Ghost Story Review: “Mr. Gray’s Strange Story” by Louisa Murray

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Many years after the events have occurred, the Rev. Gilbert Gray relates this sad story. He says he’s not a believer in the supernatural, yet has no rational explanation for the experience. And now, since he’s the only living person whom the facts concern, he’ll relay his story to people who are interested in abnormal phenomena. Some twenty-five years earlier, he was a minister at a church in a village on the shores of Lake Erie. The village sprung up around the saw mills of Mason and Company. The reverend boarded at the house one of his parishioners, Mr. Michael Forrest, who ran a prosperous farm. He and his wife had a 20-year-old daughter, Marjory, and were raising an 18-year-old niece, Celia. Their daughter was beautiful, and their niece, while good-looking. The son of the owner of the lumber mill, Leonard Mason, was a familiar guest at the house. He flirted with both the girls, but was interested in the daughter. The Forrests also had a nephew, Archie Jonson, a sailor and presumed heir. They also assumed he and their niece would marry. He loved her, but she was less enthusiastic about the idea. One day, Rev. Gray notices Archie is home early. And Celia is missing. Leonard has finally come to ask for Marjory’s hand. At this point the rest of the story is a train wreck in slow motion. It’s painful and sad to watch. Nothing happy can last—everything shiny thing gets crushed. The minister can only stand by and watch in horror as vengeance multiplies. Ghosts, apparently, are as unreasonable as human beings. Even the weather gets involved. And then, simple, reasonable explanations fill in the gaps, so the unbelievable is smoothed over. Author Louisa Murray was raised in County Wicklow, Ireland. She and her family left Ireland in the 1840s escaping the potato famine and settled on near Kingston, Ontario, where she became a teacher. I found a YouTube recording of a Librivox reading of the story: _____ Title: “Mr. Gray’s Strange Story” Author: Louisa Murray (1818-1894) First published: The Week, February 1892. Source: ISFDB Wikipedia