setting Mrs. Dods in the confusion of his retreat; while
she, grappling with him in her terror, secured him by the ears and
hair, and they joined their cries together in hideous chorus. The two
maidens resumed their former flight, and took refuge in the darksome
den, entitled their bedroom, while the humpbacked postilion fled like
the wind into the stable, and, with professional instinct, began, in the
extremity of his terror, to saddle a horse.

Meanwhile, the guest whose appearance had caused this combustion,
plucked the roaring ostler from above Mrs. Dods, and pushing him away
with a hearty slap on the shoulder, proceeded to raise and encourage the
fallen landlady, enquiring, at the same time, "What, in the devil's
name, was the cause of all this senseless confusion?"

"And what is the reason, in Heaven's name," answered the matron, keeping
her eyes firmly shut, and still shrewish in her expostulation, though in
the very extremity of terror, "what is the reason that you should come
and frighten a decent house, where you met naething, when ye was in the
body, but the height of civility?"

"And why should I frighten you, Mrs. Dods? or, in one word, what is the
meaning of all this nonsensical terror?"

"Are not you," said Mrs. Dods, opening her eyes a little as she spoke,
"the ghaist of Francis Tirl?"

"I am Francis Tyrrel, unquestionably, my old friend."

"I kend it! I kend it!" answered the honest woman, relapsing into her
agony; "and I think ye might be ashamed of yourself, that are a ghaist,
and have nae better to do than to frighten a puir auld alewife."

"On my word, I am no ghost, but a living man," answered Tyrrel.

"Were ye no murdered than?" demanded Mrs. Dods, still in an uncertain
voice, and only partially opening her eyes--"Are ye very sure ye werena
murdered?"

"Why, not that ever I heard of, certainly, dame," replied Tyrrel.

"But _I_ shall be murdered presently," said old Touchwood from the
kitchen, where he had hitherto remained a mute auditor of this
extraordinary scene--"_I_ shall be murdered, unless you fetch me some
water without delay."

"Coming, sir, coming," answered Dame Dods, her professional reply being
as familiar to her as that of poor Francis's "Anon, anon, sir." "As I
live by honest reckonings," said she, fully collecting herself, and
giving a glance of more composed temper at Tyrrel, "I believe it _is_
yoursell, Maister Frank, in blood and body after a'--And see if I dinna
gi