Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

entering the room.

"It would be like my luck to lose that money," he said; "it would be just like my luck. Come, Wayman. What are you staring at, man?" he cried impatiently. "Come."

"Where?"

"To my old place. You can tell me all about the changes at we go. I must see to this business at once."

The moon was shining over the masts and rigging in the Pool, and over the house-tops of Bermondsey and Wapping, as Black Milsom and his companion started on their way to the old house by the water.

They went, as on a former occasion, in that vehicle which Mr. Wayman called his trap; and as they drove along the lonely road, across the marshy flat by the river, Dennis Wayman told his companion what had happened in his absence.

"For a year the house stood empty," he said; "but at the end of that time an old sea-captain took a fancy to it because of the water about it, and the view of the Pool from the top windows. He bought it, and pulled it almost all to pieces, rebuilt it, and I doubt if there is any of the old house standing. He has made quite a smart little place of it. He's a queer old chap, this Cap'en Duncombe, I'm told, and rather a tough customer."

"I'll see the inside of his house, however tough he may be," answered Milsom, in a dogged tone. "If he's a tough customer, he'll find me a tougher. Has he got any family?"

"One daughter--as pretty a girl as you'll see within twenty miles of London!"

"Well, we'll go and have a look at his place to-night. We'd better put up your trap at the 'Pilot Boat.'"

Mr. Wayman assented to the wisdom of this arrangement. The "Pilot Boat" was a dilapidated-looking, low-roofed little inn, where there were some tumble-down stables, which were more often inhabited by bloated grey water-rats than by horses. In these stables Mr. Wayman lodged his pony and vehicle, while he and Milsom walked on to the cottage.

"Why I shouldn't have known the place!" cried Milsom, as his companion pointed to the captain's habitation.

The transformation was, indeed, complete. The dismal dwelling, which had looked as if it were, in all truth, haunted by a ghost, had been changed into one of the smartest little cottages to be seen in the suburbs of eastern London.

The ditch had been narrowed and embanked, and two tiny rustic bridges, of fantastical wood-work, spanned its dark water. The dreary pollard- willows had vanished, and evergreens occupied their places. The black rushes had been exchanged for flowers. A trim little garden appeared where all had once been waste ground; and a flag-staff, with a bit of bunting, gave a naval aspect to the spot.

All was dark; not one glimmer of light to be seen in any of the windows.

The garden was secured by an iron gate, and surrounded by iron rails on all sides, except that nearest the river. Here, the only boundary was a hedge of laurels, which were still low and thin; and here Dennis Wayman and his companion found easy access to the neatly-kept pleasure-ground.

With stealthy footsteps they invaded Captain Duncombe's little domain, and walked slowly round the house, examining every door and window as they went.

"Is the captain a rich man?" asked Milsom.

"Yes; I believe he's pretty well off--some say uncommonly well off. He spent over a thousand pounds on this place."

"Curse him for his pains!" returned Black Milsom, savagely. "He knows how to take care of his property. It would be a very clever burglar that would get into that house. The windows are all secured with outside shutters, that seem as solid as if they were made of iron, and the doors don't yield the twentieth part of an inch."

Then, after completing his examination of the house, Milsom exclaimed, in the same savage tone--

"Why, the man has swept away every timber of the place I lived in."

"I told you as much," answered Wayman; "I've heard say there was nothing left of old Screwton's house but a few solid timbers and a stack of chimneys."

Screwton was the name of the miser whose ghost had been supposed to haunt the old place.

Black Milsom gave a start as Dennis uttered the words "stack of chimneys."

"Oh!" he said, in an altered tone; "so they left the chimney-stack, did they?"

Mr. Wayman perceived that change of tone.

"I begin to understand," he said; "you hid that money in one of the chimneys."

"Never you mind where I hid it. There's little chance of its being found there, after bricklayers pulling the place to pieces. I must get into that house, come what may."

"You'll find that difficult," answered Wayman.

"Perhaps. But I'll do it, or my name's not Black Milsom."

* * * * *


Captain Joseph Duncombe, or Joe Duncombe, as he generally called himself, was a burly, rosy-faced man of fifty years of age; a hearty, honest fellow. He was a widower, with only one child, a daughter, whom he idolized.

Any father might have been forgiven for being devotedly fond of such a daughter as Rosamond Duncombe.

Rosamond was one of those light-hearted, womanly creatures who seem born to make home a paradise. She had a sweet temper; a laugh which was like music; a manner which was fascination itself.

