‘Aweel, I wot there’s something in that,’ said Mrs. Mac-Candlish; ‘I’ve kenn’d him order her twa glasses o’ brandy in this very house.’

‘Aweel, gudewife, then the less I lee.  Sae the lady was wi’ bairn at last, and in the night when she should have been delivered there comes to the door of the ha’ house—­the Place of Ellangowan as they ca’d—­an ancient man, strangely habited, and asked for quarters.  His head, and his legs, and his arms were bare, although it was winter time o’ the year, and he had a grey beard three-quarters lang.  Weel, he was admitted; and when the lady was delivered, he craved to know the very moment of the hour of the birth, and he went out and consulted the stars.  And when he came back he tell’d the Laird that the Evil One wad have power over the knave-bairn that was that night born, and he charged him that the babe should be bred up in the ways of piety, and that he should aye hae a godly minister at his elbow to pray wi’ the bairn and for him.  And the aged man vanished away, and no man of this country ever saw mair o’ him.’

‘Now, that will not pass,’ said the postilion, who, at a respectful distance, was listening to the conversation, ’begging Mr. Skreigh’s and the company’s pardon; there was no sae mony hairs on the warlock’s face as there’s on Letter-Gae’s [Footnote:  The precentor is called by Allan Ramsay, The letter-gae of haly rhyme.] ain at this moment, and he had as gude a pair o’ boots as a man need streik on his legs, and gloves too; and I should understand boots by this time, I think.’

‘Whisht, Jock,’ said the landlady.

‘Ay? and what do ye ken o’ the matter, friend Jabos?’ said the precentor, contemptuously.

’No muckle, to be sure, Mr. Skreigh, only that I lived within a penny-stane cast o’ the head o’ the avenue at Ellangowan, when a man cam jingling to our door that night the young Laird was born, and my mother sent me, that was a hafflin callant, to show the stranger the gate to the Place, which, if he had been sic a warlock, he might hae kenn’d himsell, ane wad think; and he was a young, weel-faured, weel-dressed lad, like an Englishman.  And I tell ye he had as gude a hat, and boots, and gloves, as ony gentleman need to have.  To be sure he did gie an awesome glance up at the auld castle, and there was some spae-wark gaed on, I aye heard that; but as for his vanishing, I held the stirrup mysell when he gaed away, and he gied me a round half-crown.  He was riding on a haick they ca’d Souple Sam, it belanged to the George at Dumfries; it was a blood-bay beast, very ill o’ the spavin; I hae seen the beast baith before and since.’

‘Aweel, aweel, Jock,’ answered Mr. Skreigh, with a tone of mild solemnity, ’our accounts differ in no material particulars; but I had no knowledge that ye had seen the man.  So ye see, my friends, that this soothsayer having prognosticated evil to the boy, his father engaged a godly minister to be with him morn and night.’