s glad I couldna see the plight the
place was in--but that's a' wide o' the mark. There dwelt my gudesire,
Steenie Steenson; a rambling, rattling chiel' he had been in his young
days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at "hoopers and
girders," a' Cumberland couldna touch him at "Jockie Lattin," and he had
the finest finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle. The
like o' Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o'. And so he became
a Tory, as they ca' it, which we now ca' Jacobites, just out of a kind
of needcessity, that he might belang to some side or other. He had nae
ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little to see the blude rin,
though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in hunting and hoisting,
watching and warding, he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did some that he
couldna avoid.

Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a' the
folk about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when
they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that
had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and
stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and aye gae my gudesire his
gude word wi' the laird; for Dougal could turn his master round his
finger.

Weel, round came the Revolution, and it had like to hae broken
the hearts baith of Dougal and his master. But the change was not
a'thegether sae great as they feared and other folk thought for. The
Whigs made an unco crawing what they wad do with their auld enemies, and
in special wi' Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But there were ower-mony great
folks dipped in the same doings to make a spick-and-span new warld. So
Parliament passed it a' ower easy; and Sir Robert, bating that he was
held to hunting foxes instead of Covenanters, remained just the man he
was. His revel was as loud, and his hall as weel lighted, as ever it had
been, though maybe he lacked the fines of the nonconformists, that used
to come to stock his larder and cellar; for it is certain he began to
be keener about the rents than his tenants used to find him before,
and they behooved to be prompt to the rent-day, or else the laird wasna
pleased. And he was sic an awsome body that naebody cared to anger him;
for the oaths he swore, and the rage that he used to get into, and the
looks that he put on made men sometimes think him a devil incarnate.

Weel, my gudesire was nae manager--no that he was a very great
misguider--but he ha