2. Whereas it is given out that a woman, _sub mala fama_, did leave some clothes in that house in the custody of the said Andrew Mackie, and died before they were given up to her, and he and his wife should have kept some of them back from her friends. I did seriously pose both him and his wife upon the matter; they declared they knew not what things were left, being bound up in a sack, but did deliver entirely to her friends all they received from the woman, which I am apt to believe.
[Illustration: "RINGCROFT OF STOCKING," NOW NO LONGER IN EXISTENCE. (Sketch by J. Copland, Dundrennan.)]
3. Whereas one, ---- Macknaught, who sometime before possessed the house, did not thrive in his own person or goods. It seems he had sent his son to a witch-wife who lived then at the Routing Bridge, in the parish of Irongray, to enquire what might be the cause of the decay of his person and goods. The youth, meeting with some foreign soldiers, went abroad to Flanders, and did not return with an answer. Some years after there was one John Redick in this parish who, having had occasion to go abroad, met with the said young Macknaught in Flanders, and they knowing other, Macknaught enquired after his father and other friends; and finding the said John Redick was to go home, desired him to go to his father, or whoever dwelt in the Ringcroft, and desire them to raise the door threshold, and search till they found a tooth, and burn it, for none who dwelt in that house would thrive till that was done. The said John Redick coming home, and finding the old man Macknaught dead and his wife out of that place, did never mention the matter nor further mind it till this trouble was in Andrew Mackie's family, then he spoke of it and told the matter to myself. Betwixt Macknaught's death and Andrew Mackie's possession of this house there was one Thomas Telfair who possessed it some years. What way he heard the report of what the witch-wife had said to Macknaught's son I cannot tell; but he searched the door threshold and found something like a tooth, did compare it with the tooth of a man, horse, nolt, and sheep (as he said to me), but could not say which it did resemble, only it did resemble a tooth. He did cast it into the fire, where it burnt like a candle or so much tallow; yet he never knew any trouble about that house by night or by day, before or after, during his possession. These things premised being suspected to have been the occasion of the troubles, and there being no more known as to them than what is now declared, I do think the matter still unknown what may have given a rise thereto, but leaving this I subjoin the matter as follows: