nough the great
thread manufactories of Renfrewshire owed their origin to this Miss
Shaw, aided by a friend who had acquired some technical secrets in
Holland. She married a minister in 1718, and probably her share in
an abominable crime lay light on her conscience. Her fellow-
sufferer from witchcraft, a young Sandilands, son of Lord Torphichen
(1720), became a naval officer of distinguished gallantry.

Wodrow does not appear to have witnessed the execution at Paisley,
one of the last in Scotland, but he had no doubt that witches should
be put to death. In 1720, when the son of Lord Torphichen exhibited
some curious phenomena, exaggerated by report into clairvoyance and
flying in the air, nobody was punished. In spite of his
superstition in regard to witches, Wodrow (September 20, 1697)
sensibly explains a death-wraith by the anxiety of the lady who
beheld it. He also, still in the diary, records a case of second
sight, but that occurred in Argyleshire. It will be found, in fact,
that all the second-sighted people except some ministers during the
sufferings (and they reckoned as prophets) were Highlanders.
Considering his avidity for ghost-stories, it is remarkable that he
scarcely ever receives them at even second hand, and that most of
them are remote in point of time. On the other side, he secures a
few religious visions, as of shining lights comforting devout
ladies, from the person concerned. His narratives fall into regular
categories, Haunted Houses, Ghosts, Wraiths, Second Sight,
Consolatory Divine Visions. Thus Mr. Stewart's uncle, Harry, 'ane
eminent Christian, and very joviall,' at a drinking party saw
himself in bed, and his coffin at his bed-foot. This may be
explained as a case of 'the horrors,' a malady incident to the
jovial. He died in a week, In vino veritas.

Lord Middleton's ghost-story Wodrow got from the son of a man who,
as Lauderdale's chaplain, heard Middleton tell it at dinner. He had
made a covenant with the Laird of Babigni that the first who died
should appear to the survivor. Babigni was slain in battle,
Middleton was put in the Tower, where Babigni appeared to him, sat
with him for an hour by the clock, and predicted the Restoration.
'His hand was hote and soft,' but Middleton, brave in the field, was
much alarmed. He had probably drunk a good deal in the Tower. This
anecdote was very widely rumoured. Aubrey publishes a version of it
in his Miscellanies, and Law gives a