Scottish Ghost Stories

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.