d which divides it from the mainland.
Several large black high-sided ships lay at anchor, with numerous boats
hanging to the davits, and mostly barque-rigged. They were whalers,
belonging to Hull and other English and Scotch ports, on their way to
Baffin Bay, or the shores of Greenland.

Archy found a boat just about to cross the sound to Lerwick, and, asking
for a passage, he jumped in. On landing, he made his way to the house
where Max Inkster lodged. The door was open. Archy walked in. Max was
alone in a little room on one side of the passage; he was smoking, and a
bottle and glass were on the table.

"Glad to see you, lad," he said. "Sit down. I doubted that you would
come."

"Why?" asked Archy.

"I thought your mother and sister would advise you to keep away from a
fellow like me," answered Max, looking hard at his young guest. He was
a strongly-built broad-shouldered man, with an unpleasant expression in
his weather-beaten countenance.

"My mother is ill, and did not know I was coming, and I am not going to
be dictated to by Maggie," said Archy.

"That's the right spirit, boy," said Max. "If they suspect what you
intend doing, they will take good care to prevent you."

"I don't intend to let them know," replied Archy. "But I wish mother
was not ill. I am half inclined to stop at home till next season, and
then I'll do what I choose, whatever they may say."

"I see how it is," observed Max, with a sneer on his lips. "You are
beginning to think we lead too hard a life for you, and you would rather
be looking after the cows, and being at the beck and call of mistress
Maggie. I thought you had more spirit. You are afraid--that's the
truth of it."

"No one shall say I am afraid," exclaimed Archy. "I have asked several
captains to take me, but they refused without my mother's leave, and
that she won't give, just because my father and uncle Magnus were lost
at sea, and so she has taken it into her head that I shall be lost also.
If you can help me to go in the `Kate,' I am ready. There's my bundle
of clothes."

"No great stock for a voyage to the Arctic Seas; but we must rig you out
when you get on board," observed Max, taking up Archy's bundle, and
stowing it away in a large seaman's bag which stood in the corner of the
room. "You will have to keep pretty close till we are well clear of the
land, or the captain will be for putting you on shore again. Here, take
a glass of grog, it will hel