David Balfour

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE BASS

  I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and therefor the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a wordof Ransome's--the _twenty-pounders_. If I were to be exposed a secondtime to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it mustturn ill with me; there was no second Alan, and no second shipwreck andspare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under thewhip's lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water,the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew; and I shivered inmy place beside the steersman. This was the dark man whom I have calledhitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called BlackAndie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a roughjacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover myself.

  "I thank you for this kindness," said I, "and will make so free as torepay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this affair.You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know whatthe law is and the risks of those that break it."

  "I am no just exactly what ye would ca' an extremist for the law," sayshe, "at the best of times; but in this business I act with a goodwarranty."

  "What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

  "Nae harm," said he, "nae harm ava'. Ye'll hae strong freens, I'mthinking. Ye'll be richt eneuch yet."

  There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs ofpink and like coals of slow fire came in the east; and at the same timethe geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the Bass. It isjust the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carvea city from. The sea was extremely little, but there went a hollowplowter round the base of it. With the growing of the dawn I could seeit 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 sants were aforeye, 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," quothAndie dryly.

  The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the bigstones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs andbaskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon thecrag. Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine,although it was the other way about), landed along with them. The sunwas not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars onthe thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singularreclusion.

  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 richestate. He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened onthe grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of acathedral. He had charge besides of the solan geese that roosted in thecrags; and from these an extraordinary income is derived. The young aredainty eating, as much as two shillings a-piece being a common price,and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are valuable fortheir oil and feathers; and a part of the minister's stipend of NorthBerwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which makes it (in somefolks' eyes) a parish to be coveted. To perform these severalbusinesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers, Andie hadfrequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the crag; and wefound the man at home there like a farmer in his steading. Bidding usall shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I made haste tobear a hand, he led us in by a locked gate, which was the only admissionto the island, and through the ruins of the fortress, to the governor'shouse. There we saw, by the ashes in the chimney and a standingbed-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 tobe gentry.

  "My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie," said I. "I bless God Ihave 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 andtake my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand tospare me your mockery, which I own I like ill."

  He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection toapprove it. Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good Whigand Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able andeager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a littletowards the Cameronian extremes. His morals were of a more doubtfulcolour. I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the ruins ofTantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I donot believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing. But that partof the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the commonsthere as rough a crew as any in Scotland.

  One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence ithad long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth,the _Seahorse_, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in themonth of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding forsunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles toeast of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the WildfireRocks and Satan's Bush, famous dangers of that coast. And presently,after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and was headeddirectly for the Bass. This was very troublesome to Andie and theHighlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was designed forprivacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering ashore, itlooked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse. I was in aminority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far fromsure that a warship was the least likely to improve my condition. Allwhich considered, I gave Andie my parole of good behaviour andobedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the rock, where we alllay down, at the cliff's edge, in different places of observation andconcealment. The _Seahorse_ came straight on till I thought she wouldhave struck, and we (looking giddily down) could see the ship's companyat their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at the lead. Then shesuddenly 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 overour heads, and the geese rose in number beyond computation or belief. Tohear their screaming and to see the twinkling of their wings, made amost inimitable curiosity: and I suppose it was after this somewhatchildish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come so near the Bass. Hewas to pay dear for it in time. During his approach I had theopportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by which Iever after knew it miles away; and this was a means (under Providence)of my averting from a friend a great calamity, and inflicting on CaptainPalliser himself a sensible disappointment.

  All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale andbrandy, and oatmeal of which we made our porridge night and morning. Attimes 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 fedto market. The geese were unfortunately out of season, and we let thembe. We fished ourselves, and yet more often made the geese to fish forus: observing one when he had made a capture and scaring him from hisprey ere he had swallowed it.

