rrified. He continued till next day in the same state,
but at length his senses returned and he desired to see the minister
alone.

"After a long conversation with him he called all his family round his
bed, and required from each of his children and his wife a solemn
promise that they would none of them ever pass over a particular spot
in the moor between Longformacus and Greenlaw, known by the name of
'The Foul Fords' (it is the ford over a little water-course just east
of Castle Shields). He assigned no reason to them for this demand,
but the promise was given and he spoke no more, and died that evening.

"About ten years after his death, his eldest son Henry Keane had to go
to Greenlaw on business, and in the afternoon he prepared to return
home. The last person who saw him as he was leaving the town was the
blacksmith of Spottiswood, John Michie. He tried to persuade Michie
to accompany him home, which he refused to do as it would take him
several miles out of his way. Keane begged him most earnestly to go
with him as he said he _must_ pass the Foul Fords that night, and he
would rather go through hell-fire than do so. Michie asked him why he
said he _must_ pass the Foul Fords, as by going a few yards on either
side of them he might avoid them entirely. He persisted that he
_must_ pass them and Michie at last left him, a good deal surprised
that he should talk of going over the Foul Fords when every one knew
that he and his whole family were bound, by a promise to their dead
father, never to go by the place.

"Next morning a labouring man from Castle Shields, by name Adam
Redpath, was going to his work (digging sheep-drains on the moor),
when on the Foul Fords he met Henry Keane lying stone dead and with no
mark of violence on his body. His hat, coat, waistcoat, shoes and
stockings were lying at about 100 yards distance from him on the
Greenlaw side of the Fords, and while his flannel drawers were off and
lying with the rest of his clothes, his trousers were on. Mr. Ord,
the minister of Longformacus, told one or two persons what John Keane
(the father) had said to him on his deathbed, and by degrees the story
got abroad. It was this. Keane said that he was returning home
slowly after his sister's funeral, looking on the ground, when he was
suddenly roused by hearing the tramping of horses, and on looking up
he saw a large troop of riders coming towards him two and two. What
was his horror when he saw