enie 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 h