Steel's "On the Salt Road"
Fair to say, Flora Annie Steel's short story "On the Old Salt Road" both surprised me and creeped me out. I've read a fair bit of Steel's work now and this wasn't like any of it. For one thing, it's a ghost story, which is not her usual fare but not that strange for the time. It even has the typical framing device of the main story being told to a group of people round the fire after dinner, one of whom writes the story we're reading. It's the story of the Major, from when he was a young officer in the Raj who had just buried his wife and child. Without telling you too much of the story, he falls into a suicidal depression and heads off on a "holiday" on an old salt road to do the deed. Salt roads were set up along trade routes and patrolled regularly to prevent smuggling, but had been abandoned by the time of the story. Some civil officers used them though when on tour. The ghostly experiences come upon the young man as if they were rea