MY CHRISTMAS GHOST.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 16 (Supplement)

MY CHRISTMAS GHOST.

BY GLADYS COOPER. When I received an invitation t( spend Christmas with some friend! who had rented Manor, in tin county of Warwickshire, I was ver; properly thrilled; for had not this ancient Elizabethan castle a reputation for being h’aunted? Everyone to whon I mentioned this remembered the reputation of the house, and while som< envied me, others gave me an abundance of unsolicited warnings. Personally, I am not at all superstitious; not afraid of ghosts, I mean. The first thing that greeted my arrival as I drove through tlie lodge gates and up the winding avenue was a large black cat. So then I knew my luck was in. It was a real old English Christmas. We gathered in the barontai hall, which is oakpanelled, hung with ancient armour, and an enormous chimney piece at one end. The baron of beef, the the boar’s head, and the flaming Christmas pudding wer< carried on with due ceremony, whih the. nolly round the panelling and thi gleam of many candles made tin place look very cheerful and festive. We danced, of course; and present!; when the -candles guttered and wen out, we gathered round the blazing los Cre. and told ghost stories. Our hosts had been careful to stud? up the history of the Manor, and wen full of information about the spirit o. a white lady that walked the plant sometimes accompanied by the ghost" of prisoners from the dungeons, wit! their clanking chains. It was with some trepidation. I confess, that I eventually crawled into th< enormous four-poster bed that hat been assigned to me, while my candt' threw errie shadows around the large lonely room. When I did at last fal into a light doze, it was only to b( wakened again—by the ominous clanking of heavy chains along the corrido: below my window. I just let out one scream—liter fainted away. The others immediately investigated and some time after I learnt the cause of my alarm. It was the big black cat, that hat somehow got shut up in a zinc dustbin, and was struggling to get out 1