His deadly enemy. The only one, of all the human beings upon earth, with
whom Robin was at issue. For he believed that it was John Massingbird
who had worked the ill to Rachel. Robin, in his blind vengeance, took to
lying in wait with a gun: and Roy became cognisant of this.
"You must not go out again, sir," he said to John Massingbird; "he may
shoot you dead."
Curious, perhaps, to say, John Massingbird had himself come to the same
conclusion--that he must not go out again. He had very narrowly escaped
meeting one who would as surely have known him, in the full moonlight,
as did Robin Frost; one whom it would have been nearly as inconvenient
to meet, as it was Robin. And yet, stop in perpetual confinement by day
and by night, he could not; he persisted that he should be dead--almost
better go back, unsatisfied, to Australia.
A bright idea occurred to John Massingbird. He would personate his
brother. Frederick, so far as he knew, had neither creditors nor enemies
round Deerham; and the likeness between them was so great, both in face
and form, that there would be little difficulty in it. When they were at
home together, John had been the stouter of the two: but his wanderings
had fined him down, and his figure now looked exactly as Frederick's did
formerly. He shaved off his whiskers--Frederick had never worn any; or,
for the matter of that, had had any to wear--and painted an imitation
star on his cheek with Indian-ink. His hair, too, had grown long on the
voyage, and had not yet been cut; just as Frederick used to wear his.
John had favoured a short crop of hair; Frederick a long one.
These little toilette mysteries accomplished, so exactly did he look
like his brother Frederick, that Roy started when he saw him; and Mrs.
Roy went into a prolonged scream that might have been heard at the
brick-fields. John attired himself in a long, loose dark coat which had
seen service at the diggings, and sallied out; the coat which had been
mistaken for a riding habit.
He enjoyed himself to his heart's content, receiving more fun than he
had bargained for. It had not occurred to him to personate Frederick's
_ghost_; he had only thought of personating Frederick himself; but to
his unbounded satisfaction, he found the former climax arrived at. He
met old Matthew Frost; he frightened Dan Duff into fits; he frightened
Master Cheese; he startled the parson; he solaced himself by taking up
his station under the yew-tree on the lawn at Verner's Pride, to
contemplate that desirable structure, which perhaps was his, and the
gaiety going on in it. He had distinctly seen Lionel Verner leave the
lighted rooms and approach him; upon which he retreated. Afterwards, it
was rather a favourite night-pastime of his, the standing under the
yew-tree at Verner's Pride. He was there again the night of the storm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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