Jabos?" said the Precentor contemptuously.
"No mickle, to be sure, Mr Skreigh—only that I lived within apenny-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 shew the stranger the gate to the Place, which, if he had been such a warlock, he might hae kend himsell, ane wad think—and he was a young, weel-faur'd, weel-dressed man, 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
