Jessie, however, had no need to go and tell the crew to get ready, for she had hardly turned away when my uncle Mansie and the men hurried down the jetty and sprang into the Curlew.
The day was so fine and bright that my heart yearned for a sail in the boat, and I was about to ask my father if I might go out with him, when he forestalled me by ordering me to be seated among the ropes in the bow.
The quietude of the Sabbath was now changed to bustle and excitement. The oars and rowlocks were put in place, the sail made ready for hoisting, and soon all was trim and ready to start.
My father's pilot boat, the Curlew, was strongly built and of great breadth of beam. It was of a pattern and rig peculiar to the Orkneys, much after the fashion of a whaling boat, and called a "sixter," from having a crew of six men. It was propelled by either sail or oars, as either was most convenient, but the Orcadian boatmen never employed the oars when the sail could be used.
The boat's crew was a picked one, and seldom could six finer men be seen together. The skipper, my father, was himself a picture of manly strength, handsome and agile. His father and grandfather had been pilots; the latter, indeed, had been the chief pilot of Stromness in the year 1780, when Captain Cook's ships, the Discovery and the Resolution, lay in the harbour on their return from the South Seas.
My father's shipmates, as he called them, were also fine stalwart men, each of them competent to take the skipper's place, but each willing to sacrifice anything for Sandy Ericson. My uncle Mansie was mate, and sat forward in the bow. The stroke oar was usually taken by Tom Hercus, a man of singular daring. Willie Slater was an old whaler, who could stand any hardships with perfect indifference. Then there was Jock Eunson, a good-humoured Orphir man, who, on many a dark night, had kept his mates merry as they beat about in the outer sea in search of ships; and Ringan Storlsen, of Finstown, who had been at school with my father, and with whom he had had many an adventure.
"Hurry along, my lads; there's Kinlay started," said my father, seating himself in the stern sheets.
With that the ropes were cast off and the sail hoisted. Then the boat was pushed off from the pier, and as she caught the light breeze she glided slowly into the bay among the sailing shadows of the summer clouds.
When we were out in the deep water I looked along the line of the shore for the opposition boat; but I found she was already further out than ourselves, looking like a pleasure yacht, with her newly painted hull and clean white canvas--a contrast to the dingy brown sail and the scratched and worn hull of the Curlew.
My uncle Mansie, who sat quite near to me, told me that the new boat was called the St. Magnus--after the patron saint of Orkney--and I noticed that he spoke very lightly of her as a sailer. I asked him if he did not think she would beat us in this race; but he assured me there was no fear of it, for that though Kinlay had the start of us, yet he had not the advantage of a well trained and disciplined crew, and his ropes were too new to run free.