forgotten in Ba'weary, the nicht o'
the seeventeenth of August, seventeen hun'er' an twal'. It had been het
afore, as I hae said, but that nicht it was hetter than ever. The sun
gaed doun amang unco-lookin' clouds; it fell as mirk as the pit; no a
star, no a breath o' wund; ye couldnae see your han' afore your face, and
even the auld folk cuist the covers frae their beds and lay pechin' for
their breath. Wi' a' that he had upon his mind, it was gey and unlikely
Mr. Soulis wad get muckle sleep. He lay an' he tummled; the gude, caller
bed that he got into brunt his very banes; whiles he slept, and whiles he
waukened; whiles he heard the time o' nicht, and whiles a tyke yowlin' up
the muir, as if somebody was deid; whiles he thocht he heard bogles
claverin' in his lug, an' whiles he saw spunkies in the room. He
behoved, he judged, to be sick; an' sick he was--little he jaloosed the
sickness.

At the hinder end, he got a clearness in his mind, sat up in his sark on
the bed-side, and fell thinkin' ance mair o' the black man an' Janet. He
couldnae weel tell how--maybe it was the cauld to his feet--but it cam'
in upon him wi' a spate that there was some connection between thir twa,
an' that either or baith o' them were bogles. And just at that moment,
in Janet's room, which was neist to his, there cam' a stramp o' feet as
if men were wars'lin', an' then a loud bang; an' then a wund gaed
reishling round the fower quarters of the house; an' then a' was aince
mair as seelent as the grave.

Mr. Soulis was feared for neither man nor deevil. He got his tinder-box,
an' lit a can'le, an' made three steps o't ower to Janet's door. It was
on the hasp, an' he pushed it open, an' keeked bauldly in. It was a big
room, as big as the minister's ain, an' plenished wi' grand, auld, solid
gear, for he had naething else. There was a fower-posted bed wi' auld
tapestry; and a braw cabinet of aik, that was fu' o' the minister's
divinity books, an' put there to be out o' the gate; an' a wheen duds o'
Janet's lying here and there about the floor. But nae Janet could Mr.
Soulis see; nor ony sign of a contention. In he gaed (an' there's few
that wad ha'e followed him) an' lookit a' round, an' listened. But there
was naethin' to be heard, neither inside the manse nor in a' Ba'weary
parish, an' naethin' to be seen but the muckle shadows turnin' round the
can'le. An' then a' at aince, the minister's heart played dunt an' stood
stock-still;