834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



existence, shrink from obtruding themselves on public notice. If, how- 

 ever, churchyards have somewhat abated their terrors, it is as aforesaid 

 owing to no decay of superstition ; for certain lonely lanes or portions 

 of roads supposed to be more or less haunted are still only willingly 

 traversed in company or by daylight. And the peculiarity of these 

 places is that they seldom, if ever, are the " walk " of any definite 

 specter. The rustic, if he will talk on the subject at all, will tell you 

 that he " have heard tell there's summat," but what " Summat " is, 

 having no idea on the subject, he will certainly not attempt to express 

 one ; meanwhile "Summat" gallantly holds his allotted territory, and 

 causes the belated villager to commit various acts of trespass in order 

 to avoid Tom Tidler's ground. 



"Summat" unfortunately does not always choose to live out-of- 

 doors, as a landlord may find to his cost. Old farmhouses not unfre- 

 quently have a chamber set apart for the residence of this vaguest of 

 phantoms ; and as the growing-up family requires more room, the tenant 

 will ask for partitions or fresh building rather than disturb " Summat " 

 in his dusty though inhabitable apartment. A little way up the glen of 

 Rothes, in Morayshire, is a large hillock, locally known as the " Doonie." 

 A few years ago, and probably to this day, it had the reputation of be- 

 ing no canny after dusk. A Scotch "Summat" graced it with his pres- 

 ence, though in this particular instance he was probably originally 

 inducted by illicit distillers, who sought his protection against disturb- 

 ance in their business. 



The old conventionally haunted family mansion, though fairly hold- 

 ing its own among the tenets of rustic suj>erstition, does not — inasmuch 

 as it is not open to the public — greatly exercise the rustic mind. The 

 White Lady appears only on special occasions, the wheels of the invisi- 

 ble carriage rumble up only to that one door, and in neither case does 

 the phenomenon bode evil to aught but the lawful proprietors of the 

 ghost, though it is a drawback to service which has to be duly con- 

 sidered in the domestics' wages. Yet is there a country house we wot 

 of in the west, where the atmosphere was so full of supernatural elec- 

 tricity, and so light a friction was necessary to secure its discharge, 

 that the place acquired a local celebrity as inconvenient to the owner 

 — who was non-resident, and wanted to find a tenant — as it was inter- 

 esting to the neighborhood. In this case the disturbing agents were a 

 skull and a couple of thigh-bones, said to have been the property of an 

 ancestor who had been either hanged or murdered, both of which inci- 

 dents had embellished the chronicles of a lively and aggressive race. 

 Whether these relics had been collected from the gallows, or kept in 

 memoriam of a coroner's inquest and a post-mortem examination, de- 

 ponent sayeth not, nor is it known why they had been denied the rights 

 of burial ; but from some misplaced sentiment they were preserved, 

 irreverently stowed in the cupboard of an attic, and there left to disturb 

 the peace of the inmates, the specialty of these bones being, that if 



