CHAPTER VII
THE GHOST OF DUNSTAFFNAGE
“WILL I chaperon a moonlight expedition to your castle? Babbie dear, what mad scheme will you think of next?”
Babbie gave her mother a loving little hug. “I didn’t think of it all by myself—we all thought of it together, including John and Mr. Dwight. Isn’t it a nice idea, mummie? Aren’t you crazy to see your daughter’s castle by the witching light of the full moon?”
Mrs. Hildreth laughed and hugged Babbie. “I certainly am. It’s extremely interesting to have a castle in the family. You’re sure you’re not finding Oban dull, girls? I’m quite rested now from the voyage, and we can go on to London and Paris as fast as you like.”
“Oban dull!” echoed four amazed voices.
“Why, mummie, it’s perfectly splendid!” Babbie explained eagerly. “You must come with us this morning and see the cottages back behind the hill—they’re just smothered in honeysuckle. And yesterday we found where the shooting that we hear so often comes from. There’s a target back there, and funny little soldiers in plaids—think of fighting real battles in kilts, mummie!—shoot at it every afternoon.”
“And Sunday Mr. MacNish is going to take us to a Gaelic service at the Free Kirk,” put in Betty. “He’s lent Madeline a Gaelic primer, so she can learn to say good-morning to the people at the church in their own old-time language.”
“This is an open day for Fingal’s castle,” suggested Madeline. “Mrs. Hildreth ought to see that, so she can compare it with yours, Babbie.”
“Come on, dear. Get your hat this very minute,” Babbie commanded. “When you’re traveling with four B. A.’s you can’t waste time.”
“‘B. A.’s Abroad’—wouldn’t that be a nice title for the journal Madeline is keeping for us?” suggested Babe. “It’s so—so—what do you call a thing that sounds like that?”
“Alliterative,” answered Betty promptly. “I looked up that word in the fall of freshman year because Mary Brooks said it about Katherine Kittredge of Kankakee.”
“But if we have that title,” objected Babbie, “we shall have to live up to it. I read over the Glasgow chapter last evening, and it sounds pretty frivolous for B. A.’s.”
“Frivolous!” sighed Madeline, “when I put in all Babe’s lofty sentiments about the poetry of Burns, and a whole paragraph on our interest in Gothic architecture. Besides, why shouldn’t we be frivolous now and then? Nobody can accuse us of not seeing what’s to be seen, and think how industriously we’ve read up on Flora Macdonald.”
“For fun,” objected Babe.
“If you can make play out of work you’ve learned the art of true happiness,” declared Madeline. “Isn’t that the gospel of Bohemia and of Harding, as I’ve been expounding it for four long and weary years? By the way, Mr. Dwight said he might be up this afternoon, so I suppose I’d better not go out until later.”
“You and Mr. Dwight are getting awfully chummy,” said Babe. But it was no fun teasing Madeline about men, because she never cared enough even to listen to what one was saying. Now she answered coolly that it was lucky Mr. Dwight hadn’t made his announcement more general, since it had turned out to be such a perfect afternoon for a walk. After the rest were safely out of the way she went to find Miss MacNish, who looked very much amazed when Madeline explained what articles she wanted, but got them for her all the same, and helped her do them up into a neat parcel, which Mr. Dwight smuggled out through the garden just as the others were coming in by the front gate.
At four o’clock the next afternoon John drew up the finest pair of horses to be hired in Oban with a grand flourish in front of Daisybank Villa, and Mr. Dwight helped Mrs. Hildreth and the girls to climb into the high seats of the trap, while Miss MacNish stowed away a tea-basket and all sorts of inviting looking boxes and bundles under their feet.
“Do ye ken that all American lassies are like these?” she asked her little maid, as they stood at the gate waving a farewell to the picnickers. “They’re verra nice lodgers—but they do take some crazy notions,” she added grimly, remembering Madeline’s confidence of the afternoon before.
