The Book-Hunter
child desired it might be taken to the place where it was found, and
left there. I hear not yet what was done with it. This is so incredible,
that I set it down only for after trial and inquiry about it--no
confirmation."
His wife tells him a story which in her youth she had heard narrated by
Mr Andrew Reid, minister of Kirkbean. It is a case of true love crossed
by the interference of cruel relations. The swain leaves the country
for several years--gets on--remembers the old love, and returns to
fulfil his vows. It happens that on the day of his return the loved one
dies. He is on his way to her house in the dusk of eve when he meets an
old man, who tells him that he is going on a bootless errand--he will
find a dead corpse for the warm living heart he expected. The stranger,
however, pitying his distress, tells him there is a remedy--hands to the
lover certain pills, and says, "If you will give her these, she will
recover." So it turned out, and they were happily married. A certain
visitor at the house, however, "a very eminent Christian," refused to
salute the lady with the usual courtesies. He takes the husband aside,
"and tells him that he was very much persuaded his wife was a devil, and
indeed he could not salute her; and after some discourse prevailed so
far with him as to follow his advice, which was to go with her and take
her to that room where he found her, and lay her down upon the bed where
he found her, and quit her of a devil. Which he did, and immediately she
became a dead corpse half consumed." "This had need," says cautious
Wodrow, "to be weel attested, and I have writ to Mr Reid anent it."
Curiosity urged me to look for and find among Wodrow's manuscripts Mr
Reid's answer. He says he often heard the story from his father as a
truth, but had been unaccountably negligent in noting the particulars of
it; and then he favours his correspondent with some special providences
anent himself, which appear not to have been sufficiently pungent for
Wodrow's taste.
A philosophical investigator of the established national superstitions
would find excellent types of all of them in the Analecta. In the
department of second-sight, for instance, restricted, with due
observance to geographical propriety, within the Highland line, a guest
disturbs a convivial meeting at Blair-Athol by exclaiming that he
beholds a dirk sticking in the breast of their entertainer. That night
he is stabbed to the heart; and even while the seer beheld the visionary
dagger, a bare-legged gilly was watching outside to execute a
long-cherished Highland vengeance. The Marquess of Argyle, who was
afterwards beheaded, was playing with some of his clan at bowls, or
bullets, as Wodrow calls them, for he was not learned in the
nomenclature of vain recreations. "One of the players, when the Marquess
stooped down to lift the bullet, fell pale, and said to them about him,
'Bless me! what is that I see?--my Lord with the head off, and all his
shoulders full of blood.'"
In the department of fairy tricks, the infant of Thomas Paton, "a very
eminent Christian," in its first use of speech, rattles out a volley of
terrific oaths, then eats two cheeses, and attempts to cut its brother's
throat. This was surely sufficient evidence to satisfy the most
sceptical that it was a changeling, even had it not, as the result of
certain well-applied prayers, "left the house with an extraordinary
howling and crying."
Ghost and witch stories abound. The following is selected on account of
the eminence of its hero, Gilbert Rule, the founder and first Principal
of the University of Edinburgh: He was travelling on the dreary road
across the Grampians, called the Cairn o' Mont, on which stood a lone
desolate inn. It has now disappeared, but I remember it in its dreary
old age, standing alone on the moor, with its grim gables and its
loupin'-on stane,--just the sort of place where, in the romances, the
horrified traveller used to observe a trap-door in his bedroom floor,
and at supper picked the finger of a murdered man out of a mutton-pie.
There Rule arrived late at night seeking accommodation, but he could get
none--the house was crammed. The only alternative was to make a bed for
him in an empty house close by; it had been unoccupied for thirty years,
and had a bad repute. He had to sleep there alone, for his servant would
not go with him. Let Wodrow himself tell what came to pass.
"He walked some time in the room, and committed himself to God's
protection, and went to bed. There were two candles left on the table,
and these he put out. There was a large bright fire remaining. He had
not been long in bed till the room door is opened, and an apparition, in
shape of a country tradesman, came in and opened the curtains without
speaking a word. Mr Rule was resolved to do nothing till it should speak
or attack him, but lay still with full composure, committing himself to
the Divine protection and conduct. The apparition went to the table,
lighted the two candles, brought them to the bedside, and made some
steps toward the door, looking still to the bed, as if he would have Mr
Rule rising and following. Mr Rule still lay still, till he should see
his way further cleared. Then the apparition, who the whole time spoke
none, took an effectual way to raise the doctor. He carried back the
candles to the table, and went to the fire, and with the tongs took down
the kindled coals, and laid them on the deal chamber floor. The doctor
then thought it time to rise and put on his clothes, in the time of
which the spectre laid up the coals again in the chimney, and, going to
the table, lifted the candles and went to the door, opened it, still
looking to the Principal as he would have him following the candles,
which he now, thinking there was something extraordinary in the case,
after looking to God for direction, inclined to do. The apparition went
down some steps with the candles, and carried them into a long trance,
at the end of which there was a stair which carried down to a low room.
