After serious deliberation, Walter thought his best expedient was to remove his daughter from home for some time; and next morning he proposed to her to go and spend a week or two with her maternal uncle, Thomas Linton, farmer at Gilmanscleuch. To this she objected on several pretences; but at length, when urged to it, positively refused to leave her father’s house at that time. He never in his life could say a harsh word to her, but that day he appeared chagrined, and bade her, with some asperity, keep away from her mother’s presence, as her malady, which was a nervous complaint, required the utmost quietness. This she promised with her accustomed cheerfulness, and they parted. During the day she was absent for several hours, none knowing whither she went, or by what way she returned. On the same day, the servants, who had spent a sleepless night, packed up bag and baggage, and went off in a body, all save one elderly woman, who had lately come to the house, and was a stranger to them all. Her name, she said, was Agnes Alexander, but she was better known by the familiar one of Nanny Elshinder; her former history and connections were doubtful, but she was of a cheerful complaisant temper, and always performed what she was ordered to do without any remarks. Walter had hired her at Moffat, in the fair called _The Third Friday_; and told Maron when he came home, that “he had hired a wastlin auldish quean, wha, he believed, was a wee crackit i’the head, but, poor thing, she wasna like to get a place, and was sic a good soul he coudna think to leave her destitute; and whanever he begoud to parley wi’ her, od, she brought him to the neb o’ the mire–snipe directly.” Saving this good woman, all the house servants, man, woman, and boy, deserted their service, and neither promises nor threats could induce them to stay another night about the town. They said, “they might as weel bide i’ hell; they wad gang afore Gibby Moray, the king’s shirra, whanever he likit about it; or, gin he buid rather hae brawer burlymen, they wad meet him face to face in the Parliment Close.” Walter was now obliged to bring Jasper, his young shepherd, down from the Muchrah, to assist him in the labour of the farm—the most unfit man in the world for a haunted house. He knew that the Old Room was frequented by his old adversary, the Brownie of Bodsbeck. He likewise knew that his young mistress was a witch, or something worse, for the late servants had told him, so that he had now a dangerous part to act. Nevertheless, he came determined to take the bull by the horns; for as he and his father had stocks of sheep upon the farm, they could not leave their master, and he was never wont to disobey him. He had one sole dependance—his swiftness of foot—that had never yet failed him in eschewing them, save in the solitary instance of the serpent.