170 Notes and Sketches. 



draught, they would run wildly, bellowing here and 

 there, shaking the yokes off their necks, and even strain- 

 ing the soam itself. The thing had gone on day by 

 day, and there seemed no remeid, till the well-to-do 

 tenant of the farm, in his perplexity, bethought him 

 of sending Willie Nicol, his youngest servant lad, to 

 seek the aid of Tibbie Campbell, as a weird woman. 

 After due inquiry, Willie found her at breakfast al 

 fresco among a promiscuous group of her own people ; 

 and with some trouble he obtained an audience. 



"An' fat's yer erran' here, laddie?" sharply de- 

 manded Tibbie Campbell. 



Willie Nicol, as duly instructed, replied in his own 

 phraseology that his master, Mr. Tait, sent his best re- 

 spects to Mrs. Campbell, and would really take it as a 

 great favour if she would come to Mill of Carden with- 

 out loss of time, to examine the bewitched oxen, and 

 prescribe a cure. 



" Ou ! Jock Tait," said the Caird Queen, with a 

 sneering laugh ; and, she added, in a figure as coarse 

 as occurred to her at the moment, that she " kent 

 him" when he was in a state of dependant infancy. 

 After some farther parley and cross-questioning, the 

 messenger was dismissed with the assurance "I 

 canna gae wi' ye the day, man. I'm jist gaen awa' 

 till anither pairt to mairry a pair ; but tell ye Jock 

 Tait that if I'm as lang oot o' heyven as the morn's 

 mornin', I'se be wi' 'im." On the morrow morning 

 Tibbie was still an inhabitant of this world, and suffi- 

 ciently sober after the marriage, to perform her pro- 

 mised journey to Mill of Carden. She was immediately 

 taken to inspect the oxen, and, according to the 

 narration of Willie Nicol, at once laid her hand upon 

 one of them, with the exclamation " This is the De'il 

 amo' them a' !" And sure enough "that was the ane 

 that aye begood the starshie !" So said Willie, and 

 Willie in his grey old age, as in his green "youtheid," 

 dearly loved the marvellous. It might be unkind to 



