Another story of a rock that jammed logs in the centre of a river was told of a man named Cruikshanks and a logger in his employ. The place was Moser’s River on our eastern shore. Here too the man said, “If the devil comes himself to move that rock I’ll go and help him.” In this story Mr. Cruikshanks forced the man to go, never dreaming it was really the devil who called from outside. The logger was never seen again and, as in the previous case, the rock had been removed while the other men had slept. It is said that Mr. Cruikshanks regretted for the rest of his life that he had sent his man to his death.
The appearance of a second man in a boat may not always have a bad effect, according to a man from Tantallon.
“A man here was a pilot and an awful drinker and he used to go across to the Head of St. Margaret’s Bay.This time he had been at the Prince of Wales Hotel and as usual had spent some time at the bar. As he was going home his engine stopped. He got mad and swore and said, ‘If the devil will come and help me it will be all right,’ and he looked up and there was a fine-looking man beside him with a beaver hat and a frock coat. He wasn’t too far gone in drink to recognize him for what he was, and he turned religious. Yes, he was a good man after that. A lot of people have told the story, and everybody knew about it at the time.”
From the preceding story it appears that people sometimes get a second chance. I am reminded now of an incident from French Village. “My father and Uncle Steve and Uncle Albert were fishing and had only a couple of fish, so Uncle Steve said, just for fun, ‘If we meet the devil we’ll give them to him.’ When they got to the road there was a great big animal larger than a dog. They all said it was an awful ugly thing, and different from any animal they’d ever seen or heard of. But they didn’t give it the fish. They were scared to death and I guess they never said they’d give the devil anything again.”
Mr. Edward Gallagher of Chebucto Head had this to tell. “Ten people saw the devil when the Mary B. Grier was tied up one year at the Commercial Wharf at Boston. It was a cold frosty night and, if there had been anybody coming afoot, they would have heard him. Three times he came and peered around the foremast, and twice he went away without making any sound. The third time a bean crock was thrown at him. He had red eyes like a blaze of fire. It was thought he was a former owner, probably because that year they’d got the best catch ever, and he was jealous.”
Beans play a part in the next story which comes from Clarke’s Harbour. In this case it was not the devil, but the Almighty who was challenged. The story was told me by the daughter of the man who had the experience. “Then Swim was cook on a boat. He used to swear a lot and he had a temper. One night he had a pot of beans in the oven and the pot came out and spilled. He got in a temper and put them back again. They came out a second time. This time he told God not to dare send those beans out again and to make sure he wired the oven door so they couldn’t get out. But out they came.
“By this time he was so angry he went on deck and told God to come half-way down the mast and he’d meet Him and have it out. Nothing happened on deck but, no matter what he did with the beans that night, they kept coming out of the oven, and finally he had to give it up.”
Here now is what happens to a man who breaks the Sabbath day as told by a Negro at Sackville. “Two men went into the woods to shoot on Sunday and they had to stay in a camp. About ten o’clock that night they heard a ghost man hauling timber and a saw going, and trees going crash, and he was calling, ‘Timber! Timber!’ all night till morning. He did that till the sun riz, driving horses and logging all night. That was his punishment for logging on a Sunday. He had to keep it up long after he died.
“My grandfather’s brother kept on working after he died, too, because he didn’t get the wood cut up that he was supposed to do. After he died you could hear the saw going squak squak squak, and the wood going blump blump. One moonlight night my father and his brother saw the man sawing, and the next day there was no wood sawed. What they seen looked like a big pile.
“Another man died without shingling his roof, and they used to see him pounding and pounding, but there was never any sound.” Conscience is such a strong force that a wrongdoer may suffer the tortures of the damned before he leaves this earth. “About eighty years ago a young girl had finished a visit with friends and, when it was time for her to leave, they got a ride for her with a young man who was going to her home at Marion Bridge. It is unlikely anything was known to his discredit or they would not have entrusted her to his care. This was the horse and buggy era and the night was dark. A light appeared upon the hillside and it came down the hill, crossed in front of the team, and disappeared on the other side. The girl was astonished and very frightened when her companion got down on his knees on the floor of the carriage and prayed fervently. He was so upset that he forgot all about the horse. It was necessary for her to take the reins until the light disappeared and the driver came to his senses.
“When he finally felt it was safe for him to raise his head he made a terse explanation. ‘That light was for me because I’m a bad man.’ In what way he had erred she never knew, but he must have thought the devil was in that light and had come to get him.”
Only a man who believed that the devil was sometimes heard rattling his chains could have told the following anecdote upon himself. “One time I went to see my girl and as I was walking through the woods I heard the devil’s chain following me. The faster I went, the faster he went, so I ran all the way home and was done out by the time I got there. The next week when I put my best pants on again I discovered a hole in the pocket and realized it was the change slipping down that had made the noise. But I’d heard so much in the lumber woods that I thought this must be a devil’s warning, and I never went to see that girl again.”
With so many horrible stories told about the devil it is not surprising to hear of incidents in which the more courageous have impersonated him in order to make sport of the timid. This was told by Mr. Horace Johnston.
