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 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 leal2 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'd3 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 strange; 'but I think I can help you.'
'If you could lend me the money, sir, and take a lang day4?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
9. I.e., 'I am told she was called Tibbie Faw.' 2. Honest. 'Ostler-wife': female keeper of a hostelry (inn). 3. Much maligned.
1. Home. 4. Extend credit for a long time.
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WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 419
was ten miles off, my father would have thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer court-yard, through the muckle faulding yetts,5 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 deray6 within as used to be in Sir Robert's House at Pace and Yule,7 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,8 are ye living? I thought ye had been dead.'
'Never fash9 yoursell wi' me,' said Dougal, 'but look to yoursell; and see ye take 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 kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there was as much singing of profane sangs, and birling1 of red wine, and speaking blasphemy and sculduddry, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle when it was at the blithest.
But, Lord take us in keeping! what a set of ghastly revellers they were that sat round 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 Bluidy Advocate MacKenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god.2 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.3 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 Nethertown, that helped to take Argyle; and the Bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's Battle-bag; and the wicked guardsmen, in their laced coats; and the savage Highland Amorites,4 that shed blood like water; and
5. Great folding gates. cal figure notorious for his ruthlessness during the 6. Disorderly revelry. killing years, and the leader of the Highland army 7. Easter and Christmas. that fought for the cause of the exiled King James 8. Nickname for an idler. Stuart in 1689: he died in battle that year, and 9. Trouble. legend reported that it took a silver bullet to kill 1. Pouring. him. 2. Willie's list identifies a number of the royalist 4. The 'Highland host' sent into southwest Scot- aristocrats who, while alive, took the lead in per-land in 1678 to enforce a law that legalized the
secuting the Covenanters. evictions of people who attended Presbyterian con
3. John Graham of Claverhouse, another histori-venticles rather than parish churches. Covenanter
.
42 0 / SIR WALTER SCOTT
many a proud serving-man, haughty of heart and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making them
