Betty's face was quite serious when she was telling me this, and when I looked into her kindly, concerned eyes, and thought of Joe's patient misery, I began to laugh, and I laughed till the breakfast crockery rattled. She looked at me in wonderment, and, lifting the teapot, she made for the door.
'Excuse me, Betty, and pardon my levity,' I said; 'but just one moment'——
'Oh, I'll excuse ye,' she said, as she halted. 'There's nocht I like better mysel' than a guid laugh, but it maun be at something funny; an' if it's Joe you're laughin' at, he was far frae funny this mornin', I tell ye.'
'I can well understand that, Betty; but I was going to say'——
'Maister Weelum, excuse me interruptin' ye, but do ye believe in ghosts?'
'Do I believe in ghosts? Certainly not. Why do ye ask?'
'Weel, I'm gled to hear ye dinna believe in them. I say wi' you; but Joe's juist been tellin' me that he met a leddy this mornin' on the public street that he could sweer died twenty-fower years bygane. So what mak' ye o' that?'
'Oh Betty, Joe's most surely talking nonsense. Where did you say he met the lady?'
'Haith, Joe'll no' alloo it's nonsense. He's very positive aboot it. His story to me was that he cam' suddenly on her gaun roon Harper's corner, an' he was so frichtened an' surprised that a' gumption left him, an' he couldna look efter her either to mak' sure o' her or to see where she was gaun. He was as white as a sheet when he cam' in to me, an' between the fricht an' the lang want o' his dram, he was in sic a state that I'm sure the Lord will coont me justified in gi'en him a mouthfu'. What I telt ye before was only half the truth, an' noo ye ken a'.'
I don't know Joe very well. Since he came home I have had few opportunities of meeting him and analysing him; but when Betty was talking he was very vividly flung on the screen, so to speak, and a possible trait in his character occurred to me.