In the dawn of Friday morning, David Cameron looked a little fatigued.

Like a lot of us, he had missed some sleep. As they used to say on the fields of Eton, there had been a close-run thing. Britannia and the offer of ramshackle constitutional arrangements had prevailed.

Let's not be unkind to a Prime Minister. Depending on how you stand, he won, or got away with it. Scotland was not lost on his watch. Yesterday, his backbenchers had to fumble for another stick with which to belabour a leader. He didn't care. In the contest that mattered most, he got his scalp.

What had Mr Cameron offered the Jocks, exactly? What is Jockgeld this year? Some cherished constitutional furniture? Some gold-plated vows? How much - said one after the English backbencher to another - do my constituents have to shell out to prevent 45 per cent of the vote from turning into 55 per cent next time?

Speaking in Downing Street after the vote, Mr Cameron did not seem firm. If nothing else, he lacked a bill of sale for gifts to be bestowed on lucky Scots. Backstage, haggling continues. Early yesterday, Prince Dave was reduced to promising his back-bench types that he had brought booty. "English votes on English issues", he said. But yesterday, Alex Salmond was taken out of the game.

That defiant character has been the most substantial Scottish politician of his, and most, generations. He is all the things they say, and none of the things they pretend. Without Mr Salmond there would have been no vote on Scottish self-determination. Now he makes a clean cut across the last page of his career. It is not, whatever the tabloids are about to claim, the mark of a man defeated.

In winning a referendum, the Prime Minister runs the risk of Tory war. It is one thing to say that a reUnited Kingdom is honour-bound to keep campaign promises to Scotland. It is another to use the occasion to affect interest in constitutional reform for everyone on the islands. The third light on the match goes to Mr Cameron's party. Mr Salmond brought the flame.

They will be dancing, for comedy's sake, in the streets of Westminster tonight, because he is gone. They will tell themselves they saw off separatists and bagged Salmond to boot. They misunderstand the man and the argument. But then again, Scotland's friends are not always friendly.

As the broad brush would write it, Tories are not content with Scotland getting stuff if their constituents don't get stuff. What did their leader mean by saying that commitments to Scots will be honoured "in full" when no-one knows what the commitments - as a matter of legislative fact - are? What was he about, saying that the Welsh and northern Irish must have a "bigger say"? Reducing England to a fourth wheel is not how Tories view life.

Neither Labour nor Liberal Democrats can help in that regard. With the Tories, each offered Scotland a prospectus of more "powers" on Thursday, and the promise to sort those out at the first opportunity. Since they have yet to agree among themselves, and since each now has both eyes on the next UK election, it might not be wise to hold your breath. They won't care: they got rid of Salmond.

On Mr Cameron's backbenches, the bribing of Scots is out of fashion. For them, the stray inhabitants of moorlands and housing schemes did as they were bid, so why indulge them further? Why persist, in fact, with pandering to the periphery if the Britain endorsed firmly in a Scottish referendum - with an unimpeachable turn-out - is as English, statistically, as makes no difference? Only if a Salmond is around to argue the toss.

You can work through the bids from the three main Westminster parties and find, if you voted No, what you endorsed. That will bring you no closer to what you might actually get, if ever. Your local parliament is not to have any of the tax powers that matter. Corporation tax, VAT, and those volatile imposts accruing from the ocean's bed are better handled by people who understand such things. But not you. Not, in future, First Minister Salmond.

There is a long game and a short game. The latter will involve Mr Salmond's erstwhile colleagues invigilating at every turn. "Westminster" and its half-truths will become the justification for the SNP's failure to win independence this time. As a government, that's their job. As a government contemplating what the referendum has done to Scottish Labour, you could hardly blame them.

But as Mr Cameron wipes a tanned brow, the story of Scotland's search for self-determination reasserts itself. We have voted three times on that issue. At the first attempt - and I know, because I cast my ballot - the sheer novelty of choosing a future was enough to subdue Scots. At the second attempt, Labour's assurance that no harm would come of it was enough. On the third time (unlucky), 45 per cent were ready to hold hands and jump. Alex Salmond could tell the same story.

The failed portion doesn't count as a majority. It does amount to a constituency prepared to say that, for them, the UK is done. Mr Salmond, more than any, is entitled to put his maker's mark on the project. He didn't lead - because some of us are hard to lead - but he always asked the good questions.

Contrast, then compare. Mr Cameron's backbenchers are hell-bent on pulling "the nation" out of Europe. You would struggle to say that anything has been settled on that score. Prince Dave will solve the West Lothian question - with his vorpal sword? - while denying an English parliament? There is no logic, never mind justice, in that. Mr Salmond could never resist the urge to make the challenge.

On this Saturday morning, you need to believe in good will from the Westminster parties. I've never been a fan. Set that foible aside, however, and ask how "more powers for Scotland" will fare when the folk of England, Wales and the Irish north begin to lodge their just claims to authority, money and political rights. On Thursday, Scotland voted to continue a fudge. It won't last. That, I think, was one part of Mr Salmond's argument.

His party will point out the truth relentlessly, henceforth. We, 55 to 45 of adults, voted No in recognition of the promise of a better United Kingdom. So might we at least see those who run the UK agree on what the promise contained? Must we start all over again? Alex Salmond has spent his life saying that a new beginning is imperative.

The politicians who cleave to the idea of Britain are bad at explaining themselves. We saw it throughout Scotland's referendum. A few celebrities took a crack at the problem and produced jokes. One or two of the better writers for No achieved eloquence. Among the big beasts, the prowlers in the political jungle, not one said a useful word save Mr Salmond.

He said better things about Britain than its defenders managed. I'd call that interesting.