repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this
affair. You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but

know what the law is and the risks of those that break it."
"I am no just exactly what ye would ca' an extremist for the law," says

he, "at the best of times; but in this business I act with a good
warranty."

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.
"Nae harm," said he, "nae harm ava'. Ye'll have strong freens, I'm

thinking. Ye'll be richt eneuch yet."
There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of

pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the
same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the

Bass. It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great
enough to carve a city from. The sea was extremely little, but there

went a hollow plowter round the base of it. With the growing of the
dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags painted

with sea-birds' droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it
green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides,

and the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the
sea's edge.

At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
"It's there you're taking me!" I cried.

"Just to the Bass, mannie," said he: "Whaur the auld saints were afore
ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson."

"But none dwells there now," I cried; "the place is long a ruin."
"It'll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then," quoth

Andie dryly.
The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big

stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and
baskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon the

crag. Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine,
although it was the other way about), landed along with them. The sun

was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on
the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular

reclusion:
Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass,

being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich
estate. He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened

on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of
a cathedral. He had charge besides of the solan geese that roosted in

the crags; and from these an extraordinaryincome is derived. The
young are dainty eating, as much as two shillings a-piece being a

common price, and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are
valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the minister's

stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which
makes it (in some folks' eyes) a parish to be coveted. To perform

these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from
poachers, Andie had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together

on the crag; and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his
steading. Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in

which I made haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a looked gate, which
was the only admission to the island, and through the ruins of the

fortress, to the governor's house. There we saw by the ashes in the
chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual

occupation.
This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to

be gentry.
"My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie," said I. "I bless God

I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with thankfulness.
While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I will do my part and

take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand
to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill."

He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to
approve it. Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good

Whig and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able
and eager to converseseriously on religion, leaning more than a little

towards the Cameronian extremes. His morals were of a more doubtful
colour. I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the rains of

Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I
do not believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing. But that

part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the
commons there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.

One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it
had long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the

Firth, the SEAHORSE, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in
the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding

for sunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles
to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the

Wildfire Rocks and Satan's Bush, famous dangers of that coast. And
presently after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and

was headed directly for the Base. This was very troublesome to Andie
and the Highlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was

designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering
ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse. I

was in a minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was
far from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my

condition. All which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good
behaviour and obedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the rock,

where we all lay down, at the cliff's edge, in different places of
observation and concealment. The SEAHORSE came straight on till I

thought she would have struck, and we (looking giddily down) could see
the ship's company at their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at

the lead. Then she suddenly wore and let fly a volley of I know not
how many great guns. The rock was shaken with the thunder of the

sound, the smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number
beyond computation or belief. To hear their screaming and to see the

twinkling of their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I
suppose it was after this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain

Palliser had come so near the Bass. He was to pay dear for it in time.
During his approach I had the opportunity to make a remark upon the

rigging of that ship by which I ever after knew it miles away; and this
was a means (under Providence) of my averting from a friend a great

calamity, and inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible
disappointment.

All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale
and brandy, and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and

morning. At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought us a
quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not touch, these

being specially fed to market. The geese were unfortunately out of
season, and we let them be. We fished ourselves, and yet more often

made the geese to fish for us: observing one when he had made a
capture and searing him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.

The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it
abounded, held me busy and amused. Escape being impossible, I was

allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of the
isle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of the

prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running
wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel

or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the
thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. 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 martyr's dungeons, and seen
the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and the dawn