On leaving the hind's cottage on the Border, I hasted to the
north-west, because in that quarter I perceived the highest and wildest
hills before me. As I crossed the mountains above Hawick, I exchanged
clothes with a poor homely shepherd, whom I found lying on a hill-side,
singing to himself some woeful love ditty. He was glad of the change,
and proud of his saintly apparel; and I was no less delighted with
mine, by which I now supposed myself completely disguised; and I found
moreover that in this garb of a common shepherd I was made welcome in
every house. I slept the first night in a farm-house nigh to the church
of Roberton, without hearing or seeing aught extraordinary; yet I
observed next morning that all the servants kept aloof from me, and
regarded me with looks of aversion. The next night I came to this
house, where the farmer engaged me as a shepherd; and, finding him a
kind, worthy, and religious man, I accepted of his terms with great
gladness. I had not, however, gone many times to the sheep, before all
the rest of the shepherds told my master that I knew nothing about
herding, and begged of him to dismiss me. He perceived too well the
truth of their intelligence; but, being much taken with my learning and
religious conversation, he would not put me away, but set me to herd
his cattle.
It was lucky for me that before I came here a report had prevailed,
perhaps for an age, that this farm-house was haunted at certain seasons
by a ghost. I say it was lucky for me for I had not been in it many
days before the same appalling noises began to prevail around me about
midnight, often continuing till near the dawning. Still they kept
aloof, and without doors; for this gentleman's house, like the cottage
I was in formerly, seemed to be a sanctuary from all demoniacal power.
He appears to be a good man and a just, and mocks at the idea of
supernatural agency, and he either does not hear these persecuting
spirits or will not acknowledge it, though of late he appears much
perturbed.
The consternation of the menials has been extreme. They ascribe all to
the ghost, and tell frightful stories of murders having been committed
there long ago. Of late, however, they are beginning to suspect that it
is I that am haunted; and, as I have never given them any satisfactory
account of myself, they are whispering that I am a murderer, and
haunted by the spirits of those I have slain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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