“Honest folks like me! How do ye ken whether I am honest, or what I am?
I may be the deevil himsell for what ye ken, for he has power to come
disguised like an angel of light; and, besides, he is a prime fiddler.
He played a sonata to Corelli, ye ken.”
There was something odd in this speech, and the tone in which it was
said. It seemed as if my companion was not always in his constant mind,
or that he was willing to try if he could frighten me. I laughed at the
extravagance of his language, however, and asked him in reply if he
was fool enough to believe that the foul fiend would play so silly a
masquerade.
“Ye ken little about it--little about it,” said the old man, shaking his
head and beard, and knitting his brows. “I could tell ye something about
that.”
What his wife mentioned of his being a tale-teller as well as a musician
now occurred to me; and as, you know, I like tales of superstition, I
begged to have a specimen of his talent as we went along.
“It is very true,” said the blind man, “that when I am tired of scraping
thairm or singing ballants I whiles make a tale serve the turn among
the country bodies; and I have some fearsome anes, that make the auld
carlines shake on the settle, and the bits o’ bairns skirl on their
minnies out frae their beds. But this that I am going to tell you was
a thing that befell in our ain house in my father’s time--that is, my
father was then a hafflins callant; and I tell it to you, that it may
be a lesson to you that are but a young thoughtless chap, wha ye draw up
wi’ on a lonely road; for muckle was the dool and care that came o’ ‘t
to my gudesire.”
He commenced his tale accordingly, in a distinct narrative tone of
voice, which he raised and depressed with considerable skill; at times
sinking almost into a whisper, and turning his clear but sightless
eyeballs upon my face, as if it had been possible for him to witness the
impression which his narrative made upon my features. I will not spare
a syllable of it, although it be of the longest; so I make a dash--and
begin:
Ye maun have heard of Sir Robert Redgauntlet of that ilk, who lived in
these parts before the dear years. The country will lang mind him; and
our fathers used to draw breath thick if ever they heard him named. He
was out wi’ the Hielandmen in Montrose’s time; and again he was in the
hills wi’ Glencairn in the saxteen hundred and fifty-twa; and sae when
King Charles the Second came in, wha was in sic favour as the laird of
Redgauntlet? He was knighted at Lonon Court, wi’ the king’s ain sword;
and being a red-hot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like a
lion, with commission of lieutenancy (and of lunacy, for what I ken),
to put down a’ the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark they
made of it; for the Whigs were as dour as the Cavaliers were fierce, and
it was which should first tire the other. Redgauntlet was aye for
the strong hand; and his name is kend as wide in the country as
Claverhouse’s or Tam Dalyell’s. Glen, nor dargle, nor mountain, nor cave
could hide the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out with bugle and
bloodhound after them, as if they had been sae mony deer. And, troth,
when they fand them, they didna make muckle mair ceremony than a
Hielandman wi’ a roebuck. It was just, “Will ye tak’ the test?” If
not--“Make ready--present--fire!” and there lay the recusant.
Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared. Men thought he had a
direct compact with Satan; that he was proof against steel, and that
bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hailstanes from a hearth; that
he had a mear that would turn a hare on the side of Carrifra-gauns (a
precipitous side of a mountain in Moffatdale); and muckle to the same
purpose, of whilk mair anon. The best blessing they wared on him was,
“Deil scowp wi’ Redgauntlet!” He wasna a bad master to his ain folk,
though, and was weel aneugh liked by his tenants; and as for the lackeys
and troopers that rade out wi’ him to the persecutions, as the Whigs
caa’d those killing-times, they wad hae drunken themsells blind to his
health at ony time.
Now you are to ken that my gudesire lived on Redgauntlet’s grund--they
ca’ the place Primrose Knowe. We had lived on the grund, and under the
Redgauntlets, since the riding-days, and lang before. It was a pleasant
bit; and, I think the air is callerer and fresher there than onywhere
else in the country. It’s a’ deserted now; and I sat on the broken
door-cheek three days since, and was glad I couldna see the plight the
place was in--but that’s a’ wide o’ the mark. There dwelt my gudesire,
Steenie Steenson; a rambling, rattling chiel’ he had been in his young
days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at “hoopers and
girders,” a’ Cumberland couldna touch him at “Jockie Lattin,” and he had
the finest finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle. The
like o’ Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o’. And so he became
a Tory, as they ca’ it, which we now ca’ Jacobites, just out of a kind
of needcessity, that he might belang to some side or other. He had nae
ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little to see the blude rin,
though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in hunting and hoisting,
watching and warding, he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did some that he
couldna avoid.
Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a’ the
folk about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when
they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that
had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and
stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and aye gae my gudesire his
gude word wi’ the laird; for Dougal could turn his master round his
finger.
Weel, round came the Revolution, and it had like to hae broken
the hearts baith of Dougal and his master. But the change was not
a’thegether sae great as they feared and other folk thought for. The
Whigs made an unco crawing what they wad do with their auld enemies, and
in special wi’ Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But there were ower-mony great
folks dipped in the same doings to make a spick-and-span new warld. So
Parliament passed it a’ ower easy; and Sir Robert, bating that he was
held to hunting foxes instead of Covenanters, remained just the man he
was. His revel was as loud, and his hall as weel lighted, as ever it had
been, though maybe he lacked the fines of the nonconformists, that used
to come to stock his larder and cellar; for it is certain he began to
be keener about the rents than his tenants used to find him before,
and they behooved to be prompt to the rent-day, or else the laird wasna
pleased. And he was sic an awsome body that naebody cared to anger him;
for the oaths he swore, and the rage that he used to get into, and the
looks that he put on made men sometimes think him a devil incarnate.
Weel, my gudesire was nae manager--no that he was a very great
misguider--but he hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms’ rent in
arrear. He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower wi’ fair word
and piping; but when Martinmas came there was a summons from the grund
officer to come wi’ the rent on a day preceese, or else Steenie behooved
to flit. Sair wark he had to get the siller; but he was weel freended,
and at last he got the haill scraped thegether--a thousand merks. The
maist of it was from a neighbour they caa’d Laurie Lapraik--a sly tod.
Laurie had wealth o’ gear, could hunt wi’ the hound and rin wi’ the
hare, and be Whig or Tory, saunt or sinner, as the wind stood. He was
a professor in the Revolution warld, but he liked an orra sough of the
warld, and a tune on the pipes weel aneugh at a by-time; and, bune a’,
he thought he had gude security for the siller he len my gudesire ower
the stocking at Primrose Knowe.
Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet Castle wi’ a heavy purse and a
light heart, glad to be out of the laird’s danger. Weel, the first thing
he learned at the castle was that Sir Robert had fretted himsell into a
fit of the gout because he did no appear before twelve o’clock. It wasna
a’thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought, but because he didna
like to part wi’ my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see
Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour; and there sat
the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great,
ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A cankered beast
it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to please it was,
and easily angered--ran about the haill castle, chattering and
rowling, and pinching and biting folk, specially before ill weather,
or disturbance in the state. Sir Robert caa’d it Major Weir, after
the warlock that was burnt; and few folk liked either the name or the
conditions of the creature--they thought there was something in it by
ordinar--and my gudesire was not just easy in mind when the door shut
on him, and he saw himsell in the room wi’ naebody but the laird, Dougal
MacCallum, and the major--a thing that hadna chanced to him before.
Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a great arm-chair, wi’ his
grand velvet gown, and his feet on a cradle, for he had baith gout and
gravel, and his face looked as gash and ghastly as Satan’s. Major Weir
sat opposite to him, in a red-laced coat, and the laird’s wig on his
head; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi’ pain, the jackanape girned too,
like a sheep’s head between a pair of tangs--an ill-faur’d, fearsome
couple they were. The laird’s buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him and
his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the auld
fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night,
just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and sway
after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of. Some said it was
for fear of the Whigs taking vengeance, but I judge it was just his auld
custom--he wasna gine not fear onything. The rental-book, wi’ its black
cover and brass clasps, was lying beside him; and a book of sculduddery
sangs was put betwixt the leaves, to keep it open at the place where it
bore evidence against the goodman of Primrose Knowe, as behind the hand
with his mails and duties. Sir Robert gave my gudesire a look, as if he
would have withered his heart in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way of
bending his brows that men saw the visible mark of a horseshoe in his
forehead, deep-dinted, as if it had been stamped there.
“Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a toom whistle?” said Sir Robert.
“Zounds! If you are--”
My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as he could put on, made a leg,
and placed the bag of money on the table wi’ a dash, like a man that
does something clever. The laird drew it to him hastily. “Is all here,
Steenie, man?”
