When at the Tullichewan Arms Hotel at Balloch, at the foot of Loch Lomond, this autumn, I was invited to join a small company of seven or eight young men who were assembled in the drawing-room. After the first greetings, I asked which of them had seen a ghost, whereupon a stalwart young Scotchman spoke out and said, "Well, I do not believe in ghosts, and I do not like to say 1 have seen one, but I have certainly seen something which I have not been able to explain, although I tried to account for it by the theory of mirage, although I confess the application of that theory is rather difficult. On Loch Lomond we often have instances of mirage; we see boats apparently in the air, and this may have been something of the kind." "Well," said I, "now tell us what it was." "I was walking," he said, "about nine years ago, one night in August, about ten o'clock, and about half a mile from the house where we are now sitting, I was going along the public road between the hamlets of Mill of Haldane and Balloch. I had with me two young women, and we were leisurely walking along, when suddenly we were startled by seeing a woman, a child about seven years old, and a Newfoundland dog jump over the stone wall which was on one side of the road, and walk on rapidly in front of us. I was not in the least frightened, but my two companions were very much startled. What bothered me was that the woman, the child, and the dog instead of coming over the wall naturally one after the other, as would have been necessary for them to do, had come over with a bound, simultaaeously leaping the wall, lighting in the road, and then hurrying on without a word. Leaving my two companions, who were too frightened to move, I walked rapidly after the trio. They walked on so quickly that it was with difficulty that I got up to them. I spoke to the woman, she never answered. I walked beside her for some little distance, and then suddenly the woman, the child, and the Newfoundland dog disappeared. I did not see them go anywhere, they simply were no longer there. I examined the road minutely at the spot where they had disappeared, to see if it was possible for them to have gone through a hole in the wall on either side; but it was quite impossible for a woman and a child to get over a high dyke on either side. They had disappeared, and I only regret that I did not try and pass my stick through their bodies to see whether or not they had any substance. Finding that they had gone, I returned to my lady friends, who were quite unnerved, and who, with difficulty, were induced to go on to the end of their journey."

One of his companions, who heard him tell the story at the time, corroborated the fact that it had made a great impression upon those who had seen it. Nothing was ever ascertained as to any woman, child, or Newfoundland dog that had ever been in the district before. When they got to Balloch they inquired of the keeper of the bridge whether a woman, a child, and, a dog had passed that way, but he had seen nothing. The apparition had disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Its importance lies in the fact that it had been witnessed by three persons, one of whom had sufficient presence of mind to follow the phantoms and speak to them.