Folks,

Dux:

Holiday salutations to you and to yours my long time friend.

Hmmmm. I am also a coward at heart when it comes to creatures form the other side that go bump in the night. I usually strictly limit my own ghostly holiday visits to that of Christmases Past, Present and Future. As Dickens remarked, these probably have more of gravy than of grave about them.

In the interest of expediency, at some point in the last quarter of the 16th century, the famous "Triple Tree" was set up at Tyburn to replace the previous smaller gallows and was, at least once, used for the hanging of 24 prisoners. If misery loves company perhaps there was a little comfort in dying as a crowd?

I can indeed set my mind loose to ponder the horrific evils that might have soaked deep into those moldering, worm eaten timbers. Fortunately it is a bitter night with icy winds rattling the windows and snow flurries whipping about, so I will need no explanation for holding Lady T especially close tonight.

Good lord Dux, the nightmares still come late at night from my reading your Halloween story about those ghostly hares dancing in the moonlight. Must you add insult to injury?