The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1882-04-06
BEHIND MINERVA'S SHIELD.

Homer Ashton one autumn evening
listened to stories of witches and ghosts
told around him, and Joined in them,
until he felt an occasional shiver creep.
lug down his back. Not that he be-
lieved in the supernatural, but the fire
light into which he sat looking grew
pleasant er to him than the corners of the
great room, for lamps had been banished
to accord with the subject under dis
cussion, and it seemed that the shadows
hickering behind 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 about them like
ghostly visitors. When he faced them,
to be sure, they were only ordinary
shadows. Homer was ashamed of him
SELF he was afraid his nerves were un-
steady, and resolved to test them. He
knew a way to do il.
Near the place at which he was stay
ing, an Eng lish country house, were
the ruins of the older part of castle
said to have been built in the time OF
the Crusades. The whole castle was at
present uninhabited, but the part
which had been allowed to fall into
uODclt5S uSNuI WAC uI0 WltpH W blt
courtyard away from the rest of the
house. Probably it had once been con-
nected 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 roofess, the walls were
crumb]ed, and the underground portion
was all that made any pretense to
habitation, and offered suitable home
to the unearthly beings who were said
to roam in it, for a dampness covered
all the stones and the air had deadly
chill. But these facts seemed con-
clusions from the nature of things
rather than the results OF observation
for Homer could not find anybody who
had explored it.
Ghosts ought really to be forgiven
good many faults, because they are in
general go unselti5h about selecting
homes nobody else wants.
That evening, as Ashton connected
the reports of the place itself with sto-
ries 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 those haunted halls and sum-
mon 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
others; he said merely that he was 60
ing for walk to blow away this ghostly
atmosphere by little fresh air. No
body volunteered to accompany him.
night had never seemed more distaste-
ful to them all. They only looked at
each other signifcantlyas he left them,
and said:
"Another Americanism."
There is an unreasoning element in
human nature which assumes every in
dividuality of foreigner to be a ma
tional characteristic. DIR. 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 confessed that at the
end of a week they had come to have q
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 80
many If them.
He soon came to the ruin, mile
away, opened the heavy gate and began
to descend the long flight of steps lead
ing 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
personal vengeance of their captors
He thought of the one described in
Ivanhoe." into which Isaac the Jew
was thrown, damp, dark, hung with
chains and shackles, and where in the
ring OF one set of fetters were two mold.
ering human bones. 1t was no wonder
ghosts were said to haunt place like
that.
In the midst of these thoughts the
gate he had left open swung to with {
clang, shutting out earthly things be.
hind him. Step by step he went dowr
the stone stairs into blackness to which