Read Online Ghost Stories and Mysteries by Ernest Favenc - Free Book Online

you?”
    “Yes.”
    “He has got bored and is lodging at the expense of the country for three years.”
    “It is certainly news that he has got it, but none that he deserved it. Anybody else come to grief?”
    “Yes, two or three married.”
    “You call that coming to grief, do you?” said Jackson, putting the fourth story on a card house.
    “In most cases I do,” said Harris. Jackson’s card house came down with a run.
    “What do you know about it,” he said.
    “I am a married man, and speak from experience.”
    “You married, Harris! You are only joking.”
    “No, unfortunately, I am not. You two fellows are old friends, so I will tell you all about it.
    “When I came out here ten year ago a regular new chum, I went up to live at Bloomfield’s station, on the Wantagong. I had been up there about two years, and being only a raw, foolish boy found it very dull after the first novelty wore away. The place is all cut up into farms now; it was pretty well selected on even when I was there. I got very intimate with one of the selectors, an old fellow named Delaney, who used to live upon his wits I suppose, for it was very little I ever saw growing on his selection. I said that I got intimate with him. I ought to have said with his daughters. They were the attraction. The eldest I thought a regular beauty. Looking back on her now with the utmost detestation, I must admit she had remarkable good looks. She possessed a great deal of tact, too, and concealed her defects of manner and education admirably. I fell over head and ears in love with her; she was two or three years older than I was, and could do anything she liked with me. One day I called just as the priest, one Father Carroll, was leaving. I went in and found Mary crying, sobbing at least. Of course I was up in arms directly, and when we got by ourselves I insisted upon knowing the cause of it. After a great deal of feigned bashfulness and reluctance, she told me that Father Carroll, whom the Lord confound, had been warning her, telling her that my visits were becoming common talk, that I was only trifling with her, meant nothing serious, and all the many hints you can imagine. I am convinced now that this was nothing else but lies from beginning to end. Father Carroll, who was much respected in the neighborhood, knew too much of her to talk in that strain; repentance was the subject he would be most likely to choose for his homily. I confounded him just now, for if his name had not been introduced I do not think I should have been worked upon like I was. How I could have been such a mad infatuated fool is incredible to me now. But I was only a boy, and she and the devil had regularly ensnared me. I had a little money, not much; rumor had greatly magnified it, and they thought they had a prize. Anyhow, to make short work of it I married her that day week. I left the cottage immediately after the priest had married us, and hastened home to prepare a place to take my wife to. When within two miles of home I met a man on horseback. He pulled up at we came together, and I recognised a young fellow who had left the station shortly after I arrived on it.
    “I was looking for you,” he said. “They told me I should find you down at old Delaney’s. I am looking for some horses of mine that are running down this way. Mr. Morgan (the superintendent) told me that you knew where they were running.”
    I was in a hurry, but the horses were no distance away I knew, so I turned off to show him the place. He commenced asking me about the people in the neighborhood as we went along; he said that he had been in Queensland ever since he left the station, and only came back two or three days ago.
    “You have been down seeing the Delaney, girls,” he went on to say; “how is Mrs. Morgan?”
    “Mrs. Morgan,” I said. “I don’t know her.”
    “Why Mary Delaney, of course. Did you not know that she consented to be Mrs. Morgan for six months or more? She might have