The Best Ghost Stories, - [books for students to read .TXT] 📗
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On his return from one of these visits, however, the old gentleman brought with him a beautiful young girl. She was little more than a child in appearance, and had the soft eyes, olive complexion and lithe, graceful figure of a Spaniard. She was never seen alive after she passed the shadow of the old man's doorway. A few weeks later the old gentleman disappeared as mysteriously as if he had been snatched up into the clouds. The old couple who kept his home walked away one day and never returned. There was an investigation, and in a hole dug in the cellar was found the body of the beautiful young girl. There were no marks on her body, and it was supposed she had been smothered. The exact date of this tragedy is not fixed. Inspector Byrnes says that if it ever occurred it was before his time.
The ghost, if ghost there is, is undoubtedly the spirit of this unfortunate and nameless young woman. A World reporter watched the Bleecker street ruins with the crowd last night and was there at the midnight hour, but never a sign of a ghost did he see. There were those in the crowd, nevertheless, who thought or pretended to think that they did. Once there was a rattling sound in the ruins, which caused a commotion among the lookers-on, but it was only because a small boy had shied a brick at the old wall. The living spirits boomed the liquor business in the saloons of the vicinity. A skull and cross-bones over one of these bars was surmounted with the somewhat appropriate legend freshly painted:
"In the midst of life we are in debt."
[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it.
[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's "obsession."
[C] I.e., The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de Mauléon. Versicle. O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci.). Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy. I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet. Dec. 29, 1701. The "Gallia Christiana" gives the date of the Canon's death as December 31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.
[E] From "True Irish Ghost Stories."
[F] Scott's Lady of the Lake, notes to Canto III (edition of 1811).
[G] A.G. Bradley, Notes on some Irish Superstitions, p. 9.
[H] Occult Review for September, 1913.
[I] Taken by permission from "The Listener and Other Stories,"—E.P. Dutton & Co.
[J] Copyright, 1917, by The Boston Transcript Co. Copyright, 1918, by Vincent O'Sullivan.
[K] Copyright, 1913, by The Century Company.
Obvious printing punctuation errors were repaired.
The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.
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