The Devil answered and said, “Sir, you should have cited for that place of Scripture the 13 chap. of Zech.,” and so he began at the first verse and repeated several verses, and concluded with these words, “‘In that day I will cause the prophet and the unclean spirit pass out of the land’; but afterwards it is written, ‘I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.’”
The Minister answered and said, “Well are we that our blessed Shepherd was smitten, and thereby hath bruised thy head, and albeit in the hour of His sufferings His Disciples forsook Him (Matth. 26). Yet now having ascended on high He sits in glory, and is preserving, gathering in, and turning His hand upon His little ones, and will save His poor ones in this family from thy malice.”
The Minister returning back a little and standing upon the floor, the Devil said, “I knew not these Scriptures till my father taught me them.”
Then the Minister conjured him to tell whence he was.
The Foul-Fiend replyed that he was an evil spirit come from the bottomless pit of hell to vex this house, and that Satan was his father; and presently there appeared a naked hand and an arm, from the elbow down, beating upon the floor till the house did shake again, and also he uttered a most fearful and loud cry, saying, “Come up, Father, come up; I will send my father among you; see, there he is behind your backs.”
The Minister said, “I saw indeed an hand and an arm when the stroak was given, and heard.”
The Devil said to him, “Say you that? It was not my hand, it was my father’s: my hand is more black in the loof.”
“O,” said Gilbert Campbel, “that I might see thee as well as I hear thee!”
“Would you see me?” says the Foul-Thief; “put out the candle and I shal come butt the house among you like fire balls. I shall let you see me indeed.”
Alexander Bailie of Dunraged says to the Minister, “Let us go ben and see if there be any hand to be seen.”