"I'll go up now and ask 'The Maister,'" said Mr. Brown; "the mare es ill-wished, I do b'lieve;"—so he drank up his brandy and water, and started at once.
It was not, even then, very late, and Mr. Freeman's house was but just outside the village.
"The Maister" was at home, the maid said. What did Mr. Brown please to want.
"I do want to speak to him 'pon private business," replied Mr. Brown.
So Alice Ann shewed him into the best parlour, and left him there in the dark, as she had orders to do to all visitors who came to "The Maister" on private business.
Very soon he heard a rumbling noise in the room above, and then a clanking of chains; and then he heard a voice, as if coming from the floor of the room he was sitting in, telling him to beware of what he was doing,—to keep all things secret,—and to tell "The Maister" all; and then all would be well. All these mysterious sounds—coming sometimes from above, and sometimes from one part of the room he was in, and sometimes from another, when everything was shrouded in darkness—were calculated to strike terror into a stronger mind than poor Mr. Brown possessed; so that when Alice Ann came to the door and asked him to follow her upstairs, he was confirmed in his belief that "The Maister" was connected with "The Prince of Darkness," and was prepared to see hobgoblins and spirits dancing about as he entered the awful room.
Alice Ann knocked at the door three times, and at the third knock the door flew open, and Mr. Brown was pulled in by some invisible hand, and the door was closed again. He remained standing just inside, having a screen of thick black cloth hanging before him, to prevent his seeing what was in the room. He thought his last hour was come, and trembled until his knees knocked together, and his teeth chattered in his head. At last, a voice from the furthest corner of the room said:—
"John Brown, your business is known, without your telling it—as most things are. Are you prepared to go through the ordeal necessary to free the mare from evil hands, and the boy from witchcraft?"
"Oh! ye-es, Maister," said the poor man, in a tremulous voice: "I'll do anything. I do know that your power is great, and your knowledge is greater."
"Then down on thy knees, trembler, and do my bidding to the letter, or woe be unto thee! And listen to what is now to be spoken." And down flopped poor Mr. Brown on his knees, and awaited the ordeal, which he interrupted occasionally, by sundry interjections and parenthetical remarks of his own.