The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-12-16

spectres of my tower. 1t moved slowly
over the lawn, scarcely seeming to
touch the tips of the grass, and with no
more sound than a cloud would make
when settling on a hill top. Suddenly
it turned it's bright watchful eyes upon
me, and then with start that seemed
to send a thrill even through the gray
mantle which lightly touched its Shout
ders, it rose before my eyes until it was
nearly as high as the top of my tower!
Wings it had not, nor did it float in
the air; it ran like streak of gray cleo
tricity along the lightning rod, only, in
stead of flashing down it, as electricity
would pass from the Sky, it ran upward.
I did not see this swiftly moving spirit
reach the topmost point of the rod, for,
at a point where the thick wire ap-
proaches the caves, it vanished.
BY this time [ had come to the con-
clusion, not altogether pleasant to my
mind, that my ghosts were taking adj
vantage of my forebearance, with their
mystic knocks and signals in the night,
and their visits in the daylight, and
! that there must be too many of them in
my tower. 1 must admit that they an
noyed me very little, and L was not in
the least afraid of them, but there were
others who came into my tower and
who slept in some of its rooms, and to
! the minds of visitors and timorous
maids, there was something uncanny
and terrifying in these midnight knocks
and scratches.
| So, having concluded from what I
| had seen that day that it was the very
uppermost part of the tower which
had become the resort of these gray
sprites, and from which they came to
| disturb our quiet and repose, L de-
termined to interfere with their pass
age from the earth to my tower top.
| If, like an electric current, they used
| the lightning rod as a means of
transit, made plan which would
compel them to use it in the conven-
placed there that lightning might
come down it, not that it might go
up, so 1 set myself to put the rod in
a condition that would permit the
ghosts to descend as the lightning did,
but which would prevent them from
going up.
Accordingly I thoroughly creased
the rod for a considerable distance
above the ground.
Now" said 1 to myself, you may
all come down, one after the other
whenever you like. You will descend
very quickly when you reach the
creased part of the rod. but you viii
not go up again. You are getting very
bold. and if you continue your mad
: IeNelS III MY lOWC1 yOQ Will 1l1SliICi
people and give my house a bad
name. You may become dryads il
you like and shut yourselves up in
the hearts of the tall and solemn oaks
There you may haunt the bluejays
and the woodpeckers, but they viii
4 not tell tales of ghostly visits, which
may keep my friends away and make
my servants give we warnings"
1 After that there were no more gray
flashes up my lightning rod, though
how many came down it 1 know not
and the intramurai revels in the
tower ceased. But not for long. The
ghosts came back again; perhaps not
so many as before, but still enough
of them to let rne know that they
We're there.
i How they assembled to their lofty
haunts 1 could not tell, nor did try
to find out ] accepted the situation,
I could not contend with these I'M
daunted sprites.
/ One evening in the autumn, outside
the same window from which l had
seen the first ghost of the tower, I
saw another apparition, but it was
not of the gray specters to which
had become accustomed. 1t was a jet
black demon. Its eyes, large, green