"First," said Sanders, pointing with a finger to the crumpled paper, which he ogled with the corners of his bleared eyes, as he indicated each item in succession, "first: 'Accompt of the haill expenses for ye burning of Lady Jane Seton, umquhile of Ashkirk, at ye staik, Saint Margaret's Day, fifteen hundred and thirty-seven----'" "Weel?" "Hoolie, man!" responded Sanders, scratching his head. "'_Item_; for one staick of aik tree, a penny. "'_Item_; for twelve bundles o' faggots, saxpence. "'_Item_; for three barrels o' tar and tallow, ten shillings. "'_Item_; for greased flax and gunpowder, sax shillings. "'_Item_; for an iron chain to bind her to the staik, twenty Flemish rydars. "'_Item_; for a pair o' steel branks and one padlock, to Jhone, the lorimar, at ye Tron, aucht shillings of our Scots monie. _Summa_----'" "Hech! ye'll hae gude profit off a' this; for I ken ye saved as mickle tar, flax, and faggots frae the burning and worrying o' fat Father Macgridius as will put ye owre this job, and mair." "Never _you_ heed that," replied Sanders, pawkily; "how mickle got ye for the brodding o' her?" "Sax pund Scots." "Sax pund! my certie, think o' that! Witch pricking is profitable wark." "Had ye seen Friar Gourlay," said Dobbie, with a leer, as he came up and joined them, "by my faith! _he_ burned brawly when the cardinal had him harled to the Calton and worrit for his foul heresies. We put a tarred frock on him, sewit owre wi' bags o' grease and powder, and piled the weel oiled faggots knee-deep about him. We then fastened up his body to the stake by three iron cask-hoops that held him erect as a lance, and the fire bleezed round him like a war beacon. His yell and skirls were awsome to hear; but the smoke and the heat soon chokit him; and then, when the breeze blew the fire aside, we saw him standing upright and stark in the middle o't. Then his belly fell out, and the flames shot up between his birselled ribs and out at his scouthered jaws, his eyen and ear-holes! By my soul! gossip Birrel and gossip Screw, it was an awsome sicht, and one to be haud in memorie!" Even Dobbie, connoisseur as he was in these matters, shuddered at the recollection of this extra-judicial atrocity. "But come," said Birrel, "there is St. Cuthburt's bell striking ten, and we have muckle to do wi' this dame ere morning peeps." The trio then knocked at the iron gate of David's Tower, to which they were admitted.