. Yet
there may be various modes of explaining this mysterious story, of which
the following conjecture may pass for one.

The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to the fact of the
murder, perhaps as an accomplice or otherwise, and may also suppose
that, from motives of remorse for the action, or of enmity to those who
had committed it, he entertained a wish to bring them to justice. But
through the whole Highlands there is no character more detestable than
that of an informer, or one who takes what is called Tascal-money, or
reward for discovery of crimes. To have informed against Terig and
MacDonald might have cost MacPherson his life; and it is far from being
impossible that he had recourse to the story of the ghost, knowing well
that his superstitious countrymen would pardon his communicating the
commission entrusted to him by a being from the other world, although he
might probably have been murdered if his delation of the crime had been
supposed voluntary. This explanation, in exact conformity with the
sentiments of the Highlanders on such subjects, would reduce the whole
story to a stroke of address on the part of the witness.

It is therefore of the last consequence, in considering the truth of
stories of ghosts and apparitions, to consider the possibility of wilful
deception, whether on the part of those who are agents in the supposed
disturbances, or the author of the legend. We shall separately notice an
instance or two of either kind.

The most celebrated instance in which human agency was used to copy the
disturbances imputed to supernatural beings refers to the ancient palace
of Woodstock, when the Commissioners of the Long Parliament came down to
dispark what had been lately a royal residence. The Commissioners
arrived at Woodstock, 13th October, 1649, determined to wipe away the
memory of all that connected itself with the recollection of monarchy in
England. But in the course of their progress they were encountered by
obstacles which apparently came from the next world. Their bed-chambers
were infested with visits of a thing resembling a dog, but which came
and passed as mere earthly dogs cannot do. Logs of wood, the remains of
a very large tree called the King's Oak, which they had splintered into
billets for burning, were tossed through the house, and the chairs
displaced and shuffled about. While they were in bed the feet of their
couches were lifted higher than their heads, and then drop