This Dame Alison accepted as in some sort her desert.
"I ought to hae forbid the lad three years syne," she said regretfully; "aft ill an' sorrow come o' sich sinfu' putting aff.
There's nae half-way house atween right an' wrang." Certainly the determination involved some unpleasant explanations to John.

He must first see old Peter Fae and withdraw himself from his service.

He found him busy in loading a small vessel with smoked geese and kippered fish, and he was apparently in a very great passion.
Before John could mention his own matters, Peter burst into a torrent of invectives against another of his sailors, who, he said, had given some information to the Excise which had cost him a whole cargo of Dutch specialties.

The culprit was leaning against a hogshead, and was listening to Peter's intemperate words with a very evil smile.
"How much did ye sell yoursel' for, Sandy Beg?
It took the son of a Hieland robber like you to tell tales of a honest man's cargo.

It was an ill day when the Scots cam to Orkney, I trow." "She'll hae petter right to say tat same 'fore lang time." And Sandy's face was dark with a subdued passion that Peter might have known to be dangerous, but which he continued to aggravate by contemptuous expressions regarding Scotchmen in general.
This John Sabay was in no mood to bear; he very soon took offence at Peter's sweeping abuse, and said he would relieve him at any rate of one Scot.