kent nae it was thine.' Kimmer drew't out. 'Ay, ay, it's my auld bane; weel speed ye.' I' the very first pow I got sic a louthe o' fish that I carried 'till me back cracked again."(1) A celebrated witch connected with Wigtownshire was Maggie Osborne. [Illustration: "AND PERISH'D MONY A BONNY BOAT."--Tam o' Shanter. Sketch by J. Copland, Dundrennan.] "On the wild moorland between the marches of Carrick and the valley of the Luce tracks are pointed out, on which the heather will not grow, as 'Maggie's gate to Gallowa''; the sod having been so deeply burned by her tread, or that of her weird companion. Among the misdemeanours imputed to her, in aggravation of the charge for which she was cruelly condemned, was that of having impiously partaken of the communion at the Moor Kirk of Luce. She accepted the bread at the minister's hands, but a sharp-eyed office-bearer (long after) swore that he had detected her spitting out the wafer at the church-door, which he clearly saw swallowed by the devil, who had waited for her outside in the shape of a toad. Again it was asserted that when passing from Barr to Glenluce by the 'Nick o' the Balloch' she encountered a funeral procession, and to pass unseen she changed herself into a beetle; but before she could creep out of the way, a shepherd in the party unwittingly set his foot upon her, and would have crushed her outright had not a rut partly protected her. Much frightened and hurt she vowed vengeance; but the moor-man being a pious man, for long her arts were of no avail against him. One night however, detained late by a storm, he sat down hurriedly to supper, having forgotten to say grace. Her incantations then had power. A wreath of snow was collected and hurled from the hill above on the devoted cabin, and the shepherd, his wife, and family of ten were smothered in the avalanche."(2) In Glenluce a story is handed down which brings out that it was not necessarily the dweller in the humble cot on whom the mantle of witchcraft fell, but that the high-bred dames of the "Hall" did also at times dabble in the practice. "A labouring man's wife, a sensible, decent woman, having been detained late from home, was returning about the witching hour; and at a spot known as the 'Clay Slap' she met face to face a troop of females, as to whose leader, being cloven-footed, she could not be mistaken. Her consternation was the greater, as one by one she recognised them all, and among them the ladies of the manor. They stopped her, and in her terror she appealed to one of them by name. Enraged at being known, the party declared that she must die. She pleaded for mercy, and they agreed to spare her life on her taking an awful oath that she would never reveal the names of any as long as they lived.