A Haunting in Salem

This did not happen to me, I have never had any experience with ghosts or the supernatural. It happened to an associate of mine I once worked with years ago. His name was Miles Cully, and a brighter, friendlier, more accommodating man you'll never find. I don't warm up to new people easily, a habit I learned from my Calvinist family no doubt; but there was something about Miles that made me lay aside my scruples.

Although he rarely ever spoke of it, he was a man who could claim impressive family ties. Of course, out in Calgary where we practiced law together, such distinctions and titles were not as impressive as they might have been back East. Miles knew that, and never presumed on his own. After all, he had been merely the younger son of a younger son, a position on the family tree that did not promise much in the way of social prominence.

His father was Scotch and descended from a long line of Cully's, and the family could claim a baronetcy in its line. Since there were ample brothers and uncles and cousins before him, there was not much in the way of distinction left for Miles' father, so he set out for Canada to seek a fortune of his own. By accident of seas and weather, the ship that was to have docked in Halifax, actually came to rest in Boston, and while he sought some way to get to Canada, he was distracted in his efforts by falling in love with a pretty girl from Salem and decided to make his home in Massachusetts instead. It had been a happy decision, and Miles had been treated to a happy childhood in the environs of Plymouth Rock.

His father kept in touch with his Scottish roots and even took the family back to the old Cully house for a visit once. It was a drafty and damp structure that was designated a castle but scarcely qualified for the name. It was revered by the neighbors, but it was also old and uncomfortable, costly to maintain, and rumored to have a family ghost or two that scared people away. Miles was too practical of mind to take this rumor seriously. He never saw the ghost, or heard it either, although he would very much have liked to. Someone finally explained to him that the ghost was really more like a guardian angel than anything else, and never showed itself to the Master of the castle. Instead, it warned the reigning Lord of possible enemies or dangers in the vicinity through subtle hints, a sense of foreboding perhaps, or premonitions that were enigmatic but accurate, and there were a number of stories told of how it had preserved the heads of the Cully clan from many a dire disaster.

When Miles grew up he went off to college and studied law. He had discovered in public school, a certain knack for public debate, and in college he cultivated the ability to keep his mind from wandering too far into the fanciful or irrelevant. It was a useful combination for a career in the legal profession, and when he graduated, he had no difficulty finding a position in a distinguished firm in New York.

Meanwhile his parents, who had decided to make another visit to Scotland, had the misfortune to be on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and the further bad luck of being left behind while the life boats carried their passengers to safety. There was an older sister named Abiagail who had been on board also, but while she survived the accident, her fiancé did not, and she never got over her grief. She turned to religion for solace, but it hardly suited her. If being holy was no answer to her sorrow, perhaps going to the other extreme would help. She became infamous for her parties and her escapades, and it began to look like she would disgrace the whole Cully clan. Fortunately she came to her senses and retired to a retreat somewhere on the island of Hispaniola where anonymity and obscurity hid her from view. By the time I knew him, Miles was not altogether sure that she was still even alive, although he maintained that if anything had happened to her, he was sure he would have known it somehow. He was a great believer in intuition.

But I've carried on far too long about Miles' family and only scarcely hinted at the ghosts that would infest his life. Yes, you heard right. I said ghosts, for there were two of them, and that was what caused the problem. You see, Miles' mother had been a Wheeler from Salem, and the Wheeler's were important people in their day. Not that they had titles, as the Cullys had, but they had been prominent in old Salem, and their house was one of the jewels of the colonial period. It still stood when Miles was a young man, and as it would happen, was a favorite vacationing spot for him. Some of his fondest memories as a child were of visits to Salem. As much as the drafty castle in Scotland repulsed him, the cozy cottage in Salem provided him with a sense of grounding, safety, warmth and home. There was no place on earth he'd have rather been than there, and it would be there that the troubles appeared.

For it seemed this ideal dwelling also housed a ghost, a most unpleasant haunt who had taken up residence there somewhere around the time of the Salem witch trials. Miles could not tell me what this spirit looked like either. He was fated to be blind to both his ghosts. And generally speaking, the ghost, whatever it looked like, kept to itself, not bothering the residents of the home. It made itself felt only when it was disturbed by unwanted guests; like an obnoxious neighbor, or a politician canvassing for votes. (It once took a particular dislike to an unctuous preacher who derived ill-advised delight in claiming to be a direct descendant of a Puritan divine.)

