Query 4.

If these events which second-sighted men discover, or foretel, be visibly represented to them, and acted, as it were before their eyes ?

      Answer.

Affirmatively, they see those things visibly; but none sees but themselves; for instance, if a man’s fatal end be hanging, they will see a gibbet, or a rope about his neck:  if beheaded, they will see the man without a head; if drowned, they will see water up to his throat; if unexpected death, they will see a winding sheet about his head:  all which are represented to their view.  One instance I had from a gentleman here, of a Highland gentleman of the Macdonalds, who having a brother that came to visit him, saw him coming in, wanting a head; yet told not his brother he saw any such thing; but within twenty-four hours thereafter, his brother was taken, (being a murderer) and his head cut off, and sent to Edinburgh.  Many such instances might be given,

      Query 5.

If the second-sight be a thing that is troublesome and uneasy to those that have it, and such as they would gladly be rid of?

      Answer.

It is commonly talked by all I spoke with, that it is troublesome; and they would gladly be freed from it, but cannot:  only I heard lately of a man very much troubled in his soul therewith, and by serious begging of God deliverance from it, at length lost the faculty of the second-sight.

      Query 6.

If any person, or persons, truly godly, who may justly be presumed to be such, have been known to have had this gift or faculty ?

      Answer.

Negatively, not any godly, but such as are virtuous.

      Query 7.

If it descends by succession from parents to children ? or if not, whether those that have it can tell how they came by it ?

      Answer.

That it is by succession, I cannot learn; how they came by it, it is hard to know, neither will they tell; which if they did, they are sure of their strokes from an invisible hand.  One instance I heard of one Alien Miller, being in company with some gentlemen, having gotten a little more than ordinary of that strong liquor they were drinking, began to tell stories and strange passages he had been at:  but the said Alien was suddenly removed to the farther end of the house, and was there almost strangled; recovering a little, and coming to the place where he was before, they asked him, what it was that troubled him so ?  He answered he durst not tell; for he had told too much already.

Query 8.  How came they by it ?

      Answer.

Some say by compact with the Devil; some say by converse with those daemons we call fairies.  I have heard, that those that have this faculty of the second-sight, have offered to teach it to such as were curious to know it; upon such and such conditions they would teach them; but their proffers were rejected.