Sir John. "Ye took a receipt then, doubtless, Stephen, and can
produce it?"
Stephen. "Indeed I hadna time, an it like your honor; for nae sooner
had I set doun the siller, and just as his honor Sir Robert, that's
gaen, drew it till 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 honor 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 honor; 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 to my father that I want to have some proof of."
Stephen. "The siller maun be about the house, Sir John. And since
your honor never got it, and his honor that was canna have ta'en it
wi' him, maybe some of the family may have 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 was
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 you have fair play; and,
as I have little doubt ye ken better where to find the siller than
any 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
wit's-end--"I am an honest man."
"So am I, Stephen," said his honor; "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 can not 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
this money to be? I insist upon knowing."
My gudesire saw everything look sae 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 parlor 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 ca'd Laurie
Lapraik, to try if he could make onything out of him; but when he
tauld his story, he got but the warst word in his wame--thief,
beggar, and dyvour were the safest terms; and to the boot of these
hard terms, Laurie brought up the auld story of his 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 a
hostler-wife--they suld hae ca'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 o' meat,
but he couldna think o't, nor would he take his foot out of the
stirrup, and took off the brandy wholly at twa drafts, and named a
toast at each--the first was, the memory of Sir Robert Redgauntlet,
and might 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 till he come to the proof."
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
salfsame pace. At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half
angry and, to say the truth, half feared.
"What is it that ye 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 misca'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 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 humorsome 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 gudesire 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 in
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 ye 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 just the receipt that is your ain."
So saying, he led the way out through halls and trances that were
weel kenn'd to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlor; and there
was as much singing of profane sangs, and birling of red wine, and
speaking blasphemy and sculduddry, as had ever been in Redgauntlet
Castle when it was at the blythest.
But, Lord take us in keeping! what a set of ghastly revelers they
were that sat round that table! My gudesire kenn'd 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 Bluidy
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 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 sung, 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 Rattle-bag; 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 honor's receipt.
"Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie," said the
appearance of Sir Robert. "Play us up, 'Weel noddled, Luckie.'"
Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that heard it
when they were worshiping 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 himself again, and said
he was faint and frightened, and had not wind enough 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 that put Steenie mair
and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came
neither to eat, or drink, or 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' 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 whore!
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 mysell to God's pleasure, and not to yours."
He had no sooner uttered the word than all was dark around him, and
he sunk 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
honor Sir Robert's receipt for it."
"How, sirrah? Sir Robert's receipt! You told me he had not given
you one."
"Will your honor 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 honor's father; whether he be in Heaven or Hell,
I know not," said Steenie.
"I will delate 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 delate 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--word for word, 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 honor 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
scauding your fingers with 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, and far 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 aneugh,
and mony orra things 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-parlor, 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 taken 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 term downward, at an easier rent."
"Mony thanks to your honor," said Steenie, who saw easily in what
corner the wind was; "doubtless I will be conformable to all your
honor's commands; only I would willingly speak wi' some powerful
minister on the subject, for I do not like the sort of summons of
appointment whilk your honor's father--"
"Do not call the phantom my father!" said Sir John, interrupting him.
"Weel, then, the thing that was so like him," said my gudesire; "he
spoke of my coming back to 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 speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce man, regards
the honor of our family, and the mair that he may look for some
patronage from me."
Wi' that my gudesire readily agreed that the receipt should be
burned, 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 gaen 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 foreswore baith the pipes and the
brandy; it was not even till the year was out, and the fatal day
passed, 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
threap 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 molds. 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: "Ye see, birkie, it is
nae chancy thing to tak a stranger traveler for a guide when ye are
in an uncouth land."
"I should not have made that inference," said I. "Your grandfather's
adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saved from ruin and
distress; and fortunate for his landlord also, whom it prevented from
committing a gross act of injustice."
"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 of a
moment's illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in fulness
of years, yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell
down betwixt the stilts of his pleugh, and raise 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 Redwald Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John, and the
oye of auld Sir Robert, and, wae's me! the last of the honorable
house, took the farm off our hands, and brought me into his household
to have care of me. He liked music, and I had the best teachers
baith England and Scotland could gie me. Mony a merry year was I wi'
him; but wae's me! he gaed out with other pretty men in the
Forty-five--I'll say nae mair about it. My head never settled weel
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 in Brokenburn
Glen by this time."