shipful Laird of Ellangowan was not so preceese as he might
have been in clearing his land of witches (concerning whom it is said,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"), nor of those who had familiar
spirits, and consulted with divination, and sorcery, and lots, which is
the fashion with the Egyptians, as they ca' themsells, and other unhappy
bodies, in this our country. And the Laird was three years married
without having a family; and he was sae left to himsell, that it was
thought he held ower muckle troking and communing wi' that Meg Merrilies,
wha was the maist notorious witch in a' Galloway and Dumfries-shire
baith.'

'Aweel, I wot there's something in that,' said Mrs. Mac-Candlish; 'I've
kenn'd him order her twa glasses o' brandy in this very house.'

'Aweel, gudewife, then the less I lee. Sae the lady was wi' bairn at
last, and in the night when she should have been delivered there comes to
the door of the ha' house--the Place of Ellangowan as they ca'd--an
ancient man, strangely habited, and asked for quarters. His head, and his
legs, and his arms were bare, although it was winter time o' the year,
and he had a grey beard three-quarters lang. Weel, he was admitted; and
when the lady was delivered, he craved to know the very moment of the
hour of the birth, and he went out and consulted the stars. And when he
came back he tell'd the Laird that the Evil One wad have power over the
knave-bairn that was that night born, and he charged him that the babe
should be bred up in the ways of piety, and that he should aye hae a
godly minister at his elbow to pray WI' the bairn and FOR him. And the
aged man vanished away, and no man of this country ever saw mair o' him.'

'Now, that will not pass,' said the postilion, who, at a respectful
distance, was listening to the conversation, 'begging Mr. Skreigh's and
the company's pardon; there was no sae mony hairs on the warlock's face
as there's on Letter-Gae's [Footnote: The precentor is called by Allan
Ramsay, The letter-gae of haly rhyme.] ain at this moment, and he had as
gude a pair o' boots as a man need streik on his legs, and gloves too;
and I should understand boots by this time, I think.'

'Whisht, Jock,' said the landlady.

'Ay? and what do YE ken o' the matter, friend Jabos?' said the precentor,
contemptuously.

'No muckle, to be sure, Mr. Skreigh, only that I lived within a
penny-stane cast o' the head o' the avenue at Ellangowan, when a man cam
jingling to