e last pieces of work upon which
he was engaged was a gorgeously painted ceiling in the palace of some
Irish bishop, which he had been sent all the way from Glasgow to finish.

Every society, however homely, has its picturesque points, nor did even
that of the rather commonplace hamlet in which I resided at this time
wholly want them. There was a decaying cottage a few doors away, that
had for its inmate a cross-tempered old crone, who strove hard to set up
as a witch, but broke down from sheer want of the necessary capital. She
had been one of the underground workers of Niddry in her time; and,
being as little intelligent as most of the other collier-women of the
neighbourhood, she had not the necessary witch-lore to adapt her
pretensions to the capacity of belief which obtained in the district.
And so the general estimate formed regarding her was that to which our
landlady occasionally gave expression. "Donnart auld bodie," Peggy used
to say; "though she threaps hersel' a witch, she's nae mair witch than I
am: she's only just trying, in her feckless auld age, to make folk stand
in her reverence." Old Alie was, however, a curiosity in her way--quite
malignant enough to be a real witch, and fitted, if with a few more
advantages of acquirement, she had been antedated an age or two, to
become as hopeful a candidate for a tar-barrel as most of her class. Her
next-door neighbour was also an old woman, and well-nigh as poor as the
crone; but she was an easy-tempered genial sort of person, who wished
harm to no one; and the expression of content that dwelt on her round
fresh face, which, after the wear of more than seventy winters, still
retained its modicum of colour, contrasted strongly with the fierce
wretchedness that gleamed from the sharp and sallow features of the
witch. It was evident that the two old women, though placed externally
in almost the same circumstances, had essentially a very different lot
assigned to them, and enjoyed existence in a very unequal degree. The
placid old woman kept a solitary lodger--"Davie the apprentice"--a
wayward, eccentric lad, much about my own age, though in but the second
"year of his time," who used to fret even her temper, and who, after
making trial of I know not how many other professions, now began to find
that his genius did not lie to the mallet. Davie was stage-mad; but for
the stage nature seemed to have fitted him rather indifferently: she had
given him a squat ungainly fig