The Balquhidder Ghost.
In a wild sequestered nook of the pastoral and poetical braes of Balquhidder, stands a fair stone house and garden, which have been untenanted for years, in consequence of the supposed visitations of a ghost. The haunted mansion was the paternal property of one of the oldest residents of the glen, and was wrenched from him by arts which the peasantry characterise as any thing buut fair or legal. Nno sooner, however, had the original possessor lost his little inheritance, and another taken his place, than the aforesaid ghost arose to distribute what may be called retributive justice.
Noises were continually heard after sunset by the new possessor and his family. Potatoes, peats, stones, &c. flew in all directions, thick as arrows at Chevy Chace; the very ashes on the hearth were frequently gathered together, and went bodily up the lum; and if the “guidwife” but approached the fire to warm herself, one of the stools or chairs would get up and give her a box on the ear! This was really an awful state of things.
The minister was sent for; and the fame of the ghost spreading over all the country side, people came from far and near armed with guid beuks, wax candles, and other apparatus required for laying a ghost. Their efforts, however, were wholly unavailing. His ghostship seemed to bid defiance to all the arts of man to dislodge him, and as a necessary consequence, among a simple and superstitious people, the dwelling was speedily deserted.
A young man from Breadalbane came one night to watch, accompanied by one or two others, resolved if possible to fathom the mystery, and even brow-beat the unhallowed visitant if he chose to appear in propria persona. He had scarcely taken his seat when he received a smart knock on the side of the head from a ram’s horn, which had lain for years in a hole near the fire-place. This was sufficiently startling, but Colin thought he would prevent a repetition of the same violence. He buried the horn in a cairn of stones, still it appeared again; he threw it into a roaring linn, deeper than ever plummet sounded, but at the very moment the Highlander boasted of his feat, he was knocked down by the identical horn, wet from the burn!
Our correspondent hopes that we shall assign other reasons than ghostly ones for the above startling occurrences, and be able to clear up the mystery; but we freely confess that the task is beyond our powers. Our knowledge is confined to this “visible diurnal sphere,” and does not include the arcana of the world of goblins. Still we have so little faith in the existence of the ghost that we should have no objection (did circumstances permit) to pass a summer in the haunted house, which is still unoccupied, though it stands in a lovely vale, well wooded, and watered by a burn that leaps, and brawls, and plays a thousand vagaries in front of th ehouse, as if careless of the glamour that has been cast over the dwelling.
Inverness Courier, 31st December 1828.