Ghosts, of course, were numerous enough, and there was little need to make reckless additions to their number. The floating ballads were studded with them, and each district had its tales of ghostly horror. Among the ghosts of national celebrity there was “Pearlin’ Jean,” of whom the traditional catch runs—
“O Pearlin’ Jean! O Pearlin’ Jean!
She haunts the house, she haunts the green,
And glowers on us a’ wi’ her wul’-cat een.”
“In my youth,” says Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, “Pearlin’ Jean was the most remarkable ghost in Scotland, and my terror when a child. Our old nurse, Jenny Blackadder, had been a servant at Allanbank, and often heard her rustling in silks up and down stairs and along the passages. She never saw her, but her husband did. She was a French woman, whom the first Baronet of Allanbank, then Mr. Stuart, met with at Paris during his tour to finish his education as a gentleman. Some people said she was a nun; in which case she must have been a Sister of Charity, as she appears not to have been confined to a cloister. After some time young Stuart either became faithless to the lady, or was suddenly recalled to Scotland by his parents, and had got into his carriage, at the door of his hotel, when his Dido unexpectedly made her appearance, and, stepping on the fore-wheel of the coach to address her lover, he ordered the postillion to drive on, the consequence of which was that the lady fell, and one of the wheels going over her forehead, killed her.
“In a dusky autumnal evening, when Mr. Stuart drove under the arched gateway of Allanbank, he perceived Pearlin’ Jean sitting on the top, her head and shoulders covered with blood. After this, for many years, the house was haunted—doors shut and opened with great noise at midnight; the rustling of silks and pattering of high-heeled shoes were heard in bedrooms and passages. Nurse Jenny said there were seven ministers called in together at one time to lay the spirit; ‘but they didna muckle good, my dear.’ The picture of the ghost was hung up between those of the lover and his lady, and kept her comparatively quiet; but when taken away she became worse-natured than ever.”
Another was “Thrummy Cap,” a kindly ghost, celebrated in popular verse by John Burness, the cousin-german of the national poet. Then there were “Lady Greensleeves,” who haunted the castle of Huntingtower, in Perthshire; the “Ghost o’ Mause,” a Blairgowrie spectre, who revisited the glimpses of the moon in the shape of a fox; but such a fox as had the power of speech, and to which no farmer’s dog in the parish would be induced to give chase—and many besides. One of “Lady Greensleeves’” appearances was mercifully opportune. In a lone house on the estate of Huntingtower there lived an old man, the sole occupant of the building, and reputed to have hidden riches in some secret place in his dwelling. One night a number of masked villains broke in upon him and demanded, on pain of death, that he should show them where his money was concealed. In vain did he protest that he had no money in the house, save a few shillings, to which he made them welcome. Laying hands on him, dragging him to the floor, and brandishing their drawn knives over his hoary head, they swore that he must die for the lie which he had told them. As the oath was on their lips their intended victim uttered a wild shriek, and stretched out his hands imploringly towards a small two-paned window in the wall of the house. To that window the ruffians turned their eyes keenly, when lo! through the under pane a female face, pale as death, but with eyes sparkling like diamonds, stared in on them. “Oh, Lady Greensleeves,” cried the old man, “winna ye come an’ help me?” The name was as terror-striking as was the weird face at the window, and throwing down their knives, the robbers rushed from the house, and fled through the darkness, as if all the rogue-catchers of the shire had been at their heels.
Belief in the supernatural, it is worth noting, has not been confined exclusively to the ignorant classes. Lord Byron was sensitively superstitious. Sir David Brewster admitted it to have a certain power over him. James Thomson, the author of the “Seasons,” had a great horror of the supernatural; and his fear of ghosts and goblins afforded much amusement to his fellow-collegians at Edinburgh. His bedfellow, knowing that he was afraid to remain alone in the dark, quietly slipped away from him one night when he was asleep. On waking, he rushed out of the room like a frightened child, and called loudly on his landlady for assistance. Dr. Somerville, who relates this anecdote upon the authority of Mr. Cranston, late minister of Ancrum, who lodged in the same room with the poet at Edinburgh, attributes his weakness on this subject to the following circumstance:—
“The belief in ghosts, witches, fairies, etc., was so exceedingly prevalent at the beginning of this century that it would have been deemed heretical in any clergyman to have called in question their existence, or even their palpable interposition. One of the last appearances of these tremendous agents happened (I am speaking in the language of the vulgar) at Woolie, in the parish of Southdean, where Mr. Thomson was minister. Ever since I entered into life, it was necessary to speak guardedly upon the subject of the Woolie Ghost, as I myself have more than once given offence by my silence on the subject. The sequel of the story I heard, not at second-hand, but from the lips of a person, and that of rank and education, above the vulgar. Mr. Thomson, the father of the poet, in a fatal hour, was prevailed upon to attempt laying the evil spirit. He appointed his diet of catechising at Woolie, the scene of the ghost’s exploits, and behold, when he had just begun to pray, a ball of fire strikes him on the head. Overwhelmed with consternation, he could not utter another word, or make a second attempt to pray. He was carried home to his house, where he languished under the oppression of diabolic malignity, and at length expired. Only think what an impression this story—I do not say fact, I say this story, for of it there can be no doubt—must necessarily have made upon the vigorous imagination of the young poet.”
The ghost stories of Scotland would fill a large volume. Pennant tells of a poor visionary in Breadalbane who had been working in his cabbage garden, and imagined that he was suddenly raised into the air and conveyed over the fence into a corn field, where he found himself surrounded by a crowd of men and women, many of whom he knew to be dead. On his uttering the name of God they all vanished, except a female sprite, who obliged him to promise an assignation at the very same hour of the same day next week. Being left, he found his hair tied in double knots, and that he had almost lost the use of speech. However, he kept his appointment with the spectre, whom he soon saw coming floating through the air towards him; but she pretended to be in a hurry, bade him go on his way, and no harm should befall him. Such was the dreamer’s account of the matter. But it is incredible, adds the narrator, what mischief this story did in the neighbourhood. The friends and relatives of the deceased, whom the old dotard had named, were in the utmost distress in finding them in such bad company in the other world; and the almost extinct belief in ghosts and apparitions seemed for a time to be revived.