The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1885-05-30
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THE HAUNTED BRIDGE.
A TALE OF THE HIGHLANDS.

From Chambers Journal.
There are probably few readers who are
not familiar, to greater or lesser extent
with the well-ventilated subject of super
stition in the Highlands of Scotland
There are few mountain countries through
out the world that are not rich in lore and
legend relating to the supernatural theil
very confguration suggests that agencies
more than ordinary have been employed
in shaping out their features 1t is curl
Gus to notice how very largely the demon
lac theory enters into the calculations Of
the peasantry. For one Fairy glen OF
knoll there are dozen Devils mills
bridges, caldrons, or punchbowls; in fact.
it is almost always the beings that are sup
posed to be baleful and inimical to the
human race that have had their personality
perpetuated in these legends. This GER
tainly seems a little incongruous; but as
this is not treatise on demonology we
are content to leave it so.
Superstition is part of the being of the
mountaineer. Brave even to rashness, he
will face the natural dangers that beset his
life-in the torrent, on the peak, or in the
forest he fears no odds when he meets
his foes. And yet this man, who can tread
the dizzy ledge on the face of precipice,
who can hurl himself on levelled steel, is
more timid and frightened than child,
when he conceives that forces other than
earthly are being brought to bear on him.
1t is partly to the manner and style of his
life that he owes this He is brought
more into the presence of nature than his
neighbor of the plains; he becomes insbued
with the spirit of his surroundings the
deep dark gloom of the woods, the lone
someness of the mountain solitudes, the
voices of the storm and of the torrent, and
of their reproductions in the echoes, appeal
to him; and poetical imagination begot-
ten of such an existence finishes the pro-
cess. Thus the roar of waterfall in its
dark chasm becomes to him the howlings
of some demon prisoned among the rocks ;
the sighing of the wind through the forest
trees is caused by the passage of spirits ;
the mists that furl around the mountain
peaks and are waited so silently across crest
and corrie are disembodied ghosts; and the
sounds that break the stiffness of the night
are the shrieks and yells of fiends and their
victims.
This brings me to my story. fancy
that most of my readers are acquainted
more or less with the scenery of the High
lands; but in the case of by far the larger
number of them, I venture to say that such
acquaintance extends only to the Highlands
in their summer or their autumn dress. If
so, they only half know them. Brave is
the tourist who ventures among the fens
and glens when rude King Boreas lords it
over them when winters wind roars
adown the gorges of the hill, staggering the
stalwart pines, mingling the withered
leaves and the snowfakes in the desolate
woods When icicles hang from the hoary
rocks, and the deep drift chokes up the
ravines, mantles the slopes of the corries,
and bends in cornices over the threatening
cliffs; when the river roars through the
plain-brown and swollen-and its parent
torrents are leaping and raving among the
boulders when the mountain hare and
ptarmigan are white as the snow that har-
bors them; and the deer, driven from the
hills by stress Of weather, roam in herds
through the low-lying woods and the
mountain fox leaves his cairn and prowls
around the farm and the sheepfold-then,
if you would enter into the spirit of lone
illness and solitude, take your way to the
Highlands. Do not imagine, however,
that such is their condition during the
whole of winter on the contrary, have
painted particularly black picture, and it
was in very much better weather that, two
or three years ago, | went north, in De-
cember, on visit to some friends in In
verness-shire The particular part of the
county stayed in does not materially af-
feet my adventure, so 1 shall not disclose it.
My time sped by very pleasantly although
the district did not afford many neighbors
at short distances but this was circum-
stance that always procured me an extra
hearty welcome when ventured far enough
from home to call upon my people. On
one of these expeditions [ had ridden to a
house about eight miles away, and the late
hour of my arrival brought about an invi-
tation to stay for dinner and spend the
evening. My friends pushed their hospi-
tality to such an extent that they had
almost prevailed upon me to stay the night
as well, when a good-natured challenge
changed my wavering plans into firm de-
termination to be off. Our conversation
after dinner had not unnaturally turned
upon ghOst-stories, as the district was an
out-of-the-way one, and the country-folk
were fully persuaded of the existence of
kelpies and warlocks of various kinds.
What now happened was that some of the
young people fancied they had found the
reason why | was willing to stay all night,
and boldly told me that I was frightened
to cross certain bridge on my way home
that had the reputation of being haunted.
I knew the spot well, though [ had never
found out its exact story; and when as