3
—opened the breast of his victim, who was still alive, and encouraging him on; and after preying on his vitals for some time, at last picked out his heart, and devoured it, and then the mangled wretch, after writhing for a short time in convulsive agonies, groaned his last.
This was precisely Tibby's dream as it was told to me, first by my friend Mr Cunningham of Dalswinton, and afterwards by the clergyman to whom she herself related it next day. But there was something in it not so distinctly defined, for though the birds which she saw devouring her master, were rooks, blood-crows and a raven, still each individual of the number had a likeness by itself, distinguishing it from all the rest; a certain character as it were, to support, and these particular likenesses were so engraven on the dreamer's mind, that she never forgot them, and she could not help looking for them both among "birds and bodies," as she expressed it, but never could distinguish any of them again, and the dream, like many other distempered visions, was forgotten, or only remembered now and then with a certain tremor of antecedent knowledge.
