"Ay," said I. "But I'm thinking we both want some practice, Robbie. We'll have no birds today, I reckon. Let's put up some cock-shy on yon rock and fire at it. There's no use shooting at the birds. We'll hit them, maybe; but we'll not kill anything, I'm feared."
So we erected a tall stone on the top of a rock, and, standing some paces from it, practised firing at the object until we could hit it, perhaps, once out of half a dozen tries. But we soon got tired of this play, and I proposed climbing up to the top of the cliffs, for all the birds seemed to be flying high.
Walking along to a broken cleft of the headland, where a burn came down from the hills through a long gorge, we turned up the ravine and mounted the heights. No sooner were we up there, however, than we found that the birds were all below us on the beach.
We were making our way up the ravine, Robbie carrying the climbing lines and I the loaded gun, when a large sea bird with wide-sweeping wings flew just over our heads. Without thinking of hitting him, but simply wishing to empty the gun of its charge in case of accident, I took aim and fired. The great bird faltered in its flight, one of its wings seemed to lose all power, and then with a circling swoop he came down with a thud upon a grassy knoll beside the stream.
It was a fine solan goose. He was quite dead when we reached him, for I had shot him under the right wing.
My good fortune excited Robbie to such a degree that he would not be satisfied without again trying a shot. So we loaded the gun once more, and about half a mile further up the glen he had the luck to knock over a small rabbit. This was the extent of our sport.
To climb up this wild and desolate glen was no easy matter, for I must tell you that St. John's Head, the summit of which we had to cross before getting back to our boat (for the tide would not allow of our return by the beach), stood above the sea to a height considerably over a thousand feet. The goose and our climbing ropes were also tiring burdens, and we had many times to take rest beside the stream and quench our thirst in its cool water. Some distance above the sea the ground became smoother, and broken rocks gave place to short heather, which was softer for our bare feet.
When at last we reached the top of the Head, and our trouble was over, we sat down on the breezy front of the hill and looked far away across the restless water, where the sea line melted into the blue haze of the Scotch coast. Nearer to us the water itself was blue, then pale green with bands of purple above beds of weed, and over all the white waves curled into foaming crests, silent to us as snow. Southward, along the cliffs, a high steeple rock--the Old Man of Hoy--stood like a sentinel guarding the coast, his head on a level with the cliff behind him; and rounding Rora Head were the brown sails of a few fishing craft making for Stromness.
"Come, Robbie," I said, when we had feasted our eyes on this scene. "Come, we must be getting home. The tide has turned this long while past, and we'll be hungry before we're back to Stromness."
We were, indeed, already somewhat hungry, and regretted we had not brought food with us instead of the climbing ropes, which had not so far been required. To think of getting anything to eat where we were was needless, for we were on the most desolate part of the Hoy island, and not a house was there for miles away.