-- The gentleman,
our landlord, has got another house, which he was fain to quit,
on account of a mischievous ghost, that would not suffer people
to lie in their beds. The fairies dwell in a hole of Kairmann, a
mounting hard by; and they steal away the good women that are in
the straw, if so be as how there a'n't a horshoe nailed to the
door: and I was shewn an ould vitch, called Elspath Ringavey,
with a red petticoat, bleared eyes, and a mould of grey bristles
on her sin. -- That she mought do me no harm, I crossed her hand
with a taster, and bid her tell my fortune; and she told me such
things descriving Mr Clinker to a hair -- but it shall ne'er be
said, that I minchioned a word of the matter. -- As I was troubled
with fits, she advised me to bathe in the loff, which was holy
water; and so I went in the morning to a private place along with
the house-maid, and we bathed in our birth-day soot, after the
fashion of the country; and behold whilst we dabbled in the loff,
sir George Coon started up with a gun; but we clapt our hands to
our faces, and passed by him to the place where we had left our
smocks -- A civil gentleman would have turned his head another
way.
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