"And now, my lad," said Flett, blowing a hot potato that he held in his horny hand, "what brings ye all the way to Kirkwall on a cold day like this? Ye didna tell us that."
"Well, captain," I said, looking down at my platter and wondering how I could eat its plentiful contents, hungry though I was, "I just sauntered along to 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.