“When I was twenty I went up to Kentville to visit a friend who was married. He was building a house and he was getting plaster from a man who said he’d have to knock off because he was afraid the plaster pit was going to cave in underneath his barn. This put him in a jam, so I said, ‘Harness up your horse and we’ll go tonight and get a load. He’ll never know.’ He had to have that plaster and it seemed like a good idea so away we went. We hitched the horse a little to one side where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
“It was always claimed this place was haunted. While we were digging a crowd of men came along this way from Kentville and they were feeling pretty good. They’d had some Adam’s wine or something.When they got abreast of the pit we kept quiet, and then we heard one fellow say, ‘They say this place is haunted. Let’s go see if the devil’s there.’They looked down and we could see them but they couldn’t see us. He said, ‘Mr. Devil, if you’re down there let’s hear from you.’ I was a stranger so they wouldn’t recognize my voice, so I did the talking, and I says, ‘I’m down here, and if you don’t come down I’m coming up to get you.’ Well sir they started in to run, and they were that frightened they fell down and left two bottles of rum behind and they probably tell to this day how they heard the devil himself speaking from that pit.”
Devil’s Island has been mentioned earlier, and you may wonder how it got its name. Enos Hartlan gives this explanation. “One night there was a party out there on the island.There was drinkin’ and dancin’ and old Caspar Henneberry was there. About one a.m. he went outside and when he came back he was all white and shakin’. ‘Boys,’ he say, ‘my time is finished.’ ‘Why?’ they asked. ‘How do you know?’
“‘I know because I seen the devil on the bankin’ (of the house) and he come in the form of a halibut.’
“The very next day he was comin’ from Halifax when his boat was picked up. Yes sir, his boat was picked up just off th’ island, and there was old Caspar with his head and shoulders overboard drownded. That’s as true as I
’m a-settin’ here. The funny part of it was that there didn’t seem to be no reason for him being drownded that way, so the people called it Devil’s Island from that day.” In another telling of this story there were signs of a tussle and one of the men in the fight had a cloven foot, for its imprint was on the sand.This had taken place on the beach, so that Caspar would have been in a weakened condition when he got into his boat.
The afternoon spent in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Alex McLeod of New Aberdeen was a happy and profitable one. Mr. McLeod and his friend Mr. Charlie Weeks of Glace Bay were old friends who had not met for some time, and each tried to outdo the other. As a result I got this explanation of a light that has often been seen in country places and that bobs up and down as though someone is carrying a lantern. The light is called a Jack o’ Lantern and this, according to Mr. McLeod, is how it came into being.
“There was a fellow who was in the habit of going down the road to a bar-room, but he was always short of money and would do anything to get it. Once he looked in at the place but his purse was empty so he went unhappily away. Before long he met a strange fellow who spoke to him.
“‘Where did you come from?’
“‘I went to the bar-room.’
“‘Did you get in?’
“‘Yes, but I had no money so I didn’t even have a drink.’
“‘You’re a blacksmith,’ said the stranger. ‘What would you do for me if I’d give you a purse that would be always full?’
“‘I’d do anything.’
“‘Would you give yourself away?’
“‘Yes, I would.’
“‘When would you be ready to go with me?’
“‘In about a year’s time.’ So the strange fellow gave him the purse and he put it in his pocket and it was always full and he had a good time. He set himself up in business and had people working for him and was getting along so well that when the year was up he decided he wouldn’t go. He knew well enough of course that the stranger was the devil.
“When the year was up the devil came and said, ‘Your time is up.You must come with me.’
“‘Well yes, that is what I promised. But when I pass the bar-room I never go by without going in to have one. I’d like one more drink before I go.’
“The devil agreed, so the blacksmith said, ‘They say you can go around in any shape at all.’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Well, suppose I take you in the bar-room in the shape of a dollar bill and pay you for my drink?’ The devil, being an obliging fellow agreed. But the blacksmith decided he wouldn’t go to the bar-room. Instead he put the dollar bill in his pocket and hurried back to the forge. Then he put the purse in the fire and put it on the anvil and pounded it to pieces and that, he thought, was the end of the devil.
“Well, time went on and at last the blacksmith died. There was no place for him to go but the bad place and when he arrived the devil asked, ‘Who’s that?’ Attendants told him it was the blacksmith who had played such a trick on him, and the devil said, ‘Send him back.’ So the blacksmith picked up the lantern that was at the gate and he took it with him and he’s been all over the world ever since always travelling. That’s what’s meant by a Jack o’ Lantern.”
So you see, trying to outsmart the devil does not work.
ANGELS
It is with a sigh of relief that I say farewell to the devil and turn now to the second part of this chapter. Stories of angelic visitations are unfortunately less frequent, possibly because people are bashful about telling them. Let us begin with heavenly music as it was told about at Victoria Beach.
“When my brother died, my sister heard the singing of ‘A Perfect Day,’ as if sung by a choir of voices. They sang the whole song and it seemed to come from our corner of the bedroom. She was sitting by his sick bed at the time and it was before there was such a thing as a radio. It happened one evening in March at Parker’s Cove on the other side of the mountain.”
