Another symptom is a momentary hesitation
to look round you, when the interest of the narrative
is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid
looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your
chamber, for the evening."[115]
In her story "Aunt Margaret" describes how, in a magic mirror
belonging to Dr. Baptista Damiotti, Lady Bothwell and her sister
Lady Forester see the wedding ceremony of Sir Philip Forester and
a young girl in a foreign city interrupted by Lady Forester's
brother, who is slain in the duel that ensues. Scott regarded
these two stories as trifles designed to while away a leisure
hour. On _Wandering Willie's Tale_--a masterpiece of supernatural
terror--he bestowed unusual care. The ill fa'urd, fearsome
couple--Sir Robert with his face "gash and ghastly as Satan's,"
and "Major Weir," the jackanape, in his red-laced coat and
wig--Steenie's eerie encounter with the "stranger" on horseback,
the ribald crew of feasters in the hall are described so
faithfully and in such vivid phrases that it is no wonder Willie
should remark at one point of the story: "I almost think I was
there mysell, though I couldna be born at the same time." The
power of the tale, which fascinates us from beginning to end and
which can be read again and again with renewed pleasure, depends
partly on Wandering Willie's gifts as a narrator, partly on the
emotions that stir him as he talks.
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