was, in the midst of a company, distributing the cakes and bannocks with maidenly grace; and many a swain that night was glad, while
"He quhissilit and he pypit baith,
To mak her blyth that meeting—
My hony heart, how says the sang,
There sall be mirth at oor greeting."
And among the rest might now be seen John Simson and his helpmate, and also Meg Johnston, who had been—either in reality, or, at least, with semblance sufficient to form their apology for calling where there was plenty of drink—smoked out of their own houses, amidst the cheers of the fire-imps. About this time, twelve o'clock was chimed from a rough-voiced bell of the Franciscan Monastery; and, some time after, in came Christy Lowrie, puffing and blowing, as if she too had experienced the effects of the thick breath of the fire-imps; and it might have been a fair presumption that her throat, like that of some of her predecessors, had been dried from pre-perceived gusts of Wat Webster's whisky rather than the smoke of the fire-angels, had it not been made quickly apparent, from other symptoms, that a horripilant terror had seized her heart and limbs, and inspired her tongue with the dry rattle of fearful intelligence. Never stopping till she got forward into the very heart of the company, seated round a blazing ingle, she sank upon a chair, and held up her hands to heaven, as if calling down from that quarter some supernatural agency to help in her difficulty. Every one turned and looked at her with wonder, mixed with sympathetic fear.
"What, in God's name, is this, Christy? Is he come?" cried Wat Webster.
"Oh! he's come again—he's come again!" she replied, in the midst of an effort to catch a spittle to wet her parched throat. "He's been at Will Pearson's, and Widow Lindsay's, and Rob Paterson's—he's gaun his auld rounds—and dootless he'll be here too. O Marion! Marion! gie me a spark to weet my throat."
The door was again opened, and in came Widow Lindsay in great haste and terror,
"I've seen him again!" cried she fearfully, and threw herself down in a corner of the lang settle.
"Are ye sure it's him, dame?" inquired Meg Johnston, who seemed perfectly to understand these extraordinary proceedings.
"Sure!" ejaculated the widow. "Hae I no tasted his red whisky; and has it no burned my throat till I maun ask Marion there to quench the fire wi' a spark o' human-liquor?"
The fire in the two terror-struck women's throats was soon extinguished by the "spark" they demanded; and a conversation, composed of twenty voices at once, commenced, the essence of which was, that, on the occasion of the last Hogmanay, a man dressed in a peculiar manner, with a green doublet, and hose of the same colour, a cravat, and a blue bonnet, had, just as twelve o'clock pealed from the monastery clock, made his appearance in the town, and conducted himself in such a manner as to excite much wonder among the inhabitants. Everything about him was mysterious; no person in that quarter had ever seen him before; there was nobody along with him; he came exactly at twelve; his face was so much shaded by a peculiar manner of wearing his bonnet and cravat that no one could say he had ever got a proper view of his features; he carried with him a bottle of liquor, which the people, from ignorance of its character, denominated red whisky, and which he distributed freely to all and sundry, without his stock ever running out, or being exhausted: his manners were free, boisterous, and hilarious; and he possessed the extraordinary power of making people love him ad libitum. He came as he went, without any one knowing more of him than that he was the very prince of good fellows; so exquisite a tosspot, that he seemed equal to the task (perhaps no difficult one) of making the whole town of Christ's Kirk drunk by the extraordinary spirit of his example; and so spirit-stirring a conjurer of odd thoughts and unrivalled humour, that melancholy itself laughed a gaunt laugh at his jokes; and gizzened gammers and giddy hizzies were equally delighted with his devilry and his drink. Arriving in the midst of frolic as high as ordinary mortal spirits might be supposed able to sublime human exultation, he effected such an increase of the corrybantic power of the laughing and singing genius of Hogmanay, that