Ghostly Visitors.

Ghostly Visitors.

Feeling a little tired from digging my back garden ready for the winter I went to bed early. I dozed off and awoke with the impression that I was not alone in my bedroom. Slowly I opened my eyes the bedroom was bathed in a bluish light. I sat up in my bed and then I saw the two ghostly figures standing at the foot of my bed. I was not frightened or even alarmed it was as if I had been expecting the two ghosts. Now wide-awake I barked out in a strange voice, “If you have come to visit me then have the decency to introduce yourselves.

The Ghost on the left side of the bottom of bed wailed; yes it wailed I can only say what I was hearing. In the wailing tone he called out, “My name is Ebenezer Shaw, ex Pirate date of decease seventeen hundred and four on the nineteenth of January. Hanged by the Hangman at Southampton after a trial by Judge and Jury.” The other wailed in an even higher tone of voice. “Samuel Shaw smuggler. Killed by the Customs and excise officers at Gravesend after I shot one of the officials. This too was on the nineteenth of January seventeen hundred and four.

I sat up a little straighter in my bed. “What do you want with me?” I asked. Both started to wail together, “You are the only one that can release us from this ghostly life so that we may carry on to the next step of evolution.” “Only a person that has led an unblemished life and was also born on the nineteenth of January can free us from this ghostly life.” “Tell me a little more so that I may make a decision,” I heard myself saying. To the Pirate I put the question, “How many people have you killed in your life?” His answer, “Do you mean in a fight or also those that we made to walk the plank. I do not really know there were so many of them.” “And you, I asked the smuggler?” I only shot one man and that was the customs and excise officer that was shooting at me.

I could not help myself and asked him why he took up smuggling for a living. This is his story. (The times were very hard we had little or no food to feed the Families. We rowed down the River Thames across to France and bought wine and tobacco this we smuggled home and supplied the Local Gentry, the Vicars and others that had money to pay for whatever we smuggled. There was no work to be had in those far off days and after all our customers were the rich people. The poor could not afford to buy wine and Brandy.)

Now that I had heard the two stories of the Ghosts that could not find peace and move on I felt very sorry for them. “What must I do so that you both may move on?” I asked. One produced a piece of Parchment that he handed to me. I read what was written on the Parchment. (I Bernard Shaw, being of sound mind and under no duress release these two Ghosts so that may move on to the next step. I have not been threatened in any way nor have I been made promises of riches when and if I sign this document.)

One of the Ghosts slowly moved toward me he held a quill in his hand. The quill he gave me and I signed willingly the Parchment. As soon as the Parchment was signed both Ghosts called in a much stronger voice Thank you Mr. Shaw and both disappeared leaving me sitting up in bed in the dark. I am not asking you to believe what I have just written but it is quarter to one on the early hours of the morning and I rushed down stairs to my computer to get it all down as it happened. If you get the chance to help a Ghost please do not hesitate many of them have done some very bad things in their lives but then the times were much harder in those far off days. Bern.