weight hanging on his conscience, that "on one
occasion, when tempteed by wet, cold, and hunger in the south of
Scotland, he ventured to eat a few potatoes dressed under the roast,
nothing less repugnant to feelings being to be had."[73]

[Footnote 73: See an Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral
Duty. By Joseph Ritson.]

To return to the services of him of mightier renown, whose genial
drolleries led to these notices. Scott printed, as a contribution to his
favourite club, the record of the trial of two Highlanders for murder,
which brought forth some highly characteristic incidents. The victim was
a certain Sergeant Davis, who had charge of one of the military parties
or guards dispersed over the Highlands to keep them in order after the
'45. Davis had gone from his own post at Braemar up Glen Clunie to meet
the guard from Glenshee. He chose to send his men back and take a day's
shooting among the wild mountains at the head of the glen, and was seen
no more. How he was disposed of could easily be divined in a general
way, but there were no particulars to be had. It happened, however, that
there was one Highlander who, for reasons best known to himself--they
were never got at--had come to the resolution of bringing his brother
Highlanders, who had made away with the sergeant, to justice. It was
necessary for his own safety, however, that he should be under the
pressure of a motive or impulse sufficient to justify so heartless and
unnatural a proceeding, otherwise he would himself have been likely to
follow the sergeant's fate. Any reference to his conscience, the love of
justice, respect for the laws of the land, or the like, would of course
have been received with well-merited ridicule and scorn. He must have
some motive which a sensible Highlander could admit as probable in
itself, and sufficient for its purpose.

Accordingly the accuser said he had been visited by the sergeant's
ghost, who had told him everything, and laid on him the heavy burden of
bringing his slaughterers in the flesh to their account. If that were
not done, the troubled spirit would not cease to walk the earth, and so
long as he walked would the afflicted denouncer continue to be the
victim of his ghostly visits. The case was tried at Edinburgh, and
though the evidence was otherwise clear and complete, the Lowland jury
were perplexed and put out by the supernatural episode. A Highland
story, with a ghost acting witness at second-hand