“What can it be then?” said the other gentleman.

I cannot conceive,” says he, “for I am utterly unacquainted with such things.’

“Have you heard nothing from your son?” says the gentleman.

“Not one word,” says the father; “no, not the least word these five years.”

“Have you wrote nothing to him,” says the gentleman, “about this transaction?”

“Not a word,” says he; “for I know not where to direct a letter to him.”

“Sir,” says the gentleman, “I have heard much of apparitions, but I never saw any in my life, nor did I ever believe there was anything of reality in them; and, indeed, I saw nothing now; but the passing of somebody, or spirit, or something, across the room just now, is plain; I heard it distinctly. I believe there is some unseen thing in the room, as much as if I saw it.”

“Nay,” says the other arbitrator, “I felt the wind of it as it passed by me. Pray,” adds he, turning to the husband, “do you see nothing yourself?”

“No, upon my word,” says he, “not the least appearance in the world.”

“I have been told,” says the first arbitrator, “and have read, than an apparition may be seen by some people and be invisible to others, though all in the room together.”

However, the husband solemnly protested to them all that he saw nothing.

“Pray, sir,”says the first arbitrator, “have you seen anything at any other time, or heard any voices or noises, or had any dreams about this matter?”

“Indeed,” says he, “I have several times dreamed my son is alive, and that I had spoken with him; and once that I asked him why he was so undutiful, and slighted me so, as not to let me hear of him in so many years, seeing he knew it was in my power to disinherit him.”

“Well, sir, and what answer did he give?”

“I never dreamed so far on as to have him answer; it always waked me.”

“And what do you think of it yourself,” says the arbitrator; “do you think he’s dead?”

“No, indeed,” says the father, “I do believe in my conscience he’s alive, as much as I believe I am alive myself; and I am going to do as wicked a thing of its kind as ever any man did.”

“Truly,” says the second arbitrator, “it begins to shock me, I don’t know what to say to it; I don’t care to meddle any more with it, I don’t like driving men to act against their consciences.”

With this the wife, who, as I said, having a little recovered her spirits, and especially encouraged because she saw nothing, started up: “What’s all this discourse to the purpose,” says she; “is it not all agreed already? what do we come here for?”

“Nay,” says the first arbitrator, “I think we meet now not to inquire into why it is done, but to execute things according to agreement, and what are we frighted at?”

“I’m not frighted,” says the wife,“not I; come,” says she to her husband, haughtily, “sign the deed; I’ll cancel the old writings if forty devils were in the room;” and with that she takes up one of the deeds, and went to tear off the seal.