l in battle
and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so doun the carles
sat ower a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was something of a clerk,
would have read a chapter of the Bible; but Dougal would hear naething
but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur preparation.

When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure enough
the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert was
blowing it; and up got the twa auld serving-men, and tottered into the
room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance;
for there were torches in the room, which showed him the foul fiend, in
his ain shape, sitting on the laird's coffin! Ower he couped as if he
had been dead. He could not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the
door, but when he gathered himsell he cried on his neighbour, and
getting nae answer raised the house, when Dougal was found lying dead
within twa steps of the bed where his master's coffin was placed. As for
the whistle, it was gane anes and aye; but mony a time was it heard at
the top of the house on the bartizan, and amang the auld chimneys and
turrets where the howlets have their nests. Sir John hushed the matter
up, and the funeral passed over without mair bogie wark.

But when a' was ower, and the laird was beginning to settle his affairs,
every tenant was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire for the full
sum that stood against him in the rental-book. Weel, away he trots to
the castle to tell his story, and there he is introduced to Sir John,
sitting in his father's chair, in deep mourning, with weepers and
hanging cravat, and a small walking-rapier by his side, instead of the
auld broadsword that had a hunderweight of steel about it, what with
blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard their communings so often
tauld ower that I almost think I was there mysell, though I couldna be
born at the time. (In fact, Alan, my companion, mimicked, with a good
deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant's
address and the hypocritical melancholy of the laird's reply. His
grandfather, he said, had while he spoke, his eye fixed on the
rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would spring
up and bite him.)

"I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head seat and the white loaf and the brid
lairdship. Your father was a kind man to freends and followers; muckle
grace to you, Sir John, to fill his shoon--his boots, I suld say, for he
s