These harangues took up much of the time that they had to spare, but ere they parted Walter persuaded them, probably by his strong homely reasoning, to remain where they were. He said, since they persisted in refusing to take more of his flock, there was an extensive common beyond the height, called Gemsope, which had been a royal forest, where many gentlemen and wealthy farmers had sheep that fed promiscuously; and considering their necessitous circumstances, he thought it no evil, and he advised them to go and take from that glen as many as would serve to support nature for a time;—that for his part he had many a good wedder and dinmont there, and was willing to run his risk, which would then fall equal on a number, and only on such as were rich and could well bear it. In this plan, after some scruples which were overborne by the majority, they at length fully and thankfully acquiesced. That same day, on his way homeward, Walter heard the wonderful relation of the apparition of his beloved daughter in the Hope at midnight; he learned that Clavers would be there in a few days, and he had sent away above 100 men to steal sheep—all these things made him thoughtful and uneasy after he had reached his home, wet and fatigued.—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsope this,” he said, sighing, not recollecting what he said or to whom he said it. He could trust his wife with any of his family concerns, but as long as she continued to be so much influenced by the curate Clerk, the sworn enemy of his poor persecuted flock, he durst not give her a hint of their retreat. Walter became still more and more perplexed from all that he heard from his wife, as well as from every one else—he found that, in truth, there was some mysterious thing about his house—the whole family seemed convinced of it—there were many things seen, heard, and done there that he could in nowise account for in a rational way, and though he resisted the general belief for a good while, that the house was haunted, circumstances at length obliged him to yield to the torrent, and he believed as faithfully in the Brownie of Bodsbeck as any of them all. FOOTNOTE: [A] This curious protest is still extant, and shows the true spirit of the old Covenanters or Cameronians, as they have since been called, better than any work remaining. It is called in the title page, “_An informatory Vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented Remnant of the suffering Anti–popish, Anti–prelatic, Anti–erastian, Anti–sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland_.” It is dated at Leadhills in 1687, and is the conjoint work of Mr James Renwick, and Mr Alexander Shiels, author of _The Hind let loose_. The following is an extract from it, p. 107:—