d was suspected, she said 'she would raise the devil, but she
would know who the thief was'. Taking, therefore, a Bible, she went
into a cellar, where she drew a circle round her, and turned a sieve
on end twice, from right to left. In her hand she held nine
feathers from the tail of a black cock. She next read Psalm li.
forwards, and then backwards Revelations ix. 19. 'He' then
appeared, dressed as a sailor with a blue cap. At each question she
threw three feathers at him: finally he showed as a black man with
a long tail. Meanwhile all the dogs in Irvine were barking, as in
Greece when Hecate stood by the cross-ways. The maid now came and
told Mrs. Montgomery (on information received) that the stolen plate
was in the box of a certain servant, where, of course, she had
probably placed it herself. However the raiser of the devil was
imprisoned for the spiritual offence. She had learned the rite 'at
Dr. Colvin's house in Ireland, who used to practise this'.

The experiment may easily be repeated by the scientific.

Though Mr. Law is strong in witches and magic, he has very few ghost
stories; indeed, according to his philosophy, even a common wraith
of a living person is really the devil in that disguise. The
learned Mr. Wodrow, too, for all his extreme pains, cannot be called
a very successful amateur of spectres. A mighty ghost hunter was
the Rev. Robert Wodrow of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire, the learned
historian of the sufferings of the Kirk of Scotland (1679-1734).
Mr. Wodrow was an industrious antiquarian, a student of geology, as
it was then beginning to exist, a correspondent for twenty years of
Cotton Mather, and a good-hearted kind man, that would hurt nobody
but a witch or a Papist. He had no opportunity to injure members of
either class, but it is plain, from his four large quarto volumes,
called Analecta, that he did not lack the will. In his Analecta Mr.
Wodrow noted down all the news that reached him, scandals about 'The
Pretender,' Court Gossip, Heresies of Ministers, Remarkable
Providences, Woful Apparitions, and 'Strange Steps of Providence'.
Ghosts, second sight, dreams, omens, premonitions, visions, did
greatly delight him, but it is fair to note that he does not vouch
for all his marvels, but merely jots them down, as matters of
hearsay. Thus his pages are valuable to the student of
superstition, because they contain 'the clash of the country' for
about forty years, and illustrate the r