Chapter 9 - Page 2

night of the 12th of December was of a
nature to support the opinions of all partisans of the supernatural,
and there were many at Melrose Farm.

Irvine, a little seaport of Renfrew, containing nearly seven
thousand inhabitants, lies in a sharp bend made by the Scottish coast,
near the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. The most ancient and the most
famed ruins on this part

of the coast were those of this castle of Robert Stuart,
which bore the name of Dundonald Castle.

At this period Dundonald Castle, a refuge for all the stray goblins
of the country, was completely deserted. It stood on the top
of a high rock, two miles from the town, and was seldom visited.
Sometimes a few strangers took it into their heads to explore
these old historical remains, but then they always went alone.
The inhabitants of Irvine would not have taken them there
at any price. Indeed, several legends were based on the story
of certain "fire-maidens," who haunted the old castle.

The most superstitious declared they had seen these fantastic
creatures with their own eyes. Jack Ryan was naturally one of them.
It was a fact that from time to time long flames appeared,
sometimes on a broken piece of wall, sometimes on the summit
of the tower which was the highest point of Dundonald Castle.

Did these flames really assume a human shape, as was asserted?
Did they merit the name of fire-maidens, given them by the people
of the coast? It was evidently just an optical delusion,
aided by a good deal of credulity, and science could easily
have explained the phenomenon.

However that might be, these fire-maidens had the reputation
of frequenting the ruins of the old castle and there
performing wild strathspeys, especially on dark nights.
Jack Ryan, bold fellow though he was, would never have dared
to accompany those dances with the music of his bagpipes.

"Old Nick is enough for them!" said he. "He doesn't need me
to complete his infernal orchestra."

We may well believe that these strange apparitions
frequently furnished a text for the evening stories.
Jack Ryan was ending the evening with one of these.
His auditors, transported into the phantom world, were worked
up into a state of mind which would believe anything.

All at once shouts were heard outside. Jack Ryan stopped short
in the middle of his story, and all rushed out of the barn.
The night was pitchy dark. Squalls of wind and rain swept along
the beach. Two or three fishermen, their backs against a rock,
the better to resist the wind, were shouting at the top
of their voices.

Jack Ryan and his companions ran up to them. The

shouts were, however, not for the inhabitants of the farm, but to warn
men who,