when thus presented to the mind as personal
reminiscences, or as well-attested traditions, removed from the
original witnesses by but a single stage. All, for instance, which I
have yet read of witch-burnings has failed to impress me so strongly as
the recollections of an old lady who in 1722 was carried in her nurse's
arms--for she was almost an infant at the time--to witness a
witch-execution in the neighbourhood of Dornoch--the last which took
place in Scotland. The lady well remembered the awe-struck yet excited
crowd, the lighting of the fire, and the miserable appearance of the
poor fatuous creature whom it was kindled to consume, and who seemed to
be so little aware of her situation, that she held out her thin
shrivelled hands to warm them at the blaze. But what most impressed the
narrator--for it must have been a frightful incident in a sad
spectacle--was the circumstance that, when the charred remains of the
victim were sputtering and boiling amid the intense heat of the flames,
a cross gust of wind suddenly blew the smoke athwart the spectators, and
she felt in her attendant's arms as if in danger of being suffocated by
the horrible stench. I have heard described, too, by a man whose father
had witnessed the scene, an execution which took place, after a brief
and inadequate trial, on the burgh-gallows of Tain. The supposed
culprit, a Strathcarron Highlander, had been found lurking about the
place, noting, as was supposed, where the burghers kept their cattle,
and was hung as a spy; but they all, after the execution, came to deem
him innocent, from the circumstance that, when his dead body was
dangling in the wind, a white pigeon had come flying the way, and, as it
passed over, half-encircled the gibbet.

One of the two Culloden soldiers whom I remember was an old forester who
lived in a picturesque cottage among the woods of the Cromarty Hill; and
in his last illness, my uncles, whom I had always leave to accompany,
used not unfrequently to visit him. He had lived at the time his full
century, and a few months more: and I still vividly remember the large
gaunt face that used to stare from the bed as they entered, and the
huge, horny hand. He had been settled in life, previous to the year
1745, as the head gardener of a northern proprietor, and little dreamed
of being engaged in war; but the rebellion broke out; and as his master,
a stanch Whig, had volunteered to serve on behalf of his principles in
the royal