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is bad enough, don’t you think?”
    â€œWe saw the devil once before,” Benjamin later added. “My sister saw him behind the water barrel when my father was going to kill Mother with his knife, but when Father saw the devil looking at him like a hungry man watching a stew pot steep, he couldn’t do it.”
    Further questioning brought to light the fact that the boys had originally planned to throw their father over a cliff and had gone so far as to practice by throwing a sheep over the cliff. Because the sheep was only crippled by the fall, they decided to find them-selves another plan.
    Ruff justice, indeed.
    The Ruffs’ barn had tumbled down in a storm, but officials investigated the wreckage nonetheless. They discovered evidence of a chipped floor and bloodstains between the cracks of the floor-boards, but that was a common sight in the days when farmers slaughtered their livestock indoors. The coroner exhumed Ruff’s badly decomposed body and ruled that although the wound to the skull could indeed have been caused by a malicious blow with an axe, it could just have easily have been caused by a poorly felled tree. This testimony was further substantiated by townsfolk who allowed that Ruff was a poorly skilled woodsman, a bit of a drunkard with a bad temper to boot. Another witness declared that he’d never believed young Benjamin was of a right mind.
    After further questioning, the judge ruled in the accuseds’ favour. He decided that the evidence presented by a delusional eleven year old wasn’t substantial enough to convict Andrew and Arthur.
    The blame was laid at the feet of the earlier magistrate’s failure to summon a coroner at the initial time of death. Lack of evidence was the final verdict, and the death of John Ruff, axe blow or not, was deemed accidental.
    The Ruffs soon left the island, not even bothering to sell the property. As far as the townsfolk of Five Islands knew, young Arthur never returned to the area. Yet lights have been seen to this day on Moose Island, strange dancing lights, like a lantern being held by a shaky man, or a ghost.
    Is it the devil, or the ghost of John Ruff? Perhaps it is the spirits of his murdering sons, doomed to endlessly repeat their crime. I dare you to spend a night camping on this island to find out the truth.

12

THE WEEPING
CAVE OF
PARRSBORO

PARRSBORO

    This story was told to me by a Saint Mary’s University professor of Mi’kmaq descent. He was a bit of a wild man and taught me that a writer shouldn’t feel shackled by the chains of conventionality. One of my fondest memories was of him walking into class with a stick of high explosive and placing it on his desk.
    â€œSometimes,” he said to the class, “a writer needs to use dynamite.”
    Of course, no English students were harmed in the making of this anecdote.
    The dynamite was a dud.
    I hope you’ll find this story isn’t.
    The shores of Nova Scotia are riddled with caves, the most famous being The Ovens sea caves of Riverport, Lunenburg County. Every year thousands of tourists make the climb down to view these spectacular rock formations and listen to the waves echoing their long lonely song.
    If you happen to travel to Parrsboro, the folk there will be glad to tell you about the mystery of the Maiden’s Cave, where the ghost of a young woman weeps and moans to this very day.
    You’ll find Parrsboro on the northern shore of the Minas Basin. It was named in the year 1784 in honour of Admiral John Parr, who was Governor General of Nova Scotia at the time. Before that Parrsboro was simply known as the Partridge Island settlement. It is reputed to have the world’s highest tides and has been celebrated as the home of Glooscap, mighty Mi’kmaq warrior and magician. The area is also well known for the amazing amounts of amethyst and agate that can be found on beaches and cliffsides. Legend has it that while creating the