Whereat the wife of Alister drew a plaid of rough brown wool from the shoulders of the man nearest to her and cast it about him. By this time Scarlett had managed to stand upon his feet, and even to walk a few steps along the pebbles of the shore. All Suliscanna was now gathered about the new-comer, and on the skirts of the crowd the minister and Alister stood apart with bent brows in anxious consultation. "It is the chief's order!" said the minister. "We will have to answer for it with our lives if we do not ward him safely." "In the vaults of the tower will be the best and securest place," answered Alister. Then, with no more words spoken, Alister McAlister stepped up to his wife, and, seizing her by the arm, said, "This is chief's business--do as I bid you, now!" And Mrs. McAlister knew that the time had come for her to obey. For well as she could make the burly _dhuine wassail_ do her bidding when the business was his own or hers, Bess never put her general supremacy to the test by offering resistance to her husband's will when the clan or the chief were in question. "Tell the Lowland man," said Alister, looking his wife straight in the eyes, "that it is the order of the chief that he be warded till we hear what is to be done with him. We did not ask him to come to Suliscanna, and we must see that he does not invite himself quietly away again now that he is here. He is to bide in the tower at our house-end, and ye can boil him Lowland brose as muckle as ever he can sup, since ye seem to be so well acquainted with his kind of folk." When Mistress McAlister had interpreted this to John Scarlett, the old campaigner gave the brown plaid a twirl about his shoulders, and crying, "Content--lead on!" accepted the situation with a soldier's philosophy. The ancient tower of Suliscanna, in which Scarlett presently found himself, was no extensive castle, but simply a half-ruinous block-house constructed for defence by some former lords of the isle. The upper part was a mere shell in which Alister's wild goats were sometimes penned, when for some herdsman's purpose they had been collected in the vicinity of the huts by the expectation of the spare crystals of salt when the pans were drawn. But underneath there was a vaulted dungeon still strong and intact. This subterranean "strength" possessed a door of solid wood--a rare thing in Suliscanna--brought at some remote period from the main-land; for, save drif-twood, there is no plant thicker-stemmed than the blackberry to be found on all these outermost islands of the sea. This door was secured by a ponderous lock, the bolt of which ran into the stone for nearly two feet, while the wood of which it was composed was studded with great iron nails and covered with hide like a targe. It was the sole article of value which had been left in the ancient tower when my lord's new house was built farther up the hill.