“Just so.  But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem ghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with its trans-Atlantic fellow-spook.  It never appeared to the holder of the title, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house.  In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all.  It was a guardian angel only.  Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron Duncan of Duncan, and to warn him of impending evil.  The traditions of the house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a premonition of ill fortune.  Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from the venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally.  Some had been obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless of defeat and to death.  In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to peril without fair warning.”

“Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off the Hebrides?” asked Dear Jones.

“Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition.  There is extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he has had to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip.  Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic.”

“Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron died?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.

“How did he come over,” queried Dear Jones—­“in the steerage, or as a cabin passenger?”

“I don’t know,” answered Uncle Larry calmly, “and Eliphalet, he didn’t know.  For as he was in no danger, and stood in no need of warning, he couldn’t tell whether the ghost was on duty or not.  Of course he was on the watch for it all the time.  But he never got any proof of its presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just before the Fourth of July.  He took a friend down with him—­a young fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn’t likely to be much frightened by a ghost.  Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military law.  A little after twelve o’clock, just as they began to think it was about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house.  It wasn’t a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a name to.  It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of sound, which went wailing out of the window.  The officer had been at Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time.  Eliphalet knew it was the ghost who haunted the house.  As this weird sound died away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its intensity.  Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith of the Duncans.”