



Produced by David Widger




SAILORS' KNOTS

By W.W. Jacobs


1909



"THE TOLL-HOUSE"


"It's all nonsense," said Jack Barnes.  "Of course people have died in the
house; people die in every house.  As for the noises--wind in the chimney
and rats in the wainscot are very convincing to a nervous man.  Give me
another cup of tea, Meagle."

"Lester and White are first," said Meagle, who was presiding at the
tea-table of the Three Feathers Inn.  "You've had two."

Lester and White finished their cups with irritating slowness, pausing
between sips to sniff the aroma, and to discover the sex and dates of
arrival of the "strangers" which floated in some numbers in the beverage.
Mr. Meagle served them to the brim, and then, turning to the grimly
expectant Mr. Barnes, blandly requested him to ring for hot water.

"We'll try and keep your nerves in their present healthy condition," he
remarked.  "For my part I have a sort of half-and-half belief in the
super-natural."

"All sensible people have," said Lester.  "An aunt of mine saw a ghost
once."

White nodded.

"I had an uncle that saw one," he said.

"It always is somebody else that sees them," said Barnes.

"Well, there is a house," said Meagle, "a large house at an absurdly low
rent, and nobody will take it.  It has taken toll of at least one life of
every family that has lived there--however short the time--and since it
has stood empty caretaker after care-taker has died there.  The last
caretaker died fifteen years ago."

"Exactly," said Barnes.  "Long enough ago for legends to accumulate."

"I'll bet you a sovereign you won't spend the night there alone, for all
your talk," said White, suddenly.

"And I," said Lester.

"No," said Barnes slowly.  "I don't believe in ghosts nor in any
supernatural things whatever; all the same I admit that I should not care
to pass a night there alone."

"But why not?"  inquired White.

"Wind in the chimney," said Meagle with a grin.

"Rats in the wainscot," chimed in Lester.  "As you like," said Barnes
coloring.

"Suppose we all go," said Meagle.  "Start after supper, and get there
about eleven.  We have been walking for ten days now without an
adventure--except Barnes's discovery that ditchwater smells longest.  It
will be a novelty, at any rate, and, if we break the spell by all
surviving, the grateful owner ought to come down handsome."

"Let's see what the landlord has to say about it first," said Lester.
"There is no fun in passing a night in an ordinary empty house.  Let us
make sure that it is haunted."

He rang the bell, and, sending for the landlord, appealed to him in the
name of our common humanity not to let them waste a night watching in a
house in which spectres and hobgoblins had no part.  The reply was more
than reassuring, and the landlord, after describing with considerable art
the exact appearance of a head which had been seen hanging out of a
window in the moonlight, wound up with a polite but urgent request that
they would settle his bill before they went.

"It's all very well for you young gentlemen to have your fun," he said
indulgently; "but supposing as how you are all found dead in the morning,
what about me?  It ain't called the Toll-House for nothing, you know."

"Who died there last?"  inquired Barnes, with an air of polite derision.

"A tramp," was the reply.  "He went there for the sake of half a crown,
and they found him next morning hanging from the balusters, dead."

"Suicide," said Barnes.  "Unsound mind."

The landlord nodded.  "That's what the jury brought it in," he said
slowly; "but his mind was sound enough when he went in there.  I'd known
him, off and on, for years.  I'm a poor man, but I wouldn't spend the
night in that house for a hundred pounds."

[Illustration: "I'm a poor man, but I wouldn't spend the night in that
house for a hundred pounds."]

He repeated this remark as they started on their expedition a few hours
later.  They left as the inn was closing for the night;