circumstances connected with the physical laws of matter. But I am
rather inclined to hold, with another class of inquirers, that the
origin of such marvels must be looked for in the mind of the seers;
although I do not go the length of their scepticism, and deny the actual
existence of the ghostly show, as a real and visible spectacle, before
the eyes.

These observations will derive some illustration at least, if not entire
confirmation, from the following narrative, which is deemed to be
authentic in the neighbourhood in which the scene is laid; and the
application of which the judicious reader will, no doubt, be able to
make for himself.

About the middle of the last war, the _Polly_, tender, commanded by
lieutenant Watts, came swooping up one evening to the small town of
Auchinbreck, in Scotland, and, resolving to pounce, without warning,
upon her prey, as soon as she had anchored in the roads, sent ashore the
press-gang to pick up as many of the stout boat-builder lads as they
could catch. The towns-people, however, were not so unprepared as the
captain of the tender imagined; some of those, indeed, who were fit for
sea, ran up into the hills, but by far the greater number collected
about the corner of a building-shed as you go on to the main street,
and, when the signal of hostility was given, by the capture of a man by
the press-gang, they rushed down upon them in a body, every one with his
axe on his shoulder like a troop of Indians with their tomahawks. It had
now become so dark that the sailors had much to do to keep their footing
upon the loose stones of the beach, which was just at this time rendered
a still more troublesome passage by the scattered materials of a pier,
then beginning to be built; and, besides, their number was so small
compared to the townspeople, that, after a few strokes of the cutlas,