The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

Thus, MY GILLIE'S FATHER'S STORY Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie. He was well educated, a great reader, the best of salmon fishers, and I never heard a man curse William, Duke of Cumberland, with more enthusiasm. His father, still alive, was second-sighted, and so, to a moderate extent and without theory, was my friend. Among other anecdotes (confirmed in writing by the old gentleman) was this:-- The father had a friend who died in the house which they both occupied. The clothes of the deceased hung on pegs in the bedroom. One night the father awoke, and saw a stranger examining and handling the clothes of the defunct. Then came a letter from the dead man's brother, inquiring about the effects. He followed later, and was the stranger seen by my gillie's father. Thus the living but absent may haunt a house both noisily and by actual appearance. The learned even think, for very exquisite reasons, that "Silverton Abbey" {192} is haunted noisily by a "spirit of the living". Here is a case:--