see if I could get some work. My mother's
sorely needin' help now, ye ken, since father was drowned, and I
maun be doing something."

"Ay, ye're right there, lad; ye're right there. But what kind o'
work were ye seekin'?"

"I carena what it be, if it's just work," I replied. "But I was
thinkin' I'd go in one o' the Kirkwall ships if there was one
wantin' a lad."

"Weel, that's just most amazing!" exclaimed Flett, dipping his hand
into the dish and bringing forth another steaming potato. "For our
lad, Jack, has taken a strange misliking to the Falcon, and run
away to a bigger ship.

"Jerry," he asked, turning to the seaman, "did ye hear onything o'
young Jack this mornin'?"

"Ay," said Jerry. "He sailed yestreen in the Foaming Wave, the lazy
rascal."

"We'll need a lad in his place then," said Peter. "Could Ericson
come aboard when we're round in Stromness?"

"Ye see, Ericson," said the skipper, looking kindly at me and
casting another slice of meat on my platter, "Ye see the Falcon's
but a wee slip o' a craft, considerin'. But maybe ye'd get along
wi' us weel enough till a better offers. So, if ye like, Jerry
here'll make up a bunk to ye, and I'll see that your mother, puir
soul, doesna want for onything. Sandy Ericson was a good man, as
everybody kens, and his widow maun be cared for."

Now this unexpected offer of employment was a thing that I had
reason to be very grateful for, as I did not neglect to show. While
wishing, with true Orcadian love of the sea, to sail for foreign
countries in one of the large vessels I had so often seen in the
haven of Stromness, I yet believed that there was no place in all
the world like the Orkney Islands--no cliffs so high, no sea so
blue, no homes so dear--and this new possibility of sailing with
Davie Flett in the Falcon among our own islands was more agreeable
to me, since it would not necessitate any very long absence from my
home, three weeks or a month being the usual extent of the voyage.

Before I left the schooner that afternoon, therefore, the matter
was fully arranged. The Falcon was to be round in Stromness Bay in
a few days' time, and I was then to join her.

Passing through Finstown on my way home, I was overtaken by Oliver
Gray's man in the inn gig. He gave me a lift as far as Stenness,
and thence I hurried to Lyndardy to tell my mother the joyful news.

For the next few days, whilst my mother and Jessie were occupied
with the business of providing som