lace.

NOTE H.--HANGMAN, OR LOCKMAN.

_Lockman,_ so called from the small quantity of meal (Scottice, _lock_)
which he was entitled to take out of every boll exposed to market in the
city. In Edinburgh, the duty has been very long commuted; but in
Dumfries, the finisher of the law still exercises, or did lately
exercise, his privilege, the quantity taken being regulated by a small
iron ladle, which he uses as the measure of his perquisite. The
expression _lock,_ for a small quantity of any readily divisible dry
substance, as corn, meal, flax, or the like, is still preserved, not only
popularly, but in a legal description, as the _lock_ and _gowpen,_ or
small quantity and handful, payable in thirlage cases, as in town
multure.

NOTE I.--THE FAIRY BOY OF LEITH,

This legend was in former editions inaccurately said to exist in Baxter's
"World of Spirits;" but is, in fact, to be found, in "Pandaemonium, or
the Devil's Cloyster; being a further blow to Modern Sadduceism," by
Richard Bovet, Gentleman, 12mo, 1684. The work is inscribed to Dr. Henry
More. The story is entitled, "A remarkable passage of one named the Fairy
Boy of Leith, in Scotland, given me by my worthy friend, Captain George
Burton, and attested under his hand;" and is as follows:--

"About fifteen years since, having business that detained me for some
time in Leith, which is near Edenborough, in the kingdom of Scotland, I
often met some of my acquaintance at a certain house there, where we used
to drink a glass of wine for our refection. The woman which kept the
house was of honest reputation amongst the neighbours, which made me
give the more attention to what she told me one day about a Fairy Boy (as
they called him) who lived about that town. She had given me so strange
an account of him, that I desired her I might see him the first
opportunity, which she promised; and not long after, passing that way,
she told me there was the Fairy Boy but a little before I came by; and
casting her eye into the street, said, 'Look you, sir, yonder he is at
play with those other boys,' and designing him to me. I went, and by
smooth words, and a piece of money, got him to come into the house with
me; where, in the presence of divers people, I demanded of him several
astrological questions, which he answered with great subtility, and
through all his discourse carried it with a cunning much beyond his
years, which seemed not to exceed ten or eleven. He seeme