Again True Thomas turned over the leaves of Sir Michael's book, in the hope of finding something which would break even the most powerful spell, and at last he came to a page where it told how, if all else failed, the wizard must be boiled in lead. Ay, thou mayst well shudder, little Annie, and hide thy face in my gown. 'Twas a terrible thing to do, but they did it. They kindled a fire on the Nine-stane Rig, in the middle of the old Druid stones, and there they placed the great brass cauldron. They heated it red hot, and some of them hasted to Hermitage Castle, and stripped a sheet of lead from the roof, and they wrapped the wicked lord in it, and plunged him in, and stood round in solemn silence till the contents of that awful pot melted--lead, and bones, and all--and nought remained but a seething sea of molten metal. So came the sinful man by his end, and to this day the cauldron remains, as thou knowest, child. It was brought over to the Skelf-hill, and there it stands, a fearful warning to evil-doers, while, on the spot where it was boiled, within the circle of stones on the Nine-stane Rig, the ground lies bare and fallow, for the very grass refuses to grow where such a terrible deed was done. THE BROWNIE OF BLEDNOCK "There came a strange wight to our town en', An' the fient a body did him ken; He twirled na' lang, but he glided ben, Wi' a weary, dreary hum. His face did glow like the glow o' the West, When the drumly cloud had it half o'ercast; Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest. O, Sirs! it was Aiken-Drum." Did you ever hear how a Brownie came to our village of Blednock, and was frightened away again by a silly young wife, who thought she was cleverer than anyone else, but who did us the worst turn that she ever did anybody in her life, when she made the queer, funny, useful little man disappear? Well, it was one November evening, in the gloaming, just when the milking was done, and before the bairns were put to bed, and everyone was standing on their doorsteps, having a crack about the bad harvest, and the turnips, and what chances there were of good prices for the stirks[26] at the Martinmas Fair, when the queerest humming noise started down by the river. [Footnote 26: Bullocks.] It came nearer and nearer, and everyone stopped their clavers[27] and began to look down the road. And, 'deed, it was no wonder that they stared, for there, coming up the middle of the highway, was the strangest, most frightsome-looking creature that human eyes had ever seen. [Footnote 27: Idle talk.] He looked like a little wee, wee man, and yet he looked almost like a beast, for he was covered with hair from head to foot, and he wore no clothing except a little kilt of green rashes which hung round his waist. His hair was matted, and his head hung forward on his breast, and he had a long blue beard, which almost touched the ground.