The Norfolk weekly news. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1888-1900, 1899-10-26
AUTHOR OF me- LEAvtNJOsIA cat.
BEHIND QorEp pOoPI JHN hffAP NtxI cSD2
"A 4 lOhlEC EN. nc

~ MN on the highway. fortunately
years elapse sometimes between its GO
ing and coming again. 1t is ten years,
l think they say, since it was seen last.
Poor little Robl 1t has frightened him
almost out of his wits.
81 should think so, l cried with be.
coming crcdulity. But how came he
to see it? l thought you said it only
passed at night"
AT midnight, " she repeated. "But
Rob, you see, is nervous lad, and night
before last he was SO restless he could
not sleep, so he begged to be put in the
window to cool off. This his mother
did, and he sat there for a good half
hour alone, looking out at the moon
light. AS his mother is an economical
woman there was no candle lit in the
room, so he got his pleasure out of the
shadows which the great trees made on
the highroad till suddenly-you ought
to hear the little fellow tell it-he felt
the hair rise on his forehead and all his
body grow stiff with n terror that made
his tongue like lead in his mouth. A
something ga thing he would have
illt u alIh iuSc III liz uly-
time. but which in this light and under
the influence of the mortal terror he
was in took on II distorted shape which
made it unlike any team he was accus-
toned to-was going by, not as if being
driven over the earth and stones of the
road, though there was n driver i'll front,
Il driver with an odd three cornerod
hat on his head and a cloak about his
shoulders, such as he remembered rs
having seen hanging in his grandmoth-
er's closet, but as if it tloated along
without sound or stir-in fact, u specter
team which seemed to find it's proper
destination when it turned in Lost Mans
lane and was lost among the shadows of
that i'll reputed road"
"Pshaw,' was my spirited comment
as she paused to take her breath and see
tale. "A dream of the poor little lad!
He had heard stories of this apparition
and his imagination supplied the rest
ono; excuse me, madam, but this is
the very point of the tale. He had been
carefully kept from hearing any such
stories, having enough to do to bear his
own troubles without that. You could
see this was true by the way he told
about it. He hardly believed what he
had seer himself. 1t was not till some
foolish neighbor blurted out, "Why,
that was the phantom carriage" that
he had any idea he was not relating any
thing but a dream.
My second pshaw was no less mark
ed than the first.
HE did know about it, notwithstand.
ing" l insisted. "Only he had forgot
ten the fact. Sleep supplies us with
these lost memories. We remember then
what may never recur to us in the day
time"
Every true, and you might be right,
Miss Butterworth, if he had been the
only one to see this apparition. But
Widow Jenkins saw it, too, and she is
a woman to be believed"
This was becoming serious.
"Saw it before or saw it after?" l
asked. docs she live IN the highway
or somewhere in Lost Mans lane?'
"She lives on the highway about a
half mile from the station. She was up
with her, sick husband and saw it just
as it was going down the hill. She said
it made no more noise than a cloud slip
ping by. She expects to lose old Rause.
No one could see such a thing as that,
she says, and not have some misfortune
follow"
hour of waiting was not likely to prove
wholly Improbable.
You see, " the good woman went ON,
with a relish for the marvellous that
stood me in good stead, there is all old
tradition Of that road connected with
a carriage. Years ago, before any of us
We're born and the house where you are
was a gathering place for all the gay
young bloods of the county, a young
man came up from New York to visit
Mr.. Knollys. | do not mean the father
or eve the grandfather of the folks you
are visiting, ma'am. He was great
grandfather to Lucetta, and a very fine
gentleman if you can trust the pictures
that are left of him. But my story has
not to do with him. He had a daughter
at that time, a widow of great and
sparkling attractions, and though she
was older than the young man | have
mentioned every II thought it would
be IA match, she was so handsome and
such an heiress.
But he failed to pay his court to
her, and though he was handsome him
self and made a fool of more than one
girl in the town every me thought he
would go as he had come, a free hearted
bachelor, when suddenly one night a
horse and carriage were found lacking
from the stables, and he was found lack
ing, too, and, what was worse, the young
Widows daughter, a chit who was bare
ly 10 and without "a hundredth part of
the beauty of her mother. Love and an
elopement only could account for this,
for in those days young ladies did not
ride with gentlemen in the evening for
pleasure, and when it came to the old
gentleman's ears, and, what was worse,
came to the mothers, there was a com
motion in that house the echoes of
which some say have never died out.
Though the pipers were playing and the
t11las were sunpakipU in tba uraat