“Country?” replied Cuddie; “ou, the country’s weel eneugh, an it werena that dour deevil, Claver’se (they ca’ him Dundee now), that’s stirring about yet in the Highlands, they say, wi’ a’ the Donalds and Duncans and Dugalds, that ever wore bottomless breeks, driving about wi’ him, to set things asteer again, now we hae gotten them a’ reasonably weel settled. But Mackay will pit him down, there’s little doubt o’ that; he’ll gie him his fairing, I’ll be caution for it.”
“What makes you so positive of that, my friend?” asked the horseman.
“I heard it wi’ my ain lugs,” answered Cuddie, “foretauld to him by a man that had been three hours stane dead, and came back to this earth again just to tell him his mind. It was at a place they ca’ Drumshinnel.”
“Indeed?” said the stranger. “I can hardly believe you, my friend.”
“Ye might ask my mither, then, if she were in life,” said Cuddie; “it was her explained it a’ to me, for I thought the man had only been wounded. At ony rate, he spake of the casting out of the Stewarts by their very names, and the vengeance that was brewing for Claver’se and his dragoons. They ca’d the man Habakkuk Mucklewrath; his brain was a wee ajee, but he was a braw preacher for a’ that.”
“You seem,” said the stranger, “to live in a rich and peaceful country.”
“It’s no to compleen o’, sir, an we get the crap weel in,” quoth Cuddie; “but if ye had seen the blude rinnin’ as fast on the tap o’ that brigg yonder as ever the water ran below it, ye wadna hae thought it sae bonnie a spectacle.”
“You mean the battle some years since? I was waiting upon Monmouth that morning, my good friend, and did see some part of the action,” said the stranger.
“Then ye saw a bonny stour,” said Cuddie, “that sail serve me for fighting a’ the days o’ my life. I judged ye wad be a trooper, by your red scarlet lace-coat and your looped hat.”
“And which side were you upon, my friend?” continued the inquisitive stranger.