Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the NorthScott, Walter
General
Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North
Scott, Walter
Scott, Walter, 1771-1832 -- Adaptations
"Humph," said Hugh John, disrespectfully turning up
his nose, "that's all girls think about--loving,
an' marrying, an' playing on harps--"
"I don't play on harps," sighed Sweetheart, "but I
do wish I had a banjo!"
"I wish I had a targe and a broadsword, and the
Chief's horse, Brown Dermid, to ride on," said Hugh
John, putting on his "biggety" look.
"And a nice figure you would cut," sneered Sir
Toady Lion, provokingly; "Highlanders don't fight
on horseback! You ought to know that!"
Whereupon the first engagement of the campaign was
immediately fought out on the carpet. And it was
not till after the intervention of the Superior
Power had restored quiet that the next tale from
_Waverley_ could be proceeded with.
THE FOURTH TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"
HERE AND THERE AMONG THE HEATHER
NOT long after Callum Beg had been left behind, and indeed almost as
soon as the innkeeper and Edward were fairly on their way, the former
suddenly announced that his horse had fallen lame and that they must
turn aside to a neighbouring smithy to have the matter attended to.
"And as it is the Fast Day, and the smith a religious man, it may cost
your Honour as muckle as sixpence a shoe!" suggested the wily innkeeper,
watching Edward's face as he spoke.
For this announcement Edward cared nothing. He would gladly have paid a
shilling a nail to be allowed to push forward on his journey with all
speed. Accordingly to the smithy of Cairnvreckan they went. The village
was in an uproar. The smith, a fierce-looking man, was busy hammering
"dogs' heads" for musket-locks, while among the surrounding crowd the
names of great Highland chiefs--Clanronald, Glengarry, Lochiel, and that
of Vich Ian Vohr himself, were being bandied from mouth to mouth.
Edward soon found himself surrounded by an excited mob, in the midst of
which the smith's wife, a wild witchlike woman, was dancing, every now
and then casting her child up in the air as high as her arms would
reach, singing all the while, and trying to anger the crowd, and
especially to infuriate her husband, by the Jacobite songs which she
chanted.
At last the smith could stand this provocation no longer. He snatched a
red-hot bar of iron from the forge, and rushed at his wife, crying out
that he would "thrust it down her throat." Then, finding himself held
back by the crowd from executing vengeance on the woman, all his anger
turned upon Edward, whom he took to be a Jacobite emissary. For the news
which had caused all this stir was that Prince Charles had landed and
that the whole Highlands was rallying to his banner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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