along an almost straight road to the
northward, by Hamla Voe and the western shores of the loch of
Stenness, past the Druid standing stones.

On this May afternoon, as I walked along the familiar road, there
was little to attract my attention. The gray stretch of water lay
still and cold, and the ploughed fields beyond it were brown and
barren. In a more southern clime every tree and bush would be, at
that season, putting forth fresh verdure, and the budding hedgerows
would be bursting into green beauty; but to me, at that period of
my life, the sweet-smelling hawthorn, the golden-fingered laburnum,
and the full, rich blossom of an apple orchard were unknown
delights. I had never yet seen a real tree, and our highest bushes
in Pomona reached scarcely to my shoulder. The land was all gray
and barren.

At the old mill of Cairston I was joined by Robbie Rosson, and,
instead of continuing by the road, we cut across country, climbing
the stone dykes and jumping over the gurgling streams. A walk of
three miles brought us to Crua Breck, a small farmhouse on the
hillside of the same name, overlooking the Pentland Firth. The
ridge tiles of this house ran precisely north and south, and it was
a superstition amongst us that this same ridge had the power of
deciding whether the north wind should blow towards the German
Ocean or the Atlantic; just as King Eric of Orkney could, in his
time, change the direction of the winds by altering the position of
his cap.

Crua Breck was at least a mile from any other house--unless,
indeed, the ruined and tenantless cottage of Inganess merited the
name. Carver Kinlay had lived there as long as I could remember;
but the fact that the fisher folks often spoke of him as a "ferry
jumper" implied that he was still regarded as a foreigner on
Orcadian soil.

I had never been inside the Crua Breck house, nor, I may say, did I
much covet a visit there, for the inmates of the farm were not
distinguished for their friendliness or hospitality, and, with the
one exception of Thora, whom I always regarded with a sense of
kindliness, and Tom, who was my class fellow, I had little
acquaintance with the family.

Had I been more warmly inclined towards them I would have gone up
to the door at once and asked for Tom, instead of sitting on the
dyke side with Rosson and waiting till he chose to come out to us.

As we sat there, however, Thora Kinlay came past us,