onquest, the cup of an Indian
chief was lifted up by an invisible hand, and set down empty. In that
case, too, stones were thrown, as by the Devil of Glenluce.

And what was the end of it all? Mr. Sinclair has not even taken the
trouble to inquire. It seems by some conjuration or other, the Devil
suffered himself to be put away, and gave the weaver a habitation. The
weaver "has been a very Odd man that endured so long these marvellous
disturbances."

This is the tale which Mr. Sinclair offers, without mentioning his
authority. He complains that Dr. Henry More had plagiarised it, from his
book of Hydrostatics. Two points may be remarked. First: modern
Psychical Inquirers are more particular about evidence than Mr. Sinclair.
Not for nothing do we live in an age of science. Next: the stories of
these "stirs" are always much the same everywhere, in Glenluce, at
Tedworth, where the Drummer came, in Peru, in Wesley's house, in heroic
Iceland, when Glam, the vampire, "rode the roofs." It is curious to
speculate on how the tradition of making themselves little nuisances in
this particular manner has been handed down among children, if we are to
suppose that children do the trick. Last autumn a farmer's house in
Scotland was annoyed exactly as the weaver's home was, and that within a
quarter of a mile of a well-known man of science. The mattress of the
father was tenanted by something that wriggled like a snake. The
mattress was opened, nothing was found, and the disturbance began again
as soon as the bed was restored to its place. This occurred when the
farmer's children had been sent to a distance.

One cannot but be perplexed by the problem which these tales suggest.
Almost bare of evidence as they are, their great number, their wide
diffusion, in many countries and in times ancient and modern, may
establish some substratum of truth. Scott mentions a case in which the
imposture was detected by a sheriff's officer. But a recent anecdote
makes me almost distrust the detection.

Some English people, having taken a country house in Ireland, were vexed
by the usual rappings, stone-throwings, and all the rest of the business.
They sent to Dublin for two detectives, who arrived. On their first
night, the lady of the house went into a room, where she found one of the
policemen asleep in his chair. Being a lively person, she rapped twice
or thrice on the table. He awakened, and said: "Ah, so I suspected. It
was