and all, ere they died, had confessed to the most horrid commerce with the Devil.  It was no great time since a witch, under torture, had revealed in her confession the terrible truth, of how two hundred women had been wont to flock at night to a certain kirk in North Berwick, there to listen eagerly to Satan preaching blasphemy and denouncing the King.  Even a judge was not safe from their malice.  And could he but escape from the snare in which he now lay entangled, assuredly, Lord Durie thought, there should be more witch-burnings.

So the weeks dragged past, and Lord Durie lost all reckoning of the flight of time; but ever the belief strengthened that it was no mere human power that held him in bondage.  And this belief received confirmation at last, for he awoke one night from confused and heavy sleep, to find himself once more bound, and wrapped, body and head, in the thick folds of a cloak.  Then, seemingly without moving from his bed, he was borne through the air and set upon a horse; and again began that awful journey which once before he had endured.  This time, too, in confirmation of his theory of the supernatural, when he came to his full senses it was to find himself lying behind a clump of whins by the sands of Leith, near to the very spot where, ages before, he had met a strange-looking man who tried to draw him into conversation on law.  And nowhere was any cloak to be seen, nor trace of human agency.  Only, he ached sorely, and his legs almost refused to bear the weight of his body, and in his head was the buzzing as of a thousand bees.

It was warlocks who had dealt with him—­so his family and all his friends agreed when his tale was told.  But his successor in office mourned, perhaps, that their dealings had not been more effectual, for he liked ill to give up a post he had filled with ability for an all too short three months.

To Lord Durie’s regret, his return was too late to enable him to preside in the famous case which was about to come on shortly after the date of his disappearance.  That had already been decided in a manner of which he could not have failed to disapprove, and Lord Traquair had secured a verdict.

For long the judge held to the warlock theory, and he was not averse, after dinner, over a bottle, from telling at great length the story of his terrible experiences during those mysterious three months of captivity.  Younger men, indeed, began to find the tale somewhat boring, and in private some had been known to wish that the devil had flown away permanently with Lord Durie.  But those scoffers were chiefly a few rising young advocates; the judge’s family and his friends accepted the tale in its entirety.  Nor ever did any man, to the end of his days, actually hear Lord Durie express doubt as to the supernatural nature of his adventure.