perfectly
to understand these extraordinary proceedings.

"Sure!" ejaculated the widow. "Hae I no tasted his _red whisky_; and has it
no burned my throat till I maun ask Marion there to quench the fire wi' a
spark o' human-liquor?"

The fire in the two terror-struck women's throats was soon extinguished by
the "spark" they demanded; and a conversation, composed of twenty voices at
once, commenced, the essence of which was, that, on the occasion of the
last Hogmanay, a man dressed in a peculiar manner, with a green doublet,
and hose of the same colour, a cravat, and a blue bonnet, had, just as
twelve o'clock pealed from the monastery clock, made his appearance in the
town, and conducted himself in such a manner as to excite much wonder among
the inhabitants. Everything about him was mysterious; no person in that
quarter had ever seen him before; there was nobody along with him; he came
exactly at twelve; his face was so much shaded by a peculiar manner of
wearing his bonnet and cravat that no one could say he had ever got a
proper view of his features; he carried with him a bottle of liquor, which
the people, from ignorance of its character, denominated _red whisky_, and
which he distributed freely to all and sundry, without his stock ever
running out, or being exhausted: his manners were free, boisterous, and
hilarious; and he possessed the extraordinary power of making people love
him _ad libitum_. He came as he went, without any one knowing more of him
than that he was the very prince of good fellows; so exquisite a tosspot,
that he seemed equal to the task (perhaps no difficult one) of making the
whole town of Christ's Kirk drunk by the extraordinary spirit of his
example; and so spirit-stirring a conjurer of odd thoughts and unrivalled
humour, that melancholy itself laughed a gaunt laugh at his jokes; and
gizzened gammers and giddy hizzies were equally delighted with his devilry
and his drink. Arriving in the midst of frolic as high as ordinary mortal
spirits might be supposed able to sublime human exultation, he effected
such an increase of the corrybantic power of the laughing and singing
genius of Hogmanay, that

"Never in Scotland had been seen
Sic dancing nor deray;
Nowther at Falkland on the green,
Nor Peebles at the play."

But, coming like a fire-flaught, like a fire-flaught he and his red whisky
had departed; and it was not until he had gone, and one tosspot met another
tosspot, an