The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Read online

  “Cap’n Eb he was one of a party o’ eight that pulled down the chimbley; and there, sure enough, was the skeleton of poor Lommedieu.

  “So there you see, boys, there can’t be no iniquity so hid but what it’ll come out. The Wild Indians of the forest, and the stormy winds and tempests, j’ined together to bring out this ’ere.”

  “For my part,” said Aunt Lois sharply, “I never believed that story.”

  “Why, Lois,” said my grandmother, “Cap’n Eb Sawin was a regular church-member, and a most respectable man.”

  “Law, mother! I don’t doubt he thought so. I suppose he and Cack got drinking toddy together, till he got asleep, and dreamed it. I wouldn’t believe such a thing if it did happen right before my face and eyes. I should only think I was crazy, that’s all.”

  “Come, Lois, if I was you, I wouldn’t talk so like a Sadducee,” said my grandmother. “What would become of all the accounts in Dr. Cotton Mather’s ‘Magnilly’ if folks were like you?”

  “Wal,” said Sam Lawson, drooping contemplatively over the coals, and gazing into the fire, “there’s a putty consid’able sight o’ things in this world that’s true; and then ag’in there’s a sight o’ things that ain’t true. Now, my old gran’ther used to say, ‘Boys, says he, ‘if ye want to lead a pleasant and prosperous life, ye must contrive allers to keep jest the happy medium between truth and falsehood.’ Now, that are’s my doctrine.”

  Aunt Lois knit severely.

  “Boys,” said Sam, “don’t you want ter go down with me and get a mug o’ cider?”

  Of course we did, and took down a basket to bring up some apples to roast.

  “Boys,” says Sam mysteriously, while he was drawing the cider, “you jest ask your Aunt Lois to tell you what she knows ’bout Ruth Sullivan.”

  “Why, what is it?”

  “Oh! you must ask her. These ’ere folks that’s so kind o’ toppin’ about sperits and sich, come sift ’em down, you gen’lly find they knows one story that kind o’ puzzles ’em. Now you mind, and jist ask your Aunt Lois about Ruth Sullivan.”

  JOHN GRANGER, by Mary E. Braddon

  Originally published in Belgravia Annual, 1870.

  Chapter I

  “Then there is no hope for me, Susy?”

  The speaker was a stalwart young fellow of the yeoman class, with a grave, earnest face, and a frank, fearless manner. He was standing by the open window of a pleasant farmhouse parlour, by the side of a bright-eyed girl, who was leaning with folded arms upon the broad window-sill, looking shyly downwards as he talked to her.

  “Is there no chance, Susy! None? Is it all over between us?”

  “If you mean that I shall ever cease to think of you as one of the best friends I have in this world, John, no,” she answered; “or that I shall ever cease to look up to you as the noblest and truest of men, no, John—a hundred times no.”

  “But I mean something more than that, Susy, and you know it as well as I do. I want you to be my wife by-and-by. I’m not in a hurry, you know, my dear. I can bide my time. You’re very young yet, and may be you scarcely know your own mind. I can wait, Susy. My love will stand wear and tear. Let me have the hope of winning you by-and-by. I’m not a poor man at this present time, you know, Susy. There are three thousand pounds of old uncle Tidman’s on deposit in my name in Hillborough Bank. I’ve been a lucky fellow in having an industrious father and a rich bachelor uncle, and with this chance of you for my wife, a few years would make me a rich man.”

  “That can never be, John. I know how proud I ought to be that you should think of me like this. I’m not worthy of so much love. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your merits, John; but—”

  “There’s someone else, eh, Susy?”

  “Yes, John,” she faltered, in a very low voice, and with a vivid blush on her drooping face.

  “Someone who has asked you to be his wife?”

  “No, John; but I think he likes me a little, and—”

  Here she stopped suddenly, finding the sentence difficult to continue. John Granger gave a long, heavy sigh, and stood for some minutes looking at the ground in dead silence.

  “I think I can guess who it is,” he said at last; “Robert Ashley—eh, Susy?” The blush grew deeper, and the girl’s silence was a sufficient answer. “Well, he’s a fine handsome young fellow, and more likely to take a pretty girl’s fancy than such a blunt, plain-spoken chap as I am; and he’s a good fellow enough, as far as I know; I’ve nothing to say against him, Susy. But there’s one man in the world I should have liked to warn you against, Susan, if I’d thought there was a shadow of a chance you’d ever listen to any love-making of his.”

  “Who is that, John?”

  “Your cousin, Stephen Price.”

  “You needn’t fear that I should ever listen to him, John. There’s little love lost between Stephen and me.”

  “Isn’t there? I’ve heard him swear that he’d have you for his wife some day, Susan. I don’t like him, my dear, and I don’t trust him either. It isn’t only that he bears a bad character up town, as a dissipated, pleasure-loving spendthrift; there’s something more than that; something below the surface that I can’t find words for. I know that he’s very clever. Folks say that Mr. Vollair the lawyer looks over all his faults on account of his cleverness, and that he never had a clerk to serve him so well as Stephen does. But cleverness and honesty don’t always go together, Susy, and I fear that cousin of yours will come to a bad end.”

