When Tina’s parents went to Scotland in August 1995, it was only natural that her Scottish father would go back to visit the places he had known as a child.

One place in particular remained in James’s memory, draped in the romantic notions of youth. Gight Castle was deep in the forests, far from anywhere. The castle, originally the family seat of the Gordons, was surroun­ded by fields, with cattle thoughtfully munching the grass and hardly any habitation to be seen.

When his wife, Lucy, got to the edge of the field, she shook her head: had they really trudged all that way to see this pile of ruins? The walls had mostly collapsed and most of the top floor had no ceiling left. But it fitted in well with the bleak Scottish landscape and she could well imagine it in its heyday, around 400 years before.

Still, she was not surprised that they were the only people around.

When they got to the castle, James remembered his way around in that curious way in which childhood memories can resurface. Lucy wandered off to one side and he went up to the top floor. Tina was awed by it all. Just seven years old, she was a voracious reader and knew all about castles and things. She made her way gingerly up the spiral staircase, which had no balustrades, keeping as close to the wall as she could. She found herself on the roof with ramparts overlooking the fields below. She picked her way over the fallen stones, following her father.

At one point on the wall, there was a small enclosure. She figured that it had probably been used by the guards to shoot from. But as she stood there daydreaming, she was quite taken aback to see someone walk past the entrance and continue along the wall. She turned to her dad, who was looking out over the wall a short distance away from her, and asked:

“Dad! Who was that? That man in the top hat...?”

James looked round in surprise but when they looked back, there was no one there. There was nowhere anyone could have gone either. Tina described the man: he had his face turned away from her but he was wearing a very dark, blue-black top hat.

Tina herself began to wonder whether she was seeing things, and her father played down the incident, not wanting to frighten her.

But as they continued work­ing their way round the ruins, he looked out of a window cut into the wall of one of the staircases and noticed a wing of the castle that he had never seen before. He checked his bearings but was convinced that he had never noticed it before.

Dad! Who was that? That man in the top hat...?

He walked down the stairs and worked his way to where the wing should be, but when he got there, there was only a gable-end and no sign on the ground of any foundations. Perhaps he had lost his way. He made his way back to the window and looked out again but the wing had disappeared.

He shook himself. What could he do but doubt his own senses?

When they got back to the village, James went to look up his old scout master. Tina was bursting to tell someone about the man she had seen, convinced that it was a ghost.

Perhaps it had been...

The scout master told them that there had been two tragedies connected to the history of the castle. Apparently, the owner’s daughter had fallen in love with a tailor considered to be unworthy of her. The besotted tailor snuck into the castle disguised as one of the bagpipers, and later than night eloped with the girl. The owner of the castle gave chase and apparently the couple was killed.

The other tragedy took place some time later. The lord of the castle was riding past a well when a young maid stood up carrying her pails of water. The sudden movement frightened his horse which reared up, throwing the lord to the ground. He was killed on the spot.

Neither story would have accounted for the family’s strange experience. Had they really seen something strange at the castle? The scout master did not remember hearing any stories, but then again, children are very open, very believing.

Tina saw something, even though she herself still wonders what it might have been.

“He was real, I mean I could not see through him or anything. I suppose he was a bit faint,” she said, as she scribbled a little map to show where she had been, and where her father had been, and how the field was full of cows…

“And he was wearing a strange, tall, blue top hat...”

This is the 12th in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin) is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.