However, it was a real farce; that is certain.
Oh, but the building was a grand and overpowering sight, making man to dree the sense of his own insignificance, even in the midst of his own handiwork! First, we looked over our shoulders to the grand carved roofs, where the swallows swee-swee'd, as they darted through the open windows, and the yattering sparrows fed their gorbals in the far boles; and syne we looked shuddering down into the dark vaults, where nobody in their senses could have ventured, though Peter Farrel, being a rash courageous body, was keen on it, having heard less than I could tell him of such places being haunted by the spirits of those who have died or been murdered within them in the bloody days of the old times; or of their being so full of foul air, as to extinguish man's breath in his nostrils like the snuff of a candle.

Though no man should throw his life into jeopardy, yet I commend all for taking timeous recreation--the King himself on the throne not being able to live without the comforts of life; and even the fifteen Lords of Session, with as much powder on their wigs as would keep a small family in loaves for a week, requiring air and exercise, after sentencing vagabonds to be first hanged, and then their clothes given to Jock Heich, and their bodies to Doctor Monro.
Before going out to inspect the wonderfuls, we had taken the natural precaution to tell the goodman of the inn, that we would be back to take a chack of something from him, at such and such an hour; and, having had our bellyful of the Chapel,--and the Prentice's Pillar,--and the vaults,--and the cleipy auld wife with the lang stick,--we found that we had still half an hour to spare; so took a stroll into the Kirkyard, to see if we could find out if any of the martyrs had been buried there-away- abouts.
We saw a good few head-stones, you may make no doubt, both ancient and modern; but nothing out of the course of nature; so, the day being pleasant, Mr Farrel and me sat down on a throughstane, below an old hawthorn, and commenced chatting on the Pentland Hills--the river Esk--Penicuik--Glencorse--and all the rest of the beautiful country within sight.

A mooly auld skull was lying among the grass, and Peter, as he spoke, was aye stirring it about with his stick.
"I never touched a dead man's bones in my life," said I to Peter, "nor would I for a sixpence.

Who might that have belonged to, now, I wonder?
Maybe to a baker or a tailor, in his day and generation, like you and I, Peter; or maybe to ane of the great Sinclairs with their coats-of-mail, that the auld wife was cracking so crousely about ?" "Deil may care," said Peter; "but are you really frighted to touch a skull, Mansie?
You would make a bad doctor, I'm doubting, then; to say nothing of a resurrection man." "Doctor! I would not be a doctor for all the gold and silver on the walls of Solomon's temple"-- "Yet you would think the young doctors suck in their trade with their mother's milk, and could cut off one another's heads as fast as look at you .-- Speaking of skulls," added Peter, "I mind when my father lived in the under-flat of the three-story house at the top of Dalkeith street, that the Misses Skinflints occupied the middle story, and Doctor Chickenweed had the one above, with the garrets, in which was the laboratory.
"Weel, ye observe, in getting to the shop, it was not necessary to knock at the Doctor's door, but just proceed up the narrow wooden stair, facing the top of which was the shop-door, which, for light to the customer's feet, was generally allowed to stand open.
"For a long time, the Doctor had heard the most unearthly noises in his house--as if a thunderbolt was in the habit of coming in at one of the sky-lights, and walking down stairs; and the Misses Skinflints had more than once nearly got their door carried off the hinges; so they had not the life of dogs, for constant startings and surprises.

At first they had no faith in ghosts; but, in the course of time, they came to be alike doubtful on that point; but you shall hear.
"The foundation of the mystery was this.