“Ou, ay, ther isna ower muckle tae back an’ fill on, but A’am thenkin’ we’ll juist hae to bestir wersells an’ see if we canna get some breakfas’. Has ony ane got ony matches?”
It presently appeared that of these simple yet invaluable little adjuncts to civilization there was not one among the crowd. But even this grim discovery appeared to make no great impression, and presently the mate, a tall man from Auchtermuchty, with an expressionless face and a voice like “a coo’s,” as he was wont to say, remarked casually—
“If ye’ll scatther aboot an’ see fat ye can fine tae cuik, I’se warrant ye Aa’ll get ye some fire tae cuik it wi’.”
No one spoke another word, but silently they separated for their quest, leaving Mr. Lowrie, with his blank face, methodically rummaging among the débris. Presently he sat down quietly with a piece of flat board before him about two feet long by six inches wide. In his hand he held a piece of broomstick, which in some mysterious way had got included in the flotsam. This he whittled at one end into a blunt point, carefully saving the cuttings in his trousers pocket. Then with a steady movement of his stick he commenced to chafe a groove lengthways in the board, adding occasionally a pinch of grit from the ground to assist friction.
By-and-by there was quite a little heap of brown wood-dust collected at one end of the groove. Then getting on his knees and grasping his broom-stick-piece energetically in both hands, he pushed it to and fro in the groove with all his force and speed, until suddenly he flung away the stick, and stooping over the little pile of dust, he covered it tenderly with both hands hollowed, and bending his head over it breathed upon it most gently. And by imperceptible degrees there arose from it a slender spiral of smoke.
His right hand stole to his pocket, and fetched therefrom a few slivers of wood, which he coyly introduced under the shelter of his other hand, until suddenly the Red Flower blossomed—there was fire. Now it only needed feeding to rise gloriously into that gloomy air. To this end Mr. Lowrie worked like a Chinaman, until within an hour he had a pile of burning driftwood, four feet high and fully six feet round, sending up ruddy tongues of flame and a column of smoke like a palm tree.
One by one the adventurers returned with dour faces, empty-handed save for a sea-bird’s egg or two, a few fronds of seaweed which the bearers insisted was “dulse” (the edible fucus), and a brace of birds that looked scarcely enough to furnish an appetizer for one. But just as a stray sunbeam darted down upon the little gathering, while they huddled round the grateful warmth, there was a hoarse shout. All started, for it was the skipper’s voice roaring—
“C’way here an’ lend a han’, ye louns. Fat’r ye aal shtannin there toasting yer taes fur like a pickle o’ weans juist waitin’ on yer mithers tae cry on ye tae come ben fur yer breakfas’?”
The men at once obeyed the familiar command, finding the skipper and the cook wrestling with a huge case, that was so stoutly built that not a plank of it had come adrift. When they had man-handled it over the rugged ground to within reach of the warmth the skipper said—
“Ah divna ken fats intilt, bit Ah min fine that Mester Broon, fan he shipped it, said it wis somethin’ Ah wis tae tak unco care o’. And so ’twis lasht under th’ s’loon table. C’wa, le’s open’t; please God ther may be somethin’ useful inside o’t.”