Kitabı oxu: «The Ghost Camp»

CHAPTER I

A wild and desolate land; dreary, even savage, to the unaccustomed eye. Forest-clothed hills towering above the faint, narrow track leading eastward, along which a man had been leading a tired horse; he was now resting against a granite boulder. A dark, mist-enshrouded day, during which the continuous driving showers had soaked through an overcoat, now become so heavy that he carried it across his arm. A fairly heavy valise, above a pair of blankets, was strapped in front of his saddle.

He was prepared for bush travelling – although his term of “colonial experience,” judging from his ruddy cheek and general get-up, had been limited. A rift in the over-hanging cloud-wrack, through which the low sunrays broke with a sudden gleam, showed a darksome mountain range to the south, with summit and sides, snow-clad and dazzling white.

The wayfarer stood up and stared at the apparition: “a good omen,” thought he, “perhaps a true landmark. The fellows at the mail-change told me to steer in a general way for the highest snow peak, which they called ‘the Bogong,’ or some such name. Though this track seems better marked, these mountain roads, as they call them – goat paths would be the better name – for there is not a wheel mark to be seen – one needs the foot of a chamois and the eye of our friend up there.” Here he looked upward, where one of the great birds of prey, half hawk, half eagle, as the pioneers decided, floated with moveless wing above crag and hollow. Then rising with an effort, and taking the bridle rein, he began to lead the weary horse up the rocky ascent. “Poor old Gilpin!” he soliloquised, “you are more knocked up than I am – and yet you have the look of a clever cob – such as we should have fancied in England for a roadster, or a covert hack. But roads are roads there, while in this benighted land, people either don’t know how to make them, or seem to do their cross-country work without them. I wonder if I shall fall in with bed and board to-night. The last was rough, but sufficing – a good fire too, now I think of it, and precious cold it was. Well, come along, John! I must bustle you a bit when we get to the top of this everlasting hill – truly biblical in that respect. What a lonesome place it is, now that the sun has gone under again! I suppose there’s no one within fifty miles – Hulloa!”

This exclamation was called forth by the appearance of a horseman at no great distance – along the line of track. Man and horse were motionless, though so near that he wondered he had not observed them before. The rider’s face, which was towards him, bore, as far as he could judge, an expression of keenest attention.

“Wonder if he is a bushranger?” thought the traveller; “ought to have brought one of my revolvers; but everybody told me that there were none ‘out’ now; that I was as safe as if I was in England – safer, in fact, than ‘south the water’ in the little village. However, I shall soon know.”

Before he had time to decide seriously, the horseman came towards him. He saw a slight, dark, wiry individual, something above the middle height, sunburned, and almost blackened as to such portions of his neck and face as could be perceived for an abundant beard and moustache. The horse, blood-looking, and in hard condition, presented a striking contrast to his own leg-weary, disconsolate animal. The traveller thought him capable of fast and far performances. His sure and easy gait, as he stepped freely along the rocky path, stamped him as “mountain-bred,” or, if not “to the manner born,” having lived long enough amid these tremendous glens and rocky fastnesses, to negotiate their ladder-like declivities with ease and safety.

“Good evening!” said the stranger, civilly enough. “Going to ‘Haunted Creek?’ – a bit off the road, ar’n’t you?”

“I was doubtful about the track, but I thought it might lead there. I was told that it was only eight miles.”

“It’s a good fourteen, and you won’t get there to-night. Not with that horse, anyhow. But look here! I’m going to my place, a few miles off, with these cattle – if you like to give me a hand, I can put you up for the night, and show you the way in the morning.”

“Thanks very much, really I feel much obliged to you. I was afraid I should have had to camp out, and it looks like a bad night.”

“All right,” said the bushman, for such he evidently was; “these crawlin’ cattle are brutes to straggle, and I’m lost without my dog. I’ll bring ’em up, and if you’ll keep the tail going, we’ll get along easy enough.”

“But where are they?” inquired the tourist, looking around, as if he expected to see them rise out of the earth.

“Close by,” answered the stranger, laconically, at the same time riding down the slope of the mountain with loose rein, and careless seat, as if the jumble of rocks, tree-roots, and rolling stones, was the most level high road in the world. Looking after the new acquaintance he descried a small lot of cattle perched on a rocky pinnacle, partly covered by a patch of scrub. The grass around them was high and green – but, with one exception, that of a cow munching a tussac in an undecided way, they did not appear to care about the green herbage, or tall kangaroo grass which grew around them. Had he known anything about the habits of cattle, he would have seen by their appearance that these fat beasts (for such they were) had come far and fast; were like his horse, thoroughly exhausted, and as such, indifferent to the attractions of wayside pasture.