“Your honour will find it right,” said my gudesire.
“Here, Dougal,” said the laird, “gie Steenie a tass of brandy, till I
count the siller and write the receipt.”
But they werena weel out of the room when Sir Robert gied a yelloch that
garr’d the castle rock. Back ran Dougal; in flew the liverymen; yell on
yell gied the laird, ilk ane mair awfu’ than the ither. My gudesire knew
not whether to stand or flee, but he ventured back into the parlour,
where a’ was gaun hirdie-girdie--naebody to say “come in” or “gae out.”
Terribly the laird roared for cauld water to his feet, and wine to cool
his throat; and ‘Hell, hell, hell, and its flames’, was aye the word in
his mouth. They brought him water, and when they plunged his swoln feet
into the tub, he cried out it was burning; and folks say that it
_did_ bubble and sparkle like a seething cauldron. He flung the cup at
Dougal’s head and said he had given him blood instead of Burgundy; and,
sure aneugh, the lass washed clotted blood aff the carpet the neist day.
The jackanape they caa’d Major Weir, it jibbered and cried as if it was
mocking its master. My gudesire’s head was like to turn; he forgot
baith siller and receipt, and downstairs he banged; but, as he ran,
the shrieks came fainter and fainter; there was a deep-drawn shivering
groan, and word gaed through the castle that the laird was dead.
Weel, away came my gudesire wi’ his finger in his mouth, and his best
hope was that Dougal had seen the money-bag and heard the laird speak of
writing the receipt. The young laird, now Sir John, came from Edinburgh
to see things put to rights. Sir John and his father never ‘greed weel.
Sir John had been bred an advocate, and afterward sat in the last Scots
Parliament and voted for the Union, having gotten, it was thought, a rug
of the compensations--if his father could have come out of his grave he
would have brained him for it on his awn hearthstane. Some thought it
was easier counting with the auld rough knight than the fair-spoken
young ane--but mair of that anon.
Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat nor graned, but gaed about
the house looking like a corpse, but directing, as was his duty, a’ the
order of the grand funeral. Now Dougal looked aye waur and waur when
night was coming, and was aye the last to gang to his bed, whilk was
in a little round just opposite the chamber of dais, whilk his master
occupied while he was living, and where he now lay in state, as they
can’d it, weeladay! The night before the funeral Dougal could keep his
awn counsel nae longer; he came doun wi’ his proud spirit, and fairly
asked auld Hutcheon to sit in his room with him for an hour. When they
were in the round, Dougal took a tass of brandy to himsell, and gave
another to Hutcheon, and wished him all health and lang life, and said
that, for himsell, he wasna lang for this warld; for that every night
since Sir Robert’s death his silver call had sounded from the state
chamber just as it used to do at nights in his lifetime to call Dougal
to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal said that being alone with the
dead on that floor of the tower (for naebody cared to wake Sir Robert
Redgauntlet like another corpse), he had never daured to answer the
call, but that now his conscience checked him for neglecting his duty;
for, “though death breaks service,” said MacCallum, “it shall never weak
my service to Sir Robert; and I will answer his next whistle, so be you
will stand by me, Hutcheon.”
Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal in battle
and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so doun the carles
sat ower a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was something of a clerk,
would have read a chapter of the Bible; but Dougal would hear naething
but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur preparation.
When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure enough
the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert was
blowing it; and up got the twa auld serving-men, and tottered into the
room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance;
for there were torches in the room, which showed him the foul fiend, in
his ain shape, sitting on the laird’s coffin! Ower he couped as if he
had been dead. He could not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the
door, but when he gathered himsell he cried on his neighbour, and
getting nae answer raised the house, when Dougal was found lying dead
within twa steps of the bed where his master’s coffin was placed. As for
the whistle, it was gane anes and aye; but mony a time was it heard at
the top of the house on the bartizan, and amang the auld chimneys and
turrets where the howlets have their nests. Sir John hushed the matter
up, and the funeral passed over without mair bogie wark.
But when a’ was ower, and the laird was beginning to settle his affairs,
every tenant was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire for the full
sum that stood against him in the rental-book. Weel, away he trots to
the castle to tell his story, and there he is introduced to Sir John,
sitting in his father’s chair, in deep mourning, with weepers and
hanging cravat, and a small walking-rapier by his side, instead of the
auld broadsword that had a hunderweight of steel about it, what with
blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard their communings so often
tauld ower that I almost think I was there mysell, though I couldna be
born at the time. (In fact, Alan, my companion, mimicked, with a good
deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant’s
address and the hypocritical melancholy of the laird’s reply. His
grandfather, he said, had while he spoke, his eye fixed on the
rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would spring
up and bite him.)
