been lifted and gently swung in the air. But exhaustion of mind and body
was so great that the problem of what might be happening was quite
beyond solution; let him only rest and sleep.

Then, later, it seemed to him that he woke from broken, tossing
slumber. But it was dark, and he fell again into an uneasy doze, in
which every muscle and bone in his harassed old body ached pitifully,
every spot of sorely chafed skin stung and burned, till the multitude of
pains put an end to sleep. Where was he, and how had he got there? On a
low couch, free and unbound, he lay; by his side, on a rude table, was
food and a jack of small-beer. Whether the time was morning or evening
he could not tell, but it was very dark; what little light entered the
room came through a narrow slit, high up in the wall, and all things
smelled strangely of damp. Somewhere he could hear faintly a slow,
shuffling step and the rustle of a dress; then the mew of a cat. Where
was he?

Few, very few, persons at that day were above the weakness of a firm
belief in witchcraft; even a judge of the Court of Session would not
dare openly to question the justice and humanity of the Mosaical law:
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Superstition was rampant, and
to Lord Durie there had ever seemed nothing incongruous in accepting
belief in the undoubted existence of both witches and warlocks. Could it
be that he was now actually in the power of such beings? His mind was
yet in a whirl, and he could form to himself no connected account of
yesterday's happenings, if indeed it was really yesterday, and not in
some remote, far-away time, that he had last ridden along the sands of
Leith. Thirst consumed him, but he hesitated to drink; if he were now in
the hands of those wretches who, it was well known, that they might work
evil sold themselves to the Prince of Darkness, then might it not be