k in front of me and glanced off
into the sea. When the sailors gave me my money again, they kept back
not only about a third of the whole sum, but my father's leather purse;
so that from that day out, I carried my gold loose in a pocket with a
button. I now saw there must be a hole, and clapped my hand to the place
in a great hurry. But this was to lock the stable door after the steed
was stolen. I had left the shore at Queensferry with near on fifty
pounds; now I found no more than two guinea pieces and a silver
shilling.

It is true I picked up a third guinea a little after, where it lay
shining on a piece of turf. That made a fortune of three pounds and four
shillings, English money, for a lad, the rightful heir of an estate, and
now starving on an isle at the extreme end of the wild Highlands.

This state of my affairs dashed me still further; and indeed my plight
on that third morning was truly pitiful. My clothes were beginning to
rot; my stockings in particular were quite worn through, so that my
shanks went naked; my hands had grown quite soft with the continual
soaking; my throat was very sore, my strength had much abated, and my
heart so turned against the horrid stuff I was condemned to eat, that
the very sight of it came near to sicken me.

And yet the worst was not yet come.

There is a pretty high rock on the northwest of Earraid, which (because
it had a flat top and overlooked the sound) I was much in the habit of
frequenting; not that ever I stayed in one place, save when asleep, my
misery giving me no rest. Indeed, I wore myself down with continual and
aimless goings and comings in the rain.

As soon, however, as the sun came out, I lay down on the top of that
rock to dry myself. The comfort of the sunshine is a thing I cannot
tell. It set me thinking hopefully of my deliverance, of which I had
begun to despair; and I scanned the sea and the Ross with a fresh
interest.

On the south of my rock, a part of the island jutted out and hid the
open ocean, so that a boat could thus come quite near me upon that side,
and I be none the wiser.

Well, all of a sudden, a coble[381-2] with a brown sail and a pair of
fishers aboard of it, came flying round that corner of the isle, bound
for Iona. I shouted out, and then fell on my knees on the rock and
reached up my hands and prayed to them. They were near enough to hear--I
could even see the color of their hair; and there was no doubt but they
observed me,