第36章 THE ISLET(2)

The second day I crossed the island to all sides.There was no one part of it better than another;it was all desolate and rocky;nothing living on it but game birds which I lacked the means to kill,and the gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number.But the creek,or strait,that cut off the isle from the main-land of the Ross,opened out on the north into a bay,and the bay again opened into the Sound of Iona;and it was the neighbourhood of this place that I chose to be my home;though if I had thought upon the very name of home in such a spot,I must have burst out weeping.

I had good reasons for my choice.There was in this part of the isle a little hut of a house like a pig's hut,where fishers used to sleep when they came there upon their business;but the turf roof of it had fallen entirely in;so that the hut was of no use to me,and gave me less shelter than my rocks.What was more important,the shell-fish on which I lived grew there in great plenty;when the tide was out I could gather a peck at a time:

and this was doubtless a convenience.But the other reason went deeper.I had become in no way used to the horrid solitude of the isle,but still looked round me on all sides (like a man that was hunted),between fear and hope that I might see some human creature coming.Now,from a little up the hillside over the bay,I could catch a sight of the great,ancient church and the roofs of the people's houses in Iona.And on the other hand,over the low country of the Ross,I saw smoke go up,morning and evening,as if from a homestead in a hollow of the land.

I used to watch this smoke,when I was wet and cold,and had my head half turned with loneliness;and think of the fireside and the company,till my heart burned.It was the same with the roofs of Iona.Altogether,this sight I had of men's homes and comfortable lives,although it put a point on my own sufferings,yet it kept hope alive,and helped me to eat my raw shell-fish (which had soon grown to be a disgust),and saved me from the sense of horror I had whenever I was quite alone with dead rocks,and fowls,and the rain,and the cold sea.

I say it kept hope alive;and indeed it seemed impossible that Ishould be left to die on the shores of my own country,and within view of a church-tower and the smoke of men's houses.But the second day passed;and though as long as the light lasted I kept a bright look-out for boats on the Sound or men passing on the Ross,no help came near me.It still rained,and I turned in to sleep,as wet as ever,and with a cruel sore throat,but a little comforted,perhaps,by having said good-night to my next neighbours,the people of Iona.

Charles the Second declared a man could stay outdoors more days in the year in the climate of England than in any other.This was very like a king,with a palace at his back and changes of dry clothes.But he must have had better luck on his flight from Worcester than I had on that miserable isle.It was the height of the summer;yet it rained for more than twenty-four hours,and did not clear until the afternoon of the third day.

This was the day of incidents.In the morning I saw a red deer,a buck with a fine spread of antlers,standing in the rain on the top of the island;but he had scarce seen me rise from under my rock,before he trotted off upon the other side.I supposed he must have swum the strait;though what should bring any creature to Earraid,was more than I could fancy.

A little after,as I was jumping about after my limpets,I was startled by a guinea-piece,which fell upon a rock 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,Icarried 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.