ened. He never answered. I heard
only a bull-frog a-bellering in the pond, a whippoor-will whistling in
the grove, and a dog howling at the moon.

THE GHOST OF MISER BRIMPSON

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

From _Tales of the Tenements_, by Eden Phillpotts. Published in America
by John Lane Company, and in England by John Murray. By permission of
the publishers and Eden Phillpotts.

The Ghost of Miser Brimpson

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

I

Penniless and proud he was; and that pair don't draw a man to pleasant
places when they be in double harness. There's only one thing can stop
'em if they take the bit between their teeth, and that's a woman. So
there, you might say, lies the text of the tale of Jonathan Drake, of
Dunnabridge Farm, a tenement in the Forest of Dartymoor. 'Twas Naboth's
vineyard to Duchy, and the greedy thing would have given a very fair
price for it, without a doubt; but the Drake folk held their land, and
wouldn't part with it, and boasted a freehold of fifty acres in the very
midst of the Forest. They did well, too, and moved with the times, and
kept their heads high for more generations than I can call home; and
then they comed to what all families, whether gentle or simple, always
come to soon or late. And that's a black sheep for bell-wether. Bad uns
there'll be in every generation of a race; but the trouble begins when a
bad un chances to be up top; and if the head of the family is a
drunkard, or a spendthrift, or built on too free and flowing a pattern
for this work-a-day shop, then the next generation may look out for
squalls, as the sailor-men say.

'Twas Jonathan's grandfather that did the harm at Dunnabridge. He had
sport in his blood, on his mother's side, and 'twas horses ran him into
trouble. He backed 'em, and was ruined; and then his son bred 'em, and
didn't do very much better. So, when the pair of 'em dropped out of the
hunt, and died with their backs to the wall, one after t'other, it
looked as if the game was up for them to follow. By good chance,
however, Tom Drake had but one child--a boy--the Jonathan as I be
telling about; and when his father and grandfather passed away, within a
year of each other, Dunnabridge was left to Tom's widow and her son, him
then being twenty-two. She was for selling Dunnabridge and getting away
from Dartymoor, because the place had used her bad, and she hated the
sight of it; but Jonathan, a proud chap even then, got the lawyers to
look into th