So saying, he led the way out through halls and trances that were weel kenn’d to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there was as much singing of profane sangs, and birling of red wine, and speaking blasphemy and sculduddry, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle when it was at the blithest.
But, Lord take us in keeping, what a set of ghastly revellers they were that sat around that table! My gudesire kenn’d mony that had long before gane to their place, for often had he piped to the most part in the hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his bald head and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with Cameron’s blude on his hand; and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill’s limbs till the blude sprung; and Dunbarton Douglas, the twice-turned traitor baith to country and king. There was the Bluidy Advocate MacKenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom had been to the rest as a god. And there was Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled locks streaming down to his laced buff-coat, and his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound that the silver bullet had made. He sat apart from them all, and looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance; while the rest hallooed, and sang, and laughed, that the room rang. But their smiles were fearfully contorted from time to time; and their laugh passed into such wild sounds as made my gudesire’s very nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow in his banes.
They that waited at the table were just the wicked servingmen and troopers, that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. There was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that […]
Steenie Steenson Demanding a Receipt for his Rent form Sir Robert Redgauntlet. Thomas Brown, engraving on paper. From "Six Engravings in Illustration of Redgauntlet. For the Members of the Royal Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland", 1876.
A scene inside an antique chamber with panelled walls and bare floorboards. On the right, a man, soberly dressed in plain seventeenth-century clothes, holds a piece of paper in his right hand and his hat in his left. He gazes left, at a table full of sinister-looking drunken revellers sitting around a table in front of a smoky fireplace. The revellers have frock coats and long curled wigs. One has a bandaged, gouty foot propped up in front of him. Others wear armour or gaudy hats with feathers. A broken bottle and scattered playing cards lie on the floor. Behind the standing man are more revellers, arguing, waving bottles, and slumping drunkenly to the ground.
“Lord take us in keeping, what a set of ghastly revellers they were that sat around that table!”
In Walter Scott’s short story “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, Steenie Steenson needs proof that he has paid his rent. But to get a receipt, Steenie must first find his landlord in Hell…
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