“I’m glad we have plenty of time to-day,” said Babbie, with a little sigh of satisfaction, when, after a brisk drive, they drew up in the castle yard. “I want to go all through the beech-wood, and climb down the cliffs to the edge of the water, and sit on the parapet and imagine that I’m a Norwegian princess waiting for her lover who’s coming from across the sea in a little boat with a white sail.”
“Goodness, how romantic!” sniffed Babe. “Where are we going to have tea?”
“Mrs. Hildreth, you decide that,” said John. “When you’ve chosen a spot we’ll pile the baskets and things near it, and then I’m going back to the farm to get an armful of wood for the signal-fire. Your forest is too well kept, Babbie. There are no twigs on the ground for the convenience of the ship-wrecked mariner who wants to signal the nearest dwelling for help. It’s a shame.”
“Miss Ayres and I will get your wood,” suggested Mr. Dwight. “I’ve promised to take her to the farm to see if any of the family knows how to speak Gaelic.”
“All right,” agreed John. “I’m not a bit keen for carrying wood. Be sure you bring enough, though; we want a rattling big signal, you know. Now Mrs. Hildreth, let me show you the chapel.”
It was a delightful go-as-you-please picnic. Babe went wading in a pool after sea-anemones. Betty lay on a sunny slope dreaming of all the good times she had been having and was going to have all summer. Madeline and Mr. Dwight sat on the parapet and quarreled amicably over the right way to “lay” a signal-fire. Babbie and John conducted Mrs. Hildreth over the castle domain, and when she was tired they decorated the tea-table—a slab of rock on a sunny slope by the sea—with sprays of white heather, which is supposed always to bring good luck to those who wear it. After tea they all sat together watching the sunset, while Madeline told them a quaint folk-tale that an old grannie at the farmhouse had told her, all about ghosts and fairies and gnomes who lived on the islands in the firth.
“She wouldn’t answer when we asked her about a ghost for this castle,” Madeline added solemnly. “She just shook her head and muttered something about ‘trailing white robes.’ Just then her daughter came in with the wood, and the old woman shut up like a clam. The daughter thinks Gaelic and ghosts are all rubbish.” Madeline stood up. “It must be lovely on the parapet now.”
“It’s lovely here,” said Babe dreamily, and the party broke up again.
So it happened that Babe, who was the last to leave the shadowy beech-wood, was alone down by the little chapel when she saw the ghost. It was quite across the wood by the wall, when she first noticed it, and in the dusk she thought of course it was Babbie, who was wearing a white serge suit and a big white hat.
“Aren’t you coming to watch the moon rise with the others?” Babe called to her. But the figure didn’t answer, only came slowly nearer, groping its way uncertainly among the tree trunks. Presently Babe noticed that the white dress it wore hung in long, loose folds around it, quite differently from Babbie’s suit, that it was much taller than she, and that it carried something dark in one outstretched hand.
“It’s a trick of the others. They know I’m here alone, and they’ve sent Madeline down to scare me,” Babe reflected indignantly.
“I know you now, Miss Madeline Ghost,” she called across to the figure, “so you may as well take off that white shawl of Mrs. Hildreth’s and come with me to the parapet to see the moon rise.”
The ghostly figure was quite near now, but if it was Madeline it had no intention of letting Babe know it. It came on silently to within a few paces of where she stood waiting, and then suddenly and without warning a pitiful little moaning cry broke the stillness of the wood,—a sound like the stifled, smothered sobbing of some one in terrible anguish.
Babe listened for a minute to the gruesome moaning. Then, “Oh, I say, that’s too much,” she protested indignantly. “You’re giving me the creeps, Madeline Ayres, honestly you are. Please stop.” There was real terror in Babe’s appeal, but the ghost paid no heed. The moaning went on softly, incessantly, just as before.