However, with the aid of a hunting crop, which he flourished behind them, with threatening action, the bushman soon managed to get them on to the track, and with the aid of his newly-made comrade induced them to move with a decent show of alacrity. That some were footsore, and two painfully lame, was apparent to the new assistant, also that they were well-bred animals, heavy weights, and in that state and condition which is provincially alluded to as “rolling fat.”

“Nice meat, ar’n’t they?” said the bushman; “come a good way too. Beastly rough track; I was half a mind to bring them by Wagga – but this is the shortest way – straight over the ranges. I’m butchering just now, with gold-mining for a change, but that’s mostly winter work.”

“Where do you buy your cattle?” asked the Englishman – not that he cared as to that part of the occupation, but the gold-mining seemed to him a romantic, independent way of earning a living. He was even now turning over in his mind the idea of a few months camping among these Alpine regions, with, of course, the off-chance of coming upon an untouched gold mine.

“Oh! a few here and there, in all sorts of places.” Here the stranger shot a searching glance, tinged with suspicion, towards the questioner. “I buy the chance of stray cattle now and then, and pick ’em up as I come across ’em. We’d as well jog along here, it’s better going.”

The track had become more marked. There were no wheel marks, the absence of which had surprised the traveller, since the beginning of his day’s march, but tracks of cattle and unshod horses were numerous; while the ground being less rocky, indeed commencing to be marshy, no difficulty was found in driving the cattle briskly along it. His horse too, having “company,” had become less dilatory and despondent.

“We’re not far off, now,” said his companion, “and it’s just as well. We’ll have rain to-night – may be snow. So a roof and a fire won’t be too bad.”

To this statement the tourist cheerfully assented, his spirits rising somewhat, when another mile being passed, they turned to the north at a sharp angle to the road, and following a devious track, found themselves at the slip-rails of a small but well-fenced paddock, into which the cattle were turned, and permitted to stray at will. Fastening the slip rails with scrupulous care, and following the line of fence for a hundred yards, they came to a hut built of slabs, and neatly roofed with sheets of the stringy bark tree (Eucalyptus obliqua) where his guide unsaddled, and motioned to the guest to do likewise. As also to put the saddle against the wall of the hut, with the stuffing outward. “That’ll dry ’em a bit,” he said; “mine’s wet enough anyhow. Just bring your horse after me.”

Passing through a hand gate, he released his horse, first, however, putting on a pair of hobbles; “the feed’s good,” he said, “but this moke’s just out of the bush, and rather flash – he might jump the fence in the night, so it’s best to make sure. Yours won’t care about anything but filling his belly, not to-night anyhow, so he can go loose. Now we’ll see about a fire, and boil the billy for tea. Come along in.”

Entering the hut, which though small, was neat and clean; it was seen to contain two rooms, the inner one apparently used as a bedroom, there being two bed-places, on each of which was a rude mattress covered with a blanket. A store of brushwood and dry billets had been placed in a corner, from which a fire was soon blazing in the rude stone chimney, while a camp kettle (provincially a “billy”) was on the way to boil without loss of time.

A good-sized piece of corned beef, part of a round, with half a “damper” loaf being extracted from a cupboard or locker, was placed on the rude slab table; after which pannikins and tin plates, with knives and forks, provided from the same receptacle, were brought forth, completing the preparations for a meal that the guest believed he was likely to relish.

“Oh! I nearly forgot,” said the traveller, as his entertainer, dropping a handful of tea into the “billy,” now at the boil, and stirring it with a twig, put on the lid. “I brought a flask, it’s very fair whisky, and a tot won’t hurt either of us, after a long day and a wet one.” Going to his coat, he brought out a flask, and nearly filling the tin cup which was closed over the upper part, offered it to his host. He, rather to the surprise of the Englishman, hesitated and motioned as if to refuse, but on second thoughts smiled in a mysterious way, and taking the tin cup, nodded, and saying “Well, here’s fortune!” tossed it off. Blount took one of the pannikins, and pouring out a moderate allowance, filled it up with the clear spring water, and drank it by instalments.

