Page:Books and men.djvu/206

as a hideous beast with a preternaturally long nose,—made, in fact, of a saucepan handle; and that this creature, who went prowling stealthily around the dim halls and firelit kitchen, frightening the children into shrieks of terror, was supposed to represent the stout old cavalier searching for his ancient foes the Covenanters. Lag's memory appears to have been given up by universal consent to every species of opprobrium, and his misdeeds have so far found no apologist, unless, indeed, Macaulay may count as one, when he gracefully transfers part of them to Claverhouse's shoulders. Mr. Morris coldly mentions Sir Robert Grierson as "coarse, cruel, and brutal beyond even the license of those days;" Colonel Fergusson is far too clever to weaken the dramatic force of his book by hinting that his hero was not a great deal worse than other men; and Scott, in that inimitable romance, Wandering Willie's Tale, has thrown a perfect glamour of wickedness around the old laird's name. But in truth, when we come to search for sober proven facts; when we discard—reluctantly, indeed, but under compulsion—the spiked barrel in which he was