As a characteristic incident of the period--an outlaw of the Macgregor clan, named John Dhu Ger, came this day with his associates to the lands of Stuart, Laird of Corse, in the upper vales of Aberdeenshire, and began to despoil them, pretending to be the king’s man, and that what he did was only justice, as against a rebellious Covenanter. ‘Wherever he came in Strylay and other places, he would take their horse, kine, and oxen, and cause the owners compound and pay for their own geir.... He took out of the Laird of Corse’s bounds a brave gentleman-tenant dwelling there, and carried him with him, and sent word to the laird, desiring him to send him a thousand pounds, whilk the lords of Council had given his name [the Stuarts of Athole] for taking of Gilderoy, or then he would send this man’s head to him. The Laird of Corse rode shortly to Strathbogie, and told the marquis, who quickly wrote to Macgregor, to send back Mr George Forbes again, or then he would come himself for him. But he was obeyed, and [Forbes] came to Strathbogie, haill and sound upon the 15th of August, but [without] payment of any ransom.’--_Altered from Spalding._ * * * * * ‘This year was ane very dry year, for about the end of August all the corns was within the yards.’--_Ab. Re._ * * * * * [Sidenote: OCT.] [Sidenote: 1638.] Amidst the excitement of the time, a young woman named Mitchelson, who had been subject to fits, attracted attention in Edinburgh by becoming a sort of prophetess or Pythoness of the Covenant. ‘She was acquainted with the Scripture, and much taken with the Covenant, and in her fits spoke much to its advantage, and much ill to its opposers, that would, or at least that she wished to befall them. Great numbers of all ranks of people were her daily hearers; and many of the devouter sex prayed and wept, with joy and wonder, to hear her speak. When her fits came upon her, she was ordinarily thrown upon a down bed, and there prostrate, with her face downwards, spoke such words as were for a while carefully taken from her mouth by such as were skilful in brachygraphy. She had intermissions of her discourses for days and weeks; and before she began to speak, it was made known through Edinburgh. Mr Harry Rollock [one of the clergymen of Edinburgh], who often came to see her, said that he thought it was not good manners to speak while his Master was speaking, and that he acknowledged his Master’s voice in her. Some misconstered her to be suborned by the Covenanters, and at least that she had nothing that savoured of a rapture, but only of memory, and that still she knew what she spoke, and, being interrupted in her discourse, answered pertinently to the purpose. Her language signified little: she spoke of Christ, and called him Covenanting Jesus; that the Covenant was approved from heaven; that the king’s covenant was Satan’s invention; that the Covenant