“Twa, an ye like, lad,” responded the apparently delighted widow, as she ran away to set before the visitor the edible and drinkable comforts which had been declared so acceptable. And you may believe or reject the whisperings of our familiar just as you please, but we have all the justification of absolute veritability for the fact that this extraordinary guest, or ghaist, if you so please, sat down before the said round of beef, brandishing a knife in the one hand and a fork in the other, and looking so heartily purposed to attack the same, that you might have augured it had not had a chop since that forenoon when in the embodied state it went down to cool and wash itself in the sea at Granton. Nor need we be more squeamish than we have been in declaring at once that it did so much justice to the meat and the drink, that you might have thought it had been fed for months on Hecate’s short-commons in Hades. And then a text so ample and substantial could surely bear a running commentary. “It would have been o’ nae use, Dorothy. If ye hadna been as gude a prophetess as Deborah, I might hae been obliged to conceal myself in England lang enough.” “It didna need a Deborah, David,” answered she, “to see that nae human body could stand that cough mair than a month or two. Ye hadna lang to wait, man; and though ye had had langer, _there_, see, was your comfort at the end.” And Dorothy put into the ghaist’s hand the marriage contract--a worldly thing which seemed to vie with the junket of beef in its influence over mere spirit, insomuch as he perused the same by snatches between the bites and draughts, both processes going on almost simultaneously--the eye fixed on the paper, while a protruding lump in the cheek was in the act of being diminished. “A’ right, lass,” was at length the exclamation. “Ay; but ye maun be gude to me now, Davie,” said she; “for ye see it’s a’ in my ain power: Rubbledykes is mine, and I hae wrought for’t.” “And so hae I,” ejaculated the other. “You forget my banishment and difficulty of living, for I took scarcely any siller wi’ me; and, mairower, how am I to face the people o’ E’nbro’?” “And the gude Calvinists o’ the Tron?” added the wife. Notwithstanding which difficulties the visitor contrived to make a hearty meal; nor was he contented with the brandy taken during the time of eating, for with all their spiritual tenderness, there was a crave for toddy--a request which was complied with by the introduction of warm water and sugar. How often the tumbler was tumbled up to pour the last drops, which defied the silver toddy-ladle in the glass, we are not authorised to say; but we have authority for the assertion that any man of flesh and blood could not have perpetrated that number of tumblings without changing almost his nature--that is, being so far spiritualised as to be entitled to say, in the words of the old song by Pinkerton-- “Death, begone--here’s none but souls.”