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The Ghost Of Peg Alley's Point

Scary Books: The Best Ghost Stories
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Peg Alley's Point is a long and narrow strip of wooded land, situated

between the main stream of Miles river and one of the navigable creeks

which flow into it. This little peninsula is about two miles long, from

fifty to three hundred yards in width and is bounded by deep water and

is overgrown with pine and thick underbrush. There is extant a tradition

to the effect that many years ago a party of Baltimore oystermen

ncamped on the point, among whom was a man named Alley, who had

abandoned his wife. The deserted woman followed up her husband, and

found him at the camp. After some conversation had passed between them,

the man induced her, upon some unknown pretext, to accompany him into a

thicket. The poor wife never came out alive. Her husband cruelly

murdered her with a club. The point of land has ever since been known by

Peg Alley's name, and her perturbed spirit has been supposed to haunt

the scene of her untimely taking off. About twelve years ago a gang of

rail-splitters were at work on the point, and one day the foreman flatly

refused to go back, declaring that queer things happened down there, and

that he had seen a ghost. Mr. Kennedy, his employer, laughed at him and

dismissed the matter from his mind. Some time after this Mr. Kennedy had

occasion to ride through the woods to look after some sheep, there being

but one road and the water on either side. As he approached the point

his horse started violently and refused to go on, regardless of whip or

spur. Glancing about for the cause of this unnatural fright, he saw a

woman rise up from a log, a few yards in advance, and stand by the

roadside, looking at him. She was very poorly clad in a faded calico

dress, and wore a limp sun-bonnet, from beneath which her thin,

jet-black hair straggled down on her shoulders; her face was thin and

sallow and her eyes black and piercing. Knowing that she had no business

there, and occupied in controlling his horse, he called to her somewhat

angrily to get out of the way, as his animal was afraid of her. Slowly

she turned and walked into the thicket, uttering not a syllable and

looking reproachfully at him as she went. With much difficulty he forced

his horse to the spot, hoping to find out who the strange intruder might

be, but the most careful search failed to reveal the trace of any one,

although there was no place of concealment and no possible way of

escape, for which, indeed, there was not sufficient time.



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