The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
experiences to their neighbours, who taunted them on
learning that they were loth to go back to Dune Tower.
Nevertheless, they returned. One morning, about 4 a.m.,
they again were alarmed by a noise as though a heavy
shell had been discharged from a howitzer entrenched
immediately behind the house. The whole place quaked.
One of the men leapt out of bed in great terror. He called
to the woman, but got no response, since she appears to have
gone off into a swound. On the morrow they again left for
the week-end, earnestly wishing that the alterations had
been completed, so that never again might they have to
approach the haunted place.
On the following Monday the two joiners and the housekeeper
returned to Dune Tower for the fourth time, doubly
intent on finishing the work before the succeeding Friday.
About 11 p.m. on the Thursday, however, when the housekeeper
opened the door, that she might draw a pailful of
water from the barrel at the gable of the house, she was
confronted by the figure of a friend who had been dead for
six years. The figure, floating toward her in mid-air, was
clearly outlined against the darkness by the bright light of
a mantle lamp standing in the kitchen window. Hurriedly
she slammed the door in the face of the wraith, faintly
muttering the words :
" O Lord, deliver me ! " She
swooned on the floor in the small porch. On regaining
consciousness, she talked incoherently far into the night.
At the first peep of day the two men commenced to labour
as they never had laboured before, so that at nightfall they
might be able to flee from Dune Tower with the certainty
that never again would they be required to return.
And since that time neither ghost nor ghostly sound has
disturbed the slumbers of those who are accustomed to cross
the moors to Dune Tower. ^
The Phantom Angler.
And now to a ghost tale that belongs to Sutherland.
Upon a time there resided by the shores of Loch Shin a
1 For a full account of Dune Tower, see Chapter IX of my book,
The Haunted Isles (MacLehose, 5/-),
292