The answer was a startling one: "M'Culloch," said the visitor, "I am the King of the Brownies![21] My palace has been for ages in the mound on which your Tower stands, and you are driving your common sewer right through my chalmer of dais." Sir Godfrey, confounded, threw up the window and ordered the workmen to stop at once, professing his perfect readiness to make the drain in any such direction as might least incommode his Majesty, if he would graciously indicate the same. His courtesy was accepted, and Sir Godfrey received a promise in return from the now mollified potentate that he, the said King, would stand by and help him in the time of his greatest need. It was long after this that the Knight of Myrtoun disposed of his enemy in the summary way we have already mentioned, and for which he was condemned to die. The procession had started for the place of execution; a crowd was collected to see the awful sight, when the spectators were surprised by seeing a very little man with white hair and beard, dressed, too, in an antique suit of green, and mounted on a white horse. He issued from the castle rock, crossed the loch without a moment's hesitation, and rode straight up to the cart on which Sir Godfrey, accompanied by the executioner and a minister, was standing. They plainly saw Sir Godfrey get on the horse behind the little man, who was no other than the King of the Brownies (and thus fulfilled his promise by arriving in his hour of need): the two recrossed the loch, and, mounting the castle rock, they disappeared. When the astonished crowd again turned their eyes to the cart a figure was still there, and wondrous like Sir Godfrey; it was, therefore, generally believed that he had met a felon's doom, and most people thought no more about it. A few only knew better, but these cared little to speak about the matter. At rare intervals, however, one of the initiated would impart the story to a friend, and tell how a head had rolled upon the ground, leaving a bleeding trunk upon the scaffold; then adding in a confidential whisper, "It was no' him ava; it was just a kin' o' glamour."(51) The presence of fairies was not unknown in the Whithorn district, and a realistic account of the last appearance of the fairies there has been preserved in _Droll Recollections of Whithorn_, by James F. Cannon:--