320 FISH AND FISHING IS SCOTLAND. 



conscience had roused, he seemed to have crossed Dirrington, 

 and descended to the rocky banks of the Die, crossing and re- 

 crossing its rapid stream. Faint, wild, and overcome with 

 terror, he reached home early next morning, took to his bed, 

 foretold his approaching end, and calling his son to him, made 

 him solemnly promise that he would never travel by that road. 



Years rolled on. The son, strong, muscular, and fearing 

 nothing, yet avoided the road after sundown. But fate 

 ordered that, leaving Greenlaw, and emboldened, no doubt, by 

 friendly greetings and potations deep, he neglected his father's 

 advice, and persisted. He had seen the phantom funeral, and 

 was next day found dead where the footpath is about to enter 

 on the morass on the slope of the sandy knolls, where his father 

 first encountered the spectre. 



The seeing phantoms is peculiar to those susceptible of the 

 second sight ; but it may extend to millions where the delusion 

 is strong. The delusion of believing that which we see to be 

 always real, the "air-drawn dagger," the spectral funeral, all 

 belong to one class. I met a lady of rank in the Highlands, 

 a Celtic lady, who had twice seen a spectre : no one doubted her. 

 The lady to whom I allude had a brother in Paris, and she re- 

 sided at the time with, or was on a visit to, a married sister, in the 

 Highlands of Scotland. She belonged to a family of distinction 

 and fortune. Standing, on a Sunday evening, by the drawing- 

 room fire with her sister, awaiting the dinner bell, her brother, 

 who was at that moment in Paris, walked into the room, and 

 after gazing at her for a few seconds, returned as he came. She 

 called her sister's attention to the presence of their brother, but 

 she treated it as a vision, perceiving nothing herself. The 

 matter was talked over at dinner, and thought no more of; but 

 that day next week there came a letter from Paris, sealed with 

 black wax. It was from a friend, and ran thus : " My dear 

 sir, I regret to inform you that last Sunday, about six o'clock, I 

 accompanied your brother-in-law to the Bois de Boulogne on an 

 affair of honour, and I grieve to say your brother was shot dead 

 at the first fire." 