When the ghost was troubled, the tranquility of the house was shattered with its ear-splitting shrieks and howls that were impossible to endure. There was no living with it. Luckily, in his growing up years, Miles had never heard these shrieks. Apparently the ghost was content with the kind of guests that had been welcomed there, and felt no need to make a protest.

So there we have it. Miles, the son of a Scotsman from a titled family in the old country, and a mother descended from staunch Pilgrim stock in Salem, was a cheerful, likable, friendly young man well launched on a career in law. True, he had suffered the sorrow of losing his mother and father on the Titanic. He had also lost his sister, although to the best of his knowledge she was alive and well somewhere in the jungles of Haiti or the Dominican Republic, no one seemed to quite know which. That left him on his own, moderately well off, and well positioned for a lucrative law practice in New York.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Not being at all impressed with the honor due to the Cully clan to which he belonged, he had never given any thought to what might happen if the males in the line should disappear and he ascend to the top branch of the family tree through the laws of primogeniture. It seemed so unlikely, that there was no point in thinking about it. But fate had cut the cards once too often, and suddenly the unthinkable had occurred. Without ever aspiring to it, or hoping for it, or speculating about it in any way, Miles Cully suddenly found himself a Lord. Through a clumsy accident involving a fall down some stairs in the family castle, the last male of the line suffered a broken neck, and his only son, attempting to retrieve his father's corpse from the wine cellar where he had landed, tripped and struck his head against a sharp protrusion in the wall and was not only knocked unconscious but bled to death from the wound. In the time it takes to open a fine old bottle of Madeira, Miles Cully had become Lord Cully, heir apparent to the Cully castle and all the rights and privileges of his line.

Of course Miles had to go back to Scotland to see about the property, and to legitimize his claims as the new Lord. He'd been warned this could be awkward and that there might be litigation that would sap every last penny from the Cully inheritance. But he soon found there was little to worry about there. There was no money and precious little property. The castle and its contents were all his.

He also learned that his memories of the place had not distorted the facts. The building was as dismal, rundown and ugly as he'd remembered, and the disrepair was even worse. It would cost a fortune to restore the building, and even if he'd had the money to do so, the cost of maintaining it, once it was restored, would bankrupt him. He despaired of ever living in it. The weather alone made him dyspeptic, and the inhospitableness of the villagers, who had never taken kindly to a Cully whose family had moved to the colonies (for them, the United States would always be the colonies) made it clear that Miles would not receive a neighborly welcome should he decide to move back. Castle Cully was not, and never would be, Home Sweet Home.

The question then was, what to do with the place. Fortunately, although the inheritance laws made it doubtful whether it could ever be sold out of the family, he did have the option of leasing it to the state for the nominal fee of a dollar a year - or its equivalent in British currency. He put together a proposal that made the acquiring of the castle appear a great boon to the county, and after an inordinate amount of paper work, was able to divest himself of his white elephant. He packed up one or two mementos of the place and headed home, light of heart and happy in his prospects of living in New York and vacationing in the Wheeler homestead in Salem.

Soon after these events, he did go on vacation there, and while he was at it, he invited a friend to join him. Frank Lawton I think his name was. Frank had been a fraternity brother in college days, and their friendship had continued even more strongly after graduation. He was impressed with the quaintness of the cottage. He admired the ingenuity of its construction - it was an uncommonly snug building - and especially the tidy little rose garden that seemed to thrive on its own without aid of gardener or caretaker. He and Miles spent the evening on the porch enjoying the scent of the roses and the pastel glow of the evening sky.

When the night air grew chill, they retired to the inglenook of the old fireplace and toasted their toes and sipped their hot toddies and were as merry as old school friend should always be. I stress this because it is important to understand that, up to this point, all was quite comfortable, and no hint of supernatural disturbances had occurred. That waited until the clock struck twelve, the traditional hour when spooks and ghosts and other creatures are thought to become most active.