When it is also taken into consideration that she had a pretty little nose, lips that were fresh and rosy as ripe red cherries, cheeks that were like dewy roses, newly-gathered, and large, liquid eyes, of the deepest, clearest blue, it must be confessed that Rosamond Duncombe was a very charming girl.

If Joseph Duncombe doted on this bright-haired, blue-eyed daughter, his love was not unrecompensed. Rosamond idolized her father, whom she believed to be the best and noblest of created beings.

Rosamond's remembrance of her mother was but shadowy. She had lost that tender protector at a very early age.

Within the last year and a half her father had retired from active service, after selling his vessel, the "Vixen," for a large price, so goodly a name had she borne in the merchant service.

This retirement of Captain Duncombe's was a sacrifice which he made for his beloved daughter.

For himself, the life of a seaman had lost none of its attractions. But when he saw his fair young daughter of an age to leave school, he determined that she should have a home.

He had made a very comfortable little fortune during five-and-thirty years of hard service. But he had never made a sixpence the earning of which he need blush to remember. He was known in the service as a model of truth and honesty.

Driving about the eastern suburbs of London, he happened one day to pass that dreary plot of waste ground on which the miser's tumble-down dwelling had been built. It was a pleasant day in April, and the place was looking less dreary than usual. The spring sunshine lit up the broad river, and the rigging of the ships stood out in sharp black lines against a bright blue sky.

A board against the dilapidated palings announced that the ground was to be sold.

Captain Duncombe drew up his horse suddenly.

"That's the place for me!" he exclaimed; "close by the old river, whose tide carried me down to the sea on my first voyage five-and-thirty years ago--within view of the Pool, and all the brave old ships lying at anchor. That's the place for me! I'll sweep away that old ramshackle hovel, and build a smart water-tight little cottage for my pet and me to live in; and I'll stick the Union Jack on a main-top over our heads, and at night, when I lie awake and hear the water rippling by, I shall fancy I'm still at sea."

A landsman would most likely have stopped to consider that the neighbourhood was lonely, the ground damp and marshy, the approach to this solitary cross-road through the most disreputable part of London. Captain Duncombe considered nothing, except two facts--first the river, then the view of the ships in the Pool.

He drove back to Wapping, where he found the house-agent who was commissioned to sell old Screwton's dwelling. That gentleman was only too glad to get a customer for a place which no one seemed inclined to have on any terms. He named his price. The merchant-captain did not attempt to make a bargain; but agreed to buy the place, and to give ready money for it, as soon as the necessary deeds were drawn up and signed. In a week this was done, and the captain found himself possessor of a snug little freehold on the banks of the Thames.

He lost no time in transforming the place into an abode of comfort, instead of desolation. It was only when the transformation was complete, and Captain Duncombe had spent upwards of a thousand pounds on his folly, that he became acquainted with the common report about the place.

Sailors are proverbially superstitious. After hearing that dismal story, Joseph Duncombe was rather inclined to regret the choice he had made; but he resolved to keep the history of old Screwton a secret from his daughter, though it cost him perpetual efforts to preserve silence on this subject.

In spite of his precaution, Rosamond came to know of the ghost. Visiting some poor cottagers, about a quarter of a mile from River View, she heard the whole story--told her unthinkingly by a foolish old woman, who was amongst the recipients of her charity.

Soon after this, the story reached the ears of the two servants--an elderly woman, called Mugby, who acted as cook and housekeeper; and a smart girl, called Susan Trott.

Mrs. Mugby pretended to ridicule the idea of Screwton's ghost.

"I've lived in a many places, and I've heard tell of a many ghostes," she said; "but never yet did I set eyes on one, which my opinion is that, if people will eat cold pork for supper underdone, not to mention crackling or seasoning, and bottled stout, which is worse, and lies still heavier on the stomach--unless you take about as much ground ginger as would lie on a sixpence, and as much carbonate of soda as would lie on a fourpenny-bit--and go to bed upon it all directly afterwards, they will see no end of ghostes. I have never trifled with my digestion, and no ghostes have I ever seen."

The girl, Susan Trott, was by no means so strong-minded. The idea of Miser Screwton's ghost haunted her perpetually of an evening; and she would no more have gone out into the captain's pretty little garden after dark, than she would have walked straight to the mouth of a cannon.

Rosamond Duncombe affected to echo the heroic sentiments of the housekeeper, Mrs. Mugby. There never had been such things as ghosts, and never would be; and all the foolish stories that were told of phantoms and apparitions, had their sole foundation in the imaginations of the people who told them.

Such was the state of things in the household of Captain Duncombe at the time of Black Milsom's return from Van Diemen's Land.

It was