LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 874, 13 April 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTERY OF NO. 7

(B Y Johnny Ludlow.)

It was a grand sea to-day: one of the grandest that we have ever seen at Saltwater. The waves were dancing and sparkling like silver ; the blue of the sky was deeper than a painter’s ultramarine. But to us, looking on it from Mrs Blair’s house in Seabord Terrace, its brightness and beauty were dimmed.

‘ For you see, Johnny,’ observed the Squire to me, his face and lone alike gloomy —outward things take their impress from the mind—“ with that dreadful affair at the next door jaundicing one’s thoughts, the sea might as well be grey as blue, and the sky lowering with thunder-clouds. 1 repeat that I don’t like mysteries : they act on me like a fit of indigestion.’ The affair just was a mystery ; to us, as to all Saltwater. More than a week had elapsed since the Monday evening when it t 'ok place, and poor Jane Cross now lay buried iu the windy graveyard. On this said Monday evening, the two servant maid», Jane Cross and Matilda Valentine (left in the house. No. 7, Seabord Terrace, during the absence of the family aboard), had been pursuing their ordinary occupations. While Jane Cross was laying the cloth for supper in the kitchen, Matilda went out to fetch the usual pint of ale. On her return she could not get in. When admittance was obtained, Jane Cross lay dead in the hall, having fallen down the well of the staircase. Evidences of a scuffle on the upper landing could be traced, making it apparent that the fall was not accidental ; that she had been Hung down. Some doubt attached to Owen, the milkman, partly from hia previous intimacy with the girls, chieffy because he had been seen leaving the back door of of the house somewhere about the time it must have occurred. What Owen said was, that he had wrung twice at the door, but his ring was not answered. Matilda was to be pitied. The two young women had cared a good deal for one another, and the shock to Matilda was serious. The girl, now staying in our house, had worn a half-dazed look since, and avoided No. 7 as though it had the plague. Superstition iu regard to the house had already been rife in both the servants’ minds, in consequence of the unhappy death in i,t of their master's sen, Edmund Peahern, some weeks back : and if Matilda had been afraid of seeing one ghost before (as she had been) she would now undoubtedly expect to see two of them. On this same morning, as I stood with the Squire looking at the sea from the drawingroom window of No. ff, Matilda came iu. Her large dark eyes had lost their former sparkle, her clear olive akin its freshness. She asked leave to speak to Mrs Todhetley : and the Mater—*who sat at the table adding up some bills, for our sojourn at Saltwater was drawing towards its close—told her, in a kind tone, to speak on. ‘ I am making bold to ask you, ma’am, whether you could help me to find a place in London,’ began Matilda, standing between the door and the table in her black dress. ‘ I know, ma’am, you don’t live in London, but a long way oQ it; Mrs Blair has told me so, Master Johnny Ludlow also; but I thought perhaps you knew people there, and might be able to hear of something.’ The Mater looked at Matilda without answering, and then round at us. Rather strange it was, a coincidence in a, small way, that we had had a letter from, London from Miss Deveen that morning, which had con- . eluded with these Ijnes of postscript ; ‘ Do :you chance to haow of any nice, capable ; young womsm in want of a situation ? One I of my housemaids is going to leave.’ j Naturally this occurred to the Mater’s f mind when Matilda spoke, ‘ What kind of situation do you wish for ?’ she asked. ‘ As housemaid, ma’am, or parlormaid. T can do my duty well in either.’ ‘ But now, my girl,’ spoke up the Squire, turning from the window. 1 why need you leave Saltwater ? You’d never like London after it. This is a clear, fresh, health-giving place, with beautiful sands and music on

them all day; London is nothing but smoke and fogs.’

‘ I could not

Matilda shook her head, stay here, sir.’ ‘ Nonsense, girl. Of course what has happened has happened, and it’s very distressing; and you, of all people, must feel it so ; bub you will forget it in time If you don’t care to go back to No. 7 before Mr and Mrs Peahern come home

‘ I can never go back to No. 7, sir,’ she interrupted, a vehemence that seemed born of terror in her subdued voice. ‘ Never in this world. I would rather die. ’

‘ Stuff and nonsense!’ said the Squire impatiently. ‘ There’s nothing the matter with No. 7. What has happened in it won’t happen again.’ *lt is an unlucky house, sir ; a haunted house,’ she contended with suppressed emotion. ‘ And it’s true that I would rather die outright than go to live in it; for the terror of being there would slowly kill me. And so, ma’am,’ she added quickly to Mra Todhetley, evidently wishing to escape the subject, *I should like to go away altogether from Saltwater ; and if you can help me to hear of a place in London, I shall be very grateful.’ ‘I will consider of it, Matilda,’ was the answer. And when the girl had left the room the Mater asked us what we thought about recommending her to MissDeveen. We saw no season against it—n )t but what the "'quire put the girl down as an idiot <m the subject of haunted houses—and Miss I'eveen was written to.

