"Oh yes, that was old Johnson," he answered. "Don't you be
frightened of that; he lives here." And then he told me the poor
thing's history.
It seemed that Johnson, when it was alive, had loved, in early
life, the daughter of a former lessee of our house, a very
beautiful girl, whose Christian name had been Emily. Father did
not know her other name.
Johnson was too poor to marry the girl, so he kissed her good-bye,
told her he would soon be back, and went off to Australia to make
his fortune.
But Australia was not then what it became later on. Travellers
through the bush were few and far between in those early days; and,
even when one was caught, the portable property found upon the body
was often of hardly sufficiently negotiable value to pay the simple
funeral expenses rendered necessary. So that it took Johnson
nearly twenty years to make his fortune.
The self-imposed task was accomplished at last, however, and then,
having successfully eluded the police, and got clear out of the
Colony, he returned to England, full of hope and joy, to claim his
bride.
He reached the house to find it silent and deserted. All that the
neighbours could tell him was that, soon after his own departure,
the family had, on one foggy night, unostentatiously disappeared,
and that nobody had ever seen or heard anything of them since,
although the landlord and most of the local tradesmen had made
searching inquiries.
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