Sure enough, the last echo of the chiming clock had scarcely died out when a low moan was heard. It was hardly a supernatural sound. It might even have been mistaken for a protesting board in the floor, adjusting itself. But when Miles heard it, he also felt a sudden discomfort, a slight chill in the stomach, and an uneasiness of the mind. As I mentioned before, he was not inclined to imaginative fancies, but he did have a strong belief in his own powers of intuition, and something was very wrong somewhere in the house, of that he was quite sure.

Another moan, louder this time, and with a hint of the pitiful in it, went through the house and Miles felt another lurch in his stomach. What if Frank heard it? He scarcely had time to form the thought when the moan was answered with a howl that was anything but a creaking board or the night wind in the attic. It was a scream of outrage, and once it sounded, the moan transformed itself into a shriek that was truly blood curdling.

There was no more wondering what his guest might think. With that loud shriek came the banging of a door, and the next moment Frank was standing in Miles' bedroom, eyes wide as headlights and his mouth ready to emit a scream of his own.

"What in the name of heaven was that?" he inquired.

"I don't know," Miles replied.

"You heard it too then?" Frank went on.

"Oh yes," Miles assured him and he leapt out of bed and joined Frank in a thorough search of the house to find the source of the noise. That proved easier said than done, for now the noise was moving from room to room, upstairs and down, cellar to attic, as if one howl were actually chasing the other.

"There it is," Frank pointed toward the door into the parlor. "Didn't you see it?"

However, just as in the case of the family ghost back in Scotland, the unhappy wraith who dwelt in the Wheeler cottage also remained unseen by the owner. Only guests were treated to that sight, and when Miles asked Frank to describe it for him, the shaken friend could only reply, "It's too horrible, too horrible." And with that despairing word he ran to his bedroom and buried his head under the covers, hoping, I suppose, to shut out the sight and the sound.

But he appears to have been unsuccessful for Miles said by that time the ghost had increased the volume of its wails and protests to the decibels of a fire engine, and added to this turmoil the tossing and throwing of objects around the room. A Toby mug, a tea pot, a candlestick - with a lighted candle in it - a brief case (which particularly annoyed Miles - "That's my property!" he shouted at the empty air in front him while it zoomed by) and even an antique butter churn that usually sat on the back porch, a spot it had occupied for more than two hundred years. How it had found its way into the house, Miles never knew, but the flying churn in turn struck a brass chandelier before it completed its flight by crashing into an antique mirror, assuring somebody seven years bad luck.

The hullabaloo continued without let up until first light, and then ceased. Daylight and ghosts don't appear to be compatible. Miles and Frank were considerably shaken by the night's display. The house ghost was the cause of it, of course, and Miles could only wonder what on earth had prompted it to put on such a display, when it had never done so before. Frank, unfamiliar with the family history, was more alarmed than Miles, but finally calmed down when he saw that the both of them had survived the ordeal with nothing worse than a bad scare and the loss of a night's sleep.

Miles explained to his friend about the old tradition that the house had a ghost who only appeared when guests were in it, and usually when that guest was unwelcome. Of course Frank was anything but unwelcome, which made this whole experience so incomprehensible.

"Well maybe it was the other ghost that didn't like me," Frank said.

"What other ghost?" Miles asked. It had not occurred to him that the house now had two ghosts. "Did you see another ghost?"

"I sure did, and it was worse than the first one." Frank replied.

This was intriguing news to Miles who immediately began begging his friend to tell him about the second ghost. What did its face look like? How was it dressed? Did it have bony hands with long, jagged fingernails? Frank put his hands over his ears trying to shut out Miles' questions. He shook his head violently, denying that he knew anything about the appearance of the ghost. All he would say was that it was "horrible, horrible, horrible" and that he hoped never to see it again.

"I'm leaving today, and if you have any sense at all, you'll leave too." Frank declared.

Miles begged him not to give up so soon. After all, they hadn't been hurt, had they? True, it was upsetting, but what could ghosts do to them anyway? They were invisible - almost; they had no material parts to them. About all they were capable of was putting on a scary show.

"Surely two strong men like us can withstand any puny fright like that." Miles boasted.

