Page:The strange story book.djvu/109

 AN OLD-WORLD GHOST

are often inclined to think that the nations who ruled the world long, long ago, were quite unlike ourselves, and always busy with very serious things, such as the passing of laws or fighting. It is quite a surprise sometimes to learn that they really shared our feelings on a whole quantity of subjects, and even, as this story will show, were quite as much afraid of ghosts or haunted houses as anybody in these days could be. It is told by a famous Roman citizen called Pliny, who was born near Lake Como in the reign of the Emperor Nero.

There was, he says, at that time a large and comfortable house in a good part of the town of Athens which, to the astonishment of everybody, stood empty for many years. It seemed odd that so fine a building should remain so long unoccupied, and at length one man more curious than the rest asked his host when at a small dinnerparty if he could explain the reason. The tale he heard from the Athenian noble was a marvellous one, and the guest shuddered as he listened, for though he was bold enough in the field of battle, he trembled in the presence of that which he did not understand.

Once the house had been filled with a gay family; music had floated through the garden, children had played at knuckle bones in the hall, and young men had thrown discs in the courts. But gradually sounds of laughter grew more rare and the dwellers in the house fell ill of mysterious maladies, till at last the few that were left departed for another place, hoping amidst new surroundings to shake off the gloom which possessed them. For a while none dared ask why the home of their fathers had been thus forsaken; but little by little

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