It is impossible to describe Willie’s dress: the agglomeration of ill-supplied necessity and superfluous whim was never exceeded. His pleasure was to pin on his person whatever gay-coloured cotton handkerchiefs he could get hold of; so that, with one of these behind and one before, spread out across back and chest, he always looked like an ancient herald come with a message from knight or nobleman. So incongruous was his costume that I could never tell whether kilt or trousers was the original foundation upon which it had been constructed. To his tatters add the bits of old ribbon, list, and coloured rag which he attached to his pipes wherever there was room, and you will see that he looked all flags and pennons--a moving grove of raggery, out of which came the screaming chant and drone of his instrument. When he danced, he was like a whirlwind that had caught up the contents of an old-clothes-shop. It is no wonder that he should have produced in our minds an indescribable mixture of awe and delight--awe, because no one could tell what he might do next, and delight because of his oddity, agility, and music. The first sensation was always a slight fear, which gradually wore off as we became anew accustomed to the strangeness of the apparition. Before the visit was over, wee Davie would be playing with the dangles of his pipes, and laying his ear to the bag out of which he thought the music came ready-made. And Willie was particularly fond of Davie, and tried to make himself agreeable to him after a hundred grotesque fashions. The awe, however, was constantly renewed in his absence, partly by the threats of the Kelpie, that, if so and so, she would give this one or that to Foolish Willie to take away with him--a threat which now fell almost powerless upon me, but still told upon Allister and Davie.
One day, in early summer--it was after I had begun to go to school--I came home as usual at five o’clock, to find the manse in great commotion. Wee Davie had disappeared. They were looking for him everywhere without avail. Already all the farmhouses had been thoroughly searched. An awful horror fell upon me, and the most frightful ideas of Davie’s fate arose in my mind. I remember giving a howl of dismay the moment I heard of the catastrophe, for which I received a sound box on the ear from Mrs. Mitchell. I was too miserable, however, to show any active resentment, and only sat down upon the grass and cried. In a few minutes, my father, who had been away visiting some of his parishioners, rode up on his little black mare. Mrs. Mitchell hurried to meet him, wringing her hands, and crying--