Note 48 — IV. SUPERSTITIOUS.

Major Weir, who has been called the prince of Scottish wizards, was the son of a farmer in Clydesdale. He entered the army, held a commission as Lieutenant for some time, and took part in the quelling of the insurgents in Ireland in 1641. Later, he settled in Edinburgh, joined the Town Guard, and in time was promoted to the position of Major of that body. In that credulous age when Satan, forgetting his Bible, went about, not as a “roaring lion,” but as a docile cat or timid hare, or took upon himself some more lovely form of passion, and made compacts with many people, he found a ready recruit in the Major. Gradually it was voiced abroad that Weir was in league with the Devil. He was put on trial on April 9, 1670, when he “confessed himself guilty of a life of wretched hypocrisy and vice—guilty, in fact, of crimes possible and impossible. He felt some relief in the idea that the Devil had the larger share in his misdeeds.” He was sentenced to be burned, and five days later the doom was carried out “between Edinburgh and Leith, at a place called Gallowlee.” The memory of the wizard of the West Bow was long held in dread, and for more than a century his house remained tenantless. At length a person foolhardy enough to occupy the place was found in William Patullo, an old soldier, and this is what happened:—

“On the very first evening after Patullo and his spouse had taken up their abode in the house,” says the author of Reekiana, “a circumstance took place which effectually deterred them and all others from ever again inhabiting it. About one o’clock in the morning, as the worthy couple were lying awake in their bed, a dim, uncertain light proceeded from the gathered embers of their fire, and all being silent around them, they suddenly saw a form like a calf, but without the head, come through the lower panel of the door and enter the room: a spectre more horrible, or more spectre-like conduct, could scarcely have been conceived. The phantom immediately came forward to the bed, and setting its forefeet on the stock, looked steadfastly in all its awful headlessness at the unfortunate pair, who were of course, almost ready to die with fright. When it had contemplated them thus for a few minutes, to their great relief it took itself away, and slowly retiring, vanished from their sight. As might be expected, they deserted the house next morning, and for another half century no other attempt was made to embank this part of the world of light from the aggressions of the world of darkness.” There is something amusing in the expression “looked steadfastly in all its awful headlessness.” How a headless object without eyes could look at all is known only to the Patullos and the author of Reekiana.