Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1912-11-29

partition was signiicant-the ship was neves
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 sight
Of her Is gotten, disastrous and longlasting
storms will follow. The Palatines 4 Dutch trader
misled by false lights shown by wreckers, ran
ashore upon Block Island in the ye.4f 1852. The
wreckers, when they had stripped the vessel
set her 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 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 remem
Der, was in its palmy days carried almost
tirely by Quakers One Sunday evening meet
ing in progress; the simple service seemed
as 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
certain whaling ship. and that he had seen Ler
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 fat, 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 as there Is call of the sea, SO there is
call of the marshland. You shall go into the
saltern and feel its moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of its 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, We 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 asS you
nounder In its filth. The moon shall come up
feIracted by the mist into unacceptable shape
which shall be blood color. You shall be gray
shape, differing little from the common things
that are there, for you shall be enshrouded by
log; nay. 1t shall sink into your very soul until
you are not flesh and bones but particle of
Iog yourself. You shall listen to its slences: you
snail De told things by them, and. strong man
tnat you are, you shall be afraid.
Is It to be wondered at, then, that these simple
Essex marsh-dwellers remember such tales as
tnat OF the young skipper. home from a long
voyage, whose haste to embrace his wife and the
Daoe ne had not yet SEEM bid him to go the nearer
way or the marshes? The tale has 1t that in
crossing narrow gutway, near Pitsea. he sank
IN the mud. So deeply did he sink that he could
not extricate himself; the more he struggled the
ueeper ne sai&6, and with the horror Of knowing
'nat the tide was rising and would come stealing
up the creek, he shouted As the tide rose higher
the Louder were his screams The salterns near
Fltsea are lonely; the cries were heard only by
naH-Wltted peatcutter who often In his less
sane moments heard such screams and thought
no more of the matter SO the shrieks became
gurgies, and by the time the tide had lifted the
peat-cutter's punt they had ceased
Inc older folk at this stage OF the story as
sumo mysterious air and. with large-eyed
slanclngs athwart their shoulders. will tell you
that the shippers shrieks are heard on stars,t
nights as the tide glides up that creek
20 mere are my ghost stories. and If some
Tines believe in them when sail all alone On
the midnight deep. you will not lanah At ~