“I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head seat and the white loaf and the brid
lairdship. Your father was a kind man to freends and followers; muckle
grace to you, Sir John, to fill his shoon--his boots, I suld say, for he
seldom wore shoon, unless it were muils when he had the gout.”
“Ay, Steenie,” quoth the laird, sighing deeply, and putting his napkin
to his een, “his was a sudden call, and he will be missed in the
country; no time to set his house in order--weel prepared Godward, no
doubt, which is the root of the matter; but left us behind a tangled
hesp to wind, Steenie. Hem! Hem! We maun go to business, Steenie; much
to do, and little time to do it in.”
Here he opened the fatal volume. I have heard of a thing they call
Doomsday book--I am clear it has been a rental of back-ganging tenants.
“Stephen,” said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of
voice--“Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s
rent behind the hand--due at last term.”
_Stephen._ Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your father.
_Sir John._ Ye took a receipt, then, doubtless, Stephen, and can produce
it?
_Stephen._ Indeed, I hadna time, an it like your honour; for nae sooner
had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour, Sir Robert, that’s
gaen, drew it ill him to count it and write out the receipt, he was
ta’en wi’ the pains that removed him.
“That was unlucky,” said Sir John, after a pause. “But ye maybe paid
it in the presence of somebody. I want but a _talis qualis_ evidence,
Stephen. I would go ower-strictly to work with no poor man.”
_Stephen._ Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but Dougal
MacCallum, the butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e’en followed
his auld master.
“Very unlucky again, Stephen,” said Sir John, without altering his voice
a single note. “The man to whom ye paid the money is dead, and the man
who witnessed the payment is dead too; and the siller, which should have
been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard tell of in the repositories.
How am I to believe a’ this?”
_Stephen._ I dinna ken, your honour; but there is a bit memorandum
note of the very coins, for, God help me! I had to borrow out of twenty
purses; and I am sure that ilka man there set down will take his grit
oath for what purpose I borrowed the money.
_Sir John._ I have little doubt ye _borrowed_ the money, Steenie. It is
the _payment_ that I want to have proof of.
_Stephen._ The siller maun be about the house, Sir John. And since your
honour never got it, and his honour that was canna have ta’en it wi’
him, maybe some of the family may hae seen it.
_Sir John._ We will examine the servants, Stephen; that is but
reasonable.
But lackey and lass, and page and groom, all denied stoutly that they
had ever seen such a bag of money as my gudesire described. What saw
waur, he had unluckily not mentioned to any living soul of them his
purpose of paying his rent. Ae quean had noticed something under his
arm, but she took it for the pipes.
Sir John Redgauntlet ordered the servants out of the room and then said
to my gudesire, “Now, Steenie, ye see ye have fair play; and, as I have
little doubt ye ken better where to find the siller than ony other
body, I beg in fair terms, and for your own sake, that you will end this
fasherie; for, Stephen, ye maun pay or flit.”
“The Lord forgie your opinion,” said Stephen, driven almost to his wits’
end--“I am an honest man.”
“So am I, Stephen,” said his honour; “and so are all the folks in the
house, I hope. But if there be a knave among us, it must be he that
tells the story he cannot prove.” He paused, and then added, mair
sternly: “If I understand your trick, sir, you want to take advantage
of some malicious reports concerning things in this family, and
particularly respecting my father’s sudden death, thereby to cheat me
out of the money, and perhaps take away my character by insinuating that
I have received the rent I am demanding. Where do you suppose the money
to be? I insist upon knowing.”
My gudesire saw everything look so muckle against him that he grew
nearly desperate. However, he shifted from one foot to another, looked
to every corner of the room, and made no answer.
“Speak out, sirrah,” said the laird, assuming a look of his father’s, a
very particular ane, which he had when he was angry--it seemed as if the
wrinkles of his frown made that selfsame fearful shape of a horse’s shoe
in the middle of his brow; “speak out, sir! I _will_ know your thoughts;
do you suppose that I have this money?”
“Far be it frae me to say so,” said Stephen.
