"No muckle, to be sure, Mr. Skreigh--only that I lived within a penny-stane cast o' the head o' the avenue at Ellangowan, when a man cam jingling to our door that night the young Laird was born, and my mother sent me, that was a hafflin callant, [*Half-grown lad] to show the stranger the gate to the Place, which, if he had been sic a warlock, he might hae kenn'd himself, ane wad think--and he was a young, weel-faured, weel-dressed lad, like an Englishman. And I tell ye he had as gude a hat, and boots, and gloves, as ony gentleman need to have. To be sure he did gie an awesome glance up at the auld castle--and there was some spae-work gaed on--I aye heard that; but as for his vanishing, I held the stirrup mysell when he gaed away, and he gied me a round half-crown--he was riding on a haick they ca'd Souple Sam--it belanged to the George at Dumfries--it was a blood-bay beast, very ill o' the spavin--I hae seen the beast baith before and since." "Aweel, aweel, Jock," answered Mr. Skreigh, with a tone of mild solemnity, "our accounts differ in no material particulars; but I had no knowledge that ye had seen the man.--So ye see, my friends, that this soothsayer having prognosticated evil to the boy, his father engaged a godly minister to be with him morn and night." "Ay, that was him they ca'd Dominie Sampson," said the postilion. "He's but a dumb dog that," observed the Deacon; "I have heard that he never could preach five words of a sermon endlang, for as lang as he has been licensed." "Weel, but," said the precentor, waving his hand, as if eager to retrieve the command of the discourse, he waited on the young Laird by night and day. Now, it chanced, when the bairn was near five years auld, that the Laird had a sight of his errors, and determined to put these Egyptians aff his ground; and he caused them to remove; and that Frank Kennedy, that was a rough swearing fellow, he was sent to turn them off. And he cursed and damned at them, and they swure at him; and that Meg Merrilies, that was the maist powerfu' with the Enemy of Mankind, she as gude as said she would have him, body and soul, before three days were ower his head. And I have it from a sure hand, and that's ane wha saw it, and that's John Wilson, that was the laird's groom, that Meg appeared to the Laird as he was riding hame from Singleside, over Gibbie's-know, and threatened him wi' what she wad do to his family; but whether it was Meg, or something waur in her likeness, for it seemed bigger than ony mortal creature, John could not say." "Aweel," said the postilion, "it might be sae--I canna say against it, for I was not in the country at the time; but John Wilson was a blustering kind of chield, without the heart of a sprug." [*Sparrow] "And what was the end of all this?" said the stranger, with some impatience.