This the spectre went down, and stooped, and set down the lights on the
lowest step of the stair, and straight disappears."
The learned Principal, whose courage and coolness deserve the highest
commendation, lighted himself back to bed with the candles, and took the
remainder of his rest undisturbed. Being a man of great sagacity, on
ruminating over his adventure, he informed the sheriff of the county
"that he was much of the mind there was murder in the case." The stone
whereon the candles were placed was raised, and there "the plain remains
of a human body were found, and bones, to the conviction of all." It was
supposed to be an old affair, however, and no traces could be got of the
murderer. Rule undertook the functions of the detective, and pressed
into the service the influence of his own profession. He preached a
great sermon on the occasion, to which all the neighbouring people were
summoned; and behold, "in the time of his sermon, an old man near eighty
years was awakened, and fell a-weeping, and before all the whole company
acknowledged that, at the building of that house, he was the murderer."
In Wodrow's note-book the devil often cuts a humiliating figure, and is
treated with a deal of rude and boisterous jeering. A certain "exercised
Christian," probably during a fit of indigestion, was subjected to a
heavy wrestling with doubts and irreconcilable difficulties, which
raised in his mind horrible suggestions. The devil took occasion to put
in a word or two for the purpose of increasing the confusion, but it
had the directly opposite effect, and called forth the remark that, "on
the whole the devil is a great fool, and outshoots himself oft when he
thinks he has poor believers on the haunch." On another occasion the
devil performed a function of a very unusual kind, one would think. He
is known to quote Scripture for his purposes, but who ever before heard
of his writing a sermon--and, as it seems, a sound and orthodox one?
There was, it appears, a youth in the University of St Andrews,
preparing to undergo his trials as a licentiate, who had good reason to
fear that he would be plucked. He found he could make nothing whatever
of the trial sermon, and was wandering about by lonely ways, seeking in
vain for inspiration. At last "there came up to him a stranger, in habit
like a minister, in black coat and band, and who addressed the youth
very courteously." He was mighty inquisitive, and at length wormed out
the secret grief. "I have got a text from the Presbytery. I cannot for
my life compose a discourse on it, so I shall be affronted." The
stranger replied--"Sir, I am a minister; let me hear the text?" He told
him. "Oh, then, I have an excellent sermon on that text in my pocket,
which you may peruse and commit to your memory. I engage, after you have
delivered it before the Presbytery, you will be greatly approven and
applauded." The youth received it thankfully; but one good turn
deserves another. The stranger had an eccentric fancy that he should
have a written promise from the youth to do him afterwards any favour in
his power; and there being no other liquid conveniently at hand for the
signature of the document, a drop of the young man's blood was drawn for
the purpose. Note now what followed. "Upon the Presbytery day the youth
delivered an excellent sermon upon the text appointed him, which pleased
and amazed the Presbytery to a degree; only Mr Blair smelt out something
in it which made him call the youth aside to the corner of the church,
and thus he began with him: 'Sir, you have delivered a nate sermon,
every way well pointed. The matter was profound, or rather sublime; your
style was fine and your method clear; and, no doubt, young men at the
beginning must make use of helps, which I doubt not you have done.' So
beginning, Blair, who was a man of mighty gifts and repute, pressed on
so close with repeated questions that the awful truth at last came out."
There was nothing for it but that the Presbytery must engage in special
exercise for the penitent youth. They prayed each in succession to no
purpose, till it came to Blair's turn. "In time of his prayer there came
a violent rushing of wind upon the church--so great that they thought
the church should have fallen down about their ears--and with that the
youth's paper and covenant drops down from the roof of the church among
the ministers."
A large proportion of Wodrow's special providences are performed for the
benefit of the clergy, either to provide them with certain worldly
necessaries of which they may happen to be in want, or to give effect to
their pious indignation, or, as some might be tempted to call it, their
vindictive spite, again those who revile them. Perhaps an interdicted
pastor, wandering over the desolate moors where he and his hunted flock
seek refuge, is sorely impeded by some small want of the flesh, and
gives expression to his wishes concerning it; when forthwith he is
miraculously supplied with a shoulder of mutton or a pair of trousers,
according to the nature of his necessities. He encounters ridicule or
personal insult, and instantly the blasphemer is struck dead, or
idiotic, or dumb, after the example of those who mocked Elisha's bald
head; and Wodrow generally winds up these judgments with an appropriate
admonitory text, as, for instance, "Touch not His anointed, and do His
prophets no harm." As the persons for whom these special miracles are
performed generally happen to be sorely beset by worldly privations and
dangers, which are at their climax at the very time when they are able
to call in supernatural intervention, a logician might be inclined to
ask why, if the operations, and, as it were, the very motives, of the