“I must say I feel better after that,” he observed, “and if a dram needs an excuse, a long, cold ride, stiff legs, and a wetting ought to be sufficient.”

“They don’t look about for excuses up here,” said his new acquaintance, “and some takes a deal more than is good for them. I don’t hold with that, but a nip or two’s neither here nor there, particular after a long day. Help yourself to the meat and damper, you see your supper.”

The traveller needed no second invitation; he did not, like the clerk of Copmanhurst, plunge his fingers into the venison pasty, there being neither venison nor pasty, but after cutting off several slices of the excellent round of beef which had apparently sustained previous assaults, he made good time, with the aid of a well-baked “damper,” and an occasional reference to a pannikin of hot tea, so that as their appetites declined, more leisure was afforded for conversation.

“And now,” he said, after filling up a second pannikin of tea, and lighting his pipe, “I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, as I hear the rain coming down, and the wind rising. May I ask whose hospitality I’m enjoying? I’m Valentine Blount of Langley in Herefordshire. Not long out, as I dare say you have noticed. Just travelling about to have a look at the country.”

“My name’s John Carter,” said the bushman, with apparent frankness, as he confronted Blount’s steady eye, “but I’m better known from here to Omeo, as ‘Little River Jack’; there’s lots of people knows me by that name, that don’t know me by any other.”

“And what do you do when you get gold – take it to Melbourne to sell?”

“There’s no call to do that. Melbourne’s a good way off, and it takes time to get there. But there’s always gold buyers about townships, that are on for a little business. They give a trifle under market price, but they pay cash, and it suits us mountain chaps to deal that way. Sometimes I’m a buyer myself, along with the cattle-dealing. Look here!” As he spoke, he detached a leather pouch from his belt, looking like one that stockriders wear for carrying pipe and tobacco, which he threw on the table. The grog had inclined to confidences and relaxed his attitude of caution. Blount lifted it, rather surprised at its weight. “This is gold, isn’t it?”

“Yes! a good sample too. Worth four pound an ounce. Like to look at it?”

“Very much. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen gold in the raw state before.”

“Well, here it is – the real thing, and no mistake. Right if a chap could only get enough of it.” Here he opened the mouth of the pouch, which seemed three parts full, and pouring some of it on a tin plate, awaited Blount’s remarks.

As the precious metal, partly in dust, partly in larger fragments, rattled on the plate, Blount looked on with deep interest, and then, on being invited so to do, handled it with the air of a man to whom a new and astonishing object is presented for the first time.

“So,” he said musingly, “here is one of the great lures which have moved the world since the dawn of history. Love, war, and ambition, have been subservient to it. Priests and philosophers, kings and queens, the court beauty and the Prime Minister, have vainly struggled against its influence. But – ” he broke off with a laugh, as he noted his companion’s look of wonder, “here am I, another example of its fascination, moralising in a mountain hut and mystifying my worthy entertainer.”

“And now, my friend!” he inquired, relapsing into the manner of everyday life, “what may be the market value of this heavy little parcel?”

“Well – I put it at fifty ounces, or thereabouts,” said Mr. “Little River Jack,” carefully pouring back the contents of the pouch, to the last grain; “at, say four pound an ounce, it’s worth a couple of hundred notes, though we sha’n’t get that price for it. But at Melbourne mint, it’s worth every shilling, maybe a trifle more.” Before closing the pouch, he took out a small nugget of, perhaps, half an ounce in weight, and saying, “You’re welcome to this. It’ll make a decent scarf pin,” handed it to Mr. Blount.

But that gentleman declined it, saying, “Thanks, very much, but I’d rather not.” Then, seeing that the owner seemed hurt, even resentful, qualified the refusal by saying, “But if you would do me a service, which I should value far more, you might introduce me to some party of miners, with whom I could work for a month or two, and learn, perhaps, how to get a few ounces by my own exertions. I think I should like the work. It must be very interesting.”

“It’s that interesting,” said the bushman, all signs of annoyance clearing from his countenance, “that once a man takes to it he never quits it till he makes a fortune or dies so poor that the Government has to bury him. I’ve known many a man that used a cheque book as big as a school slate, and could draw for a hundred thousand or more, drop it all in a few years, and be found dead in a worse ‘humpy’ than this, where he’d been living alone for years.”

“Strange to have been rich by his own handiwork, and not to be able to keep something for his old age,” said Blount; “how is it to be accounted for?”

