Bluenose Ghosts Read Online Free Page B

get Maurice.’ He was their neighbour, but Serena was afraid to go out. At the same time she wouldn’t stay in the house alone, so both of them went and they woke Mr. Nickerson up and he came and stayed all night. He looked around but he couldn’t see the track of any horse or wagon, so they thought it must be a forerunner and that my father was going to die. Ma cried and took on something awful, but the forerunner wasn’t for my father. It was for one of the little boys who was taken sick and in a week was dead from diphtheria.
    â€œThe day he was buried was frosty and cold, just as it had been that night. He had been prepared in the house for burial.Then the hearse started up the road for the funeral, and it made exactly the same noise they had heard.All the people in the house could hear it coming over the frosty ground, and it came rumbling up the frozen road and rumbled right up to the house.Then it stopped before the door just the way they’d heard it. Ma and my aunt couldn’t speak. They were listening for the next thing to happen.The hearse had a door at the back with a lock, and the undertaker couldn’t get the lock open, so he picked up a rock and hit it. Then he threw the rock away exactly as they’d heard it that night. Everything was repeated in detail, and it happened about sixty years ago.”
    Miss Swim nodded her head in agreement, for she too knew the story well. It had often been told on the island.
    At Marion Bridge on Cape Breton Island, they told of a child’s death and of the tapping noise of the coffin maker being heard before the fatal brain fever had even begun. Another story came from a Mrs. McGillivray who had spent most of her life in this pleasant village.
    â€œFather was a builder and was working away from home, and mother was expecting him to finish his work and come back. She would not have been surprised if he came at any minute. One bright moonlight night she was sitting in her rocking chair with one ear cocked expectantly when she heard wagon wheels outside. Then everything was quiet until she heard him take the butt of the whip and give three strokes on the door, but he didn’t come in. She went to the door to open it for him, supposing he might be carrying a load and didn’t have a free hand, but there was no one there. She went out to the barn then, but the horse and wagon were not there, and apparently had not come into the yard at all. She was very alarmed then, thinking something must have happened to my father. Everybody knew what three knocks meant and nobody at the door when it was opened, so it was with a feeling of great relief that she heard his wagon wheels very soon afterwards, and saw him in the flesh as he appeared in his usual good health and spirits.
    â€œMy mother puzzled over this and wondered what it meant, and later it was explained to her. At that time the body of a man was found up the Salmon River Road. The men who found it stopped at our house to change horses.They arrived at night, and at the very hour when she had heard them before, and they came to the kitchen door and knocked with the butt of the whip three times. Everything was repeated.”
    Forerunners come sometimes as a kindly form of preparation where the shock of sudden death might be too great. An Amherst couple, for instance, lived happily together, and both were in excellent health. There was no reason to suppose any change would come to alter their unruffled lives. The house they lived in was very old and had bolts to fasten the doors. One night Rachel and her husband went to their room and he bolted the door as he always did. They were no sooner settled than she asked him to shut the door. He said, “I did.” She said, “It’s open,” so he got up and closed it a second time. Once more they prepared themselves for sleep when again Rachel pointed out that the door was open. This time after closing it he got back in bed, but