In the end, by coaxing and wheedling, Miles prevailed upon Frank to screw up his courage and spend another night in the house. The ghosts might show themselves again, and they could learn something about why they were so intent on making such an unholy commotion.

Come midnight the clamor recommenced, but not with low moans as before. This time the ghosts began their pyrotechnics with dancing flames around the room, shrieks, howls, curses and threats. The noise was indescribable. Once again it was Frank who was treated to glimpses of the phantoms. Miles saw nothing and had to settle for another sleepless night and what sounded to him like a resentful sniff or two shortly after day light when he retired to his bed in search of a few minutes rest. Could it be the ghost was angry with him for not running away, as any normal human being would do?

One more night of these hijinks and Frank declared he'd had enough. The two friends hurried away and sought the calmer atmosphere of Saratoga and the Adirondacks. When Miles went back to Salem to tidy up the mess and reclaim his belongings, the tantrums resumed. He could not stay overnight. Daylight brought peace to the cottage but night time was another enactment of the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was so bad even neighbors were beginning to complain about the noise. It was clear to Miles that something had to be done, but what? He loved the Salem cottage, but he clearly could not live there the way things were now. Every time he set foot on the front porch, that lurch in his belly returned, and while the noise did not commence until midnight, his uneasiness stayed with him the whole time he was in the house.

He couldn't understand what the problem was. Aside from the nuisance created by flying objects in the house, and the ungodly noise, the ghosts never harmed him in any way. They may have been trying to scare him, but that obviously wasn't working. He was of too practical a mind for that. So why did the war of nerves continue? He found the answer when an angry neighbor confronted him with the accusation that the only time noises were heard coming from the cottage was when Miles was home. So what was he doing in there anyway?

"You never hear strange noises when I'm away?" Miles asked the neighbor.

"No," the neighbor replied, "It's as quiet as a tomb."

That started Miles thinking. If the ghosts only acted up when he was in residence, perhaps he was the problem after all. Somehow, without meaning to, he was the cause of their anger. But what could he have done? His life in the cottage was no different now than it had ever been. What was new about his circumstances, or his behavior that angered the ghosts? Try as he might to answer that question, there was nothing that came to mind. He was simply plain Miles Cully, nothing less, nothing more.

Only he was not plain Miles Cully. It suddenly hit him. He was Lord Miles Cully and while that distinction meant absolutely nothing to him personally, apparently the ghosts thought otherwise. Could it be his Salem ancestors were offended by his elevation to the peerage? It made sense, but not a lot of sense. He was a Lord in name only as far as his United States citizenship was concerned. Surely a supernatural being could understand that. Besides, that reliable intuition of his rejected the notion as foolish. His being a Lord did not explain the violence that went on in the house.

But the more he pondered it, the more intrigued he was by the coincidence. All had been peaceful until he became a Lord. Was there something else that had happened with that elevation to the peerage? And then it hit him. The Scottish ghost, the family haunt, the so-called guardian angel that was rumored to accompany the reigning Lord Cully. If he had inherited a house ghost in the Salem cottage, he had also inherited a family ghost from the highlands of Scotland who now accompanied his person wherever he went..

So that was it. The Salem house was big enough for one ghost, but not for two. And then he understood. The feuding ghosts weren't interested in scaring him away. Not at all. The family ghost was his guardian ghost, intent on protecting him from harm. At the same time, the house ghost was equally solicitous of his welfare, only manifesting itself when there was an enemy in the house. Well, there you are. There was an enemy in the house - the new ghost who had arrived with Miles when he returned from Scotland. Miles Cully was the possessor of two ghosts and they hated each other.

What to do. He was at a loss. The family ghost, now arrived from Scotland, was attached to his person. Where Miles went, the ghost went too. The house ghost was attached to his beloved Salem cottage and was not about to leave. As long as he stayed away from the cottage, the two ghosts need have no cause to feud, but once he returned, once he set foot on the doorstep, the knot in his stomach insistently reminded him there was heavy weather ahead. There would be no sleep in that house after midnight.

