As
it appears to me, it resembles the decapitated head of a prehistoric
woman, and I shall never forget my feelings one night, when, aroused
from slumber by its ghastly wailing, I stumbled frantically out of
bed, and, groping my way upstairs in the dark, without venturing to
look to the left or right lest I should see something horrible, found
every inmate of the house huddled together on the landing, paralysed
with fear. I did not see it on that occasion, but on the following
morning, as I had anticipated, I received the news that a near and
dear relative had died.
Possessing such an heirloom myself, I can therefore readily sympathise
with those who own a similar treasure--such, for example, as the
famous, or rather infamous, Drummer of Cortachy Castle, who is
invariably heard beating a tattoo before the death of a member of the
clan of Ogilvie.
Mrs. Crowe, in her _Night Side of Nature_, referring to the haunting,
says:--
"Miss D., a relative of the present Lady C., who had been staying some
time with the Earl and Countess at their seat, near Dundee, was
invited to spend a few days at Cortachy Castle, with the Earl and
Countess of Airlie. She went, and whilst she was dressing for dinner
the first evening of her arrival, she heard a strain of music under
her window, which finally resolved itself into a well-defined sound of
a drum. When her maid came upstairs, she made some inquiries about the
drummer that was playing near the house; but the maid knew nothing on
the subject.
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