The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-03
PART I.

ing stories before a flaming hearth, the
house was rich in oldtime associations,
and the company was responsive equal
ly to the gay and the grave. The fifst
was in March, the second was the nome
of my friend Philip Letterby, ana the
third was the group of guests he an
nually entertains in observance or
hospitable custom that his family has
never permitted to lapse. The CONVEX
sation of such circle will gravitate to
supernatural experiences and this one
was no exception. Many such had been
related at secondhand, when ADner
Letterby, Philips father, addressed us.
He had been sitting nearest the nre,
thoughfully leaning forward upon his
hickory staff. If close approach to the
portals of the. unknown should yield
foreknowledge of its strange laws, he
could have spoken with abundant au-
thority.
Il have never told any of you" he
said, "why the old Budthorne place Is
called The House of Fear AS the
grandson of the last owner who lived
in it is here tonight, this is a good time
to tell it"
you will oblige me very much by
doing So" responded the young man re-
ferred to.
Philip had accidentally found him at
persuaded him to become one of his
guests. He was travelling for the bene-
fit of his health and had come to the
neighborhood to visit the original home
stead of his family. He was about twen-
ty-five years of age, pale and thin, but
still. holding fast sustaining residue of
his normal robustness and strength OF
manhood.
THE house has been without tenant
Ga, al nS.t nj mo n
began in quaverinE voice that added
much to the weird gravity of his narra-
tive. Martin Budthorne, your grand
father. sold it to the father of ARM
strong, the present owner, when the
awful thing l am going to tell of. hap
pened, and went west. He advised
Armstrong to build a new house at the
other end of the farm and never to go
into the old one. 1t was matter of
great wonder at the time, but the fact
that no one can live in 1t has now ma
turally become a matter of course.
Martin had brother John, the worst
boy to rove about l ever saw. He
couldn't be contented anywhere very
long, and when their father died, he
soon turned his share of the estate into
money and went gadding about the
world. One night he came home to
Martins house Unexpectedly. Every
body saw that he was on his last legs.
He was in bed when went over to see
him. and 1 made up my mind he hadn't
u week to live. He wanted to talk that
night | went over and he told us many
stories of his travels. He was one of
these chaps that gather up all sorts of
odd things and he told Martin that sew
eral boxes of them would come in a few
days.
'"The last city he had spent much time
in. he said. was Bagdad, and he had
made it his headquarters while look
ing around over the scenes told about
in the Arabian Nights That is a speci
men Of the crazy notions he was always
taking. He told us he had bought from
an Arab there the finest curiosity he
had ever seen. 1t was a round ball
made entirely of small pieces of bone
cut from human skulls. The skulls
We're of men and women who had died
awful deaths. Some of them were Grim
inals that had been executed by being
beheaded or tortured, some had been
murdered, some killed in earthquakes,
storms and all sorts Of terrible acci-
dents. The Arab had told him there
was some spell on it, but John declared
ne didn't put any faith In that. He ad-
ViSed Martin to keep it, as it might be
valuable as a curiosity.
John died the next night. About ten
days afterward the boxes came. and
Martin sent for me TO come over and
help him unpack them. for we had tried
TO fancy what sorts of trinkets the boy
had wasted his money on. We soon
saw that our widest fancies fell short.
Those boxes held the most useless
things that good dollars could be squan
dered for l won't try to describe them,
but will hurry on to the bone ball we
were most anxious to find, and that we
did come across at last. ] stopped to
lift 1t out, and, supposing ball of bone
would be light, | did not use much
strength, but ] was astonished to find
that I did not even bulge it, and that
it required n good muscle to get it out.
I had never been as much surprised in
my life. 1t was only about six inches in
diameter, but it would have outweighed
solid ball of lead of its size. | warned
Martin of this as j handed it to him,
but he was not prepared for such an en-
traordinaTy weight and almost let it
fall.
He put it ON the table and rolled it
about as we examined it. AS John had
said, it was made of small squares of
bone, cemented together with wonder
full skill and polished until you could
almost see yourself in it. Martin at
last took his hands from it, and then
another extraordinary thing happened.
Instead of lying still, it rolled around
of it's own accord until small black
circle came uppermOst. We put it back
again and again. with the circle down.
and every time it righted itself. This
circle seemed to be the mark of a. lid
but we could not see any way to open
it. Some words were burned into the
1.
that it would take better scholars than
we were to read them.
LAS you may all imagine, we got
very much interested in this ball. but
kept all we had learned about it from
everyone: in fact, no one knew such