been killed, either accidentally or purposely, in or near that
spot.

_The Jumping Ghost_

Mr. George Sinclair, in his work _Satan's Invisible World Discovered_,
gives a detailed account of hauntings in a house in Mary King's Close,
Edinburgh.

The house, at the time Mr. Sinclair writes, was occupied by Mr. Thomas
Coltheart, a law agent. Seated one afternoon at home reading, Mrs.
Coltheart was immeasurably startled at seeing, suspended in mid-air
gazing at her, the head of an old man. She uttered some sort of
exclamation, most probably a cry, and the apparition at once vanished.
Some nights later, when in bed, both she and her husband saw the same
head, which was presently joined by the head of a child, and a long,
naked arm, which tried to catch hold of them.

On another occasion, a member of the Coltheart family was greatly
alarmed by the sudden appearance of a large dog, which leaped on the
chair by her side, and as suddenly disappeared.

Every effort was made to lay the ghosts. Ministers--and one knows how
pious Scotch clergymen are--were called in, but their exhortations,
instead of dispelling or even minimizing the phenomena, only increased
them. It was a case of more prayers, more spooks; which state of
affairs, however complimentary to the ministers' powers of address, was
scarcely as comforting to the Colthearts, who, unable to bear the
strange sights and noises any longer, evacuated the premises. As no
other tenants could be found, the house was eventually pulled down, and
a row of fine modern buildings now occupy the site. As the history of
the place could never be traced with any degree of authenticity, one can
do no more than speculate as to the cause of the disturbances, which, I
am inclined to think, were due to the phantoms of people and animals
that had once actually lived and died there.

_Dogs seen before a Death_

Mrs. Crowe, in her _Night Side of Nature_, mentions the case of a young
lady named P----, who saw a big black dog twice suddenly appear and
disappear by her side, immediately before the death of her mother.

In _The Unseen World_ a story is also told of the phantasm of a big
black dog appearing on the bed of a Cornish child, doomed to die shortly
afterwards, the same dog invariably manifesting itself before the death
of any member of the child's family.

There are so many cases of a similar kind--one hears of them nearly
everywhere one goes--that one is led to believe some of