The Golden Leg by Dale Jarvis Read Free Book Online Page B

other faces, thin, drawn, and shining, hundreds of translucent
     faces all bleeding the eerie light. Hundreds of eyes glared at him from the
     midst of the glass.
    The squire gasped in horror, and his friend turned and uttered a similar,
     strangled cry as he looked upon the mirror. Both realized as if with one thought
     that the room was not haunted by one ghost, but by a countless number of
     spectres, their intangible bodies emitting the cold luminosity that filled every
     corner of the chamber.
    They had been in the room only a few seconds. As they looked in horror at the
     glaring, silent faces, a strange faintness stole over them both. It was a
     numbing sensation, and both felt as if their very lives were being sucked out of
     their bodies.
    The two quickly left the room, slamming the door shut on the awful light. They
     left the property immediately, and returned to their homes by separate
     paths.
    Neither man spoke of the incident to another living soul, but the deathly and
     deadly luminousness took its toll. Each man fell sick and grew weaker with each
     passing day. Before one year had run its course, both men lay buried beneath the
     sod of the old churchyard. They were mourned by their loved ones, and all
     remarked how sad it was that two such men should be taken away so young.
    And in the abandoned hall on the old estate, the luminous
     chamber glowed all the more brightly, an additional pair of cold, white faces
     staring out from the gold-framed mirror.

M
r. James Curran was born in County
     Waterford, Ireland, in 1794. He immigrated to Newfoundland in the early 1800s,
     and lived much of his life in and around the Southside of Holyrood, in
     Conception Bay.
    In the 1860s, the local parish decided that it needed a new cemetery. Land for
     the graveyard was donated by a local man, John McGrath. With free labour
     supplied by the men of the parish, the land was cleared and a fence was started.
     Word spread that every man in the parish was expected to supply the materials
     and labour to erect one length of fence.
    A pious man, James Curran, was one of the volunteers who worked on the
     cemetery, and he dutifully erected his portion of the graveyard fence. Many of
     the local men went away to work in the fishery, and work on the fence slowed.
     James Curran took it upon himself to make sure the fence was finished, and
     finish it he did. But the work proved to be too much for him, and shortly
     thereafter, he grew gravely ill. As he lay close to death, he called a close
     friend and countryman to his side, and asked that he be buried in
     the graveyard he had helped construct.
    His friend shook his head, sadly. As the ground was not consecrated, no burials
     were permitted in the new graveyard.
    â€œIf you don’t have me buried there, I will come back and haunt you,” swore
     James Curran. Upon uttering this oath, he died, only a few days before
     Christmas, 1867.
    The friend went to the parish priest, and told the man of Curran’s final
     request. He also told the priest of Curran’s dying vow.
    â€œLet him come back and haunt me,” mocked the priest, “and I will take care of
     that ghost.” With this, he ordered the body to be buried at the old Northside
     Cemetery.
    So Curran was buried, and that was the start of hard times for the old priest.
     One night shortly thereafter, the priest was called from his home to see a
     seriously ill man. On his return home, he was forced to pass along the Northside
     Cemetery.
    As they passed by, the horse stopped at the cemetery and refused to budge an
     inch farther forward. Harry, the priest’s driver, goaded the horse onward, but
     with little success. The horse only moved forward after the priest rose, blessed
     the cemetery, and said a short prayer.
    Their trials were not yet over. They approached the priest’s house, and set out
     over a frozen pond. A strange storm whipped up across the ice. They could not
     find a