Twelve Great Black Cats (2 page)

There was a very tall tree beside him, with a trunk that was bare of branches almost three-fourths of the way up, and up the tree Murdo went, climbing it as a sailor climbs a mast. He settled himself on a good stout branch near the top and watched to see what went on below.

The big black cats were going about searching for him among the trees and bushes. Murdo grinned to himself to see them and thought himself safe up there, so high in the top. But his joy soon turned to dismay, for the red one came along and, looking up, spied him among the branches and called to his companions, “You can give up your search, for I've found Murdo MacTaggart for you. There he is in the treetop, and we'll soon have him down.”

“That you'll not!” said Murdo to himself.

But at that moment one of the great black cats began to climb the tree. When Murdo saw the creature coming, he drew his dirk from his belt and waited until the cat was almost up to his hiding place. The cat reached out with claws spread to grab him, but Murdo stabbed it to the heart with a quick thrust of his dirk. I' the cat ever had nine lives it must have lost the other eight before Murdo finished it off, for its body hurtled to the ground and there it lay dead.

A second cat then came climbing up the tree, and then a third one, and Murdo killed both of them.

“Hold!” said the red one to his companions who were left. “We'll not get him down that way! May ill luck befall him, he'll kill us all before we're through, if we continue to climb the tree.”

He gathered the great black cats about him to talk the matter over, and at last the red one said, “If we cannot climb up and fetch him down, we'll bring the tree down with him in it, and catch him that way.”

So the black cats gathered about the tree and began to dig the earth away from it with their claws, and when they came to a root they chewed through it with their sharp white teeth. When they cut through the first big root, the tree gave a shiver and listed to one side, and Murdo began to shake with fear. He opened his mouth and gave a great cry for help.

There was a church on the other side of the wood and the priest was just coming out with the people around him. He heard Murdo's shout and said to one of the men beside him, “That was the cry of one in great trouble. I may be needed. I must go.”

“Wait now, Father,” the man told him. “'Tis a bad night for you to be going out. Let it be until we hear if the shout is raised again.”

“Och, well, then,” said the priest. “So let it be.” But he went back into the church to fetch the things that might be needed, should the call come again.

At the tree the cats were digging with mad haste, and soon they had uncovered another root, and they bit it through. The tree began to lean heavily to the side, and Murdo gave a second wild shout for help.

“To be sure,” said the priest. “That is a man whose need is great. Let us go quickly!”

The man beside him made no further objection, but with a nod here and a beckoning finger there he drew a dozen men from among the crowd at the church, and all of them went with the priest toward the wood.

The cats had uncovered the last big root and were chewing at it wildly. The root parted and the tree fell down with a crash just as the priest and the men with him came into sight. Murdo gave one last loud shout and climbed into the branches as high as he could, with the cats springing up to catch him and drag him down, and he with his dirk in hand to defend himself to his last breath. The men rushed forward to rescue Murdo, but the priest was before them. He was a wise old man, that priest, and he knew at once what he had to deal with. He had his holy water bottle in hand, and he opened it as he ran. He sprinkled the blessed water over the big black cats, making sure that every one of them had his full share.

“Begone, Satan, and you demons from hell! Begone!” he cried. “I bid you leave the soul and body of this man alone!”

The red one leaped high into the air and off he flew and soon was seen no more, but he left a great stench of smoke and brimstone behind him. As for the great black cats, they lay about on the ground beside the tree they had cut down. It was a strange thing about those great black cats, for when men went up to them to examine them where they lay, they were not cats at all but only great black cat skins lying upon the ground, with neither bones nor flesh within them!

So that was how Murdo MacTaggart was saved on that wild stormy night, not from a pack of great black cats with a red one for their leader, but from Auld Clootie, the de'il himself, with a pack of his demons he'd brought along with him from hell.

It taught Murdo a lesson, for never again did he go down to the shore to go fishing on an All Hallow-mass Eve.