One evening a couple were sitting together at Sambro. The husband’s mother was at the point of death. His wife suddenly looked at him in surprise and said, “Listen to the birds sing. Don’t they sing sweet?”
“I don’t hear anything,” he said. A few minutes later she heard them again, but they were for her ears only. Although he strained to listen, he could hear nothing at all.
At Middleton, a farming community in Colchester County, the people are largely of Scottish descent. Nearly forty years ago the daughter of a house was dying and people who passed the house heard sounds of beautiful music. No one could understand where it came from, and it has been talked about in the surrounding countryside ever since.
A woman at Ship Harbour said, “When my husband was dying he got up on his feet and said, ‘Poor McDonald.’ I said ‘Who is he?’ and he said, ‘McDonald’s one of the best violin players I ever heard.’ He heard it and so did I, as plain as could be. I said, ‘Where’s the music coming from?’ but he didn’t answer, and I never knew who this McDonald was. It was violin music that we heard, but I didn’t recognize any particular tune; just the sound of music and nobody anywhere near to be making it.”
From violin music and heavenly choirs we go next to organ music and for this we return to Sambro Head where a woman had an organ in her house that belonged to a friend. “We were keeping it for him. One time there were a lot of people in the house including the school teacher, and she asked me why I was looking so hard at the organ as though I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I told her the organ was playing. She thought I was crazy because she couldn’t hear anything, but my son heard it as well as me. The teacher had heard about it and how it sometimes played before a death and she asked me to let her know if anything happened. In two hours a very close friend died. But that wasn’t nearly so strange as what happened when the owner died. That time it played two lines of his favourite hymn, ‘Softly fades the twilight ray of the holy Sabbath day.’ It wasn’t my son and I that heard it that time, but me and my daughter.”
Two stories from Lunenburg County tell of the actual appearance of an angel as a warning or preparation for death. On Tancook Island a man told his wife that he had seen an angel and that he wouldn’t be long in this world now. In ten minutes he was gone. The other angel appeared to a man at Simpson’s Corner in a dream. He told his wife about it and said that the angel came to him holding an open book and showed him his own name in it. He was perfectly well at the time. Nevertheless he put all his affairs in order and a few weeks later he was murdered—an end even he would scarcely have anticipated.
Mrs. A. B. Thorne’s beautiful garden at Karsdale has been mentioned in our chapter on forerunners, and flowers play a very important part in her life. The night that her brother died there was a knock at her door and, when she opened it, she was surprised to see a stranger there. It was a lady with a beautiful cross of white lilies in her hand. She gave this to Mrs. Thorne who thought,“how strange to bring it here, and no funeral.” The next day word came that her brother had died suddenly. Presumably this was an angel in ordinary clothes which would not frighten her, and she conveyed her message in flowers, the language which Mrs.Thorne would know best.
In the heyday of sailing ships, Port Greville and Advocate on the Bay of Fundy shore were busy ports. One of the ships that sailed from here was the brig Zebenia. At the time of our story Capt. Hatfield who told it to me, was one of the crew.
“Bill Parsons was the captain. We had put new rigging, new sails, and new masts on her. We went then to Hantsport to finish fixing her up and then to Hillsboro to finish loading. After that we went to Port Greville to hunt up a crew and it came on a heavy gale and she went ashore. There were four men aboard her including me. The other three drowned. She covered over with water and went up to Fox Point and these other fellows floated out and around the rock. She had been so near the shore that her sails wouldn’t draw and she rolled so her spars were lying right over.
“The three who were drowned were in the cabin. I got out of the sky
light and let myself over the sharp end of the stern. It was December and the sea was ten or twelve feet high, but the beach was level and I was able to crawl ashore on the sand, gripping the bottom to keep going. It was half a mile to the first house and my socks were cut through before I got there. That was in 1883. After that Capt. Parsons couldn’t get a ship although he was a good captain. People were afraid he was bad luck and the antics of the Zebenia on the day the three fellows were buried didn’t help any. That day she didn’t drift up and down the Bay of Fundy but lay outside of Port Greville for three hours. The fear was not only for the captain being bad luck then, but of the ship as well, for Port Greville was where the funeral was.
“A funny thing happened to me the night the Zebenia went ashore. I started out the cabin when something went flying by me and it seemed like an angel. It was a very dark night but I could see it plainly. It all happened quickly, but I could see it come right down through the galley doors. I thought it was coming for me and I put my hand up to stop it, for it had slanted right down towards me. An hour afterwards the other three fellows were dead.”
It seems strange that the appearance of an angel should engender fear. I heard of this next event at Granville Ferry. A guest had arrived at a house for a visit some fifty years ago and she told her hostess that she could never leave her own home without having a terrifying experience. She said that after being away for a few days an angel in white always appeared before her. The story was not taken very seriously until she ran down the stairs one day screaming and said she had seen her again. Apart from the fact that the angel appeared only when she travelled, there seemed to be no other significance to the vision. It was never known why this occurred.
Bluenose Ghosts Page 12
