our door that night the young Laird was born, and my mother
sent me, that was a hafflin callant, to show the stranger the gate to the
Place, which, if he had been sic a warlock, he might hae kenn'd himsell,
ane wad think; and he was a young, weel-faured, weel-dressed lad, like an
Englishman. And I tell ye he had as gude a hat, and boots, and gloves, as
ony gentleman need to have. To be sure he DID gie an awesome glance up at
the auld castle, and there WAS some spae-wark gaed on, I aye heard that;
but as for his vanishing, I held the stirrup mysell when he gaed away,
and he gied me a round half-crown. He was riding on a haick they ca'd
Souple Sam, it belanged to the George at Dumfries; it was a blood-bay
beast, very ill o' the spavin; I hae seen the beast baith before and
since.'

'Aweel, aweel, Jock,' answered Mr. Skreigh, with a tone of mild
solemnity, 'our accounts differ in no material particulars; but I had no
knowledge that ye had seen the man. So ye see, my friends, that this
soothsayer having prognosticated evil to the boy, his father engaged a
godly minister to be with him morn and night.'

'Ay, that was him they ca'd Dominie Sampson,' said the postilion.

'He's but a dumb dog that,' observed the Deacon; 'I have heard that he
never could preach five words of a sermon endlang, for as lang as he has
been licensed.'

'Weel, but,' said the precentor, waving his hand, as if eager to retrieve
the command of the discourse, 'he waited on the young Laird by night and
day. Now it chanced, when the bairn was near five years auld, that the
Laird had a sight of his errors, and determined to put these Egyptians
aff his ground, and he caused them to remove; and that Frank Kennedy,
that was a rough, swearing fellow, he was sent to turn them off. And he
cursed and damned at them, and they swure at him; and that Meg Merrilies,
that was the maist powerfu' with the Enemy of Mankind, she as gude as
said she would have him, body and soul, before three days were ower his
head. And I have it from a sure hand, and that's ane wha saw it, and
that's John Wilson, that was the Laird's groom, that Meg appeared to the
Laird as he was riding hame from Singleside, over Gibbie's know, and
threatened him wi' what she wad do to his family; but whether it was Meg,
or something waur in her likeness, for it seemed bigger than ony mortal
creature, John could not say.'

'Aweel,' said the postilion, 'it might be sae, I canna say against it,
for I