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 within two nights after that return, that an event occurred,
never to be forgotten by any member of Joseph Duncombe's household.
The evening was cold, but fine; the moon, still at its full, shone
bright and clear upon the neat garden of River View Cottage. Captain
Duncombe and his daughter were alone in their comfortable sitting-room,
playing the Captain's favourite game of backgammon, before a cheery
fire. The housekeeper, Mrs. Mugby, had complained all day of a touch of
rheumatism, and had gone to bed after the kitchen tea, leaving Susan
Trott, the smart little parlour-maid, to carry in the pretty pink and
gold china tea-service, and hissing silver tea-kettle, to Miss Rosamond
and her papa in the sitting-room.
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