My first thought on leaving the scene of this combat was to let the
dead otter lie where it had fallen; but I remembered that young
Thora Kinlay had once in my hearing expressed a wish to have an
otter's skin, of which to make a pair of gloves, and I determined
to make use of the animal I had killed. But I could not carry both
the otter and my poor Selta, whom I had already determined to lay
to rest in the sea, and my only course was to strip the otter of
its skin then and there. This I did with help of my pocketknife,
and in spite of the heavy rain that poured in streams down my back.
You will imagine the physical discomforts of my further journey.
The ground was marshy and sodden, and I sank deep into it at every
step I took. My clothing was wet through and through, and my dog,
which I carried over my shoulder, was a burden so heavy and
inconvenient that only my love for my late companion and respect
for her lifeless body gave me sufficient strength to bear it for so
great a distance. And then the rain fell incessantly, and the wind
was full in my face.
Carver Kinlay's farm of Crua Breck was on my way to my uncle's, and
I thought I would stay there a few moments as I passed, to leave
the otter skin for Thora, and maybe get shelter and a drink of warm
milk. But not till I was almost at the door did I remember about my
recent fight with Tom.
In its exposed position on the bleak hillside the farmstead felt
the full force of the gale as it beat in fury against the front of
the house. The rain and the salt spray from the sea pelted upon the
windows, and laid low all Thora's flowers in the little garden. The
large fuchsia bush, which in summertime dangled its drooping
blossoms in rich profusion, seemed the only plant capable of
withstanding the rough blast; and the great gaunt jaws of the
Greenland whale, that formed an archway at the gate, trembled in
the tempest.
I went up to the door, and opening it stood within the shelter of
the porch for a while, and heard someone reading aloud. Soon I
gathered courage enough to approach the inner door, and look
through its little window into the room. A rousing fire of peats
and dried heather was blazing on the hearth, around which the
family were gathered in a half circle. In an armchair, with a open
book on his knee, sat Carver himself. By his side sat his wife
knitting a stocking, the firelight glinting on her fair hair. Near
to her were a ploughman and a herd boy, also a young woman who did
the light field work on the farm and milked the cows, made butter,
and helped in the house. Tom sat by the fire opposite his father,
and I could see that he was polishing with a piece of leather one
of his silver coins. Thora, whose silken hair and beautiful face I
regarded with greater satisfaction than any other feature of this
group, sat apart from the others, as though she did not care, or
had not been invited, to draw her stool nearer to the warmth.
Carver Kinlay, black bearded and hoarse of voice, was reading aloud
to his family, and seemed to be expecting from them an attention to
the Holy Word which he certainly did not sincerely give to it
himself. When he came to the end of a passage which he considered
required expounding, he would take off his reading spectacles and
wipe them with a corner of his wife's white apron.
"Now, I have explained many times before about this, bairns," he
was saying as he looked towards Thora and Tom. "It is a rule, a
golden rule, that the merest child might understand. Nothing can be
more beautiful or more important, and it just contains these few
words: 'Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.'
Now keep this precept in mind, all of you, for ye canna
misunderstand it. But, just to make the thing clear--
"Never mind the cat, Thora; just pay attention to the lesson--
"Just to make the thing clear, let us suppose an example. Now,
then, supposin', for instance, that Thora here saw a basin full o'
milk with thick cream on the top o' it, and that her teeth were
watering for just one lick. She ought to say to herself: 'Now,
here's a basin full o' good cream; I'd like fine to take one lick
of it. But it's the cream for making the butter of. Now, supposin'
I was your mother, how would I like my daughter Thora to come
and--'"
"Oh! Look, look!" cried Thora, "pussy's tail's burnin'!"
"Confound you, Thora!" exclaimed her father, angered at this
interruption. "Can you not pay attention, and let pussy mind her
own tail? I say, if you were your mother, how would you like your
daughter Thora to lick the cream?"
"Tut, goodman!" interposed Mrs. Kinlay, "what does the lass ken
about being a mother? Go on with the reading."
"Odd, goodwife, I'm but supposin' the thing; and the plainer it is
the better, and the easier to understand. However, what verse was
it, Thora?"
"It was the fourteenth you left off at," said Thora.
"Aweel, then, the fifteenth: 'Now, when he'--Odd, but I think we
read that before."
"Nay, you didna read it before, father, for it was the fourteenth
verse you left off at."
"Nay, I'm sure it couldn't be that, for I remember readin' 'Now,
when he,' before."
"But I'm sure, father, ye're wrong," persisted Thora. "Look you if
the fourteenth doesn't end with 'people,' and 'people' was the last
word you read."
"'People, people!'" said Carver, searching for the place. "Odd,
lassie, I see no 'people.' There's one verse that ends with
'people,' but it's not the fourteenth. It had been that, ye silly
lass, instead o' the fourteenth."
"Well, well, goodman, what dos't matter what verse you left off
at," said his wife. "A good tale's none the worse of being told
twice."
