Twelve Great Black Cats (6 page)

“There's naught that we can do here, lads,” he told them sadly. “We must just be flitting away.”

“Och, aye,” the others agreed. “We must be flitting away. But where?”

Where? That was the important question. Where would these ghosts, who would soon be homeless, find a new home? The chief of the clan would not let himself be daunted. He had faced many a trouble in his life as a mortal man and had weathered every one of them. Would he not do the like now he was a ghost? To be sure, he would. So he called to him a spry young ghost and bade him go out into the world and find a place the clan could bide in, and not come back until such a place was found.

The young ghost set off at once on his search. It was no more than a fortnight before he came back again, looking very pleased with himself.

“I've found it!” he said.

“Where is it? Is it a castle?” the ghosts asked.

“A-weel, it is not a castle,” said the young ghost.

The other ghosts sighed a great and doleful sigh that sounded like the wind blowing through dry leaves in autumn.

“Come now, do not fash yourselves,” the spry young ghost said kindly. “If it is not a castle, I promise you it is no worse. A grand big manor house it is, with plenty of space within for all of us, forty or fifty rooms in all, to say the least.”

The ghosts gathered hopefully about him, and he went on with his tale.

“It sets high on a crag above Loch Doom,” he told them. “The only house, it is, between the fishing village of Dulldreary by the sea and the town of Grim-bailey twenty miles beyond across the moor. There will be no neighbors to trouble us there because the village is a good five miles away. The road runs by the manor, but the manor house lies away from the road, and there are trees all about it that hide it well from sight. There it stands, alone and empty, just waiting for us to move in.”

“A-weel,” the old chief said doubtfully. “I'm thinking a place the like of that would be having a wheen of ghosts within it already. I'm not saying it would suit me to share a place with a pack of ghosts.”

“De'il a ghost is there,” the spry young fellow said. “Och, there's no reason why there should be. 'Tis no ancestral home. The man who built it lived in it less than two years. What with the fogs rolling in from the sea, and the mists rising up from Loch Doom, and the mizzle drifting down from the moor five nights out of seven, the place was so dank and chill he could not thole it. He packed up his goods and his family and moved away. So, you'll see, no one ever died in it by violence to bring a ghost there, and for that matter, no one ever died there at all. Except for spiders and mice and a rat or two, it's as toom as the inside of a drum.”

“Och, my lad, you've done very well by us!” exclaimed the chief. “We'll all be off, then, to the manor house.”

The chief had been a sea dog when he was living, and he was well pleased to find out that the clan could go by sea for most of the way to their new home, instead of traveling over moor and mountain making the long hard journey on foot.

Some of the clan went off to fetch the ghost of an old galley that haunted the waters of the bay, while the rest of them gathered up their gear, getting ready to flit.

Three nights later the ghosts who had gone to fetch the galley brought the shadowy old ship into a hidden cove, a mile or so below the castle village, and moored it there. When the ghostly galley was laden with their possessions, the ghosts went aboard themselves. Up came the anchor, and the galley with its load went slipping quietly down along the coast.

The night that the ghosts came ashore at Dulldreary, if the weather was not worse than any the village had ever seen before it was certainly no better. The fog rolling in from the sea was that thick that it could have been stirred with a spoon. A man coming out on his doorstep to have a look at the weather would not be able to see the house of his neighbor across the road. 'Twas not the sort of night to be stirring abroad in, and Dulldreary folk showed their good sense by biding indoors. The fishermen did not go out that night. Their boats were pulled high up on the shingle with the oars and boat gear carefully stored away, and there was no visiting that night around the village to
ceilidh
with friends.

Along about midnight, the ghosts' galley came creeping along through a solid bank of fog and tied up at the pier in the small harbor of Dulldreary. The ghosts landed themselves and their goods and set the galley adrift to go wherever it would, and then they shouldered their belongings and started up the road from the shore toward the manor house, five miles away.

