WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 109 



board, leaving her collie in charge, overhauled our strange 

 craft, fore and aft, sprang into the dinghy again, a mere 

 cockle-shell, and rowed off again half-a-mile to windward, 

 against a fresh breeze, as if it was the most ordinary everyday 

 thing for one of our ladies to do ; many a fair Brunhilda 

 could have done the same. I did not tell my Norse friends 

 that she was at all exceptional, so our Norsemen have formed 

 a lofty idea of Scotswomen as mariners. I wished they 

 could have seen her, as I have, out on the Sound of Mull 

 in wind and rain, fair hair flying, yellow oilskins dripping, 

 racing her own cutter, three reefs down, through the spray 

 for the Tobermory Cup. 



