ing his sleepy
eyes.

"What's all the row, Peter?" said he.

"Ah! Flett, it's you, eh?" said the lieutenant politely. "I'm sorry
to trouble you on such a cold night; I did not recognize your
schooner in the dark. But we have strict orders, you know. There's
a lot of it going on, and we must search you. A mere matter of
form, of course. You won't object?"

"Nay, I don't object, Mr. Fox. Search away," said David, turning to
go below.

A hurried search was made accordingly, but nothing suggesting
contraband traffic being discovered, the revenue men went away
perfectly satisfied, the lieutenant wishing us a goodnight, and
requesting us to keep the affair a secret when we arrived in
Stromness.

Early on the next day we touched at St. Margaret's Hope--one of the
chief fishing stations of Orkney--and our course thereafter lay
along the eastern shores of the Mainland.

Long and dreary was the passage northward from Ronaldsay to
Stronsay. The cold, frosty winds and weary, dark nights, made the
long watches on deck difficult to endure; but when my turn was
over, and I could get below to the fire, I generally forgot about
the hardships, and began to think that life at sea was really not
unpleasant.

Captain Flett tried to make my position comfortable and my work
agreeable, and sometimes when I was on deck with him at night, he
would remain by me smoking, and make the time pass lightly by
telling me of his early experiences in the Dundee whaling ships; or
more often he would instruct me in seamanship, and teach me
regarding the tides and channels of Orkney.

Thus during this voyage among the islands was the weariness of many
a night watch relieved. There was something to be told of almost
every place at which the Falcon touched. Often the talk would turn
upon the subject of wrecks, and of the wreckers who inhabited the
storm-swept islands, and were not above welcoming a shipwreck for
the sake of the valuable spoil they might procure.

Anchored off a little port in Sanday, David told me of a minister
who, while professing to deplore the frequency of shipwrecks on the
coast, ended a prayer by saying:

"Nevertheless, if it please Thee to cause helpless ships to be cast
on the shore, oh, dinna forget the poor island of Sanday."

We pursued our tortuous course as far north as a place called
Pierowall, in the island of Westray; when we found that there was
need to continue the voyage still further to Fair Isle, a little