Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/378

 attended by a number of lesser cats, desiring to relieve the cat turned upon the spit, and then answers the question. If this answer proved the same that was given to the man in the hide, then it was taken as a confirmation of the other, which, in this case, was believed infallible.

"Mr Alexander Cooper, present minister of North-Vist, told me that one John Erach, in the Isle of Lewis, assured him, it was his fate to have been led by his curiosity with some who consulted this oracle, and that he was a night within the hide, as above-mentioned; during which time he felt and heard such terrible things, that he could not express them; the impression it made on him was such as could never go off, and he said for a thousand worlds he would never again be concerned in the like performance, for this had disordered him to a high degree. He confessed it ingenuously, and with an air of great remorse, and seemed to be very penitent under a just sense of so great a crime; he declared this about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis, for any thing I know."—Description of the Western Isles, p. 110. See also Author:Thomas Pennant Scottish Tour, vol. II. p. 361.

I know not if it be worth observing, that this passage is taken almost literally from the mouth of an old Highland