The thought of him waiting in the
King's Arms, and of what he would think, and what he would say when
next we met, tormented and oppressed me. The truth was
unbelievable, so much I had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I
should be posted as a liar and a coward, and have never consciously
omitted what it was possible that I should do. I repeated this
form of words with a kind of bitter relish, and re-examined in that
light the steps of my behaviour. It seemed I had behaved to James
Stewart as a brother might; all the past was a picture that I could
be proud of, and there was only the present to consider. I could
not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but there was always
Andie. I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever there
to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more with
Andie.
It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the
lap and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all
crept apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie
with his Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him
in deep sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with
some fervour of manner and a good show of argument.
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