VERNER’S PRIDE.
BY THE AUTHORESS OF “EAST LYNNE.”
CHAPTER XLVII. DRESSING UP FOR A GHOST.
And so the mystery was out. And the ghost proved to be no ghost at all,—to be no husband of Sibylla,—come to disturb the peace of her and Lionel; but John Massingbird in real flesh and blood.
There was so much explanation to ask and to be given, that Jan was somewhat hindered on his way to Hook’s.
“I can’t stop,” said he, in the midst of a long sentence of John’s, “Alice Hook may be dying. Will you remain here till I come back?”
“If you are not long,” responded John Massingbird. “I intend this to be the last night of my concealment, and I want to go about, terrifying the natives. The fun it has been!”
“Fun, you call it!” remarked Jan. “If Hook’s girl does die, it will lie at your door.”
“She won’t die,” lightly answered John. “I’ll send her a ten-pound note to make amends. Make you haste, Jan, if I am to wait.”
Jan sped off to Hook’s. He found the girl very ill, but not so much so as Cheese had intimated. Some unseemly quarrel had taken place in the cottage, which had agitated her.
“There’s no danger,” mentally soliloquised Jan, “but it has thrown her back a good two days.”
He found John Massingbird—restless John!—restless as ever!—pacing before the trees with hasty strides, and bursting into explosions of laughter.
“Some woman was coming along, from one of the cottages by Broom’s, I expect, and I appeared to her, and sent her on, howling,” he explained to Jan. “I think it was Mother Sykes. The sport this ghost affair has been!”
He sat down on a bench, held his sides, and let his laughter have vent. Laughter is contagious, and Jan laughed with him, but in a quieter way.
“Whatever put it into your head to personate Frederick?” inquired Jan. “Was it done to frighten the people?”
“Not at first,” answered John Massingbird.
“Because, if to frighten had been your motive, you need only have appeared in your own person,” continued Jan. “You were thought to be dead, you know, as much as Fred was. Fred is dead, I suppose?”
“Fred is dead, poor fellow, safe enough. I was supposed to be dead, but I came to life, again.”
“Did you catch Fred’s star when he died?” asked Jan, pointing to the cheek.
“No,” replied John Massingbird, with another burst of laughter, “I get that up with Indian-ink.”
Bit by bit, Jan came into possession of the details. At least, of as much of them as John Massingbird deemed it expedient to furnish. It appeared that his being attacked and robbed and left for dead, when travelling down to Melbourne, was perfectly correct. Luke Roy quitted him, believing he was dead. Luke would not have quitted him so hastily, but that he wished to be on the track of the thieves, and he hastened to Melbourne. After Luke’s departure, John Massingbird, as he phrased it, came to life again. He revived from the suspended animation, or swoon, which, prolonged over some hours, had been mistaken for death. The bullet was extracted from his side, and he progressed pretty rapidly towards recovery.
Luke meanwhile had reached Melbourne; and had come in contact—amongst other people—with a family of the name of Eyre. Luke—if you have not forgotten—had said to Mr. Eyre that he had obtained a clue to the men who robbed his master; such, at least, was the information given by that gentleman to Sibylla Massingbird, on her subsequent sojourn at his house. He, Mr. Eyre, had said that Luke had promised to return the following day and inform him how he sped in the search, but that Luke never did return; that he had never seen him afterwards. All true. Luke found the clue, he thought he had gained, to be no clue at all; but he heard news that pleased him better than fifty clues would have done—that his master, Mr. Massingbird, was alive. One who had travelled down to Melbourne from where John was lying, gave him the information. Without waiting to break bread or draw water, without giving another thought to Mr. Eyre, Luke started off there and then, to retrace his steps to John Massingbird. John was nearly well then, and they returned at once to the diggings. In his careless way, he said the loss must be given up for a bad job; they should never find the fellows, and the best plan was to pick up more gold to replace that gone. Luke said he had written home to announce his death. John went into a fit of laughter, forbade Luke to contradict it, and anticipated the fun he should have in surprising them, when he went home on the accumulation of his fortune. Thus he stopped at the diggings, remaining in complete ignorance of the changes which had taken place; the voyage of Frederick and his wife to Melbourne, the death of Mr. Verner, the subsequent death of Frederick; and above all—for that would have told most on John—of the strange will left by Mr. Verner, which had constituted him the inheritor of Verner’s Pride.
But fortune did not come in the rapid manner fondly expected by John. The nuggets seemed shy. He obtained enough to rub along with, as he phrased it, and that was all. The life did not ill suit him. To a man like Lionel Verner, of innate refinement, just and conscientious, the life would have been intolerable, almost worse than death. John was not overburthened with any one of those qualities, and he rather liked the life than not. One thing was against him: he had no patience. Roving about from place to place, he was satisfied nowhere long. It was not only that he perpetually changed the spot, or bed, of work,
