Flett received me with a friendly welcome when I went into the inn, ordering a cup of coffee for me, and bidding me sit beside him until Captain Gordon should join us. He spoke of me to Captain Wemyss, and at that the whole company present fell to talking of the accident in the Sound. They were in the midst of a discussion as to the cause of the disaster when Captain Gordon entered, accompanied by Bailie Duke.
Gordon was somewhat of a stranger to them all, so Captain Wemyss gave the names of the others, including Lloyd's agent, Captain Miller of the Albatross, and Captain Abernethy of the brig Enterprise, the last of whom, I may tell you, was the officer my father had described to Gordon as knowing so little of navigation that he had, after cruising out of sight of land for some months, mistaken the Mainland of Orkney for one of the West Indian Islands.
Bailie Duke, whose happy face wore a constant smile, and whose bright eyes seemed ever to be asking questions, took his seat in the armchair, and passing his snuffbox round the company, very soon took the lead in the conversation. He was the chief magistrate of the town, but he did not assume any undue dignity on that account. Indeed, his long life among the simple fisher folk of Stromness, and his business connection with ships--for the bailie was a shipping agent--had given him a sympathy with all persons connected with the sea which quite overrode his dignity as a magistrate. He could talk of ships as learnedly as any of the captains, and of every vessel that had been in the harbour for the last twenty years he could tell the name and history whenever he saw her again. As for his knowledge of freights, duty, stability, and the ordinary affairs of shipping, he was the one man in Stromness whose word was taken above all others.
When Bailie Duke was comfortably settled in his easy chair, and there was a lull in the noise of conversation, he turned to Captain Gordon and asked him to tell the company how he had come by the hurt in his head, and what sort of a time he had had in the recent storm.
"Well, ye see," said Gordon, taking a glance round his hearers' faces, "it was a most unlucky affair from the first. I was warned before I left Stromness that my masts were too high, and in addition to the fear of losing them I was troubled by my men declaring that the ship was bewitched. We were overrun with mice, d'ye see. Well, I got a cat, a wild-like animal, from old Grace Drever here. Young Ericson brought the beast aboard, but what became of it I cannot exactly tell, for no man could find it, though we could often hear its wild squealing at night.
"From the moment Pilot Ericson left us outside the Sound we encountered misfortune. We reached Cape Wrath after a struggle against contrary winds, and off the Butt of Lewis we lay to for two days. The men swore that the cat down the hold was possessed of some evil demon, and that we would never make any progress on the voyage unless we turned back and took the animal home. Well, we beat about until we sighted St. Kilda, where wet weather came on, and a gale from the west sprang up. We made no headway, and the island lay like an impassable rock on our beam for three days. The sea came rolling on from the west--great snow-topped mountains of waves--and the spray and the cutting sleet were hard to stand against. One night we shipped a heavy sea, which carried away our port bulwarks and stanchions and sent me into the lee scuppers, where I was stunned by a blow on the head. The same sea smashed the jolly boat.
"I was insensible for a couple of days, and when I crept on deck again I found the other boat had been stove in. The fore and main topgallant masts were gone. I was standing on the quarterdeck, when, just at midnight, I was startled by a most unearthly caterwauling, as though all the furies in the infernal regions had broken loose. I looked in the direction it came from, and, behold! there stood the cat like a frightful apparition. He seemed four times his original size, and his eyes were like two gleaming fires. Even now I am not sure if it was the flesh-and-blood Baudrons or his ghost come to explain the mystery of his disappearance, and vent his displeasure at me for having taken him from his comfortable home. As I looked at the goblin cat my head reeled and I fell on the deck.
"Next morning all was calm and bright; but we were disabled, and it was necessary to put back for repairs. You may think what you like, mates, but as sure as we're here, it was nothing but the cat that brought on the gale and gave me my ill luck; the worst calamity of all being the loss of the pilot and his crew."
"Ay," said Bailie Duke, "but the cat had nothing to do with the loss of the pilots. Nobody can be blamed for that but Carver Kinlay."
"No," added Oliver Gray, "a greater rascal than Carver never set foot in Orkney, nor a braver man than Ericson."