"Nay, but," said Thora, "just look for fun and see what the
fourteenth verse ends with."
"Fun, lassie! fun!" exclaimed Carver, as though he was seriously
shocked. "Would you speak o' fun and the Holy Scripture lying open
before you?"
"O, but, father, I had no mind. A body canna aye be minding. Look
and see not for fun, then."
"Tut, tut!" said the mother, becoming impatient, "can you not begin
at the fifteenth verse? What dos't matter if ye read it before?"
"Aweel, then, the fifteenth verse, 'Now, when he'"--
"Listen, father!" cried Thora, again interrupting, "did you not
hear something?"
"Well did I hear something, and I hear it yet--the rain pelting on
the window. I'm sure you've heard it this two hours and more."
"Nay, but it was like something twirling at the handle of the
door."
"You hear things nobody else hears, Thora. Who could be at the door
on a day like this? You just think you hear things. I was sure
'people' was not the last word."
Carver listened, however, for a time. The rain beat harder than
ever on the windows, and from the neighbouring cliffs came the
sound of the waves like a rumbling of distant thunder. But as he
looked up from his book I knocked gently on the door.
"Who's there?" he asked in a gruff tone that had in it no echo of
charity.
Thora rose from her seat and came towards the door, where I stood
in a stream of water that ran from my wet clothes.
"Oh, Halcro!" she exclaimed as she looked down at my cold, bare
feet and saw the blood issuing from the wound in my ankle. "Oh,
Halcro, what has happened?" and she opened wide the door to admit
me.
"What does the lad want here?" asked Carver.
I had never been asked such a question before. I had been
accustomed to go about the island all my boyhood, and to walk in at
any door I came to with the assurance that no person would question
me as to what I wanted. At length, without going further than the
threshold, I said:
"I was thinking you would give me shelter for a short time on a day
like this."
"On a day like this," replied he, "none but a fool would think of
travelling; and if it's shelter you're seeking here, young Ericson,
I say no!" and the unfeeling "No" was echoed by all the others in
the room, with one exception. That exception was Thora.
I saw the girl's hands quickly clench when she heard this unkind
dismissal, and in her blue eyes the tears welled up and stole
gently down her fair cheeks.
I felt that the "No" could be easily withstood, but the tears in
Thora's eyes overcame me. I gave her a look of thanks, closed the
door behind me, and again faced the storm, first going round to the
back of the house to take up in my arms the body of my poor dog. I
hung up the otter's skin on a hook in the byre, where I believed
Thora would discover it, and so make what use of it she might.
I carried the dog still further, however. Taking it down to a small
creek that gave entrance to the seashore, I came to a rock that was
washed by the deep waters, and here I tied a large stone around
Selta's neck and silently lowered the body into the sea, where the
great waves of the Atlantic murmured a solemn requiem.
Then, regaining the top of the cliff, I stood for a time looking
seaward, where the curling waves swept in from the west and dashed
with terrible strength against the hard rocks of granite. There was
no sail to be seen as far as my sight could penetrate through the
driving rain mists; but I knew that the storm would be fatal to
many a brave fisherman and sailor, and many a strong-built ship.
My sad thoughts and the noise of the breakers so much absorbed me
that I felt conscious of nothing so much as my utter loneliness.
But as I stood there in my wretchedness, suddenly a hand was laid
gently on my shoulder, and I looked round, to see Thora at my side,
with a great cloak thrown about her, and her hair streaming in the
wind.
"Halcro," she said, "it is not this way I can see you turned from
my father's door in the rain and the wind, and with that wound in
your foot. Pm sorry he spoke to you like that, for I'm sure you'll
be tired and weary.
"I have brought you some oatcake--see. Eat it, while I mend your
foot."
Then she knelt down before me on the wet, mossy rock, took a piece
of clean linen from under the cloak that covered her, and wiped
clean my wound. With her fingers she gently drew over the torn
skin, and taking another piece of white cloth bandaged it neatly
round my ankle.
While she was so employed I informed her of my fight with the otter
and the loss of my dog, and her gentle sympathy was sweet to my
troubled spirit. And then I told her where she might find the
otter's skin, and how she should make use of it.
"There, now," she said, putting a pin through the bandage and
rising to her feet, "that will serve till you get home."
"It's real kind of you to do this for me, Thora," I said, touched
by the girl's tenderness, "and I will not forget this. No, not as
long as I live;" and I think there was a tremor in my voice--at
least I felt what I said.
"But," I continued, "what will they say to you at Crua Breck, if
they hear you have done this thing?"
"Halcro, I have done nothing but what I have been told to do.
Before you knocked at the door, my father was saying we should aye
'do as we'd be done by.' In that I have obeyed him. But I must run
back now, or they will miss me. See you give care to the foot. Fare
ye well!"
And with that she hastened back to the farm, leaving me to ponder
over her manner of applying that golden rule which her father had,
while teaching it, so grievously failed to practise.
