We passed onwards, and paused for a few seconds where the parish of Nigg borders on that of Fearn, beside an old hawthorn hedge and a few green mounds. “And here,” said my companion, “is the scene of another ghost story, that made some noise in its day; but it is now more than a century old, and the details are but imperfectly preserved. You have read, in Johnson’s Life of Denham, that Charles II., during his exile in France, succeeded in procuring a contribution of ten thousand pounds from the Scotch that at that time wandered as itinerant traders over Poland. The old hedge beside you, and the few green mounds beyond it, once formed the dwelling-house and garden fence of one of these Polish traders, who had returned in old age to his native country, possessed, as all supposed, of very considerable wealth. He was known to the country folk as the ‘Rich Polander.’ On his death, however, which took place suddenly, his strong-box was found to contain only a wall, bequeathing to his various relations large sums that were vested, no one knew where. Some were of opinion that he had lent money to a considerable amount to one or two neighbouring proprietors; and some had heard him speak of a brother in Poland, with whom he had left the greater part of his capital, and who had been robbed and murdered by banditti, somewhere on the frontier territories, when on his return to Scotland. In the middle of these surmisings, however, the Polander himself returned, as if to settle the point. The field there to the right, in front of the ruins, was at that time laid out as a lawn; there was a gate in the eastern corner, and another in the west; and there ran between them a road that passed the front of the house. And almost every evening the apparition of the Polander, for years after his decease, walked along that road. It came invariably from the east, lingered long in front of the building, and then, gliding towards the west, disappeared in passing through the gateway. But no one had courage enough to meet with it, or address it; and till this day the legacies of the Polander remain unpaid. I was acquainted in my younger days with a very old man, who has assured me that he repeatedly saw the apparition when on its twilight peregrinations along the road; and once as he lay a-bed in the morning in his mother’s cottage, long after the sun had risen. There was a broad stream of light falling through an opening in the roof, athwart the grey and mottled darkness of the interior, and the apparition stood partly in the light, partly in the shadow. The richly-embroidered waistcoat, white cravat, and small clothes of crimson velvet, were distinctly visible; but he could see only the faint glitter of the laced hat and of the broad shoe-buckles; and though the thin withered hands were clearly defined, the features were wholly invisible.” [Sidenote: THE ONE-EYED STEPMOTHER.]