The specter hovered over the old stone whose moss eaten face could no longer be read. There the shadow paused, its head bowed, its thin, fainting form stretching and flickering like a black flame. Then, what I supposed answered for its shoulders, began, softly at first, to tremble. Wraithlike fingers stretched up and covered its shrouded face.
It was here, coming over the cold mountains, that the soft light of morning broke through the dim, winter mists. The phantom faded in the sun’s rays, but not before releasing from its shadowed bosom one despairing sigh. Mr. Edison, I think, whose mother at least poses as one sensitive to such phenomena, gave a simultaneous and sympathetic sob.
I afterward made inquiries of the locals as to the spot. The tales they tell are varied, and none remember the origin of that stone which features so prominently in their fables. I can only suppose that it is a grave of some sort, long forgotten, but I wonder that no inventive villager should spin a yarn about the occupant of the grave and what crimes were committed, by or against, the specter, what sins so doom this spirit to its limbo.
Tale Told 