Chapter I: Front Matter

RED CAP TALES

RED CAP TALES

STOLEN FROM THE TREASURE CHEST OF THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH

WHICH THEFT IS HUMBLY ACKNOWLEDGED BY

S. R. CROCKETT

=New York= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1904

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1904.

=Norwood Press= J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

THE WHY!

FOUR CHILDREN WOULD NOT READ SCOTT

SO I told them these stories--and others--to lure them to the printed book, much as carrots are dangled before the nose of the reluctant donkey. They are four average intelligent children enough, but they hold severely modern views upon storybooks. _Waverley_, in especial, they could not away with. They found themselves stuck upon the very threshold.

Now, since the first telling of these Red Cap Tales, the Scott shelf in the library has been taken by storm and escalade. It is permanently gap-toothed all along the line. Also there are nightly skirmishes, even to the laying on of hands, as to who shall sleep with _Waverley_ under his pillow.

It struck me that there must be many oldsters in the world who, for the sake of their own youth, would like the various Sweethearts who now inhabit their nurseries, to read Sir Walter with the same breathless eagerness as they used to do--how many years agone? It is chiefly for their sakes that I have added several interludes, telling how Sweetheart, Hugh John, Sir Toady Lion, and Maid Margaret received my petty larcenies from the full chest of the Wizard.

At any rate, Red Cap succeeded in one case--why should he not in another? I claim no merit in the telling of the tales, save that, like medicines well sugar-coated, the patients mistook them for candies and--asked for more.

The books are open. Any one can tell Scott's stories over again in his own way. This is mine.

S. R. CROCKETT.

CONTENTS

CERTAIN SMALL PHARAOHS THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH 1

RED CAP TALES FROM "WAVERLEY"

THE FIRST TALE:
I. GOOD-BYE TO WAVERLEY-HONOUR 11
II. THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 16
III. THE BARON AND THE BEAR 21
_THE FIRST INTERLUDE OF ACTION_ 28

THE SECOND TALE:
I. THE CATTLE-LIFTING 31
II. THE ROBBER'S CAVE 35
_THE SECOND INTERLUDE_ 41

THE THIRD TALE:
I. THE CHIEF OF THE MAC-IVORS AND THE CHIEF'S SISTER 46
II. MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLE 55
_THE THIRD INTERLUDE--BEING MAINLY A FEW WORDS
UPON HEROES_ 62

THE FOURTH TALE:
HERE AND THERE AMONG THE HEATHER 64
_INTERLUDE OF STICKING-PLASTER_ 78

THE FIFTH TALE:
THE WHITE COCKADE 81

THE SIXTH TALE:
BLACK LOOKS AND BRIGHT SWORDS 94
_INTERLUDE OF BREVITY_ 104

THE LAST TALE:
THE BARON'S SURPRISE 105

RED CAP TALES FROM "GUY MANNERING"

_WHERE WE TOLD THE SECOND TALE_ 123

THE FIRST TALE:
I. WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY 124
_INTERLUDE OF INTERROGATION_ 140

THE SECOND TALE:
I. HAPPY DOMINIE SAMPSON 143
II. DANDIE DINMONT 150
III. IN THE LION'S MOUTH 158
_INTERLUDE OF LOCALITY_ 162

THE THIRD TALE:
THE RETURN OF DIRK HATTERAICK 166

THE FOURTH TALE:
THE FIGHT IN THE CAVE 185
_INTERLUDE OF CONSULTATION_ 204

RED CAP TALES FROM "ROB ROY"

THE FIRST TALE:
FRANK THE HIGHWAYMAN 211
_INTERLUDE OF DISCUSSION_ 236

THE SECOND TALE:
I. IN THE TOILS OF RASHLEIGH 241
II. ROB ROY AT LAST 254
III. THE BAILIE FIGHTS WITH FIRE 267
IV. THE DROWNING OF THE SPY 276
_INTERLUDE OF EXPOSTULATION_ 284

THE THIRD TALE:
I. IN THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES 288
II. THE ESCAPE 294
III. THE DEATH OF RASHLEIGH 307

RED CAP TALES FROM "THE ANTIQUARY"
THE FIRST TALE:
I. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. LOVEL 326
II. THE NIGHT OF STORM 337
_INTERLUDE OF WARNING_ 352

