e.

I.

The old Beverley place was haunted. At least that is what everybody
said, and when "everybody" says a thing is so of course it _is_ so,
especially in a little town like Elliston.

There certainly was a singular melancholy air brooding over this old
mansion, although it had been deserted only for about five years. The
heir to the property, young Henry Beverley, had gone abroad on the death
of his father, leaving the place unoccupied, and his stay had been
unexpectedly prolonged.

The house was a stately structure of stone, and would seem a safe place
in which to store the valuables that, according to rumor, had been left
there--old family plate, rich mahogany furniture, and costly
bric-a-brac. Reports of all this had aroused the spirit of covetousness
in the breasts of at least the less scrupulous of the neighboring
villagers. A rumor, however, that the late Mr. Beverley's shade made
nightly visitations to guard his son's possessions had probably so far
kept away these would-be burglars, if such existed.

Farmer Bagstock stood, one August afternoon, in the doorway of Mr.
Smythe's little store--one of the kind that keeps the whole range of
necessities from muslin to mowing-machines. His thin sawlike features
wore an expectant expression, and his eyes were lightened by a look of
cunning and greed as he occasionally glanced down the road. Farmer
Bagstock was not rich in this world's goods, and the nature of his
efforts to become so might, it is feared, damage his prospects in the
next. His patient waiting was at last rewarded, for a long lank figure
presently appeared far down the street, evidently making for Mr.
Smythe's establishment.

When this individual, known as Hoke Simpkins, mounted the steps the
farmer greeted him in a rather surly way.

"Ben waitin' long enough, I should think."

"Couldn't git here no sooner, 'pon my word," responded Hoke,
apologetically.

After a word or two with the talkative storekeeper, Bagstock bestowed a
wink upon his friend, and suggested that they "walk down the road a
piece." Hoke complied, and presently they left the highway and entered a
small piece of woodland. Following the course of a brook for some
distance, they reached an immense oak-tree and seated themselves
underneath it. The surrounding underbrush and the oak's thick trunk
concealed them from the view of any one who might chance to pass along
by the stream.

II.

A short time before this, James Stok