He
looked at the several pictures of ships battling with terrible
storms, and at the pensive porcupine in its dusty glass case, and
then at the array of firearms and harpoons above the door of the
press bed. My dog Selta lay sound asleep upon a large polar-bear
skin before the fire. Had he approached her and looked up the wide
chimney he might have seen there the remains of our winter stock of
smoked geese and hams hanging in the midst of the "reek."
"I suppose you have been sailing foreign a good deal in your time,
pilot?" said Mr. Gordon, when he was seated.
He had got this notion, no doubt, from having observed the many
foreign ornaments and weapons about the room.
"No," said my father, "I hae never been abroad. All my life has
been spent in the Mainland."
"You mean Scotland--the mainland of Scotland?" said the captain,
not seeming to understand the meaning of the "Mainland," which I
may here explain is our local name for Pomona island--the largest
of the Orkneys.
"No, I didna mean Scotland, skipper--though, to be sure, I hae been
over there many a time. We call this the Mainland, where we are
just now. Many folks make the same mistake about that. I mind of a
skipper named Jock Abernethy. Jock had a brig o' his ain, though he
kent naething aboot navigation, whatever.
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