“By luck, d – d hard luck!” said John Carter, whom the subject seemed to have excited. “Every miner’s a born gambler; if he don’t do it with cards, he puts his earnings, his time, his life blood, as one might say, on the chance of a claim turning out well. It’s good luck, and not hard work, that gives him a ‘golden hole,’ where he can’t help digging up gold like potatoes, and it’s luck, bad luck, that turns him out a beggar from every ‘show’ for years, till he hasn’t got a shirt to his back. Why do I stick to it, you’ll say? Because I’m a fool, always have been, always will be, I expect. But I like the game, and I can’t leave it for the life of me. However, that says nothing. I’m no worse than others. I can just keep myself and my horse, while there’s an old mate of mine living in London and Paris, and swelling it about with the best! You’d like to have a look in, you say? Well, you stop at Bunjil for a week, till I come back from Bago; it’s a good inn, clean and comfortable, and the girl there, if I tell her, will look after you; see you have a fire too, these cold nights. Are you on?”

“Yes! most decidedly,” replied Blount, with great heartiness. “A mountain hotel should be a new experience.”

“Then it’s a bargain. I’m going down the river for a few days. When I get back, I’ll pick you up at Bunjil, and we’ll go to a place such as you never seen before, and might never have dropped on as long as you lived, if you hadn’t met me, accidental like. And now we’d as well turn in. I expect some chaps that’s bought the cattle, and they won’t be here later than daylight.” Accepting another glass of whisky as nightcap, and subsequently removing merely his boots and breeches, both of which he placed before the fire, but at a safe distance, Mr. “Little River Jack” “turned in” as he expressed it, and was shortly wrapped in the embrace of the kind deity who favours the dwellers in the Waste, though often rejecting the advances of the luxurious inhabitants of cities. Mr. Blount delayed his retirement, as he smoked before the still glowing “back log” and dwelt upon the adventures of the day.

“How that fellow must enjoy his slumbers!” thought he. “In the saddle before daylight, as he told me; up and down these rocky fastnesses – fifteen hours of slow, monotonous work, more wearying than any amount of fast going – and now, by his unlaboured breathing, sleeping like a tired child; his narrow world – its few cares – its honest, if sometimes exhausting labours, as completely shut out as if he was in another planet. Enviable mortal! I should like to change places with him.”

After expressing this imprudent desire, as indeed are often those of men, who, unacquainted with the conditions surrounding untried modes of life, believe that they could attain happiness by merely exchanging positions, Mr. Blount undressed before the fire, and bestowed himself upon the unoccupied couch, where he speedily fell asleep, just as he had imagined himself extracting large lumps of gold from a vein of virgin quartz, in a romantic fern-shaded ravine, discovered by himself.

From this pleasing state of matters, he was awakened by a sound as of horse hoofs and the low growl of a dog. It was not quite dark. He sat up and listened intently. There was no illusion. He went to the hut door and looked out. Day was breaking, and through the misty dawnlight he was enabled to distinguish his host in conversation with a man on horseback, outside of the slip-rails. Presently the cattle, driven by another horseman, with whom was a dog, apparently of more than ordinary intelligence, came to the slip-rails. They made a rush as soon as they were through, as is the manner of such, on strange ground – but the second horseman promptly “wheeled” them towards the faint dawn line now becoming more distinct, and disappeared through the forest arches. Mr. Blount discerning that the day had begun, for practical purposes, proceeded to dress.

Walking over to the chimney, he found that the smouldering logs had been put together, and a cheerful blaze was beginning to show itself. The billy, newly filled, was close to it, and by the time he had washed the upper part of his body in a tin bucket placed on a log end, outside the door, his friend of the previous night appeared with both horses, which he fastened to the paddock fence.

“Those fellows woke you up, coming for the cattle? Thought you’d sleep through it. I was going to rouse you when breakfast was ready.”

“I slept soundly in all conscience, but still I was quite ready to turn out. I suppose those were the butchers that you sold the cattle to?”

“Two of their men – it’s all the same. They stopped close by last night so as to get an early start. They’ve a good way to go, and’ll want all their time, these short days. Your horse looks different this morning. It’s wonderful what a good paddock and a night’s rest will do!”

“Yes, indeed, he does look different,” as he saddled him up, and, plucking some of the tall grass which grew abundantly around, treated him to a partial rub down. “How far is it to Bunjil, as you call it?”

