Naturally Gilbert Campbell carried his tale of sorrow to the parish
Minister. This did not avail him. His warp and threads were cut on his
loom, and even the clothes of his family were cut while they were wearing
them. At night something tugged the blankets off their beds, a favourite
old spiritual trick, which was played, if I remember well, on a Roman
Emperor, according to Suetonius. Poor Campbell had to remove his stock-
in-trade, and send his children to board out, "to try whom the trouble
did most follow." After this, all was quiet (as perhaps might be
expected), and quiet all remained, till a son named Thomas was brought
home again. Then the house was twice set on fire, and it might have been
enough to give Thomas a beating. On the other hand, Campbell sent Thomas
to stay with the Minister. But the troubles continued in the old way. At
last the family became so accustomed to the Devil, "that they were no
more afraid to keep up the Clash" (chatter) "with the Foul Fiend than to
speak to each other." They were like the Wesleys, who were so familiar
with the fiend Jeffrey, that haunted their home.
The Minister, with a few of the gentry, heard of their unholy friendship,
and paid Campbell a visit. "At their first coming in the Devil says:
'_Quum Literarum_ is good Latin.'" These are the first words of the
Latin rudiments which scholars are taught when they go to the Grammar
School. Then they all prayed, and a Voice came from under the bed:
"Would you know the Witches of Glenluce?" The Voice named a few,
including one long dead. But the Minister, with rare good sense,
remarked that what Satan said was not evidence.
Let it be remarked that "the lad Tom" had that very day "come back with
the Minister." The Fiend then offered terms. "Give me a spade and
shovel, and depart from the house for seven days, and I will make a
grave, and lie down in it, and trouble you no more." Hereon Campbell,
with Scottish caution, declined to give the Devil the value of a straw.
The visitors then hunted after the voice, observing that some of the
children were in bed. They found nothing, and then, as the novelists
say, "a strange thing happened."
There appeared a naked hand and an arm, from the elbow down, beating upon
the floor till the house did shake again. "The Fiend next exclaimed that
if the candle were put out he would appear in the shape of Fireballs."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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