"God is good, my sister," said Hakon, "and I will watch thy brother carefully."
"You are right, Hakon; go, Archie, I will trust you to God's care."
So Archie bravely pulled his bonnet over his brows, and set out with Hakon and another man. After climbing to the summit of the great rocks, Hakon and Archie stepped fearlessly into the basket, and were slowly lowered over the side of the precipice, on whose edge a piece of wood was made fast to prevent the jagged rocks from cutting the rope. Down, down they went, the boiling sea below, the frightful precipices above, but in all the little shelves and fissures the puffins had made their nests. By a separate line they indicated to the man above when they were to be lowered or raised, and thus they labored away cheerily for hours, collecting many eggs and much down.
Archie showed great skill and coolness, and won great praise from Hakon, and after this he went with him on all such excursions, and as time went on was readily trusted down in the basket alone.
So the months slipped away, and Archie had, with Hakon's help, made himself a rope, such as is used for the perilous work of puffin-catching. The mode of making these ropes is as follows: A hide of a sheep and one of a cow are cut into slips, the latter being the broader; each slip of sheep's hide is then plaited to one of cow's, and two of these compound slips are then twisted together, so as to form a rope of about three inches in circumference. The length of these ropes varies from ninety to two hundred feet, and they are so valuable that a single one forms a girl's marriage portion in St. Kilda. Archie prized his very highly, not only because it was in a measure his own making, but because all his friends had denied themselves in some way or other to procure it for him.
Archie's life was very simple and very hard, but he enjoyed it, and for many months he was very useful to Hakon. Then one day the neighbors brought home a mangled body and laid it down on Dame Bork's hearth-stone. No need to tell the wailing mother, or the sorrowful Archie and Alice, poor Hakon's fate. The men went silently out, and the neighbor women spoke such words of comfort as their own losses, or the constant danger of their loved ones, prompted. Tenderly the dead was buried, and then the little household awoke to the duties of the day.
When their humble breakfast was over, Archie took his bonnet and rope, and said to the old dame, as he had said with Hakon many a morning,
"Give me your blessing, mother."
"Oh, Archie," said Alice, "must you go—all alone must you go?"
"I have a brave heart, Alice, which is good company." And then, glancing at Hakon's old mother, he whispered: "For Hakon's sake, as well as for her own kindness, we owe her every duty;" and then kissing Alice, he went off to the rocks.