“Weel, I daursay! I wadna won’er!”
“What for did ye ca’ ’t foolish, father?”
“Jist for thouchtlessness, I doobt. But wha could hae imagined to kep a ghaist by paperin’ ower a door, whan, gien there be ony trowth i’ sic tales, the ghaist gangs throu’ a stane wa’ jist as easy ’s open air! But surely o’ a’ fules a ghaist maun be the warst o’ things on aboot a place!”
“Maybe it’s to haud away frae a waur. The queer thing, father, to me wad be ’at the ghaist, frae bein’ a fule a’ his life, sud grow a wise man the minute he was deid! Michtna it be a pairt o’ his punishment to be garred see hoo things gang on efter he’s deid! What could be sairer, for instance, upon a miser, nor to see his heir gang to the deevil by scatterin’ what he gaed to the deevil by gatherin’?”
“’Deed ye’re richt eneuch, there, my son!” answered the old man. Then after a pause he resumed. “It’s aye siller or banes ’at fesses them back. I can weel un’erstan’ a great reluctance to tak their last leave o’ the siller, but for the banes—eh, but I’ll be unco pleased to be rid o’ mine!”
“But whaur banes are concernt, hasna there aye been fause play?” suggested Cosmo.
“Wad it be revenge, than, think ye?”
“It micht be: maist o’ the stories o’ that kin’ en’ wi’ bringin’ the murderer an’ justice acquant. But the human bein’ seems in a’ ages to hae a grit dislike to the thoucht o’ his banes bein’ left lyin’ aboot. I hae h’ard gran’mamma say the dirtiest servan’ was aye clean twa days o’ her time—the day she cam an’ the day she gaed.”
“Ye hae thoucht mair aboot it nor me, laddie! But what ye say wadna haud wi’ the Parsees, ’at lay oot their deid to be devoored by the birds o’ the air.”
“They swipe up their banes at the last. An’, though the livin’ expose the deid, the deid mayna like it.”