SCOTTISH GHOST STORIES ***
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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | | document has been preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this | | document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+
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SCOTTISH GHOST STORIES
BY
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL
AUTHOR OF "SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES" "HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON" "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA" "TRUE GHOST STORIES" "DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS" ETC. ETC.
LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO. LTD. 1911
CONTENTS
CASE PAGE I. THE DEATH BOGLE OF THE CROSS ROADS, AND THE INEXTINGUISHABLE CANDLE OF THE OLD WHITE HOUSE, PITLOCHRY 1
II. THE TOP ATTIC IN PRINGLE'S MANSION, EDINBURGH 25
III. THE BOUNDING FIGURE OF "---- HOUSE," NEAR BUCKINGHAM TERRACE, EDINBURGH 41
IV. JANE OF GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH 55
V. THE SALLOW-FACED WOMAN OF NO. -- FORREST ROAD, EDINBURGH 69
VI. THE PHANTOM REGIMENT OF KILLIECRANKIE 91
VII. "PEARLIN' JEAN" OF ALLANBANK 105
VIII. THE DRUMMER OF CORTACHY 117
IX. THE ROOM BEYOND. AN ACCOUNT OF THE HAUNTINGS OF HENNERSLEY, NEAR AYR 135
X. "---- HOUSE," NEAR BLYTHSWOOD SQUARE, GLASGOW. THE HAUNTED BATH 159
XI. THE CHOKING GHOST OF "---- HOUSE," NEAR SANDYFORD PLACE, GLASGOW 173
XII. THE GREY PIPER AND THE HEAVY COACH OF DONALDGOWERIE HOUSE, PERTH 189
XIII. THE FLOATING HEAD OF THE BENRACHETT INN, NEAR THE PERTH ROAD, DUNDEE 211
XIV. THE HAUNTINGS OF "---- HOUSE," IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT WESTERN ROAD, ABERDEEN 225
XV. THE WHITE LADY OF ROWNAM AVENUE, NEAR STIRLING 237
XVI. THE GHOST OF THE HINDOO CHILD, OR THE HAUNTINGS OF THE WHITE DOVE HOTEL, NEAR ST. SWITHIN'S STREET, ABERDEEN 251
XVII. GLAMIS CASTLE 263
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 great attractions for me as a boy, I answered an advertisement in a popular ladies' weekly. As far as I can recollect, it was somewhat 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 originality of the advertisement pleased me. The idea 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 love to him herself? The sly old thing! She took care to insert 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 entrap some unwary stranger, 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-old 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 advertising 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 amenable, if my surroundings are not positively infernal, and there are no County Council children within shooting distance.