The fog kept the villagers indoors, most of them being by now in their beds, but it did not bother the ghosts at all. They were all so lighthearted and frolicsome because they were near their journey's end that they could not contain themselves. Like lads coming out of school to begin their holidays they whooped, they shrieked, they whistled, and danced and sang. Dulldreary folk woke in their beds and shuddered to hear them.

“Have you e'er heard sie' a storm?” they said, pulling the covers about them. “Hark, now, to the terrible sound o' the wind!” And the fishermen's wives among them praised the Lord that their men had not gone to sea that night.

The happy ghosts did not care how much of a din they made. With the fog to hide them, no mortal eye could tell who they were or where they were going. Up the road they traveled, paying no heed to the five long miles. Coming at last to the manor house, they all went in and joyfully took possession of the place.

In the village at the end farthest away from the shore there stood two shielings, one on either side of the road. In the one on the left hand side a young fellow named Angus lived with his parents, and a young fellow named Fergus lived with his parents in the house on the right hand side. There was no harm in either of these lads, but they were both so lively and so full of curiosity that the whole village kept a watchful eye upon the pair. It was well-advised to do so, for if there was any mischief afoot, Fergus and Angus were sure to be in it and, most of the time, leaders of whatever was going on.

When the ghosts were rollicking through the village, Angus, wakened by the uproar, raised himself from his bed and crept to the window to look out and see what was causing the commotion outside. At the same time Fergus, in the house across the road, was doing the same thing. As the two lads peeped out the fog lifted a wee bit for a moment. It closed in again quickly, but in that moment Angus and Fergus caught a glimpse of what looked to be a host of men carrying upon their shoulders boxes, kegs, sacks, and bundles of different sorts. In an instant the fog had hidden the strange sight, but Angus and Fergus had seen enough to make them very curious about it.

There was a good bit of talk in the morning about the noise of the night's storm. The villagers were amazed that, with all the howling and whistling of the wind, there was not a sign of damage done.

Angus and Fergus kept quiet before their elders but later, when alone together, each told the other what he had seen.

“Storm!” said Angus, grinning.

“Wind!” said Fergus with a chuckle.

“Let the auld folk think as they please,” said Angus. “We know what we saw.”

“Och, aye, and we're not telling,” Fergus said. “There was a terrible lot of men—”

“Hundreds of them!” said Angus. “All carrying boxes and the like.”

“Smugglers!” Fergus agreed.

“Look, Fergus. Where would you say they'd be making for?” asked Angus.

“Making for? Och, for Aberdoom Manor house,” said Fergus. “Where else?”

And it was to the manor house the two curious lads meant to go, as soon as they had a chance.

It was not soon the chance came, for it was the season for the herring run. Sure enough, the night after the big fog the waters were full of fish. The weather, though foggy, was not so bad that the fishermen could not go out, and every man in Dulldreary, Fergus and Angus among them, was needed to go out with the fishing fleet, night after night.

The run was over at last, and what with taking the fish they'd caught to the fish buyer and salting down those they'd kept to eat at home, to say nothing of cleaning the boats and mending the nets, the folk of Dulldreary had had enough of fish for a while. The catch had been a good big one, and to celebrate it, there was going to be a grand
ceilidh
in Dulldreary at the village hall.

The night of the
ceilidh
the moon hung like a polished golden plate in the cloudless sky. There was not a soul in Dulldreary who bided at home that night. When the fun was at its height, Angus and Fergus slipped unnoticed away from the
ceilidh
and started up the road that led to the manor house.

The ghosts had settled in and were well-contented. They were having a
ceilidh
of their own, a house-warming you might call it. When Angus and Fergus turned from the road and started up the lane that led through the trees, they heard the sound of voices shouting, and music and laughter, coming from the house ahead.

They came up to the front door and found it standing open. No one seemed to be in sight, so the two stepped into the manor house hall. At one side there was a long dark passage running through the house. At the end of the passage they saw a light shining dimly where a doorway led into a room, and that was where all the din was coming from.

Angus started down the passage. “Come along, Fergus,” he said.

“Och, I dare not,” said Fergus, hanging back. “I'm feared o' smugglers.”

