Bluenose Ghosts (16 page)

“The very next day he was comin' from Halifax when his boat was picked up. Yes sir, his boat was picked up just off th' island, and there was old Caspar with his head and shoulders overboard drownded. That's as true as I'm a-settin' here. The funny part of it was that there didn't seem to be no reason for him being drownded that way, so the people called it Devil's Island from that day.” In another telling of this story there were signs of a tussle and one of the men in the fight had a cloven foot, for its imprint was on the sand.This had taken place on the beach, so that Caspar would have been in a weakened condition when he got into his boat.

The afternoon spent in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Alex McLeod of New Aberdeen was a happy and profitable one. Mr. McLeod and his friend Mr. Charlie Weeks of Glace Bay were old friends who had not met for some time, and each tried to outdo the other. As a result I got this explanation of a light that has often been seen in country places and that bobs up and down as though someone is carrying a lantern. The light is called a Jack o' Lantern and this, according to Mr. McLeod, is how it came into being.

“There was a fellow who was in the habit of going down the road to a bar-room, but he was always short of money and would do anything to get it. Once he looked in at the place but his purse was empty so he went unhappily away. Before long he met a strange fellow who spoke to him.

“‘Where did you come from?'

“‘I went to the bar-room.'

“‘Did you get in?'

“‘Yes, but I had no money so I didn't even have a drink.'

“‘You're a blacksmith,' said the stranger. ‘What would you do for me if I'd give you a purse that would be always full?'

“‘I'd do anything.'

“‘Would you give yourself away?'

“‘Yes, I would.'

“‘When would you be ready to go with me?'

“‘In about a year's time.' So the strange fellow gave him the purse and he put it in his pocket and it was always full and he had a good time. He set himself up in business and had people working for him and was getting along so well that when the year was up he decided he wouldn't go. He knew well enough of course that the stranger was the devil.

“When the year was up the devil came and said, ‘Your time is up.You must come with me.'

“‘Well yes, that is what I promised. But when I pass the bar-room I never go by without going in to have one. I'd like one more drink before I go.'

“The devil agreed, so the blacksmith said, ‘They say you can go around in any shape at all.'

“‘Yes.'

“‘Well, suppose I take you in the bar-room in the shape of a dollar bill and pay you for my drink?' The devil, being an obliging fellow agreed. But the blacksmith decided he wouldn't go to the bar-room. Instead he put the dollar bill in his pocket and hurried back to the forge. Then he put the purse in the fire and put it on the anvil and pounded it to pieces and that, he thought, was the end of the devil.

“Well, time went on and at last the blacksmith died. There was no place for him to go but the bad place and when he arrived the devil asked, ‘Who's that?' Attendants told him it was the blacksmith who had played such a trick on him, and the devil said, ‘Send him back.' So the blacksmith picked up the lantern that was at the gate and he took it with him and he's been all over the world ever since always travelling. That's what's meant by a Jack o' Lantern.”

So you see, trying to outsmart the devil does not work.

ANGELS

It is with a sigh
of relief that I say farewell to the devil and turn now to the second part of this chapter. Stories of angelic visitations are unfortunately less frequent, possibly because people are bashful about telling them. Let us begin with heavenly music as it was told about at Victoria Beach.

“When my brother died, my sister heard the singing of ‘A Perfect Day,' as if sung by a choir of voices. They sang the whole song and it seemed to come from our corner of the bedroom. She was sitting by his sick bed at the time and it was before there was such a thing as a radio. It happened one evening in March at Parker's Cove on the other side of the mountain.”

One evening a couple were sitting together at Sambro. The husband's mother was at the point of death. His wife suddenly looked at him in surprise and said, “Listen to the birds sing. Don't they sing sweet?”

“I don't hear anything,” he said. A few minutes later she heard them again, but they were for her ears only. Although he strained to listen, he could hear nothing at all.

At Middleton, a farming community in Colchester County, the people are largely of Scottish descent. Nearly forty years ago the daughter of a house was dying and people who passed the house heard sounds of beautiful music. No one could understand where it came from, and it has been talked about in the surrounding countryside ever since.

A woman at Ship Harbour said, “When my husband was dying he got up on his feet and said, ‘Poor McDonald.' I said ‘Who is he?' and he said, ‘McDonald's one of the best violin players I ever heard.' He heard it and so did I, as plain as could be. I said, ‘Where's the music coming from?' but he didn't answer, and I never knew who this McDonald was. It was violin music that we heard, but I didn't recognize any particular tune; just the sound of music and nobody anywhere near to be making it.”

From violin music and heavenly choirs we go next to organ music and for this we return to Sambro Head where a woman had an organ in her house that belonged to a friend. “We were keeping it for him. One time there were a lot of people in the house including the school teacher, and she asked me why I was looking so hard at the organ as though I couldn't take my eyes off it. I told her the organ was playing. She thought I was crazy because she couldn't hear anything, but my son heard it as well as me. The teacher had heard about it and how it sometimes played before a death and she asked me to let her know if anything happened. In two hours a very close friend died. But that wasn't nearly so strange as what happened when the owner died. That time it played two lines of his favourite hymn, ‘Softly fades the twilight ray of the holy Sabbath day.' It wasn't my son and I that heard it that time, but me and my daughter.”

Two stories from Lunenburg County tell of the actual appearance of an angel as a warning or preparation for death. On Tancook Island a man told his wife that he had seen an angel and that he wouldn't be long in this world now. In ten minutes he was gone. The other angel appeared to a man at Simpson's Corner in a dream. He told his wife about it and said that the angel came to him holding an open book and showed him his own name in it. He was perfectly well at the time. Nevertheless he put all his affairs in order and a few weeks later he was murdered—an end even he would scarcely have anticipated.

