Wicked Woods (9 page)
“I'll stone you, boy,” Peregrine said, hefting his rock and drawing a breath for a fresh new tirade. “In fact, if I had a musâket I'd blow out your mealy young brains for showing me such impudence.”
And then he threw the rock, winging it off of Mascaline's bad leg. That was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back. Mascaline turned and ran back to the farmer's house and hunted up Rogers's old musket. It was a dirty thing, rusted and uncared for. It looked as if it might just as well blow up in Mascaline's face as fire.
“Here's your musket, Master White, sir,” Mascaline said. “You may fire if you have the courage for it.”
Ah, the brash foolishness of youth mixed with the bitter anger of age makes for a very bad brew indeed. Peregrine White took the musket and eyed it with an ex-soldier's critical observation.
“You keep as bad a care of your weapons as you do of your house, Rogers,” Peregrine said. “I'm in as much danger from shooting myself with such a weapon.”
“Damn you, sir,” Rogers huffed. “Use that weapon or I will use it myself.”
Peregrine White put the musket to his shoulder.
“Mind you, boy. I've killed bigger men than you, back in the war,” Peregrine warned.
“The war was a long time ago, old man,” Mascaline answered. “The lies and brags you make of it mean nothing more than the wind.”
“Better you use this musket for a crutch, gimp-a-leg,” Peregrine said cruelly. “It probably isn't even loaded.”
Rogers, who was a little loaded himself even this early in the morning, was hair-trigger quick to speak up. “And what good is a weapon, if it isn't loaded? It's primed and ready sir. Are you?”
There's nothing so foolish as those who will listen to a double-dog dare.
Peregrine threw the musket back at Mascaline. “I need no gun to tell you what I think of you and that serving wench you hope to bed.”
With that Peregrine launched himself into a fresh torrent of insults. Mascaline stood there taking it all in, hanging onto the musket, his fists white-knuckled with rage.
And then, all at once, as if by accident, the musket thunâdered out a gout of black powder. Mascaline had been holding it loosely, aimed towards the ground, but just the same Peregrine fell to the dirt, his left leg holed brutally midway between his ankle and his knee.
“I'll show you how to limp,” Mascaline was heard to say.
Mary Evans came flying off the front stoop and knelt beside the fallen Peregrine, bandaging the old coot's leg with a swatch of fabric torn from her only courting dress.
Whether it was simply human courtesy, or the fear of losing her lover to the gallows, Mary Evans was determined that old Peregrine would not suffer. She patched him up as best as she could, but there was nothing to be done. Infection set in, and on Wednesday, October 3, 1810, old Peregrine White muttered his last bitter insult and passed away.
William Mascaline was arrested and charged with cold-blooded murder. He faced trial at the Kingston courthouse on October 30, 1810. One day before Halloween, Judge Ward Chipman Sr. sentenced William Mascaline to hang, and six days later, hang he did.
Mary never married and James Rogers never repented his temper. Kipper ran away on the day of the trial, although some believe that Rogers simply shot and killed the terrier, thus putting an end to the sole reminder of his uncontrollable rage.
Not a lot of folks know about this trial, but there are many who tell you that on Halloween nights in the woods outside of Kingston you will often hear a small dog barking in the wind. Others will tell of hearing the voices of two bitterly angry old men arguing in the empty night.
And there is many a Kingstonian who has heard and seen the ghost of Mary Evans walking the lonely woods, weeping for her long-lost lover. Her tears mix freely with the evening mist, and the night wind blows lonely and sorrowful and full of regret.
CATONS ISLAND
In the first month of 1611, a pair of Jesuit missionaries, Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse, set sail from France and arrived at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the first permanent French settlement in Canada. Port Royal was built on the site of modern-day Annapolis Royal. You may remember that it served as a base for Sieur D'Aulnay Charnisay, the archrival of Charles La Tour and his wife Madame La Tour.
The two missionaries, Biard and Masse, were under the orders of the king's confessor to take charge of the Jesuit mission in Acadia. It was a rough job, but France had confidence in the men they had chosen.
In the summer of 1611, the two men, accompanied by a crew of hardy St. Malo traders, set sail up the St. John River to a tiny little island called Emenic, just off of Long Reach. Nowadays they call this place Catons Island but back in the seventeenth century it was nothing more than a rung on a long ladder leading inland to future trading grounds. The traders hoped to establish a permaânent trading base on the island, while the missionaries planned to meet with local holy men and get to know the Maliseet.
The journey down the St. John River was a rough one, but Biard and his men were seasoned travellers. Still, this was a strange and dark country to them. All along the riverside the trees bowed down their heads, and the wind whistled through the branches, and the black flies and mosquitoes buzzed incessantly. They saw bear and moose and other creatures they did not recognize. Fish jumping in the river's waves startled them, and at every turn they felt the forâest breathing about them as if in anticipation of a coming feast.
The travellers were still a league and a half away from Catons Island when the sun called it a day and nighttime rolled on in. The stars were just beginning to peek out of the darkness when all at once a part of the northern sky turned a bright blood red. As if the sky were burning down, this light spread in vivid streaks and flashes, until the shining glow completely encompassed the nearby Maliseet settlement.
