way, and get home as fast as he could.

So on the president went, begging his way from hamlet to hamlet, getting
alms from one and news from another, but never gratified with the year
of the Lord in which he lived; for, when he put that question, he was
uniformly pitied, and allowed to proceed on his way for a madman. He
heard, however, several times that President Durie had been drowned in
the Frith of Forth, and that a new President of the Court of Session had
been appointed in his place. Whether his wife was married again or not,
he could not learn, and was obliged to wrestle with this and other fears
as he still continued his way to the metropolis. At last Edinburgh came
in view, and glad was he to see again the cat's head of old St.
Arthur's, and the diadem of St. Giles rearing their heights in the
distance. Nearer and nearer he approached the place of his home,
happiness, and dignity; but, as he came nearer still, he began to feel
all the effects of his supposed demise. Several of his old acquaintances
stared wildly at him as they passed, and, though he beckoned to them to
stand and speak, they hurried on, and seemed either not to recognise
him, or to be terrified at him. At last he met Lord F----, the judge who
had sat for many years next to him on the bench; and, running up to him,
he held out his hand in kindly salutation, grinning, with his long thin
jaws and pallid cheeks, a greeting which he scarcely understood himself.
By this time it was about the gloaming, and such was the extraordinary
effect produced by his sudden appearance and changed cadaverous look,
that his old brother of the bench got alarmed, and fairly took to his
heels, as if he had seen a spectre. Undaunted, however, he pushed on,
and by the time he reached the Canongate it was almost dark. He went
direct to his own house, and peeping through the window, saw Lady Durie
sitting by the fire dressed in weeds, and several of his children
around, arrayed in the same style. The sight brought the tears of joy
to his eyes, and, forgetting entirely the effect his appearance would
produce, he threw open the door, and rushed into the room. A loud scream
from the throats of the lady and the children rang through the whole
house, and brought up the servants, who screamed in their turn, and some
of them fainted, while others ran away; and no one had any idea that the
emaciated haggard being before them was other than the grim ghost of
Lord President Durie,