“Well, not more than twenty miles, but the road’s middlin’ rough. Anyhow we’ll get there latish, and you can take it easy till I come back. I mightn’t be away more than three or four days.”

Misty, even threatening, at the commencement, the day became fine, even warm, after breakfast. Wind is rarely an accompaniment of such weather, and as the sun rode higher in the cloudless sky, Blount thought he had rarely known a finer day. “What bracing mountain air!” he said to himself. “Recalls the Highlands; but I see no oat fields, and the peasantry are absent. These hills should rear a splendid race of men – and rosy-cheeked lasses in abundance. The roads I cannot recommend.”

Mr. John Carter had admitted that the way was rough. His companion thought he had understated the case. It was well nigh impassable. When not climbing hills as steep as the side of a house, they were sliding down bridle tracks like the “Ladder of Cattaro.” These Mr. Carter’s horse hardly noticed; a down grade being negotiated with ease and security, while he seemed, to Blount’s amazement, to step from rock to rock like a chamois. That gentleman’s own horse had no such accomplishments, but blundered perilously from time to time, so that his owner was fain to lead him over the rougher passes. This rendered their progress slower than it would otherwise have been, while he was fain to look enviously at his companion, who, either smoking or discoursing on local topics, rode with careless rein, trusting implicitly, as it seemed, to his horse’s intelligence.

“Here’s the Divide!” he said at length, pointing to a ridge which rose almost at right angles from the accepted track. “We leave the road here, and head straight for Bunjil mountain. There he stands with his cap on! The snow’s fell early this season.”

As he spoke he pointed towards a mountain peak of unusual height, snow-capped, and even as to its spreading flanks, streaked with patches and lines of the same colour. The white clouds which hung round the lofty summit – six thousand feet from earth, were soft-hued and fleecy; but their pallor was blurred and dingy compared with the silver coronet which glorified the dark-hued Titan.

“Road!” echoed Mr. Blount, “I don’t see any; what passes for it, I shall be pleased to leave. If we are to go along this ‘Divide,’ as you call it, I hope it will be pleasanter riding.”

“Well, it is a queerish track for a bit, but after Razor Back’s passed, it’s leveller like. We can raise a trot for a mile or two afore we make Bunjil township. Razor Back’s a narrer cut with a big drop both sides, as we shall have to go stiddy over.”

“The Divide,” as John Carter called it, was an improvement upon the track they quitted. It was less rocky, and passably level. There was a gradual ascent however, which Mr. Blount did not notice until he observed that the timber was becoming more sparse, while the view around them was disclosing features of a grand, even awful character. On either side the forest commenced to slope downwards, at an increasingly sharp gradient. Instead of the ordinary precipice, above which the travellers rode, on one or other side of the bridle track, having the hill on the other, there appeared to be a precipice of unknown depth on either hand. As the ascent became more marked, Blount perceived that the winding path led towards a pinnacle from which the view was extensive, and in a sense, dreadful, from its dizzy altitude – its abysmal depths, – and, as he began to realise, its far from improbable danger.

“This here’s what we call the leadin’ range; it follers the divide from the head waters of the Tambo; that’s where we stopped last night. It’s the only road between that side of the country and the river. If you don’t strike this ‘cut,’ and there’s not more than a score or so of us mountain chaps as knows it, it would take a man days to cross over, and then he mightn’t do it.”

“What would happen to him?” asked Blount, feeling a natural curiosity to learn more of this weird region, differing so widely from any idea that he had ever gathered from descriptions of Australia.

“Well, he’d most likely get bushed, and have to turn back, though he mightn’t find it too easy to do that, or make where he come from. In winter time, if it come on to snow, he’d never get home at all. I’ve known things happen like that. There was one poor cove last winter, as we chaps were days out searchin’ for, and then found him stiff, and dead – he’d got sleepy, and never woke up!”

While this enlivening conversation was proceeding, the man from a far country discovered that the pathway, level enough for ordinary purposes, though he and his guide were no longer riding side by side, was rapidly narrowing. What breadth it would be, when they ascended to the pinnacle above them, he began to consider with a shade of apprehension. His hackney, which Mr. Jack Carter had regarded with slightly-veiled contempt as a “flat country horse, as had never seen a rise bigger than a haystack,” evidently shared his uneasiness, inasmuch as he had stopped, stared and trembled from time to time, at awkward places on the road, before they came to the celebrated “leading range.”

