OF 



ii. A Quier 



MORE than once did we weigh anchor and attempt to 

 clear from Stromness and the Orkneys. And when at 

 last we got away it was the very feeblest breeze that 

 bore us through the narrow sound. 



Slowly the dark outline of the Kame of Hoy died 

 away on the horizon. Slowly the light wind bore us 

 westward down the grim, forbidding coast. All day 

 long we drifted over a rolling sea until, in the haze of 

 sunset, the far cliffs of Cape Wrath were faint and 

 shadowy still. And when at length the dark came down 

 upon the heaving waves it was a night of turmoil and 

 unrest, a night disturbed by the creak of timbers, the 

 rattle of a restless block, the uneasy swinging of the 

 booms. And then, the long hours of darkness ended, 

 the dawn was clear on the great green waves that lash 

 the splintered pinnacles of the Cape. The wind was 

 freshening fast, but it was blowing in our teeth ; it cost 

 us many a weary tack, on a tremendous sea, before we 

 lost sight of the lonely lighthouse that clings to the bare 

 brown slope of the headland. 



