“‘Haud aff,’ cried Peter Pearson the curate, ‘Wad ye kill the man, Earlstoun?’
“‘I would kill him and eat him too!’ cries the laird, as he gied him aye the ither drive wi’ his neive. O he’s far frae canny when he’s raised.”
“Nevertheless I will see him,” said I; “I have a message to deliver.”
“Then I hope and trust ye hae made your peace wi’ your Maker, for ye will come doon frae that laft a dead stiff corp and that ye’ll leeve to see.”
By the gate the Lady of Earlstoun was walking to and fro, wringing her hands and praying aloud.
“Wrath, wrath, and dismay hath fallen on this house!” she cried. “The five vials are poured out. And there yet remains the sixth vial. O Sandy, my ain man, that it should come to this! That ye should tak’ the roofs like a pelican in the desert and six charges o’ pooder in yon flask, forbye swords and pistols. And then the swearin’—nae minced oaths, but as braid as the back o’ Cairnsmuir. Waes me for Sandy, the man o’ my choice! A carnal man was Sandy a’ the days o’ him, a man no to be ruled nor yet spoken to, but rather like a lion to be withstood face to face. But then a little while and his spirit would come to him like the spirit of a little child.”
We could hear as we walked and communed a growling somewhere far above like the baffled raging of a caged wild beast.
“It is the spirit of the demoniac that is come to rend him,” she said. “Hear to him, there he is; he is hard at it, cursing the Presbytery and a’ ministers. He is sorest upon them that he has liked best, as, indeed, the possessed ever are. He says that he knows not why he is restrained from braining me—me that have been his wife these many sorrowful years. But thus far he hath been kept from doing any great injury. Even the servant man that brought the message from his master, William Boyd, summoning Alexander to appear before the Presbytery, he cast by main force into the well, and if the man had not caught at the rope, and so gone more slowly to the bottom, he would surely have been dashed to pieces.”
“But how long has he been thus?” I said. For as we listened, quaking, the noise waxed and grew louder. Then anon it would diminish almost like the howling or whimpering of a beaten dog, most horrid and uncanny to hear.
“Ever since yesterday at the hour when he gat the summons from the Presbytery,” said the lady of Earlstoun.