In another mile they reached the pinnacle, where Blount realised the true nature and surroundings of this Alpine Pass. Such indeed it proved to be. A narrow pathway, looking down on either side, upon fathomless glens, with so abrupt a drop that it seemed as if the wind, now rising, might blow them off their exposed perch.

The trees which grew at the depths below, though in reality tall and massive eucalypts, appeared scarce larger than berry bushes.

The wedge-tailed eagles soared above and around. One pair indeed came near and gazed on them with unblenching eye, as though speculating on the duration of their sojourn. They seemed to be the natural denizens of this dizzy and perilous height, from which the vision ranged, in wondering amaze over a vast lone region, which stretched to the horizon; appearing indeed to include no inconsiderable portion of the continent.

Below, around, even to the far, misty sky-line, was a grey, green ocean, the billows of which, through the branches of mighty forest trees, were reduced by distance to a level and uniform contour. Tremendous glens, under which ran clear cold mountain streams, tinkling and rippling ever, mimic waterfalls and flashing rivulets, the long dry summer through diversified the landscape.

Silver streams crossed these plains and downs of solemn leafage, distinguishable only when the sun flashed on their hurrying waters. These were rivers – not inconsiderable either – while companies of snow-crowned Alps stood ranged between, tier upon tier above them and the outlined rim, where earth and sky met, vast, regal, awful, as Kings of the Over-world! On guard since the birth of time, rank upon rank they stood – silent, immovable, scornful – defying the puny trespassers on their immemorial demesne. “What a land! what a vast expanse!” thought the Englishman, “rugged, untamed, but not more so than ‘Caledonia stern and wild,’ more fertile and productive, and as to extent – boundless. I see before me,” he mused, “a country larger than Sweden, capable in time of carrying a dense population; and what a breed of men it should give birth to, athletic, hardy, brave! Horsemen too, in the words of Australia’s forest poet, whom I read but of late. ‘For the horse was never saddled that the Jebungs couldn’t ride.’ Good rifle shots! What sons of the Empire should these Australian highlands rear, to do battle for Old England in the wars of the giants yet to come!”

This soliloquy, and its utterance in thought came simultaneously to a halt of a decisive nature, by reason of the conduct of Mr. Blount’s horse. This animal had been gradually acquiring a fixed distrust of the highway – all too literally – on which he was required to travel. Looking first on one side, then on the other, and apparently realising the dreadful alternative of a slip or stumble, he became unnerved and demoralised. Mr. Blount had ridden a mule over many a mauvais pas in Switzerland, when the sagacious animal, for reasons known to himself, had insisted on walking on the outer edge of the roadway, over-hanging the gulf, where a crumbling ledge might cause the fall into immeasurable, glacial depths. In that situation his nerve had not faltered. “Trust to old ‘Pilatus,’” said the guide; “do not interfere with him, I beseech you; he is under the immediate protection of the saints, and the holy St. Bernard.” He had in such a position been cool and composed. The old mule’s wise, experienced air, his sure and cautious mode of progression, had been calculated to reassure a nervous novice. But here, the case was different. His cob was evidently not under the protection of the saints. St. Bernard was absent, or indifferent. With the recklessness of fear, he was likely to back – to lose his balance – to hurl himself and rider over the perpendicular drop, where he would not have touched ground at a thousand feet. At this moment Jack Carter looked round. “Keep him quiet, for God’s sake! till I get to you – don’t stir!” As he spoke he slid from his horse, though so small was the vacant space on the ledge, that as he leaned against the shoulder of his well-trained mount, there seemed barely room for his feet. Buckling a strap to the snaffle rein, which held it in front of the saddle, and throwing the stirrup iron over, he passed to the head of the other horse, whose rein he took in a firm grasp. “Steady,” he said in a voice of command, which, strangely, the shaking creature seemed to obey. “Now, Boss! you get off, and slip behind him – there’s just room.” Blount did as directed, and with care and steadiness, effected a movement to the rear, while Jack Carter fastened rein and stirrup as before.

Then giving the cob a sounding slap on the quarter, he uttered a peculiar cry, and the leading horse stepped along the track at a fast amble, followed by the cob at a slow trot, in which he seemed to have recovered confidence.

“That’s a quick way out of the difficulty,” said Blount, with an air of relief. “I really didn’t know what was going to happen. But won’t they bolt when they get to the other side of this natural bridge over the bottomless pit?”

