Mr.
Small, Finzyhan, when bringing his daughter home from school in Edinburgh, saw a coffin at the door of a public house near Rychalzie where he generally stopped, but he did not go in as usual, thinking that there was a death in the family.

The innkeeper came out and asked him why he was passing the door, and told him the coffin contained the bones of the murdered man which had been collected, upon which he went into the house.
"The Soutars disliked much to be questioned on the subject of the Dog of Mause.

Thomas Soutar, who was tenant in Easter Mause, formerly named Knowhead of Mause, and died last year upwards of eighty years of age, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed a man; that they came by Soutar's Hill, and having asked the name of the hill, were told 'Soutar,' upon which they said, 'Soutar be it then,' and took that name.

One of the brothers went south and the others came north." {155a} The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; in Shropshire they usually "come" as bulls.

(See Miss Burne's Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o' Mause.