THE SECOND TALE:
I. LOVEL FIGHTS A DUEL 354
II. THE SEEKERS OF TREASURE 370
III. MISTICOT'S GRAVE 377
_A QUITE SUPERFLUOUS INTERLUDE_ 389

THE THIRD TALE:
I. THE EARL'S SECRET 396
II. THE MOTHER'S VENGEANCE 400
III. THE HEIR OF GLENALLAN 408

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BY SIMON HARMON VEDDER

1 Red Cap among the Wizard's treasures _Frontispiece_

WAVERLEY
_Facing page_
2 In an instant his red cap was off and he was
bowing and saluting . . . with . . . extravagant gestures 20
3 So fierce was the attack . . . made on Edward, that the
young man was compelled to draw his pistol 66
4 Rose Bradwardine . . . watched him with a sigh on her lip
and colour on her cheek 84
5 "Vich Ian Vohr," it said in a dreadful voice, "beware of
to-morrow" 102

GUY MANNERING

6 "Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan," she cried 136 7 He would stand there transfixed . . . till a serving-maid pulled his skirts to tell him dinner was waiting 150 8 He saw his late companion . . . engaged in deadly combat with a couple of rascals 154 9 Hazlewood snatched the gun from the servant and haughtily ordered Brown to stand back and not to alarm the lady 170

ROB ROY

10 He took the lantern . . . and holding it up, proceeded to examine the stern, set countenance of Frank's guide 256 11 The fight between Frank and Rashleigh 266 12 "Stand!" she cried, . . . "and tell me what you seek in Macgregor's country" 278 13 The girl's face, perhaps not altogether unintentionally, touched that of Frank Osbaldistone 300

THE ANTIQUARY

14 "Turn back! Turn back!" he cried 344 15 Dousterswivel flung himself on his knees 375 16 He lighted his beacon accordingly 410

RED CAP TALES

CERTAIN SMALL PHARAOHS THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH

IT was all Sweetheart's fault, and this is how it came about.

She and I were at Dryburgh Abbey, sitting quietly on a rustic seat, and looking toward the aisle in which slept the Great Dead. The long expected had happened, and we had made pilgrimage to our Mecca. Yet, in spite of the still beauty of the June day, I could see that a shadow lay upon our Sweetheart's brow.

"Oh, I know he was great," she burst out at last, "and what you read me out of the _Life_ was nice. I like hearing about Sir Walter--but--"

I knew what was coming.

"But what?" I said, looking severely at the ground, so that I might be able to harden my heart against the pathos of Sweetheart's expression.

"But--I can't read the novels--indeed I can't. I have tried _Waverley_ at least twenty times. And as for _Rob Roy_--"

Even the multiplication table failed here, and at this, variously a-sprawl on the turf beneath, the smaller fry giggled.

"Course," said Hugh John, who was engaged in eating grass like an ox, "we know it is true about _Rob Roy_. She read us one whole volume, and there wasn't no Rob Roy, nor any fighting in it. So we pelted her with fir-cones to make her stop and read over _Treasure Island_ to us instead!"

"Yes, though we had heard it twenty times already," commented Sir Toady Lion, trying his hardest to pinch his brother's legs on the sly.

"Books wifout pictures is silly!" said a certain Maid Margaret, a companion new to the honourable company, who was weaving daisy-chains, her legs crossed beneath her, Turk fashion. In literature she had got as far as words of one syllable, and had a poor opinion even of them.

"_I_ had read all Scott's novels long before I was your age," I said reprovingly.

The children received this announcement with the cautious silence with which every rising generation listens to the experiences of its elders when retailed by way of odious comparison.

"Um-m!" said Sir Toady, the licensed in speech; "_we_ know all that. Oh, yes; and you didn't like fruit, and you liked medicine in a big spoon, and eating porridge and--"

"Oh, we know--we know!" cried all the others in chorus. Whereupon I informed them what would have happened to us thirty years ago if we had ventured to address our parents in such fashion. But Sweetheart, with the gravity of her age upon her, endeavoured to raise the discussion to its proper level.

"Scott writes such a lot before you get at the story," she objected, knitting her brows; "why couldn't he just have begun right away?"

"With Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey drawing at their pipes in the oak-pannelled dining room, and Black Dog outside the door, and Pew coming tapping along the road with his stick!" cried Hugh John, turning off a sketchy synopsis of his favourite situations in fiction.

