harpoon and a knobbed stick, I hastened out of Stromness, followed
by my dog.

Selta (so called after one of our native streams) was a
long-bodied, long-haired animal, with a touch of the otter hound in
her nature. I got her from Colin Lothian, an old "gaberlunzie" man
who travelled our countryside. He gave me the dog when she was a
young thing, and he had another of the same litter which followed
him wherever he went about the island.

Selta was notable for her shaggy brown coat and ungainly head, and
for her keen scent. One day during the previous winter I had been
over to Russadale for my mother, and in coming home I was caught in
a snowstorm. The mist was thick and the way obscured by the driving
snow, but Selta lowered her nose and led me over the hills in a
beeline to Stromness.

She had never before been out with me at the seal catching; but I
took her this day, thinking she might prove useful--as indeed she
did.

The direct way to Skaill lay along an almost straight road to the
northward, by Hamla Voe and the western shores of the loch of
Stenness, past the Druid standing stones.

On this May afternoon, as I walked along the familiar road, there
was little to attract my attention. The gray stretch of water lay
still and cold, and the ploughed fields beyond it were brown and
barren. In a more southern clime every tree and bush would be, at
that season, putting forth fresh verdure, and the budding hedgerows