"On the evening o’ the battle day my father stude on duty as an advanced sentinel frae the French picquets; placed by the Mareschal Saxe in the direction o’ Maestricht, where the British army lay. It was just aboot the gloaming, the clouds were gathering in the lift and darkening the flat, level, I may say meeserable landscape; and my faither, puir man, strade sorrowfully to and fro on his lanely post, sighing sairly as he thocht on mony a braw and brave comrade and clansman then lying cauld and stiff on the plain o’ Val, and ower wham nae coronach could be sung, or cairn raised in the land o’ the stranger. He thocht too o’ his humble sheiling at hame, on the Wedders-hill, and compared the view frae it wi’ the ’Lawlands o’ Holland,’ wi’ the dull marshy flats, the yellow canals, and slaw-moving barges, the windmills, and smoky toons about Laffeldt. Different indeed was the scenery frae that around the lanely auld thack cottage at hame, where the blue Loch-Archaig rolled to the base o’ the dark an’ towering mountains, covered wi’ the siller birch or black pines to their vera tap. "Puir man! melancholy and sad he grew, but his surprise was aroused when he saw a Hieland soldier, wearing a garb the vera counterpart o’ his ain, walking slowly, at a few yards distance, as if likewise on sentry. My faither stoppit to observe him, and the stranger stoppit also; and the outline o’ his form was distinctly seen, as he stude wi’ his back to the west, whare the sky was a’ crimson and gowd wi’ the last flush o’ the day that had passed awa’. My faither challenged twice aloud, but gat nae response; and his birse beginning to rise, he made a motion as if handling his musquet, biting his cartridge, and a’ that, ye ken. The stranger did sae likewise, imitating his motions exactly as his shadow on the wa’ or reflection in a looking-glass wad hae dune. A queer and eerie sensation passed over my father on behauldin’ this, and a souching cam ower his heart when he bethoucht him that a’ wasna richt. Yet boldly he gaed towards the figure, and step to step as he took them, mimicking ilka motion, the ither advanced also, until my faither made an involuntary stop, and it did sae too. "At that moment a feeling o’ awfu’ and immeasurable horror entered the soul o’ my faither, when he viewed in the face and figure o’ the stranger an exact counterpart o’ himsel’—every lineament o’ his face, every check in his tartan, were the same—the same his arms and badges. Then did he ken that he beheld his wraith, and that the hour of his departure was at hand.[*] As the expression o’ his face became distorted wi’ terror and awe, the features o’ the wraith or bogle underwent the same change, and his ain een seemed glaring back upon himsel wi’ affricht. He rushed madly forward wi’ his charged bayonet, but the form melted into thin air, and disappeared.