The Planters' banner. [volume] (Franklin, Attakapas Co., Lou.) 1849-1872, 1850-10-03

viously bracing himself for an effort o.
courage "but we will take Faukes
and James the helper with us; and
please, sir. you'll not mention the cir
cumstances as has occurred 10 either OF
them"
l gave him the assurance he asked
for, and in few minutes our little party
were in full march upon the point Of
interest.
A few minutes brought us to the low,
gray walls and bleak hedgerows that
surrounded the pretty old church, and
its melancholy and picturesque me-
MORALS.
@sMervyn's tomb lies there, Itlsssas
sir" he said, pointing to corner of the
churchyard in which piles of rubbish,
with withered weeds and brambles,
were thickly accumulated under the
solemn though imperfect shelter Of the
wintry trees.
He exchanged some sentences with
our attendants in Welsh.
ayes, sir, that's the place." he added
turning to me, ~
And as we approached il, 1 bethought
me that the direction in which. as
stood upon tie stile. l had heard the
voice on the night preceding, cores.
ponded accurately with that indicated
by my guides The tomb in question
was huge slab of black marble, sup
ported, as was made apparent when the
surrounding brambles were removed,
upon six pillars, little more than two
feet high each. There was ample
room for a human body to lie inside
this funeral penthouse; and on stop
ping to look beneath, was unspeaka-
bly shocked to see that something like
a human figure was actually extended
there.
1t was indeed q corpse! and what is
more, conesponded in every trait with
the internal phantom which on the pre-
ceding night had visited and appalled,
me.
The body, though miserably ema-
ciated, was that of large boned, ath-
letic man, of full six feet in height (;
and it was, therefore, no easy task to
withdraw it from the. receptacle where
it had been deposited, and lay. II, as our
assistants did, upon the tombstone which
had covered it. Strange TO say, the feet
of the body had been placed towards
the west.
As looked upon the corpse, and re-
cognised but too surely, in its proper
tions and ineaments, traits of the ap-
partition that had stood at my bedside,
slx hx- 40
despair and malignity of the damned,
my heart fuitered and sank within me,
and recoiled from the effigy of the
demon with terror, second only to that
which had thrilled me on the night
preceding.
Now, reader-honest reader-I ap-
peal to your own appreciation of testi-
mony, and ask you, having these facts
in evidence. and upon the deposition OF
an eye and ear witness, whose veracity
through long life has never once been
compromised or questioned, have you,
or have you not, in the foregoing story
a well authenticated ghost story!
purposely avoid details, and with
out assigning the deposition respec-
lively to the witnesses who made them,
shall restrict myself to a naked outline
Of the evidence as it appeared.
The body have described was iden-
tilted as that of Abraham Smith, an un-
fortunate lunatic, who had, upon the
day but one preceding, made his es-
cape from the neighboring parish work.
house, where he had been for many
wears confined. His hallucination was
a strange one, but not by any means an
unprecedented one. He fancied that
he had died and was condemned; and
as theseideas alternately predominated,
sometimes importuned his keeper TO
bury him, using habitually certain
phrases which had no difficulty in re.
cognizina as among those which he had
addressed to me. He had been traced
to the neighborhood where found, and
had been seen and relieved scarcely
half mile from it. about two hours be-
fore nv visit to the churchyard!- L
There were, further, unmistakeable an
dences of some PERSONS having climbed
ND the trellis work to my window the
previous night, the shutter Of which
had been left unbarred, and as the win
dow might easily have been opened
with : push, the cold which experi-
enced as an accompaniment Of the
nocturnal visit was easily accounted for.
There was mark of blood upon the
window stool, and a scrape upon the
knee of the body corresponded with it.
A multiplicity Of other slight .circum-
stances, and the positive assertion ol
the chambermaid that the window had
been opened, and was but imperfectly
closed again, came in support Of the
conclusion, which was to my mind At.
isfactorily settled by the concurrent evi
dence of the medical men, to the efecl
that the unhappy man could not have
been dead many hours when the body
was found.
Taken in the mass, the evidence con,
IL Il