with
importunities.

CHAPTER XXX

THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP

Daylight showed us how solitary the inn stood. It was plainly hard upon
the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with scabbit
hills of sand. There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature of a
prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a windmill,
like an ass's ears, but with the ass quite hidden. It was strange (after
the wind rose, for at first it was dead calm) to see the turning and
following of each other of these great sails behind the hillock. Scarce
any road came by there; but a number of footways travelled among the
bents in all directions up to Mr. Bazin's door. The truth is, he was a
man of many trades, not any one of them honest, and the position of his
inn was the best of his livelihood. Smugglers frequented it; political
agents and forfeited persons bound across the water came there to await
their passages; and I daresay there was worse behind, for a whole family
might have been butchered in that house and nobody the wiser.

I slept little and ill. Long ere it was day, I had slipped from beside
my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro
before the door. Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little after sprang up
a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds, let through the sun, and
set the mill to the turning. There was something of spring in the
sunshine, or else it was in my heart; and the appearing of the great
sails one after another from behind the hill diverted me extremely. At
times I could hear a creak of the machinery; and by half-past eight of
the day Catriona began to sing in the house. At this I would have cast
my hat in the air; and I thought this dreary, desert place was like a
paradise.

For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be
aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain. It seemed there was
trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up and went down
over the hill, were like persons spying; and, outside of all fancy, it
was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a young lady to be
brought to dwell in.

At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was in
some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same, and
watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one side,
and vigilance upon the other, held me on live coals. The meal was no
sooner over than Ja