Sacramento daily record-union., 1881-11-12
HAUNTED HOUSES.

George Sinclair, Professor of Moral Phil
osophy in the University of Glasgow, and
afterward Minister of Eastwood in Rem.
frewshire, by the publication, in 1865, of
his work, "Satan's Invisible World Dis
covered, did much to add to the terrors
of Mary Kings close, by his account of
apparitions seen therein, and recorded ''by
witnesses of undoubted veracity"-a work
long hawked about the streets by
the itinerant sellers of gingerbread.
The last, or northern portion of
the close, with its massive vaulted
lower stories, was an open ruin in lS45
the south, or upper, had fallen into ruin
after fire in 1850, and was in that condition
when portion of the site was required
for the west side of the Royal Exchange,
three years after. 1t would appear from
the Professors narrative that Mr.. Thomas
Coltheart, respectable law agent, whose
legal business had begun to flourish, took
a better style of house in Mary Kings
close. Their maid servant was, of course,
duly warned by obliging neighbors that
the house was haunted, and in terror she
gave up her situation and fed, leaving Mr..
and Mrs. Coltheart to face whatever they
might see, alone. Accordingly it came to
pass that, when the lady had seated her.
self by the bedside of her gudemap, who,
being slightly indisposed on the Sunday
afternoon, had lain down to rest, while she
read the scriptures, CHANGING to look up,
she saw to her intense dismay a human
head, apparently that of an old man, with
gray floating beard, suspended in mid air,
at little distance, and gazing intently at
her with elfish eyes. She swooned at this
terrible sight, and remained insensible till
the neighbors retained from church. Her
husband strove to reason her out of her
credulity, and the evening passed without
further trouble; but he had not long been
in bed when he himself espied the same
phantom head by the freight, floating in
mid.air and eyeing him with ghostly eyes.
He lighted a candle and betook him to
prayer, but with little effect, for in about
an hour the bodiless phantom was joined
by tina. Of child, also suspended In mid
air, and this was followed by an arm naked
from the elbow, which, in defiance of all
Coltheart's prayers and pious interjections,
seemed bent on shaking hands with him
and his wife. In the most solemn way the
luckless lawyer conjured these phaptoms
to intrust him with the story of any
wrongs they wished righted; but all to
no purpose. The old tenants evidently
regarded the new as intruders, and others
came to their aid, for the naked arm was
joined by q spectral dog, which curled it.
self up in chair and went to sleep; and
then came cat and many other creatures,
but of grotesque and monsterous forms, till
the whole room swarmed with them, SO
that the honest couple were compelled to
kneel on their bed, there being no standing
room on the floor; till suddenly, with
deep and awful groan, as of strong man
dying in agony, the whole vanished, and
MIR. and Mrs. Coltheart found themselves
alone. In those days of superstition, Mr..
Coltheart-if we are to believe Professor
Sinclair-must have been man of more
than ordinary courage, for he continued to
reside in this terrible house till the day of
his death, without further molestation,
but when that day came it would seem not
to have been unaccompanied by the super.
natural. At the moment he expired,
gentleman, whose friend and law agent
he was, while asleep in bed beside his wife
at Traneut, ten miles distant, was reused
by the nurse, who had been terrified "by
something like cloud moving about the
room." Starting up withithe first instinct
of a Scot, in those days, he seized his
sword to defend himself, when " the some
thing" gradually assumed the face and
form of man, who looked at him pale
and CHASTITY, and in whom he recognized
his friend Thomas Coltheart. "Are you
dead, and if 20, what is your errand ?" he.
demanded, despite his fears, on which the
apparition shook its head twice and melted
away. Proceeding at once to Edinburgh,
the ghostseer went direct to the house of
his friend in Mary Kings close, and found
the wife of his friend in tears for the re.
cent death of her husband. -[Old and New
Edinhuroh