Twelve Great Black Cats (7 page)

But when the villagers had had their sleep out, they were willing to listen, and even paid some heed to what Angus and Fergus told them, although nobody was quite sure what it was all about. They were certain of only one thing: something very queer was going on at the manor house. The villagers were divided on the subject. Half of them said it was smugglers, bringing in wines and silks and the like from France or maybe Spain. There had been smugglers in their grandsires' day, so why not now? The other half would not hear to that. What would be more likely than a lot of ghosts in an empty old house left so long ago to itself?

In the end, both sides won, in a manner of speaking. Those who said it was smugglers sent for the King's Men to come and arrest the rogues for not paying their tax. Those who said it was ghosts got the minister to promise to go and exorcise them with his bell and his Book.

Back at the manor house the ghosts were in a terrible taking. Being discovered by two lads was bad, but the lads would tell about it all over the countryside and that would be a hundred times worse. After their defeat by the master builder and his workmen they doubted their power to deal with a horde of cotters and crofters and fishermen. They sat and keened like mourners watching over the dead. They had been homeless before. Were they to lose the grand big manor house, and be homeless again?

The old chief took his stand undauntedly. “Leave the greeting till later,” he said. “It may not be needed at all. This is a time to do something helpful, not to sit idle, rubbing the tears out of your eyes.”

He called the spry young ghost to his side and bade him go down to the village and spy on the folks, to learn what they were planning to do.

“Look to 't, lad, that none see you,” he warned. “The sight of you would add to the trouble we have already. And hasten back as soon as you can.”

The spry young ghost was clever enough to keep from sight, although the lack of anything much in Dulldreary made it hard to keep out of view. He lurked about behind outbuildings and boulders, and managed very well. What he heard sent him speeding back to the manor house.

“Did you see aught?” the old chief asked, and the ghosts crowded around to listen.

“Did I not!” said the spry young ghost. “The folk at Dulldreary were all of them talking about us and the manor house.”

“Och, what would they be saying then?” asked the chief.

“Well, I heard some say that the King's Men were coming to haul the smugglers in the manor house off to prison.”

“The King's Men!” said the chief. “That is no matter. We can take care of the King's Men.”

“Aye, that we can!” the other ghosts said.

“Och, ye've not heard the worst o't,” said the spry young ghost. “There are others who are coming up here, bringing the minister along to exorcise us with his Bible and bell.”

“Och, that's bad!” said the old chief, and he turned paler than ever a ghost was before.

“Exorcise?” said some of the ghosts who had never had much schooling. “What would they mean by that?”

“That's what happens,” the chief told them, “when the minister comes and reads from his Book and rings his bell, and says some hard words over a ghost. Then —Woosht! You're exorcised. That's the end of you!”

“But where do you go?” they asked, bewildered.

“Nowhere,” the old chief said. “You're out like the flame of a candle when somebody snuffs it.”

“I do not want to be exorcised,” cried one ghost, and the others in chorus echoed his cry.

“Nor I!” the old chief said. “But before they do that, they'll have to find us. Come, now, let us make sure that not a hide nor hair of us will meet their eye.”

Down in Dulldreary the King's Men had arrived, full of courage and both of them armed to the teeth. They headed the procession leading those who had held out for its being smugglers at the manor house.

The minister came after them with his Bible under his arm and his bell in his hand, and after the minister the rest of the villagers, being the ones who believed the manor house was lodging a sluagh of ghosts. And at the end came Angus and Fergus, scared but plucky, and as curious as ever about what was going on.

The night was misty and wet, with a bit of sea breeze behind them urging them on. Up the road the procession moved slowly, picking out the way by lantern light, for every villager brought his light. Up the five miles from the village they plodded, and up the lane through the trees, and came to the house, standing tall and dark and scarcely to be seen.

The King's Men went up to the big front door and banged upon it with their fists. They could hear the sound echoing through the rooms on the other side of the door.