“Do you charge any of my people with having taken it?”
“I wad be laith to charge them that may be innocent,” said my gudesire;
“and if there be any one that is guilty, I have nae proof.”
“Somewhere the money must be, if there is a word of truth in your
story,” said Sir John; “I ask where you think it is--and demand a
correct answer!”
“In hell, if you _will_ have my thoughts of it,” said my gudesire,
driven to extremity--“in hell! with your father, his jackanape, and his
silver whistle.”
Down the stairs he ran (for the parlour was nae place for him after such
a word), and he heard the laird swearing blood and wounds behind him,
as fast as ever did Sir Robert, and roaring for the bailie and the
baron-officer.
Away rode my gudesire to his chief creditor (him they caa’d Laurie
Lapraik), to try if he could make onything out of him; but when he tauld
his story, he got the worst word in his wame--thief, beggar, and dyvour
were the saftest terms; and to the boot of these hard terms, Laurie
brought up the auld story of dipping his hand in the blood of God’s
saunts, just as if a tenant could have helped riding with the laird, and
that a laird like Sir Robert Redgauntlet. My gudesire was, by this time,
far beyond the bounds of patience, and, while he and Laurie were at deil
speed the liars, he was wanchancie aneugh to abuse Lapraik’s doctrine
as weel as the man, and said things that garr’d folks’ flesh grue that
heard them--he wasna just himsell, and he had lived wi’ a wild set in
his day.
At last they parted, and my gudesire was to ride hame through the wood
of Pitmurkie, that is a’ fou of black firs, as they say. I ken the wood,
but the firs may be black or white for what I can tell. At the entry of
the wood there is a wild common, and on the edge of the common a little
lonely change-house, that was keepit then by an hostler wife,--they suld
hae caa’d her Tibbie Faw,--and there puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin
of brandy, for he had had no refreshment the haill day. Tibbie was
earnest wi’ him to take a bite of meat, but he couldna think o’ ‘t,
nor would he take his foot out of the stirrup, and took off the brandy,
wholely at twa draughts, and named a toast at each. The first was, the
memory of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, and may he never lie quiet in his
grave till he had righted his poor bond-tenant; and the second was, a
health to Man’s Enemy, if he would but get him back the pock of siller,
or tell him what came o’ ‘t, for he saw the haill world was like to
regard him as a thief and a cheat, and he took that waur than even the
ruin of his house and hauld.
On he rode, little caring where. It was a dark night turned, and the
trees made it yet darker, and he let the beast take its ain road through
the wood; when all of a sudden, from tired and wearied that it was
before, the nag began to spring and flee and stend, that my gudesire
could hardly keep the saddle. Upon the whilk, a horseman, suddenly
riding up beside him, said, “That’s a mettle beast of yours, freend;
will you sell him?” So saying, he touched the horse’s neck with his
riding-wand, and it fell into its auld heigh-ho of a stumbling trot.
“But his spunk’s soon out of him, I think,” continued the stranger, “and
that is like mony a man’s courage, that thinks he wad do great things.”
My gudesire scarce listened to this, but spurred his horse, with
“Gude-e’en to you, freend.”
But it’s like the stranger was ane that doesna lightly yield his point;
for, ride as Steenie liked, he was aye beside him at the selfsame pace.
At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half angry, and, to say the
truth, half feard.
“What is it that you want with me, freend?” he said. “If ye be a robber,
I have nae money; if ye be a leal man, wanting company, I have nae heart
to mirth or speaking; and if ye want to ken the road, I scarce ken it
mysell.”
“If you will tell me your grief,” said the stranger, “I am one that,
though I have been sair miscaa’d in the world, am the only hand for
helping my freends.”
So my gudesire, to ease his ain heart, mair than from any hope of help,
told him the story from beginning to end.
“It’s a hard pinch,” said the stranger; “but I think I can help you.”
“If you could lend me the money, sir, and take a lang day--I ken nae
other help on earth,” said my gudesire.
“But there may be some under the earth,” said the stranger. “Come, I’ll
be frank wi’ you; I could lend you the money on bond, but you would
maybe scruple my terms. Now I can tell you that your auld laird is
disturbed in his grave by your curses and the wailing of your family,
and if ye daur venture to go to see him, he will give you the receipt.”
