THE HAUNTED MILL
OR
THE RUINED HOME
(Mr. Coombes's Story)
Well, you all know my brother-in-law, Mr. Parkins (began Mr.
Coombes, taking the long clay pipe from his mouth, and putting it
behind his ear: we did not know his brother-in-law, but we said we
did, so as to save time), and you know of course that he once took
a lease of an old Mill in Surrey, and went to live there.
Now you must know that, years ago, this very mill had been occupied
by a wicked old miser, who died there, leaving--so it was rumoured-
-all his money hidden somewhere about the place. Naturally enough,
every one who had since come to live at the mill had tried to find
the treasure; but none had ever succeeded, and the local wiseacres
said that nobody ever would, unless the ghost of the miserly miller
should, one day, take a fancy to one of the tenants, and disclose
to him the secret of the hiding-place.
My brother-in-law did not attach much importance to the story,
regarding it as an old woman's tale, and, unlike his predecessors,
made no attempt whatever to discover the hidden gold.
"Unless business was very different then from what it is now," said
my brother-in-law, "I don't see how a miller could very well have
saved anything, however much of a miser he might have been: at all
events, not enough to make it worth the trouble of looking for it."
Still, he could not altogether get rid of the idea of that
treasure.
One night he went to bed. There was nothing very extraordinary
about that, I admit. He often did go to bed of a night. What WAS
remarkable, however, was that exactly as the clock of the village
church chimed the last stroke of twelve, my brother-in-law woke up
with a start, and felt himself quite unable to go to sleep again.
Joe (his Christian name was Joe) sat up in bed, and looked around.
At the foot of the bed something stood very still, wrapped in
shadow.
It moved into the moonlight, and then my brother-in-law saw that it
was the figure of a wizened little old man, in knee-breeches and a
pig-tail.
In an instant the story of the hidden treasure and the old miser
flashed across his mind.
"He's come to show me where it's hid," thought my brother-in-law;
and he resolved that he would not spend all this money on himself,
but would devote a small percentage of it towards doing good to
others.
The apparition moved towards the door: my brother-in-law put on
his trousers and followed it. The ghost went downstairs into the
kitchen, glided over and stood in front of the hearth, sighed and
disappeared.
Next morning, Joe had a couple of bricklayers in, and made them
haul out the stove and pull down the chimney, while he stood behind
with a potato-sack in which to put the gold.
They knocked down half the wall, and never found so much as a four-
penny bit. My brother-in-law did not know what to think.
The next night the old man appeared again, and again led the way
into the kitchen. This time, however, instead of going to the
fireplace, it stood more in the middle of the room, and sighed
there.
"Oh, I see what he means now," said my brother-in-law to himself;
"it's under the floor. Why did the old idiot go and stand up
against the stove, so as to make me think it was up the chimney?"
They spent the next day in taking up the kitchen floor; but the
only thing they found was a three-pronged fork, and the handle of
that was broken.
On the third night, the ghost reappeared, quite unabashed, and for
a third time made for the kitchen. Arrived there, it looked up at
the ceiling and vanished.
"Umph! he don't seem to have learned much sense where he's been
to," muttered Joe, as he trotted back to bed; "I should have
thought he might have done that at first."
Still, there seemed no doubt now where the treasure lay, and the
first thing after breakfast they started pulling down the ceiling.
They got every inch of the ceiling down, and they took up the
boards of the room above.
They discovered about as much treasure as you would expect to find
in an empty quart-pot.
On the fourth night, when the ghost appeared, as usual, my brother-
in-law was so wild that he threw his boots at it; and the boots
passed through the body, and broke a looking-glass.
On the fifth night, when Joe awoke, as he always did now at twelve,
the ghost was standing in a dejected attitude, looking very
miserable. There was an appealing look in its large sad eyes that
quite touched my brother-in-law.
"After all," he thought, "perhaps the silly chap's doing his best.
Maybe he has forgotten where he really did put it, and is trying to
remember. I'll give him another chance."
The ghost appeared grateful and delighted at seeing Joe prepare to
follow him, and led the way into the attic, pointed to the ceiling,
and vanished.
"Well, he's hit it this time, I do hope," said my brother-in-law;
and next day they set to work to take the roof off the place.
It took them three days to get the roof thoroughly off, and all
they found was a bird's nest; after securing which they covered up
the house with tarpaulins, to keep it dry.
You might have thought that would have cured the poor fellow of
looking for treasure. But it didn't.
He said there must be something in it all, or the ghost would never
keep on coming as it did; and that, having gone so far, he would go
on to the end, and solve the mystery, cost what it might.
Night after night, he would get out of his bed and follow that
spectral old fraud about the house. Each night, the old man would
indicate a different place; and, on each following day, my brother-
in-law would proceed to break up the mill at the point indicated,
and look for the treasure. At the end of three weeks, there was
not a room in the mill fit to live in. Every wall had been pulled
down, every floor had been taken up, every ceiling had had a hole
knocked in it. And then, as suddenly as they had begun, the
ghost's visits ceased; and my brother-in-law was left in peace, to
rebuild the place at his leisure.
"What induced the old image to play such a silly trick upon a
family man and a ratepayer?" Ah! that's just what I cannot tell
you.
Some said that the ghost of the wicked old man had done it to
punish my brother-in-law for not believing in him at first; while
others held that the apparition was probably that of some deceased
local plumber and glazier, who would naturally take an interest in
seeing a house knocked about and spoilt. But nobody knew anything
for certain.