Claverhouse’s or Tam Dalyell’s.  Glen, nor dargle, nor mountain, nor cave could hide the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out with bugle and bloodhound after them, as if they had been sae mony deer.  And, troth, when they fand them, they didna make muckle mair ceremony than a Hielandman wi’ a roebuck.  It was just, “Will ye tak’ the test?” If not—­“Make ready—­present—­fire!” and there lay the recusant.

Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared.  Men thought he had a direct compact with Satan; that he was proof against steel, and that bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hailstanes from a hearth; that he had a mear that would turn a hare on the side of Carrifra-gauns (a precipitous side of a mountain in Moffatdale); and muckle to the same purpose, of whilk mair anon.  The best blessing they wared on him was, “Deil scowp wi’ Redgauntlet!” He wasna a bad master to his ain folk, though, and was weel aneugh liked by his tenants; and as for the lackeys and troopers that rade out wi’ him to the persecutions, as the Whigs caa’d those killing-times, they wad hae drunken themsells blind to his health at ony time.

Now you are to ken that my gudesire lived on Redgauntlet’s grund—­they ca’ the place Primrose Knowe.  We had lived on the grund, and under the Redgauntlets, since the riding-days, and lang before.  It was a pleasant bit; and, I think the air is callerer and fresher there than onywhere else in the country.  It’s a’ deserted now; and I sat on the broken door-cheek three days since, and was glad I couldna see the plight the place was in—­but that’s a’ wide o’ the mark.  There dwelt my gudesire, Steenie Steenson; a rambling, rattling chiel’ he had been in his young days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at “hoopers and girders,” a’ Cumberland couldna touch him at “Jockie Lattin,” and he had the finest finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle.  The like o’ Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o’.  And so he became a Tory, as they ca’ it, which we now ca’ Jacobites, just out of a kind of needcessity, that he might belang to some side or other.  He had nae ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little to see the blude rin, though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in hunting and hoisting, watching and warding, he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did some that he couldna avoid.

Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a’ the folk about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when they were at their merriment.  Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and aye gae my gudesire his gude word wi’ the laird; for Dougal could turn his master round his finger.