The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-29
THE DAMEREL sPECTREs.


 vented and patented bathroom tap of such surprising excellence that it brought him g. colossal fortune and a fame to which every prominent hoard ing in the metropolis testities. Origi- nally, he sold the tap himself across the counter of small shop, but after wards he dealt in the tap seated in a l palatial office, where there were red leather chairs, while his agents planted the tap in every corner of the earth where they could find bath-room | Some years later the tap became lim- ited company and MT. 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 million aires, with a tactful kindliness and a natural simplicity which made every one like him.
 | To please his son and daughter was l his chief motive for buying the Abbey. Jack Pllkington, 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 capltal company as his father. Mary, the daughter of the family, turned 8 deaf and shapely ear to the many noble and wealthy sliors who asked for her hand, for she only cared for one man--at least, when this story opens and that was MT. Pilkington.
 But the Abbey attracted MT. Pllking-
 ton for another and more particular reason. Added to his commercial shrewdnes:s was an exceptional vein of credulity and the subject of psychical
 research was the favolste study of his
 middle age. He was determined to buy a place that had the reputation of be- ing haunted, in order that he might make a practical Investigation of the ghosts in 1t, and Damerel Abbey was
 admirably adapted for thls praise
 worthy purpose. The house, now par
 tially in ruins, had been uninhabited
 for fifty-seven years, and none of the
 inhabitants of Damerel Regis dared te
 pass within half a mile of it after
 nightfall. Shuttered and silent it stood
 in it's spacious park. with the ivy trail
 ing about its windows and wandering
 over the broken stone steps to the floor
 Mr. Pilkington came and saw and was
 conquered. The local agent had gol
 wind of his visitors peculiarties, and
 wisely took him to the Abbey upon 3
 misty, wet afternoon in November
 when the breeze whined through the
 keyholes and the place looked it!
 dreariest. Moreover, a cowboy hired
 at an altogether disproportionate fig.
 ure, emitted a few walls from his place
 of concealment in the sl1rubbery
 There was no hesitation in MT. Pilking.
 tons mind after the third wall, and Et clinched his remarkable bargain a day
 or two afterwards.
 The necessary painters, glazers ant
 other work-people were collected witt
 difficulty, but gradually, as the plac' , assumed more habitable appearance
 some of it's terrorS wore off, and MT
 Pilkington when he paid his first visi , to his new property in March, fount his servants satisfied, and even enthu
 siastic, about his purchase, little t
 his private annoyance, for he began t fear that the ghosts, weary of waiting , for somebody to frighten, had migrate,
 to more sympathetic 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 a , 1t was on the day when the last of tn , Damerels had been carried over tn
 threshold with his neck broken, whil his riderless horse walked behind. Tn
 same huge four-posters loomed in tn
 bedrooms; the same chintzes, fade : now, but once highly colored, drape 5 the furniture; and in the dining-roor ) the same dark portraits of the Damer t els frowned from the walls. MT. Pil ? kington, not without some scruples a l to his own selfishness, stayed at tn
 Abbey by himself, enjoying his ghostl t surroundings greatly, and began g compose a treatise about his experi i. ences which would once for all confut 3 the scoffer and the nationalist. Per 3 haps it was his own serene goodness g heart that made him relish nocturns : phenomena which less ardent inquil . CT iillSHl lldNc
 For the spectral Damerels, when ono I, the ice was broken, were not at all co a about showing themselves. The treated MT Pilkington with quite a f much affability ts though he were a scion of their own race, and confronte s him in the long corridors with thin fir
 gers pointed at nothing. and faces, ths
 expressed melancholy solicitude, finall ', disappearing behind the oak panellin : in the most approved style. Bl ' though he often addressed them, z z times in vernacular English and { | times with phrases like By my hal : dome'' and "Gadzooks," which |
 thought they might understand bette
 they never reached point of sufficier S familiarity to answer him back.
 : It was a little annoying, too, ths e they confined their courtesies to M - Pilkington alone. For instance, whe 5, his wife and daughter joined him { n Easter, they saw nothing at all out { e the common. They were not openl K sceptical about MT. Pilkington's storie
 but they smiled the smile of those WI y could only see the humorous aspect n them. and they went back to Londc t charmed with the soft April air bloy t ing through the open windows and u e primroses in the woods. But whe a people asked if tbey had soon or heal