He, when he had left his village for Glasgow, reasoned himself out of the opinion that the grocer's knock did herald and precede the grocer.

But when he went home for a visit he found that he heard it just as of old.

Possibly some local Sentimental Tommy watched for the grocer, played the trick and ran away.

This explanation presents no difficulty, but the boy was never detected.
{191} Such anecdotes somehow do not commend themselves to the belief even of people who can believe a good deal.
But "the spirits of the living," as the Highlanders say, have surely as good a chance to knock, or appear at a distance, as the spirits of the dead.

To be sure, the living do not know (unless they are making a scientific experiment) what trouble they are giving on these occasions, but one can only infer, like St.Augustine, that probably the dead don't know it either.
Thus, MY GILLIE'S FATHER'S STORY Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie.