The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Ceilidh.
from the direction of the building. He thought at first it
was some man who was late on the road like himself,
though he wondered what he could be doing in such a lonely
place that time of night. He was making straight for the
drover, as if he wanted to speak to him, and the drover
stood still and waited till he would come up to him, when
he noticed that though the stranger was walking over a
gravelly piece of land he could hear no sound of footsteps.
Sandy felt a bit scared, but when the man came up and
stood a few feet from him, and looked at him with a sad
expression on his face, Sandy knew at once that he wasn't
a mortal being, and he nearly fainted from fright. He
remembered that it was unsafe to address ghosts, so he
walked on and the stranger followed without saying a word,
and noiseless like a cat. Sandy halted once more and the
stranger halted too and looked at him as if he wished to
speak."
At this stage of the story a gust of wind made the
door rattle. All eyes were immediately turned in the
direction from which the sound had issued, as if they
expected to see the drover's ghost enter, a shiver ran
through the more timid of the party, and the smaller boys
crouched nearer the fire and threw suspicious glances into
the dark corners of the house, where the flickering shadows
rose and fell as if moved by the invisible hand of some evil
spirit.
" Then," continued Aonghas Ban, " the drover walked
on again, and the stranger went off the road and walked
back in the direction of the Castle, and Sandy saw him
no more."
" Did the drover notice what kind of clothes the
stranger wore?" enquired Seoras Glas.
"Yes," replied Aonghas Ban, "he said he was dressed
in a fine suit of dark cloth, and wore a black felt hat."
" It was the very same ghost that has been seen often
and often before in the same spot," said Seoras Glas, " and
will be again and again, I am thinking, till some one speaks