ed to try to march in the
front. There was only one mounted officer; he rode a grey dragoon
horse, and wore a gold-laced hat and blue Hussar cloak, with wide open
sleeves lined with red. The two spectators observed him so
particularly that they said afterwards they should recognize him
anywhere. They were, however, afraid of being ill-treated or forced to
go along with the troops, whom they concluded to have come from
Ireland, and landed at Kyntyre; and whilst they were climbing over a
dyke to get out of their way, the whole thing vanished.

A phenomenon of the same sort was observed in the earlier part of this
century at Paderborn in Westphalia, and seen by at least thirty
people; but as, some years later, a review of twenty thousand men was
held on the very same spot, it was concluded that the vision must have
been some sort of second-sight--a faculty not uncommon in the
district.

Such spectral hosts, however, are sometimes seen where an army of
ordinary men could by no possibility have marched, either before or
after. One of the most remarkable accounts of such apparitions is
given by Miss Harriet Martineau, in her description of _The English
Lakes_. She writes as follows:--

"This Souter or Soutra Fell is the mountain on which ghosts appeared
in myriads, at intervals during ten years of the last century,
presenting the same appearances to twenty-six chosen witnesses, and to
all the inhabitants of all the cottages within view of the mountain,
and for a space of two hours and a half at one time--the spectral show
being closed by darkness! The mountain, be it remembered, is full of
precipices, which defy all marching of bodies of men; and the north
and west sides present a sheer perpendicular of 900 feet.

"On Midsummer Eve, 1735, a farm servant of Mr. Lancaster, half a mile
from the mountain, saw the eastern side of its summit covered with
troops, which pursued their onward march for an hour. They came, in
distinct bodies, from an eminence on the north end, and disappeared in
a niche in the summit. When the poor fellow told his tale, he was
insulted on all hands, as original observers usually are when they see
anything wonderful. Two years after, also on a Midsummer Eve, Mr.
Lancaster saw some men there, apparently following their horses, as if
they had returned from hunting. He thought nothing of this; but he
happened to look up again ten minutes after, and saw the figures, now
mounted, and followed by an inter