Page:Laird of Cool's ghost (NLS104186838).pdf/6

6 Ogil— Then I know how to manage our conversation; whatever I inquire of you, I see you can easily shift me; so that I might profit more by conversing with myself.

Cool.—You may try.

Ogil.—Well, then, what sort of a body is that you appear in; and what sort of a horse is that you ride upon, which apperas to be so full of metal?

Cool.—You may depend upon it, it is not the same body that I was witness to your marriage in, nor in which I died, for that is in the grave rotting; but is such a body as serves me in a moment, for I can fly as fleet with it, as my soul can do without it; so that I can go to Dumfries, and return again, before you can ride twice the length of your horse; nay, if I have a mind to go to London or Jerusalem or to the moon, If you please, I can perform all these journies equally soon, for it costs me nothing but a thought or wish: for this body is as fleet as your thought, for in the moment of time you can turn your thoughts on Rome, I can go there in person; and as for my horse he is much like myself, for he is Andrew Johnston, my tenant who died forty-eight hours before me.

Olig.—So it seems when Andrew Johnston inclines to ride, you must serve him in the quality of a horse, as he does you now.

Cool.—You are mistaken.

Ogil—I thought that all distinctions between mistresses and maids, lairds and tenants, had been done away at death.

Cool.—True it is, but you do not take up the matter.

Ogil.—This is one of the questions you won't answer.

Cool.—You are mistaken, for that question I can answer, and after you may understand it.