,' said MacCallum, 'it shall
never break my service to Sir Robert; and I will answer his next
whistle, so be you will stand by me, Hutcheon.'

Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal in battle
and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so down 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 cowped as if he
had been dead. He could not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the
door, but when he gathered himself, 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 gaen anes and ay; 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 bogle-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 wallring rapier by his side, instead of the
auld broadsword that had a hundredweight of steel about it, what with
blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard their communing 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 wus