The upshot was, that on the next Saturday, Matilda bade farewell to Saltwater and departed for Miss Deveen’s, the Squire sar castically assuring her that, thathousehad no ghosts iu it. We should be leaving, ourselves, the following Tuesday. But, before that day came, it chanced that I saw Owen, the milkman. It was on the Sunday afternoon. I had taken little Joe Blair for a walk across the fields as far as Munpler (their MontpeUier by-Bea, you know), and iu returning met Thomas Owen. He wore his black Sunday clothes, and looked a downright line fellow, as usual. There was something about the man I could not help liking, in spite of the doubt attaching to him. ‘So Matilda Valentine is gone,’ sir, he observed, after we had exchanged a few sentences.

‘Yes, she went yesterday,’ I answered, putting my hick against the field fence, while young Joe went careering about in chase of a yellow butterfly. * And for my part, I don’t wonder at the girl’s not liking to stay at Saltwater. At least, in Seabord Terrace.’

‘ I was told this morning that Mr and Mrs Peahern were on their road home,’ he continued.

‘Most likely they are. They’d naturally want to look into the affair themselves.’

‘ And I hope with all my heart they will be able to get some light out of it,’ returned Owen, warmly. ‘ I mean to do my best to bring out the mystery, sir ; and 1 sha’n’t rest till it’s done.’

His words were fair, his tone was genuine. If it was indeed himself who had been the chief actor in the tragedy, he carried it off well. I hardly knew what to think. It is true I had taken a bit of a fancy to the man, according to my customary propensity to take a fancy, or the contrary ; but I did not know much of him. and not anything of his antecedents. As he spoke to me now, hia tone was marked, rather peculiar. It gave me a notion that he wanted to say more.

* Have you any idea that you will be able to trace it out V

‘ For my own sake I should like to get the matter cleared up,’ he added, not directly answering my question. ‘ People are beginning to turn the cold shoulder my way : one woman asked me to my face yesterday whether I did it No, I told her, I did not do it; hat I’d try and find out who did.”

“You are sure you heard and saw nothing suspicious that night when you rang at the bell and could not get in, Owen ? ’

‘ Not then, sir ; no. I saw no light in the house and heard no noise.’

‘ You have not any clue to go by, then ?’ ‘ Not much, sir, yet. But I can’t help thinking somebody else has.’

‘ Who is that ?’ ‘ Matilda. ’

‘Matilda !’ I repeated, in amazement. ‘ Surely you can’t suspect that she—that she was a party to any deed so cruel and wicked !’

‘No, no, sir, I don’t mean that; the young women were too good friends to harm one another: and whatever took place, took place while Matilda was out of the house. But I can’t help fancying that she knows, or suspects, more of the matter than she will say. In short, that she is screening some one.’

To me it seemed most unlikely. * Why do you judge so, Owen ? ’ *By her manner, sir. Not much else. But I’ll tell you something that I saw. On the previous Wednesday when I left the afternoon milk at that tall houses just beyond Seabord Terrace, the family lodging there told me to call in the evening for the account, as they were leaving the next day. Accordingly I went ; and was kept waiting so long before they paid me that it was all but night when 1 came out. Just as I was passing the back door at No. 7, it was suddenly drawn open from the inside, and a man stood in the opening, whispering with one of the girls. She was crying, for I heard her sobs, and he kissed her and came out, and the door was hastily shut. Ho was an ill-looking man; so far at least as his clothes went; very shabby. His face I did not see, for be pulled his slouching round hat well over his brows as be walked away rapidly, and the black beard he wore covered his mouth and chin.’ ‘ Which of the maids was it? ’ ‘ I don’t know, sir. The next day I chaffed them a bit about it, but they both declared that nobody had been there but the watchmaker, Mr Renninson, who goes every Wednesday to wind up the clocks, and that it must have been him that I saw, for be was late that evening. 1 said no more ; it was no business of mine ; but the man 1 saw go out was just about as much like Reuninson as he was like me.’ ‘ And do you fancy ’ ITo he continued.)

The Lyell Rush.— The Lyell correspondent of the Inangahua Scruld reports that t ho rush which tool; place to Deep Crook lia-i turned out to bo only o rich patch of a couple of chains in extent, the gold having been washed in from Lyell Creek by the Hoods.

That Spartan Virtue, Fortitude, is afforded an admirable opportunity for its display when the joints and muscles arc racked by the tortures of rheumatism. Few, however, can endure its pangs without wincing. The disease is caused by acid impurities in the blood, which inflame the tissue which forms the covering of the muscles and ligaments of the joints. TJdolpho Wolfe’s Schiedam Aromatic Schnapps cures this disease by cleaning the blood through the kidneys.— [Advt.]