Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1890-07-16
GHOSTS AND STORIES.
CURIOUS YARNS ABOUT PHANTOMS
AND SLEEP WALKERS.

ADVENTURES WITH sPECTERs RELATED AT
PARTY-EXTRAoRDINA EXPERIENCE
OF TWO GIRLS WHILE IN THE ARMS OF
MORPHEUs-NooDLEs' STRANGE IMAGE
Ghost parties are much in fashion. All
you need is jolly company and a small
quantity of alcohol burning on q saucer in
the darkened room. While the spirits fare
blue and ghastly each one of the people
present takes his or her turn at telling some
weird yarn-personal experiences are by far
the best-of grizzly phantoms and spooks
almos5 too horrible to mention. If the
story telling is good the test of its quality
is established by the thrills that run down
the backbones of the listeners.
At such party in Washington one night
young Noodles was telling of a ghost he
met with at an old country house where he
had been invited to stay for week. On
the evening of his arrival he was told in
Joking way by members of the family that
the bedroom allotted to him was haunted,
but he paid no attention to the matter, his
belief being firm against the existence of
phenomena supernatural. So when the
time came for his seeking his couch he went
off to sleep without much delay, and must
have been in the armsof Morpheus for more
than an hour, according to his reckoning,
when he was aroused By a noises He sat
up suddenly in bed and found himself con-
fronted with what he at once recognized as
a supernatural apparition.
A WEIRD sPECTER.
1t stood at the foot of the couch and eyed
him, with face of ghastly whiteness and
garments that seemed of luminous consis-
tercy, swaying to and fro. Somehow it ap-
peared as if it we're the image of himself in
grave clothes.
Noodles shrnnk beneath the quilt and lay
there for at least three minutes-it seemed
an hour to him before he dared look out
again.
"By Jove!' he said, sit must have been
only dream"
Then he raised himself once more to
seated posture, and fairly screamed aloud
when the sepulchral image rose again before
his gaze at the foot of the bed.
With burst of resolution that afterward
surprised him Noodles jumped out of bed
and turned up the gaslight close by, witch
be had prudently left at bead before re-
tiring. Then the grewsome mystery was
quickly dispelled. Facing the rear end of
the bed, with windows on either side, was
an old fashioned bureau. Through the
windows streamed the moonlight, while the
muslin curtains. When Noodles sat up in
bed his reflected image naturally appeared
in the looking glass, his torso clad in a
ninety. nine cent night shirt The moon
light, shining full upon his own person,
made the reflected simulacrum appear very
bright, while the curtain floating about in
the wind gave the effect of white drapery
such as is suitable to corpses that walk
abroad.
Noodles looked sharply at the faces of the
family when he came down to breakfast the
next morning, but he did not understand
then, and he has never been sure since
whether or not his experience was the result
of rather i'll judged practical joke.
THE soMNAMBULIsT's STORY.
The next story teller told of an experience
much more narrowing, though no ghosts
were concerned, which she and her sister
| had met with in childhood. Both of them
we're addicted to walking in their sleep, and
| it was not unusual for them to join in a sort
of cooperative somnambulism and wander
off at night from their bedroom together.
! On one occasion their mother had met them
in the hallway under such conditions, and
slapped them 80 severely that they did not
repeat the offense for quite twelvemonth.
But about year after the event referred to
they got up in company and made their
way down stairs into the cellar. Probably
the chill air woke them up-at all events
they did wake, and not finding themselves
iu their snug beds they were put in fright.
Said one of the little girls to the other:
"Where are we?"
And the other replied:
"We must be dead and buried"
She had felt the damp, cold wall of the
cellar trickling with clammy exudations.
No wonder that such horrible thought oc-
Cured to her mind. What else imaginable
could account for situation thus encoun-
tered? The little girls felt their way along
the prison that enclosed them. Nothing
but wall of moist stone for many feet, and
then corner, and again to the right at an
acute angle for what might have been
mile or two, SO it seemed. Once more 9
corner, and to the right the children crop.