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 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.