We decided to walk in the avenue, and to explore “Scamp’s Copse” before dinner, in spite of the fact that we were expecting Mr. MacP——­ [a barrister], Mr. C——­ [a solicitor], and Mr. W——­ [an accountant] just about the time that we should be absent.  Miss Moore took the dog off in the opposite direction, and we walked in silence to the plantation, Mr. L. F——­, Mr. F——­, and I. It was quite dark, but the snow gleamed so white, that we could see our way to the plantation.  We went up among the trees, young firs; the snow was deep and untrodden; and when we got well off the road, we found that a burn comes down the brae side.  It is frozen hard, and we found it out only by the shining of the ice.

We walked on in silence to the left of the burn, up the little valley, along a small opening between the trees and the railing which encloses them, Mr. L. F——­ first, then I, then Mr. F——.

In a few minutes I saw what made me stop.  The men stopped too, and we all stood leaning over the railings, and looking in silence across the burn to the steep bank opposite.  This was white with snow, except to the left, where the boughs of a large oak-tree had protected the ground.

Against the snow I saw a slight black figure, a woman, moving slowly up the glen.  She stopped, and turned and looked at me.  She was dressed as a nun.  Her face looked pale.  I saw her hand in the folds of her habit.  Then she moved on, as it seemed, on a slope too steep for walking.  When she came under the tree she disappeared—­perhaps because there was no snow to show her outline.  Beyond the tree she reappeared for a moment, where there was again a white background, close by the burn.  Then I saw no more.  I waited, and then, still in silence, we returned to the avenue.

I described what I had seen.  The others saw nothing. (This did not surprise me, for though both have been for many years concerned in psychical investigation, and have had unusual opportunities, neither has ever had any “experience,” so that one may conclude that they are not by temperament likely to experience either subjective phenomena or even thought-transference.) It was proposed that we should ascend the glen in her track on the other side of the burn.  It was very difficult walking, the snow very deep, and after two or three efforts to descend the side of the bank we gave it up, and followed to nearly her point of disappearance, keeping above the tree, not below as she had done.  We saw no more, and returned to the house, agreeing not to describe what had occurred, merely to say that as the factor (who looks about eighteen stone) is said not to like the avenue at dark, we had been setting him and others a good example.

In a letter to Lord Bute under date February 25th, Miss Freer describes this figure with some detail:—­