The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales (Vol. 1 of 2)Hogg, James
General
The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales (Vol. 1 of 2)
Hogg, James
Scotland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Kennedy remained several days about Chapelhope in a thoughtful, half
delirious frame; but no entreaties could prevail with him at that time
to accompany the men of the place to where he supposed the accident had
happened, nor yet to give them any account where it was situated, for he
averred that he heard a voice say to him in a solemn tone, “If you wish
to live long, never tell what you have seen to–night, nor ever come this
way again.” Happy had it been for him had he attended all along to this
injunction. He slipped away from Chapelhope in a few days, and was no
more seen until the time that Copland and his men appeared there. It was
he who came as guide to that soldiers that were slain, and he fell with
them in the strait linn of the South Grain of Chapelhope.
These mysterious and unaccountable incidents by degrees impressed the
minds of the inhabitants with terror that cannot be described; no woman
or boy would go out of doors after sunset, on any account whatever, and
there was scarcely a man who durst venture forth alone after the fall of
evening. If they could have been sure that brownies and fairies had only
power to assume the human shape, they would not have been nearly in such
peril and perplexity; but there was no form of any thing animate or
inanimate, save that of a lamb, that they were sure of; they were of
course waylaid at every turn, and kept in continual agitation. An owl
was a most dangerous and suspicious–looking fellow—a white glede made
them quake, and keep a sharp look–out upon his course in the air—a
hare, with her large intelligent eyes and equivocal way of walking, was
an object of general distrust—and a cat, squalling after dark, was the
devil. Many were the ludicrous scenes that occurred, among which I
cannot help mentioning those which follow, as being particularly
whimsical.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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