Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/337

 trembled all over, for I felt I had seen an apparition. When I got into the bedroom I shut the door, and on looking round saw the ghost again quite plainly for a moment, and then he vanished as before. Since then I've seen him about the house in several places."

Next she showed us into the empty sitting-room to the left of the staircase; the floor of this was paved with bricks. "It was from this room," she continued, "that the noises seemed to come mostly, just as though some one were knocking a lot of things about in it. This struck us as singular, so one day we carefully examined the room and discovered in that corner that the flooring was very uneven, and then we noticed besides that the bricks there were stained as though some dark substance had been spilled over them. It at once struck me that some one might have been murdered and buried there, and it was the ghost of the murdered man I had seen. So we took up the bricks and dug down in the earth below, and found some bones, a gold ring, and some pieces of silk. You can see where the bricks were taken up and relaid. I'm positive it was a ghost I saw. The noises still continue, though I've not seen the ghost since we dug up the bones." After this, there being nothing more to be seen or told, we returned to the kitchen. Here we again interviewed the farmer, and found out from him that the town of Spilsby, with a good inn, was only a mile away. Thereupon I decided to myself that we would drive on to Spilsby, secure accommodation there for wife and horses for the night, and that I would come back alone and sleep in the haunted