"Sister Grizel, this is abominable," interrupted Oldbuck; "I vow to Heaven ye might have raised the ghosts of every abbot of Trotcosey, since the days of Waldimir, in the time you have been detailing the introduction to this single spectre.—Learn to be succinct in your narrative.—Imitate the concise style of old Aubrey, an experienced ghost-seer, who entered his memoranda on these subjects in a terse business-like manner; exempli gratia—At Cirencester, 5th March, 1670, was an apparition.—Being demanded whether good spirit or bad, made no answer, but instantly disappeared with a curious perfume, and a melodious twang'—Vide his Miscellanies, p. eighteen, as well as I can remember, and near the middle of the page." "O, Monkbarns, man! do ye think everybody is as book-learned as yoursell?—But ye like to gar folk look like fools—ye can do that to Sir Arthur, and the minister his very sell." "Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and in another which shall be nameless—but take a glass of ale, Grizel, and proceed with your story, for it waxes late." "Jenny's just warming your bed, Monkbarns, and ye maun e'en wait till she's done.—Weel, I was at the search that our gudesire, Monkbarns that then was, made wi' auld Rab Tull's assistance;—but ne'er-be-licket could they find that was to their purpose. Aud sae, after they bad touzled out mony a leather poke-full o' papers, the town-clerk had his drap punch at e'en to wash the dust out of his throat—we never were glass-breakers in this house, Mr. Lovel, but the body bad got sic a trick of sippling and tippling wi' the bailies and deacons when they met (which was amaist ilka night) concerning the common gude o' the burgh, that he couldna weel sleep without it—But his punch he gat, and to bed he gaed; and in the middle of the night he got a fearfu' wakening!—he was never just himsell after it, and he was strucken wi' the dead palsy that very day four years. He thought, Mr. Lovel, that he heard the curtains o' his bed fissil, and out he lookit, fancying, puir man, it might hae been the cat—But he saw—God hae a care o' us! it gars my flesh aye creep, though I hae tauld the story twenty times—he saw a weel-fa'ard auld gentleman standing by his bedside, in the moonlight, in a queer-fashioned dress, wi' mony a button and band-string about it, and that part o' his garments which it does not become a leddy to particulareeze, was baith side and wide, and as mony plies o't as of ony Hamburgh skipper's—He had a beard too, and whiskers turned upwards on his upper-lip, as lang as baudrons'—and mony mair particulars there were that Rab Tull tauld o', but they are forgotten now—it's an auld story. Aweel, Rab was a just-living man for a country writer—and he was less feared than maybe might just hae been expected; and he asked in the name o' goodness what the apparition wanted—and the spirit answered in an unknown tongue. Then