ook his little round hat and plack from him. Being
loath to part with the same, he ran after her crying for them: which she
refusing, he called her an old witch, and ran away. Whereupon she
threatened him. Eight days after this, as he was begging through the
country near Inchannan where she lived, he met her again; and this time
she had with her "ane black grim man with black cloaths, ane black Hat and
blew Band," who offered his hand, which James took and which he found cold
as it gript him straitly. The gentleman asked if he would serve him for a
Bonny black coat and a black hat, and several other things, to which he
replied "Yes, I'll do't." He then went to all the meetings, and saw all
the people and did all the things that Elizabeth had spoken of; even to
strangling Montgomerie's bairn with a sea napkin at twelve o'clock at
night, while the servant girl was watching by the cradle. Young Thomas the
gley'd followed next, confessing to just the same things, even to the
liver of the "uncrissened bairn," which all eat save Elizabeth and their
two selves: a slip-by that accounted for their confessions. And now
justice had a good handful to begin with, so the work of accusation went
briskly forward. Bargarran's daughter still continued bringing out crooked
pins and stones and all sorts of unmentionable filth from her mouth, and
still went on quarrelling with the devil whom she called an old sow, and
holding conversations with the apparitions of her tormentors, still mixed
up fraud with epilepsy, and lies and craft and wicked guile with hysteria,
till the witch-fires were fairly lighted, and seven of the poor wretches
"done to death." Among whom brave Margaret and her beautiful child held
the most prominent place. Never for a moment did Margaret Lang lose her
courage or self-possession. Seeing a farmer whom she knew, among the crowd
assembled round the gallows, she called out to him bitterly, "that he
would now thrive like a green bay-tree, for there would be no innocent
blood shed that day;" but what she meant for irony the people took for
confession. When she was burned, the answer of a spectator to one who
asked if the execution was over, showed what feeling they had about her:
"There's ane o' the witches in hell, an' the rest 'ill shune follow!" said
he contentedly. Another man, whose stick was taken to push back the legs
of the poor wretches as they were thrust out of the flames, when it was
returned to him, flung it int