J. F. Campbell Collection > Prophecies of the Brahan seer (Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche)

SECOND-SIGHT, 119
up to the party and observed that they need not be so
busy aboat their crop, as he saw the Englishmen's
horses tethered among them already. The event proved
as the man had foretold, for the horses of Cromwell's
army in 1650 ate up the whole held. A few years after
this incident, before Argyll went on his fatal journey to
congratulate King Charles on his restoration, he was
playmg at bowls with some gentlemen near his castle
at Inveraray, when one of them grew pale and fainted
as the Marquis stooped for his bowL On recovering,
he cried, " Bless me, what do 1 see? my lord with his
head off, and all his shoulders full of blood." The late
General Stewart of Garth, in his " Sketches of the
Highlanders," relates a very remarkable instance of
second-sight which happened in his own family: — " Late
on an autumnal evening in the year 1773, the son of a
neighbouring gentleman came to my father's house.
He and my mother were from home, but several friends
were in the house. The young gentleman spoke little,
and seemed absorbed in deep thought. iSoon after he
arrived, he inquired lor a boy of the family, then three
years of age. When shown into the nursery, the nurse
w.as trying on a pair of new shoes, and complained that
they did not fit the child. ' They will fit him before he
will have occasion for them,' said the young gentleman.
This called forth the chidings of the nurse for predict-
ing evil to the child, who was stout and healthy.
When he returned to the party he had left in the sit-
ting-room, who had heard ol his observation on the
shoes, they cautioned him to take care that the nurse
did not derange his new talent of the second-sight, with
some ironical congratulations on his pretended acquire-