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 scaring 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 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