  The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which itabounded, held me busy and amused. Escape being impossible, I wasallowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of theisle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of theprison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs runningwild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel ora hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and thethought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison too,where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle thieves, was a place full ofhistory, both human and div
ine. I thought it strange so many saints andmartyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much as aleaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while therough soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filledthe neighbourhood with their mementoes--broken tobacco-pipes for themost part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons fromtheir coats. There were times when I thought I could have heard thepious sound of psalms out of the martyrs' dungeons, and seen thesoldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and the dawnrising behind them out of the North Sea.

  No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fanciesin my head. He was extraordinary well acquainted with the story of therock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, hisfather having served there in that same capacity. He was gifted besideswith a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed to speakand the things to be done before your face. This gift of his and myassiduity to listen brought us the more close together. I could nothonestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; andindeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good will. Anodd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond myexpectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be aprisoner and his gaoler.

  I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Basswas wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I wasescaped there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; amaterial impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from freshattempts; I felt I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there weretimes when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters. Atother times my thoughts were very different. I recalled how strong I hadexpressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected that mycaptivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Fifeand Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to haveinvented 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 lightlyenough; 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; andthence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are sodelightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to areader. But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I would be shakenwith a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed hard judgmentsappear an injustice impossible to be supported. With that another trainof thought would be presented, and I had scarce begun to be concernedabout men's judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the remembranceof 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 sitthere idle; it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I could fly or swimout of my place of safety; and it was in such humours and to amuse myself-reproaches that I would set the more particularly to win the goodside of Andie Dale.

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

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

  The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizurenothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was anacknowledgment 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 youthat I know what I am talking. You have orders to detain me here tillThursday, 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 insidious in thisarrangement. That I was to reappear precisely in time to be too latewould cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell one;and this screwed me to fighting point.

  "Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think whileye listen," said I. "I know there are great folks in the business, and Imake no doubt you have their names to go upon. I have seen some of themmyself since this affair began, and said my say into their faces too.But what kind of a crime would this be that I had committed? or whatkind of a process is this that I am fallen under? To be apprehended bysome ragged John-Hielandmen on August 30th, carried to a rickle of oldstones that is now neither fort nor gaol (whatever it once was) but justthe gamekeeper's lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free again, September23d, as secretly as I was first arrested--does that sound like law toyou? or does it sound like justice? or does it not sound honestly like apiece of some low dirty intrigue, of which the very folk that meddlewith it are ashamed?"

  "I canna gainsay ye, Shaws. It looks unco underhand," says Andie. "Andwerenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians I wouldhae seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have set hand toit."

  "The Master of Lovat'll be a braw Whig," says I, "and a grandPresbyterian."

  "I ken naething by him," said he. "I hae nae trokings wi' Lovats."

  "No, it'll be Prestongrange that you'll be dealing with," said I.

  "Ah, but I'll no tell ye that," said Andie.

  "Little need when I ken," was my retort.

  "There's just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws," says Andie."And that is that (try as ye please) I'm no dealing wi' yoursel'; noryet I amnae goin' to," he added.

  "Well, Andie, I see I'll have to be speak out plain with you," Ireplied. And I told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.

  He heard me out with serious interest, and when I had done, seemed toconsider a little with himself.

  "Shaws," said he at last, "I deal with the naked hand. It's a queertale, and no vary creditable, the way you tell it; and I'm far fraeminting that is other than the way that ye believe it. As for yoursel',ye seems to me rather a dacent-like young man. But me, that's aulder andmair judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit further forrit in the job thanwhat ye can dae. And here is the maitter clear and plain to ye. There'llbe nae skaith to yoursel' if I keep ye here; far frae that, I thinkye'll be a hantle better by it. There'll be nae skaith to thekintry--just ae mair Hielantman hangit--Gude kens, a guid riddance! Onthe ither hand it would be considerable skaith to me if I would let youfree. Sae, speakin' as a guid Whig, an honest freen' to you, and ananxious freen' to my ainsel', the plain fact is that I think ye'll justhave to bide here wi' Andie an' the solans."

  "Andie," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "this Hielantman'sinnocent."

  "Ay, it's a peety about that," said he. "But ye see in this warld, theway God made it, we cannae just get a'thing that we want."

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