Scottish Ghost Stories — Elliott O'Donnell
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Scottish Ghost Stories Author : Elliott O'Donnell Release date : December 7, 2006 [eBook #20034] Most recently updated: January 1, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20034 Credits : Produced by Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net *** START OF Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of this document . 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 CASE I THE DEATH BOGLE OF THE CROSS ROADS, AND THE INEXTINGUISHABLE CANDLE OF THE OLD WHITE HOUSE, PITLOCHRY ToC 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. But for once my instincts were all wrong. The advertiser—a Miss Flora Macdonald of "Donald Murray House"—did not resemble my preconception of her in any respect. She was of medium height, and dainty build—a fairy-like creature clad in rustling silks, with wavy, white hair, bright, blue eyes, straight, delicate features, and hands, the shape and slenderness of which at once pronounced her a psychic. She greeted me with all the stately courtesy of the Old School; my portmanteau was taken upstairs by a solemn-eyed lad in the Macdonald tartan; and the tea bell rang me down to a most appetising repast of strawberries and cream, scones, and delicious buttered toast. I fell in love with my hostess—it would be sheer sacrilege to designate such a divine creature by the vulgar term of "landlady"—at once. When one's impressions of a place are at first exalted, they are often, later on, apt to become equally abased. In this case, however, it was otherwise. My appreciation both of Miss Flora Macdonald and of her house daily increased. The food was all that could be desired, and my bedroom, sweet with the perfume of jasmine and roses, presented such a picture of dainty cleanliness, as awakened in me feelings of shame, that it should be defiled by all my dusty, travel-worn accoutrements. I flatter myself that Miss Macdonald liked me also. That she did not regard me altogether as one of the common herd was doubtless, in some degree, due to the fact that she was a Jacobite; and in a discussion on the associations of her romantic namesake, "Flora Macdonald," with Perthshire, it leaked out that our respective ancestors had commanded battalions in Louis XIV. 's far-famed Scottish and Irish Brigades. That discovery bridged gulfs. We were no longer payer and paid—we were friends—friends for life. A lump comes into my throat as I pen these words,