"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think about this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it before the girls, they are frightened enough already—Bessie too, although she pretends not. What's your own private opinion about it?"
"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be an unconscious medium."
"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind of thing: if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or did anything worth doing, it might be different; but would Darnley or Bothwell or the abbot, or even any of the smaller fry of monks, come back here to ring a bell? I know in their place it's what I wouldn't do myself."
"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said Edwin: "like some other people, they may be dull at home."
"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. Man, it's no use minding what girls say: I never do.
"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a diversion to them."
"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but they are listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may have instead of sleeves?"
"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects of this kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more about it."
"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible agency," said John.
"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin said.