“WHAT WAS IT?”

Temuka Leader, Issue 2224, 7 July 1891, Page 3

“WHAT WAS IT?”

[By two of us.] Shortly before six o’clock on Sunday morning last, when most people in Geraldine were wrapt in slumber. -an unearthly noise was heard of cymbal clashing cymbal, and boom following boom, until those of us who were dreaming of things ethereal had T come to the conclusion that we had found our way in the spirit to some unknown region infested by ghosts, goblins, and sprites. We opened one eye, and everything was beshroiided with darkness, and this only helped to confirm our first impression. We shuddered, closed our eye again, rolled our head in the blankets, but still above the din of the cymbal the infernal boom was heard. We next felt ourselves impelled along at the rate of 100 knots an hour, and found ourselves being carried down an awful dark abyss, from which no earthly hand could save us. Boom followed boom, and close upon each came a whole succession of little booms which fairly made our blood run cold, and then the din ceased, and we awoke and thought we had had an attack of nightmare. Since penning the above we have been quietly making enquiries because we still had a lingering fear that something awful had taken place during the still watches of the night, and we have discovered that we were not in the wrong, for others besides ourselves had been disturbed. One greyhaired old gentleman is said to have become so terrified that he clutched his better-half by the hair to keep himself from falling out of bed. A baldheaded old sinner wants us to

believe that his night-cap rose off his Shead from fear, but that story’s too barren and we’re too dull to comprehend it. The next case on record is that of a parson who was in the midst of preaching one of his most eloquent sermons in his sleep. When the first boom sounded in his ears it broke off the thread of the discourse, and when he woke he had forgotten whole. It is said that he was so

I exasperated that he even uttered such I a worldly phrase as “Bust the jolly I thing.” We hear that one man who had been up half the night with a squalling infant had just gone peacefully to sleep when the first boom came, and being so riled over the matter he didn’t stop swearing till after breakfast, and considering; he didn’t have breakfast till 12 o’clock he must beat the record of the prince of swearers. All day Sunday young men could be seen collecting at the street corners in Geraldine discussing the matter, and vainly trying Ito fathom the mystery. Some have suggested earthquakes or blizzards, others cyclones, and one even goes so far as to say he believes it was the Salvation Army with their brass band, but that’s too good to believe. Some people who were so fast asleep that they did’nt hear it say “ Oh, I suppose it was only a bull roaring,” but we don’t believe that interpretation of it either. Can anyone suggest a clue by which we can arrive at a correct estimation of the character of this awful visitation ? If anyone can we are sure the citizens of Geraldine who were disturbed will treat him liberally.