“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