"What?" exclaimed his master, stamping with impatience.
"Made a grasp at a rowan tree that grew near, and pu'ed a bunch o' the last year's berries, when lo! the charm was broken, and Meg shot awa like the wind—and I cleared the lang gate as if the Paip and the Deil were behind me."
"And dost think, rascal, that I believe one word of this precious Tale of a Tub, foisted up to deceive me, for time spent in the village change-house yonder! Ha, knave! remember the old saw—Good wine makes a bad head and a long story."
"My Lord, as I left the place, auld Gilruth cried, 'A safe ride to ye, Juden,' and her eldritch laugh is yet dingling in my lugs."
"That makes it a clear case o' withcraft," mumbled Mersington, who was now very tipsy. "He-he!—we'll hae the carlin before us in the morning, Juden. Ay, my Lords (macers, silence in court!), this is as clear a case o' witchcraft as ever came before us—and the Act under Queen Mary (puir woman) anent sorcery bears just upon it. Your Lordships will remember," continued the senator, who thought himself on the bench, "the cases o' Isabel Eliot and Marion Campbell, twa notorious witches, who, for renouncing their baptism, and dancing a jig wi' the deil, were burnt at the Cross wi' ten others in the September o' seventy-eight, for whilk see the Record o' Justiciary—hee-hee, a braw bleeze!"
"I will show a blaze on the Burghmuir to-night worth a dozen of it—ha, ha!" laughed Clermistonlee, as he drew on his voluminous boot-tops of stamped maroquin with silver bosses.
"O'd, Clermistonlee, do ye really mean to burn Elshender's cottage?" asked Juden with delight.
"Yea, sink me! from rigging-tree to ground-stone." Juden rubbed his hands.
"If the auld witch is bed-ridden," said he, "it will save the Provost a bundle o' tar-barrels, forbye a pock o' peats."
"And perhaps cure those spells which you think the hag hath cast upon my best nag? And so, Mersington, you will not ride with us to-night?"