olden, so that
there was more prayer on his special behalf. The devil then said, on their
rising, "Give me a spade and a shovel, and depart from the house for
seven days, and I will make a grave and lie down in it, and shall trouble
you no more."

The good man Campbell answered, "Not so much as a straw shall be given
thee, through God's assistance, even though that would do it. God shall
remove thee in due time." Satan cried out, impudently, "I shall not remove
for you. I have my commission from Christ to tarry and vex this family."
Says the minister, coming to the weaver's assistance, "A permission thou
hast, indeed; but God will stop it in due time." Says the demon,
respectfully, "I have, sir, a commission which perhaps will last longer
than yours." And the minister died in the December of that year, says
Sinclair. Furthermore, the demon said he had given Tom his commission to
keep. Interrogated, that young gentleman replied in an off-hand way, that
"he had had something put into his pocket, but it did not tarry." They
then began to search about for the foul fiend, and one gentleman said, "We
think this voice speaks out of the children." The foul fiend, very angry
at this--or Master Tom frightened--cries out, "You lie! God shall judge
you for your lying; and I and my father will come and fetch you to hell
with warlock thieves." So the devil discharged (forbade) the gentleman to
speak anything, saying, "Let him that hath a commission speak (meaning the
minister), for he is the servant of God." The minister then had a little
religious controversy with the devil, who answered at last, simply, "I
knew not these scriptures till my father taught me them." Nothing of all
this disturbing the easy faith of the audience, they, through the
minister, whom alone he would obey, conjured him to tell them who he was;
whereupon he said that he was an evil spirit come from the bottomless pit
of hell, to vex this house, and that Satan was his father. And then there
appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow downward, beating on the
floor till the house did shake again, and a loud and fearful crying, "Come
up, father! come up, father! I will send my father among ye! See! there he
is behind your backs!"

Says the minister, "I saw, indeed, a hand and an arm, when the stroke was
given and heard."

Says the devil, "Saw ye that? It was not my hand, it was my father's; my
hand is more black in the loof."

"Oh!" said Gilbert Campbell,