e heat; so he had fair warning not to trust his
fingers with it. So he excused himsell 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; and put Steenie mair and
mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither
to eat nor drink, nor 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's 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 --! 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
myself 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 his horse was feeding quietly beside the
minister's twa cows. Steenie would have thought the whole was a dream,
but he had the receipt in his hand fairly written and signed by the
auld laird; only the last letters of his name were a little disorderly,
written like one seized with sudden pain.

Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary place, rode through
t