For the time being, Miles gave up. He needed to return to New York anyway to pursue his work at the law firm, and with the heavy schedule he had been assigned, he was not likely to be returning to Salem for quite some time. Besides, a new distraction had entered his life. Sibyl Downey.

Sibyl was the sister of a partner at his law firm, Howard Downey, and an angel from heaven. Miles knew it the first time he set eyes on her. Her golden hair, her sparkling eyes, her lips that rivaled the ripest cherry, graced a form as shapely as a Greek goddess, only infinitely softer and more warm. Sibyl was perfection.

Miles had been in love before; he knew the symptoms, but Sibyl was different. None of the silly signs of puppy love appeared. This time he was simply entranced. The sound of her voice alone was dearer than any Lorelei of ancient myth. She exhilarated him and she soothed him, both at once. In her presence he was king of the world and a stammering fool. In a word, he was happy; happier than he had ever been in his life. And to make matters even better, Sibyl appeared to be just as happy and in love as he.

Their romance went like a story book. Friends watched with amusement and envy as this grand passion grew. It would be no surprise to anyone who knew them if wedding bells would soon be ringing. It seemed as if nothing could spoil this idyll. But of course something could - Miles' supernatural companions. All was well as long as they stayed in New York, or went to Saratoga, or presumably to the far ends of the earth if they wished. But what was going to happen when they went to Salem?

Sibyl was quite eager to see Miles' cottage. She had a romantic streak in her, combined with her Yankee common sense, and residing in an old Colonial cottage in an old Colonial town with all the trappings of old Colonial life surrounding her sounded like heaven.

"When will we go there?" she asked him. Continually.

Miles employed every excuse he could think of to postpone this visit, but Sibyl was insistent.

"You really must stop this nonsense, Miles. You know I shall win in the end. I must see your cottage some day, and why not now? The weather should be ideal for it this weekend."

Good Lord no, he protested. It simply wasn't possible. The Skimmerhorn case was coming up on Monday and he would be absolutely chained to his desk preparing for it. He hated to disappoint her, but what could he do? It was his job, you see. Everything hung on winning that case.

"Don't be silly, dear," she objected, "you've been preparing for that case for months and months. It's all you ever talk about. If you're not ready now, you never will be. Besides, Howard is working on it too. Surely he can keep things in order over a weekend. Or a week," she added, obviously planning on a longer stay than Miles would approve of at first.

This show of determination was a new side to Sibyl, and the knot in his stomach began to twinge again, a sure sign that the family guardian ghost was alarmed on his behalf. Miles was heading into a hurricane and perhaps he would be wise to alter course, kiss Sibyl goodbye, and see what other sweetheart life might offer him. But that he could never do. Let fall what may, Sibyl was too dear to be lost. She was also too obstinate to ever give up the notion of living in the cottage in Salem.

For his reputed refusals to let her see the cottage had so determined her otherwise that Sibyl was no longer talking about a weekend visit; now she looked forward to a full honeymoon there, and if it proved as agreeable as she was sure it would, Salem seemed like just the place to grow flowers and raise children. After all, the roses were already there, Miles said. Surely it would not be long before other flowers followed. And Salem had to be a more wholesome place to raise children than New York City.

Miles at last saw he was defeated. Sibyl must go to Salem, and she could not go without him. And when he went, he could not go without the family ghost. And when the Scottish ghost was again in residence at the home of the Salem ghost, all hell would break loose. There would go the love of his life and his hopes for a blissful future. He, who had been the happiest of men, had become the most miserable man on earth. Something had to be done.

Being far from cowardly and most of the time a realist, Miles realized that the only thing to do was tell Sibyl the truth and see what she would do with it. As it turned out, she did very well.

"Ghosts!" she exclaimed, surprised and intrigued at the same time. "I've never seen a ghost, Miles. Why shouldn't I go see these ghosts?"

"Well from what I'm told, they aren't very pleasant to look at, and they are the devil of a nuisance. They raise the damnedest racket you ever heard. I assure you, past midnight there is no sleeping in the house. It's impossible."

"Really? How interesting. Why don't you tell them to hush up?"

Miles was stumped for an answer to this. How could he explain that he was probably the cause of their clamor, that unwittingly he brought the two ghosts together and could not think of a way to separate them again. Sibyl saw his hesitation and took it as a sign of fear.