“Och, weel, so am I,” Angus said. “But come along anyway.”

So they crept down the passage, keeping close to the wall. The din grew louder and louder as they came near the doorway. They peeped around it to see what was going on.

It was the grand ballroom of the manor house, and Angus and Fergus saw at the far end of it a great long table stretching clear across the room. The place was none too bright, for the only light came from a row of candles down the middle of the table, but anyway they saw what looked like scores and scores of men gathered about the table, having a high old time. They were a strange looking crew to see and as wild as foxes, and they were feasting and drinking, dancing and singing, talking and laughing, till the rafters rang. There was even a piper or two blowing away.

The corners of the room near the door were dark, being too far away for the candlelight to reach them. Angus and Fergus crept into the nearest corner and crouched there to get a better view. There were things piled up on either side of them, so the lads were as well hidden as if they were in a cave. They watched for a while spellbound at the queer sights, then Angus, finding his eyes were getting used to the darkness, looked at the pile of things beside him, curious to see what was there.

There at his elbow was a great heap of leather bottles stacked up like the stones in a cairn. He poked Fergus in the ribs, and pointed a finger at the pile.

“Look ye,” whispered Fergus. “Whiskey, I dinna doubt.”

“Och, more like 'tis brandy the smugglers sneaked in from France,” Angus whispered back.

“A wee bit of it would not be so bad,” and he reached out and took hold of one of the leather bottles by its neck.

The bottle pulled from the pile dislodged all the rest of them and down they fell with a clatter, bouncing and banging on the bare board floor.

The company about the table stopped their carousing and turned about to stare at Angus and Fergus who stood, horror stricken, in the corner, Angus with the bottle still in his hand. His eyes and mouth flew open, and Fergus's did the same. They could look right through the men around the table and see the wall of the room beyond them!

“Ghosts!” screeched Angus.

“Smuggling ghosts!” shrieked Fergus. “Let us get out of here!”

The ghosts swooped down in a body, but Angus and Fergus were gone. Down the long passage the two lads flew and out the front door, clearing the front steps in one bound. The ghosts came pelting along after, but the lads were well ahead of them. Down the lane through the trees, and into the road, and on toward Dulldreary they sped. Luathas, the swiftest dog that ever lived, would not have outrun Angus and Fergus that night.

The ghosts chased them down the road for a mile or two but could not catch up with them, so at last they gave up and went back to the manor house.

Angus and Fergus kept up the pace for another mile, until they discovered their pursuers were gone.

“I've no breath more for running,” Fergus panted, dropping down under a hedge by the road, and Angus threw himself down by his side. They lay gasping and panting until they got their breath again. Then they sat up and looked wildly at each other in the pale moonlight.

“That would be ghosts, to be sure,” said Fergus.

“Och, aye, indeed it would!” said Angus. “Smuggling ghosts, into the bargain.”

“What's that you have in your hand, Angus?” Fergus asked.

“Och, this? 'Tis the bottle. Och, now! Did I forget to put it down when we left!” said Angus.

“Well, then,” said Fergus. “Open it up! With all the running I've been doing and the shock I've had forbye, I'm needing a bit of a drink.”

So Angus opened the bottle and it went back and forth between them. The very best of old French brandy was in it, and between the two of them they drank up every drop.

The
ceilidh
at Dulldreary village hall ended around about four in the morn, and dawn was getting ready to cry itself in when Dulldreary folk were settling down in their beds. There wasn't a body waking in the place when, an hour later, Angus and Fergus came roaring down the road. The two lads stood in the middle of the road shouting to all the folk of the village to come out and hear their news.

The villagers woke and leaping from their beds rushed out their doors, thinking the houses were on fire and the village about to go up in flames. When they found out it was naught but Angus and Fergus babbling of ghosts and smugglers, they turned in disgust and went back to their beds again, leaving the lads to their parents who put a flea in each of their ears for shaming them before the neighbors with their foolish tales. Folk would think they were daft, going on in such a way, they scolded, and sent the silly lads off to their beds.