Haunted Harbours Read Online Free PDF

bandy-legged fellow, not half as old as he looked, but as lazy as a fat frog wallowing in the bottom of a mossy well. Hank used to be a sailor, but no ship would have him for very long because of his bad habit of whistling too much. Hank was a nervous little man who found relief through whistling, something no sailor could stand due to the old superstition that an idle whistler could just as easily whistle up a storm as a tune. So Hank became a hunter, though of an unusual sort. He’d go from town to town and enter someone’s house, making sniffing sounds and saying, “I smell a ghost,” or “I smell a witch.”
    If he claimed to smell a ghost he’d fire a charge of black powder up the chimney flue to frighten the evil spirits away. If it was a witch he was chasing, he’d beg a dime that he’d cut up into slices to fire up the chimney, because everyone knew that silver was the only thing that could slay a witch. He’d beg a dime at every house, but would only slice up the one; even a witch hunter needs to make some kind of living.
    One day he showed up at an old woman’s house and swore he could smell a witch. Actually what he’d smelled was a brace of freshly baked apple pies cooling by the windowsill. Hank figured on making a bit of money and perhaps a piece of pie or two. He walked up to the front porch, whistling like a flock of lovesick canaries.
    The old woman, whose name was Annie Tuckins, fixed Hank with a hard, sharp stare.
    â€œDamn a man who whistles,” she said. “He’s either got some-thing on his mind, or absolutely nothing at all.”
    â€œOh grandmother,” Hank said, figuring he’d get farther by talking politely. “I smell a witch in your chimney. She’ll cast a spell on your baking for certain sure. Would you have a dime that I might use to banish her?”
    The old woman looked up from her baking, half-amused by O’Hallorhan’s gall and half-bothered by his unasked-for interruption.
    â€œOnly a dime? Witches come cheap in these parts,” she said. “And how much would it cost me to banish you?”
    â€œYou may laugh,” O’Hallorhan replied. “But I tell you this true. There are witches in every corner of this sainted province. They’re easier to find than toads in a peat bog. Standing in the shadow of every black cat is a witch in waiting. They might be your neighbour or they might live a half a dozen counties away. There’s no telling where a witch’ll turn up, if she puts her mind to it.”
    â€œSo how can you tell if one is a witch or not?” the old woman asked, playing along with O’Hallorhan’s banter.
    â€œOh, there’s many a way you can tell if a person is a witch. For instance, if you lay your broom across your front doorway, the witch cannot cross it.”
    The old woman snorted. “It sounds to me like a perfectly good way to trip yourself going into your house.”
    O’Hallorhan laughed easily. An acre of brooms could not trip up such a sly-talking, fast-thinking man as he.
    â€œAnd a young woman such as yourself would jig lightly over a palisade of brooms, now would she not? Heel and toe, you’re a light stepper, like the fog running in from the bay.”
    â€œFlatterer. So here’s a piece of silver and that’ll buy your trick, won’t it?”
    O’Hallorhan palmed the old woman’s coin and pulled out one of his own, a tin disc he’d bartered from a tinker. He cut the tin disc up with his case knife and carefully loaded the fragment into his musket, after filling the gun with powder.
    He tamped the makeshift metal shot down securely with his ramrod.
    â€œYou ought to oil that rod before it rusts,” the old woman pointed out.
    â€œIt rams as straight as the day it was first hammered out,” Hank said with a wink.
    He cocked back the hammer, inserted the firing cap, and let fly, firing the homemade