Here he broke off and glanced at her; but, perceiving she paid little attention, went on again at a gallop.  “She answered that it was worse—­that the young Laird stood very near disgrace, and (the worst of all was) at a distance she could not help him.  Now, sir, for reasons I shall hereafter tell you, Mr. Mackenzie’s being in disgrace would have little surprised me; but that she should know of it, he being in Belgium, was incredible.  So I pressed her, and she being distraught and (I verily believe) in something like anguish, came out with a most extraordinary story:  to wit, that the Laird of Ardlaugh had in his service, unbeknown to him (but, as she protested, well known to her), a familiar spirit—­or, as we should say commonly, a ’brownie’—­which in general served him most faithfully but at times erratically, having no conscience nor any Christian principle to direct him.  I cautioned her, but she persisted, in a kind of wild terror, and added that at times the spirit would, in all good faith, do things which no Christian allowed to be permissible, and further, that she had profited by such actions.  I asked her, ’Was thieving one of them?’ She answered that it was, and indeed the chief.

“Now, this was an admission which gave me some eagerness to hear more.  For to my knowledge there were charges lying against young Mr. Mackenzie—­though not pronounced—­which pointed to a thief in his employment and presumably in his confidence.  You will remember, sir, that when I had the honour of meeting you at Mr. Mackenzie’s table, I took my leave with much abruptness.  You remarked upon it, no doubt.  But you will no longer think it strange when I tell you that there—­under my nose—­were a dozen apples of a sort which grows nowhere within twenty miles of Ardlaugh but in my own Manse garden.  The tree was a new one, obtained from Herefordshire, and planted three seasons before as an experiment.  I had watched it, therefore, particularly; and on that very morning had counted the fruit, and been dismayed to find twelve apples missing.  Further, I am a pretty good judge of wine (though I taste it rarely), and could there and then have taken my oath that the claret our host set before us was the very wine I had tasted at the table of his neighbour Mr. Gillespie.  As for the venison—­I had already heard whispers that deer and all game were not safe within a mile or two of Ardlaugh.  These were injurious tales, sir, which I had no mind to believe; for, bating his religion, I saw everything in Mr. Mackenzie which disposed me to like him.  But I knew (as neighbours must) of the shortness of his purse; and the multiplied evidence (particularly my own Goodrich pippins staring me in the face) overwhelmed me for a moment.

“So then, I listened to this woman’s tale with more patience—­or, let me say, more curiosity—­than you, sir, might have given it.  She persisted, I say, that her master was in trouble; and that the trouble had something to do with a game of cards, but that Mr. Mackenzie had been innocent of deceit, and the real culprit was this spirit I tell of—­”