Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him.
"Wait a little," he said.
"There's the irrational explanation to try next.
Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind better than the other.
We will say this time that you have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living person.
Very good.
If you can suppose a disembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing—of silk or merino, as the case may be—it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a mortal sketching-book.
And if the ghost vanishes (which your ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should follow the example and vanish too.
And the reason of the vanishment may be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit of ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost has changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of a woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see you 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.'
There's the irrational explanation for you.
And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to add that I don't set a pin's value on that explanation either."
Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question began to irritate me.
"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstances that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?"
"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the circumstances," answered the doctor.
"Put it in that way, and you put it right.
Just look round you.
Here we three persons are alive and hearty at this snug table.
If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or yourself were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am, could no more explain what first principle of life and movement had been suddenly extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on the hearth-rug.
If I am content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an impenetrable mystery as this—presented to me, day after day, every time I see a living creature come into the world or go out of it—why may I not sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, and say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?"
At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time.
"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take your sensible view, how happy I should be!
Would you believe it?—he positively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony's Well!"
Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue.
"Ay, ay.
He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he?
Well, I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution.
I can tell him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, and what came of it."
This was a startling announcement.
Did he really mean what he said?
"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked.
"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue.
"No sick person really believes in a doctor who jokes.
I defy you to show me a man at the head of our profession who has ever been discovered in high spirits (in medical hours) by his nearest and dearest friend.
You may have wondered, I dare say, at seeing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do.
It comes naturally, sir.
Yours is not the first story of a ghost and a pencil that I have heard."
"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man who has seen what I have seen?"
"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor.
"The man was a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the honorable name of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life.
I'll take another glass of the sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, before I begin.
Well, you must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I'm speaking of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick.
At noon one day, he and the captain, having taken their observation of the sun, were hard at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on their slates.
Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door of the captain's cabin opposite.
'What do you make it, sir?' says Brace.
The man in the captain's cabin looked up.
And what did Bruce see?
The face of the captain?
Devil a bit of it—the face of a total stranger!
Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full gallop all in a moment, and searches for the captain on deck, and finds him much as usual, with his calculations done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for the day.
'There's somebody at your des k, sir,' says Bruce.