at was ken't again her, frae the sodger's bairn to
John Tamson's twa kye. She was nae great speaker; folk usually let her
gang her ain gate, an' she let them gang theirs, wi', neither Fair-guid-
een nor Fair-guid-day; but when she buckled to, she had a tongue to deave
the miller. Up she got, an' there wasnae an auld story in Ba'weary but
she gart somebody lowp for it that day; they couldnae say ae thing but
she could say twa to it; till, at the hinder end, the guidwives up and
claught haud of her, and clawed the coats aff her back, and pu'd her doun
the clachan to the water o' Dule, to see if she were a witch or no, soum
or droun. The carline skirled till ye could hear her at the Hangin'
Shaw, and she focht like ten; there was mony a guidwife bure the mark of
her neist day an' mony a lang day after; and just in the hettest o' the
collieshangie, wha suld come up (for his sins) but the new minister.

'Women,' said he (and he had a grand voice), 'I charge you in the Lord's
name to let her go.'

Janet ran to him--she was fair wud wi' terror--an' clang to him, an'
prayed him, for Christ's sake, save her frae the cummers; an' they, for
their pairt, tauld him a' that was ken't, and maybe mair.

'Woman,' says he to Janet, 'is this true?'

'As the Lord sees me,' says she, 'as the Lord made me, no a word o't.
Forbye the bairn,' says she, 'I've been a decent woman a' my days.'

'Will you,' says Mr. Soulis, 'in the name of God, and before me, His
unworthy minister, renounce the devil and his works?'

Weel, it wad appear that when he askit that, she gave a girn that fairly
frichtit them that saw her, an' they could hear her teeth play dirl
thegether in her chafts; but there was naething for it but the ae way or
the ither; an' Janet lifted up her hand and renounced the deil before
them a'.

'And now,' says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, 'home with ye, one and all,
and pray to God for His forgiveness.'

And he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, and
took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy of the land; an' her
scrieghin' and laughin' as was a scandal to be heard.

There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but when
the morn cam' there was sic a fear fell upon a' Ba'weary that the bairns
hid theirsels, and even the men folk stood and keekit frae their doors.
For there was Janet comin' doun the clachan--her or her likeness, nane
could tell--wi' her neck thrawn, and her h