ge. He found it deserted;
and then stalked on to honest John Simson's, which was in like manner
empty.

"What can this mean?" he said to himself, as he bent his long steps to Wat
Webster's, where fearful messengers, as we have seen, had already preceded
him. "My person has lost its charm, my converse its interest, and my drink
its spirit-stirring power. But we shall see what Wat Webster and his Dame
Kitty, and the fair Marion, say to the residue of my authority. Ah, Marion,
as I think of thee--

"'How heises and bleizes
My heart wi' sic a fyre,
As raises these praises
That do to heaven aspire.'"

"Ha! ha! I will there outdevil all my devilries. My fire-chariots have as
yet flown off without a passenger; but this night I shall not go home
alone."

And he continued striding onwards in the deserted and silent passage, till
he came to Wat Webster's, where the collected inmates were all huddled
together round the fire, in that state of alarm produced by the
intelligence of Christy Lowry and Widow Lindsay, and already partly set
forth by us heretofore. Bang up went the door.

"A good new year to ye all!" said he, as he stalked into the middle of the
apartment.

There was a dead silence throughout the company. Marion was the only
individual that dared to look him in the face; and there was an expression
in her eye that seemed to have the effect of increasing the boisterous glee
of his mysterious manner.

"Here we are once more, again," he continued, as he took out the eternal
imp-shaped bottle, and clanged it on the table.

Every eye was fixed upon him as if watching his motions and evolutions. Meg
Johnston was busy in a corner, defending herself, by drawing a circle round
her; Widow Lindsay was clinging close to the figure of the Virgin that was
placed against the wall by her side; Jenny Wilson sought refuge in the arms
of honest John; Wat Webster himself got his hand placed upon an old Latin
Bible, not one word of which he could read; and some followed one mode of
self-defence, and some another, against the expected efforts of the
stranger, whose proceedings at his other places of call had been all
related at Wat Webster's, with an exaggeration they perhaps stood little in
need of. The stranger cared nothing for these indications, not a cinder;
and took no notice of them.

"I'll e'en begin our potations myself," said he, filling out a flaskful of
his liquor, and drinking it off. "By him that