Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1882-04-26
IFrom Our Continent.l
BEHIND MINERALS SHIELD.

Homer Ashton one autumn evening
listened to stories of witches and ghosts
told around him, and joined In them, IN
til he felt an occasional shiver creeping
down his back. Not that he believed in
the supernatural, but the freight into
which he sat looking grew pleasanter to
him than the corners of the great room,
for lamps had been banished to accord
with the subject under discussion, and
it seemed that the shadows Pickering be-
hind the young people grouped about
the CRATE of blazing coal were massive
and weird, and that when one glanced
at them sideways suddenly, there was
something aboGt them like ghostly Wis
itors. When he faced them, to be sure.
they were only ordinary shadows.
Homer was ashamed of himself, he was
afraid his nerves were unsteady, and re-
solved to test them. He knew a way to
do it.
Near the place at which he was stay
ing, an English country house, were the
RUNS of the older part of castle said
to have been built III the time of the
crusades. The whole castle was at pres
ent uninhabited, but the part which
had been allowed to fall into hopeless
decay was the width of the courtyard
away from the rest of the house. Prob
ably it had once been connected with it
by buildings which had formed three
sides of hollow square, but, if so, it had
been left out In the changes made at
different times, and now it was roohess,
the walls we're crumbled, and the under
ground portion was all that made any
pretense to a habitation, and offered
suitable home to the unearthly beings
who were said to roam In 1t, for damp
ness covered all the stones and the air
had a deadly chill But these facts
seemed conclusions from the nature of
things rather than the results of obser-
walton, for Homer could not find any
body who had explored it.
Ghosts ought really to be forgiven a
good many faults, because they are in
general so unselfsh about selecting
homes nobody else wants.
That evening as Ashton connected the
reports of the place itself with stories of
sights and sounds around it, he found
himself yielding so much to the influence
of gossip that he determined to shake off
the weakness and to try what stuff he
was made of. He would stand In these
haunted halls and summon the ghosts
and see what would happen. He knew
well enough that it would be nothing.
But he did not tell his plan to the 9TH
ers, he said merely that he was going for
a walk TO blow away this ghostly atmos-
phere by a little fresh air. Nobody vol
unteered to accompany him; night had
never seemed more distasteful to them
all. They only looked at each other
significantly as he left them, and said:
'sAnother Americanism.
There Is an unreasonlng element in
human nature which assumes every in
dividuality of a foreigner to be a national
characteristic. DR.. Ashton, whom the
son of the house had become acquainted
with In London, and brought home with
him for visit, was to his entertainers an
epitome Of America, and it must be con-
fessed that at the end of week they had
come to have good opinion of that
country.
AS Homer walked ON rapidly he saw an
occasional star in the sky, but it seemed
as if he never could get out of the
shadow of the trees, there were so many
of them.
He soon came to the ruin mile away,
opened the heavy gate, and began to de-
scend the long fight of steps leading
into the corridors and rooms under
ground. What could the old place have
been used for Did monks come here
for prayers and penances, or were these
Dungeons where captives taken in the
petty warfare of those times felt the per-