Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 Read Online Free

dance
together. Philip Lapham and his wife were the fourth couple of the set.
                 “What
will you play for us, Will?” inquired Durwell.
                 “The Miller’s Three Sons” Will replied , and Durwell laughed loudest of all at that.
                 “So
be it,” Durwell granted. “Let it be sung, too, that you may know my own honesty
and Bram Schneider’s.”
                 The
dancers began to pace and jig, and Anthony Vesper and Jimmy Ramsey sang the old
tale of cheating customers with grain to grind:
     
                 “ ‘Father , father, my name is Jack,
                 Out
of a bushel I’ll take a peck—’
                 ‘Father,
father, my name is Ralph,
                 Out
of a bushel I’ll take a half—’
                 ‘Father,
father, my name is Paul,
                 Out
of a bushel I’ll take it all—’
                 ‘Now,
glory be !’ the old man says,
                 ‘I’ve
got one son who’s learned my ways!’ ”
     
                 Mark
joined Tsukala and Schneider. “All happy and neighborly here,” Mark commented.
                 “ Ja , they vould
not sing that song if they thought ve stole too much,” said Schneider. “A
miller’s fair toll is two quarts in a bushel, vun share out of sixteen.”
                 “Your
cat Wessah does not say that,” Tsukala made one of his unsmiling jokes. “He
counts taladu nungi, sixteen four.”
                 “Ach, Tsukala, all times you speak of strange doings.”
                “What strange doings?” inquired Mark.
                 “He
asked about Indian spirits,” said Tsukala. “I told him.”
                 Schneider
drew up his shoulders, not quite shuddering. “Ja, tales of spirits, teufels, ghosts burning like fire at night. I feel I am come to a haunted country.”
                 Mark
laughed. “I thought the same, when Quill Moxley and his rascals played tricks
hereabout,” he said. “But those are things of the past, Bram Schneider. Your
mill’s loud, brave voice will frighten all evil away.”
                 “Ach so” returned Schneider, not much
reassured. “By day all is goot, but at night the mill keeps silent. I lie in
bed, and dream I hear feet valking, voices vis- pering.”
                 Again
Mark laughed. “Did I hear such things, I’d lean out
the window and see how big a bullet a ghost could carry away with him.”
                 “Nein” argued Schneider. “Ghosts are not
hurt by bullets.”
                 Tsukala
looked steadily at Schneider, and his face was expressionless in the moonlight.
“You asked for stories,” he said. “I should not have told you.”
                 Will
ceased fiddling the song of the miller, and the dances came to a halt. Mark
returned toward them, clapping his hands. Then Durwell called for Schneider to
dance a German jig, and Mr. Jarrett played
                "Betty
Martin” while Schneider, nimble and even graceful for all his plumpness,
jigged, postured, and whirled. He finished by leaping high and cracking his
heels, and grinned around at the applause as though he had forgotten his
nervous fears.
                 When
good nights were said, Mr. Jarrett helped his wife and Will mount Bolly and led them away. Mark helped Celia to Oscar’s back, lifted Alice
and Anthony astride, then strolled with them on foot.
                 “You
are silent, Mark,” said Celia as they moved along the homeward trail. “See to
the moon up there, is it not beautiful? This is no night to be grave and glum.”
                 “I
was only listening,” said Mark.
                 “Listening
to what?”
                 “To the trees, the air. Bram