l6o COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



in which his father sate, and after hearing the story, shakes his 

 head and says nothing can be done. His father inside saw 

 this, and hitching up his trousers they all wore short trousers 

 then came out and said, ' Yes ; it can be done, and it shall 

 be done.' Accordingly he went to the court, and there pro- 

 duced the image and the book, and of course they got off at 

 once." 



How we longed that Sir Walter Scott had ever met Roderick ! 

 He would certainly have been immortalized. Finding him in 

 the vein to continue these eerie recitals, we encouraged him to 

 tell about the mother of the Mhor Venn. " She was sent to 

 prison, sir, after this, to Dornoch, and for a whole year she 

 neither ate, drank, nor spoke, but remained leaning on her 

 stick, thus " and he came to a halt in the rain, leaning upon 

 the landing net. " It was a great wonder. Well, when at 

 length nobody could make her speak, a young minister said, ' I 

 am sure I can ; ' so he went, and what he said I never could 

 rightly hear, but she spoke, and the first words she said were, 

 * Thou hast deceived me, O devil, saying that no one born of 

 living woman could ever make me speak ! ' * Oh, no ! he has 

 not deceived you.' said the young minister, 'for my mother 

 died just before I was born on the island in Loch Ness.' So 

 saying, he kicked away her stick, and she fell to the ground a 

 heap of dust." 



Having duly marvelled at this story (the denotement of which 

 will remind the reader of one of Edgar Poe's Tales of Mystery), 

 we hazarded the heterodox opinion that there were no witches 

 in the land at present. 



" Ah, but there is, though ! " answered Roderick, with great 

 animation ; " there is witches in the Lewes, for all that ! Now, 

 my son Roderick my youngest son, who is twenty-one next 

 month was last year at the herrin' fishery at Fraserburgh. One 

 night he went ashore, and met a strange woman and man 

 walking. They did stop, and did ask who he was and where 