I made my way onward to Lyndardy--sadly, it is true, but with a
strange new feeling in my heart for this blue-eyed maiden who, in
defiance of her family, had helped me in my weariness and distress.
A short distance from the place where Thora left me, I came to the
ruined cottage of Inganess. As I approached I heard a click-clicking
noise, by which I surmised there was some person within the ruined
walls. A dog came out to meet me at the door, wagging its tail in
welcome. It was the very counterpart of my own dead Selta, and I
knew well whom to expect in the cottage even before I entered.
Seated on the floor under shelter of a part of the roof that had
not fallen in, was an old man, with locks of silver hair appearing
under his blue bonnet, and hanging with a curl about his neck. The
clicking sound I had heard proceeded from a flint and the back of a
knife, with which the old man was endeavouring to strike a light to
kindle the little pile of faded heather that lay in a corner. When
I looked in he raised his eyes and said with surprise:
"Ah! Halcro, lad. Travelling on a day like this? Why, ye're as wet
as myself. But come in, come in here. It's a poor house; but ye're
real welcome. And where's your dog?"
I was downcast at this question, for it was this same old man
before me--this Colin Lothian, the wandering beggar--who had given
Selta to me, and the dog that was with him was Selta's brother.
"Colin," I asked, when I had told him of my dog's death, "why is it
you come to this poor place for shelter when every house in the
Mainland is open to you? Why do you not go to my uncle's at
Lyndardy?"
"Weel, ye see, lad, I dinna mind where I gang. One place is as good
as another, and this is very well in a shower of rain. I was west
at Crua Breck when the rain came on sae heavy; and I hae been here
these twa hours tryin' to strike a light, but ye see the tinder's
wet--
"Try you if ye can do it, lad;" and the old man handed me the
flint.
"Aweel, then," he continued, "I opened the door at Crua Breck, just
as I would open any door in Orkney, be it rich or poor. But wad
they let me in, think ye? Na, na. Carver was sittin' yonder, as he
aye does on the rainy days, when there's nae gettin' aboot the
farm, preachin' away before a bonnie fire. But the auld hypocrite
wouldna let me in. What cares he for the Holy Word? If it werena
for his goodwife, he'd never open the Scriptures. Ay, but it's a
lang while he'll be preachin' any good into yon blackguard son o'
his. There's not a house of harder hearts in all the Mainland than
Crua Breck. They all take after Carver; ilka body o' them, except
peerie Thora."
"Yes," I said feelingly, "Thora's kinder than all the rest."
"Kinder! Ay is she. She's no' like ane o' the same family. I mind
ae stormy night in the last winter, when Carver had shut the door
in my face, Thora cam' after me and, 'Colin,' says she, 'come away
here, and I'll gie ye a bed in the byre;' and with that she took me
in among the kine and gied me some oaten bannocks and a flagon o'
warm milk. And then she made up a bed upon the hay, wi' a good warm
plaid to wrap mysel' in. 'See there, now, Colin,' says she. 'Rest
ye here, and I'll let ye out before my father rises i' the
mornin'.' Now wasna that kindness for ye, Halcro?"
"Ay, Colin, that was just like wee Thora."
Whilst Colin was telling me these things I was busy trying to
kindle the fire; but try as I would, it could not be done.
"Oh, never mind the fire, Colin!" I said. "Just come along wi' me
to my uncle's farm at Lyndardy. Ye'll get good shelter and food
there. That's far better than staying in this ruined place."
So the old man got up on his feet, and we walked together to the
farm.
My sister Jessie, who frequently came up to Lyndardy to stay over
the Sabbath, was in the kitchen when we arrived, and while we were
drying our clothes before the fire she got some good warm broth
ready for us, and some new-made scones.
Over our meal I told Jessie of my adventure with the otter, and the
death of my dog. She wanted to dress my ankle again, but Thora had
bound it up so skilfully that there was nothing more to be done.
"I wonder that the otter should bite you like that, Halcro," Jessie
said. "Why, I thought the old viking's stone was to save ye frae
the like o' that!"
I had myself wondered at the same circumstance.
"Ah! but, Jessie," I said, suddenly comforting myself with an
excuse for the apparent failure of the charm, "Mr. Drever didna
tell me that the stone would be o' any use against such a beast as
an otter."
"No, I ken that. But did he not say it would protect ye from all
harm? Surely an otter shouldna be left out o' the reckoning."
But here Colin Lothian, to whom the virtues of the viking's
talisman had been explained, suggested that I perhaps needed to
have some secret communication with the stone in my own mind--that
I perhaps needed to think of the charm at the very moment of
danger, and to call upon it for aid. He had heard of such things,
he said.
This explanation appeared to me very reasonable, and with the
suggestion in my mind I determined, should I ever have another
opportunity, to put it in practice.
Such an opportunity presented itself sooner than I could have
expected.