A Strange Story.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1695, 24 July 1875, Page 5 (Supplement)

A Strange Story.

Me. Woon (in ' Man and Beasts') relates a number of cases wherein animals and birds have died for love of human beings, when the object of their attachment had been removed by death. But, of all the stories he relates, the following is perhaps the most mysterious and inexplicable. The lady who related tho story to Mr. Wood was living in an old chateau in France, and, at the time when the events she described occurred, she was nursing a favourite cat in her lap. She says : — 'Of a sudden I became aware that something had affected my cat's equanimity. The purring ceased, and she exhibited rapidly-increasing symptoms of uneasiness. I bent down and endeavoured to coax her into quietness, but she instantly struggled to her feet in my lap and, spitting vehemently, with back arched and tail swollen, she assumed a mingled attitude of terror and defiance.

\The change in her position obliged me to raise my head, and on looking up, to my inexpressible horror, then perceived that a little, hideous, wrinkled old hag occupied mamma's chair. Her hands were rested on her knees, and her body wds stooped forward, so as to bring, her face in close proximity with mine. Her

eyes, piercingly fierce, and shining with an overpowering lustre, were stedfastly fixed on me. It was as if a fiend were glaring at me through them. Her dress and general appearance denoted her to belong to the French bourgeoisie; but those eyes, so wonderfully large, and in their expression so intensely wicked, entirely absorbed my senses, and precluded any attention to detail. I should have screamed but my breath was gone, whilst that terrible gaze so horribly fascinated me ; I could neither withdraw my eyes nor rise from my seat. ' I had meanwhile been trying to keep a tight hold on the cat, but she seemed resolutely determined not to remain in such ugly neighbourhood, and, after some most desperate efforts, at length succeeded in escaping from my grasp. Leaping over tables, chairs, and all that came in her way, she repeatedly threw herself, with frightful violence, against the top panel of the door which communicates with the disused room. Then returning in the same frantic manner, she furiously dashed against the door on the opposite side.

1 My terror was divided, and I looked by turns, now at the old woman whose great staring eyes were constantly fixed on me, and now at the cat, who was becoming every instant more frantic. At last the dreadful idea that the animal had gone mad had the effect of restoring my breath, and I screamed loudly. ' Mamma ran in immediately, and the cat, on the door opening, literally sprang over her head, and for upwards of half-an-hour ran up and down stair 3as if pursued. I turned to point to the object of my terror —it was gone ! Under such circumstances the lapse of time is difficult to appreciate, but I should say thnt the apparition lasted about four or five minutes.

' Some time afterwards it transpired that a former proprietor of the house, a woman, had hanged herself in that very

room.'