le hae I seen;
But milking cows wi' saddles on
Saw I never nane.'"(3)

(1) From the first line of _The Gaberlunzie Man,_ attributed
to King James V. of Scotland,--

"The pawky auld carle came o'er the lee."

The original like Whittier's was a sly old fellow, as an English
phrase would translate the Scottish. _The Gaberlunzie Man_ is
given in Percy's _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_ and in Child's
_English and Scottish Ballads,_ viii. 98.
(2) William R. Dempster, a Scottish vocalist who had
recently sung in America, and whose music to Burns's song "A
man 's a man for a' that" was very popular.
(3) The whole of this song may be found in Herd's _Ancient
and Modern Scottish Songs,_ ii. 172.

That very night the rascal decamped, taking with him the doctor's horse,
and was never after heard of.

Often, in the gray of the morning, we used to see one or more
"gaberlunzie men," pack on shoulder and staff in hand, emerging from the
barn or other outbuildings where they had passed the night. I was once
sent to the barn to fodder the cattle late in the evening, and, climbing
into the mow to pitch down hay for that purpose, I was startled by the
sudden apparition of a man rising up before me, just discernible in the
dim moonlight streaming through the seams of the boards. I made a rapid
retreat down the ladder; and was only reassured by hearing the object
of my terror calling after me, and recognizing his voice as that of a
harmless old pilgrim whom I had known before. Our farmhouse was situated
in a lonely valley, half surrounded with woods, with no neighbors in
sight. One dark, cloudy night, when our parents chanced to be absent,
we were sitting with our aged grandmother in the fading light of the
kitchen fire, working ourselves into a very satisfactory state of
excitement and terror by recounting to each other all the dismal stories
we could remember of ghosts, witches, haunted houses, and robbers, when
we were suddenly startled by a loud rap at the door. A strippling of
fourteen, I was very naturally regarded as the head of the household;
so, with many misgivings, I advanced to the door, which I slowly opened,
holding the candle tremulously above my head and peering out into the
darkness. The feeble glimmer played upon the apparition of a
gigantic horseman, mounted on a steed of a size worthy of such a
rider,--colossal, motionless, like images cut out of