I thought it curious that Carver Kinlay should have a boat built in Kirkwall, and not by our own local builder, Tammy Lang, of Stromness.  And what could this new boat be intended for?

“Ay, Thora, but that’s somewhat sudden!” said the dominie.  “Why did he not wait till the end o’ the week?”

Thora raised her blue eyes in my direction as though she would appeal to me for an explanation.  I did not then know, however, that the true and immediate cause of Tom’s absence was that he was not in a fit condition to appear among his companions that morning on account of the blow I had given him during our fight on the previous evening.

After school time Thora came to me and told me of her brother’s return from the sealing expedition; of how he rushed into the house with his nose bleeding.  And she explained that, as they sat at their porridge in the morning, she had noticed the purple patches under his eyes and the swelling of the bridge of his nose.

I own that I felt extremely sorry for having inflicted these injuries upon Tom, nor could I wholly hide from Thora the actual cause of them.  But when Mr. Drever asked about him Thora knew as little of that cause as I did of the effect of my blow upon Tom’s nose.

Notwithstanding the many little quarrels between her brother and herself, Thora was too generous to be glad at his misfortune; but I fancied there was a glance of satisfaction in her eyes when I said to her: 

“It was a fight that we had, Thora.  Tom and I quarrelled over some old siller things we found across at Skaill when we were at the sealing.”

“And which of ye beat the other, Halcro?” she asked, with almost a boy’s interest in a stand-up fight.  “But I needna ask that, surely; for I can see fine that Tom had the worst of it.  If it werena for that wee scratch on your cheek I wouldn’t hae kenned ye had been in a fight; but as for Tom, why, he’s just a perfect sight to look upon!”

I need hardly say that my quarrel with Kinlay did in no wise alter the friendship that existed between Thora and me.  I had for her a fondness which Tom’s bullying and tyranny had no power to diminish.  Thora, indeed, was a girl whom none except those who were influenced by envy could help admiring.  She was the favourite of all the school, and amongst us, her only enemy was her brother.  My own sympathy with her was all the greater because I knew that she was so much the subject of his rule.  I knew how he had forced her to obey him, and to bend before all his humours and his whims, and I was sorry for, whilst I was still unable to help her.  In this servitude we had been companions, in common with Rosson and Hercus; and many a time had she come to me, with tears in her eyes, to tell me of some new act of tyranny that she had suffered at her brother’s hands.

On one such occasion I found her down at the shore side with little Hilda Paterson.  She had been going out on the bay to paddle about in a small boat that Tom was in the habit of using.  He saw the two girls taking the oars, and straightway he ordered them ashore, striking Thora on the cheek, himself taking possession of the boat.