"I have sent you an account of an apparition as remarkable, perhaps, as anything you ever heard of, and which, considered in all its circumstances, leaves, I think, no ground of doubt to any man of common-sense. The person to whom it appeared is one William Soutar, a tenant of Balgowan's, who lives in Middle Mause, within about half a mile from this place on the other side of the river, and in view from our windows of Craighall House. He is about thirty-seven years of age, as he says, and has a wife and bairns. "The following is an account from his own mouth; and because there are some circumstances fit to be taken in as you go along, I have given them with reference at the end, {145b} that I may not interrupt the sense of the account, or add anything to it. Therefore, it begins:-- "'In the month of December in the year 1728, about sky-setting, I and my servant, with several others living in the town (farm-steading) heard a scratching (screeching, crying), and I followed the noise, with my servant, a little way from the town (farm-steading throughout). We both thought we saw what had the appearance to be a fox, and hounded the dogs at it, but they would not pursue it. {146a} "'About a month after, as I was coming from Blair {146b} alone, about the same time of the night, a big dog appeared to me, of a dark greyish colour, between the Hilltown and Knockhead {146c} of Mause, on a lea rig a little below the road, and in passing by it touched me sonsily (firmly) on the thigh at my haunch-bane (hip-bone), upon which I pulled my staff from under my arm and let a stroke at it; and I had a notion at the time that I hit it, and my haunch was painful all that night. However, I had no great thought of its being anything particular or extraordinary, but that it might be a mad dog wandering. About a year after that, to the best of my memory, in December month, about the same time of the night and in the same place, when I was alone, it appeared to me again as before, and passed by me at some distance; and then I began to think it might be something more than ordinary. "'In the month of December, 1730, as I was coming from Perth, from the Claith (cloth) Market a little before sky-setting, it appeared to me again, being alone, at the same place, and passed by me just as before. I had some suspicion of it then likewise, but I began to think that a neighbour of mine in the Hilltown having an ox lately dead, it might be a dog that had been at the carrion, by which I endeavoured to put the suspicion out of my head.