Minstrelsy of the Scottish border - National Library of Scotland

THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 151
it was concluded he had thrown his rider into the sea ;
his friends went into mourning, and a successor was
appointed to his office. Meanwhile, the poor president
spent a heavy time in the vault of the castle. He was
imprisoned, and solitary ; receiving his food through an
aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of a
human voice, save when a shepherd called his dog, by
the name of BaUy, and when a female domestic called
upon Maudge, the cat. These, he concluded, were in-
vocations of spirits ; for he held himself to be in the dun-
geon of a sorcerer. At length, after three months had
elapsed, the law-suit was decided in favour of Lord
Traquair ;
and Will was directed to set the president at
liberty. Accordingly, he entered the vault, at dead of
night, seized the president, muffled him once more in the
cloak, without speaking a single woi'd, and, using the
same mode of transportation, conveyed him to Leith
sands, and set down the astonished judge on the very
spot where he had taken him up. The joy of his friends,
and the less agreeable surprise of his successor, may be
easily conceived, when he appeared in court, to reclaim
his office and honours. All embraced his own persua-
sion, that he had been spirited away by witchcraft ; nor
could he himself be convinced of the contrary, until,
many years afterwards, happening to travel in Annan-
dale, his ears were saluted, once more, with the sounds
o£ Maudge and Batty— the only notes which had sola-
ced his long confinement. This led to a discovery of
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