“Open in the name of the King!” called out the King's Men. But no one opened the door.

The minister came up beside them. He was an old man, but full of fire and spirit. He, too, knocked on the door. He lifted his stern old voice and thundered, “Open in the name of the Lord!” But no one answered, and the door stayed closed.

Then, one of them laid his hand on the handle of the door and turned it. The door was not locked and opened readily. Into the hall of the manor house all the company crowded: the King's Men, the minister, the Dulldreary folk that believed in smugglers, and the ones that believed in ghosts, and Angus and Fergus at the end. They went down the long passage and came to the door of the ballroom, as Angus and Fergus had done before. They walked in, one by one and looked about them, and saw—nothing at all!

From the cellars to the garrets, in and out of every room, opening every cupboard and press they went, searching the house from top to bottom and from end to end. They found an old empty rattrap in the scullery, and a pile of nuts that squirrels had stored and forgotten in the attic. They found an old broom, lopsided and worn, behind a bedroom door, and mice tracks and spider webs galore. But they did not find in all the forty or fifty rooms of the manor house, to say nothing of the attics or the garrets, even so much as one smuggler, or one lone ghost.

The King's Men were wild with rage. They hauled Angus and Fergus out from among the villagers where the lads had thought it wise to take cover, and started back to Dulldreary with them. All the five miles to the village the King's Men cuffed and cursed Angus and Fergus for bringing them so far on a fool's errand, while the minister followed close behind them, praying that the Lord would forgive them for telling such terrible lies.

The folk of Dulldreary had plenty to say about it to Angus and Fergus that night, and each of them had a thrashing from his father that neither would soon forget. It hardly seemed fair, for after all, the two lads
had
seen the ghosts. They had the leather bottle to prove it, and if the bottle had not belonged to the ghosts where did it come from? But the villagers were so angry about the lads' trick, as they called it, that Angus and Fergus never mentioned the bottle at all.

When the ghosts saw the lights of the lanterns fade and die away as the procession went farther and farther down the road, and no sound of tramping feet or of voices came up to them on the breeze from the sea, the ghosts climbed down from the trees where they had hidden themselves away, and gathering up their-possessions from the bushes where they'd put them, they moved themselves and their gear back into the manor house.

Dulldreary folk lost all interest in the manor house, and Angus and Fergus had had enough of it to last them all the rest of their lives, so nobody ever went near the place. The trees grew up closer about it, and the bushes and brush grew taller and hid it, until a body going by on the road would not know it was there at all.

But the ghosts were canny. They took no chance of being discovered again and exorcised. When they wanted to have a
ceilidh
, they took care to hold their revels on nights when the sea fog rolled in from the sea, and the mists rose up from Loch Doom, and the mizzle drifted down from the moor, and only the fishermen, who had to, went out into the weather, and they, poor souls, went out to sea.

So forever after the clan of ghosts lived, undisturbed and happy in the manor house, and most likely living there to this very day.

The Auld Cailleach's Curse

WHEN the clans who supported the Stuarts in the Scottish rebellion of 1745 went out to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Laird of Kennaquhaur was among them, and after the defeat at the battle of Culloden he was lucky enough to get away uncaught. He and some of his clansmen took to the hills, and after dodging about to evade the English soldiers for some weeks, they managed to get to the coast and found passage to France.

All the Scottish lairds who fought for the Young Chevalier, Prince Charles Stuart, were declared traitors and outlaws, and their lands were seized under what was called an act of attaindre, which meant that the lairds were homeless, landless, and penniless. Even at that, the ones that got away were fortunate, because many of those who were caught were put to death as rebels. The demesne of Kennaquhaur was forfeited, of course, and a factor, or manager, sent up from London to take over the estates and run them to suit himself.

The London factor was a hard-faced man with an ugly tongue and a stone in his breast for a heart. Cruel hard he was, as Kennaquhaur folk soon found out.

