The Ghost of Sergeant Davis

Sergeant Arthur Davis of Guise’s Regiment was murdered in Braemar on 28 September 1749, and years passed before anyone knew his fate. A Gaelic-speaking farm servant, Alexander Macpherson, said the sergeant’s ghost came to his bedside and led him to the bones, and a woman in the same hut said she saw a naked figure come in that night. At the trial in Edinburgh in 1754 counsel asked what language the ghost spoke, and the answer helped the jury acquit the accused, though most of the court thought them guilty.