"Take care of that till the morn's morn," he said. "I would maybe loss it. I am going out to drink till I be drunk."
And with this simple declaration of policy he strode out as he had come.
As soon as he had gone, Bess threw a damp turf over the clear peat fire on the hearth of the outer kitchen, which in a trice raised a dense smoke and rendered everything within dark and gloomy.
"Come awa'," she said, putting her head into the room where Kate, her heart beating wildly with the joy of reprieve and the presence of her beloved, was clinging to Wat's arm, as he stood on the floor with his dagger still ready and bare in his hand. "Haste ye and come away," she said; "there'll be time and to spare when ye get him safe to yourself, my lass, for a hale world o' cuikin' and joein'."
Wat and Kate came out quickly and Bess shut the door behind them. Outside the sharp air off the Atlantic chilled them like a drench of well-water on a summer's day, breathing keenly into their lungs after the close atmosphere of the hut.
They made their way up the steep to the castle. Across the door of the vault where John Scarlett was confined lay the prostrate body of a Celt, inert and stertorous.
Mistress McAlister stirred him with her foot, and then turned him completely over.
"As I thocht," she said, "it is just Misfortunate Colin. It will be an ill day for him the morn. But he is aye in the way o' mischances, onyway. He canna keep clear o' them. If a stane were to slip frae a rock tap in a' the isle, it is on Colin it wad light. If a rope break at the egg-harvest, 'tis Colin that's at the end o' the tow. I think a pity o' him, too—for barrin' the drink and the ill luck, he's a decent soul. But it juist canna be helpit."
So with that Bess undid the door with the key which Alister had thrown upon the table, and then carefully tucked it into the waist-belt of Colin the Misfortunate.
"It's a peety," she said; "but after a' it is a deal mair faceable and natural that the like o' this should hae happened to Colin than to ony ither man in the isle."