The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-05

Just how long the sleeper lay thus unconscious is uncertain. However, he awoke at last with start sat oo o m @ a window of the loft and thrusting straight slender old walls Bill yawned, stretching first one arm then the other. above his head. meanwhile taking drowsy survey of the surroundings. He probably would have fallen back and gone to sleep again ex cept that he noticed that the old structure was vibrating and quivering from gable to foundation It creaked and sroaned and strained as in dreadful pain.
 Be the mortal man, where F" Whats all this gon' on?" Bill peered anxously through the halfdarkness.
 At the farther end of the room was visible the large black hole of the stairway and midway be- moonlight which lay like strip pale green carpet across the dusty floor.
 - me oewMdered man half rose in an attempt to his knees, he looked strange, silent, shapeess thing rose slowly through the hole of the stairway, shumed farther back into the dark corner, where he pcrouci, crouched n wideeyed and suspicious;
 withstandng the gloom of the loft, the tinker able to make out the faint outlines of bent quaint ly dressed old man, who seemed to be carrying sack of meal on his back M
 "Wirra wirra," Bill muttered 'T wondher who can this be- never saw shuit of clothes like that people"
 Silent shadow, the apparition gided across the room till it reached the broad patch of moon light: There it stopped, and, to Bills unspeakable But instead of the traditional gray Imy 1ineaments the features which now met the tnker's terrified gaze were those of dead mans quiet, inscrutable face
 Day night, through all the years after, Bill need only shut his eyes to again those staring, i'm movable features. The hair was si1ver-white, fas tened behind in oldfashioned peruke and crowned by threecornered black hat. But the never-tobe forgotten badge of horror a moose which en- circled the bowed neck, and from which the broken end of rope dangled to the floor. As the tinker knelt staring, fascinated at the motionless appaf tion, there grew out of and above the creakng and trembling of the umbers the grind, grind of huge millstones and the hoarse. sullen, kerrunk of the ponderous wheel.
 Whats that?' Bill gasped "It sounds like millwheeL Oh, Mila murdher! must be in Chartre's Mill"
 At the sound of human voice, the phantom hands to the moose its neck. That gesture froze the heart of the tinker. He would have fainted from sheer fright, but at that moment every sense of the man was electrified once more into Quvering < alertness by blaze of dazzling green light that swept through the mill, revealing each yawning crack and moldering stain of the old walls It immediately the binding darKness. But the specter had vanished with the blaze of light, and the mill was once more in it's old deathlke silence.
 AS Bill knelt in the dark corner, anxously meas uring with his eyes the distance to the stair every hair his head stifened, for up through the black opening in the floor there Quivered heavy, tired sigh. No need to tell the tinker what the stairs.
 'It's the peddler" gasped the unfortunate cover ing his face with his hands
 At last he ventured to look. There sure enough, about twenty feet away, little, darkfaced, frghtened-oOking man, with open pack of ped dlers spread out before him. The specter acted though in great fear of pursuit, for, it took leather pouch out of it's bosom it kept turn ing apprehensive it's shoulders to the dark stairway. Then the phantom seemed to listen in tently for moment, and Bill it lean forward and hide the pouch in a crevice between great oaken beam and the wall. z