Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 01.djvu/60

86 pictures. Probably the daughter made the overture—buxom, rosy-cheeked on a chill afternoon, she managed to encounter the man of blood on a country lane. The Hessian would be a heavy-handed gallant. His broad, tough face grinned admiringly. The rural beauty, trying not to tremble, would venture a return smile, a curtsey.

"They invited him to dinner," Scrope continued. "He put on his best uniform—"

Strange that Hessian butcher would look in full dress—white small-clothes and gaiters modelling his brawny legs, the red coat with white facings and shiny buttons cramping his barrel torso. How out of place the powdered hair, the tall grenadier cap! But Scrope was getting on to the climax:

"When he sat down at the table, one of the women—mother or daughter, the stories disagree—stuck a serving knife into his back. They got rid of the body somehow—walled it up or buried it in the cellar. But the spirit returned."

"How many saw it?" demanded Pursuivant.

"Many. The mother died of fright, and the daughter of jumping from an attic window, before the year was out. The son committed suicide before he'd been long back from the war—nobody says anything about the father, I guess he was killed in some battle. Well, that disposed of the family. The mill went out of use. There's lots of newer yarns. A girl from Scott's Meadows yonder stayed one night ten years ago, on a dare. Next morning she was roaming around, too crazy to talk."

"And you bought the place?"

"Yes. Tore down the old mill house, and rebuilt on its foundations. Shouldn't that lay any ghosts, Judge Pursuivant?"

"Most rebuilders prefer to burn the haunted place entirely," said the judge. "However, that depends on how much they believe in ghosts. I take it that you don't laugh at these stories."

Scrope almost bit his cigar in two. "Would you laugh," he asked, "if two houseboys quit on you inside of six weeks? If something followed you all around your cellar, something cold and sneaky, that wasn't ever there when you turned around? If you fidgeted all the time, like at a play by Ibsen or a story by Poe? It's no laughing matter, Judge."

Pursuivant leaned forward. "You imagine disturbing sights and sounds?"

"Right. Never quite see or hear them—just a whisper, a shadow in dim places, when I'm all alone here. I wish," and Scrope grew somber, "that I belonged to some classical old church. A priest, with bell, book and candle, would be mighty comforting."

"Just so," agreed Pursuivant. "It so happens that I know an old formula of exorcism. I'm not a clergyman, but I offer it for what it's worth, as charm or psychological clearance."

Scrope frowned, then smiled. The subject was new to him. Pursuivant made haste to be logical: "I'm not trying to make an occult convert out of you, Mr. Scrope. But it seems that a symbol or ceremony might serve as rationalization—a psychological peg to hang your worries on and forget them entirely—"

"Right as a rabbit!" cried Scrope, almost explosively. "Go ahead. Judge. Do it."

Pursuivant set down glass and pipe, and stood up. Scrope also rose from his chair. In so doing he moved backward and stood almost by the darkened door that led to the rear of the house. Pursuivant began solemnly:

"All ye evil spirits, I forbid you this man's bed, his couch; I forbid you, in heaven's name, his house and home; I forbid you, in the name of God, his blood and flesh, his body and soul. Let all evil return from him and his, unto you and yours, in the name of the Trinity."