Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-25

} Lantern. all well whitened by the last night
frost, scattered on the ground. The stor
on which he had first seen the gobli
seated. stood bolt upright before him, an
the grave at which he had worked til
night before was not far OF. At first h
began to doubt the reality of his adventure:
but the acute pain in his shoulders when h
attempted to rise, assured him that tn
kicking of the goblins was certainly no
ideal. He was staggered again. by observ
ing no traces of footsteps in the snow OF
which the COLLINS had played at leap-froe
with the gravestones, but he speedily &C
counted for this circumstance, when he re.
membered that being spirits, they would
leave no visible impression behind them
he could for the pain in his back; and
brushing the frost off his coat, put it on
and turned his face towards the town.
"But he was an altered man, and he
could not bear the thought of returning 70
place where his repentance would be
scoffed at,and his reformation disbelieved.
He hesitated few moments, and then
turned away to wander where he might
| and seek his bread elsewhere.
SThe lantern, the spade and the wicker
bottle, were found that day in the church
yard. There were great many spscula-
tons about the sections fate at first, but it
was speedily determined that he had been
carried away by the COLLINS; and there
were not wanting some very credible wit
nesses who had distinctly seen him whisked
through the air on the back of a chestnut
horse, blind of one eye, with the hind
quarters of lion, and the tail of a bear.
At length all this was devoutly believed;
and the new sexton used to exhibit to the
curious for a triiing emolument, good
sized piece of the church weathercock
which had been accidentally kicked off by
the aforesaid horse in his aerial flight, and
picked up by himself in the church yard,
a year or two afterwards.
"Cnfortunately these stories were some
what disturbed by the unlocked for reap
pearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some
ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented.
rheumatic old man. He told his story to
the clergyman, and also to the mayor; and
in course of time it began to be received
as matter of history, in which form it has
continued down to this very day. The be-
levers in the weathercock tale, having
misplaced their confidence once, were not
easily prevailed upon to part with it again,
SO they looked as wise as they could,
shrugged their shoulders, touched their
foreheads, and murmured something about
Gabriel Grub's having drunk all the Hol-
lands, and then fallen asleep on the fiat
tombstone; and they affected to explain
what he supposed he had witnessed in the
COLLINS cavern, by saying that he had seen
the world and grown wiser. But this opin-
ion, which was by no means popular one
at any time; gradually died of: and be the
matter how it may, as Gabriel Grub was
afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his
days, this story has at least one moral-if
lit each no better one-and that is if man
turns sulky and drinks by himself at Christ
mas time, he may make up his mind to be
not bit the better for it, let tho spirits be
ever so good, or let them be even as many
degrees beyond proof, as those which Cab
riel Grub saw, in the COLLINS cavern"