The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1878-09-05
Ghost Story.

I must tell you of a New Orleans
ghost story which 1 have just heard,
writes Ozias Midwinter in Cincinnati
Commercial. In these days ghosts
have almost lost the power to interest
us, for we have become too familiar
with their cloudy faces, and familiarity
begetteth contempt. An original ghost
story is a luxury, and a rare luxury at
that. Now think this one Is unique
enough to excuse me for presuming to
relate it. There was an old house on
MelpOmene street which nobody could
live in. Many good folk had attempted
to take up their residence ia it, but
none ever dwelt there more than one
night. Sometimes people would send
their furniture there in the morning
and have the place fitted up, only to
find everything outraged and violently
upset tn the afternoon. Carpets had
been torn from the floor and stuffed up
the chimney, or flung into the center
Of the room in an elfsh shape, mock
ingly suggestive Of a corpse with its
hands crossed. Invisible footsteps
shook the house with laundering tread,
and bolted doors opened mysteriously
at the touch Of viewless hands. AS
the years fitted by the Goblin Of De-
cay added himself to the number of the
Haunters; the walls crumbled, and the
doors yielded, and grass, livid and
ghastly-lOoking grass, forced its pale
way between the chinks Of the planKs
in the parlor. The windows fell into
ruin, and the wind entered freely 20
play with the ghosts, and cried weirdly
in the vacant rooms. At last the po-
lice authorities resolved to solve the
mystery of the house.
Stephen Leary was then chief Of po-
ice. He visited the house one evening,
accompanied by a picked detachment Of
six men, all armed with dOuble-barrel-
ed shot-guns double-shOtted. When the
seven entered the crumbling building
it was twilight. The chief ordered the
detachment to form a hollow square in
the middle Of the old parlor, facing
outward, and he himself filed the CEN
tire Of the square, lest the ghost might
arise in the midst and seize every man
by the back of the neck at the same
time.
Now" quoth he, "whencesoever it
may approach we can blow it back to Il
without hurting each other" And the
hollow square remained stationary in
the position Of "ready."
Then the clocks commenced to strike
the hours. There seemed to be at least
a hundred clocks within hearing
one a little faster or a little slower than
the rest. They told the time regularly
in a hundred different keys, till it be-
came "the dead waste and middle Of
The night" One after another, all the
hundred clocks struck the hour Of
twelve. Then a vast and awful silence
fell. The seven men brought up their
guns to "present," and stared wildly in
seven different directions.
Suddenly a gust ot wind blew lte
light out; and they heard it coming
an invisible and irresistible force SEEM
ed to burst up the flooring under the
feet Of the pOlicemen-and each one
simultaneously felt himself seized from
below and violently flung against the
ceiling.
And yet the city would not pay the
bills of the seven doctors who attended |
the faithful men thus grieYously in
iured, "While in the discharge of their
duties"