“Gin I were dead, ye fool,” quoth I, “how could I be here? Give me your hand.”
“Uh-uh-uh-uuuh!” cried Davie, as I wore him up to the nook, and took haud o’ his hand by force. “Uh, goodman, ye are flesh and blude yet! But O ye’re cauld an’ ugsome!”
“Davie,” quoth I, “bring me a drink, for I hae seen something o’er-bye an’ I’m hardly just mysel.”
Davie ran and brought me a hale bowie-fu’ milk. “Tak a gude waught, goodman,” quo’ he, “an’ dinna be discouraged. Ye maun lay your account to see and hear baith, sic things as ye never saw or heard afore, gin ye be gaun to bide here. Ye needna wonder that I thought ye war dead,—the dead are as rife here now as the living—they gang amang us, work amang us, an’ speak to us; an’ them that we ken to be half-rotten i’ their graves, come an’ visit our fire-sides at the howe o’ the night. There hae been sad doings here sin ye gaed away, goodman!”
“Sad doings I fear, indeed, Davie!” says I. “Can ye tell me what’s become o’ a’ my family?”
“Troth can I, goodman. Your family are a’ weel. Keatie’s at hame her lievahlane, an’ carrying on a’ the wark o’ the farm as weel as there war a hunder wi’ her. Your twa sons an’ auld Nanny bide here; an’ the honest gudewife hersel she’s away to Gilmanscleuch. But oh, gudeman, there are sad things gaun on o’er-bye yonder; an’ mony a ane thinks it will hae a black an’ a dreadfu’ end. Sit down an’ thraw aff your dirty claes, an’ tell us what ye hae seen the night.”
“Na, na, Davie! unless I get some explanation, the thing that I hae seen the night maun be lockit up in this breast, an’ be carried to the grave wi’ it. But, Davie, I’m unco ill; the cauld sweat is brekking on me frae head to foot. I’m feared I gang away athegither.”
“Wow, gudeman, what can be done?” quo’ Davie. “Think ye we sudna tak the beuk?”
“I was sae faintish I coudna arguy wi’ the fool, an’ ere ever I wist he has my bonnet whuppit aff, and is booling at a sawm; and when that was done, to the prayin’ he fa’s, an’ sic nonsense I never heard prayed a’ my life. I’ll be a rogue gin he wasna speakin’ to his Maker as he had been his neighbour herd; an’ then he was baith fleetching an’ fighting wi’ him. However, I came something to mysel again, an’ Davie he thought proper to ascribe it a’ to his bit ragabash prayer.”