Page:Wonderful magazine of strange adventures, singular occurrences, and remarkable incidents.pdf/22



On Saturday evening, about eleven o'clock, two respectable families in Dummyha's Wynd were frightened to an alarming degree with what they thought an invisible spirit. As the families were proceeding to bed, an unwelcome knock came to the doors. Being a little timid, they inquired who was there? No answer being made, one, possessed of stronger nerves than the others, slipped open the door, without a light, but could not see or hear any thing. In a little while after the rapping became truly terrific. On being repeatedly asked to state who they were, and no answer given, the fears of the inmates can be more easily felt than described. Eight stout athletic men who belonged to the house stood on the floor, almost immovably fixed, and, like the earth stopper, with their hair standing on end with fear. At last two of the men became courageous, and thrust open the window and came out. On entering the lobby, to their mighty astonishment, they found the huge body of a jackass, which was the object of so much terror, lying upon his back, rolling over and over, first kicking at the one door and then at the other? The ass had been strolling about, and, like Paul Pry, had just "dropped in." He attempted to ascend the stairs, but the task being too difficult, fell over on his back.

A farmer's servant, while about to go abroad in the morning, was surprised to observe what