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 seen 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 together.  I could not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good will.  An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner and his gaoler.