Walter longed to change the commonplace tenor of the conversation, mentioned in the last chapter, and endeavoured gradually to broach the sentiments that lay nearest his heart; but he either wanted tact, or the figures of the dance put him out, or a crowded room was not quite the place for it. The young lady too was somewhat reserved; she remembered the affair of the glove, and thought it quite necessary to be so. "So you will not go with me to-morrow to see this old witch burned?" said he. Lilian shuddered. "Ah, how could you think of it?" "Lady Mary of Charteris is going--all the Earl of Dumfries' windows are occupied, but I think I could procure you a seat somewhere, overlooking the Castle-hill." "I would not go for the wealth of the Indies. Oh, is it not said that she confessed some horrible things?" "As you would have done, fair Lilian, if questioned in the same manner." "And what did she reveal?" "That she was kissed and christened anew by the devil, whom she met at the Gallowlee one mirk midnight, when he imprinted his mark between her shoulders; and though the minister of St. Giles and my Lord Mersington ran a long needle thrice through the infernal signet, she neither winced nor betrayed the least uneasiness." "Betouch us too! The wicked woman deserves to die--but her death--how horrible! And she really sold her soul? Oh, what appearance had the devil--and what said he?" "If all be true that appears in the _Mercurius Caledonius_, which I saw to-day in Blair's Coffee-house, Satan is a very well-bred and gentlemanlike man," replied Walter, laughing. "He wore a lowland bonnet, and had his nether foot in a buff boot to conceal its deformity. He was somewhat rough, and had a beard of iron wire. He kissed the witch whose spells had conjured him up, and said in husky French, 'Permittez moi, Madame,' adding thereafter in our kindly Scottish, 'What's your will, cummer?' "And so Monsieur Le Diable kissed her? He has long been proverbial for very bad taste. His witches are always so old, so ugly, so hideous!" "After giving her all the power she required, Master Mahoud vanished in a whirlwind." With all the credulity incident to the time, and though deeply imbued with a sense of the ridiculous, Lilian shuddered; but be it remembered, that the grave and learned senators of the College of Justice had that very morning trembled at the same appalling recital. "And the power," she faltered. "Ample it was indeed. She could brew hell-kail, and wherever it was sprinkled the soil was scorched, the herbs were blasted, and whoever trod thereon died. Water would not drown, nor hemp hang her. She could bewitch cattle that were without St. Mungo's knot on their tail." "Mungo--poh! he was a papist." "And blight children, and bring sickness on her enemies by roasting waxen images, and in short do more mischief than was contained in wise King James's Dæmonology, or the box of Pandora."