In the ensuing month, Agnes Gourlay was examined by the kirk-session of Humbie, concerning some practices of hers for charming the milk of kine. It was alleged that Anna Simpson, servant to Robert Hepburn of Keith, having found fault with the milk she drew from her master’s cows, Agnes told her of a way to remedy the evil, and soon after came and put it in practice. Throwing a small quantity of the milk into the _grupe_ or sewer of the cow-house, she called out: ‘God betak us to! May be, they are under the earth that have as much need of it, as they that are above the earth!’ after which she put wheat bread and salt into the cows’ ears. Agnes by and by confessed that she had so done, and was ordained to make public repentance in sackcloth.[131] * * * * * Lord Linton, son of the Earl of Traquair, married Henrietta Gordon, daughter of the lately executed Marquis of Huntly, and relict of George Lord Seton; she being an excommunicated papist. ‘The minister of Dawick, being an old man, did marry thir foresaid persons privately, without proclamation of their banns, according to the custom; for which, shortly after, he was excommunicate, his church declared vacant, and he by the state banished.’--_Lam._ Lord Linton was fined in £5000 Scots, and likewise excommunicated and imprisoned.--_Nic._ * * * * * [Sidenote: DEC. 18.] [Sidenote: 1649.] The reader will remember the strenuous opposition of John Mean, merchant in Edinburgh, to the Episcopal innovations, and his sufferings in that cause; likewise the strong suspicion entertained that it was his wife who discharged her stool at the bishop’s head when the Service-book was introduced into St Giles’s in July 1637. It was natural that John, who was a man of good account in the world, as well as a most earnest Presbyterian, should have flourished under the present order of things. We therefore hear without surprise that the Post in Edinburgh--the germ of a most important institution--was now under the care of John Mean. It seems to have been confined as yet to the transmission of letters between London and Edinburgh. At the date noted, he addressed a petition to the Committee of Estates, regarding ‘his great charges and expenses in attending the Letter-office in this city, and his allowance therefor.’ He states that ‘the benefit arising by the letters sent from this to London and coming from thence hither, by the ordinary post, will amount to four hundred pounds sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deduced for payment of the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion thereof laid upon the Berwick pacquet.’ In consideration of his charges, John was allowed to retain for himself the eighth penny upon all the letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth penny upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh.--_R. C. E._ * * * * *