opinion of the president was unfavourable to Traquair; and
the point was, therefore, to keep him out of the way when the question
should be tried. In this dilemma the Earl had recourse to Christie's Will,
who at once offered his services to _kidnap_ the president. He discovered
that it was the judge's usual practice to take the air on horseback, on
the sands of Leith, without an attendant. One day he accosted the
president, and engaged him in conversation. His talk was so interesting
and amusing that he succeeded in decoying him into an unfrequented and
furzy common, called the Frigate Whins, where, riding suddenly up to him,
he pulled him from his horse, muffled him in a large cloak which he had
provided, and rode off with the luckless judge trussed up behind him.
Hurrying across country as fast as his horse could carry him, by paths
known only to persons of his description, he at last deposited his heavy
and terrified burden in an old castle in Annandale, called the Tower of
Graham. The judge's horse being found, it was concluded he had thrown his
rider into the sea; his friends went into mourning, and a successor was
appointed to his office. Meanwhile the disconsolate president had a sad
time of it in the vault of the castle. His food was handed to him through
an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of human voice, save
when a shepherd called his dog, by the name of _Batty_, and when a female
domestic called upon _Maudge_, the cat. These, he concluded, were
invocations of spirits, for he held himself to be in the dungeon of a
sorcerer. The law suit having been decided in favour of Lord Traquair,
Christie's Will was directed to set the president at liberty, three months
having elapsed since he was so mysteriously spirited away from the sands
at Leith. Without speaking a single word, Will entered the vault in the
dead of night, again muffled up in the president's cloak, set him on a
horse, and rode off with him to the place where he had found him. The joy
of his friends, and the less agreeable surprise of his successor, may be
more easily imagined than described, when the judge appeared in court to
reclaim his office and honours. All embraced his own persuasion that he
had been spirited away by witchcraft; nor could he himself be convinced to
the contrary, until, many years afterwards, happening to travel in
Annandale, his ears were saluted once more with the sounds of _Maudge_ and
_Batty_--the only notes whi