eid on ae side, like a body
that has been hangit, and a girn on her face like an unstreakit corp. By
an' by they got used wi' it, and even speered at her to ken what was
wrang; but frae that day forth she couldnae speak like a Christian woman,
but slavered and played click wi' her teeth like a pair o' shears; and
frae that day forth the name o' God cam never on her lips. Whiles she
wad try to say it, but it michtnae be. Them that kenned best said least;
but they never gied that Thing the name o' Janet M'Clour; for the auld
Janet, by their way o't, was in muckle hell that day. But the minister
was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething but the
folk's cruelty that had gi'en her a stroke of the palsy; he skelpt the
bairns that meddled her; and he had her up to the manse that same nicht,
and dwalled there a' his lane wi' her under the Hangin' Shaw.

Weel, time gaed by: and the idler sort commenced to think mair lichtly o'
that black business. The minister was weel thocht o'; he was aye late at
the writing, folk wad see his can'le doon by the Dule water after twal'
at e'en; and he seemed pleased wi' himsel' and upsitten as at first,
though a' body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet she cam an'
she gaed; if she didnae speak muckle afore, it was reason she should
speak less then; she meddled naebody; but she was an eldritch thing to
see, an' nane wad hae mistrysted wi' her for Ba'weary glebe.

About the end o' July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o't never
was in that country side; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the herds
couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower weariet to play; an'
yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rumm'led in the glens,
and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht it but to
thun'er on the morn; but the morn cam, an' the morn's morning, and it was
aye the same uncanny weather, sair on folks and bestial. Of a' that were
the waur, nane suffered like Mr. Soulis; he could neither sleep nor eat,
he tauld his elders; an' when he wasnae writin' at his weary book, he wad
be stravaguin' ower a' the countryside like a man possessed, when a' body
else was blythe to keep caller ben the house.

Abune Hangin' Shaw, in the bield o' the Black Hill, there's a bit
enclosed grund wi' an iron yett; and it seems, in the auld days, that was
the kirkyaird o' Ba'weary, and consecrated by the Papists before the
blessed licht shone upon the kingdo