A GHOST STORY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1010, 10 December 1881, Page 4

A GHOST STORY.

The Pall Hall Gazette has received the following extraordinary narrative from a correspondent for whose good faith professional acuteness or observation it can vouch. He substantiates his story with full details of dates, names, and places, which, however, for the sake of the survivors, he does not wish to be published :— As my wife and I were sitting at breakfast with a guest whom I will call Mr A—then on a visit for the first time to our house and neighbourhood—our maid-servant passed out of <the room on her way to the kitchen. As she closed the door, Mr A. startled me by saying “ I saw a spirit of a man following that woman, who, as he passed, said distinctly in my hearing 4 God judgeth not as man judgeth. 1 was innocent of the murder for which I have been hanged. I was there, but I did not strike the blow.’” “ What is it like ? ’ I asked. He replied by describing a young Irishman, whom I recognised at onee as the husbond of my domestic, who a year or two before had been executed on the charge of murder. A., a complete stranger to the locality, had only met me for the first time two days before, and he was totally ignorant of the crime in which my servant was so deeply interested. Tor obvious reasons the subject was never alluded to in our household, where the widow was regarded with feelings of sympathy, which led us to avoid as much as possible all reference to her husband’s fate. I had previously good reason to doubt whether the evidence against him justified his execution. He had died protesting his innocence. His ■wife and friends were firmly convinced that, although he had been in the fight, it was not by his hand the fatal blow had been dealt. In addition to this I had good reason to believe that the real murderer was still at large. "You can easily imagine my astonishment when Mr A. thus suddenly ventured upon forbidden ground, and abruptly declared that the spirit of a man who had suffered the capital penalty, ■and whose personal appearance exactly coincided with that of the unfortunate Irishman, was actually following the servant about the house, proclaiming his innocence in accents which, although inaudible to me, my guest declared were perfectly audible to him. I had heard that Mr A. had been a ■“ seer,” but I was not a little startled at this striking illustration of his peculiar faculty. I remarked that it was very strange, and informed him that the woman whom he had just seen for the first time with her ghostly companion was really the widow of an executed felon. Some time afterwards he exclaimed : “ There he is again, re-

peating the same words !” Intensely interested by this sudden and apparently supernatural confirmation of my suspicions, I determined to put the seership of my guest to what I regarded as a crucial test. I told Mr A. that shortly afterwards I was going into the town, and as I should be passing the spot where the murder was committed perhaps his ghostly visitant might indicate the place where the dead man lay. Some time afterwards we started for the town. When we left the house Mr A. remarked, “ There he is following us,” alluding to the ■“ spirit.” When we had proceeded part of the way along the road, which was quite unknown to my friend, I made a detour to make a business call and went along another street, Mr A. following me. Just as, without a word on my part, we were turning out cf the main road, Mr A. said, “ The spirit is standing at the corner. He says we are not going the right way towards the place where the murder was committed, and which he has promised to point out to me.” I replied, *‘Oh, we shall comeout inthemainroad again by-and-bye before we reach the spot.” We proceeded on about a i of a mile, and having done iny business and struck the main road again—which differed, I may remark, from none of the other roads we had traversed—Mr A. soon after declared, “There is that man just on there, waiting for us.” As we continued our walk, I purposely refrained from uttering a word, or even from thinking, as far as I could, about the murder, so as to prevent any possibility of my companion obtaining any clue. As we were passing through one of the lowest parts of the town Mr A. suddenly exclaimed : —“ He tells me that it was here the murder was committed. It was just there {pointing to the place in the road where the murdered man fell.) I see the hubbub and confusion rise up before me as a picture, with the people round. He, however, again tells me that he did not strike the fatal blow. He does not excuse himself from being morally guilty as being mixed up with those who accomplished the death of the man, but strongly maintains that he was not the murderer.” I will only add in relation to the last incident that Mr A. described the exact spot where the murder was committed and the circumstances in connection therewith. How can you account for that ? Mr A. had never been in the town before , he had never lived within a couple of hundred miles of it; he •did not know till within a day or two before he arrived that he would ever visit it; he could not by any possibility have known that the poor woman in my employ was the widow of a man who was hanged. He had no conceivable interest in deceiving me, nor was he concerned to prosecute the

matter any further. I have in vain attempted to account for his story, nor can I on any of the popular hypotheses explain to my own satisfaction how he saw that ghost at noonday. That he did see it he assured me, much to my surprise, when no one expected any such revelation ; and, whatever he saw it certainly led him to the exact place where the murder was committed.