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 take this lightly
enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona Drummond,
the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled water; and
thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are so
delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to a
reader. But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I would be shaken
with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed hard judgments
appear an injustice impossible to be supported. With that another train
of thought would be presented, and I had scarce begun to be concerned
about men's judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the remembrance
of James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his wife. Then,
indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive myself to sit
there idle; it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I could fly or swim
out of my place of safety; and it was in such humours and to amuse my
self-reproaches that I would set the more particularly to win the good
side of Andie Dale.

At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright
morning, I put in some hint about a bribe. He looked at me, cast back
his head, and laughed out loud.

"Ay, you're funny, Mr. Dale," said I, "but perhaps if you glance an eye
upon that paper you may change your note."

The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure
nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an
acknowledgment from the British Linen Company for a considerable sum.

He read it. "Troth, and ye're nane sae ill aff," said he.

"I thought that would maybe vary your opinions," said I.

"Hout!" said he. "It shaws me ye can bribe; but I'm no to be bribit."

"We'll see about that yet a while," says I. "And first, I'll show you
that I know what I am talking. You have orders to detain me here till
Thursday, 21st September."

"Ye're no a'thegether wrong either," says Andie. "I'm to let ye gang,
bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the 23rd."

I could not but feel there was something extremely