Ghost Story From My Uncle

Hi.
I've been in Ireland visiting my uncle who is very ill, and I have had no motivation to post. Liam has been a combination uncle/grandfather/friend/mentor, and I'm just glad I got to see him for what we both knew will surely be the last time. However, it is St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, and I thought I would post a short ghostly story told to me by him, in his honor.

My uncle was a guard in Ireland, as was his father before him. He served for over thirty years during the middle-end of the 20th century, retiring in 1982, I believe. I also believe I am right in saying that guards could not serve within fifty miles of a relative, to avoid any hint of bias or small town politics getting in the way of their duty. Liam served in some God-forsaken remote backwaters. He is a treasure trove of stories and I remember one in particular about a little nowhere village where he served under a martinet of a sergeant. This sergeant would be sure to check on the poor guard who had to serve the overnight shift, rousting him out to walk the beat in the dead of night and early morning. In some of these places of course in the 50's there was not a preponderance of electric lights! The nights were black as pitch.

This story actually involves one of Liam's fellow guards. When the guards walked the length of the village and back, they would walk from brief pool of light to brief pool of light along the main road. In between was darkness. None of them of course thought the least of it.

This night however, yer man was out along his walk when, in between the pools he was sure he heard something behind him. He didn't want to imagine something but . . . he thought it sounded like a chain dragging along the ground.

He stopped. The chain stopped. Interested more than concerned, he began to walk again and came under an electric light. The chain had followed him when he started but now was silent as he peered into the blackness behind him.

Sure enough, as he headed off again the chain began to drag behind him again, loud and distinct now. He was not concerned! He feared a practical joke. But, he couldn't help but increase his pace, and he heard behind him the sharp increase in the chain's progress. The skin began to crawl along his arms and back and neck. The next pool of light was a hundred yards away. The chain was distinct, getting closer. He steeled himself against bolting, and refused to look behind him. He could hardly see his hand in front of his face.

In a fever he reached the next bright spot and wheeled around.

A goat, dragging its broken tether, appeared and meekly bleated at the fabulously relieved guard. The practical moral of Liam's story was how quickly that stretch of the main road would have become known as the Haunted Road, if that guard had fled, and reported his tale later.

Liam had seen and heard of many a strange thing in his career, and the Goat Ghost only served to enforce his natural and professional skepticism. I too have been on several dark stretches of Irish road, and I can say I was fervently in favor of experiencing nothing out of the ordinary. Little curiosity exists in me when I'm stuck in the dark in an ancient and all too suggestive land.