ntment whilk your honour's father----"

"Do not call the phantom my father!" said Sir John, interrupting him.

"Weel, then, the thing that was so like him,"--said my gudesire; "he
spoke of my coming back to him this time twelvemonth, and it's a weight
on my conscience."

"Aweel, then," said Sir John, "if you be so much distressed in mind, you
may speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce man, regards the
honour of our family, and the mair that he may look for some patronage
from me."

Wi' that, my gudesire readily agreed that the receipt should be burnt,
and the Laird threw it into the chimney with his ain hand. Burn it would
not for them, though; but away it flew up the lum, wi' a lang train of
sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib.

My gudesire gaed down to the manse, and the minister, when he had heard
the story, said, it was his real opinion, that though my gudesire had
gaen very far in tampering with dangerous matters, yet, as he had
refused the devil's arles (for such was the offer of meat and drink),
and had refused to do homage by piping at his bidding, he hoped, that if
he held a circumspect walk hereafter, Satan could take little advantage
by what was come and gane. And, indeed, my gudesire, of his ain accord,
long forswore baith the pipes and the brandy--it was not even till the
year was out, and the fatal day passed, that he would so much as take
the fiddle, or drink usquebaugh or tippenny.

Sir John made up his story about the jackanape as he liked himsell; and
some believe till this day there was no more in the matter than the
filching nature of the brute. Indeed, ye'll no hinder some to threap,
that it was nane o' the Auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in
the Laird's room, but only that wanchancy creature, the Major, capering
on the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the Laird's whistle that
was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as
the Laird himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first
came out by the minister's wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman were
baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs,
but not in his judgment or memory--at least nothing to speak of--was
obliged to tell the real narrative to his freends, for the credit of his
good name. He might else have been charged for a warlock.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: A precipitous side of a mountain in Moffatdale.]

[Footnote 7: Th