733 B. The next case is remarkable for the frequent repetition of the percipient's experience. It is one of those that suggest, as we have said (see 703 and 733), a kind of local imprint left by past events, and perceptible at times to persons endowed with some special form of sensitiveness. I quote from Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. p. 418, the account, given by Mr. D. M. Tyre, 157 St. Andrew's Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow.

October 9th, 1885.

In the summer of 1874 my sister and I went during our holidays to stay with a gardener and his wife in a house which was built far up, fully three-quarters of a mile, on the face of a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful lochs in Dumbartonshire, just on the boundary of the Highlands. A charming spot indeed, although far off the main roadway. We never wearied, and so delighted were we with the place that my people took a lease of the house for the following three years. From this point my narrative begins. Being connected in business with the city, we could not get down to Glen M. all together, so that my two sisters and myself were sent away early in May to have the house put in order and attend to the garden, etc. etc, for the coming holidays, when we would be all down together. We had lots of work to do, and as the nearest village was five miles distant, and our nearest neighbours, the people at the shore, nearly a mile away, we were pretty quiet on the hill and left to our own resources.

One day my elder sister J. required to go to the village for something or other, leaving us alone; and as the afternoon came on I went part of the way to meet her, leaving my other sister L. all alone. When we returned, about 6 p.m., we found L. down the hill to meet us in a rather excited state, saying that an old woman had taken up her quarters in the kitchen and was lying in the bed. We asked if she knew who she was. She said no, that the old wife was lying on the bed with her clothes on, and that possibly she was a tinker body (a gipsy), therefore she was afraid to go in without us. We went up to the house with L.; my younger sister L. going in first said, on going into the kitchen, "There she is," pointing to the bed, and turning to us expecting that we would wake her up and ask what she was there for. I looked in the bed and so did my elder sister, but the clothes were flat and unruffled, and when we said that there was nothing there she was quite surprised, and pointing with her finger, said, "Look, why there's the old wife with her clothes on and lying with her head towards the window;" but we could not see anything.

Then for the first time it seemed to dawn upon her that she was seeing something that was not natural to us all, and she became very much afraid, and we took her to the other room and tried to soothe her, for she was trembling all over. Ghost! why, the thought never entered our minds for a second; but we started chopping wood and making a fire for the evening meal. The very idea of any one being in the bed was ridiculous, so we attributed it to imagination, and life at the house went on as usual for about two days, when one afternoon, as we were sitting in the kitchen round the fire, it being a cold, wet day outside, L. startled us by exclaiming, "There is the old woman again, and lying the same way." L. did not seem to be so much afraid this time, so we asked her to describe the figure; and with her eyes fixed on the bed and with motion of the finger, she went on to tell us how that the old wife was not lying under the blankets, but on top, with her clothes and boots on, and her legs drawn up as though she were cold; her face was turned to the wall, and she had on what is known in the Highlands as a "sow-backed mutch," that is, a white cap which only old women wear; it has a frill round the front and sticks out at the back, thus.1 She also wore a drab-coloured petticoat, and a checked shawl round her shoulders, drawn tight.

Such was the description given; she could not see her face, but her right hand was hugging her left arm, and she saw that the hand was yellow and thin, and wrinkled like the hands of old people who have done a lot of hard work in their day.

We sat looking at the bed for a long time, with an occasional bit of information from L., who was the only one who saw the figure.

This happened often - very often, indeed so frequently that we got used to it, and used to talk about it among ourselves as "L.'s old woman".

Midsummer came, and the rest of our people from the city, and then for the first time we became intimate with our neighbours and two or three families at the shore. On one occasion my elder sister brought up the subject before a Mrs. M'P., our nearest neighbour, and when she described the figure to her, Mrs. M'P. well-nigh swooned away, and said that it really was the case; the description was the same as the first wife of the man who lived in the house before us, and that he cruelly ill-used his wife, to the extent that the last beating she never recovered from. The story Mrs. M'P. told runs somewhat like this, of which I can only give you the gist:-

Malcolm, the man of the house, and his wife Kate (the old woman), lived a cat and dog life; she was hard-working, and he got tipsy whenever he could. They went one day to market with some fowls and pigs, etc, and on their way back he purchased a half-gallon of whisky. He carried it part of the way, and when he got tired gave it to her; while he took frequent rests by the wayside. She managed to get home before him, and when he came home late he accused her of drinking the contents of the jar. He gave her such a beating that he was afraid, and went down to this Mrs. M'P., saying that his wife was very ill. When Mrs. M'P. went up to the house she found Kate, as my sister described, with her clothes on, and lying with her face to the wall for the purpose, as Mrs. M'P. said, of concealing her face, which was very badly coloured by the ill-treatment of her husband. The finish-up was her death, she having never recovered.

The foregoing is as nearly a complete compendium of the facts as I, with the help of my sister J., can remember.

My sister L. is now dead, but we often go back to the house when we are any way near the locality, because it is a bright spot in our memory.

(Signed) D. M. Tyre.

1 A sketch of the profile was here given.

Mr. Tyre adds, in a letter to Mr. David Stewart, of Kincaid House, Milton of Campsie, N.B., who procured this account for us:-

I was at the house last month; there is no one in it just now; the last tenant has gone abroad, and the house is somewhat dilapidated, and the garden a ruin. We had a look through the window at the old kitchen and saw our own grate still remaining.

Mr. Stewart wrote to us on August 13th, 1885:-

I know how valuable the actual names and localities would be, as well as Mrs. M'P.'s independent account, but I have asked so repeatedly, and been told that Mrs. M'P. had great objections to publicity, in case it would rake up old stories connected with the case, that I do not like to ask again.