The Honest Ghost

WHEN the old Laird of Thistleton died it caused very little stir in the neighborhood. The demesne was large and there were many tenants on it: farmers, crofters, shepherds on the various steadings; a miller who tended a mill beside a busy stream; and numerous villagers, for the village of Balnacairn lay within the estate. But the Laird was an old man and had lived out his time. Although respected, he was not regretted much. No one was greatly concerned about his passing or troubled about the future. The old Laird was dead, God rest his soul, and now there would be a new laird to take over. It was expected things would be going on in the way they had always done before.

He died quite suddenly, but quietly, in his sleep on a cold and frosty October night, having just come home shortly before from a visit to the minister at Balnacairn village six miles away. For an old man he was unusually vigorous and had made the journey to the village and back that night on foot.

He was laid to rest in the churchyard, and those who had come to his funeral to pay their respects, if not to mourn, turned away and left him lying there among those of his family who for generations had been buried there.

Folk thereabout agreed that there was little to be said against the old Laird. To be sure, he was crabbed and cross-grained, and easily provoked into a rage. But as a master, he was just and fair-minded. And he was honest. Such a man, one could be certain, would rest peacefully in his grave.

Yet, soon after the old Laird's death, it became apparent that the old man's spirit had not found the rest and peace that were his due.

The first word of it came on a cold damp evening about six weeks or so after the old Laird's funeral. The folk of Balnacairn village, alarmed at hearing the sounds of horses' hoofs pounding and the rumble of the wheels of a heavy cart, coming down the road that led into the town, ran to their doors to find out what could be the matter.

Presently, two horses and the wagon they hauled loomed out of the misty drizzle and stopped before the inn. The villagers crowded about the wagon and found the driver, Lang Tammas the carter, lying against the wooden back of the seat, and shaking like a man in a palsy. He stared at them with wide open eyes, and his face was as white as bolted flour. It was a while before they could get any words out of him that made sense. Something had certainly given the man a terrible shock. They helped him down from the cart and took him into the inn, where the innkeeper brought him a wee glass of brandy to soothe his nerves, and after a while he began to come to himself again. But when he could talk what he said didn't have much sense in it at all.

Lang Tammas had gone over to the mill which stood a few miles beyond Thistleton Manor to take some sacks of corn to be ground for the minister of Balnacairn. It was when he was coming back that he got the terrible fright. As he came up to the gates of Thistleton Manor he saw a man standing in the middle of the drive between the stone gateposts. The mist was rising heavier there because of the burn that ran along beside the road, so he couldn't see the man distinctly at first, but he looked familiar to Lang Tammas. It wasn't until the carter drove right up close that he got a good look at the man. It was then that Tammas saw that it was the old Laird of Thistleton himself!

“The old Laird, it was, and he stepping out toward the cart, I'm telling you,” said Tammas. “He had a big brass lantern in his hand. It was not lit, and he held it up and shook it at me. Then he called me by name, he did. ‘Look ye here, Lang Tammas!' said he, and made to come closer, but I was in no mind to wait to hear what he would say. I whipped up the horses and hastened away at a gallop, and left him by the gate there!”

Well, that was the tale Lang Tammas told, and there were some who believed him but there were more who did not, and the latter said that Lang Tammas had a wee bit too much to drink with the miller, while waiting for the minister's corn to be ground.

No doubt the matter would have been forgotten after a while if nothing else had happened, but a month later the old Laird appeared again, and not in the dusk of a misty evening but in the clear light of day.

It was Jamie the Post who got sight of the Laird this time, while Jamie was bringing the post bags from the railway station at Balquidder to the post mistress at Balnacairn. Jamie was ambling along in the post cart at an easy pace, it not being his way to hurry himself at any time. When he was passing the gates of Thistle-ton Manor he gave a careless glance up the drive and there in the doorway of the gatehouse, just inside the manor gates, he saw the old Laird of Thistleton standing, with the big brass lantern in his hand. The Laird waved the lantern at Jamie, but Jamie did not wait to see if the Laird would come nearer, or to hear if he called Jamie by name. Jamie whipped up the pony that drew the post cart, and they dashed madly down the road and into the village of Balnacairn, and folk there said his speed was an achievement that Jamie never equalled before or after.

