158 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



the mother of the Mhor Venn ; but how, I did not hear what- 

 effer. Well ; he was taken very ill. He had been a soldier, 

 and had had a piece of one of his ears shot off in the wars with 

 Napoleon. He was dying before long, and was so ill that one 

 of the McLeods was sent over to Loch Inver to tell of his ap- 

 proaching death. He had a fery long walk over the hills, and 

 it was a fery rough night, 



" That night a child might understand 

 The deil had business on his hand." 



Well, sir, at Altnoi (that is, the Long Burn), half way between 

 Inchnadamph and Altnagellagach, some twenty miles up this 

 fery road, he walked over the bridge and heard some one say- 

 ing, " We'll manage ye, Donald ; we'll manage ye ; we'll tak' 

 ye." He looked, and saw two witches sitting in the middle of 

 the road before him, moulding an image of clay, which was all 

 stuck over with pins ; * but, somehow or other, they could 

 never get the tip of the ear, which had been shot off, you know, 

 to stick on to their image. Donald was a fery strong man what- 

 effer, and rushed at them, and knocked them both over. Then 

 he seized their image, and ran with it home to Girvan to 

 McLeod ; for, being witches, they could not cross the running 

 water of the burn. He took it up to the chamber where his 

 master lay, and gave it to him. First they drew out one very 

 big pin from his heart. I mind those big pins well. He was 

 at once much better. Then they took out the smaller ones, 

 one after the other, each giving him greater relief, till at length, 

 on the last one being removed, he was quite well. 



" About the same time, McLeod one night sent a servant to 



* This part of the story may be compared with the bewitching of Sir 

 George Maxwell, in 1656, when a young girl named Janet Douglas divulged 

 that a certain widow kept an image of Sir George, thrust through with 

 pins, in a hole behind her fire. She was burnt to death. Burton says 

 (Anatomy of Melancholy i. cap. 3), "The devil's instruments are many 

 times worse, if it be possible, than he himself, as Erastus thinks." 



