The Pilots of Pomona | Page 6

Leith" painted on her counter.
"Yonder is father, and there is Uncle Mansie," said Jessie, as the two men climbed over the ship's rail and swarmed down into the boat. Then up went the brown sail, and the little Curlew sped blithely past the whaling ships and across the broad bay, and it was not long ere she was moored alongside our jetty and father stepped ashore.
My father was a tall, muscular man, with a long, fair beard, and blue eyes as clear and deep as the summer sky. He was a worthy representative of the old Norse sea king, from whom he was descended, and his descent was shown in his great love of the sea. He was the chief pilot of the port of Stromness, and no man knew so well as he all the dangerous currents and shoals of the Orcadian seas. There was not a flow or a sound between the North and South Ronaldsays, or from Bore Head in the west to the Start in the east that he did not know as well as the eagle knows her corrie, or which he could not navigate on the darkest night. The perils of the whirlpools, of the sunken rocks, and of the wild winter storms which beat in fury upon our iron coasts, were part of his life; and I have heard it said that he had saved more ships from destruction than any other man in Orkney or Shetland. If you had asked anyone in Stromness, What man in all Pomona could least be spared? the reply would have been given, "Sandy Ericson, the pilot."
I need not say that for these reasons I was proud of my brave father. But it was not from him I learned these things, for he would never say a word in his own praise, and, had I not heard of his hardy bravery from other lips, he might have been to me no more than the gentle, affectionate parent that he ever was.
We left the four men who were the crew of the Curlew to look after the boat, while Uncle Mansie and father came into the house to dinner.
When, being the youngest of the family, I had said grace and we were supping our brose, Uncle Mansie looked over to me and asked: "Well, Hal, are you coming out in the Curlew with us to see the whaling ships away?"
I replied in true Orkney fashion by asking another question:
"How far are you to take them?"
Mansie turned to father, who said: "Och, we'll take them as far as the Braga Rock anyway. If you'll come wi' us, Hal, we'll stow you snugly in the bow o' the Curlew, and you'll get a fine sail. What's an Orkney lad, whatever, if he's not to have a taste o' the dangers o' the sea? There's more for him to do than daunder about the hillside with a trout wand over his shoulder."
"'Deed, I dinna ken about that, father," said my mother, helping me to a plateful of fried sillocks. "If it's danger you're wantin' the laddie to seek, he's seen o'er many dangers already, I'm thinking. It's nearly drowned he was, only a week ago, in the Barra Flow, swimming out after a dog that wasna worth the saving; and I have seen him mysel' dangling over the Breckness cliffs, like a spider, at the end of a rope I would not have trusted to hang Lucky Drever's cat with! Danger, forsooth! the laddie is always in danger."
It was like my mother to object to my taking to the sea, even for the pleasure of a sail. Although she well knew that it was the only life open to an Orkney lad, yet she was ever anxious to delay its beginning, and at these words from her my father did not urge me further, but quietly watched me as I rose from the table and took from a rack over the window a small harpoon, the sharp point of which I tested by pressing it against my thumb.
"Oh, there's a lad!" exclaimed Jessie. "Off to the sealing when he might have a fine sail in the Curlew. I wish I could get such a chance."
"All right, lad!" interrupted my father. "Away with you to the sealing. You'll get many another chance of a sail. Who's going with you?"
"Robbie Rosson and Willie Hercus and--" I added with some hesitation, "Tom Kinlay," for I knew my father did not entirely approve of Tom as a companion.
"Kinlay again?" he muttered, knitting his brows. "I would advise you not to go with that lad so often. But then you dinna ken what his father is, I suppose."
It was seldom that I heard my father speak an ill word against any man. I did not ask