SO I told them these stories--and others--to lure them to the printed
book, much as carrots are dangled before the nose of the reluctant
donkey. They are four average intelligent children enough, but they hold
severely modern views upon storybooks. _Waverley_, in especial, they
could not away with. They found themselves stuck upon the very
threshold.
Now, since the first telling of these Red Cap Tales, the Scott shelf in
the library has been taken by storm and escalade. It is permanently
gap-toothed all along the line. Also there are nightly skirmishes, even
to the laying on of hands, as to who shall sleep with _Waverley_ under
his pillow.
It struck me that there must be many oldsters in the world who, for the
sake of their own youth, would like the various Sweethearts who now
inhabit their nurseries, to read Sir Walter with the same breathless
eagerness as they used to do--how many years agone? It is chiefly for
their sakes that I have added several interludes, telling how
Sweetheart, Hugh John, Sir Toady Lion, and Maid Margaret received my
petty larcenies from the full chest of the Wizard.
At any rate, Red Cap succeeded in one case--why should he not in
another? I claim no merit in the telling of the tales, save that, like
medicines well sugar-coated, the patients mistook them for candies
and--asked for more.
The books are open. Any one can tell Scott's stories over again in his
own way. This is mine.