The Story of David Hunter, Neat-berd to the bishop of Down and Connor, at Portmore in Ireland.

DAVID

AVID Hunter, neat herd to the Bishop's house at Portmore, there appeared to him one night, carrying a log of wood into the dairy, an old woman, which amazed him, for he knew her not; but his fright made him throw away his log of wood and run into the house. The next night she appeared again to him, and he could not chuse but follow her all night; and so al. most every night for three quarters of a year. Whenever she came, he must go with her through the woods at a good round rate; and the poor fellow looked as if he was bewitched and travelled of his legs. And when in bed with his wife, if she appeared, he must rise and go. And because his wife could not hold him in his bed, she would go too and walk after him till day, though she saw nothing; but his little dog was so well acquainted with the apparition, that he would follow her as well as her master. If a tree stood in her walk he observed her always to go through it. In all this while she spoke not.

But one day the said David going over a hedge, into the highway, she came just against him, and he cried out, "Lord bless me, would I was dead; shall I ne

"ver be delivered from this misery?" At which, and the Lord bless me too, says she, it was very happy you spoke first, for till then, I had no power to speak, though I have followed you so long. My name, says she, 'is Margeret,I lived here before the war, and had one son by my husband: when he died I married a soldier, by whom I had several children, which the former son maintained, else we must all have starved. He lives beyond the Baun-water, pray go to him, and bid him dig under such hearth, and there he shall find twenty eight shillings. Let him pay what I owe in such a place, and the rest to the charge unpaid at my funeral; and go to my son that lives here, which I had by my latter husband, and tell him that he lives a wicked and dissolute life, and is very unnatural and ungrateful to his brother that maintained him; and if he does not mend his life God Almighty will destroy him."

David Hunter told her he never knew her, No, says she, I died seven years before you came into the country; but for all that, if he would do her message, she would never hurt him. But he deferred doing as the apparition bid him, and she appeared the night after as he lay in bed, and struck him on the shoulder very hard; at which he cried out, and asked her if she did not promise she would not hurt him? that was if he did her message, if not, she him. He told her, he could not go now, the waters were out. She said, she was

She said,

would kill

by reason content he

should

should stay till they were abated; but charged him afterwards not to fail her. So he did her errand, and afterwards she appeared and gave him thanks. For now, said she, I shall be at rest, therefore pray you lift me up from the ground, and I will trouble you no more. So David Hunter lifted her up from the ground,and as he said, she felt just like a bag of feathers in his arms. So she vanished, and he heard most delicate music as she went off, over his head, and he never was troubled again..

This account the poor fellow gave us every day as the apparition spoke to him; and my Lady. Conway came to Portmore, where she asked the fellow the same questions and many more. This I know to be true, being all the while with my Lord of Down, and the fellow a poor neat-herd there.

THOMAS ALCOCK,

The following affair made no inconsiderable noise in the Norib, about the middle of the present [18/b] Century, and is still in the memory of many men yet living,

N the first Sabbath day, in the year 1749, Mr. Lilly, the son of a farmer in the parish of Kelso, in Roxburgshire, a young man intended for the church

of.

4

of Scotland, and who then had made no small progress in literature, remained at home to keep the house, in company with a shepherd's boy, all the rest of the family, except a maid servant, being at sermon. The young student and the boy being sitting by the fire, whilst the girl was gone to the well for some water, a venerable old gentleman, clad in an antique garb, presented himself, and after some little ceremony, desired the student to take up the family bible, which lay on the table, and turn over to a certain chapter and verse in the second book of Kings. The student did so, and read, "there is death in the pot.

On this the old man, with much apparent agitation, pointed to the great family pot boiling on the fire, declaring, that the maid had cast a great quantity of arsenic into it, with intent to poison the whole family, to the end she might rob the house of the hundred guineas which she knew her master had lately taken for sheep and grain, which he had sold. Just as he was so saying, the maid came to the door, announcing her

approach by the noise of the nails in

her shoe heels.

The old gentleman said to the student, remember my warning and save the lives of the family! and that instant disappeared.

The maid entered witha smiling countenance, emptied her pail and returned to the well for a fresh supply. Mean while young Lily put some oatmeal into a wood

en dish, skimmed the pot of the fat and mixed it for what Lis called brose or croudy, and when the maid returned

he

he, with the boy, appeared busily employed in eating the mixture. Come Peggy, said the student, here is enough left for you; are not you fond of croudy? She smiled, took up the dish, and reaching a horn spoon, withdrew to the back room. The shepherd's dog followed her, unseen by the boy, and the poor animal, on the croudy being put down by the maid, fell a victim to his voracious appetite; for before the return of the family from church, it was enormously swelled, and expired in great agony.

The student enjoined the boy to remain quite passive for the present, mean while he attempted to shew his ingenuity in resolving the cause of the canine catastrophe into insanity, in order to keep the girl in countenance till a fit opportunity of discovering the plot should present itself.

Soon after his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, with the other servants, returned from church, all very hungery, and eager to sit down round the rustic board,

The table was instantly replenished with wooden bowls and trenchers, while a heap of barley bannocks graced the top. The kail or broth, infused with leeks or winter cabbages, was poured forth in plenty; and Peggy, with a prodigal hand, filled all the dishes with the homely dainties of Tiviotdale. The master began grace, and all hats and bonnets were instantly off? "O Lord," prayed the farmer, "we have been hearing thy word, from the mouth of thy aged servant, Mr.

Ramsay