The money would soon go on the
turf, and on dice, drink, etc., if they excavated it; and then I work the
curse, and bring off the prophecies, and so forth."

"What prophecies?"

"Oh, the rigmarole the old family seer came out with before they burned
him for an unpalatable prediction at the time of the '15. He was very
much vexed about it, of course, and he just prophesied any nonsense of a
disagreeable nature that came into his head. You know what these crofter
fellows are--ungrateful, vindictive rascals. He had been in receipt of
outdoor relief for years. Well, he prophesied stuff like this: 'When the
owl and the eagle meet on the same blasted rowan tree, then a lassie in a
white hood from the east shall make the burn of Cross-cleugh run full
red,' and drivel of that insane kind. Well, you can't think what trouble
that particular prophecy gave me. It had to be fulfilled, of course, for
the family credit, and I brought it off as near as, I flatter myself, it
could be done."

"Lady Perilous was telling me about it last night," I said, with a
shudder. "It was a horrible affair,"

"Yes, no doubt, no doubt; a cruel business! But how I am to manage some
of them I'm sure _I_ don't know. There's one of them in rhyme. Let me
see, how does it go?

"'When Mackenzie lies in the perilous ha',
The wild Red Cock on the roof shall craw,
And the lady shall flee ere the day shall daw,
And the land shall girn in the deed man's thraw.'

"The 'crowing of the wild Red Cock' means that the castle shall be burned
down, of course (I'm beginning to know his style by this time), and the
lady is to elope, and the laird--that's Lord Perilous--is to expire in
the 'deed man's thraw': that is the name the old people give the Secret
Room. And all this is to happen when a Mackenzie, a member of a clan
with which we are at feud, sleeps in the Haunted Chamber--where we are
just now. By the way, what is _your_ name?"

I don't know what made me reply, "Allan Mackenzie." It was true, but it
was not politic.

"By Jove!" said the spectre, eagerly. "Here's a chance! I don't suppose
a Mackenzie has slept here for those hundred years. And now, how is it
to be done? Setting fire to the castle is simple"--here I remembered how
he had lighted my cigarette--"but who on earth is to elope with Lady
Perilous? She's fifty if she's a day, and evangelical a tout casser! Oh
no; the thing is out of the question. It really must be p