“Yes, I’m joking,—and what for no? But they might have been, for onything ye wad hae hindered them to the contrair, I’m thinking. Na, na, ye maunna lock the door; that’s no fair play.”
When the door was put ajee, and the furm set fornent the fire, I gied Isaac a dram to keep his heart up on sic a cauld, stormy night. ’Od, but he was a droll fallow, Isaac. He sung and leuch as if he had been boozing in Lucky Tamson’s, wi’ some of his drucken cronies. Fient a hair cared he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or through-stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, wi’ the wet grass growing ower them; and at last I began to brighten up a wee mysel; so when he had gone ower a good few funny stories, I said to him, quoth I, “Mony folk, I daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a kirkyard than it’s a’ worth. There’s naething here to harm us.”
“I beg to differ wi’ ye there,” answered Isaac, taking out his horn mull from his coat pouch, and tapping on the lid in a queer style—“I could gie anither version of that story. Did ye no ken of three young doctors—Eirish students—alang wi’ some resurrectioners, as waff and wild as themselves, firing shottie for shottie wi’ the guard at Kirkmabreck, and lodging three slugs in ane o’ their backs, forbye firing a ramrod through anither ane’s hat?”
This was a wee alarming. “No,” quoth I—“no, Isaac, man, I ne’er heard o’t.”
“But let alane resurrectioners, do ye no think there is sic a thing as ghaists? Guide ye, my man, my granny could hae telled ye as muckle about them as wad hae filled a minister’s sermons from June to January.”
“Kay—kay—that’s a’ buff,” I said. “Are there nae cutty-stool businesses—are there nae marriages gaun, Isaac?” for I was keen to change the subject.
“Ye may kay—kay—as ye like, though; I can just tell ye this—ye’ll mind auld Armstrong, wi’ the leather breeks, and the brown three-storey wig—him that was the grave—digger? Weel, he saw a ghaist wi’ his leeving een—aye, and what’s better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in, when he cam to the yett yonder, thinking to meet his man, paidling Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap o’t, he dug awa wi’ his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin-handles, and the green banes, and sic-like, till he stoppit a wee to tak breath.—What! are ye whistling to yoursel?” quo’ Isaac to me, “and no hearing what’s God’s truth?”
“Ou ay,” said I, “but ye didna tell me if ony body was cried last Sunday?” I wad hae given every farthing I had made by the needle to hae been at that blessed time in my bed wi’ my wife and wean. Ay, how I was gruing! I mostly chacked aff my tongue in chitterin’. But a’ wadna do.
“Weel, speaking of ghaists;—when he was resting on his spade, he looked up to the steeple, to see what o’clock it was, wondering what way Jock hadna come,—when lo, and behold! in the lang diced window of the kirk yonder, he saw a lady a’ in white, wi’ her hands clasped thegither, looking out to the kirkyard at him.
“He couldna believe his een, so he rubbit them wi’ his sark sleeve, but she was still there bodily, and, keeping ae ee on her, and anither on his road to the yett, he drew his coat and hat to him below his arm, and aff like mad, throwing his shool half a mile ahint him. Jock fand that; for he was coming singing in at the yett, when his maister ran clean ower the tap o’ him, and capseized him like a toom barrel; and never stoppin’ till he was in at his ain house, and the door baith bolted and barred at his tail.