Botany Bay | Page 5

will be worth thirty shillings a bushel. It is wrong to grumble at the ways of Providence. In my belief it is very wicked."
"Well, I think so, too," said the old woman. "Thirty shillings a bushel! Why, Lord a'bless us, that ull set us up in the world, surely! What a mercy we did not sell when it rose to nine and sixpence!"
"Get me some supper ready, for as soon as I have taken it I have some business to transact."
"Not out of the house?"
"Never you mind. Do as I tell you."
Having eaten his supper, the old man rose from his chair, put on his hat and left his abode. In reply to his wife's question, "Where are you going?" he said "To Mr. Cox's; I'll be home in an hour or so. I have business, as I told you, to transact."
The old woman suggested that he could surely wait till the morning; but he took no heed of her and walked away.
Mr. Cox was a gentleman of very large property in the district, and was one of the most zealous and active magistrates in the colony. At all times of the day or the night he was accessible to any person who considered they had business with him.
It was past two o'clock in the morning when David Weir arrived at Mr. Cox's house and informed the watchman that he desired to see the master. It was not the first time that the old man had visited Mr. Cox at such an hour. Two years previously he had been plundered by bushrangers, and as soon as they had gone he went to give the information.
Mr. Cox came out, received the old man very graciously and invited him to enter the house. Old David followed the magistrate and detailed all that the reader is in possession of touching the ghost of Mr. Fisher.
"And who were with you," said Mr. Cox, "on the second occasion of your seeing this ghost?"
"One is a ticket-of-leave man named Williams, a man in your own employ; and the other was a man named Hamilton, who lived for several years with Sir John Jamieson. They both rode with me in my cart," was the old man's answer.
"Has Williams returned?"
"Yes, sir."
"It is very late, and the man may be tired and have gone to bed; but, nevertheless, I will send for him." And Mr. Cox gave the order for Williams to be summoned.
Williams, in a few minutes, came and corroborated David Weir's statement in every particular.
"It is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard in my life," said Mr. Cox. "But go home, Weir; and you, Williams, go to your rest. To-morrow morning I will go-with you to the spot and examine it. You say that you have marked it, Weir?"
"Yes, sir."
The old man then left Mr. Cox and Williams returned to his hut. Mr. Cox did not sleep again till a few minutes before the day dawned, and then, when he dropped off for a quarter of an hour he dreamt of nothing but the ghost sitting on the rail.
CHAPTER V.
The next morning--or rather, on that morning--Mr. Cox, at eight o'clock, rode over to the township of Penrith and saw Hamilton, Weir's second witness. Hamilton, as did Williams, corroborated all that Weir had stated, so far as related to the second time the spectre had been seen; and Hamilton further volunteered the assertion that no one of the party was in the slightest degree affected by drink.
There was a tribe of blacks in the vicinity, and Mr. Cox sent for the chief and several others. The European name of this chief was "Johnny Crook," and, like all his race, he was an adept in tracking. Accompanied by Weir, Hamilton, Williams and the blacks, Mr. Cox proceeded to the spot. Weir had no difficulty in pointing out the exact rail. The broken boughs and the notches on the post were his unerring guides.
Johnny Crook, after examining the rail very minutely, pointed to some stains and exclaimed, "white man's blood!" Then, leaping over the fence, he examined the brushwood and the ground adjacent. Ere long he started off, beckoning Mr. Cox and his attendants to follow. For more than three--quarters of a mile, over forest land, the savage tracked the footsteps of a man, and something trailed along the earth (fortunately, so far as the ends of justice were concerned, no rain had fallen during the period alluded to by old David, namely, fifteen months. One heavy shower would have obliterated all these tracks, most probably, and, curious enough, that very night there was a frightful downfall--such a downfall as had not been known for many a long year) until they came to a pond, or water-hole, upon the surface of which was a bluish scum. This scum