were taking down the walls of a building
formerly used as a feeding-house for cattle, in the town of Dalkeith,
there was found below the threshold-stone the withered heart of some
animal stuck full of many scores of pins--a counter-charm, according to
tradition, against the operations of witchcraft on the cattle which are
kept within. Among the almost innumerable droves of bullocks which come
down every year from the Highlands for the south, there is scarce one
but has a curious knot upon his tail, which is also a precaution lest an
evil eye or an evil spell may do the animal harm.

The last Scottish story with which I will trouble you happened in or
shortly after the year 1800, and the whole circumstances are well known
to me. The dearth of the years in the end of the eighteenth and
beginning of this century was inconvenient to all, but distressing to
the poor. A solitary old woman, in a wild and lonely district, subsisted
chiefly by rearing chickens, an operation requiring so much care and
attention that the gentry, and even the farmers' wives, often find it
better to buy poultry at a certain age than to undertake the trouble of
bringing them up. As the old woman in the present instance fought her
way through life better than her neighbours, envy stigmatized her as
having some unlawful mode of increasing the gains of her little trade,
and apparently she did not take much alarm at the accusation. But she
felt, like others, the dearth of the years alluded to, and chiefly
because the farmers were unwilling to sell grain in the very moderate
quantities which she was able to purchase, and without which her little
stock of poultry must have been inevitably starved. In distress on this
account, the dame went to a neighbouring farmer, a very good-natured,
sensible, honest man, and requested him as a favour to sell her a peck
of oats at any price. "Good neighbour," he said, "I am sorry to be
obliged to refuse you, but my corn is measured out for Dalkeith market;
my carts are loaded to set out, and to open these sacks again, and for
so small a quantity, would cast my accounts loose, and create much
trouble and disadvantage; I dare say you will get all you want at such a
place, or such a place." On receiving this answer, the old woman's
temper gave way. She scolded the wealthy farmer, and wished evil to his
property, which was just setting off for the market. They parted, after
some angry language on both sides; and sure enough,