Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century by Walter Scott (classic romance novels txt) 📗

With much ado my father gat breath to say that Sir John would not settle without his honour’s receipt.

‘Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie,’ said the appearance of Sir Robert—‘Play us up “Weel hoddled, Luckie”.’

Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that heard it when they were worshipping 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 aneugh 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, [The reader is referred for particulars to Pitscottie’s HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.] 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 sank 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 honour Sir Robert’s receipt for it.’

‘Wow, sirrah? Sir Robert’s receipt! You told me he had not given you one.’

‘Will your honour 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 honour’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 honour 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 redhot iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as scauding your fingers wi’ 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. 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.