Babe hesitated a moment longer, and then, pocketing her pride, she fled up the path to the castle. Out of the wood she ran, across the grassy slope, and up the winding stone stairs, as if she thought the ghost was close behind her. Near the top of the flight she paused for breath. “Don’t care if they did see me,” she muttered angrily, brushing the hair out of her face and assuring herself that the ghost had not followed. “It’s a mean trick to scare any one like that. It’s dangerous, really it is.” But they hadn’t seen her mad race through the wood. Apparently they hadn’t even missed her. They were all, the whole six of them, Madeline included, gathered in an eager group around the signal-fire, which wouldn’t burn, in spite of John’s most valiant efforts, because the wind was so strong.
“Oh, Babe, was there any alcohol left?” asked Madeline, glancing up as Babe came toward them. She was stooping in front of the beacon-holder, with her skirt spread out to shelter the struggling little flame. “I don’t think there could be any harm in pouring a little on this wood, do you, Mrs. Hildreth?” she went on. “There’s nothing up here to take fire.”
“I don’t remember noticing about the alcohol,” answered Babe, making a valiant effort not to catch her breath.
“I’ll go and look,” volunteered Betty.
“No, let me.” John sprang forward.
“You’d never find the flask,” objected Betty, “or if you did you’d mix up everything in the tea-basket.”
“Then we’ll go together,” said John, and Babe breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t have let Betty go back there alone without warning her and she hated to admit that she had been frightened by—what could it have been anyway, since it wasn’t Madeline in Mrs. Hildreth’s white shawl? Mrs. Hildreth had on her shawl at that very moment.
Betty and John were gone some time, and when they finally appeared Babe knew at once that they had seen the lady in white.
“Oh, Babbie,” Betty began tremulously, “there is a ghost attached to your castle—or at least a something. It’s down in the edge of the wood, near the lawn where we left the basket. And it’s moaning in the most horrible way.”
“Truly?” Babbie appealed to John.
“Sure. It’s not a ghost, of course, but it’s somebody all right, in a long white cloak sort of thing, with one hand stretched out, holding something red. The way it cries is certainly spooky,” added John, with a forced laugh.
Madeline exchanged swift glances with Mr. Dwight. “‘A trailing white robe and a sob in the night’—that was what the old crone said, wasn’t it? And there was nothing there when you came up, Babe?”
“Oh, I saw it,” said Babe with careful unconcern, “but of course it can’t be a ghost—nobody believes in ghosts nowadays. I thought it was one of you girls trying to frighten me.”
“Maybe it’s a white cow,” suggested Babbie. “They make queer noises sometimes. Don’t you remember that the fierce black one did?”
But this suggestion was received with great contempt by all three of the ghost-seers, who declared excitedly that they could tell the difference between a cow and a woman, even if it was a little dusky in the wood.
“Well, of course I don’t want it to turn out to be a cow,” Babbie explained apologetically. “But it seems too good to be true that it’s a ghost. I’m going down to find it this very minute.”
“Alone?” inquired Babe gravely.
“No, indeed,” interposed Mrs. Hildreth promptly, when Madeline pointed down to the open lawn below them.
“You don’t need to go down, Babbie. Look there.”
The white figure was coming slowly, silently out from behind a clump of tall bushes. The moon had risen above the trees, and shone full on the little lawn in front of the castle, making it almost as bright as day. Slowly, silently the white figure came forward, trailing its robe over the short grass, one hand held aloft, its gaze fastened on what the hand held—a bright bit of cloth, it seemed to be. When it had reached the centre of the lawn, the figure paused and throwing back its head, so that the moonlight fell full on its face—the sweet, sad face of a young girl—it began the uncanny moaning that had sent Babe flying to find her friends.
“Gaelic,” whispered Madeline under her breath. “I heard the words for love and grief.”
“She’s changed to English now,” whispered Mr. Dwight after a minute. “She’s crying, ‘My prince, my prince, my prince,’ over and over.”
“What’s that in her hand?” asked Babe, who was clinging tight to Betty.
