The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-07-15
TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.
The Bride.EIect's Hair Turned White In
a Few Hours.
Savannah NeWs.

tSuUu1UQH IfeUSs
SYLvANIA, GA, June 30.-A lady
in this town relates the following story
of a most thrilling experience through
which a friend Of hers passed, in this
Stase, some years ago, and which has
never been published. The story is a
true one.
Ii was near M~illeigeville that this
friend-a beautiful young lady-lived.
Pauline was her name. She was en-
gagged to be married to a gentleman
from another State. The appointed
time had come, and the large house
was filled with guests for the occasion.
There was one particular friend, how
ever, a young lady, whom the BRIDE
elect wished to have present, but it
was impossible f.. her to get there
before the morning after the night
appointed for the marriage. She tel
~egraphed her friend to come, and
postponed the wedding until the fol-
lowing morning.
That night they held a large recep-
tion at the house, and numbers Of the
guests remained over, so that they
might be present next morning. The
house being crowded, the young lady
gave up her own room to friends, and
with her maid went over into an un-
used chamber, somewhat separated
from the other part of the house, and
which vas called the "Blue ROOM" 1t
vas up on the second floor, and was
connected by lattice work with the
main building. Her father protested
against her going there, but she said
she was not afraid.
The little maid, after Strengthening
up the room, lay down on g. pallet to
sleep, and the young lady, eztinguish-
ing the light, sat before the dying
blaze on the hearth lost in revery.
Soon the maid began to sob, and said
she felt 80 uneasy that she was afraid
to sleep in the room. Not wishing to
be disturbed further, the young lady
told her she could 60, and the girl
hastily sought other quarters.
Seated before the fireplace, the
young bride soon felt a strange un-
e%asiness herself, as if the air was
charged with something. She tried
to dismiss it, but in vain. To still
her feeling she managed, with a great
deal of effort, to move a wardrobe that
was in the room against the door, and
thus safely barricaded from without,
she got into bed and tried to 60 to
sleep. But the restless, uneasy feel
ing would not leave her.
After a short while she thought she
heard the rattle of a chain. She list
ened, and charged it to her magma
tion. Again came the same sound,
and more distinct. She hardly breathed.
Then, from underneath the bed, came
the sound of a chain, and then a thud
and clank, a thud and clank, as some
thing moved about on the floor. At
last it crawled out into the room and
seemed to go to the fire.
Size thought perhaps it might be
her fathers dog, which a. kept
chained in the yard, and she summoned
courage enough to raise up on her
elbow in the bed and look. By the
dim light she could see an object
lying in front of the hearth, but could
not tell what it was.
She wanted to leap from the bed and
escape, but the thought of the heavy
wardrobe in front of the door deferred
her, and her very blood was chilled
when she realized how she had I'M
prisoned herself. She knew she could
not move it in time to escape this
chained object, whatever it might be,
should it wish to seize her.
She laid back on her pillow almost
paralyzed with fright, and as she did
30 the object before the fire moved.
She could hear the chain clanking and
dragging and the sound of slow moving
along the floor. Close to the bed it
came, and then climbed up where. she
was lying, the chain rafting behind.
Stricken with terror, and not daring
to move or even breathe, she then
perceived that it was a mai with a
chain about him. He crawled over in
the bed, got under the cover, and lay
there, perfectly still. After a long
time, through which she scarcely knew
how she lived, he stretched out his
arm, in a kind of weariness, and it
fell upon hers. He grasped her arm
with his hand, but made no further
move. She could feel that his finger
nails were long and sharp and more
like the claws of a beast than part of
a human being. His clutch upon her
arm was hard, but she dared not move
a muscle.
Through minutes that seemed like
years she waited. At last she heard
him breathing regularly, as if in sleep,
and then his grasp upon her arm re-
laxed. Slipping from the bed with a
superhuman effort she pushed the
wardrobe aside and fed through the
door. The noise awoke the man in
the bed, and she could hear him as he
followed, with his clanking chains.
Her screams aroused the house, and
she reached her fathers room to fall
insensible in his arms. A search was
made by the men present and they soon
came upon the object of her terror
an escaped lunatic from the asylum,
fierce and violent, with a broken chain
around his body. The officers were
notified and he was r%ecaptured after a
struggle. He had escaped the day
before, and the keepers had been IN
able to discover his whereabouts. He
had been so fierce for weeks that they
were unable to come close enough to
him to cut his nails, and they had
grown to be over an inch long on all
his fingers.
The saddest part of the story fol-
lows. The next morning the young
lady's hair was gray. From mortal
fright it had changed, in q single night,
from a raven black to the hue of old
age. She had brain fever for weeks.
Her young lover went in to see her
the morning Of their wedding day,
and when he saw how old she had sud
denly grown, and how her beautiful
hair had turned gray, he went away
and never came back again.
After many weeks she recovered,
and when she saw how she had lost
her beauty, and her hair had grown so