Clifford.—What! a wizard, said you? You don’t mean to put us under the guidance of Satan, I hope. That would indeed be sending us to the——
Dominie.—No, no, Mr. Clifford; but there is a friend of mine, who lives near to old Willox, one Archy Stewart, a retired sergeant, who will be just the man for your purpose, if we can find him at home. He knows every inch of the mountains, and, moreover, he is as full of old stories as an egg is full of meat.
Clifford.—The very man for us. But what can you tell us of old Willox the Wizard? I hope we shall see him.
Author.—I have often heard of him. His name is MacGregor, is it not? I should like much to see him.
Dominie.—You will be sure to see him if you call at Gaulrig, for, as he is now above ninety, he is too old to leave home. He is worth the seeing too; for although, as I need not tell you, gentlemen, he never possessed any supernatural power, yet his cleverness must have been great to have enabled him to make the whole country, far and near, believe, even in these more enlightened days, that he can divine secrets and work wonders by means of his two charmed instruments—the mermaid’s stone and the enchanted bridal of the water-kelpie.
Clifford.—How the deuce did he get hold of such articles? and what sort of things are they?
Dominie.—You will easily persuade him to show them to you; and it will be better for me to leave him to tell his own story about them. But, as I have now made up my mind to go on with you to Tomantoul, gentlemen, I can tell you a short anecdote or two of him as we journey on our way, which will show you that all his fame as a warlock really rested on his own natural acuteness.
Clifford.—I could have guessed as much, methinks, without being any great conjuror myself. But let us have your anecdotes, if you please.
Dominie.—I had much information about Willox from the Rev. John Grant, late Minister of Duthel, who was acquainted with him for many years. For, notwithstanding the warlock’s reputation for the possession of uncanny qualities, he was uniformly consorted with and treated as a gentleman by all the gentry of this Highland country. My old and worthy, and kind and benevolent friend, Mr. Grant, was a man of too much wisdom as well as learning to believe in the supernatural powers of Willox, or any such pretender. Mr. Grant, indeed, was a man of vurra enlarged mind and sound judgment, a deep divine, a classical scholar, such as is seldom to be met with in our poor country of Scotland, an admirable critic, and an elegant poet; and although what I may be stating regarding him has little to do with what I am going to tell you about Willox, yet, as you may have a chance to hear more of Mr. Grant from my friend Sergeant Archy Stewart when you come to make his acquaintance, I may be allowed to complete my sketch of this remarkable man by saying that, whilst he was pious and regular in his duties, as became a clergyman, he was, nevertheless, cheerful and convivial, and extremely fond of a bit of humour; and, moreover, as he was often called upon to give his opinion pretty strongly in argument, he was equally ready to back it up at any time by his courage and bodily vigour against the brute force or the insults of his opponents, in days, now happily gone by, when even the sacred character of a minister of the gospel did not always proteck his person from injury. To enable him to defend himself the more effectually in such chance encounters, nature had given to him a stout and athletic frame and a nervous arm, in addition to which he did himself furnish the hand of that arm with a great hazel stick, which he facetiously called his Ruling Elder, and so armed, no man nor set of men in the whole country side could make him show his back. He was a capital preacher; but many doubted whether his sermons or his cudgel wrought the most reformation in his neighbourhood.
It was observed that Mr. Grant was always peculiarly unfortunate in losing his cattle. Not a year passed that some of them did not die of a strange and unaccountable disease which quite baffled the skill of all the farriers and cow-leeches in the district. But on one occasion the mortality was so great as seriously to threaten the utter extermination of his stock. As this calamity seemed to affect none of his neighbours, and to fall upon him alone, it was not unnatural for his superstitious servants to say that his cattle were bewitched. In their opinion nobody but Willox could cure such an evil.