My gudesire’s hair stood on end at this proposal, but he thought his
companion might be some humoursome chield that was trying to frighten
him, and might end with lending him the money. Besides, he was bauld wi’
brandy, and desperate wi’ distress; and he said he had courage to go
to the gate of hell, and a step farther, for that receipt. The stranger
laughed.
Weel, they rode on through the thickest of the wood, when, all of a
sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house; and, but that he
knew the place was ten miles off, my father would have thought he was
at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer courtyard, through the
muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole
front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and
as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir Robert’s house at
Pace and Yule, and such high seasons. They lap off, and my gudesire, as
seemed to him, fastened his horse to the very ring he had tied him to
that morning when he gaed to wait on the young Sir John.
“God!” said my gudesire, “if Sir Robert’s death be but a dream!”
He knocked at the ha’ door just as he was wont, and his auld
acquaintance, Dougal MacCallum--just after his wont, too--came to open
the door, and said, “Piper Steenie, are ye there lad? Sir Robert has
been crying for you.”
My gudesire was like a man in a dream--he looked for the stranger, but
he was gane for the time. At last he just tried to say, “Ha! Dougal
Driveower, are you living? I thought ye had been dead.”
“Never fash yoursell wi’ me,” said Dougal, “but look to yoursell; and
see ye tak’ naething frae onybody here, neither meat, drink, or siller,
except the receipt that is your ain.”
So saying, he led the way out through the halls and trances that were
weel kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there was
as much singing of profane sangs, and birling of red wine, and blasphemy
and sculduddery, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle when it was at
the blythest.
But Lord take us in keeping! What a set of ghastly revellers there were
that sat around that table! My gudesire kend mony that had long before
gane to their place, for often had he piped to the most part in the
hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute
Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his bald head and
a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with Cameron’s blude on his hand;
and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill’s limbs till the blude
sprung; and Dumbarton Douglas, the twice turned traitor baith to country
and king. There was the Bludy Advocate MacKenyie, who, for his
worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god. And there was
Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled
locks streaming down over his laced buff-coat, and with his left hand
always on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound that the silver
bullet had made. He sat apart from them all, and looked at them with a
melancholy, haughty countenance; while the rest hallooed and sang and
laughed, that the room rang. But their smiles were fearfully contorted
from time to time; and their laughter passed into such wild sounds as
made my gudesire’s very nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow in his
banes.
They that waited at the table were just the wicked serving-men and
troopers that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. There
was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that helped to take Argyle; and the
bishop’s summoner, that they called the Deil’s Rattlebag; and the wicked
guardsmen in their laced coats; and the savage Highland Amorites, that
shed blood like water; and mony a proud serving-man, haughty of heart
and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making them wickeder than
they would be; grinding the poor to powder when the rich had broken them
to fragments. And mony, mony mair were coming and ganging, a’ as busy in
their vocation as if they had been alive.
Sir Robert Redgauntlet, in the midst of a’ this fearful riot, cried, wi’
a voice like thunder, on Steenie Piper to come to the board-head where
he was sitting, his legs stretched out before him, and swathed up with
flannel, with his holster pistols aside him, while the great broadsword
rested against his chair, just as my gudesire had seen him the last time
upon earth; the very cushion for the jackanape was close to him, but the
creature itsell was not there--it wasna its hour, it’s likely; for he
heard them say, as he came forward, “Is not the major come yet?” And
another answered, “The jackanape will be here betimes the morn.” And
when my gudesire came forward, Sir Robert or his ghaist, or the deevil
in his likeness, said, “Weel, piper, hae ye settled wi’ my son for the
year’s rent?”
With much ado my father gat breath to say that Sir John would not settle
without his honour’s receipt.
“Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie,” said the
appearance of Sir Robert--“play us up ‘Weel Hoddled, Luckie.’”
Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that heard it
when they were worshipping Satan at their meetings; and my gudesire had
sometimes played it at the ranting suppers in Redgauntlet Castle, but
never very willingly; and now he grew cauld at the very name of it, and
said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi’ him.
“MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub,” said the fearfu’ Sir Robert, “bring
Steenie the pipes that I am keeping for him!”
MacCallum brought a pair of pipes might have served the piper of Donald
of the Isles. But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered them; and
looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that the chanter was of steel,
and heated to a white heat; so he had fair warning not to trust his
fingers with it. So he excused himsell again, and said he was faint and
frightened, and had not wind aneugh to fill the bag.
“Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie,” said the figure; “for we
do little else here; and it’s ill speaking between a fou man and a
fasting.” Now these were the very words that the bloody Earl of Douglas
said to keep the king’s messenger in hand while he cut the head off
MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle; and put Steenie mair and
mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither
to eat nor drink, nor make minstrelsy; but simply for his ain--to ken
what was come o’ the money he had paid, and to get a discharge for it;
and he was so stout-hearted by this time that he charged Sir Robert
for conscience’s sake (he had no power to say the holy name), and as he
hoped for peace and rest, to spread no snares for him, but just to give
him his ain.
The appearance gnashed its teeth and laughed, but it took from a large
pocket-book the receipt, and handed it to Steenie. “There is your
receipt, ye pitiful cur; and for the money, my dog-whelp of a son may go
look for it in the Cat’s Cradle.”
My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was about to retire, when Sir
Robert roared aloud, “Stop, though, thou sack-doudling son of a --! I am
not done with thee. HERE we do nothing for nothing; and you must return
on this very day twelvemonth to pay your master the homage that you owe
me for my protection.”
My father’s tongue was loosed of a suddenty, and he said aloud, “I refer
myself to God’s pleasure, and not to yours.”
He had no sooner uttered the word than all was dark around him; and he
sank on the earth with such a sudden shock that he lost both breath and
sense.
How lang Steenie lay there he could not tell; but when he came to
himsell he was lying in the auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet parochine, just
at the door of the family aisle, and the scutcheon of the auld knight,
Sir Robert, hanging over his head. There was a deep morning fog on grass
and gravestane around him, and his horse was feeding quietly beside the
minister’s twa cows. Steenie would have thought the whole was a dream,
but he had the receipt in his hand fairly written and signed by the
auld laird; only the last letters of his name were a little disorderly,
written like one seized with sudden pain.
Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary place, rode through
the mist to Redgauntlet Castle, and with much ado he got speech of the
laird.
“Well, you dyvour bankrupt,” was the first word, “have you brought me my
rent?”
“No,” answered my gudesire, “I have not; but I have brought your honour
Sir Robert’s receipt for it.”
“How, sirrah? Sir Robert’s receipt! You told me he had not given you
one.”
“Will your honour please to see if that bit line is right?”
Sir John looked at every line, and at every letter, with much attention;
and at last at the date, which my gudesire had not observed--“From my
appointed place,” he read, “this twenty-fifth of November.”
“What! That is yesterday! Villain, thou must have gone to hell for
this!”
“I got it from your honour’s father; whether he be in heaven or hell, I
know not,” said Steenie.
“I will debate you for a warlock to the Privy Council!” said Sir
John. “I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a
tar-barrel and a torch!”
“I intend to debate mysell to the Presbytery,” said Steenie, “and tell
them all I have seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them to
judge of than a borrel man like me.”
Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desired to hear the full history;
and my gudesire told it him from point to point, as I have told it
you--neither more nor less.
Sir John was silent again for a long time, and at last he said, very
composedly: “Steenie, this story of yours concerns the honour of many
a noble family besides mine; and if it be a leasing-making, to keep
yourself out of my danger, the least you can expect is to have a red-hot
iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as scaulding
your fingers wi’ a red-hot chanter. But yet it may be true, Steenie; and
if the money cast up, I shall not know what to think of it. But where
shall we find the Cat’s Cradle? There are cats enough about the old
house, but I think they kitten without the ceremony of bed or cradle.”
“We were best ask Hutcheon,” said my gudesire; “he kens a’ the odd
corners about as weel as--another serving-man that is now gane, and that
I wad not like to name.”
Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told them that a ruinous turret lang
disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, for the
opening was on the outside, above the battlements, was called of old the
Cat’s Cradle.
“There will I go immediately,” said Sir John; and he took--with what
purpose Heaven kens--one of his father’s pistols from the hall table,
where they had lain since the night he died, and hastened to the
battlements.
It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder was auld and frail,
and wanted ane or twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, and entered at
the turret door, where his body stopped the only little light that was
in the bit turret. Something flees at him wi’ a vengeance, maist dang
him back ower--bang! gaed the knight’s pistol, and Hutcheon, that
held the ladder, and my gudesire, that stood beside him, hears a loud
skelloch. A minute after, Sir John flings the body of the jackanape down
to them, and cries that the siller is fund, and that they should come
up and help him. And there was the bag of siller sure aneaugh, and mony
orra thing besides, that had been missing for mony a day. And Sir
John, when he had riped the turret weel, led my gudesire into the
dining-parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke kindly to him, and
said he was sorry he should have doubted his word, and that he would
hereafter be a good master to him, to make amends.
