Help is not
easy to obtain in A----, and if it were known that our home was haunted
we would be obliged to do all our own drudgery in future.
"This state of things continued nearly a year. Occasionally, for a week
or two at a time, the creaking stopped altogether. In these intervals I
slept well and improved in every way, but when the disturbances returned
I became more depressed and gloomy than ever. My health was wretched at
the time, and I felt that I was gradually breaking down.
"At last I determined to call upon my landlord, Doctor Matthai, and lay
the trouble before him. He was born and raised in the house, and I
thought it probable that he could solve the mystery, or at least suggest
a remedy. Doctor Matthai lived just across the way in a quaint cottage
covered with great climbing roses and set well back in a prim garden,
with hollyhocks and hedges of box, and an ancient sun-dial which was my
wife's never-ending delight.
"The doctor was a short, thick-set, heavily whiskered gentleman, and
looked more like a retired man of affairs than the prosy recluse that he
was; but he had long since ceased to take any active interest in life,
and gave himself up entirely to scientific study and research of a more
or less abstruse nature. A useless sort of existence, it seemed to me,
as mankind was never destined, nor intended, to reap the benefits of his
labor.
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