“Come away, Davie.  I canna let ye stay longer, man.”

“Ay, ay, just another minute, Jimmy,” said Flett.

Then turning to me again, he continued:  “Weel, I’m just away up to Dominie Drever’s.  The dominie was aboard the Falcon just before the Clasper came in yestreen, and I saw him again after ye were brought here.  He was up at Lyndardy this mornin’ seeing your mother for information about all your movements these two days past.  And now I’m to go up to the schoolhouse and tell him—­what shall I tell him, Halcro?”

“Just tell him this, Davie:  that the last time I saw poor Colin Lothian was when we were in Gray’s Inn.  That I went straight home from the Falcon, and never left the house till the servant woman at Crua Breck knocked me up to seek for Thora.  That I was out looking for her part of the night and all the morning, and then that I climbed down the Gaulton Cliff, thinking I would find her in the cave.  There, instead of finding Thora, I was taken along with the smugglers and brought in the Clasper to Stromness, where Bailie Duke himself arrested me.

“There, that is the sum of it all.  Tell it to Mr. Drever, and he will believe it and understand.”

“Very good,” said the skipper, and then he left me.

He had not gone out many minutes before Jimmy Macfarlane came into the apartment and made a fire in the grate, and brought me water to wash myself, and a good breakfast of coffee and fried bacon.  When I was made comfortable he left me alone again, and only disturbed me during the rest of the day to bring in my meals or more fuel for the fire.

Chapter XXXIX.  An Unprofessional Inquiry.

Whatever the common opinion among the people of Stromness may have been with regard to the death of Colin Lothian, there was one who, all along, never allowed himself to doubt my innocence.  Dominie Drever had his private views on the matter, and he was not over eager to communicate them to other persons.  He even kept them from myself in a great measure, and only gathered such information regarding my movements as Captain Flett and my people at Lyndardy were able to supply.  There were some other aspects of the case, quite apart from myself, that he was anxious to make clear, and with this purpose in view he had gone quietly about the town gathering evidence and summoning an array of important witnesses.

Not until late on this Sunday afternoon did he come to see me; and then our interview lasted but for a few moments.  Macfarlane showed him in just as I was finishing my tea and settling myself cosily before the fire.

“Ah, Halcro, my lad!” he exclaimed in his breezy way, “I see they are making you comfortable here.  I hope you find it no great hardship to be cooped up here, eh?  It’s hardly so bad as your experience on the Falcon, I should think?”

“No, sir, and I hope it will not last so long either,” I said, taking the hand he offered me.