"Now that's what I call a proper book!" said Sir Toady, hastily rolling himself out of the way of being kicked. (For with these unusual children, the smooth ordinary upper surfaces of life covered a constant succession of private wars and rumours of wars, which went on under the table at meals, in the schoolroom, and even, it is whispered, in church.)

As for blithe Maid Margaret, she said nothing, for she was engaged in testing the capacities of a green slope of turf for turning somersaults upon.

"In Sir Walter Scott's time," I resumed gravely, "novels were not written for little girls--"

"Then why did you give us Miss Edgeworth to read?" said Sweetheart, quickly. But I went on without noticing the interruption, "Now, if you like, I will tell you some of Sir Walter's stories over again, and then I will mark in your own little edition the chapters you can read for yourselves."

The last clause quieted the joyous shout which the promise of a story--any sort of a story--had called forth. An uncertain look crept over their faces, as if they scented afar off that abomination of desolation--"lessons in holiday time."

"_Must_ we read the chapters?" said Hugh John, unhopefully.

"Tell us the stories, anyway, and leave it to our honour!" suggested Sir Toady Lion, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Is it a story--oh, don't begin wifout me!" Maid Margaret called from behind the trees, her sturdy five-year-old legs carrying her to the scene of action so fast that her hat fell off on the grass and she had to turn back for it.

"Well, I will tell you, if I can, the story of 'Waverley,'" I said.

"Was he called after the pens?" said Toady Lion the irreverent, but under his breath. He was, however, promptly kicked into silence by his peers--seriously this time, for he who interferes with the telling of a story is a "Whelk,"--which, for the moment, is the family word for whatever is base, mean, unprofitable, and unworthy of being associated with.

But first I told them about the writing of _Waverley_, and the hand at the Edinburgh back window which wrote and wrote. Only that, but the story as told by Lockhart had affected my imagination as a boy.

"Did you ever hear of the Unwearied Hand?" I asked them.

"It sounds a nice title," said Sir Toady; "had he only one?"

"It was in the early summer weather of 1814," I began, "after a dinner in a house in George Street, that a young man, sitting at the wine with his companions, looked out of the window, and, turning pale, asked his next neighbour to change seats with him.

"'There it is--at it again!' he said, with a thump of his fist on thetable that made the decanters jump, and clattered the glasses; 'it has haunted me every night these three weeks. Just when I am lifting my glass I look through the window, and there it is at it--writing--writing--always writing!'

"So the young men, pressing about, looked eagerly, and lo! seen through the back window of a house in a street built at right angles, they saw the shape of a man's hand writing swiftly, steadily, on large quarto pages. As soon as one was finished, it was added to a pile which grew and grew, rising, as it were, visibly before their eyes.

"'It goes on like that all the time, even after the candles are lit,' said the young man, 'and it makes me ashamed. I get no peace for it when I am not at my books. Why cannot the man do his work without making others uncomfortable?'

"Perhaps some of the company may have thought it was not a man at all, but some prisoned fairy tied to an endless task--Wizard Michael's familiar spirit, or Lord Soulis's imp Red Cap doing his master's bidding with a goose-quill.

"But it was something much more wonderful than any of these. It was the hand of Walter Scott finishing _Waverley_, at the rate of a volume every ten days!"

"Why did he work so hard?" demanded Hugh John, whom the appearance of fifty hands diligently writing would not have annoyed--no, not if they had all worked like sewing-machines.

"Because," I answered, "the man who wrote _Waverley_ was beginning to have more need of money. He had bought land. He was involved in other people's misfortunes. Besides, for a long time, he had been a great poet, and now of late there had arisen a greater."

"I know," cried Sweetheart, "Lord Byron--but _I_ don't think he was."

"Anyway Fitzjames and Roderick Dhu is ripping!" announced Hugh John, and, rising to his feet, he whistled shrill in imitation of the outlaw. It was the time to take the affairs of children at the fulness of the tide.

"I think," I ventured, "that you would like the story of _Waverley_ if I were to tell it now. I know you will like _Rob Roy_. Which shall it be first?"

Then there were counter-cries of "Waverley" and "Rob Roy"--all the fury of a contested election. But Sweetheart, waiting till the brawlers were somewhat breathed, indicated the final sense of the meeting by saying quietly, "_Tell us the one the hand was writing!_"

RED CAP TALES

TOLD FROM

WAVERLEY

THE FIRST TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"[1]