"Miles, you're not afraid of a ghost, are you? You told me yourself they only made a lot of noise; they don't seem bent on hurting you or anybody else. Just tell them to behave themselves and we'll get along famously."

Sibyl's no nonsense attitude floored Miles. It sounded so reasonable, and yet, to his mind, so unattainable. That lurch in his stomach, normally a sign of intuition at work, but now more often taken as a signal from the family ghost looking out for his welfare, came back doubly strong, and his doubts about the practicability of such a course clearly showed in his face.

"Oh Miles," Sibyl protested, "really now, this is ridiculous. I'm not the least bit afraid of ghosts - at least I don't tink I am; but I don't care for the idea of living in a house with two of them, especially if they are going to act like you say they do. That simply will not do. You must get rid of them somehow, I don't care how. I love you darling, and I want to be your wife, but I won't do it with them cavorting around my bedroom."

Then, to make her wishes as emphatic as possible, she concluded: "It's me or them, Miles. You have to choose. I won't live with ghosts, and I won't live with a husband who lets ghosts have the run of his house."

Miles was at a crossroad and he knew it. There was no delaying, or stalling, or pulling any of those lawyer tricks he and his attorney associates found so useful in postponing trials. Sibyl had delivered an ultimatum and he must act.

Fortunately for him, at this painful moment fate finally smiled upon Miles Cully. Sibyl was unexpectedly called out of town granting Miles a temporary reprieve. However, it was just that; temporary, and he knew it. The time had come to face the ghosts and come to some kind of understanding, and with Sibyl's ultimatum still ringing in his ears, he headed for Salem, butterflies in his stomach and all. He thought briefly of calling his friend Frank Lawton to keep him company in his time of need, but decided that was unworthy of him. What kind of man was he after all? So off he went to his haunted house, various plots and plans formulating in his head, and none seeming the least bit feasible.

In the end, he decided to face the ghosts, as he had Sibyl, and see what happened. Having stopped at the local hardware store to pick up some items he thought he might need, he proceeded to the house. Once again, the family ghost tugged at his stomach as if to keep him from entering the house, and when he refused to turn back and actually stepped over the threshold, the atmosphere within its normally cheery walls was heavy and ominous. The ghost of the house was on alert too, knew the enemy had arrived, and was no doubt planning yet one more offensive to cast out the unwelcome spirit.

Miles ignored the uneasy thrills that indicated the presence of the feuding ghosts and instead prepared himself for the meeting he planned for the evening. He had found a pair of dueling pistols in the attic and also managed to acquire a pair of dueling swords. He placed a deck of cards on a table in the parlor, ready for cutting, and a set of dice. There was also a suspicious looking bottle on the table, adorned with a skull and crossbones, a sign of lethal poison. He admitted to himself that it all looked over-dramatic and rather ridiculous - how could a ghost use any of these objects? But they made a good show and demonstrated that he was a man who meant business. If his long-standing reputation as an able trial lawyer could impress any jury in the land - as Sibyl had once boasted! - he just hoped he could impress the ghosts.

When darkness came, he did not wait for the witching hour of midnight to hold his meeting. After all, he knew they were there - somewhere - and they knew he was. So why be coy about it? What was so important about midnight anyway? He built a fire in the fireplace to provide extra light in the room and to warm himself a bit; for whether it was the fault of the ghosts or not, he had to admit he was uncomfortably cold.

"I want to talk to you two" he began, standing beside the table as if it were there for a display of exhibits A, B and C. "You are causing me a serious problem, and it's got to end. I understand that you", and here Miles looked directly toward one corner of the room, uncertain just where the ghost might be lurking, but determined to act as if he did know, "that you have a claim on this house. I'm guessing you've been living in it at least 200 years, if not more. And it can't be very pleasant to have another ghost moved in on you without a by-your-leave.

"And as for you," he continued, turning to the opposite side of the room, as if the Scottish ghost were there, "it must have been quite inconvenient having to relocate clear across the ocean to a new house and a new country when you probably preferred to stay in the familiar surroundings of your Scottish castle. But since you have no choice but to live where I live, and I intend to live in this house, we have to figure out how we're all going to get along.

