My Gillie's Father's Story
Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie. He
was well educated, a great reader, the best of salmon fishers, and I
never heard a man curse William, Duke of Cumberland, with more
enthusiasm. His father, still alive, was second-sighted, and so, to a
moderate extent and without theory, was my friend. Among other
anecdotes (confirmed in writing by the old gentleman) was this:--
The father had a friend who died in the house which they both
occupied. The clothes of the deceased hung on pegs in the bedroom.
One night the father awoke, and saw a stranger examining and handling
the clothes of the defunct. Then came a letter from the dead man's
brother, inquiring about the effects. He followed later, and was the
stranger seen by my gillie's father.
Thus the living but absent may haunt a house both noisily and by
actual appearance. The learned even think, for very exquisite
reasons, that "Silverton Abbey" {192} is haunted noisily by a "spirit
of the living". Here is a case:--
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