"[116]
As Scott in his introduction quotes the passage from a treatise
entitled _The Secret History of the Good Devil of Woodstock_,
which reveals that the mysteries were performed by one Joseph
Collins with the aid of two friends, a concealed trap-door and a
pound of gunpowder, he cannot justly be accused of deceiving his
readers. There are suggestions of Mrs. Radcliffe's method in
others of his novels. In _The Antiquary_, before Lovel retires to
the Green Room at Monkbar, he is warned by Miss Griselda Oldbuck
of a "well-fa'urd auld gentleman in a queer old-fashioned dress
with whiskers turned upward on his upper lip as long as
baudrons," who is wont to appear at one's bedside. He falls into
an uneasy slumber, and in the middle of the night is startled to
see a green huntsman leave the tapestry and turn into the
"well-fa'urd auld gentleman" before his very eyes. In _Old
Mortality_, Edith Bellenden mistakes her lover for his
apparition, just as one of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines might have
done. In _Peveril of the Peak_, Fenella's communications with the
hero in his prison, when he mistakes her voice for that of a
spirit, have an air of Gothic mystery. The awe-inspiring villain,
who appears in _Marmion_ and _Rokeby_, may be distinguished by
his scowl, his passion-lined face and gleaming eye.
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