The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

sts With

Sir Walter's Hypothesis. Other Trials involving Ghostly Evidence. Their Want of Authenticity. "Fi

t Davies, of Guise's regiment. His purpose was, first, to get his body buried; n

G OF SERGE

ills that seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den. The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old useless weapons were given up to the military.

s left me b

my bonnet

g's hid in H

no blawn my

nt of St. Joseph to Cluny lurking on Ben Alder. Kilt and tartan were worn at the

in Braemar, while a corporal's guard occupied the Spital of Glenshee, some eight miles away. "A more waste tract of mountain and bog,

d in the country, fond of children, newly married, and his wife bore witness "that he and she lived together i

cer in his regiment. His dress, on the fatal 28th of September, was "a blue surtout coat, with a striped silk vest, and teiken breeches and brown stockings". His hair, of "a dark mouse colour," was worn in a silk ribbon, his hat was silver laced, and bore his initials cut in the felt. Thus attired, "a pretty man," Sergeant Davies said good-bye to his wife, who never saw him a

efore meeting the patrol, it being his intentio

he hill with a band of men four days after the disappearance, but to no avail. Various rumours ran about the country, amon

atly troubled by the ghost of Sergeant Davies, who insisted that he should bury his bones, and that, he having declined to bury them, the ghost insisted that he should apply to Donald Farquharson". Farquharson "could not

here, too, lay the poor sergeant's mouse-coloured hair, with rags of his blue cloth and his

e position of his bones, and said that Donald Farquharson would help to inter them. Macpherson next day found the bones, and spoke to Growar, the man of the tartan coat (as Growar admitted at the trial). Growar said if Macpherson did not hold his tongue, he himself would inform Shaw of Daldownie. Macpherson therefore went straight to Daldownie, who advised him to bury the bones

erson lay at the other, "she saw something naked come in at the door, which frighted her so much that she drew the clothes over her head. That when it appeared it came in in a bowing post

Davies's ring, that Clerk, after the murder, had suddenly become relatively rich and taken a farm, and that the two men, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder on 28th September, 1749. Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he saw the murder committed. His account of his position was curious. He and another Cameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a

s, says that their advocates and agent "were convinced of their guilt". Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh's banter of the apparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, because of the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic. It is indeed extraordinary that Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed his witnesses to say what the ghost said, which certainly "is not evidence". Sir Walter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs. MacHardie i

AR

lately before he had read the story in your Cock Lane. He had heard of the event before, both

ggests that the person who was chased by the murderers may have got up the ghost, in order to shift the odium of tal

her's narrative, the name of

E MURDER OF S

hat district when about twenty years old, and has never been back to it even for a visit. On being asked whether she had ever heard the story of Sergeant Davies, she at

, the hound began to run on in front of him, and at that minute he saw what it was they had. He called to the dog, and turned to run away, but saw at once that he had made a mistake, for he had called their attention to himself, and a shot was fired after him, which wounded the dog. He then ran home as f

years' standing, is the name of a witness in the trial. The whole affair is thoroughly characteristic of the Highlanders and of Scottish jurisprudence after Cul

f the trials do not exist, or cannot be found, and Webster lost a letter which he once possessed, which would have been proof that ghostly evidenc

ared from his station, and his manager (also a convict) declared that he had returned to England. Later, a man returning from market saw Fisher sitting on a rail; at his approach Fisher

vents and the trial occurred, he gives no date. I have conscientiously investigated the facts, by aid of the Sydney newspapers, and the notes of the judge, Sir Frederick Forbes. Fisher disappeared at the end of June, 1826, from Campbeltown. Suspicion fell on his manager, Worral. A reward was offered late in September. Late in October the constable's attention was drawn to blood-stains on a rail. Starting thence, the black trackers found Fisher's body. Worral was condemned and hanged, after confession, in Feb

RDENER

ined at the Aylesbury Petty Sessions. Mrs. Edden gave evidence that she sent five or six times for Tyler "to come and see the corpse. . . . I had some particular reasons for sending for him which I never did divulge. . . . I will tell you my reasons, gentlemen, if you ask me, in the face of Tyler, even if my life should be in danger for it." The reasons were that on the ni

you think your husban

ike a hammer, and it came into my mind that his ribs were broken."

