CARD-PLAYING.
A party of young people were playing cards; a stranger joined them and took a hand. A card fell below the table, and the youth, who stooped to lift it, observed the stranger to have a horse’s hoof. The devil, on being thus detected, went up the chimney in smoke.
This story is universal over the Highlands. Cards are notoriously known as the devil’s books. When boys play them, the fiend has been known to come down the chimney feet foremost, the horse’s or pig’s foot appearing first. When going away, he disappears in smoke, and neighs horribly in the chimney.