possession a pack of cards; and during family worship he displayed great restlessness, generally falling asleep before these services were concluded, and he was averse to reading the Bible. One night, for a few pence, he offered to tell the names of the sweethearts of the two servant-men, and they having agreed to the bargain, he shuffled the cards and said certain words which they did not understand, and then named two girls the lads were then courting. They refused to give him the promised reward, and he told them they would be glad to pay him before they slept. When the two men were going to their bed, which was over the stable, they were surprised to find two women draped in black closing up the stable door. As they stepped back, the women disappeared; but every time they tried to get in, the door was blocked up as before. The men then remembered what the lad had said to them, and going to where he slept, found him in bed, and gave him the promised reward. He then told them to go back, and they would not be further disturbed. Next morning, the servant-men told what had taken place, and refused to remain at the farm any longer with the lad; and the farmer had thus to part with him, but he and the servants gave him little gifts that they might part good friends. My informant believed himself above superstition, yet he related this as evidence of the truth of the _black airt_. It is a very old belief that those who had made compacts with the devil could afflict those they disliked with certain diseases, and even cause their death, by making images in clay or wax of the persons they wished to injure, and then, by baptizing these images with mock ceremony, the persons represented were brought under their influence, so that whatever was then done to the image was felt by the living original. This superstition is referred to by Allan Ramsay in his _Gentle Shepherd_:-- "Pictures oft she makes Of folk she hates, and gaur expire Wi' slow and racking pain before the fire. Stuck fu' o' preens, the devilish picture melt, The pain by folk they represent is felt." This belief survived in great force in this century, and probably in country places is not yet extinct. Several persons have been named to me who suffered long from diseases the doctor could not understand, nor do anything to remove, and therefore these obscure diseases could only be ascribed to the devil-aided practices of malicious persons. In some cases, cures were said to have been effected through making friends of the supposed originators of the disease. The custom not yet extinct of burning persons in effigy is doubtless a survival of this old superstition.