In a certain part of Ontario (my stories being true, I must be reticent
as to localities and persons) the country is peopled with Scotch
Highlanders from Glenelg. If, as is often said, Scotch people are
superstitious, the Glenelg men are superlatively so. Every nook and
every grassy plot in that famous glen is haunted, and weird tales belong
to every family, high and low, handed down from father to son. The
Glenelg men in Canada whom I knew still have the traditional tales,—the
ancestral ones, I mean,—and are very willing to tell them: but I greatly
preferred to hear them recount the uncanny doings of their own Canadian
township. They are the third generation in this country. It is an old
part of Ontario,—one of the oldest, I think, for in a long-discarded
burying-ground I found inscriptions bearing date of the last century.
Although so long here, and tolerably fair farmers, they are curiously
backward, preferring in their daily life to talk Gaelic; and it is even
now very common to find children of eight without a word of English.
Most of the very old people have only their native tongue. Their schools
are so poor that it is difficult to believe one’s self in Ontario, where
the standard of education is so high. They are handsome people,—nearly
all very tall and well-built, bearing a family likeness. The men have
none of the farmer slouch so usual in most country places; they are
thorough Highlanders of the best type, and have the traditional grace
and condescension of manner, even when speaking to an acknowledged
superior. The impression of refinement is intensified by their speech.
They came to this country understanding only Gaelic, had no schools
until the present generation, and therefore received the whole of their
education in church. Their speech is Scripture English, quaint, careful,
and accurate. It was at first an astonishment to me, as my knowledge of
rural life in western Ontario had prepared me to expect from farmers
everywhere the horrible colloquialisms, nasal twang, and most wonderful
idioms which perhaps some Montrealers have noticed in the townships, for
it is the same there, I believe. It was a great pleasure to me to listen
to the polished old English, and I soon recognized the cause, and was
interested, and perhaps startled, to discover that the beautiful speech
of one of the least progressive counties of Ontario is directly owing to
the neglect of the government—in short, to their want of education.
It was not long before I discovered with deep, silent delight that the
country-side was peopled with ghosts. It was never hard to give a turn
to the conversation that would result in the recital of something weird
or horrible, told with the bare simplicity of the doings of the Witch of
Endor, and not doubted in any particular by another than myself. I
remember that this difference between them and me threatened to disturb
my enjoyment. I am always uncomfortable if “in my company but not of
it,” and therefore always agree with every one unless positively
forbidden to do so by a company too intense for a happy existence. In
the present instance, as my infidelity was unsuspected, I was not
hindered from assuming the sentiment of the hour as a garment which I
heartily enjoyed wearing, and which soon belonged of right to me,—so
much so, in fact, that when the first of the following stories was
related in the deepening dusk in a most ghostly hollow behind a
graveyard, it was I who, when deep-drawn breaths announced the finale,
suggested that we arm ourselves with cudgels and hasten home across the
fields. And we did it, too, no one laughing; it was not an hour for
laughter. We walked in Indian file, following the cow-path, and I think
that I surreptitiously held the coat-tail of the one who strode before
me. And as we walked, we thought that we heard the malevolent and fatal
tap, tap, tapping in the wood across the hollow. But this is
anticipating the dénouement of my tale. Here is the story of—