My mother, who had been born and brought up on
Lyndardy farm, was, however, an expert hand at sheep-shearing, and
I believe there was no other woman in the whole parish of Stromness
who could do the work with such speed and neatness.
I was admiring the skill with which she stripped a sheep of its
fleece, and standing near her at the same time, with a black-faced
ewe between my knees, ready to pass the animal to her when she was
ready for it. Letting the shorn ewe escape, she stood up and looked
over the moorland in the direction of Stromness.
"Hullo! here's some stranger coming up the brae," she said, shading
her eyes with her hand. "Who in the world can it be, Halcro? Surely
it's not the dominie?"
But the dominie it was. He came up to where we were at work, and
sat upon a heathery knoll near my mother, with whom he engaged in
some ordinary gossip.
"But," said he, after a while, "it was Halcro himself that I came
up to see."
"Me!" I said. "What can ye want to see me about, Mr. Drever?"
"To tell you that I'm to gang to Edinburgh," he replied.
"To Edinburgh!" I exclaimed, wondering what his mission could be.
"Ay, Halcro, I'm to be there for a few weeks, partly on pleasure
and partly on business, concerning our auld friend Jarl Haffling.
The museum folk there are anxious to have the viking's treasure,
and I hae gotten permission to deal wi' them in the matter.
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