Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/367

 Collectanea. 331

it with the Bible on her knee, and dared Him to enter it. Then He said He would have her, for He had the promise of her, and Dr. Irving said He wouldn't get her till the candle on the table (for it was dark by this time) had burned right done. So they all sat and watched, and, when the candle was just about burned done, Dr. Irving snapped it up, and swallowed it, so the candle never could burn done.

Then He went away from the farm, out of the window in a lump of fire, and landed in a farm on the opposite hill, about two miles off, a farm called Ardonachy. This farm went on fire that night, and they took the water from the duck pond to put it out, and, doing this, they found at the bottom of the pond human remains. They were thought to be the remains of an old packman that was lost several years before. The old packman was very wealthy, and had had a lot of money on him when he was lost, but there was no money found with the remains.

Well, a cousin of Kirstie's, who was a sweetheart of hers, was in India, and the night all this happened he couldn't get sleep for Kirstie calling him and something always pulling him out of bed. So, after some war, he was allowed to leave his regiment, and he came home and married her, and she made him a very good wife, and they had two sons, and one daughter, all of whom are now dead. She lived in Bankfoot, in a street called the Canny Row, and there were a lot of people watched to see if anything would happen when she died, but there was nothing happened. Some of the folk thought there might be trouble, that He would come for her.

[Note. — Dr. Irving, of the above story, figures in a great many tales of this neighbourhood, and had apparently several " deals with the devil " ; hence he was sent for in Kirstie's emergency. My old nurse unfortunately never " dared " to ask Kirstie Murray about this story, known all over Bankfoot, but she says she heard her father discussing with Kirstie's husband the night in India when he could not sleep.]

Mary Grace Underwood.

Heath Park, Birnam, Perthshire.