A Christmas Ghost Story

We live in fear of Santa in this house,
said Mark Abel before the fireplace.
The family ‘stead once used to hunt grouse
had in it arranged a party of six,
observed by nought but a grandfather’s ticks.

‘Twas in the winter’s keep, continued Mark,
when an old fat man was seen on the roof.
Yet gifts were not found, come Xmas Day’s lark,
but in father’s room? The patriarch dead,
a red cap with white trim on his old pale head.

Perhaps this is not, said Mrs Abel,
what we should be hearing tonight. Nonsense!
cried Mark, with a smile mid-yell,
tonight’s the night for ghost stories, and still,
I’ve not revealed the next year’s chill…

Dear step-mama refused to sell
the estate and restore her throne in Hell;
opposing the farms who’d struggled for years,
all of them yoked to father’s rents.
Then hooves were heard on Xmas Eve.

But come the Day? Not even coal,
but father’s last wife from a window grate
with fairy lights hung and stiff as a date…
(He can’t be correct, said Mabel to John,
I heard the old girl drowned herself.)

To bed the guests went, and no-one believed
the orphaned squire’s weird tale, of St Nick’s
revenge against mean landowners.
Until the sound of snorting came
from about 01:00 AM with misty showers.

And a jingle of bells outside the bowers…