The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-03-24
A GHOST STORY.
"A Story of the English North Countr

A GHOST STORY. 49,
A Story Of the English North Country.
So you want me to- tell you a story
about ghost, do you, children?' said
Parson Goodharte, looking up from his
book, with queer little twinkle in the
corner of his dark-gray eyes, as his
three nephews and two nieces came
trooping around the snug armchair in
which he was sitting by the fire. '.Well.
that won't be very easy, because I new
er saw ghost myself, and I've never
met any one else who had, either. But
l once knew man who thought he had
seen one-or felt one, rather-and a
very serious matter it was for him, as
you shall hear.
"When first came here as a Young
curate, long before any of you young
folks were born, every man, woman and
child in the village believed as firmly in
ghosts, witches and all that nonsense,
as they believed that the sun shone or
that the wind blew.
Eve seen strapping fellow six feet
high, big and strong enough to knock a
horse down, go half a mile out of his
way rather than pass after dark a spot
where highwayman had been hanged
in chains; and more than one old wom-
an was scared into fits by white COW
suddenly getting up from behind a
hedge, as she was going home through
the fields in the twilight. :.
GAS for the church-yard, all the mon
ey in the Cottonborough Bank wouldn't
have tempted any of our village folk to
60 through it after nightfall. AMI GER
tainly it was dismal place-there's no
denying it.
''Our pretty little new church over
the way wasn't built then, and the old
church stood right out at the very end
of the village just where Farmer Thomp-
sons big barn is now.
'' 1t was a grim old building, all of
dark-gr stone turned almost black by
the weather, and fast crumbling away.
The tower was one mass of dark ivy,
and the church-yard itself was full of
gloomy frs and expresses, growing to-
gether in thick clumps, which harbored
owls and bats without Number; and
when the moon glimmered through the
clouds upon a stormy night, making the
white tomb-stOnes whittier and the black
trees blacker than ever, it certainly did
look as ghostly place as I ever saw in
my life.
"But as if all this was not enough,
the spot had a legend attached to it, and
q very grim one, too, just at the fur
Their end of the church-yard, the ground
fell steeply away to a dark hollow,
through which ran stream.
I" This hollow bore the pleasant name
of Dead Mans Gully and the tradi-
tons of the county recorded that a
great battle had been fought in this
place in the days of King Alfred, and
that number of wounded Danes, who
had crawled to the stream to drink, had
been cruelty slaughtered by the Saxons,
despite the entreaties of good monk,
who tried hard to save them.
Ever since that day-so ran the le-
gend-on the anniversary of the massa-
ere, any one who passed the spot after
nightfall would hear the shouts of the
slayers, and shrieks of the slain, min
Cling with the hoarse rush of the water,
and would see-if the moon were bright
enough to show it to him-the stream
as red as blood.
$50, what with this nice story (which
every soul in the district knew by hearty,
and what with the gloominess of the
place itself, the village people were as
shy of it as if it had been fever hos
pital.
cot course, I was very much put out
at seeing my parishioners making such
geese of themselves; but what was to be
done?
Talking to them would only have
made them worse, for they would have
told me that they, who had lived in the
country all their lives, must know more
about it than I, who had only just come
there.
"At first tried to shame them out of
their terrOrs by constantly going about
the haunted spots myself, by night as
well as by day
"But it was not q bit of use, for they
we're accustomed to consider it part of
, clergyman's business to deal with
ghosts, and held that 1 ought to be q
match for any amount of them, If did
my work properly.
$50 the only thing could do was to
leave their beliefs alone, and trust to
lime to wear them out.
1T was toward the end of my first
year in the village, and the nights were
getting long and dark, when, one even
ing. as I was coming home in the twi-
light from visiting an old laborer, who
had fallen i'll, a man came flying down
the lane, full-speed, and ran bump
against me SO violently that he almost |
Knocked me down. -,
Gently, my friend said 1; I'm
not made of iron
"' Be thaat thee. PEARSON? answered
} shaky voice, which 1 recognized at
once as that of Dick Grimes, the miller.
Stand by me if thee be Christian
mon'
IS. What's the matter?' asked I, won
1ering not a little what could have hap
pened to frighten great sturdy fellow
ike him-f0r frightened he evidently