"This is some of the wee man's work," muttered the country folk, who were standing looking on; and they were right. Old Redcap had not deserted his master, although the spell which caused the magic chest to open was broken, and he was at hand, doing his utmost to save him, though unseen by mortal eyes.
Again True Thomas turned over the leaves of Sir Michael's book, in the hope of finding something which would break even the most powerful spell, and at last he came to a page where it told how, if all else failed, the wizard must be boiled in lead.
Ay, thou mayst well shudder, little Annie, and hide thy face in my gown.
'Twas a terrible thing to do, but they did it.
They kindled a fire on the Nine-stane Rig, in the middle of the old Druid stones, and there they placed the great brass cauldron. They heated it red hot, and some of them hasted to Hermitage Castle, and stripped a sheet of lead from the roof, and they wrapped the wicked lord in it, and plunged him in, and stood round in solemn silence till the contents of that awful pot melted—lead, and bones, and all—and nought remained but a seething sea of molten metal.
So came the sinful man by his end, and to this day the cauldron remains, as thou knowest, child. It was brought over to the Skelf-hill, and there it stands, a fearful warning to evil-doers, while, on the spot where it was boiled, within the circle of stones on the Nine-stane Rig, the ground lies bare and fallow, for the very grass refuses to grow where such a terrible deed was done.
THE BROWNIE OF BLEDNOCK
"There came a strange wight to our town en',
An' the fient a body did him ken;
He twirled na' lang, but he glided ben,
Wi' a weary, dreary hum.
His face did glow like the glow o' the West,
When the drumly cloud had it half o'ercast;
Or the struggling moon when she's sair distrest.
O, Sirs! it was Aiken-Drum."