jargon, "A ghost!--nothing else was wanted to make it perfect." I should
not have been above this myself. I should have smiled, of course, at the
idea of the ghost at all, but then to feel that it was mine would have
pleased my vanity. Oh, yes, I claim no exemption. The girls would have
been delighted. I could fancy their eagerness, their interest, and
excitement. No; if we had been told, it would have done no good,--we
should have made the bargain all the more eagerly, the fools that we are.
"And there has been no attempt to investigate it," I said, "to see what
it really is?"

"Eh, Cornel," said the coachman's wife, "wha would investigate, as ye
call it, a thing that nobody believes in? Ye would be the laughin'-stock
of a' the country-side, as my man says."

"But you believe in it," I said, turning upon her hastily. The woman was
taken by surprise. She made a step backward out of my way.

"Lord, Cornel, how ye frichten a body! Me!--there's awfu' strange things
in this world. An unlearned person doesna ken what to think. But the
minister and the gentry they just laugh in your face. Inquire into the
thing that is not! Na, na, we just let it be."

"Come with me, Jarvis," I said hastily, "and we'll make an attempt at
least. Say nothing to the men or to anybody. I'll come back after dinner,
and we'll make a serious attempt to see what it is, if it is anything. If
I hear it,--which I doubt,--you may be sure I shall never rest till I
make it out. Be ready for me about ten o'clock."

"Me, Cornel!" Jarvis said, in a faint voice. I had not been looking at
him in my own preoccupation, but when I did so, I found that the greatest