What kind of a great house was this , that all the parish should start and stare to be asked the way to it ? or what sort of a gentleman , that his ill-fame should be thus current on the wayside ? If an hour 's walking would have brought me back to Essendean , I had left my adventure then and there , and returned to Mr. Campbell 's . But when I had come so far a way already , mere shame would not suffer me to desist till I had put the matter to the touch of proof ; I was bound , out of mere self-respect , to carry it through ; and little as I liked the sound of what I heard , and slow as I began to travel , I still kept asking my way and still kept advancing . It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout , dark , sour-looking woman coming trudging down a hill ; and she , when I had put my usual question , turned sharp about , accompanied me back to the summit she had just left , and pointed to a great bulk of building standing very bare upon a green in the bottom of the next valley . The country was pleasant round about , running in low hills , pleasantly watered and wooded , and the crops , to my eyes , wonderfully good ; but the house itself appeared to be a kind of ruin ; no road led up to it ; no smoke arose from any of the chimneys ; nor was there any semblance of a garden . My heart sank . `` That ! '' I cried . The woman 's face lit up with a malignant anger . `` That is the house of Shaws ! '' she cried . `` Blood built it ; blood stopped the building of it ; blood shall bring it down . See here ! '' she cried again -- `` I spit upon the ground , and crack my thumb at it ! Black be its fall ! If ye see the laird , tell him what ye hear ; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him and his house , byre and stable , man , guest , and master , wife , miss , or bairn -- black , black be their fall ! '' And the woman , whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch sing-song , turned with a skip , and was gone . I stood where she left me , with my hair on end . In those days folk still believed in witches and trembled at a curse ; and this one , falling so pat , like a wayside omen , to arrest me ere I carried out my purpose , took the pith out of my legs .
I sat me down and stared at the house of XXXXX .
Campbell Essendean Shaws bairn byre days eldritch hour hunner laird