On their first night, the lady of the house went into a room, where she found one of the policemen asleep in his chair. Being a lively person, she rapped twice or thrice on the table. He awakened, and said: "Ah, so I suspected. It was hardly worth while, madam, to bring us so far for this." And next day the worthy men withdrew in dudgeon, but quite convinced that they had discovered the agent in the hauntings.
But they had not!
On the other hand, Scott (who had seen one ghost, if not two, and had heard a "warning") states that Miss Anne Robinson managed the Stockwell disturbances by tying horsehairs to plates and light articles, which then demeaned themselves as if possessed.
Here we have vera causa, a demonstrable cause of "stirs," and it may be inferred that all the other historical occurrences had a similar origin. We have, then, only to be interested in the persistent tradition, in accordance with which mischievous persons always do exactly the same sort of thing. But this is a mere example of the identity of human nature.
It is curious to see how Mr. Sinclair plumes himself on this Devil of Glenluce as a "moliminous rampier" against irreligion. "This one Relation is worth all the price that can be given for the Book." The price I have given for the volume is Ten Golden Guineas, and perhaps the Foul Thief of Glenluce is hardly worth the money.
"I believe if the Obdurest Atheist among men would seriously and in good earnest consider that relation, and ponder all the circumstances thereof, he would presently cry out, as a Dr. of Physick did, hearing a story less considerable, 'I believe I have been in the wrong all the time--if this be true.'"Mr. Sinclair is also a believer in the Woodstock devils, on which Scott founded his novel. He does not give the explanation that Giles Sharp, alias Joseph Collins of Oxford, alias Funny Joe, was all the Devil in that affair. Scott had read the story of Funny Joe, but could never remember "whether it exists in a separate collection, or where it is to be looked for."Indifferent to evidence, Mr. Sinclair confutes the Obdurest Atheists with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, with the young lady from Howells' "Letters," whose house, like Rahab's, was "on the city wall," and with the ghost of the Major who appeared to the Captain (as he had promised), and scolded him for not keeping his sword clean. He also gives us Major Weir, at full length, convincing us that, as William Erskine said, "The Major was a disgusting fellow, a most ungentlemanlike character." Scott, on the other hand, remarked, long before "Waverley," "if I ever were to become a writer of prose romances, I think I would choose Major Weir, if not for my hero, at least for an agent and a leading one, in my production." He admitted that the street where the Major lived was haunted by a woman "twice the common length," "but why should we set him down for an ungentlemanly fellow?" Readers of Mr. Sinclair will understand the reason very well, and it is not necessary, nor here even possible, to justify Erskine's opinion by quotations.