FullReads

“Oh, I’m getting sick of this old fool,” said the Pater, one evening (the Dad can be very blunt, when he is put out, as you know), after Johnson had been more of a nuisance than usual, and had spoiled a good game of whist, by sitting up the chimney and groaning, till nobody knew what were trumps or what suit had been led, even. “We shall have to get rid of him, somehow or other. I wish I knew how to do it.”

“Well,” said the Mater, “depend upon it, you’ll never see the last of him until he’s found Emily’s grave. That’s what he is after. You find Emily’s grave, and put him on to that, and he’ll stop there. That’s the only thing to do. You mark my words.”

The idea seemed reasonable, but the difficulty in the way was that we none of us knew where Emily’s grave was any more than the ghost of Johnson himself did. The Governor suggested palming off some other Emily’s grave upon the poor thing, but, as luck would have it, there did not seem to have been an Emily of any sort buried anywhere for miles round. I never came across a neighbourhood so utterly destitute of dead Emilies.

I thought for a bit, and then I hazarded a suggestion myself.

“Couldn’t we fake up something for the old chap?” I queried. “He seems a simple-minded old sort. He might take it in. Anyhow, we could but try.”

“By Jove, so we will,” exclaimed my father; and the very next morning we had the workmen in, and fixed up a little mound at the bottom of the orchard with a tombstone over it, bearing the following inscription:-

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
EMILY
HER LAST WORDS WERE –
“TELL JOHNSON I LOVE HIM”

“That ought to fetch him,” mused the Dad as he surveyed the work when finished. “I am sure I hope it does.”

It did!

We lured him down there that very night; and–well, there, it was one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen, the way Johnson sprang upon that tombstone and wept. Dad and old Squibbins, the gardener, cried like children when they saw it.

Johnson has never troubled us any more in the house since then. It spends every night now, sobbing on the grave, and seems quite happy.

“There still?” Oh yes. I’ll take you fellows down and show you it, next time you come to our place: 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. are its general hours, 10 to 2 on Saturdays.

INTERLUDE–THE DOCTOR’S STORY

It made me cry very much, that story, young Biffles told it with so much feeling. We were all a little thoughtful after it, and I noticed even the old Doctor covertly wipe away a tear. Uncle John brewed another bowl of punch, however, and we gradually grew more resigned.

The Doctor, indeed, after a while became almost cheerful, and told us about the ghost of one of his patients.

I cannot give you his story. I wish I could. They all said afterwards that it was the best of the lot–the most ghastly and terrible–but I could not make any sense of it myself. It seemed so incomplete.

He began all right and then something seemed to happen, and then he was finishing it. I cannot make out what he did with the middle of the story.

It ended up, I know, however, with somebody finding something; and that put Mr. Coombes in mind of a very curious affair that took place at an old Mill, once kept by his brother-in-law.

Mr. Coombes said he would tell us his story, and before anybody could stop him, he had begun.

Mr Coombes said the story was called –

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.