"Are you going on to Stromness? If so, I will walk along with you. That's a fine bird you're carrying. What do you call it?"
"A hen harrier, sir. My dog caught it over on the moor. Is that your barque lying in the bay, sir, the Lydia?"
"Ay; she's a rakish craft, isn't she? We're sailing again in the morning for South America. Do you think we shall have a fair wind, my lad?"
"Yes, if it does not veer round too much to the westward."
"You appear to have studied the weather," he said.
"Yes," I answered. "In Stromness we all notice the wind, and father has taught me to know all the signs of the weather."
"Then your father is a fisherman, I suppose?" he remarked, as he turned to walk down the brae with me.
"Father's a pilot," I said. "I'm Sandy Ericson's lad."
"Ericson! Ah! I know Ericson. He's a splendid fellow, a regular Norseman, in fact."
And then he proceeded to praise my father as I had so often before heard him praised, and with all of which I did not venture to disagree.