“Either Mother Melldrum,” said I, being now a little angry, “or else old Nick himself.”

“Nay, old Uncle Reuben!” Saying this, Master Huckaback cast back his coat, and stood up, and made the most of himself.

[Illustration:  534.jpg Master Huckaback cast back his coat]

“Well!” cried I, being now quite come to the limits of my intellect, “then, after all, Captain Stickles was right in calling you a rebel, sir!”

“Of course he was; could so keen a man be wrong about an old fool like me?  But come, and see our rebellion, John.  I will trust you now with everything.  I will take no oath from you; only your word to keep silence; and most of all from your mother.”

“I will give you my word,” I said, although liking not such pledges; which make a man think before he speaks in ordinary company, against his usual practices.  However, I was now so curious, that I thought of nothing else; and scarcely could believe at all that Uncle Ben was quite right in his head.

“Take another glass of wine, my son,” he cried with a cheerful countenance, which made him look more than ten years younger; “you shall come into partnership with me:  your strength will save us two horses, and we always fear the horse work.  Come and see our rebellion, my boy; you are a made man from to-night.”

“But where am I to come and see it?  Where am I to find it, sir?”

“Meet me,” he answered, yet closing his hands, and wrinkling with doubt his forehead, “come alone, of course; and meet me at the Wizard’s Slough, at ten to-morrow morning.”

CHAPTER LVIII

MASTER HUCKABACK’S SECRET

[Illustration:  535.jpg Illustrated Capital]

Knowing Master Huckaback to be a man of his word, as well as one who would have others so, I was careful to be in good time the next morning, by the side of the Wizard’s Slough.  I am free to admit that the name of the place bore a feeling of uneasiness, and a love of distance, in some measure to my heart.  But I did my best not to think of this; only I thought it a wise precaution, and due for the sake of my mother and Lorna, to load my gun with a dozen slugs made from the lead of the old church-porch, laid by, long since, against witchcraft.

I am well aware that some people now begin to doubt about witchcraft; or at any rate feign to do so; being desirous to disbelieve whatever they are afraid of.  This spirit is growing too common among us, and will end (unless we put a stop to it!) in the destruction of all religion.  And as regards witchcraft, a man is bound either to believe in it, or to disbelieve the Bible.  For even in the New Testament, discarding many things of the Old, such as sacrifices, and Sabbath, and fasting, and other miseries, witchcraft is clearly spoken of as a thing that must continue; that the Evil One be not utterly robbed of his vested interests.  Hence let no one tell me that witchcraft is done away with; for I will meet him with St. Paul, than whom no better man, and few less superstitious, can be found in all the Bible.