e of
execution," betwixt two and four in the afternoon, and "there be wirried
at a steack till they be dead, and thereafter to have their bodies burnt
to ashes."

THE GHOST OF THE BLACK-BROWED MAID.[63]

If bodies were safe after death, characters were not. Isabel Heriot was
maid of all work to the minister at Preston. "She was of a low Stature,
small and slender of Body, of a Black Complexion. Her Head stood somewhat
awry upon her Neck. She was of a droll and jeering Humour, and would have
spoken to Persons of Honour with great Confidence." After some short time
of service, her master the minister began to dislike her, because she was
not eager in her religious duties; so he discharged her: and in 1680 she
died--and "about the time of her death her face became extreamly black."
Two or three nights after her burial, one Isabel Murray saw her, in her
white grave-clothes, walk from the chapel to the minister's louping-on
stone (horse-block). Here she halted, leaning her elbow on the stone, then
went in at the back gate, and so towards the stable. A few nights after
this stones were flung at the minister's house, over the roof, and in at
the doors and windows; but they fell softly for the most part, and did no
especial damage. Yet one night, just as the minister was coming in at the
hall door, a great stone was flung after him, which hit the door very
smartly and marked it. Isabel Murray was also hit with stones, and the
serving-man who looked to the horses was gripped at the heel by something
which made him cry out lustily. So it went on. Stones and clods, and
lighted coals, and even an old horse-comb long since lost, were
perpetually flying about, and only by severe prayer was the minister able
to lay the devil who molested them.

Soon Isabel Murray reappeared with a fresh set of circumstances concerning
the ghost of her namesake Isabel Heriot, the maid of all work. She said
that as she was coming from church between sermons, to visit her house and
kailyard for fear some vagrant cows might have got over the dyke--which
were very likely of the true Maclarty type--on going down her own yard,
which was next to the minister's, she saw again the apparition of Isabel
Heriot, as she was when laid in her coffin. "Never was an egg liker to
another than this Apparition was like to her, as to her Face, her Stature,
her Motion, her Tongue, and Behaviour; her face was black like the mouten
soot, the very colour which her face had