Odds and Ends by B.M. Croker

Bramleigh Place, a fine specimen of an early Jacobean dwelling, had been in the Millard family for nearly three centuries, but of late years the Millards had fallen on evil days. There was no money to maintain the property in fitting state, the farms were let, as well as the shooting; graziers rented the park to the borders of the pleasure ground; the house was closed, and abandoned to dust and spiders; the garden was free to weeds and birds. An elderly couple had been installed in "The Place" as caretakers, but these looked upon it as nothing more or less than a lonesome, draughty, inconvenient abode -- a whole mile from the village and a glass of whisky.

Now and then, in summer-time, lodgers at farms, or in the village, would walk over to the stately old mansion, and bribe Mrs. Pilcher to show them around; and she was not inaccessible. Odd shillings, also the price of tea and bread and butter, made a nice little addition to her weekly wages. She opened the tall doors and the heavy shutters, and invited paying visitors into the great saloon, there to gaze upon the Bramleigh Vandyke -- a handsome cavalier, with a satin coat and long fair locks -- as well as many other valuable paintings and family portraits by Reynolds and Lely, old lacquered cabinets and Chippendale chairs, wonderful settees, card-tables, and screens. Most of the great lofty rooms were half empty, for on the bankruptcy of the late Sir Aubrey Millard there had been a sensational auction, but the residue happened to be heirlooms, and as such, fixtures; and the house was in the curious condition of being neither unfurnished nor yet furnished. Mrs. Pilcher, as she ushered her customers in and out of apartments, and up and down stairs, related many surprising tales of the Millards, and gave the house the reputation of being badly haunted. She was a clever old body, with a loose tongue and a warm imagination, and such were her powers of description, that more than one of her listeners, passing late on the distant highroad, looked down upon the dignified Place, standing in a hollow, with a sensation of fearsome awe.