To be sure, the living do not know (unless they are making
a scientific experiment) what trouble they are giving on these
occasions, but one can only infer, like St. Augustine, that probably
the dead don't know it either.
Thus,
MY GILLIE'S FATHER'S STORY
Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie. He
was well educated, a great reader, the best of salmon fishers, and I
never heard a man curse William, Duke of Cumberland, with more
enthusiasm. His father, still alive, was second-sighted, and so, to a
moderate extent and without theory, was my friend. Among other
anecdotes (confirmed in writing by the old gentleman) was this:--
The father had a friend who died in the house which they both
occupied. The clothes of the deceased hung on pegs in the bedroom.
One night the father awoke, and saw a stranger examining and handling
the clothes of the defunct. Then came a letter from the dead man's
brother, inquiring about the effects. He followed later, and was the
stranger seen by my gillie's father.
Thus the living but absent may haunt a house both noisily and by
actual appearance.
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