With the growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags painted with sea-birds' droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides, and the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the sea's edge.
At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
"It's there you're taking me!" I cried.
"Just to the Bass, mannie," said he: "whaur the auld sants were afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson." "But none dwells there now," I cried; "the place is long a ruin." "It'll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then," quoth Andie dryly.
The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and baskets, and a provision of fuel.

All these were discharged upon the crag.

Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine, although it was the other way about), landed along with them.

The sun was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular reclusion.
Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass, being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich estate.

He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of a cathedral.