The reader may suppose that MacPherson was privy to the fact of the murder, perhaps as an accomplice or otherwise, and may also suppose that, from motives of remorse for the action, or of enmity to those who had committed it, he entertained a wish to bring them to justice.  But through the whole Highlands there is no character more detestable than that of an informer, or one who takes what is called Tascal-money, or reward for discovery of crimes.  To have informed against Terig and MacDonald might have cost MacPherson his life; and it is far from being impossible that he had recourse to the story of the ghost, knowing well that his superstitious countrymen would pardon his communicating the commission entrusted to him by a being from the other world, although he might probably have been murdered if his delation of the crime had been supposed voluntary.  This explanation, in exact conformity with the sentiments of the Highlanders on such subjects, would reduce the whole story to a stroke of address on the part of the witness.

It is therefore of the last consequence, in considering the truth of stories of ghosts and apparitions, to consider the possibility of wilful deception, whether on the part of those who are agents in the supposed disturbances, or the author of the legend.  We shall separately notice an instance or two of either kind.

The most celebrated instance in which human agency was used to copy the disturbances imputed to supernatural beings refers to the ancient palace of Woodstock, when the Commissioners of the Long Parliament came down to dispark what had been lately a royal residence.  The Commissioners arrived at Woodstock, 13th October, 1649, determined to wipe away the memory of all that connected itself with the recollection of monarchy in England.  But in the course of their progress they were encountered by obstacles which apparently came from the next world.  Their bed-chambers were infested with visits of a thing resembling a dog, but which came and passed as mere earthly dogs cannot do.  Logs of wood, the remains of a very large tree called the King’s Oak, which they had splintered into billets for burning, were tossed through the house, and the chairs displaced and shuffled about.  While they were in bed the feet of their couches were lifted higher than their heads, and then dropped with violence.  Trenchers “without a wish” flew at their heads of free will.  Thunder and lightning came next, which were set down to the same cause.  Spectres made their appearance, as they thought, in different shapes, and one of the party saw the apparition of a hoof, which kicked a candlestick and lighted candle into the middle of the room, and then politely scratched on the red snuff to extinguish it.  Other and worse tricks were practised on the astonished Commissioners who, considering that all the fiends of hell were let loose upon them, retreated from Woodstock without completing an errand which was, in their opinion, impeded by infernal powers, though the opposition offered was rather of a playful and malicious than of a dangerous cast.