ain gudeman were
baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs,
but not in his judgement or memory--at least nothing to speak of--was
obliged to tell the real narrative to his friends, for the credit of his
good name. He might else have been charged for a warlock. [See Note 3.]

The shades of evening were growing thicker around us as my conductor
finished his long narrative with this moral--'Ye see, birkie, it is nae
chancy thing to tak a stranger traveller for a guide, when you are in an
uncouth land.'

'I should not have made that inference,' said I. 'Your grandfather's
adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saved from ruin and
distress; and fortunate for his landlord also, whom it prevented from
committing a gross act of injustice.'

'Aye, but they had baith to sup the sauce o't sooner or later,' said
Wandering Willie--'what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died
before he was much over three-score; and it was just like of a moment's
illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in fullness of life,
yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt
the stilts of his pleugh, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but
me, a puir sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither
work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh at first; for Sir Redwald
Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John, and the oye of auld Sir Robert,
and, waes me! the last of the honourable house, took the farm aff our
hands, and brought me into his household to have care of me. He liked
music, and I had the best teachers baith England and Scotland could gie
me. Mony a merry year was I wi' him; but waes me! he gaed out with other
pretty men in the Forty-five--I'll say nae mair about it--My head never
settled weel since I lost him; and if I say another word about it, deil
a bar will I have the heart to play the night.--Look out, my gentle
chap,' he resumed in a different tone, 'ye should see the lights at
Brokenburn glen by this time.'

LETTER XII

THE SAME TO THE SAME

Tam Luter was their minstrel meet,
Gude Lord as he could lance,
He play'd sae shrill, and sang sae sweet,
Till Towsie took a trance.
Auld Lightfoot there he did forleet,
And counterfeited France;
He used himself as man discreet,
And up took Morrice danse sae loud,
At Christ's Kirk on the Green that day.
KING JAMES I.

I continue to scribble at le