Mr. Hay Newton, of Newton Hall, a man of great antiquarian tastes in the last generation, wrote the following notes on the matter:—­

“Widow M’Laren, aged seventy-nine, a native of Braemar, but who has resided on the Craighall estate for sixty years, says that the tradition is that the man was murdered for his money; that he was a Highland drover on his return journey from the south; that he arrived late at night at the Mains of Mause and wished to get to Rychalzie; that he stayed at the Mains of Mause all night, but left it early next morning, when David Soutar with his dog accompanied him to show him the road; but that with the assistance of the dog he murdered the drover and took his money at the place mentioned; that there was a tailor at work in his father’s house that morning when he returned after committing the murder (according to the custom at that date by which tailors went out to make up customers’ own cloth at their own houses), and that his mother being surprised at his strange appearance, asked him what he had been about, to which inquiry he made no reply; that he did not remain long in the country afterwards, but went to England and never returned.  The last time he was seen he went down by the Brae of Cockridge.  A man of the name of Irons, a fisherman in Blairgowrie, says that his father, who died a very old man some years ago, was present at the getting of the bones.  Mr. Small, Finzyhan, when bringing his daughter home from school in Edinburgh, saw a coffin at the door of a public house near Rychalzie where he generally stopped, but he did not go in as usual, thinking that there was a death in the family.  The innkeeper came out and asked him why he was passing the door, and told him the coffin contained the bones of the murdered man which had been collected, upon which he went into the house.

“The Soutars disliked much to be questioned on the subject of the Dog of Mause.  Thomas Soutar, who was tenant in Easter Mause, formerly named Knowhead of Mause, and died last year upwards of eighty years of age, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed a man; that they came by Soutar’s Hill, and having asked the name of the hill, were told ‘Soutar,’ upon which they said, ‘Soutar be it then,’ and took that name.  One of the brothers went south and the others came north.” {155a}

The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; in Shropshire they usually “come” as bulls. (See Miss Burne’s Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o’ Mause.  M. d’Assier, a French Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert “atavistically” to lower forms of animal life! {155b}

We now, in accordance with a promise already made, give an example of the ghosts of beasts!  Here an explanation by the theory that the consciousness of the beast survives death and affects with a hallucination the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass current.  But if such cases were as common and told on evidence as respectable as that which vouches for appearances of the dead, believers in these would either have to shift their ground, or to grant that