Facts and Fancies
page 2
In Southern Ulster there is a burial-ground that in times gone by was set apart for the interment of slaves. The headstones were selected from the fields; and though partially hidden from the casual observer by grass and shrubbery, the mounds and rude monuments can yet be located. Some of the older inhabitants
The Spectre
say that apparitions are sometimes seen loitering among the graves; and that on very dark and stormy nights a figure is seen to rise and soar away into space. In former years, it is said, the ghostly visitant used to frequent a house in the vicinity, and disturb the quiet of its occupants. Sometimes steps could be heard ascending the stairs. Then there would follow the creaking of a door on its hinges, though no door could be seen to move, and a figure in white would advance to the centre of the room, and pause as if intently looking for some object, and then vanish out of sight. The more knowing ones shake their heads when the subject is mentioned, and aver that if the dead could speak, some great wrong would be exposed; that by reason of this great wrong the spirits are not allowed to rest in their graves, but are forced to do penance as punishment for the acts committed during life. It is related that the good dame who once lived there used to punish her diminutive but somewhat refractory husband by doubling him up into a bucket, and letting him down into a deep well, until his spirit was reduced to something like submission. Be that as it may, there are those living in the vicinity, who, when they have occasion to pass the graveyard in the night-time, keep an eye over their shoulder until they get well beyond the ghost-haunted spot.
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