  Susan Lorton did not attempt to dispute the justice of this opinion. Stephen Price was no favourite of hers, in spite of those good looks and that showy cleverness which had won him a certain amount of popularity elsewhere.

  John Granger lingered at the sunny window, where the scent of a thousand roses came floating in upon the warm summer air. He lingered as if loth to go and make an end of that interview; though the end must come, and the last words must needs be spoken very soon.

  “Well, well, Susy,” he said presently, “a man must teach himself to bear these things, even when they seem to break his life up somehow, and make an end of every hope and dream he ever had. I can’t tell you how I’ve loved you, my dear—how I shall love you to the end of my days. Bob Ashley is a good fellow, and God grant he may make you a good husband! But I don’t believe it’s in him to love you, as I do, Susan. He takes life pleasantly and has his mind full of getting on in the world, you see, and he has father and mother and sisters to care for. I’ve got no one but you to love, Susan. I’ve stood quite alone in the world ever since I was a boy, and you’ve been all the world to me. It’s bitter to bear, my dear; but it can’t be helped. Don’t cry, Susy darling. I’m a selfish brute to talk like this, and bring the tears into those pretty eyes. It can’t be helped, my dear. Providence orders these things, you see, and we must bear them quietly. Goodbye, dear.”

  He gave the girl his big honest hand. She took it in both her own, bent over it, and kissed it tearfully.

  “You’ll never know how truly I respect you John,” she said. “But don’t say goodbye like that. We are to be friends always, aren’t we?”

  “Friends always? Yes, my dear; but friends at a distance. There’s some things I couldn’t bear to see. I can wish for your happiness, and pray for it—honestly; but I couldn’t stop at Friarsgate to see you Robert Ashley’s wife. My lease of the old farm is out. I’m to call on Mr. Vollair this afternoon to talk about renewing it. I fancied you’d be mistress of the dear old place, Susy. That’s been my dream for the last three years. I couldn’t bear the look of the empty rooms now that dream’s broken. I shall surrender the farm at once, and go to America, I’ve got capital that’ll start me anywhere, and I’m not afraid of work. I’ve old friends out there too; my first cousin, Jim Lomax, and his wife. They went out five years ago, and have been doing wonders with a farm in N
ew England. I shan’t feel quite strange there.”

  “Go to America, John, and never come back?” said Susan, despondently.

  She had a sincere regard for this honest yeoman, and was grieved to the heart at the thought of the sorrow that had come to him through his unfortunate desire to be something more to her than a friend.

  “Never’s a long word, Susy,” he answered, in his serious straightforward way. “Perhaps when a good many years have gone over all our heads, and when your children are beginning to grow up, I may come back and take my seat beside your hearth, and smoke my pipe with your husband. Not that I should ever cease to love you, my dear; but time would take the sting out of the old pain, and it would be only a kind of placid sorrow, like the thought of one that’s long been dead. Yes, I shall come back to England after ten or fifteen years, if I live, if it’s only for the sake of seeing your children—and I’ll wager there’ll be one amongst them that’ll take to me almost as if it was my own, and will come to be like a child to me in my old age. I’ve seen such things. And now I must say goodbye, Susy; for I’ve got to be up town at three o’clock to see Mr. Vollair, and I’ve a deal of work to do before I leave.”

  “Shall you go soon, John!”

  “As soon as ever I can get things settled—the farm off my hands, and so on. But I shall come to say goodbye to you and your father before I go—

  “Of course, you will, John. It would be unfriendly to go without seeing father. Goodbye!”

  They shook hands once more and parted. The yeoman walked slowly along the little garden path, and across a patch of furze-grown common land, on the other side of which there was a straggling wood of some extent, broken up here and there by disused gravel-pits and pools of stagnant water—a wild kind of place to pass at night, yet considered safe enough by the country people about Hillborough as there was scarcely any part of it that was not within earshot of the high road. The narrow footpath across this wood was a short-cut between Matthew Lorton’s farm and Hillborough, and John Granger took it.

  He walked with a firm step and an upright bearing, though his heart was heavy, as he went townwards that afternoon. He was a man to bear his trouble in a manly spirit, whatever it might be, and there were no traces of his disappointment in his looks or manner when he presented himself at the lawyer’s house.

  Mr. Vollair had a client with him; so John Granger was ushered into the clerk’s office, where he found Stephen Price hard at work at a desk, in company with a smaller and younger clerk.

  “Good afternoon, Granger,” he said, in a cool patronizing manner that John Granger hated; “come about your lease, of course?”

  “There is nothing else for me to come about.”

  “Ah, you see, you’re one of those lucky fellows who never want the help of the law to get you out of a scrape. And you’re a devilish lucky fellow, too, in the matter of this lease, if you can get Friarsgate for a new term at the rent you’ve been paying hitherto, as I dare say you will, if you play your cards cleverly with our governor presently.”

