Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 84

"How are you, Hill? What are you up to here?"

It was Louis Roe--who had married Mademoiselle Henriette the previous Easter. Where they had been since, or what they had done, was a sort of mystery, for Harriet had written only one letter. By that letter, it was gathered that they were flourishing in London: but no address was given, and Miss Timmens had called her a heartless jade, not to want to hear from her best relatives.

Hill answered that he was pretty well, and went on loading; but said nothing to the other question. Louis Roe--perceiving sundry straggling spectators who stood peering, as if the loading of a hand-barrow with goods were a raree-show--rather wondered at appearances, and asked again. Hill shortly explained then that they had moved into Willow Cottage; but his wife found it didn't suit her, and so they were moving back again to the old home.

He went off with the truck, before he had well answered, giving no time for further colloquy. Louis Roe happened to come across young Jim Batley amidst the tag-rag, and heard from him all that had occurred.

"He must be a cruel devil, to leave a timid child all night in a house alone!" was Mr. Roe's indignant comment; who, whatever his shortcomings might be in the eyes of Miss Timmens, was not thought to be hard-hearted.

"His mother, she sees his ghost," went on Jim Batley. "Leastways, heered it."

Mr. Roe took no notice of this additional communication. Perhaps ghosts held a low place in his creed--and he appeared to have plunged into a reverie. Starting out of it in a minute or two, he ran after Hill, and began talking in a low, business tone.

Hill could not believe his ears. Surely such luck had never befallen a miserable man! For here was Louis Roe offering to take Willow Cottage off his hands: to become his, Hill's, tenant for a short time. The double rent; this, and that for the old house he was returning to; had been weighing upon Hill's mind as heavily as David weighed upon it. The man had saved plenty of money, but he was of a close nature. Squire Todhetley was a generous man; but Hill felt conscious that he had displeased him too much to expect any favour at present.

"What d'ye want of the cottage?" asked Hill, suppressing all signs of satisfaction. "Be you and Harriet a-coming to live down here?"

"We should like to stay here for a few weeks--say till the dead of winter's over," replied Roe. "London is a beastly dull place in bad weather; the fogs don't agree with Harriet. I had thought of taking two or three rooms at Birmingham: but I don't know but she'll like this cottage best--if you will let me have it cheap."

It would be cheap enough. For Hill named the very moderate rent he had agreed to pay the Squire. Only too glad was he, to get that. Roe promised to pay him monthly.

North Crabb was electrified at the news. Mr. and Mrs. Roe were coming to stay in the cottage where poor David Garth had just died. No time was lost over it, either. On the following day some hired furniture was put into it, and Harriet herself arrived.

She was looking very ill. And I'm sure if she had appeared with a beard as well as her husband, her face could not have seemed more changed. Not her face only, but her manners. Instead of figuring off in silks and ribbons, finer than the stars, laughing with every one she met, and throwing her handsome eyes about, she wore only plain things, and went along noticing no one. Some people called it "pride;" Miss Timmens said it was disappointment. The first time Tod and I met her, she never lifted her eyes at all. Tod would have stayed to speak; but she just said, "Good morning, gentlemen," and went on.

"I say, Johnny, there's some change there," was Tod's remark, as he turned to look after her.

They had been in the place about a week--and Roe seemed to keep indoors, or else was away, for no one ever saw him--when a strange turn arose, that was destined to set the neighbourhood in an uproar. I was running past the school-house one evening at dusk, and saw Maria Lease sitting with Miss Timmens by fire-light. Liking Maria very much--for I always did like her, and always shall--I went bolt in to them. James Hill's wife was also there, in her mourning gown with c.r.a.pe on it, sitting right back in the chimney corner. She had gone back to Hill then, but made no scruple of leaving him alone often: and Hill, who had had his lesson, put up with it. And you would never guess; no, not though you had tried from then till Midsummer; what they were whispering about, as though scared out of their seven senses.

David Garth's ghost was haunting Willow Cottage.

Miss Timmens was telling the story; the others listened with open mouths. She began at the beginning again for my benefit.

"I was sitting by myself here about this time last evening, Master Johnny, having dismissed the children, and almost too tired with their worry to get my own tea, when Harriet Roe came gliding in at the door, looking whiter than a sheet, and startling me beyond everything. 'Aunt Susan,' says she in so indistinct a tone that I should have boxed one of the girls had she attempted to use such, 'would you take pity on me and let me stay here till to-morrow morning? Louis went away this afternoon, and I dare not stop alone in the place all night.' 'What are you afraid of?' I asked, not telling her at once that she might stay; but down she sat, and threw her mantle and bonnet off--taking French leave. I never saw _her_ in such a state before," continued Miss Timmens vehemently; "shivering and shaking as if she had an ague, and not a particle of her impudence left in her. 'I think that place must be damp with the willow brook, aunt,' says she; 'it gives me a sensation of cold.' 'Now don't you talk nonsense about your willow brooks, Harriet Roe,' says I. 'You are not shaking for willow brooks, or for cold either, but from fright.

What is it?' 'Well then,' says she, plucking up a bit, 'I'm afraid of seeing the boy.' 'What boy?' says I--'not David?' 'Yes; David,' she says, and trembles worse than ever. 'He appeared to Aunt Nancy; a sign he is not at rest; and he is as sure to be in the house as sure can be.

