OCR Text |
Show SCOTCH GHOSTS. Hugh Miller, in his "Schools and School masters," gives an instance from his childhood which seems to rank him amongst veritable ghost-seers. He gives a reminiscence from his earliest childhood of that night when, in the wild and fatal tempest, his father went down at sea. His mother had just received a cheerful letter from the father, so that there were no forebodings in the dwelling. She was sitting, plying her cheerful needle by the household fire; the door had been left unfastened, and she sent little Hugh to shut it; it was in the twilight. "A gray haze," he says, "was spreading a neutral tint of dimness over distant objects, but left the near ones comparatively distinct, when I saw at the open door, within less than a yard of my breast, as plainly as I ever saw anything, a dissevered arm and hand stretched toward me - hand and arm were apparently those of a female; they bore a livid and sodden appearance, and directly fronting me, where the body ought to have been there was only a blank transparent space, through which I could see the dim forms of the objects beyond. I was fearfully startled and ran shrieking to my mother, telling what I had seen; and the house-girl, whom she next sent to shut the door, apparently affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and said that she, too, had seen the woman's hand. In the university of St. Andrews a custom obtains that on the death of a professor intimation of the event is conveyed by messenger to the other members of the institution. In 1812 an aged professor was very ill, and his decease was expected daily. One of his colleagues sat down to his usual evening devotions with his household. His wife was reading a portion of the scripture, when, watch in hand, the professor asked her whether it was not precisely half-past nine. The lady, taking out her watch, answered that it was. When the service was concluded the professor explained that at the time he interrupted the reading he had seen his ailing colleague, who had signaled him an adieu. He felt satisfied his friend had then expired. Not long after a messenger arrived, reporting that Dr. H. had died that evening at half-past nine. There is a singular story connected with the death of Mungo Park on his second great African expedition. His sister, Mrs. Thompson, lived with her husband on their farm of Myreton, among the Ochils?. She had received a letter from her brother, expressing his hope that he would shortly return home, and saying that she would not be likely to hear from him again until she saw him on his return. Shortly after this she was in bed, she fancied she heard a horse's foot on the road before her window. Sitting up in bed, she instantly saw her brother, the great traveler, open the door and walk toward her in his usual attire. She expressed her delight, sprang up from bed, stretched out her arms to embrace him, and only folded them over her own breast. By the dim light she could still only believe that he had stepped aside, that he was, perhaps, joking with her, and while she was upbraiding him for retreating from her, her husband came into the room and assured her of her delusion. This was the last that was heard of Mungo Park; the date of his death was unknown. Mrs. Thompson is described as a shrewd, intelligent woman, not at all inclined to superstition, but she always believed that his death took place at the time when she imagined he had returned to her at Myreton. Some of the specters or visions of the Highlands of the old time seem almost like allegories. A farmer, whose high character gave him great influence in his elevated hamlet, lost his children one after another; at last he lost a little child who had taken great hold on his father's affections; the father's grief was intemperate and quite unbounded. The death took place in the spring, when, although the sheep were abroad in the more inhabited Lowlands, they had to be preserved from the blasts of that high and stormy region in the cote. In a dismal, snowy evening the man, unable to stifle his anguish, went out lamenting aloud; he went to the door of his sheep-cote to take a lamb he needed, and he found a stranger at the door. He was astonished to find, in such a night, any person in so unfrequented a place. He was plainly attired, but with a countenance singularly expressive of mildness and beneficence. The stranger, very singularly, asked the farmer what he did there amid the tempest of such a night. The man was filled with awe, which he could not account for, but said he came there for a lamb. "What kind of a lamb do you mean to take?" said the stranger. "The very best I can find," answered the farmer, "but come into the house and share our evening meal." "Do your sheep make any resistance when you take away the lamb, or any disturbance afterward?" "Never," said the farmer. "How differently am I treated," said the traveler, "when I come to visit my sheep-fold, I take, as I am well entitled to take, the best lamb to myself, and my ears are filled with the clamor of discontent by those ungrateful sheep whom I have fed and watched and protected." -Leisure Hours. |