Mrs. A. B. Thorne's beautiful garden at Karsdale has been mentioned in our chapter on forerunners, and flowers play a very important part in her life. The night that her brother died there was a knock at her door and, when she opened it, she was surprised to see a stranger there. It was a lady with a beautiful cross of white lilies in her hand. She gave this to Mrs. Thorne who thought,“how strange to bring it here, and no funeral.” The next day word came that her brother had died suddenly. Presumably this was an angel in ordinary clothes which would not frighten her, and she conveyed her message in flowers, the language which Mrs.Thorne would know best.

In the heyday of sailing ships, Port Greville and Advocate on the Bay of Fundy shore were busy ports. One of the ships that sailed from here was the brig
Zebenia
. At the time of our story Capt. Hatfield who told it to me, was one of the crew.

“Bill Parsons was the captain. We had put new rigging, new sails, and new masts on her. We went then to Hantsport to finish fixing her up and then to Hillsboro to finish loading. After that we went to Port Greville to hunt up a crew and it came on a heavy gale and she went ashore. There were four men aboard her including me. The other three drowned. She covered over with water and went up to Fox Point and these other fellows floated out and around the rock. She had been so near the shore that her sails wouldn't draw and she rolled so her spars were lying right over.

“The three who were drowned were in the cabin. I got out of the skylight and let myself over the sharp end of the stern. It was December and the sea was ten or twelve feet high, but the beach was level and I was able to crawl ashore on the sand, gripping the bottom to keep going. It was half a mile to the first house and my socks were cut through before I got there. That was in 1883. After that Capt. Parsons couldn't get a ship although he was a good captain. People were afraid he was bad luck and the antics of the
Zebenia
on the day the three fellows were buried didn't help any. That day she didn't drift up and down the Bay of Fundy but lay outside of Port Greville for three hours. The fear was not only for the captain being bad luck then, but of the ship as well, for Port Greville was where the funeral was.

“A funny thing happened to me the night the
Zebenia
went ashore. I started out the cabin when something went flying by me and it seemed like an angel. It was a very dark night but I could see it plainly. It all happened quickly, but I could see it come right down through the galley doors. I thought it was coming for me and I put my hand up to stop it, for it had slanted right down towards me. An hour afterwards the other three fellows were dead.”

It seems strange that the appearance of an angel should engender fear. I heard of this next event at Granville Ferry. A guest had arrived at a house for a visit some fifty years ago and she told her hostess that she could never leave her own home without having a terrifying experience. She said that after being away for a few days an angel in white always appeared before her. The story was not taken very seriously until she ran down the stairs one day screaming and said she had seen her again. Apart from the fact that the angel appeared only when she travelled, there seemed to be no other significance to the vision. It was never known why this occurred.

So far our stories of angels have not been particularly happy ones, so I am pleased to have a very heart-warming event to relate. Many years ago several little children were lost in the woods near Sambro and they had to sleep out all night in the dark. Their parents and friends were nearly frantic as they thought of the terrors that would beset them. The shore is very rocky here and the waves pounding in the darkness would frighten much older and stouter hearts. Imagine the astonishment of the searchers then when they found the children looking perfectly happy and untroubled. Afraid? They looked surprised at such a question. Why would they be afraid? They were all right, they said, because an angel had sat up with them all night.

Upon a visit to Tatamagouche I was fortunate in meeting Mrs. Norman McLennan who had a story to tell me of Port Arthur. Although that city is far from our Province it was related here and is too interesting not to be included.“A family in Port Arthur lost their daughter Edith and her newborn baby. The husband later enlisted upon the declaration of war and, being very despondent, he hoped he would not come back. His wish was granted. Upon the night of his death his sister-in-law was working a Ouija board and it stopped. Then it said she alone was wanted and that there was a message for her. Her friends had taken it all as a joke until then, but she persuaded them to take it seriously and the message read, ‘Will has gone; he's with Edith.'

“At the same time another sister who had so many strange revelations that her husband had grown used to them sat straight up in bed that same night and gasped. Her husband said, ‘What's happened?'

“‘It's Edith,' she said. ‘She was here and I can't be sad any more. She was dressed in white and she looked so happy and she said to me, ‘Will is here now and we're all together and we're very happy. Tell mother!' ”

There are countless stories of other people appearing after death, but coming in ordinary clothes. These will be told about in other chapters.

Chapter SIX

PHANTOM SHIPS AND SEA MYSTERIES

One day
I was sitting in my car at Victoria Beach on a high point of land overlooking the entrance to the Annapolis Basin. I looked up from my book and said to myself, “The Princess!” for it looked at that moment as though the boat that runs from Saint John to Digby were coming in through the Gut. I could see the black hull, the white superstructure, and even the smoke from her funnels. But it was not this ship at all, nor was there any supernatural explanation. It was merely a fog bank between me and the opposite shore which at that particular moment gave the impression of a moving ship. The land with the lighthouse and its adjacent buildings had formed what seemed to be the main body of the ship. In a moment it was gone.

Many ghost ships may be nothing more than this. I was reminded then of a young man from Chester who had been brought up on stories of the
Teazer
, and one night he saw it. It looked exactly like a sailing ship afire. He and his friends watched it from Borgal's Point for about two minutes and then it sank before their eyes. The scepticism he had felt all the preceding years was over now for he had seen with his own eyes what he had never believed before. They shook their heads wonderingly and went inside. About fifteen minutes later they went out again and there, in exactly the same place, the moon was coming up. It was at the full, and they knew its location by its relation to Tancook Island. It struck him then that there must have been a bank of fog in front of the moon as it first came over the horizon that caused it to appear like a ship on fire, and he now thinks this is what the Mahone Bay people have been seeing all these years. If the fog had not cleared away that night he would always have thought, like all the other people, that he had seen the
Teazer
.