``It is one of those figments,'' observed Mr.Bradwardine, ``with which the early history of distinguished families was deformed in the times of superstition; as that of Rome, and other ancient nations, had their prodigies, sir, the which you may read in ancient histories, or in the little work compiled by Julius Obsequens, and inscribed by the learned Scheffer, the editor, to his patron, Benedictus Skytte, Baron of Dudershoff.''
``My father has a strange defiance of the marvellous, Captain Waverley,'' observed Rose, ``and once stood firm when a whole synod of Presbyterian divines were put to the rout by a sudden apparition of the foul fiend.''
Waverley looked as if desirous to hear more.
``Must I tell my story as well as sing my song?---Well.---Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft.And she was imprisoned for a week in the steeple of the parish church, and sparingly supplied with food, and not permitted to sleep, until she herself became as much persuaded of her being a witch as her accusers; and in this lucid and happy state of mind was brought forth to make a clean breast, that is, to make open confession of her sorceries, before all the Whig gentry and ministers in the vicinity, who were no conjurors themselves.My father went to see fair play between the witch and the clergy; for the witch had been born on his estate.And while the witch was confessing that the Enemy appeared, and made his addresses to her as a handsome black man,---which, if you could have seen poor old blear-eyed Janet, reflected little honour on Apollyon's taste,---and while the auditors listened with astonished ears, and the clerk recorded with a trembling hand, she, all of a sudden, changed the low mumbling tone with which she spoke into a shrill yell, and exclaimed, `Look to yourselves! look to yourselves! I see the Evil One sitting in the midst of ye.' The surprise was general, and terror and flight its immediate consequences.Happy were those who were next the door; and many were the disasters that befell hats, bands, cuffs, and wigs, before they could get out of the church, where they left the obstinate prelatist to settle matters with the witch and her admirer, at his own peril or pleasure.''
``_Risu solvuntur tabul<ae>,_'' said the Baron: ``when they recovered their panic trepidation, they were too much ashamed to bring any wakening of the process against Janet Gellatley.''<*>
* The story last told was said to have happened in the south of Scotland;* but _cedant arma tog<ae>_---and let the gown have its dues.It was an old * clergyman, who had wisdom and firmness enough to resist the panic which * seized his brethren, who was the means of rescuing a poor insane creature * from the cruel fate which would otherwise have overtaken her.The * accounts of the trials for witchcraft form one of the most deplorable * chapters in Scottish story.
This anecdote led to a long discussion of All those idle thoughts and fantasies, Devices, dreams, opinions unsound, Shows, visions, soothsays, and prophecies, And all that feigned is, as leasings, tales, and lies.
With such conversation, and the romantic legends which it produced, closed our hero's second evening in the house of Tully-Veolan.