Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express, etc. — 1913-01-18 (Penistone, South Yorkshire, England)

DANYSZ VIRUS LIMITED. (sax • Lwieultall Low, 1104.;, and of all CbeILIMS  inefildlOtoty peeped through the keyhole had his eye blinded by a sudden streak of flame; and Patie having lost the game the etranger vanished with a bond, for what the Earl did not precisely know. Five years later be died, and ste his eipirit continued to return to play car& with the dark stranger in the old chamber this was bricked up, and remains the "&crot Room of Glamis Castle."  No wandering, troubled spirit has more claim upon our credulity and our sympathy than the hapless Lady Bothwell, who returns ' every year to Woodhouselee, upon the Eck. Her husband, James Hamilton, or Bothwell. 'laugh. boat he lands ais a result of his devo. ties to tile ilitatea wary yueen ot ocota. tfl wife retired with her infant child to her own personal estate of Woodhouselee, not knowing that this had been given by the Regent Murray to a creature of his, the Lord Justice Clerk tellenden. This man came to Woodhouselee while the household were aaleep, and had the brutality to turn the lady and her infant out into the woods in their nightclothes. Next morning Lady Hamilton was found wandering, a raving lunatic, the child dead in her arm.. She died herself a few days later. Her husband swore to be avenged, and, laying his plane carefully, shot Murray, Mary's traitorbrother, in the streets of Linlithgow. Men bore the wrongs done by process of law to those they loved Ices patiently then than now. But still poor Lady Bothwell walks in piteous guise the park of Woodhouselee. If supernatural apparitions are to be considered, as they undoubtedly are, indispensable features of Christmas entertainment, then the good people of Edge Hill, near Keinton, in Northamptonshire, had good reason to think themselves highly favoured at Christmas, 1641. A battle between CavaHere and Roundheads had taken place at this spot a month or two previously, and to the amazement and horror of the villagers the action was fought over again almost every evening during Christmas week by spectral warriors. First the sound of drums, as afar off, would be heard, then the tramping of armed men, the trampling and neighing of horses, the firing of guns. Then the rival hosts would appear in the air, and the battle ' would bo repeated in all it. details. King Charles sent some of his officers to investigate this, ),betionienon, and they declared that they recogaised smong the ghostly warriors several of their old comrades who had fallen in the engagement. In this same county of Northampton (says Mr. Thisteltrs Dyer) there still lingers the belief that the ghosts of suicides and of unfortunates buried at cross-roads with "stakes in their insides " have a particular licence to wander about on Christmas Eve, and to wreak their vengeance on defenceless persons. Ghosts are generally believed by the country. folk to be more spiteful at this season than at any other. In Ireland, however, the banshee, who is usually more a friend of the family than otherwise, selects this time for his visitation..  Then there are the superstitions practices, savouring of a belief in ghosts, that obtain at Yuletide. In some parts of Great Britain (no doubt • long way from the great centred) damsels anxious to get a husband "court the ghost." At midnight on Christmas Eve the girl goes into the garden and plucks twelve oar-leaves, and as she does so she will perceive the shadowy form of her prospective husband approaching her. After which she usually takes to her heel, and calls for smelling-ealte. If von go into a wood in the early morning of Christmas Day, having neither eaten nor drunk since midnight, and without making the slightest noise, you will meet a• many funerals as will take place in that parish during the coming year. At least, this can be done in Sweden; and as early morning strolls in winter could be prosecuted more anreeably hen than in that country a trial might be made of the practice .among on.  In Deumari, if when a 'party of people are seated round a table on Christmas Eve one of their number silently gets up, goes outside, and peeps through the window, he will see the person or persons to die within the ensuing twelvemonth without the head. In most countries these eerie superstitions and observances have been relegated to All Hallows Ecn, which used to be the Ghosts' Festival par excellence. Yes; most of us see ghosts at Christmas time. They do not all come to us in dreadful guise, clanking their chains and /hewing ghastly wounds. Meet of its see thosts of a very different kind; by the fhristmas fireside, .0a at the Christmas board, we seem to see dim, dear fives of husbanoe, wives, parents, children, old sweethearts. and old friends whom we shall never greet in the flesh again. We are perhaps too bury to give them • thought during the rest of the year; but then they come back to haunt us. We would not be without them. And moat of us. I suspect, are prone to unlock the haunted chambers in our hearts and hold sweet, cad converse with the inmatss ut the Merry Christmastide. [Tux Eon.]  TO.