There was a road running through the estate from one side to the other that folk had used for maybe a hundred years or more when going from Kennaquhaur village to the market town beyond. The factor was not going to have folk traipsing past his front door all the time, and he gave out word that anybody going along the road would be taken up and punished as a poacher. The penalty for poaching was severe, being at worst, transportation to the colonies or even death, and at best, which was bad enough, the slitting of a man's nose or the cutting off of his ears. With that thought in mind, a body would not dare to travel the factor's road, even though it meant going ten miles farther by the high road that ran outside the estate. Folk had seen so much trouble since the battle of Culloden that they were resigned to it. They went the long way by the high road without any protest at all.

But the factor was not through with his mischief-making. Where the road entered the estate on the side near the village, there were a few small shielings. The grandfather of the young laird who escaped had built them so that the old servants of the manor might have a place to bide in when they were too old to work. There were only a half dozen of them, and they were neat and well cared for on the whole. At the time the factor took over Kennaquhaur there were an old shepherd, beyond weathering wind and rain and sun, with his wife in one shieling, and in four others an ancient stable groom, a sewing woman whose hands were too gnarled and whose eyes were too dim for needlework, and there were two old serving women who had spent more than half a century serving the lairds and ladies of Kennaquhaur. And in the last shieling dwelt Auld Jeanie who had been nurse to the young Laird of Kennaquhaur and to his father before him. Here in this little shielan these old people were quietly and contentedly living out their last days.

So not only the folk on the Kennaquhaur estate, but those on all the other estates for miles around were struck with horror when they heard that the factor at Kennaquhaur had given the order that all the old people were to leave the shielings, and with only a fortnight to get out. There was naught that anyone could do to help them. Even the lairds who had not had any part in the rebellion were under the hand of the oppressors who had taken over the country.

“Where will they go, these old people?” the factor's wife asked him, only to be told by her husband that they could go to the devil for all he cared, as long as they got out. The factor's wife, poor lady, was too much afraid of her husband to say anything more, but she was not happy, you may be sure.

The good neighbors set about seeking shelter for the old folk and found homes for them in the village and in the fishermen's dwellings along the shore. The fortnight was soon over, and when the last day came men from the village arrived, some with carts, some with barrows, to move the belongings of the poor old souls.

The factor was there, too, sitting on his great black steed, keeping a watchful eye on all the goings on.

One after another the shielings were stripped of their bits and pieces of household gear. The carts were loaded quickly, baskets of fowls were tied to the tops of loads, and what livestock there was in the sheds behind the shielings was tied on behind the carts. A place was found for everything—even the shepherd's old dog and the women's cats. Finally, all the cottages stood forlorn and empty but one. That last one was Auld Jeanie's, she who had been nurse to the last two Lairds of Kennaquhaur. She stood at the door, blocking the way against the kindly townsmen who were trying to get into the shieling to fetch out her belongings.

“You'll not be moving one stick o' my gear out, young Geordie!” she said to their leader. “My young laird put me in the house here when I grew too auld for work. The laird would be wroth, I tell ye, could he but know what this Sassenach upstart has done this sorry day! I'll nae be flittin'. Dinna ye think it!”

“Och, come now, mistress,” Geordie coaxed. “My mither's got a cozy wee room for you in our ain hoose, and a warm nook by the fire is waiting for you. Let me but get your gear on the cart, and you and me'll be going hame.”

“I'll nae be flittin'!” Jeanie said firmly.

The factor rode up to the door. “What goes on here?” he blustered. “Why have you not emptied this house, my man?”

Geordie looked up at him. “The auld cailleach does not like to leave here,” he said. “Happen she could stay a wee bit longer? She'd gi'e ye no bother. She's awful auld to make sic a change.”

“The devil take the stubborn old hag,” exclaimed the factor. “Whether she likes to leave or not, she'll have to go. I'm going to burn down the houses.”