The ship that my father had just brought into port was a trim
barque, with high, tapering masts and a bright-green hull.

"What's her name, Hal?" inquired Jessie as the vessel was brought
to.

I had accustomed myself to make out ships' names at great
distances, and as the barque swung round with the stream I could
read the words "Lydia of Leith" painted on her counter.

"Yonder is father, and there is Uncle Mansie," said Jessie, as the
two men climbed over the ship's rail and swarmed down into the
boat. Then up went the brown sail, and the little Curlew sped
blithely past the whaling ships and across the broad bay, and it
was not long ere she was moored alongside our jetty and father
stepped ashore.

My father was a tall, muscular man, with a long, fair beard, and
blue eyes as clear and deep as the summer sky. He was a worthy
representative of the old Norse sea king, from whom he was
descended, and his descent was shown in his great love of the sea.
He was the chief pilot of the port of Stromness, and no man knew so
well as he all the dangerous currents and shoals of the Orcadian
seas. There was not a flow or a sound between the North and South
Ronaldsays, or from Bore Head in the west to the Start in the east
that he did not know as well as the eagle knows her corrie, or
which he could not navigate on the darkest night. The perils of the
whirlpools, of the sunken rocks, and of the wild winter storms
which beat in fury upon our iron coasts, were part of his life; and