The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

"The Soutars disliked much to be questioned on the subject of the Dog of Mause. Thomas Soutar, who was tenant in Easter Mause, formerly named Knowhead of Mause, and died last year upwards of eighty years of age, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed a man; that they came by Soutar's Hill, and having asked the name of the hill, were told 'Soutar,' upon which they said, 'Soutar be it then,' and took that name. One of the brothers went south and the others came north." {155a} The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; in Shropshire they usually "come" as bulls. (See Miss Burne's Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o' Mause. M. d'Assier, a French Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert "atavistically" to lower forms of animal life! {155b} We now, in accordance with a promise already made, give an example of the ghosts of beasts! Here an explanation by the theory that the consciousness of the beast survives death and affects with a hallucination the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass current. But if such cases were as common and told on evidence as respectable as that which vouches for appearances of the dead, believers in these would either have to shift their ground, or to grant that Admitted to that equal sky, Our faithful dog may bear us company.