Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/281

Rh hole again with the black mools, for auld Warlsworm's floating down the links of Orr, and his bonnie black coffin will frighten the seamen on Solway; and wha should float aside him but auld Haudthegrup? But he'll no float far, for twa pouchfuls of stolen gowd will tug the sinner down, and sink him to perdition: ye're cheated, Johnnie Feastheworm, ye're cheated, sae fill yere kirkyard hole with the fat mools again, my cannie man."

These concluding words were too loud to escape notice, and out upon him sallied Haudthegrup, his face inflamed, his hand clenched, and burning anger on his tongue. "What fiend hath possessed himself of this man, and utters this falseness through his foolish lips? Verily, I will cast him out; a sore buffeting shall the foul thief abide, that presumes to enter into the living image of the High One, and prophesy against righteous men. Lo! I will rebuke him with my right hand, and chasten him sorely with this rod of rowan-tree, with which I once combated and overcame three witch women in the wicked parish of Penpont." And, advancing upon Gawain as he spoke, he aimed a blow, which the maniac turned aside, exclaiming: "Aha! auld greedy Haudthegrup, I have ye now, I have ye now; take that, man, for throwing a bone at me, at Joe Tamson's bridal, seven-and-thirty years syne come beltan." As he uttered these words, he dashed his opponent from him with such force that he reeled several paces, and plunged into a miry hole, fairly under the verdant mantle with which the summer warmth had decked it. Gawain, having performed this feat, stalked perpendicularly into the hall—seated himself by the warm ashes on the hearth, and, looking on the sick man, said, "Ye lie soft and braw on your bonnie white cushions there; and deed and trouth, an I was you, I wad nae die till the cauld frost and winter should come, when I care na to accompany ye to the kirkyard hole mysel, and take my word for't, ye'll lie saftest and fealest on the Buittle side of the kirk; I aye think the gowans are bonnier, and the grass the fairer, and the blinks of the simmer sun sweeter on that side than the other: 'od, but lad, if ye hope to lie wi' me, ye maun lie quiet, and nae trouble ane with your weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth—the cauld grave's a bad place to repent in."

We were now rejoined by old Haudthegrup, purified by the fair hands of the maiden from the soil of the pond, and