The record-union., 1897-01-31
THE DAMEREL SPECTERS.

vented and patented a bathroom tap OF
such surprising excellence that it
brought him a colossal fortune and a
fame TO which every prominent hoard
ing in the metropolis testifies. Origi-
nally, he sold the tap himself across
the counter of a small shop, but after
ward he dealt in the tap seated in a
palatia1 office where there were red
lea ther chairs while his agents planted
the tap in every corner of the earth
where they could find a bathroom
Some years later the tap became linn
tied company and Mr.. Pilkington be-
came a county family. He purchased
the Damerel Abbey estate, and retired
| from business. Without anything in
his outer man to lead you to suppose
him a genuine Damerel, he was yet
the most delightful of plump little mil
lionaires, with a tactful kindness and
a natural simplicity which made every
one like him.
To please his son and daughter was
his chief motive for buying the Abbey.
Jack PillSington, who had been at Eton,
was one of the most popular officers in
the Guards, and among all his aristo-
! cratic friends he used to say that he
never found one who was as capital
company as his father. Mary, the
daughter of the family, turned a deaf
and shapely ear to the many noble
and wealthy suitors who asked for her
hand, for she only cared for one man
at least, when this story opens, and
that was Mr. Pilkington
But the Abbey attracted Mr. Pilking-
ton for another and a more particular
reason. Added to his commercial
ShreWdnesES was an exceptional vein OF
credulity, and the subject of psychical
research was the study of his middle
age. He was determined to buy a
place that had the reputation of being
| haunted, in order that he might make
practical investigation Of the ghosts
IN 1T, and Damerel Abbey was admir-
| ably adapted for this praiseWorthy pur-
| pose The house, now partially in ruins,
| mad been uninhabitad for fifty-seven
years, and none of the inhabitants of
| Damerel Regis dared to pass within
| half mile of it after nightfall Shut
| tered and silent it stood in its spacious
park, with the ivy trailing about its
windows and wandering over the bro
ken stone steps to the door. Mr. Pix
! ington came and saw and was con-
| quered. The local agent had got wind
of his visitors peculiarities, and wisely
took him to the Abbey upon a misty,
wet afternoon in November. when the
| breeze whined through the keyholes
and the place looked its dreariest.
| Moreover, a cowboy, hired at an alto
gether disproportionate figure in viz
! tue of his courage, emitted few walls
4 fro u
shrubbery. There was no hesitation in
| Mr.. Pilkington's mind after the third
| wall, and he clinched his remarkable
| bargain day or two afterward.
| The necessary painters, GLACIERS and
| other WOrkpeOple We're collected with
difficulty, but gradually, as the place
assumed a more habitable appearance,
some of its terrors wore off and Mr.
| Pilkington, when he paid his first visit
to his new property in March, found
his servants satisfied, and even enlthu-
siastic about his purchase, a little to
his private annoyance, for he began to
fear that the ghosts, weary of waiting
for somebody to frighten, had migrated
to a more symHathetic atmosphere
He need not, however, have been sus-
piciOus, for presently the ghosts began
to reward his appreciation by appear
ing to him with gratifying frequency.
The house had been taken over just as it
was on the day when the last of the
Damerels had been carried over the
threshold with his neck broken. while
his riderless horse walked behind. The
same huge four posters loomed in the
bedrooms; the same chintZes, faded now
but once highly colored, draped the fur
niture; and in the dining-room the same
dark portraits of the Damerels frowned
from the walls. Mr.. Pilkington. not
without some Scruples as to his own sell
flshness, stayed at the abbey by himself.
enjoying his ghostly surroundings
greatly, and began to compose a treatise
about his experiences which would once
for all confute the scoffer and the ra-
tionalist. Perhaps it was his own serene
goodness of heart that made him relish
nocturnal phenomena which a less ar
dent inquirer might have found uncom-
Portable
For the spectral Damerels, when once
the Ice was broken, were not at all coy
about showing themselves. They treated
Mr.. Pilkington with quite as much af-
liability as though he were a scion of
their own race, and confronted him in
the long corridors with thin fingers
pointed at nothing, and faces that ex-
pressed melancholy solicitude, finally
disappearing behind the oak paneling in
the most approved style. But though
he often addressed them, at times in
vernacular English, and at times with
phrases like BY my halidome" and
'Gadzooks," which he thought they
might understand better. they never
reached a point of sufficient Familiarity
to answer him back
1t was little annoying too. that they
confined their courtesies to Mr.. Pilkiflg-
ton alone. For instance, when his wife
and daughter joined him at Easter they
saw nothing at all out of the common
They We're not openly skeptical about
Mr.. Pilkington's stories, but they smiled
the smile of those who could only see
the humorous aspect of them. and they
went back to London charmed with the
soft April air blowing through the open
windows and the primroses in the
woods. But when people asked if they
had seen or heard anything, Mr.. Pill
Kfngton was vexed ito hear their hearty
negatives One young lady visitor who
mad been reading a novel in bed had
heard crack or two behind wardrobe
but there was not much in that Mr.
kettlewell, a rising young barrister
was ready enough with an explanation
OF that. 1t was the heat of the room
which made the wood expand, or some
rubbish of that kind. And this, thought
Mr.. Pilkington, is at the dinner table of
one to whom ghosts of all periods are az
familiar sight as hanson cabs