0, they were tried at the Buckingham Lent Assizes, were found guil

vidence (at the Assizes) no ment

ing ghost gave evidence of a murder, or rather, conf

sque by several generations of narrators. As we try to be faithful to the best sources, the contemporary manuscript versi

OG O'

t appeared to William Soutar

ighall, and which was found at Meikleour a few years ago, to the proprietor of w

nd of doubt to any man of common-sense. The person to whom it appeared is one William Soutar, a tenant of Balgowan's, who lives in Middle Mause, within about half a mile fr

it to be taken in as you go along, I have given them with reference at the end, {145b} that

ng) heard a scratching (screeching, crying), and I followed the noise, with my servant, a little way from the town (farm-steading thr

gh at my haunch-bane (hip-bone), upon which I pulled my staff from under my arm and let a stroke at it; and I had a notion at the time that I hit it, and my haunch was painful all that night. However, I had no great thought of its being anything particular or extraordinary, but that it might be a m

ing alone, at the same place, and passed by me just as before. I had some suspicion of it then likewise, but I began to think that a neighbour of min

time. On the morrow I went to my brother, who dwells in the Nether Aird of Drumlochy, and told him of the last and of all the former appearances, which was the first time I ever spoke of it to anybody. He and I went to see a sister of ours at Glenballow, who was dying, but she was dead before we came. As we were returning home, I desired my brother, whose name is James Soutar, to go forward with me

e-and-thirty years ago, when you was new born, at a bush be-east the road, as you go into the Isle." {148b} And as I was going away, I stood again and said, "David Soutar was a man, and you appear like a dog," whereupon it spoke to me again, saying, "I killed him with a dog, and therefore I am made to speak out of the mouth of a dog, and tell you you must go and bury these bones". Upon this I went straight to my brother to his house, and told him what had happened to me. My brother having told the minister of Blair, he and I came to the minister on Monday thereafter, as he was examining in a neighbour's house in the same town where I live. And the minister, with my brother and me and two or three more, went to t

forty men and went to the Isle, and broke up the ground in

on the margin in a different hand, "You will find the bones at the side of a withered bush. There are but eight of them, and for a sign you will find the print of a cross impressed on the ground."] On the morrow, being Thursday, I went alone to the Isle to see if I could find any sign, and immediately I saw both the bush, which was a small bush, the greatest stick in it being about the thickness of a staff, and it was withered about half-way down; and also the sign, which was about a foot from the bush. The sign was an exact cross, thus X; each of the two lines was about a foot and a half in length and near three inches broad, and more than an inch deeper than the rest of the ground, as if it had been pressed down, for the ground was not cut. On the morrow, being Friday, I went and told my b

coffin for the bones, and my wife brought linen to wrap them in, and I wrapped the bones in the linen myself and put them in the coffin before all these people, and sent for th

r in the presence of Robert Graham, brother to the Laird of Balgowan, and

orrow by some of the servants who had been with the rest at the search; and on Saturday Glasclune's son ca

him as brother to George Soutar; then, he said, he began to recollect that when he was about ten years of age he had seen him once at his father's in a soldier's habit, after which he went abroad and was never more heard of; neither did William ever before h

eing from home, his father, who also lives in that town, gave us the same account of it which Glasclune had done, and the poor man could not refrain from shedding tears as he told it, as Glasclune

on committing the deed went home, and on looking in at the window he saw William Soutar lying

eat antiquarian tastes in the last generati

at the place mentioned; that there was a tailor at work in his father's house that morning when he returned after committing the murder (according to the custom at that date by which tailors went out to make up customers' own cloth at their own houses), and that his mother being surprised at his strange appearance, asked him what he had been about, to which inquiry he made no reply; that he did not remain long in the country afterwards, but went to England and never returned. The last time he was seen he went down by the Brae of Cockridge. A man of the name of I

, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed a man; that they

s bulls. (See Miss Burne's Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o' Mause. M. d'As

beast survives death and affects with a hallucination the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass current. But if such cases were as common and to

to that e

dog may bea

a lady, or the illused monkey who died in a Chinese house, after which he haunted

R'S

om fire when he arrived, and a fox-terrier was with them. Presently the heavy, shambling foots

Peter!" said

d!" whispere

ier bristled up, growled, and pursued a viewless object across the carpet; from the hearth-rug sou

al evidence, which, for reasons inexplicable to me, w