nobility. In fact, he was
acquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotch
peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to the
person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan."

"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a
haunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.

"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem
ghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with its
trans-Atlantic fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of the
title, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house.
In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardian
angel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron
Duncan of Duncan, and warn him of impending evil. The traditions of the
house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a
premonition of ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from
the venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some had
been obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless
of defeat and to death. In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to
peril without fair warning."

"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off
the Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones.

"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is
extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes
before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he had
to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip.
Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter
would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic."

"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron
died?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.

"How did he come over," queried Dear Jones--"in the steerage, or as a
cabin passenger?"

"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry calmly, "and Eliphalet, he didn't
know. For as he was in danger, and stood in no need of warning, he
couldn't tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on
the watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of its
presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just
before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him--a young
fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was
fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little
unp