Whooo-ooo-ooo! The whistling of the wind coming in round the window frame was annoying rather than frightening, and the two slight figures huddled by the fireplace were suitably annoyed.
‘Why has somebody not done something about the window before this, Archie?’ the younger one said mournfully.
‘How would I know? It’s a damned disgrace after all this time. I remember when I was a laddie …’
‘Ach, not again man. I’m tired of hearing about when you were a laddie. It’s the same every winter, like the cold did something to your brains.’
‘Oh, well I’m very sorry.’ Archie, the elder by a good number of years, sounded quite offended. ‘I was only saying …’
‘I know what you were only saying, but I’m saying …’
Whooooosh!! They both jumped back as a fluff of soot came spewing down the chimney.
‘Ach, the wind’s changing.’ Archie shook his head in disgust. ‘I suppose you’ll be saying next that somebody should block up the lum.’
‘There’s no need for you to be sarcastic.’ Fergus was offended now. ‘We shouldna have to freeze like this every winter.’
Archie was silent, his white head hunched into his shoulders, his arms clasped round his middle, while Fergus regarded him sadly. ‘It’s bad enough the rest of the winter, but to be as cold as this on the night before Christmas … it doesna seem right.’
‘Whisht, man.’ Archie lifted his head as a distant clanking came to his ears.
‘What is it, Archie? Are you hearing something?’
‘I would be hearing something if you didna keep speaking.’
They both strained their ears for a few moments, but the noise was not repeated. ‘What was it you thought you heard?’ Fergus persisted.
‘I didna think I heard something, I did hear something,’ Archie snapped.
Realising that he was getting nowhere, Fergus changed his tactics. ‘If you would tell me what you did hear, seeing your hearing’s apparently better than mine, we might be able to settle down again.’
Archie was only slightly mollified by the back-handed compliment. ‘It was chains rattling,’ he volunteered.
‘Ch … chains? Ghosts, d’you mean?’ The younger man was very agitated now.
‘Huh!’ Archie snorted. ‘There’s been nothing like that in this place for as long as I’ve been here.’
‘That doesna mean to say …’ Fergus was stopped by a malevolent glare.
‘I thought I could hear something else, man. Would you just keep your big mouth shut for a while? You never stop blethering.’
Fergus grimaced and said no more, but he looked even more alarmed at the sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor outside. His head jerked up, but Archie motioned to him to be still. The footsteps drew nearer.
‘We’d better get out of sight,’ Archie whispered. ‘We don’t want anybody to know we’re here. We’ll just have to wait and see who they are and what they do.’
They stood up noiselessly, and went to crouch behind the dilapidated sofa by the far wall. In a few seconds, the door creaked slowly open.
‘I canna see a thing in here,’ a deep voice said, peevishly. ‘Hold up the lantern, Sandy.’
An arc of pale light swept round the room, growing brighter as the bearer advanced, and Archie had to hold Fergus back from poking up his head to have a look.
‘It’s an awful big room, Donald,’ said another voice with less resonance.
‘It is that, and just look at that fireplace. It’s big enough to roast an ox.’
‘You’d never want to roast an ox, surely?’
‘It’s just a saying.’ Donald sounded rather exasperated. ‘And that couch. It could seat six, I wouldna be surprised.’
The lantern now illuminating the area around their hiding place, Archie and Fergus remained absolutely motionless until the beam swung away again. They had been unable to look before, but with the light not focused in their direction any longer, they took the chance to peep over the low back of their shield. At first, all they could see was the lantern, because everything behind it was in darkness, but as the light moved round, they could see two shadowy shapes. One was round and small, but the other was huge.
They looked at each other in dismay, and with his mouth against Fergus’s ear, Archie whispered, ‘We’ll have to scare them away.’
Fergus turned his head and put out his hand to find the other man’s olfactory organ. ‘You canna scare them away, if they’re ghosts,’ he muttered into it.
Archie gave him a push, and started to moan softly.
‘What was that, Donald?’ One of the newcomers stood still to listen. ‘Did you say something?’
‘I thought it was you, Sandy.’
Both voices held a deep note of apprehension, so Archie moaned again, a little louder this time and Fergus joined in, an octave higher, more a screech than a groan.
There was dead silence when they stopped. The two figures in the middle of the room stood as though transfixed. ‘It sounds like g … ghosts,’ Donald said at last, his voice low and quivering.
‘You never said nothing to me about the place having ghosts,’ Sandy said, nervously.
‘Nobody never said nothing about it to me, either, and I’m not paying good money for a haunted castle, even if it is cheap. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
To convince them, Archie moaned again. He didn’t fancy strangers moving in and upsetting their placid existence.
‘I thought it was cheap because it was needing a lot of repairs,’ Sandy observed slightly unsteadily, as they moved towards the door, ‘and I was quite willing to give you a hand to fix things up and get rid of the draught there would likely be, but …’
The door closed behind them with a loud click, their footsteps echoed along the corridor and died away, then the heavy portal clanged and there was the sound of chains and lock being secured.
‘You see what you did?’ Archie exclaimed, accusingly. ‘If you hadna been so sure they were ghosts, they’d have bought the castle and fixed things up, and we’d have been warm every winter instead of near freezing into snowmen.’
‘It was your idea to scare them away,’ Fergus said, childishly, ‘for I thought the little one might be Santy Claus, and I’ve aye wanted to see him, ever since I was …’
‘For any sake, man! It’s your brains that get touched wi’ the cold, I’m thinking.’
‘You’re as bad!’ Fergus retorted, trying to have the last word for a change. ‘If they had been ghosts, they wouldna have been frightened of other ghosts, now would they?’
‘You were,’ said Archie dryly, and walked through the wall.
***
Word count: 1138
This ghost story was written in February 1977 for a school puppet show and was very well received. Because of its theme, and also because I had no idea where to send it, I did not attempt to have it published.