This is a story my mother told me once-So it has to be true.

This is a story my mother told me late one rainy night when I was all but a wee little child. She told me that her grandmother had told her the same story when she was a similar age as I was… As my mother sat on my bed she appeared more serious than I had ever known her to look…I will try to remember every little detail that she shared with me…There is a lesson here for all of us. "There was a fellow named Alfred Wentworth…He was a farmer in the heart of the dales in Yorkshire. Now, Alfred was a big strong powerful man who was not afraid of anybody alive…But anybody who was dead scared him almost to death himself... One fateful night Alfred was walking down the old country lane on his way home from the public house…It was late Friday night/ Saturday morning and he had enjoyed many pints of Yorkshire ale. All at once a terrible storm came as if from nowhere, Alfred pulled his woolen coat a little tighter about him, and his cap a little more snugly onto his head, and began to look for an appropriate place to take shelter until the storm weakened. But at the first place he came too Alfred did not even slow down. It was an old, long since abandoned laborers house, and legend had it all through Thirsk that it was haunted by a terrible spirit… About a mile further on, the storm had only gotten worse, when he came across an old abandoned church. He had walked passed it in daytime a thousand times, and had never once considered venturing inside. Yet tonight its crumbling walls beckoned him… It was at that moment that lightning struck, and just for the briefest moment his way was illuminated. He made it to the churches old door just as the thunder crashed in the heavens, seeming to shake the ground beneath his feet. It was as dark as dark could be in there, yet it was dry, and surely he reasoned the storm would soon break…He found a seat at the very back of the church and stretched out… It was then that the lightning once more struck, and Alfred saw to his horror that he was not alone in the church. There were people sitting in fact at almost every pew. They all had there heads bowed as if deep in prayer, and they were all dressed in white! Alfred's mind quickly decided what they must surely be. "Ghosts sitting in their shrouds! They must have come from their old graves to keep dry!" Alfred jumped up and raced down the aisle in a complete terror, screaming as he went, and right smack into one of the ghosts… The ghost looked up at him and went BAA-A-A. After the storm broke he continued his walk home, laughing at how he had taken shelter with the sheep…" With that my mother chuckled, reached in and kissed my brow and wished me sweet dreams…