  “I am not going to ask for a new lease,” answered John Granger; “I am going to leave Friarsgate.”

  “Going to leave Friarsgate! You astound me. Have you got a better farm in your eye?”

  “I am going to America.”

  Stephen Price gave expression to his astonishment by a prolonged whistle, and then twisted himself round upon his stool, the better to regard Mr. Granger.

  “Why, Granger, how is this?” he asked. “A fellow like you, with plenty of money, going off to America! I thought that was the refuge for the destitute.”

  “I’m tired of England, and I’ve a fancy for a change. I hear that a man may do very well in America, with a good knowledge of farming and a tidy bit of capital.”

  “Ah, and you’ve got that,” said Stephen Price, with an envious sigh. “And so you’re thinking of going to America? That’s very strange. I used to fancy you were sweet upon a certain pretty cousin of mine. I’ve seen you hanging about old Lorton’s place a good deal of late years.”

  John Granger did not reply to this remark. Mr. Vollair’s client departed a few minutes later, and Mr. Granger was asked to step into the lawyer’s office. He found his business very easy to arrange in the manner he wished. Mr. Vollair had received more than one offer for Friarsgate farm, and there was an applicant who would be glad to get the place as soon as John Granger could relinquish it, without waiting for the expiration of his lease. This incoming tenant would no doubt be willing to take his furniture and live and dead stock at a valuation, Mr. Vollair told John. So the young farmer left the office in tolerable spirits, pleased to find there were no obstacles to his speedy departure from a home that had once been dear to him.

  Chapter II

  John Granger’s preparations and arrangements, the disposal of his property, and the getting together of his simple outfit, occupied little more than three weeks; and it was still bright midsummer weather when he took his last walk round the pastures of Friarsgate and, for the first time since he had resolved to leave those familiar scenes, realized how great a hold they had upon his heart.

  ‘It’ll be dreary work in a strange country,” he thought, as he leaned upon a gate, looking at the lazy cattle which were no longer his, and wondering whether they would miss him when he was gone; “and what pleasure can I ever take in trying to get rich! I who have no one to work for, no one to take pride in my success! Perhaps it would have been better to stay here, even though I had to hear her wedding bells some fine summer morning, and see her leaning on Robert Ashley’s arm, and looking up in his face as I used to fancy she would look up to me in all the years to come. O God, how I wish I was dead! What an easy end that would make of everything!”

  He thought of the men and women who had died of a fever last autumn round about Hillborough—people who had wished to live, for whom life was full of duties and household joys; whose loss left wide gaps among their kindred, not to be filled again upon this earth. If death would come to him, what a glad release! It was not that he suffered from any keen or violent agony; it was the dull blankness of his existence which he felt—an utter emptiness and hopelessness; nothing to live for in the present, nothing to look forward to in the future.

  This was the last day. His three great sea chests, containing his clothes, books, and other property which he could not bring himself to part with, had gone on to London by that morning’s luggage train. He had arranged to follow himself by the night mail which left Hillborough Station at half-past nine, and would be in London at two o’clock next morning. At the last he had been seized with a fancy for prolonging his time to the uttermost, and it was for this reason, he had chosen the latest train by which he could leave Hillborough. He had a good many people to take leave of, and it was rather trying work. He had always been liked and respected, and on this last day it surprised him to find how fond the people were of him, and how general was the regret caused by his departure. Little children clung about his knees, matronly eyes were dried in lavender cotton aprons, pretty girls offered blushingly to kiss him at parting; stalwart young fellows, his companions of old, declared they would never have a friend they could trust and honour as they had trusted and honoured him. It touched the poor fellow to the heart to find himself so much beloved. And he was going to sacrifice all this, because he could not endure to live in the old home now his dream was broken.

  He had put off his visit to Matthew Lorton’s house to the very last. His latest moments at Hillborough should be given to Susan, he told himself. He would drain to the last drop the cup of that sweet, sad parting. His last memory of English soil should be her bright tender face looking at him compassionately, as she had looked the day she broke his heart.

  It was half-past seven when he went in at the little garden gate. A warm summer evening, the rustic garden steeped in the low western sunshine; th
e birds singing loud in hawthorn and sycamore; a peaceful vesper calm upon all things. John Granger had been expected. He could see that at a glance. The best tea-things were set out in the best parlour, and Mr. Lorton and his daughter were waiting tea for him. There was a great bunch of roses on the table, and Susan was dressed in light blue muslin, with a rose in her bosom. He thought how often in the dreary time to come she would arise before him like a picture, with the sunshine flickering about her bright hair, and the red rose at her breast.

  She was very sweet to him that evening, tender and gentle and clinging, as she might have been with a fondly loved brother who was leaving her for ever. The farmer asked him about his plans, and gave his approval of them heartily. It was well for a sturdy fellow with a bit of money to push his way in a new country, where he might make fifty percent upon his capital, instead of dawdling on in England, where it was quite as much as a man could do to make both ends meet at the close of a year’s hard work.