constantly together.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVI

THE MISSING WITNESS

On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much
rebellion against fate. 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.

"If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!" said he, staring at me
over his spectacles.

"It's to save another," said I, "and to redeem my word. What would be
more good than that? Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie? And you with
the Book upon your lap! _What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world?"_

"Ay," said he, "that's grand for you. But where do I come in? I have my
word to redeem the same's yoursel'. And what are ye asking me to do, but
just to sell it ye for siller?"

"Andie! have I named the name of siller?" cried I.

"Ou, the name's naething," said he; "the thing is there, whatever. It
just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you propose, I'll
loss my lieihood. Then it's clear ye'll have to make it up to me, and a
pickle mair, for your ain credit like. And what's that but just a bribe?
And if even I was certain of the bribe! But by a' that I can learn, it's
far frae that; and if _you_ were to hang, where would _I_ be? Na: the
thing's no possible. And just awa' wi' ye like a bonny lad! and