And Dorothy, taking up the holy book and opening it at the middle, flapt it with such energy that more dust came out of it than should have been found in a Calvinist’s Bible.
“Ye’ll see nor hilt, nor hair, nor hoop, nor horn mair o’ him,” she added, with, we almost fear to surmise, a laugh.
And Mrs Snoddy’s prophecy was of that kind—the safest of all—which comes after knowledge.
“Then I will dee in peace,” said the relieved laird; “for I hae nae ither sin on my conscience.”
“Nae sin, nae salvation,” added Dorothy.
“A maist comfortable doctrine,” sighed the laird.
And comfortable, surely, it must have been to him, for two days afterwards the good laird slipt away out of this bad world as lightly and easily as if he had felt the burden of his sins as imponderous as the flying dove does the white feathers on its back. Nor did many more days elapse before the mortal remains of the good man were deposited in the churchyard of Cramond, leaving the double widow with her contract of marriage and her tears for a second husband lying in the earth so near the first, deep in the bosom of the Forth. But, sooner or later, there comes comfort of some kind to these amiable creatures in distress, especially if they are possessed of those cabalistic things called marriage contracts. We do not say that that comfort comes always from the grave in the shape of a veritable ghost, but sure it is that if we could in any case fancy a spirit visiting the earth for any rational purpose, it would be where a comely widow was ready to receive it, and warm its cold hands, and wrap the winding-sheet well round it, and treat it kindly. All which we may leave for suggestion and meditation, but we demand conviction, and assent, as we proceed, to set forth that the very next evening after the funeral of Laird Tammas, the ghaist of David Dempster, despising all secret openings, and even giving up the privilege of keyholes, went straight into the house of Rubbledykes, and entered the room where Dorothy was sitting. Extraordinary enough, no doubt; but not even so much so as the fact we are about to relate—viz., that Mrs Dorothy was no more astonished at its appearance before her than she had been when she heard the laird say that he saw the face of that same spirit at the window; nor did she on this occasion have recourse to the Bible as an exorcist, by flapping the leaves of the same, to terrify it away, in the supposition that it was the devil in disguise. It is very true that she held up her hands, but then that was only a prelude to the arms being employed in clasping the appearance to her breast; an embrace which was responded to with a fervour little to be expected from one of these flimsy creatures. Nay, things waxed even more enigmatical and ridiculous, for the two actually kissed each other—a fact which ought to be treasured up as a psychological curiosity of some use, insomuch as it may diminish the fear we so irrationally feel at the expected visit of supernatural beings. But worse and more ridiculous still—
“When had you anything to eat Davie? Ye’ll be hungry.”
“No’ unlikely, Dorothy lass,” answered the wraith; “for I didna like the cauld fish, and there’s nae cooking apparatus in the Forth.”
“Ye would maybe tak a whang o’ the round o’ beef we had at the laird’s funeral yesterday?”