Ghost Story

Jeannette, over in Jeannette's Jottings featured a ghost story in her last entry. Which I thought was a pretty good excuse to tell a ghost story I read about a year ago. It centres on a village which is now derelict; it's called Kinloch Resort (pronounce Raysort), on the border of Lewis and Harris. Today, it's a mournful place, difficult to reach. You need to traipse across 5 miles of the soggiest moorland you'll ever find in the island, or across the Harris hills.

Years ago, when Kinloch Resort was a small but thriving community, someone sent for a carpenter. He had to come over the hills from Harris, and brought all his own timber. After the job was finished, he was going to leave any timber left over in the village, but the villagers told him to take it back with him. So, the carpenter loaded the timber onto his horse and started the trek up into the hills. After a while, he heard a strange tapping noise. As if a hammer was striking wood. Tap, tap, tap. The man turned round, but nothing could be seen. The wind was sighing through the moorland grass and the river gurgled in its bed. He shrugged and continued the climb. The tapping sound returned. Tap, tap, tap. He whirled round, expecting the children from the village to be scarpering downhill, back to Kinloch Resort. Nothing. At length, the tapping sounds ceased, and the carpenter returned to his home. He found his wife seriously ill, and although he tended to her immediately, she died that same night. The next day, the carpenter gathered up the wood he had brought back from Kinloch Resort and started to build the coffin for his wife. Tap, tap, tap, his hammer went. A shiver ran down his spine, as the sound was awfully familiar. Tap, tap, tap. The same noise that had echoed across the empty moorlands above Kinloch Resort. As if to say - you'll be hearing this sound very shortly. When you're building your wife's coffin.