No one could blame what Jamie saw on his having had a drink or two too many, for it was well known that Jamie was a strong temperance man and had never in his life taken a drink. Maybe there was something in it after all, folk told each other. Nobody cared to talk much about it, now that the Laird had been seen twice. Such things don't bear talking about that happen so close to home. But nobody, if he could help it, went anywhere near Thistleton Manor after the day the old Laird was seen for the second time.

Well, the old Laird's estate was settled at last, and as he had neither wife nor bairns of his own, he left all he had to his nephew, the only son of a brother who had gone to Australia and settled there. The title went to the nephew, too, so now there was a new Laird of Thistleton, as well as the old Laird, who seemed to be still lingering about the place.

Folk began to wonder how the old Laird would get along when the new Laird came to take over the estate.

The new Laird did not come home to Thistleton Manor at once. He had established a business where he lived and needed time to dispose of it profitably. Besides, the sea journey was long and the time of year was not the best for traveling. The new Laird and his wife had a very young bairn and thought they'd rather wait until the child was older and the conditions of weather better before making so long a journey with him. So the estate was put into the hands of an estate agent in Edinburgh, who was to see to the managing of the lands and the farms and the tenants, until the new Laird came home. As for the manor house itself, the agent was to find a tenant for it, with a short lease of no more than a year, if he could.

The agent had no trouble in finding a tenant. It was a desirable property, as the notice in the papers said, and the house was nicely furnished and well kept up. The agent found not only one tenant, but three. One after another they came—and left—all driven out, one after another, because they could not bear the sight of the old Laird with the big brass lantern in his hand.

After the third tenant left, in a high state of indignation, there were no more tenants, because by that time the word had gone around that the place was haunted, and as the estate agent said, “Who in the world would ever want to rent a haunted house?”

That was the way matters stood when the new Laird of Thistleton finally came over the seas to take up his estates. He did not go immediately to Thistleton Manor, but stopped in Edinburgh to talk to the agent whom he had put in charge of his affairs.

He settled his wife and bairn at a comfortable hotel and went to the office of the agent. He had never been in Scotland before and knew very little about his inheritance. He found the agent in his office, and the minute he laid eyes on the man the new Laird knew that something was amiss. He knew, too, that the agent did not want to tell him what it was. The new Laird could not lay his finger on the trouble. The agent seemed ready enough to talk about the estate. He brought out a map with the demesne marked upon it: the mill, the farms, the church, the village, the manor and all in their places, with the names of the tenants beside them. He brought out the accounts and they were all in order. No trouble about anything there, as the new Laird could see for himself. Yet the agent seemed to be uneasy about something. What on earth could it be?

The new Laird picked up the accounts and looked at them again, and something caught his eye that he had not noticed before.

“I'm a plain man, and I'll ask you a plain question,” he told the agent. “What is wrong with the manor house?”

“Nothing at all!” the agent answered quickly. Too quickly, the new Laird said to himself.

“The house is in fine shape. Well-cared for, and nicely furnished. You could not ask for a better-kept house.”

“If that is so,” the new Laird said. “Why is it that in the first six months after my uncle's death three tenants, one after another, signed up for the house, expecting to stay for a year, and every one of them cleared out before the end of a month? And since the last one left, no one has taken the manor house at all? What is wrong with the place?”

“Well,” said the agent reluctantly. “They say it's haunted!”

The new Laird of Thistleton looked at the agent in disbelief. “Haunted!” he exclaimed. “It could not be. My father loved the place and never tired of talking of it. He'd have taken delight in an old family ghost, and I'm sure we'd have heard about it if there had been one there.”