siccan a brag aboot. Gin ye sup tasty kail wi' him in the
forenicht, he aye caa's roond wi' the lawin' i' the mornin'!

"Losh! Losh! Sae muckle for sae little. I declare I will cut oot the
three marks that my mither made on me, and gang doon to Peden at the
Shalloch. I want na mair sic wark as this! Na, though I was born wi' the
Black Man's livery on me!

"Preserve us!" he cried. "This is as fearsome as that year there was nae
meat in the hoose, and Gash Gibbie brocht some back, and aye brocht it,
and brocht it even as it was needed. And Kate o' the Corp-licht, she
readied it and asked nae quastions. But only tearin' belly-hunger gied
us strength to eat that awesome meat. An' a' the neighbours died o'
starvation at Tonskeen and the Star an' the bonny Hill o' the Buss--a'
but Gib an' his mither, their leevin' lanes. But yae nicht Yon sent
Gibbie's sin to find him oot; or maybe the Black Thing in the Hole gat
lowse, because it was his hour.

"And at ony rate puir Gibbie gat a terrible fricht that nicht.

"Wad ye like to hear? Aweel, puir Gibbie was lying on his bed up that
stair, an' what think ye there cam' to him?"

He paused and looked at us with a countenance so blanched and terrible
that almost we turned and ran. For the lightning played upon it till it
seemed to glow with unholy light, and that not from without but from
within. It was the most terrifying thing to be alone with such a
monstrous living creature, and such a dead woman in the lonesome place
he had called the "Nick of the Deid Wife." What with the chattering of
our teeth, the agitation of our spirits, and the flicker of the fire,
the old dead witch seemed actually to rise and nod at us.

"So Gash Gibbie, puir man, lay and listened in his naked bed, for he had
gotten his fill that nicht, though a' the lave were hungry--an' that o'
his ain providin'. But as he lay sleepless, he heard a step come to the
door, the sneck lifted itsel', an' a foot that wasna his mither's came
into the passage, _dunt-duntin'_ like a lameter hirplin' on two staves!

"An' then there cam' a hard footstep on the stair, and a rattle o'
fearsome-like sounds, as the thing cam' up the ladder. Gibbie kenned na
what it micht be. An' when the door opened an' the man wi' the wooden
feet cam' in--preserve me, but he was a weary-lookin' tyke.

"'Whaur came ye frae?' says puir Gash Gibbie.

"'Frae the Grave!' says he. He hadna muckle to say, but his e'en war
like fiery gimblets in h