"Now, whatever you two find so disagreeable about each other, I have no idea, but this much I do know. This bickering and quarreling and this infernal racket has to stop.

"I have had the good fortune to meet a fine young woman who I'm reasonably sure will become my wife, if I ask her. But she won't do it if she hears the kind of rumpus you two are going to raise when we move in here. You are threatening my future happiness and I won't have it. I don't know how you're going to work this out, but you better get busy and figure it out because it's got to stop, once and for all."

He paused, looked down at the table and then continued: "Here's my suggestion. You two either agree to get along, or you fight it out , and the one who wins the battle stays while the other goes. I've got guns and swords you can use, if you want to fight a duel. Or you can roll dice, or cut cards. Whatever you like. Whoever loses, leaves; and if you can't leave, then take poison and finish yourself off. I'm through with you."

Miles told me afterward that the next moments were the longest of his life. The silence was deafening. He could not tell if they had heard him or were even in the room, although he felt sure they were. After what seemed like forever, there was a stirring in the corner of the room, made more dramatic by the shifting of a piece of wood on the fire, causing the flames to suddenly flare up. In the midst of this stirring, Miles heard a gruff voice, quite deep and with a Scotch burr to it, say "I couldn't do that; I'm a gentleman, I am. I'd never hit a lady."

The words were hardly uttered when Miles heard another voice, this time unquestionably female, saying "I should hope not. How rude!"

Immediately the Scottish ghost snapped back, "I told you I wouldn't do it," and the Salem ghost countered with "Thanks for nothing," and it looked as if the battle might resume all over again, even though it was only 7:30 in the evening, and not the witching hour of midnight.

"Do you mean one of you is a male ghost and the other female?" Miles inquired.

A gruff assent was heard and an embarrassed cough came from the opposite side of the room.

"Well for Pete's sake, what are you two quarreling about, anyway?"

While Miles gave me a brief run down of their grievances I won't bother you with the details. The point was, Miles recognized the signs of a domestic dispute when he heard one, and wisely kept focused on his original goal. They could hate each other's guts for all eternity if they wished, (assuming ghosts even had guts, of course), the point was they had to stop this caterwauling every night so he could have peace restored in his home and bring his bride to a house where she would be able to live happily ever after.

As he listened to the two ghosts, it struck him that there might be another answer to his problem. After finally succeeding in getting them to hush, he employed his skills as a legal mediator and proposed a pathway to compromise.

"It seems to me you two have gotten off on the wrong foot with each other," he observed. "You haven't given yourself a chance even to get to know each other. You might find out you can be friends, if you give it a try."

A derisive snort and an indignant sniff suggested this idea was not particularly welcome, but Miles was not discouraged. He'd done this kind of mediation before, and he kept at them, finding that, while they were still convinced they detested each other, they did have one thing in common: they genuinely liked Miles, the new master of the house, and they wanted to please him.

"Well, that's a start anyway," Miles pointed out and gradually it appeared that they had more in common than they realized. I won't bore you with the details. I simply point out what Miles confided to me.

"You see, I don't normally find people that riled up if they don't have some liking for each other already," he said.

It didn't take too long for them to come round, and when they finally did, it was clear that they'd buried the hatched, so-to-speak, and that he'd heard the last of their midnight tantrums. Guns and swords were put away and the bottle of poison, (which he now admitted had really been a bottle of rum), went back into the kitchen cupboard.

When Sibyl and Miles married, there was some speculation about whether the ghosts might not marry as well, but that seemed impractical to them. They had enough work on their hands seeing to the security of the family and the house. And there was also the matter of the differences in their ages. Miles wondered which was the older, but prudently never asked.

So Miles got his bride, Sibyl got her dream house, and the children got a happy world in which to grow up.

As for the feuding ghosts, they were never seen or heard again - at least, not by Miles; but then he'd never seen them in the first place. He did feel their good will however, and even when he took a leave of absence to spend some time in Canada, where he worked with me in my law firm, he was assured his guardian ghost was with him.

Unhappily, the ghost remained quiet and invisible so I never saw him.