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 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.
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