The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-07-23
SOUTH AFRICAN GHOST STORY.
Did you ever see man who ha
seen a ghost?


seen a ghost?
Not often, venture to think.
There are scores Of people who knew
a man who had it from So-and-So
that strange experience had occur
red to a friend of his in some place
or other. Now that is rather vague,
tending to produce disbelief in the
hearer and to make the incredulous
scof the more.
You would believe the Captain if
you knew him. says B. Fletcher
Robinson in the London Daily Ex-
press. He is a queer, thickset, level
headed man, with. strong will, a
clear eye, and enough practical COM
mon sense to run. morning paper.
Also he is very much in earnest
about his experiences. which are in
deed sufficiently remarkable.
Stellenbosch is forgotten as a
South African village; yet it gave
our army a new verb during the war
now happily deceased. 1t lies in a
dip of the mountains to the north of
Cape Town, with streets tree-shaded
from the glare of the weary sky. On
the outskirts of the village stands a
house which was the scene of the
Captains adventure.
It was-as he described it to me
a long, low building. after the Dutch
style of two hundred years ago. On
three sides was broad veranda-
the customary stoop of the country.
The heavy wooden shutters were
once green, but the rain and the sun
had blistered and striped them into
a faded and inconspicuous tint. AL
together, it was a melancholy place,
ringed about with ancient trees that
whispered together in the evening
gusts that swept down the clefts in
the mountain side.
The Captain-let me say at once
that he had not been "Stellenbosch-
ed"-was travelling to the village on
Yeomanry affairs, when he met in
the train three ladies coming south
from Kimberley. The eldest had
lost her husband in the fierce strug-
gle by the Modder- River, and with
her daughter was returning from a
visit to his grave.
The third was the wife of yeo-
man at the 'front.' She had asked the
widow and her daughter to stay a
few days in an old house she had
taken in Stellenbosch. The Captain
was invited to dine that evening.
1t was just before 7 o'clock that
the young officer drove up to the old
Dutch manor that | have already
mentioned. The sun was setting
and its level rays were dazzling to
the eyes; but he distinctly affirms
that he saw an old woman huddled
on the veranda. It was only the
glimpse of moment, but she SEEM
ed to him to be dressed in faded
green, with long yellow face, thin
lips from which an overlapping tooth
protruded and sunken gray eyes. He
was gone.
The ladies received him in a par
lor of panelled oak, and after a few
minutes talk he turned to his hostess
with some casual reference to the
curious figure he had seen on the
stoop. There was no such person in
her small establishment, she told
him, with look Of anxious inquiry.
He hastened to change the subject.
The dining room was long and
low, like the house itself. On the
wall facing the window, half shaded,
half revealed in the larnplight, hung
the full length portrait of man. He
had an appearance of refinement and
grave intelligence. A short beard
and mustache hid lips and chin. His
forehead was broad, and his eyes
dark and piercing.
There was French Huguenot
blood in his veins without doubt,
for such a countenance never came
from pure Dutch stock. A hand
some fellow enough he must have
been. Yet the general expression
was oddly repulsive. So, at last, the
Captain found it as he glanced up at
the portrait from time to time while
he chatted with the ladies.
An hour of music, and then, at
the suggestion of his hostess, the
Captain returned to the dining room
for whiskey-and-soda before leav-
ing.
The bottle, with siphon beside it,
was standing on a little table by the
window. The Captain walked
across, selected a glass, and had be-
gun to pour out modest portion Of
whiskey when he experienced Gu
rious sensation in the back of his
neck like gust of cold wind. He
turned smartly to discover the cause.
At first he noticed nothing unusu-
al and then a slight movement upon
the wall caught his attention. The
portrait had begun to move, there
was no doubt about it-a slow, de-
liberate swing from side to side, like
a belated pendulum; and the eyes of
the man had become alive, and were
watching him curiously.
The Captain was badly frightened.
He is quite plain on that point. In
deed, he started toward the door,
when he was stopped by more tam
gible, and in its appearance more
terrible, apparition.
The door had been left ajar, and
through the gap, clear against the
dark panels, there craned the head
of the old woman be had seen upon
the veranda. She grinned with a
broad, cynical parting of the lips
that laid bare her ancient gums, and
SO was gone.
The air grew still colder, with
the wind coming in sudden gusts. It
seemed to the Captain that fog, or
mist was rising, for the floor first
vanished, though he remembers that