He is about thirty-seven years of
age, as he says, and has a wife and bairns.
"The following is an account from his own mouth; and because there are
some circumstances fit to be taken in as you go along, I have given
them with reference at the end, {145b} that I may not interrupt the
sense of the account, or add anything to it. Therefore, it begins:--
"'In the month of December in the year 1728, about sky-setting, I and
my servant, with several others living in the town (farm-steading)
heard a scratching (screeching, crying), and I followed the noise,
with my servant, a little way from the town (farm-steading
throughout). We both thought we saw what had the appearance to be a
fox, and hounded the dogs at it, but they would not pursue it. {146a}
"'About a month after, as I was coming from Blair {146b} alone, about
the same time of the night, a big dog appeared to me, of a dark
greyish colour, between the Hilltown and Knockhead {146c} of Mause, on
a lea rig a little below the road, and in passing by it touched me
sonsily (firmly) on the thigh at my haunch-bane (hip-bone), upon which
I pulled my staff from under my arm and let a stroke at it; and I had
a notion at the time that I hit it, and my haunch was painful all that
night.
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