A GHOSTLY PROCESSION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue I, 7 January 1899, Page 28

A GHOSTLY PROCESSION.

Your ghost, as usually found in stories, is one that shuns the company of its own kind. In solitude it attends strictly to the business of scaring chance visitors to haunted rooms, pointing out the hiding place of vanished wills, locating lost treasure, or wailing dolefully when some member of an old ghost-owning family is about to die. The most liberal consumption of turkey and mince-pie has never, to my recollection, assisted more than one lioy to see a procession of ghosts just as real as any to be found in history or literature. I was once that boy. ’Twas Christmas night years and years ago. The full moon shone in its usual manner on the snow-capped roofs and white streets of a Canadian village. No doubt the chimneys’ smoke rose straight up through the quiet and moonshiny’ night, though I don’t remember having observed it on that occasion.

Some dog left outside with the thermometer might well have howled in a leisurely way’ about midnight. Certainly the old stairs creaked as 1 ascended them, for ’twas their nature to; and cold airs ‘as from some infinitely distant land,’ no doubt touched my cheek in the draughty passage. Such circumstances are much reported to be favourable to the appearance of one ghost at a time, but there was nothing unusual enough to give me a presentiment that, a procession of them would appear in my bedroom. I lay in bed turning over the leaves of my Christmas books by the light of a tallow candle and the moon. Coaloil lamps had not come into general use at that time. My window was open both at the bottom and top, for 1 was bred in the belief that none but the effeminate or sick would sleep in any weather with window’s entirely closed. I was wakeful, for I had not thought our cook would be pleased if I neglected any of her richer dishes. Well do I remember how I drew the blankets up around my neck and turned over on my elbows to look out a few minutes on the moonshiny pond after I had quit reading. Not a soul, embodied or disembodied, did I see. Probably’ I reflected that there would be good skating in the morning, and thanked my stars for the holidays before I blew out my candle, put my head on the pillow, shut my eyes, and snuggled into the blankets. How many seconds my’ eyes remained shut I do not know. But the tremor that came over me on opening them is ‘ indelibly imprinted on my memory.’ So is every’ subsequent occurrence that I am about to relate in this true story. Though 1 had been in a prosaic frame of mind on closing my’ eyes, I fell into extreme terror on opening them. For a vague, tall form had risen up beside my bed, and was moving quickly towards the door. It was a figure of mysterious fashion. 1 was, even at that first moment of horror, as convinced as I am now that the shape could not be felt by touching it with my hand. How could a boy hope to feel with his fingers an apparition through which he could vaguely see the familiar pictures on his wall, his trousers hanging up there, and the table covered with his Christmas presents? The moonshine pervaded the shadowy thing as I watched it gliding toward my bedroom door. It seemed to bend forward as it went, and then—T saw it was followed by’ another!’ This, too, went toward the door with the same strange and deliberate movement as of floating upright with the slight current of air that set from my window. My blood did really run eold. and I remember the thumping of my agonised heart as I sat up in bed. I did not scream, for I dared not. And even as I gazed upon the bending of the second form, a third passed by close to my elbow. This one was the more awful, because it floated as though it did not at all touch the floor. Possibly the others had moved similarly, but I had not ginneed at their lower bodies. My soul was now possessed with wonder at what had become of them, and to solve this mystery I kept my eyes steadily fixed on the third of this shocking procession. It, too. bent forward. Next moment it seemed to be drawn forward and upward. With wild surmise I saw it disappear through the open transom of my door. A fourth form passed as I turned suddenly to see how many more were coming from the outer midnight.

Close behind my elbow a fifth ascended from the unextinguished wick of my tallow candle, and I let the sixth and seventh go by with amazement that I should have been so scared by drifting smoke. EDWARD AIKENSHAW.