THE WASHINGTON HERALD — DECEMBER 25, 1910
The Priest in the Barrel.
A friend of the author, an artist, gives a case of the spirit of a murdered priest which haunted an old house in Birkenhead. She narrates the occurrence—the absolute truth of which she can vouch for, “as can my aunts and sisters, and as could my grandpartents, if they were alive”—in these words:
“The house was a very high one. It had both attics and cellars, and in one of the attics there was a blood stain, due, so I was told, to a murder of a particularly horrible nature, that had once been perpetrated there, and on account of which the house was reputed to be haunted. Rumor said that in bygone days the house had been inhabited by priests, and that it was one of them who had been killed, his body being taken away in a barrel! in spite, however, of the blood stain and the grim tales in connection with it, my sisters and I, at the commencement of our tenancy of the house, used to play in the attic and nothing happened.
“But at last there came a night when we awoke to the fact that there was a ghastly amount of truth in what we had heard. Some time after we had all gone to bed we were all aroused (even my practical old grandfather) by three loud knocks on one of the doors, which each of us fancied was our own. Then there was silence, and then, from the very top of the house, where the the attic was situated, a barrel was rolled down the stairs!—bump! bump! bump!
“When it reached each separate landing, there was a short interval, as if the barrel was settling itself before beginning its next journey, and then again, bump! bump! fainter and fainter, until it reached the cellar, when the sounds ceased.”
From— The Washington Herald. (Washington, D.C.), 25 Dec. 1910. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
