Read Online Bluenose Ghosts by Helen Creighton - Free Book Online

while he and his wife sing Gaelic songs together, sitting with their finger tips touching, and their arms moving back and forth with the rhythm of the music. In his younger days he used to go to the lumber woods of Maine and there the men would sit around of an evening spinning yarns and singing songs. A good story-teller and a good singer were great assets in any lumber camp and competition in both of these arts was keen.
    The following story which he picked up there, may have originated upon this continent although it has an old sound and may have come over with early settlers who handed it down. It is a good example of the theme we have been following. Much of the charm of the narration is lost in the printed word. I only wish I could bring you his pleasant Scots accent along with this tale. The house he tells about must have been a very desirable dwelling judging by the trouble the son went to after his father’s death to make it habitable. Of the happenings that took place after they moved to the paternal roof Mr. McMaster said—
    â€œThey didn’t get no rest at all, at all.They moved out as quick as they moved in. It was so bad that he twice hired a man to sleep there and see if they could discover what was wrong, for nothing had ever caused a disturbance in his father’s day. In both cases when morning came and he went to see what kind of a night they had put in, he found that a man was dead. He offered a large amount of money then to anybody who would sleep in that house and about that time a soldier came along.
    â€œThat feller, the soldier, went in and stayed all night. He heard a little noise about eleven o’clock at night from the other side of the house and there was a skeleton come down and he started playing around on the floor. He watched him for a while, but he got tired of looking at him and he walked down to the other end of the house and went to bed, leaving the skeleton rolling around on the floor. The next morning the son who owned the house but couldn’t live in it came to see if the soldier was still alive. When he saw that he was living he said, ‘What did you see last night?’
    â€œâ€˜I didn’t see nothing or hear nothing that would scare me,’ he said. ‘I want to stay here for a couple more nights before I have anything I can tell you.’
    â€œThe second night was pretty much the same as the first but, on the third night when the skeleton was dancing and tearing around, the soldier said, ‘What in the name of God kind of man are you?’ So the skeleton said, ‘I’m glad you spoke to me like that. I wouldn’t touch you. I didn’t touch the other fellows who were here but they got frightened. I could tell the first time I seen you that I could get you to speak. (Many people think the ghost can speak only if the human opens the conversation.)
    You’re not a coward at all.’
    â€œThen he told him that he was the man who had owned the place, and that his son was scared his funeral would cost him money, so he hadn’t buried him right. He’d made a cheap funeral. He said, ‘You talk to my son, and tell him to dig into the graveyard and take my remains up and make a wake for me and notify all the neighbours around. Then when he notifies all the neighbours he is to make a good funeral for me and, if he does that, no one will hear nothing from me any more.’ So the son did as his father wished, and the family lived peacefully in the house forever after.”
    There is no doubt about the locale of the next story, for it happened in the north end of Halifax. One day my furnace was being serviced by a man with the appropriate name of Burns. This included checking the thermostat. I had been working on this book and did not wish my train of thought disturbed and besides, upon this subject, anybody is grist to the mill. He must have been surprised therefore, when he came to my sitting room and, instead of the