In name of my Almighty God!”
he sent the “stranger” right out somewhere through the roof, leaving the money on the table. The supernatural powers of Scottish mythology never could stand the name of the Deity.
But the laird had not heard the last of his great enemy. He prospered and grew richer and richer until, sixteen years after, when, at a feast, he was called out to speak with a visitor on horseback. A minute after there was a loud report, the “stranger” lay dead on the ground, and at the laird’s feet lay a pistol. The laird was lodged in Edinburgh prison on a charge of murder, but on the doctors examining the body it was found to have been dead ten days before “it” visited the laird, and that there was no mark where a bullet could have entered. This created a great uproar, and the mystery seemed incapable of explanation, until at last some Peebles folk came to the capital, and swore that the body was that of their piper:—
“I saw him yerdit, I can swear—
Frae his lang hame how came he there?”
It was the Peebles piper, better dressed than ever he had been in life, and he had died in his bed at home. They even identified his “sark” and the pistol. The laird was liberated, but he in his heart knew quite well the real explanation of the mystery:—
“The laird saw syne it had been Nick
Contriv’d an’ carried on the trick,
He pu’d the piper frae the moold
That was in Peebles on him shool’d;