--
Alack-a-day! wha can ken, if it please your lordship, whether sic
prayers as the Southron read out of their auld blethering black mess-
book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right red-
het prayer warm fraw the heart, may be powerful to drive them away,
even as the Evil Spirit was driven by he smell of the fish's liver
from the bridal-chamber of Sara, the daughter of Raguel? As to whilk
story, nevertheless, I make scruple to say whether it be truth or not,
better men than I am having doubted on that matter."
"Well, well, well," said his master, impatiently, "we are now near
home, and I have permitted you to speak of this matter for once, that
we may have an end to your prying folly, and your idiotical
superstitions, for ever. For whom do you, or your absurd authors or
informers, take this lady?"
"I can sae naething preceesely as to that," answered Moniplies;
"certain it is her body died and was laid in the grave many a day
since, notwithstanding she still wanders on earth, and chiefly amongst
Maister Heriot's family, though she hath been seen in other places by
them that well knew her. But who she is, I will not warrant to say, or
how she becomes attached, like a Highland Brownie, to some peculiar
family. They say she has a row of apartments of her own, ante-room,
parlour, and bedroom; but deil a bed she sleeps in but her own coffin,
and the walls, doors, and windows are so chinked up, as to prevent the
least blink of daylight from entering; and then she dwells by
torchlight--"
"To what purpose, if she be a spirit?" said Nigel Olifaunt.
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