Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1912-12-20

partition was signifcant-the ship was never
heard Of again.
The rocky coasts of New England are haunted
by many ghost ships. The Palatine is the best
known specter The coasters and fishermen Of
Long Island Sound will tell you that when a sight
of her is gotten disastrous and longlastng
storms will follow. The Palatine, Dutch trader.
misled by false lights shown by wreckers. ran
ashore upon Block Island in the yer 1852. The
wreckers, when they had stripped the vessel
set her on fire in order to conceal their crime
AS the tide lifted her and carried her flaming
out to sea- agonizing shrieks came from the
blaze and the figure of a woman who had hid
den herself in the hold in fear of the wreckers
stood out black amid the roaring blaze. Then
the deck fell in and ship and woman vanished.
The whaling in Nantucket you will remern
ber was in its palmy days carried on almost en-
tirely by Quakers. One Sunday evening a meet
ing In progress; the simple service seemed
though 1t might pass and the spirit moved
none of the company. The elder Friend was Just
about to offer his hand to his neighbor in the
closing of the meeting, when a stranger rose
and declared that the Lords wrath was upon
certain whaling ship and that he had seen her
In vision descending huge wave from the
hollow of which she never rose The meeting
closed hurriedly, but the speaker could not be
found. and the ship was never heard Of.
+. Some Of the best ghost stories are those which
the writer has heard from the simple folk of the
salt marshes. It lis hardly possible to describe
these dreary districts. for when one has said
they are fiat, stretching for miles, and rather
subject to mists has said pretty well all that
is to be said-the rest must be felt. However.
just there is call Of the sea, so there is a
call Of the marshland. You shall go into the
saltern and feel its moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of it's salty winds and the ozone
Of its Gains. You shall be lost in its vastness
and, threading its innumerable twisted narrow
waterways, which lead to nowhere, ye shall
tread its carpet of scentless flowers. You shall
go to its very edge where the sea comes often
most. and where the flowers decaying leave their
rust-colored remains. There you shall meet mud
and the cry Of the curlew shall mock as you
founder in it's filth The moon shall come up
refracted by the mist into unacceptable shape
which shall be blood color. You shall be a gray
shape, differing little from the common things
that are there, for you shall be enshrouded by
fog; nay, it shall sink into your very SOUL until
you are not flesh and bones. but a particle of
fog yourself You shall listen to its silences you
shall be told things by them. and, strong man
that you are. you shall be afraid.
Is 1t to be wondered at then. that these simple
Essex marsh-dwellers remember such tales az
that Of the young skipper, home from a long
voyage. whose haste to embrace his wife, and the
babe he had not yet SEEN bid him to 20 the nearer
way Of the marshes? The tale has It that in
crossing narrow gutway, near Pitsea he sank
III 'ne mud 80 deeply did he sink that he could
not extricate himself; the more he struggled the
deeper he sank. and with the horror of knowing
that the tide was rising and would come stealing
up the creek he shouted. AS the tide rose higher
the louder were his screams The salterne near
Pltsea are lonely; the cries were heard only by
nalf'witted peat-cutter. who often in his less
sane moments heard such screams and thought
no more OF the matter. So the shrieks became
eurgles and by the time the tide had lifted the
peat-cutter's punt they had ceased
The older folk at this stage of the story az.
sumo mysterious air. and. with large-eyed
giancings athwart their shoulders, will tell You
tnat the shippers shrieks are heard on starlit
nights as the tide glides up that creek.
so here are my ghost stories, and If I some
unes Deneve In them when sail all alone on
the midnight deep. you win not laugh AZ me