Robert Davidson, merchant in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, represented to the Privy Council that he had been in a good way of merchandise, and proprietor of a two-story house, when in the beginning of December last some of Lord Carmichael’s dragoons were quartered upon him, and deposited their powder in one of his low [Sidenote: 1695.] rooms. As they were one morning dividing the powder, it caught fire, and demolished the house, together with his whole merchandise and household plenishing, carrying the bed whereon he and his family lay to the top of the house, and seriously injuring a relative who was living with him at the time, and for the cost of whose cure he was answerable. Robert petitioned for some compensation, and the Council—following its rule of a vicarious beneficence—allowed him to raise a voluntary collection at the church-doors of Aberdeenshire and the two adjacent counties.[136] [Sidenote: FEB.] There never, perhaps, was any mystic history better attested than that of ‘the Rerrick Spirit.’ The tenant of the house, many of his neighbours, the minister of the parish, several other clergymen, the proprietor of the ground living half a mile off, all give their testimonies to the various things which they ‘saw, heard, and felt.’ The air of actuality is helped even by the local situation and its associations. It is in the same parish with Dundrennan Abbey, where Queen Mary spent her last night in Scotland. It is upon the same rock-bound coast which Scott has described so graphically in his tale of _Guy Mannering_, which was indeed founded on facts that occurred in this very parish. Collin, the house of the laird, still exists, though passed into another family. Very probably, the house of Andrew Mackie himself would also be found by any one who had the curiosity to inquire for it; nor would he fail, at the same time, to learn that the whole particulars of this narration continue to be fresh in popular recollection, though four generations have passed away since the event. Few narrations of the kind have included occurrences and appearances which it was more difficult to reconcile with the theory of trick or imposture.