.
The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a
place full of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many
saints and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much
as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while the rough
soldier-lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filled the
neighbourhood with their mementoes - broken tobacco-pipes for the most part, and
that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons from their coats. There were
times when I thought I could have heard the pious sound of psalms out of the
martyrs' dungeons, and see the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting
pipes, and the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea.
    No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies in my
head. He was extraordinary well acquainted with the story of the rock in all
particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his father having served
there in that same capacity. He was gifted, besides, with a natural genius for
narration, so that the people seemed to speak and the things to be done before
your face. This gift of his, and my assiduity to listen, brought us the more
close together. I could not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that
he liked me; and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his
goodwill. An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my
expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner and
his gaoler.
    I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass was
wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was escaped there
out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; a material impossibility, rock
and the deep sea, prevented me from fresh attempts; I felt I had my life safe
and my honour safe, and there were times when I allowed myself to gloat on them
like stolen waters. At other times my thoughts were very different. I recalled
how strong I had expressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected
that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Fife
and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to have invented than
endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at least, I must pass for a
boaster and a coward. Now I would
