Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

Demons and Apparitions. 255
ghosts haunted the fancy of the unlettered. They were
the supposed spectres of murdered persons, or of their
murderers ; they hovered, it was believed, about old
ruins and sequestered dells. They followed those who
had deprived them of their mortal tenements. The
murdered, it was conceived, found no rest till they had
received Christian burial. Murderers revisited the earth
to reveal where they had thrust the bodies of their vic-
tims and concealed plundered treasure. A daughter of
the Baron of Cromlix, Perthshire, having accepted the
proffered love of Sir Malise Graham, "the Black Knight
of Kilbryde," permitted him to decoy her to a sequestered
spot of his forest, where he seduced and murdered her.
He buried his victim in the forest, and retired to his
castle. He was not unattended. The ghost of the
murdered lady haunted him continually. After his
death the spectre continued to glide in the forest, clad
in a blood-stained robe. It beckoned all who noticed it
to follow. For many years none were venturous enough
to comply. At length a chieftain of the family under-
took, if the spectre should cross his path, to obey its
wishes. His courage was soon tried. One dark evening
the spectre appeared to him in his garden, and made
the wonted signal. It moved forward, and the knight
followed. They descended to the bottom of the glen,
where the apparition stood and pointed. Next day the
knight caused an excavation to be made at the spot,
and there discovered the remains of the long deceased
Lady Anne, whose disappearance had been a mystery.
He caused the remains to receive Christian burial, and
the spectre never re-appeared.
Alexander de Lindsay, fourth Earl of Crawford, flou-
rished in the fifteenth century ; he was styled " The