1. Churchyard of Redgauntlet parish. elders from the local parishes. 2. Coat of arms. 5. Simple. 3. Report. 6. Slander. 4. Ecclesiastical court made up of ministers and
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42 2 / SIR WALTER SCOTT
the least you can expect is to have a redhot iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as scauding your fingers with a redhot 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.7 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 riped8 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 on it, concerning his soul's health. So, I think, we had better lay the haill dirdum9 on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir, and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taken ower muclde brandy to be very certain about ony thing; 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 honour,' said Steenie, who saw easily in what corner the wind was; 'doubtless I will be conformable to all your honour's commands;
7. Screech. 9. Blame. 8. Searched.
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WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 423
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 that 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 much distressed in mind, you may speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce1 man, regards the honour 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 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,2 wi' a lang train of sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib.3
My gudesire gaed down to the manse,4 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 such dangerous matters, yet, as he had refused the devil's arles5 (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 passed, that he would so much as take the fiddle, or drink usquebaugh or tippeny.6
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,7 that it was nane o' the Auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the Laird's room, but only that wanchancy 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 gudeman8 were baith in the moulds.9 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,1 it is nae chancy thing to tak a stranger traveller for a guide, when ye are in an uncouth2 land.'
1824
1. Respectable. 107-8: Steenie's adventure in some respects 2. Chimney flue. repeats Tarn's. 3. Firecracker. 7. Contend. 4. Minister's house. 8. Husband. 5. Money given to bind the bargain when a servant 9. Their graves. is
