"Yes," answered Dr. W. "very remarkable indeed, if true."
"And is it not true," I said, "remember, we are upon honour; I should think it a very ill compliment if any one attempted to mystify us with an invented story."
"I did not invent it, I assure you," replied Dr. W.; "I give it you as it was given to me on the spot. If you ask me if I believe it, I can't say I do."
"Do you think the people who told you believed it?"
"They certainly appeared to do so."
"And did it seem generally believed?"
"I can't say but it did; but of course, one must have wonderfully strong evidence before one could believe such a thing as that."
"Granted; but unless you had seen the thing yourself, you cannot have stronger evidence of a phenomenon of that description, than that it was believed by those who had good reason to know the grounds of their belief. They were able to judge how far Mr. Brown was worthy of credit; and they had the advantage of having witnessed his demeanour at the public meeting, when he asserted that he had walked and talked with Robertson, at a time he could not possibly know if he was telling a lie, that the man would not sooner or later return to confute him. Besides, as far as we see, it would have been a useless and wicked lie, inasmuch as it was calculated to make the man's family very uneasy. His subsequent conduct does not at all countenance the persuasion that he was capable of such a proceeding.'
"Certainly not; but you know the Scotch are very superstitious."
"I can't agree with you; the higher and lower classes of the towns are exactly similar in that respect to the same classes of England. In all countries the lower classes are more disposed to put faith in these things, because they believe in their traditions and adhere to the axiom that seeing is believing. The higher classes, on the other hand, are carefully educated not to believe in such traditions and to reject the axiom that seeing is believing, if the thing seen is a ghost. Now I freely admit, that our senses often deceive us, and that we think we see what we do not; every body with the slightest intelligence has, I suppose, learnt to distrust his own senses to a certain extent; but why on one particular point we should reject their evidence altogether, I never could understand."