Cape Breton's Magazine

honest--get me? That it was a ghost. And at that same time I have no way of getting a proving that it wasn't--get me? So that leaves me--leaves me kind of lost. And the reason I want to be honest about that is, I have seen a dead man in a graveyard--before I got there--I went into the graveyard to talk to him. And I'll explain it--I'11 ex? plain how it is, how a person got to be so careful--maybe everybody might not be-- act--do the same thing as I did. Some might get very excited. I was working in Johnstown, at Fr. George MacLean's place. He's dead now. Fr. George MacLean would be about 91--yes--1900--he'd be 91, that's right. I was working with him then, that's right. And anyway, I used to go up to what they call--a place called Hay Cove. Have you got any idea? In Johnstown area. Well now...you go through Ben Eoin, Big Pond, and you go up Irish Vale or Irish Cove, it doesn't matter--right through to St. Peters. So anyhow, I went up Hay Cove way. Well, it was a country area--Gaelic- speaking people, English-speaking people. But mostly Gaelic we were talking that night. We ended up in the line of ghost stories, just as we spoke there. So anyhow--they brought up the subject about this fellow they were seeing in the graveyard, that there were people seeing a man in the graveyard down by Johnstown, by the church. Well, when the old road was going through Johnstown, it was going to the back, like that, to the front of the academy. But when they put the new road in--the door--the front of the academy is to the foot of the mountain, and the road is to the back of the school. And when I'd be coming home--Fr. George MacLean's fields were up above. And there was a field--he had a little field, there was a few tomatoes put there--well, better than a few. But the big field up above, there was more again. He was big in the farming business, Fr. George. And that was on the lower side, next to the graveyard. There was a beautiful graveyard. So "Oh," I said to myself, "it's just only--lots of ghost stories. I'm a stanger in the area and they'll be wondering how frightened I'll be." I came back from down there--nothing to it. Went by, got up. So, I was up that way again, some other night. It wasn't within a few nights, but nights after--a good number of nights af? ter that. Same--the same subject that was given people, they were talking about this. And I was listening. 62 IlSfeed isour Attoidoii 0m w'k 'ixw ift htte for >J ?y-e j3ro • ** 'af feib' • doa*t pDt as in duller 1 F'y attetitioti to m?, slow dowit ?ftd

Cape Breton's Magazine