Haunted Tales of the Unexplained
by Edith Mosher
Copyright © 1982 Edith Mosher

Don't Walk Behind Me!

A shy young farmer living on one of Nova Scotia's mountain slopes arrived down at a village store one day back in the early 1930's in a state of agitation.

After several embarrassed false starts he confessed that his wife had left him and had gone off with another man.

After more hedging he admitted he had no idea who this fellow might be, had in fact never laid eyes on him.

"But if your wife has had a boyfriend," the storekeeper said, "surely you must have some idea of who he is."

Ralph insisted he had never seen the fellow (Ralph wasn't his real name, but that is what we'll call him). He said the man must have been calling on Martha while he was in the fields. After some sympathy from those loafing about the store, the depressed "grass widower" made a few purchases and left.

His tale had surprised everyone. Ralph's wife was not that kind of a girl. Childless but apparently contented with her lot, Martha (that wasn't her real name either) had been a typical young farm wife, plain of face and pleasant to meet, but never to anyone's knowledge making the least effort to attract a member of the opposite sex, although they had to admit Ralph was not exactly a prize catch as husbands went.

The flurry of talk died down, as it does in rural communities. In time, however, folks noticed that when Ralph walked down the mountain road he seemed nervous and constantly turned to look behind him. Moreover he now came in bright daylight instead of at twilight as he had used to do. A farmer stringing fence wire near that road told that on one occasion, as Ralph passed, he distinctly heard him muttering, "Don't walk behind me!" although there was nobody on the road but Ralph himself.

Another neighbour who had occasion to call at Ralph's farm one day, was shocked when he saw Ralph, approaching the house and not noticing his caller waiting, turn and suddenly strike out at the empty air, shouting, "Martha! Don't walk behind me!"

"He's going nuts," the man said later. "He's up there yelling at his wife, and her gone ages ago." ...But gone where? No one had seen or heard of Martha in all the months.

No foul play, apparently, was suspected in the case of Martha's disappearance, Ralph being the meek, sheepy type he was. And so things drifted on for some time.

Occasionally, not any oftener than he had to, Ralph would go to town. He had stopped shaving now. His beard was wild and, so the teenagers said, beginning to sprout brier bushes and birds' nests! He walked almost crabwise in his effort to watch the street behind. When someone followed closely behind him on a sidewalk, which was hard to avoid in a busy town on a Saturday in those days, Ralph would just about go berserk.

"Stop walking behind me!" he would scream, rolling his eyes like an angry billygoat. He became a joke. And then it stopped being comic because Ralph was beginning to attack anyone who had the ill luck to be caught following him.

Finally comitted to a mental hospital, he at first appeared quite sane. Then one day a red haired nurse, taking Ralph for X-rays, happened to let her patient get a bit ahead of her in the corridor. Ralph landed on her like a ton of bricks. His fists flailed. His feet stomped. "Martha!" he screamed (Martha had had carroty hair too), "Don't walk behind me!"

The nurse, accustomed to such off-beat actions, took it and kept her cool. She soon had Ralph under control. A doctor gave him a shot and, believing in direct approach, asked him conversationally right out of a blue sky: "And where is Martha now?"

"Under the henhouse, damn her!" answered Ralph, glassy-eyed by now and calm as a clam. "But the little witch won't stay there. Her ghost's been dogging my tracks just the way she always did...walked behind me everywhere I went - Ralph, do this, Ralph, do that - until I'd had enough of it. Make her stop following me, doc, please."

The doctor promised he'd do his best. As far as we know' he kept his promise. At least his efforts were instrumental in getting Martha—or what was left of her—out from under the henhouse and into a proper corner of the local cemetery.