Dying in the way he did, and lying hid in the shed as he did, what else is to be expected?' Well, Master Johnny, this all seemed to me very odd--as I've just observed to Nancy," continued Miss Timmens. "It struck me, sir, there was more behind. 'Harriet,' says I, 'have you _seen_ David Garth?' But at first no satisfactory answer could I get from her, neither yes nor no. At last she said she had not seen him, but knew she should if she stayed in the house by herself at night, for that he came again, and was _in_ it. It struck me she was speaking falsely; and that she _had_ seen him; or what she took for him."

"I know she has; I feel convinced of it," spoke up poor Mrs. Hill, tilting back her black bonnet--worn for David--to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Master Ludlow, don't smile, sir--though it's best perhaps for the young to disbelieve these solemn things. As surely as that we are talking here, my dear boy's spirit came to me in the moment of his death. I feared it might take to haunting the cottage, sir; and that's one reason why I could not stay in it."

"Yes; Harriet has seen him," interposed Maria Lease in low, firm tones.

"Just as I saw Daniel Ferrar. Master Johnny, _you_ know I saw _him_."

Well, truth to say, I thought she must have seen Daniel Ferrar. Having a.s.sisted at the sight--or if not at the actual sight, at the place and time and circ.u.mstance attending it--I did not see how else it was to be explained away.

"Where's Harriet now?" I asked.

"She stayed here last night, and went off by rail this morning to her grandmother's at Worcester," replied Miss Timmens. "Mother will be glad of her for a day or so, for she keeps her bed still."

"Then who is in the cottage?"

"n.o.body, sir. It's locked up. Roe is expected back to-morrow."

Miss Timmens began to set her tea-things, and I left them. Whom should I come upon in the road, but Tod--who had been over to South Crabb. I told him all this; and we took the broad path home through the fields, which led us past Willow Cottage. The fun Tod made of what the women had been saying, was beyond everything. A dreary dwelling, it looked; cold, and deserted, and solitary in the dusky night, on which the moon was rising.

The back looked towards Crabb Ravine and the three-cornered grove in which Daniel Ferrar had taken his own life away; and to the barn where Maria had seen Ferrar after death. In front was the large field, bleak and bare; and beyond, the scattered chimneys of North Crabb. A lively dwelling altogether!--let alone what had happened in it to David Garth.

I said so.

"Yes, it is a lively spot!" acquiesced Tod. "Beautifully lively in itself, without having the reputation of being haunted. Eugh! Let's get home to dinner, Johnny."

Mr. and Mrs. Coney and Tom came in after dinner. Old Coney and the Squire smoked till tea-time. When tea was over we all sat down to Pope Joan. Mr. Coney kept mistaking hearts for diamonds, clubs for spades; he had not his spectacles, and I offered to fetch them. Upon that, he set upon Tom for being lazy and letting Johnny Ludlow do what it was his place to do. The result was, that Tom Coney and I had a race which should reach the farm first. The night was bright, the moon high.

Coming back with the spectacles, a man encountered us, tearing along as fast as we were. And that was like mad.

"Halloa!" cried Tom. "What's up."

Tom had cause to ask it. The man was Luke Macintosh: and never in all my life had I seen a specimen of such terror. His face was white, his breath came in gasps. Without saying with your leave or by your leave, he caught hold of Tom Coney's arm.

"Master, as I be a living sinner, I ha' just seen Davy Garth."

"Seen David Garth?" echoed Tom, wondering whether Luke had been drinking.

"I see him as plain as plain. He be at that end window o' the Willow Cottage."

"Do you mean his ghost, or himself?" asked Tom, making game of it.

"Why, his ghost, in course, sir. It's well known hisself be dead and buried--worse luck! Mercy on us!--I'd ha' lost a month's wages rather nor see this."

Considering Luke Macintosh was so great a coward that he would not go through the Ravine after nightfall, this was not much from him. Neither had his conscience been quite easy since David's death: as it may be said that he, through refusing at the last moment to sleep in the house, had in a degree been the remote cause of it. His account was this: Pa.s.sing the Willow Cottage on his way from North Crabb, he happened to look up at the end window, and saw David standing there all in white in the moonlight.

"I never see nothing plainer in all my born days, never," gasped Luke.

"His poor little face hadn't no more colour in it nor chalk. Drat them ghosts and goblins, then! What does they come and show theirselves to decent folk for?"

He was trembling just as Miss Timmens, some three hours before, had described Harriet Roe to have trembled. An idea flashed into my mind.

"Now, Luke, just you confess--who is it that has put this into your head?" I asked. But Luke only stared at me: he seemed unable to understand.

"Some one has been telling you this to-night at North Crabb?"

"Telling me what, Master Ludlow?"

"That David Garth is haunting the cottage. It is what people are saying, Tom," I added to Coney.

"Then, Master Johnny, I never heered a blessed syllable on't," he replied; and so earnestly that it was not possible to doubt him. "n.o.body have said nothing to me. For the matter o' that, I didn't stop to talk to a soul, but just put Molly's letter in the window slit--which was what I went for--and turned back again. I wish the woman had ha' been skinned afore she'd got me to go off to the post for her to-night.

Plague on me, to have took the way past the cottage! as if the road warn't good enough to ha' served me!--and a sight straighter!"

"Were there lights in the cottage, Luke?" asked Coney. "Did you see the Roes about?"

"There warn't no more sign o' light or life a-nigh the place, Mr. Tom, no more nor if they'd all been dead and buried inside it."

"It is shut up, Tom," I said. "Roe and his wife are away."