After this little sparring there was prayer
again; so Tom did not take much by this
move.

All this while, the young Glasgow collegian
was very hardly holden, so there was more
prayer on his special behalf again. The
Devil then said, on their rising: "Give me
a spade and a shovel, and depart from the
house for seven days, and I will make a grave
and lie down in it, and shall trouble you no
more."

The goodman (Campbell) answered: "Not
so much as a straw shall be given thee, through
God's assistance, even thougn that would do it.
God shall remove thee in due time." Satan
cried out, "I will not remove for you. I have
my commission from Christ to tarry and vex
this family." Says the minister, coming to the
weaver's assistance, "A permission thou hast
indeed; but God will stop it in due time." Says
the Demon, respectfully, "I have, sir, a
commission which, perhaps, will last longer than
yours." Furthermore, the Demon said he had
given Tom this commission to keep. Interrogated,
that young gentleman replied, that "he
had something put into his pocket, but it did
not tarry."

They then began to search about for the Foul
Fiend, and one gentleman said, "We think
this voice speaks out of the children." The
Foul Fiend, very angry at this, cried, "You
lie! God shall judge you for your lying, and I
and my father will come and fetch you to hell
with warlock thieves," and so the Devil
discharged (forbade) the gentleman to speak
anything, saying: "Let him that hath a commission
speak (meaning the minister), for he is the
servant of God." The minister, accepting the
challenge, had a little religious controversy with
the Devil, who at last confessed simply, "I
knew not these scriptures till my father taught
me them." Nothing of all this disturbing the
easy faith of his audience, they, through the
minister whom alone he would obey, conjured
him to tell them who he was, whereupon he
said that he was an evil spirit come from the
bottomless pit of hell, to vex this house, and
that Satan was his father. And then there
appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow
down, beating on the floor, till the house did
shake again, and a loud and fearful crying,
"Come up, father! come up, father! I will
send my father among ye. See! there he is
behind your backs!"

The minister said, "I saw, indeed, a hand
and an arm, when the stroke was given and
heard."

Said the Devil, "Saw ye that? It was not
my hand, it was my father's. My hand is more
black in the loop."

"Oh!" said Gilbert Campbell in an ecstasy,
"that I might see thee as well as I hear
thee."

"Would ye see me?" says the Foul Thief.
"Put out the candle, and I shall come butt
the house [to the outer room] among you like
pieballs: I shall let ye see me, indeed!"

Alexander Bailie, of Dunraget, said to the
minister, "Let us go ben [to the inner room], and
see if there be any hand to be seen." But the
Demon exclaimed, "No! let him (the minister)
come ben alone. He is a good honest man, his
single word may be believed." He then abused
Mr. Robert Hay, a very honest gentleman, very ill
with his tongue, calling him witch and warlock;
and a little after cried out, "A witch! a witch!
There's a witch sitting upon the raist—take her
away!" He meant there was a hen sitting on
a rafter of the house. If the joke had a point
then, it has got blunted now, and does not, to
us, show wit or wisdom; unless indeed Master
Tom meant it as a piece of profound satire,
which is scarcely to be believed. They then
again went to prayer, and, when ended, the
Devil cried out, "If the good man's son's
prayers at the college of Glasgow did not
prevail with God, my father and I had wrought a
mischief here ere now."

Alexander Bailie said, "Well, I see you
acknowledge a God, and that prayer prevails with
him, and therefore we must pray to God, and
commit the event to him." To whom the Devil
replied—having an evident spite against him:
"Yea, sir, you speak of prayer, with your broad-
lipped hat" (for the gentleman had lately gotten
a hat in the fashion with broad lips); "I'll
bring a pair of shears from my father's which
shall clip the lips of it a little." And Alexander
Bailie presently imagined that he heard and felt
a pair of shears go clipping round his hat, which
he lifted, to see if the Foul Thief had meddled
with it.

Then the Fiend fell to prophesying. "Tom
was to be a merchant, Rob a smith, John a
minister, and Hugh a lawyer," all which came
to pass. Turning to Jennet, the goodman's
daughter, he cried, "Jennet Campbell, Jennet
Campbell, wilt thou cast me thy belt?"

Quoth she, "What a widdy [a gallows] wouldst
thou do with my belt?"

"I would fain," says he, "fasten my loose
bones together."

A younger daughter was sitting "busking
[decking] her young puppies, as young girls are
used to do." He threatens to "ding out her
harns;" that is, according to the commentator,
brain her. Says she, quietly, "No, if God be to
the fore;" and so falls to her work again. The
goodwife, having brought out some bread, was
breaking it, so that every one of the company
should have a piece. Cries he, "Grissel Wyllie!
Grissel Wyllie! give me a piece of that havre
bread (for so they call their oat-cake). I have
gotten nothing this day, but a bit from Marritt;"
that is, as they speak in the country, Margaret.
The minister said to them all, "Beware of that!
for it is sacrificing to the Devil." Marritt was
then called, and inquired of if she gave him any
of her havre bread. "No," says she; "but
when I was eating my due piece this morning,
something came and clicked it out of my
hands."

The evening had now come, and the company
prepared to depart; the minister, and the