That was a nicht that has never been forgotten in Ba’weary, the nicht o’ the seeventeenth of August, seventeen hun’er’ an’ twal’.  It had been het afore, as I hae said, but that nicht it was hetter than ever.  The sun gaed doun amang unco-lookin’ clouds; it fell as mirk as the pit; no a star, no a breath o’ wund; ye couldnae see your han’ afore your face, and even the auld folk cuist the covers frae their beds and lay pechin’ for their breath.  Wi’ a’ that he had upon his mind, it was gey and unlikely Mr. Soulis wad get muckle sleep.  He lay an’ he tummled; the gude, caller bed that he got into brunt his very banes; whiles he slept, and whiles he waukened; whiles he heard the time o’ nicht, and whiles a tike yowlin’ up the muir, as if somebody was deid; whiles he thocht he heard bogles claverin’ in his lug, an’ whiles he saw spunkies in the room.  He behooved, he judged, to be sick; an’ sick he was—­little he jaloosed the sickness.

At the hinder end, he got a clearness in his mind, sat up in his sark on the bedside, and fell thinkin’ ance mair o’ the black man an’ Janet.  He couldnae weel tell how,—­maybe it was the cauld to his feet,—­but it cam’ in upon him wi’ a spate that there was some connection between thir twa, an’ that either or baith o’ them were bogles.  And just at that moment, in Janet’s room, which was neist to his, there cam’ a stamp o’ feet as if men were wars’lin’, an’ then a loud bang; an’ then a wund gaed reishling round the fower quarters of the house; an’ then a’ was ance mair as seelent as the grave.

Mr. Soulis was feard for neither man nor deevil.  He got his tinder-box, an’ lit a can’le, an’ made three steps o’ ’t ower to Janet’s door.  It was on the hasp, an’ he pushed it open, an’ keeked bauldly in.  It was a big room, as big as the minister’s ain, an’ plenished wi’ grand, auld, solid gear, for he had naething else.  There was a fower-posted bed wi’ auld tapestry; and a braw cabinet of aik, that was fu’ o’ the minister’s divinity books, an’ put there to be out o’ the gate; an’ a wheen duds o’ Janet’s lying here and there about the floor.  But nae Janet could Mr. Soulis see, nor ony sign of a contention.  In he gaed (an’ there’s few that wad hae followed him), an’ lookit a’ round, an’ listened.  But there was naethin’ to be heard neither inside the manse nor in a’ Ba’weary parish, an’ naethin’ to be seen but the muckle shadows turnin’ round the can’le.  An’ then a’ at aince the minister’s heart played dunt an’ stood stock-still, an’ a cauld wund blew amang the hairs o’ his heid.  Whaten a weary sicht was that for the puir man’s een!  For there was Janet hangin’ frae a nail beside the auld aik cabinet; her heid aye lay on her shouther, her een were steeked, the tongue projecket frae her mouth, and her heels were twa feet clear abune the floor.

“God forgive us all!” thocht Mr. Soulis, “poor Janet’s dead.”

He cam’ a step nearer to the corp; an’ then his heart fair whammled in his inside.  For—­by what cantrip it wad ill beseem a man to judge—­she was hingin’ frae a single nail an’ by a single wursted thread for darnin’ hose.