III. There seems to have once obtained in this part of the country a belief that the natural sentiment of justice had its tutelary spirit, which, like the Astræa of the Greeks, existed for it, and for it alone; and which not only seconded the dictates of conscience, but even punished those by whom they were disregarded. The creed of superstition is, however, rarely a well defined or consistent one; and this belief seems to have partaken, as much as any of the others, of the incoherent obscurity in which it originated. The mysterious agent (the object of it) existed no one knew where, and effected its purposes no one knew how. But the traditions which illustrate it, narrate better than they define. Many years ago, says one of these, a woman of Tarbat was passing along the shores of Loch-Slin, with a large web of linen on her back. There was a market held that morning at Tain, and she was bringing the web there to be sold. In those times it was quite as customary for farmers to rear the flax which supplied them with clothing, as the corn which furnished them with food; and it was of course necessary, in some of the earlier processes of preparing the former, to leave it for weeks spread out on the fields, with little else to trust to for its protection than the honesty of neighbours. But to the neighbours of this woman the protection was, it would seem, incomplete; and the web she carried on this occasion was composed of stolen lint. She had nearly reached the western extremity of the lake, when, feeling fatigued, she seated herself by the water edge, and laid down the web beside her. But no sooner had it touched the earth than up it bounded three Scots ells into the air, and slowly unrolling fold after fold, until it had stretched itself out as when on the bleaching-green, it flew into the middle of the lake, and disappeared for ever. There are several other stories of the same class, but the one related may serve as a specimen of the whole.