He dismounted beside the body, tethering his horse in the hollow between two rocky promontories through which the path swung. He stood looking around him for a space, uncertain what to do. So overwhelmingly appalling and strange were the circumstances attending the tragedy, and to that degree was Sir Richard oppressed by his melancholy surroundings, that he became filled with a feeling of unspeakable dread, an almost uncontrollable desire to throw himself upon the back of his steed and gallop swiftly away. Torn by such emotions, it was no light task to remain upon the scene for the purpose of making such disposition of poor Belwiggar's body as his limited means would permit. By employing the dead warrior's battle-ax in lieu of mattock, however, he contrived to hollow out a sufficient space to lay him decently away. Then, piling up a mound of loose stones above the shallow grave, Sir Richard remounted and pursued his solitary way northward toward Bannockburn and Castle Yewe. As he journeyed onward the young knight made many determined efforts to whistle and sing away a feeling of deep melancholy that persisted in setting somberly down upon him. In the manner of a gloomy procession passing in review before his mind's eye, he recalled all of the wild folklore with which his ears had been beguiled since his advent into Scotland. "Scour ye'r hoorse ower the Sauchieburn Pass," a toothless and horrible old hag had whispered into his unwilling ear upon the morning of that very day. "Dinna ye ken," she had croaked, "that the deil flees there at fall o' nicht?" and the bare thought that he would be obliged to pass the night there alone, with nothing between his head and the limitless heavens but a possible shelving rock, caused icy shivers of fear to creep along his back. There was one weird tale in particular that he had heard repeated with a stubborn insistence that gave to it some semblance of verity. It was that concerning a certain red tavern, which, according to the peasant's lively imaginations, appeared suddenly along lonely and unfrequented roadways, as though set there by the Evil One. After a time, then, it was reported to vanish as suddenly and mysteriously as it had appeared, taking along with it into the Unknown any luckless wayfarer that had chanced to seek shelter beneath its phantom roof. "Now, I am free to own," Sir Richard argued with himself, "that there are certain strange phenomena of which the human mind can give no proper accounting. But when it comes to tales of gibbering ghosts, shadowy, phantom shapes and flying taverns--why, by 'r Lady! I'll set a barrier of common sense against my credulity and refuse to believe."