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The Haunted House
I was on holiday in Scotland, and I was staying at Fernie Castle Hotel, which used to be just Fernie Castle when it was built about 600 years ago. I was staying in a small room up in the West Tower, and I went to bed after a good meal. I was just falling asleep when I heard someone knocking at the door. So I got up, put the light on and went to the door, but there was no one there. So I went back to bed and decided it must been a dream or my imagination. I was just falling asleep again when I heard someone knocking again – a very light tapping, not a loud knock. I got up, put the light on, went to the door and there was nobody there. I wasn’t scared but it’s a bit worrying when you’re staying by yourself in a very old castle. I locked the door and went back to bed but I left the light on, and nothing else happened; I slept until morning.
The next night I went to bed and there was no knocking at the door, but in the middle of the night I woke up for some reason and saw a woman standing in the room. She was wearing a green dress with a high neck and she was looking at me, but when I switched on the light she disappeared, she wasn’t there. And by this time I was really very worried and I stayed awake for the rest of the night.
When I went down to breakfast I said to the owner of the hotel that I had seen a woman in my room the night before. He asked, “Was she wearing a high-necked green dress?” and I said, “Yes, she was.”
The man said, “Many people saw this woman but I never did. She was a bride of a man who was running away with her to get married. Her father did not want her to marry this man. They escaped to Fernie Castle and hid in a tiny room at the top of the West Tower. Her father’s men eventually tracked them down and there was a terrible struggle, and somehow while she was trying to escape she fell out of the window to her death on the stone courtyard below. And now her ghost haunts the West Tower and occasionally appears in people’s bedroom with a sad expression, never saying anything. And that’s probably what you saw. Either that or you had too much champagne the night before.”