The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

WELL LORE
among the reeds. For all this, the fishing-tenant did not
desist. But he frequently confessed that every time a
breath of wind brought a rustle to the reeds thereafter, he
became apprehensive lest again the mannikin should make
his appearance.
The Apparition at the Well.
And here is a story relating to a tiny place in Perthshire
known as Auchloa, located near the bridge crossing the
Lyon at Comrie Castle.
There is a cottage up there ; and in this cottage an old man
lay dying, attended in his last moments by two or three
women of the family. In his dying, he kept on crying out
for water ; but, whenever they gave him of the water that
was in the house, he refused it, and strove to push it away
from him. What he wanted, he explained, was water from
a certain well in the neighbourhood. To pacify him, one of
the women intimated that she would go to this well for some
of its water. A neighbour said that she would accompany
her ; and the two women duly picked up their stoups, and set
off. They had some distance to travel to this well.
Consequently, the gloaming was upon them by the time they
reached it.
Steps led down to the well ; and, as they were descending
these steps, the leading woman saw in front of her the
apparition of the old man whom they had left in the cottage.
The apparition was clad in a night-shirt ; and from the waist
downward it was wrapped in a grey blanket. From its
cupped hands it was sipping water from the well. The
leading woman uttered a suppressed scream. But not until
her escort put out a hand to touch her shoulder did she also
see the apparition.
Instantly the women dropped their stoups, and hastened
for the cottage. The old man was just breathing his last
as they entered.
On the day of the funeral, the neighbouring woman went
to the house of the dead to assist in tidying things up, and
in getting the place in readiness for the final observances.
In the bottom drawer of the great chest, that stood in the
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