"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."