Free Bluenose Ghosts by Helen Creighton Page A

it.’
    â€œâ€˜All right,’ said the captain, ‘You’re to guard it for a hundred and fifty years,’ and before the man realized what he had got himself into, the others grabbed him. They cut off his head then and they put him in the hole with the chest. After that they drew a map, covered up the hole, and went away.
    â€œWhen the ship was out of sight, Glode came down from the tree. He didn’t know what the dead man was supposed to do, so he wasn’t afraid to dig him up. He wanted to see what was in that chest. It was mostly gold. In those times Indians used to wear a sort of gown with no sleeves, so he took that off and piled in all that he could carry. Then he covered the place up again and got his little girl and the canoe. As they paddled towards the open water he got thinking that it wasn’t safe for an Indian to have money and he’d be better off without it. By this time he’d reached a great big ledge two or three feet wide, and he’d made up his mind. He poured that money down in the split of the rock, and he never went back for it. For all I know, that money is there yet.”
    Mr. Enos Hartlan of South East Passage had been the first to tell me about the pirates’ custom, but he varied his story in one point. He said that when the man volunteered to stay with the treasure “they had a party and they soused him (made him drunk) and buried him alive with the treasure.”
    At East Petpeswick a man named Stingles lived to tell of his narrow escape in one of these episodes. He was new to pirates’ ways and was just about to offer, “but a darkie said it first and they off his head an’ fired him down the hole.” And at Port Hastings a story has been handed down, through three generations, of a woman who was in her barn when she saw a coloured man running down over the hill. He told men in the village that he had heard the pirates planning to kill him and bury him with a treasure and he had made his escape. He told them they had killed another coloured man the day before.
    The burial of a human being with the treasure has led to many strange beliefs and there are countless stories of his obedience to his orders. Whether he ever actually functioned as a guardian is an open question, but the fact that he might do so had an extraordinary psychological effect. Many a time a group of men have got as far as finding the chest, and one of them has spoken, thus breaking an inviolable rule. Without waiting to see what would happen they have simply dropped their shovels and fled, confident that the whole expedition was ruined by the indiscretion of one spoken word. For with human speech the guardian ghost was given power which, until then, it could not use. After this power was released anything could happen and, if our tales are to be believed, things often did.
    The stories can be sifted fairly easily, taking into account the natural temerity of the informant and the extent of his superstitious belief.We know of many cases in which the digging has been interrupted by pranksters who could not resist the temptation to howl from a nearby bush or throw a pebble and sit back laughing as they saw the treasure-seekers flee in terror. As all digging must be done at night, any least sound would be heard by listening ears. It would take very little to frighten away anybody brought up on the potentialities of the guardian ghost.
    As a result of these beliefs stories like this occur, the first one coming from French Village, by way of Mr. Boutilier.
    â€œEvery Sunday a man named Dauphinee, a friend of ours, would come down here, and one Sunday a storm blew up, and father and mother wouldn’t let him leave. About twelve o’clock it cleared and he started for home. The wind had gone down and it had stopped raining. When he got between Clam Island and the main (mainland) he kept close to the island and he heard somebody hollering and he turned and looked and