“I dredd sair I was doing wrang, but there was something in my nature that wadna be contrair’d; sae by I went, an’ lookit full at the thing as I past. It had nouther face nor hands, nor head nor feet; but there was it standing like a lang corn sack. L‑‑d tak me, (as Serjeant Macpherson said,) if I kend whether I was gaun on my feet or the crown o’ my head.
“The first window that I came to was my ain, the ane o’ that room where Maron and I slept. I rappit at it wi’ a rap that wont to be weel kend, but it was barred, an’ a’ was darkness and vacancy within. I tried every door and window alang the foreside o’ the house, but a’ wi’ the same effect. I rappit an’ ca’d at them a’, an’ named every name that was in the house when I left it, but there was nouther voice, nor light, nor sound. ‘Lord have a care o’ me!’ said I to mysel, ‘what’s come o’ a’ my fock? Can Clavers hae been here in my absence an’ taen them a’ away? or has the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck eaten them up, stoop an’ roop? For a’ that I hae wearied to see them, here I find my house left unto me desolate. This is a waesome welcome hame to a father, an’ a husband, an’ a master!—O Lord! O Lord! what will come o’ puir auld Wat now?’
“The Auld Room was a place I never thought o’ gangin to; but no kenning what to mak o’ mysel, round the west end o’ the house I gaes towards the door o’ the Auld Room. I soon saw through the seam atween the shutters that there was a light in it, an’ kenning weel that there was a broken lozen, I edged back the shutter naturally to see what was gaun on within—May never a father’s e’e again see sic a sight as mine saw!—There was my dear, my only daughter Katharine, sitting on the bed wi’ a dead corpse on her knee, and her hands round its throat; and there was the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck, the ill-faurd, runkled, withered thing, wi’ its eildron form and grey beard, standin at the bed side hauding the pale corpse by the hand. It had its tither hand liftit up, and was mutter, muttering some horrid spell, while a crew o’ the same kind o’ grizly beardit phantoms were standin round them. I had nae doubt but there had been a murder committit, and that a dissection was neist to take place; and I was sae shock’d that I was just gaun to roar out. I tried it twice, but I had tint my voice, and could do naething but gape.
“I now fand there was a kind o’ swarf coming o’er me, for it came up, up, about my heart, an’ up, up, o’er my temples, till it darkened my een; an’ I fand that if it met on the crown o’ my head I was gane. Sae I thought it good, as lang as that wee master bit was sound, to make my escape, an’ aff I ran, an’ fell, an’ fell, an’ rase an’ ran again. As Riskinhope was the nearest house, I fled for that, where I wakened Davie Tait out o’ his bed in an unco plight. When he saw that I was a’ bedaubit wi’ mire o’er head an’ ears, (for I had faun a hunder times,) it was impossible to tell wha o’ us was maist frightit.
“Lord sauf us, goodman,” quo’ he, “are ye hangit?”
“Am I hangit, ye blockhead!” says I; “what do ye mean?”
“I m-m-mean,” says Davie, “w-w-war ye ek-ek-execute?”
“Dinna be feared for an auld acquaintance, Davie,” quo I, “though he comes to you in this guise.”
“Guise!” said Davie, staring and gasping for breath—“Gui-gui-guise! Then it se-e-e-eems ye are dead?”