We couldn't believe our bones rise again, even if Paul hadn't as good as told us they don't! Why should the dead haunt their bones as if to make sure of having their own again?"
"But," said mistress Brookes, "beggin' yer pardon, sir, what ken ye as to what they think? Ye may ken better, but maybe they dinna; for haena ye jist allooed that sic conduc' as I hae describit is no fit, whaever be guilty o' the same, whether rowdy laddies i' the streets, or craturs ye canna see i' the hoose? They may think they'll want their banes by an' by though ye ken better; an' whatever you wise folk may think the noo, ye ken it's no that lang sin' a' body, ay, the best o' folk, thoucht the same; an' there's no a doobt they a' did at the time that man was hangt. An' ye maun min' 'at i' the hoose the heid o' 'im wudna waste as it wud i' the yerd!"
"But why bother about his heid more than the rest of his bones?"
"Weel, sir, I'm thinking a ghaist, ghaist though he be, canna surely be i' twa places at ance. He could never think to plague til ilk bane o' finger an' tae was gethert i' the cellar! That wud be houpless! An' thinkin' onything o' his banes, he micht weel think maist o' 's heid, an' keep an e'e upo' that. Nae mony ghaists hae the chance o' seein' sae muckle o' their banes as this ane, or sayin' to themsel's, 'Yon's mine, whaur it swings!' Some ghaists hae a cat-like natur for places, an' what for no for banes? Mony's the story that hoosekeeper, honest wuman, telled me: whan what had come was gane, it set her openin' oot her pack! I could haud ye there a' nicht tellin' ye ane efter anither o' them. But it's time to gang to oor beds."
"It is our turn to tell you something," said lady Arctura; "--only you must not mention it just yet: Mr. Grant has found the lost room!"
For a moment Mrs. Brookes said nothing, but neither paled nor looked incredulous; her face was only fixed and still, as if she were finding explanation in the discovery.
"I was aye o' the min' it was," she said, "an' mony's the time I thoucht I wud luik for't to please mysel'! It's sma' won'er--the soon's, an' the raps, an' siclike!"
"You will not change your mind when you hear all," said Arctura. "I asked you to give us our supper because I was afraid to go to bed."
"You shouldn't have told her, sir!"
"I've seen it with my own eyes!"
"You've been into it, my lady?--What--what--?"
"It is a chapel--the old castle-chapel--mentioned, I know, somewhere in the history of the place, though no one, I suppose, ever dreamed the missing room could be that!--And in the chapel," continued Arctura, hardly able to bring out the words, for a kind of cramping of the muscles of speech, "there was a bed! and in the bed the crumbling dust of a woman! and on the altar what was hardly more than the dusty shadow of a baby?"
"The Lord be aboot us!" cried the housekeeper, her well-seasoned composure giving way; "ye saw that wi' yer ain e'en, my lady!--Mr. Grant! hoo could ye lat her leddyship luik upo' sic things!"
"I am her ladyship's servant," answered Donal.
"That's varra true! But eh, my bonny bairn, sic sichts is no for you!"
"I ought to know what is in the house!" said Arctura, with a shudder. "But already I feel more comfortable that you know too. Mr. Grant would like to have your advice as to what--.--You'll come and see them, won't you?"
"When you please, my lady.--To-night?"
"No, no! not to-night.--Was that the knocking again?--Some ghosts want their bodies to be buried, though your butler--"
"I wouldna wonder!" responded mistress Brookes, thoughtfully.
"Where shall we bury them?" asked Donal.
"In Englan'," said the housekeeper, "I used to hear a heap aboot consecrated ground; but to my min' it was the bodies o' God's handiwark, no the bishop, that consecrated the ground. Whaur the Lord lays doon what he has done wi', wad aye be a sacred place to me. I daursay Moses, whan he cam upo' 't again i' the desert, luikit upo' the ground whaur stood the buss that had burned, as a sacred place though the fire was lang oot!--Thinkna ye, Mr. Grant?"
"I do," answered Donal. "But I do not believe the Lord Jesus thought one spot on the face of the earth more holy than another: every dust of it was his father's, neither more nor less, existing only by the thought of that father! and I think that is what we must come to.--But where shall we bury them?--where they lie, or in the garden?"
"Some wud doobtless hae dist laid to dist i' the kirkyard; but I wudna wullin'ly raise a clash i' the country-side. Them that did it was yer ain forbeirs, my leddy; an' sic things are weel forgotten.
An' syne what wud the earl say? It micht upset him mair nor a bit!
I'll consider o' 't."
Donal accompanied them to the door of the chamber which again they shared, and then betook himself to his own high nest. There more than once in what remained of the night, he woke, fancying he heard the ghost-music sounding its coronach over the dead below.
