Whether he had been fortified from above, on his devout
supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the
immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom,
he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to
determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into, the
very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished.
The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight
business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron,
depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of
unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c., for the
business of the night.--It was in for a penny in for a pound, with the
honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off
the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his
head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the
family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.
Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as
follows:
On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and
consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in
order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or
three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been detained
by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard
hour, between night and morning.
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