The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1912-11-28

partition was signidcant-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 longlasting
storms will follow. The Palatine, Dutch trader,
misled by false lights shown by wreckers ran
ashore upon Block Island in the year 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 from the
blaze, and the figure of 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 as you will remem-
Der, was in it's palmy days carried on almost en-
tirely by Quakers. One Sunday evening a meet
ing was 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 stranger rose
and declared that the Lords wrath was upon a
certain whaling ship and that he had seen her
In vision descending a 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. 1t is hardly possible to describe
these dreary districts, for when one has said
they are flat, stretching for miles, and rather
subject to mists. one has said pretty we'll all that
is to be said--the rest must be felt However,
just as there is a call of the sea, so there is a
call of the marshland, You shall 20 into the
saltern and feel its moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of it's salty winds and the OZONE
or It's cams You shall be lost in it's vastness,
and, threading it's innumerable twisted narrow
waterways. which lead to nowhere We shall
tread its carpet of scentless flowers. You shall
go to it's very edge where the sea comes often
most, and where the flowers decayng leave their
rustcolored remains. There you shall meet mud
ana the cry OF the curlew shall mock as YOU
founder in it's filth. The moon shall come IN
re1racted by the mist into unrecognizable shape
"hlch snail be blood color You shall be gray
shape. differing little from the common things
that are there for you shall be enshrouded bv
fog; nay, it shall sink into your very son, unti,
you are not flesh and bones, but PARTICLE of
fog yourself. You shall listen to it's sences: 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 simn1e
Essex marsh-dwellers remember such tales "a
that OF the young skipper, home from long
voyage, whose haste to embrace his wife and tho
babe he had not yet SEEN bid him to 90 tho ne,rar
way OF the marshes? The tale has it that IN
.iosslhs d narrow gutway, near Pitsea, he sank
IN the mud. So deeply did he sink that he could
not eXtrlcate HIMSELF the more he struggled the
deeper he sank, and with the horror of KNOWING
that the tide was rising and would come stea1inp
up the creek, he shouted. AS the tide rose higher
the louder We're his screams The sa1terns ne.r
fllsea are lonely; the cries were heard only nv
half-Witted peat-cutter who often in his 1ass
sane moments heard such screams and thouobt
no more OF the matter. So the shrleks becaroa
surgles, and by the time the tide had lifted the
peatcutters punt they had ceased
me older folk at this stage of the story as
sumo mysterious air, and, with large.eved
sIahclnss athwart their shoulders will tell Won
tnat the shippers shreks are heard on star1iy
NIGHTS as the tide gldes up that creek.
=, 80 mere are my ghost stories, and If I some
times believe in them when 7 sail all a1,na Nv,
the midnight deep, you will not laugh at ma