Misers and Spendthrifts

Boston Guardian, Saturday 23 December 1905

By R. L. WHERRY, Author of “Uncle Rider Hardwicke,” “The Crime of Christopher Lightfoot,” etc., etc.

I.

On Christmas Eve, in the year of jubilee 1887, eight or ten men, guests of Colonel Meggott, were playing “Snooker” in the spacious billiard room of the Red Hall, near to Peterhampton, Woodlandshire.

The Colonel was one of the most popular, though by no means one of the richest, landed proprietors of that famous hunting countryside.

Amongst the pool players were subalterns of the regiment from which Colonel Meggott had recently retired; Dr. Vance, whose fame as a Microscopist had extended far beyond the provincial town wherein ho practised; Dick Seale, youngest partner in the firm of lawyers who had held the confidence of many generations of Meggotts; Hyde-Horner, a barrister independent of briefs but with an eye to a seat in Parliament; besides several young sons of neighbouring squires. Lastly Lord Quilton, heir of the Earl of Ravenswing, at present an undergraduate of Cambridge, a keen member of the Psychical Research Society, and principally concerned in the unearthing of the strange happenings related in this veracious narrative.

The hour for dinner was approaching, the game finished, and some of the men were sitting on the edge of the billiard table, while others lounged round the cheerful log fire, and the conversation, artfully led by the young lord, turned upon haunted houses.