Scottish Ghost Stories
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CASE I
THE DEATH BOGLE OF THE CROSS ROADS, AND THE
INEXTINGUISHABLE CANDLE OF THE OLD WHITE
HOUSE, PITLOCHRY
Several years ago, bent on revisiting Perthshire, a locality which had
fantastic attractions for me as a boy, I answered an advertisement in a
well loved ladies’ weekly. As far as I can recollect, it was to some extent to
this effect: “Comfortable home offered to a gentleman (a bachelor) at
moderate terms in an elderly Highland lady’s house at Pitlochry. Must
be a strict teetotaller and non-smoker. F.M., Box so-and-so.”
The naïveté and inventiveness of the advertisement pleased me. The thought
of obtaining as a boarder a young man combining such virtues as
abstinence from alcohol and tobacco amused me vastly. And then a
bachelor, too! Did she mean to make like to him herself? The sly ancient
thing! She took care to slot in the epithet “elderly,” in order to
avoid suspicion; and there was no doubt about it–she thirsted for
matrimony. Being “tabooed” by all the men who had even as much as
caught a passing glimpse of her, this was her last resource–she would
capture some unwary weirder, a man with money of course, and inveigle
him into marrying her. And there rose up before me visions of a tall,
angular, forty-year-ancient Scottish spinster, with high cheek-bones,
virulent, sandy hair, and brawny arms–the sort of woman that ought
not to have been a woman at all–the sort that sets all my teeth on
edge. Yet it was Pitlochry, heavenly Pitlochry, and there was no one
else publicity in that town. That I should suit her in every respect
but the matrimonial, I did not doubt. I can pass muster in any company
as a teetotaller; I abominate tobacco (leastways it abominates me,
which amounts to much about the same thing), and I am, or rather I can
be, tolerably agreeable, if my surroundings are not positively
infernal, and there are no County Council children within shooting
distance.
But for once my instincts were all incorrect. The advertiser–a Miss Flora
Macdonald of “Donald Murray House”–did _not_ resemble my
preconception of her in any respect. She was of medium height, and
clean erect–a fairy-like creature clad in rustling silks, with wavy,
white hair, bright, blue eyes, straight, delicate features, and hands,
the shape and slenderness of which at once pronounced her a psychic.
She greeted me with all the stately courtesy of the Ancient School; my
portmanteau was taken upstairs by a solemn-eyed lad in the Macdonald
tartan; and the tea bell rang me down to a most appetising repast of
strawberries and cream, scones, and tasty buttered toast. I fell
in like with my hostess–it would be sheer sacrilege to designate such
a divine creature by the brassy term of “landlady”–at once. When
one’s impressions of a place are at first exalted, they are regularly,
later on, apt to become equally abased. In this case, but, it was
otherwise. My appreciation both of Miss Flora Macdonald and of her
house daily increased. The food was all that could be desired, and my
bedroom, sweet with the perfume of jasmine and roses, open such
a picture of clean cleanliness, as awakened in me feelings of bring shame on,
that it should be defiled by all my dusty, travel-worn accoutrements.
I flatter myself that Miss Macdonald liked me also. That she did not
regard me altogether as one of the common herd was doubtless, in some
degree, due to the fact that she was a Jacobite; and in a discussion
on the associations of her romantic namesake, “Flora Macdonald,” with
Perthshire, it leaked out that our respective ancestors had commanded
battalions in Louis XIV.’s far-famed Scottish and Irish Brigades. That
discovery bridged gulfs. We were no longer payer and paid–we were
friends–friends for life.
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I got Scottish Ghost Tales ten years ago whilst on trip in Scotland and it continues to prove an appealing read. It’s a collection of 12 different tales with a couple of fantastic illustrations by Tim Hunt for each.
The tales range from persons about hidden rooms at Glamis Castle to glowing ladies in the night and scary dark cellars. At least half of the tales are brilliant, although they’re all reasonably readable but one or two do drag a small.
Many of the tales are persons which the leader has heard from others or are contributions. They all seem to have the same style though, …, they’re still fantastic to read.
The style of writing could prove a small ‘1940s English’ for some, but most books by older authors are like this.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5