feelings he may have cherished, regarding the hoped-for reappearance of Rachel’s spirit, was no believer in ghosts in a general point of view. In fact, that it was John Massingbird’s ghost, never once entered Robin’s mind. He came at once to the more sensible conclusion that some error had occurred with regard to his reported death, and that it was John Massingbird himself.
His deadly enemy. The only one, of all the human beings upon earth, with whom Robin was at issue. For he believed that it was John Massingbird who had worked the ill to Rachel. Robin, in his blind vengeance, took to lying in wait with a gun: and Roy became cognisant of this.
“You must not go out again, sir,” he said to John Massingbird: “he may shoot you dead.”
Curious, perhaps, to say, John Massingbird had himself come to the same conclusion—that he must not go out again. He had very narrowly escaped meeting one, who would as surely have known him, in the full moonlight, as did Robin Frost: one, whom it would have been nearly as inconvenient to meet, as it was Robin. And yet—stop in perpetual confinement by day and by night, he could not: he persisted that he should be dead. Almost better go back, unsatisfied, to Australia.
A bright idea occurred to John Massingbird. He would personate his brother. Frederick, so far as he knew, had neither creditors nor enemies round Deerham; and the likeness between them was so great, both in face and form, that there would be little difficulty in it. When they were at home together, John had been the stouter of the two: but his wanderings had fined him down, and his figure now looked exactly as Frederick’s did formerly. He shaved off his whiskers—Frederick had never worn any; or, for the matter of that, had had any to wear—and painted an imitation star on his cheek with Indian ink. His hair, too, had grown long on the voyage, and had not yet been cut: just as Frederick used to wear his. John had favoured a short crop of hair; Frederick, long.
These little toilette mysteries accomplished, so exactly did he look like his brother Frederick, that Roy started when he saw him; and Mrs. Roy went into a prolonged scream that might have been heard at the brick-fields. John attired himself in a long, loose dark coat, which had seen service at the Diggings, and sallied out: the coat which had been mistaken for a riding habit.
He enjoyed himself to his heart’s content, receiving more fun than he had bargained for. It had not occurred to him to personate Frederick’s ghost: he had only thought of personating Frederick himself: but, to his unbounded satisfaction, he found the former climax arrived at. He met old Matthew Frost; he frightened Dan Duff into fits; he frightened Master Cheese; he startled the parson; he solaced himself by taking up his station under the yew-tree on the lawn at Verner’s Pride, to contemplate that desirable structure, which perhaps was his, and the gaiety going on in it. He had distinctly seen Lionel Verner leave the lighted rooms and approach him, upon which he retreated. Afterwards, it was rather a favourite night-pastime of his, the standing under the yew-tree at Verner’s Pride. He was there again the night of the storm.
All this, the terrifying people into the belief that he was Frederick’s veritable ghost, had been choicest sport to John Massingbird. The trick might not have availed with Robin Frost, but they had found a different method of silencing him. Of an easy, good-tempered nature, the thought of any real damage from consequences had been completely passed over by John. If Dan Duff did go into fits, he’d recover from them; if Alice Hook was startled into something worse, she was not dead. It was all sport to free-and-easy John: and, but for circumstances, there’s no knowing how long he might have carried this game on. These circumstances touched upon a point that influences us all, more or less: pecuniary consideration. John was minus funds, and it was necessary that something should be done: he could not continue to live long upon Roy.
It was Roy himself who at length hit upon the plan that brought forth the certainty about the codicil. Roy found rumours were gaining ground abroad that it was not Frederick Massingbird’s ghost, but Frederick himself; and he knew that the explanation must soon come. He determined to waylay Tynn, and make an apparent confidant of him: by these means he should, in all probability, come at the desired information. Roy did so: and found that there was no codicil. He carried his news to John Massingbird, advising that gentleman to go at once and put in his claim to Verner’s Pride. John, elated with the news, protested he’d have one more night’s fun first.
Such were the facts. John Massingbird told them to Jan, suppressing any little bit that he chose, here and there. The doubt about the codicil, for instance, and its moving motive in the affair, he did not mention.
“It has been the best fun I ever had in my life,” he remarked. “I never shall forget the parson’s amazed stare, the first time I passed him. Or old Tynn’s, either, last night. Jan, you should have heard Dan Duff howl!”
“I have,” said Jan. “I have had the pleasure of attending him. My only wonder is, that he did not put himself into the pool, in his fright: as Rachel Frost did, time back.”
John Massingbird caught the words up hastily.
“How do you know that Rachel put herself in? She may have been put in.”
“For all I know she may. Taking circumstances into consideration, however, I should say it was the other way.”
“I say, Jan,” interrupted John Massingbird, with another explosion, “didn’t your Achates, Cheese, arrive at home in a mortal fright one night?”
Jan nodded.
“I shall never forget him; never. He was marching up, all bravely, till he saw my face. Didn’t he turn tail! There has been one person above all others, Jan, that I have wanted to meet, and have not. Your brother Lionel.”
“He’d have pinned you,” said Jan.
“Not he. You would not have done it to-night, but that I let you do it. No chance of any body catching me, unless I chose. I was on the
