He sat there and noted, and thought over it all again. He was very forlorn, but not angry with anybody, scarcely vexed by the thought that he was so soon forgotten. He even laughed a little at the thought of Pat Wedderburn. How had he got himself the length of that idea of marrying? He divined old Pat’s thoughts, a little troubled by the necessity, going bravely through it. He had no sense of resentment towards any of them. As soon as there was any one stirring about the “Dun Cow” he would steal in and get his things and some breakfast, and take himself off at once and for ever--never, whatever happened, to interfere again. But in the meantime there was some time to wait, and the sun was growing warmer every moment, and the tide was in, and the little wavelets rippling along the shore. Baths were not luxuries known at the “Dun Cow,” and here was the bath he liked best, ready before him. It would be the last time he would ever bathe in his native waters. He slipped out of his clothes, laid them in a little heap, without even thinking how on one supreme occasion he had done that before, and plunging from the nearest rock launched himself into the sea and sunshine. It would brace him up for the journeys and troubles of the day. Dalyell swam about for some time, and dived and sported in the water like a boy, with a curious sudden lightness of heart. He could not make up his mind to come out of the water. And the northern seas are cold at three o’clock (getting on for four) in the morning, with the sun not yet very strong, and but newly risen. What it was that happened there was no one to tell. Perhaps it was the shock of the night’s proceedings, though he had reasoned it away, which struck to his heart--perhaps it was the cold of the water--it might be a cramp, which, had there been any one near to help, would have been of little consequence. None of these things would any one ever know. It was said afterwards that a cry was heard, piercing the sober stillness of the morning, so that somebody woke and got up at the “Dun Cow,” but finding no sign of harm, went to bed again for another hour. And it is certainly true that the minister woke in his manse, which is near the shore, and got up and opened his window, and remarked upon the beauty of the morning, and the wonderful delightful calm and brightness of the Firth. He thought after that it must have been the drowning man’s cry that woke him, though he was not conscious of the sound itself.