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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 the mist to Redgauntlet Castle, and with much ado he got speech of the laird.

“Well, you dyvour bankrupt,” was the first word, “have you brought me my rent?”

“No,” answered my gudesire, “I have not; but I have brought your honour Sir Robert’s receipt for it.”

“How, sirrah? Sir Robert’s receipt! You told me he had not given you one.”

“Will your honour please to see if that bit line is right?”

Sir John looked at every line, and at every letter, with much attention; and at last at the date, which my gudesire had not observed–“From my appointed place,” he read, “this twenty-fifth of November.”

“What! That is yesterday! Villain, thou must have gone to hell for this!”

“I got it from your honour’s father; whether he be in heaven or hell, I know not,” said Steenie.

“I will debate you for a warlock to the Privy Council!” said Sir John. “I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a tar-barrel and a torch!”

“I intend to debate mysell to the Presbytery,” said Steenie, “and tell them all I have seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them to judge of than a borrel man like me.”

Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desired to hear the full history; and my gudesire told it him from point to point, as I have told it you–neither more nor less.

Sir John was silent again for a long time, and at last he said, very composedly: “Steenie, this story of yours concerns the honour of many a noble family besides mine; and if it be a leasing-making, to keep yourself out of my danger, the least you can expect is to have a red-hot iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as scaulding your fingers wi’ a red-hot chanter. But yet it may be true, Steenie; and if the money cast up, I shall not know what to think of it. But where shall we find the Cat’s Cradle? There are cats enough about the old house, but I think they kitten without the ceremony of bed or cradle.”

“We were best ask Hutcheon,” said my gudesire; “he kens a’ the odd corners about as weel as–another serving-man that is now gane, and that I wad not like to name.”

Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told them that a ruinous turret lang disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, for the opening was on the outside, above the battlements, was called of old the Cat’s Cradle.

“There will I go immediately,” said Sir John; and he took–with what purpose Heaven kens–one of his father’s pistols from the hall table, where they had lain since the night he died, and hastened to the battlements.