on it really makes my head swim, and that is not
safe. Miss Ferrier comes out to us. This gifted personage, besides
having great talents, has conversation the least _exigeante_ of any
author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I
have encountered,--simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at
repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the blue
stocking.[459]

_May_ 13.--Mr., or more properly Dr., Macintosh Mackay comes out to see
me, a simple learned man, and a Highlander who weighs his own nation
justly--a modest and estimable person.

I was beat up at midnight to sign a warrant against some delinquents. I
afterwards heard that the officers were pursued by a mob from
Galashiels, with purpose of deforcing them as far as St. Boswell's
Green, but the men were lodged in Jedburgh Castle.

Reports of mobs at all the elections, which, I fear, will prove too
true. They have much to answer for who in gaiety of heart have brought a
peaceful and virtuous population to such a pass.

_May_ 14.--Rode with Lockhart and Mr. Mackay through the plantations,
and spent a pleasanter day than of late months. Story of a haunted glen
in Laggan:--A chieftain's daughter or cousin loved a man of low degree.
Her kindred discovered the intrigue and punished the lover's presumption
by binding the unhappy man, and laying him naked in one of the large
ants' nests common in a Highland forest. He died in agony of course, and
his mistress became distracted, roamed wildly in the glen till she died,
and her phantom, finding no repose, haunted it after her death to such a
degree that the people shunned the road by day as well as night. Mrs.
Grant of Laggan tells the story, with the addition, that her husband,
then minister of Laggan, fixed a religious meeting in the place, and, by
the exercise of public worship there, overcame the popular terror of the
Red Woman. Dr. Mackay seems to think that she was rather banished by a
branch of the Parliamentary road running up the glen than by the prayers
of his predecessor. Dr. Mackay, it being Sunday, favoured us with an
excellent discourse on the Socinian controversy, which I wish my friend
Mr. Laidlaw had heard.

_May_ 15.--Dr. M. left us early this morning; and I rode and studied as
usual, working at the _Tales of My Grandfather_. Our good and learned
Doctor wishes to go down the Tweed to Berwick. It is a laudable
curiosity, and I hope will be agreeably satisfied.