understand Erse, but could communicate in
Latin--Lovel and Edie Ochiltree--Discovery of Hidden
Treasure by Occult Science--"Rob Roy"--Fairies'
Caverns--Supposed Apparition in the Trossachs--Elfin
People at the Firth of Forth--A Minister taken away by
Fairies--Dame Glendinning's Tale--Lines from
"Marmion"--A Fairy Knight--Mysterious Steed.

Sir Walter Scott, the "Great Unknown," was sensibly affected by his
country's tales of witches, fairies, and ghosts. Whether the fear he
entertained proceeded from early impressions, or whether an awe
imperceptibly crept over him, through his frequent communings with old
people (when he was in more advanced life) who had no doubt of the
existence of witches and spirits, good and bad, visiting the earth,
and performing acts of benevolence or malevolence, according to the
inclination or caprice of the uncanny or unearthly agent, we cannot
say; but of one thing there can be no doubt, that even in years of
maturity he believed there were spirits that appeared to men, and
assisted them to perform actions they could not have done without
superhuman aid, and that by such beings future events were made known.
Were it not for the dash of superstition he threw here and there into
his tales, they would be comparatively of a commonplace description.
Like other writers of fiction, or authors whose writings rest on a
slender foundation of truth, Sir Walter Scott often brings forward a
witch, wizard, gipsy, fairy, ghost, and other spirits. A haunted
castle, a fortune-teller, and a good or evil genius are as
indispensable in a good story as a cruel parent, a rich uncle, and a
disappointed lover. None knew better than the great Scottish novelist
how to work on his readers' feelings; and hence his success.

Sir Walter tells, in the _Antiquary_, a story of Rab Tull, the
town-clerk, being in an old house searching for important documents,
but who was obliged to go to bed without finding them. The bodie had
got such a custom of tippling and tippling with his drunken cronies,
that he could not sleep without his punch, and as usual he took his
glass that evening. In the middle watches of night he had a fearful
wakening--he was never himself after it--and was stricken with the
dead palsy that very day four years. He thought he heard the bed
curtains move, and out he looked. Before him appeared an old gentleman
in a queer-fashioned dress. Rab, greatly frightened, asked