“And now, Steenie,” said Sir John, “although this vision of yours tends,
on the whole, to my father’s credit as an honest man, that he should,
even after his death, desire to see justice done to a poor man like
you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make bad
constructions upon it concerning his soul’s health. So, I think, we had
better lay the haill dirdum on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir,
and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taen
ower-muckle brandy to be very certain about onything; and, Steenie, this
receipt”--his hand shook while he held it out--“it’s but a queer kind of
document, and we will do best, I think, to put it quietly in the fire.”
“Od, but for as queer as it is, it’s a’ the voucher I have for my rent,”
said my gudesire, who was afraid, it may be, of losing the benefit of
Sir Robert’s discharge.
“I will bear the contents to your credit in the rental-book, and give
you a discharge under my own hand,” said Sir John, “and that on the
spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue about this matter, you
shall sit, from this time downward, at an easier rent.”
“Mony thanks to your honour,” said Steenie, who saw easily in what
corner the wind was; “doubtless I will be conformable to all your
honour’s commands; only I would willingly speak wi’ some powerful
minister on the subject, for I do not like the sort of soumons of
appointment whilk your honour’s father--”
“Do not call the phantom my father!” said Sir John, interrupting him.
“Well then, the thing that was so like him,” said my gudesire; “he spoke
of my coming back to see him this time twelvemonth, and it’s a weight on
my conscience.”
“Aweel then,” said Sir John, “if you be so much distressed in mind, you
may speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce man, regards the
honour of our family, and the mair that he may look for some patronage
from me.”
Wi’ that, my father readily agreed that the receipt should be burnt; and
the laird threw it into the chimney with his ain hand. Burn it would
not for them, though; but away it flew up the lum, wi’ a lang train of
sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib.
My gudesire gaed down to the manse, and the minister, when he had heard
the story, said it was his real opinion that, though my gudesire had
gane very far in tampering with dangerous matters, yet as he had refused
the devil’s arles (for such was the offer of meat and drink), and had
refused to do homage by piping at his bidding, he hoped that, if he held
a circumspect walk hereafter, Satan could take little advantage by what
was come and gane. And, indeed, my gudesire, of his ain accord, lang
forswore baith the pipes and the brandy--it was not even till the year
was out, and the fatal day past, that he would so much as take the
fiddle or drink usquebaugh or tippenny.
Sir John made up his story about the jackanape as he liked himsell;
and some believe till this day there was no more in the matter than the
filching nature of the brute. Indeed, ye ‘ll no hinder some to thread
that it was nane o’ the auld Enemy that Dougal and Hutcheon saw in the
laird’s room, but only that wanchancie creature the major, capering on
the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the laird’s whistle that was
heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the
laird himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first
came out by the minister’s wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman were
baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs,
but not in his judgment or memory,--at least nothing to speak of,--was
obliged to tell the real narrative to his freends, for the credit of his
good name. He might else have been charged for a warlock.
The shades of evening were growing thicker around us as my conductor
finished his long narrative with this moral: “You see, birkie, it is nae
chancy thing to tak’ a stranger traveller for a guide when you are in an
uncouth land.”
“I should not have made that inference,” said I. “Your grandfather’s
adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saves from ruin and
distress; and fortunate for his landlord.”
“Ay, but they had baith to sup the sauce o’ ‘t sooner or later,” said
Wandering Willie; “what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died before
he was much over threescore; and it was just like a moment’s illness.
And for my gudesire, though he departed in fulness of life, yet there
was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt the stilts
of his plough, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but me, a puir,
sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither work nor want.
Things gaed weel aneugh at first; for Sir Regwald Redgauntlet, the only
son of Sir John, and the oye of auld Sir Robert, and, wae’s me! the last
of the honourable house, took the farm aff our hands, and brought me
into his household to have care of me. My head never settled since I
lost him; and if I say another word about it, deil a bar will I have
the heart to play the night. Look out, my gentle chap,” he resumed, in
a different tone; “ye should see the lights at Brokenburn Glen by this
time.”