The Red Tavern — A Closer Reading

There had been no hint of the approach of the tragedy; no clue as to the identity or purpose of the cowardly perpetrators following its occurrence.

Mounted upon his mettlesome charger, which, though uncommonly powerful, was somewhat fatigued because of the many miles put behind him that day, the young knight was riding slowly along some two hundred yards in advance of Belwiggar. The sky was heavy, gray, and lowering; and the boulder-strewn, monotonously level expanse of moor affording no pleasant aspect or interesting contrasts to the eye, Sir Richard's gaze remained fixed upon the nodding head of his stallion. So near the brink was the narrow path winding along the waters of the tarn, and so unruffled was its surface, that steed and armored rider were mirrored faithfully, point for point, beneath.

Hearing a sharp rattling of steel-shod hoofs behind him, and vaguely marveling as to the cause of this unexpected and unusual burst of energy upon the part of his squire, the young knight turned, with a smile upon his face, to greet Belwiggar's approach. To his horrified surprise he was but just in time to see the honest fellow writhing in an agony of death, while the horse that he had so lately bestrode in the prime vigor of rugged health whisked blindly ahead of the young knight along the road, till, crashing against a huge boulder upreared within its path, it stumbled, seemed to hang for an instant in mid-air, and then, neighing with wild affright, disappeared with a tremendous splash beneath the surface of the tarn.

Apprehending some immediate danger to himself, Sir Richard, upon the instant, drew his visor close. Just as he had accomplished this move a bolt struck fair upon the joint of his neck-guard; and, though it did him no harm beyond causing his head to ring with the force of the impact, it was the cunning of his armorer alone that had saved him from a death similar to that of Belwiggar.

Having no means of knowing the exact direction from whence the arrows had been sped, and the nature of the ground precluding the possibility of sending his horse over it, the young knight made no attempt to seek out and punish his assailant. He shot a glance of the keenest scrutiny from boulder to boulder, but there was no sign of a living being upon the moor. Satisfied that Belwiggar's death must go unavenged for the time, he rode back to where he lay with a feathered shaft, still quivering, protruding from his broad breast.

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.