Biard remarked “the red glow was so brilliant that the whole river was tinged and made luminous by it. The apparition lasted about five minutes and as soon as it disappeared another came from the same direction, with the same form and appearance.”
Of course, it is very probable that this phenomenon was nothâing more than an early sighting of the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. However, the Maliseet came to the missionaries and pointed up at the bright shimmering radiance, crying out, “Gara, gara, maredo.” According to Biard their warning translated as: “We shall have war. There will be blood.”
We might file that dubious translation in the same sector as the guides who thought Kanata was the name of the country they were travelling in, rather than a First Nations term for a village or cluster of houses.
According to all descriptions the light radiated across the entire sky. The Maliseet swore that it was a spirit warning them of oncoming danger, and perhaps they were right.
Biard's band of travellers was decidedly unnerved by the occurârence. They met with the settlers at Catons Island, and an arguâment and battle nearly ensued.
The settlers, panicked by the sight of the eerie light mistook Biard's men for a group of bandits.
In Biard's words, “What a night this was; for it passed in conâtinual alarms, gun shots and rash acts on the part of some of the men.”
They were worried that the Maliseet's prediction, inspired by the omen in the night sky above, would have its bloody fulfillment on the earth below. The night was spent in sleepless terror and in the morning, in an effort to re-establish some sense of order and a little hope, Biard performed what was very likely the first ceremony of the holy mass in the province of New Brunswick. His men bowed their heads and prayed, and for a time peace was found.
Yet as he looked down into the chalice filled with the holy sacâramental red wine all that Pierre Biard could see was that burning sky of blood that had looked down grimly from the heavens above the missionaries. He kept his head bowed and prayed just as hard as he could.
Two years later, Biard was captured during the destruction of the Nova Scotia settlements of Saint Sauveur and Port Royal by an invading British military expedition from Virginia. Noted sea raider Samuel Argall led the expedition. The fort at Port Royal was looted and burned to the ground. Eyewitnesses swore that the sky burned red that night and for many nights to follow.
Biard was captured and taken to Jamestown, where he barely avoided being hanged, before being transported back to France and framed for the instigation of this raid. He finally managed to clear his name of all dishonour and afterwards made a life for himself working as a missionary in the south of France. He became renowned as a professor of theology and was made miliâtary chaplain in the armies of the king. He died of natural causes at Avignon, France, in 1622 at the age of forty-six.
I wonder if the blood and the war that the Maliseet natives prophesied was some sort of a forerunner of the destruction of Port Royal? Or is it possible that the natives were only having a laugh at the missionary's expense, playing up a natural phenomâenon and doing their best to terrify the foolish white men?
In any case, Port Royal was looted and burned in November 1613. De Poutrincourt, the sieur at the time, was discouraged enough to return to France and transfer all of his North American holdings to his son. De Poutrincourt died around 1623 and bequeathed his possessions to one Charles La Tour.
Funny how these things all come around, isn't it?
CARTERS COVE
There are an awful lot of ghosts around in old New Brunswick and this spectral population is reflected in the etymology of the region. On any map you'll see such places as Ghost Hollow, Ghost Island, Ghost Hill, Ghost Lake, and Ghost Rock. I've done my level best to track down the stories behind each of these names, but have so far only found the tales of Ghost Rock, Ghost Hollow, and Ghost Hill. I will continue to keep hunting for the ghost stories that must surely lie behind Ghost Island and Ghost Lake.
I heard this next tale from a New Brunswick schoolteacher by the name of Darren White. He told me the bare bones of the story and I have fleshed it out as best as I can.
Ghost Hollow is an awfully hard place to find on a map.
If you leave the city of Saint John, heading west towards Fredericton and take the Grand Bay exit, you will come to the Westfield Ferry. The ferry is located next to Westfield Beach, and makes the five-minute ride connecting Grand BayâWestfield and Hardings Point.
After reaching Hardings Point, stay on Route 845 and keep going straight, heading towards Kingston. It shouldn't be that hard to find, on account of Route 845 is the only major road leadâing from that end of the ferry. Ghost Hollow is about six minutes from Hardings Point at regular driving speed. You don't actually see the hollow so much as drive into it. It is a stretch of road that drops down and stretches out in the basin of a deep old valley.
At least that's how the directions were told to me.
It seems there were two brothers by the name of Laskey who lived on a small farm somewhere in the belly of Ghost Hollow. Some say they were twins and some say they just happened to look alike, as brothers sometimes do.
A small brook used to run through the hollow and one of the brothers, the younger one, got into the habit of sitting on a huge boulder by the brook, alongside the roadway, for his after-supper pipe.
They say that one night the younger Laskey brother fell asleep on the rock and took a chill, and before a week had clocked by he breathed his last breath and died.
Now having a brother pass on like that can affect a man. The other brother took his place on the rock. He would sit there and smoke his brother's pipe, not saying a word. He'd just sit there and stare up at the sky.
Who knows what he was up to? Maybe he was trying to make mischief, or maybe he wasn't trying anything at all. Maybe he was just sitting there and thinking about his brother and wondering to himself just what lay beyond those stars.