Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series - 1819.djvu/264

254 ly; 'here is something will tell you another tale.'

"We now observed his hands were bloody, and that there were spots of blood on his face, and waited the issue with impatience; when suddenly, undoing the corner of his plaid, he rolled down on the table a human head, bloody and new severed, saying, at the same time, 'Lie thou where the head of a better man lay before ye.' From the hagard features, and matted red-hair and beard, partly grizzled with age, his father and others present recognised the head of Hector of the Mist, a well-known leader among the outlaws, redoubted for strength and ferocity, who had been active in the murder of the unfortunate warden, and had escaped by desperate defence and extraordinary agility, when so many of his companions were destroyed. We were all, it may be believed, struck with surprise, but Allan refused to gratify our curiosity; and we only