“It’s a bit of Scotch plaid, isn’t it?” Babbie answered. “That pretty red kind——”
“The royal Stuart,” supplied Madeline.
“Then it is Flora Macdonald.” In her excitement Babbie forgot to speak low. “And she’s kept a bit of the Stuart plaid in memory of the prince whose life she saved. She was in love with him, of course, and she got him off to France, and he forgot her. And they locked her up here right afterward, when she was feeling the worst about having him gone. Oh, it all fits in beautifully! How can you help believing in ghosts after this?”
“How, indeed?” agreed Madeline drily. “Oh, ghost!” She raised her voice. “Come up on the turret of yon gray donjon, and help us toast marshmallows in the blaze of the beacon light.”
“Madeline!” chorused three indignant voices, while John burst into peals of laughter and Mrs. Hildreth, who had been let into Madeline’s secret, reproached the girls for having been so gullible.
“Though it was a very effective ghost,” she admitted, “and Madeline’s awe-struck face, as she repeated the old woman’s description, was capital.”
“Don’t blame it all on me,” protested Madeline. “Mr. Dwight is a fellow conspirator.”
“But you thought of it,” Mr. Dwight reminded her, “and you planned where we should get a ghost, and you coached her for the part. I only smuggled out the costume, consisting of a pair of Miss MacNish’s best linen sheets, and introduced Miss Ayres and the ghost down at the farmhouse. Here she is, by the way. Miss MacBrague, come and meet your admiring audience and receive their congratulations. You took everybody in.”
Then there were introductions, explanations, and questions all at once. Madeline had to tell how she had thought of evoking a spectre to complete Babbie’s castle, but knew she should be discovered at once if she or any one else in the picnic-party was missing when the ghost appeared. Mr. Dwight had suggested Miss MacBrague, who lived down the road with her grandparents, and was interested in the old folk-tales of the countryside. Miss MacBrague apologized prettily for her performance.
“I dinna go to the play,” she said. “I havena seen the great actors as ye have. I did only just as Miss Ayres showed me, and the crying is like the crying that the old people do at the graves. I am verra glad if it pleased ye, and I hope ye were na really frighted,” turning to Babe.
“You ought to go on the stage. You’re a perfectly splendid actress,” Babe declared fervently. “But it’s mean of you to oblige me to confess how I ran away from you.”
And then there were more questions and explanations, and the laugh was on Babe.
Between times they had toasted all the marshmallows, though Babbie protested that it was taking a mean advantage of her beacon-holder to turn it to such base uses; and at last Mrs. Hildreth said it was time to start back. They dropped little Miss MacBrague at her home after having received her thanks for “th’ gae good time ye’ve given me,” and made her promise to come and see them in Oban, and drove briskly home, for the sky had clouded over, and the air was full of rain.
“Never mind,” said Babbie jubilantly. “I can feel the curl walking out of my feather, but who cares for a little thing like that? Never as long as I live shall I forget the lovely, thrilly, creepy feeling that came over me when I saw my very own ghost walking out of the beech-wood in the moonlight.”
“I say, that was rather fine, wasn’t it?” said John. “You girls are certainly keeping out of the rut of ordinary European travel.”
“That’s because we have dominant interests,” explained Madeline. “Mine is tea-rooms, Babbie’s is evidently ghosts, and Babe’s is—let me see—chimney-pots.”
“I’m going to change,” Babe protested in the general laugh that followed. “I chose in too much of a hurry. I want an interest that you can follow up. You can’t follow up chimney-pots. They’re all right there on the surface.”
“On the roofs, you mean,” laughed John, “and only chimney-sweeps can penetrate their inner mysteries. What’s your specialty, Miss Wales?”
“I haven’t any yet,” explained Betty. “I’m hoping mine will turn up before long, though.”
“Oh, we’ll find you something in London,” Madeline promised her easily. “There is something for everybody in London.”