er's uncertain
fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,
however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her
fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only
made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust
herself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and woman
was rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace and
human charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made
him fain to be removed from among us.

For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of
their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was
discerned that they were as much under the common fears and
superstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in so
much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and
warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,
they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,
however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless
partook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it was
thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.

But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not
daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old
Mysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he
entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and
from less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend a
cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the
bonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.

Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the
proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's
daughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and
said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst
with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of
furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of
her acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon the
profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,
merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.

Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,
when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led in
the times o