By Sir Walter Scott
"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