“When they get to the end of this ‘race,’ as you may call it, there’s a trap yard that we put up years back for wild horses – many a hundred’s been there before my time. Some of us mountain chaps keep it mended up. It comes in useful now and again.”

“I should think it did,” assented his companion, with decision. “But how will they get in? Will your clever horse take down the slip-rails, and put them up again?”

“Not quite that!” said the bushman smiling – “but near enough; we’ll find ’em both there, I’ll go bail!”

“How far is it?” asked Blount, with a natural desire to get clear of this picturesque, but too exciting part of the country, and to exchange it for more commonplace scenery, with better foothold.

“Only a couple of mile – so we might as well step out, as I’ve filled my pipe. Won’t you have a draw for company?”

“Not just yet, I’ll wait till we’re mounted again.” For though the invariable, inexhaustible tobacco pipe is the steadfast friend of the Australian under all and every condition of life, Blount did not feel in the humour for it just after he had escaped, as he now began to believe, from a sudden and violent death.

“A well-trained horse! I should think he was,” he told himself; “and yet, before I left England, I was always being warned against the half-broken horses of Australia. What a hackney to be sure! – fast, easy, sure-footed, intelligent – and what sort of breaking in has he had? Mostly ridden by people whom no living horse can throw; but that is a disadvantage – as he instinctively recognises the rider he can throw. Well! every country has its own way of doing things; and though we Englishmen are unchangeably fixed in our own methods, we may have something to learn yet from our kinsmen in this new land.”

“I suppose there have been accidents on this peculiar track of yours?” he said, after they had walked in silence for a hundred yards or more.

“Accidents!” he replied, “I should jolly well think there have. You see, horses are like men and women, though people don’t hardly believe it. Some’s born one way, and some another; teaching don’t make much difference to ’em, nor beltin’ either. Some of ’em, like some men, are born cowards, and when they get into a narrer track with a big drop both sides of ’em, they’re that queer in the head – though it’s the heart that’s wrong with ’em – that they feel like pitching theirselves over, just to get shut of the tremblin’ on the brink feelin’. Your horse was in a blue funk; he’d have slipped or backed over in another minute or two. That was the matter with him. When he seen old Keewah skip along by himself, it put confidence like, into him.”

“You’ve known of accidents, then?”

“My word! I mind when poor Paddy Farrell went down. He and his horse both. He was leadin’ a packer, as it might be one of us now. Well, his moke was a nervous sort of brute, and just as he got to the Needle Rock, it’s a bit farther on before the road widens out, but it’s terrible narrer there, and poor Paddy was walking ahead leadin’ the brute with a green hide halter, when a hawk flies out from behind a rock and frightened the packer. He draws back with a jerk, and his hind leg goes over the edge. Paddy had the end of the halter round his wrist, and it got jammed somehow, and down goes the lot, horse and pack, and him atop of ’em. Three or four of us were out all day looking for him at the foot of the range. We knew where we’d likely find him, and sure enough there they were, he and his horse, stone dead and smashed to pieces. We took him back to Bunjil, and buried him decent in the little graveyard. We managed to fish up a prayer-book, and got ‘Gentleman Jack’ to read the service over him. My word! he could read no end. They said he was college taught. He could drink too, more’s the pity.”

“Does every one drink that lives in these parts?”

“Well, a good few. Us young ones not so bad, but if a man stays here, after a few years he always drinks, partickler if he’s seen better days.”

“Now why is that? It’s a free healthy life, with riding, shooting, and a chance of a golden hole, as you call it. There are worse places to live in.”

“Nobody knows why, but they all do; they’ll work hard and keep sober for months. Then they get tired of having no one to talk to – nobody like theirselves, I mean. They go away, and come back stone-broke, or knock it all down in Bunjil, if they’ve made a few pounds.”

“That sounds bad after working hard and risking their lives on these Devil’s Bridges. How old was this Patrick Farrell?”

“Twenty-four, his name wasn’t Patrick. It was Aloysius William, named after a saint, I’m told. The boys called him ‘Paddy’ for short. At home, I believe they called him ‘Ally.’ But Paddy he always was in these parts. It don’t matter much now. See that tall rock sticking up by the side of the road at the turn? Well, that’s where he fell; they call it ‘Paddy’s Downfall,’ among the country people to this day. We’ve only a mile to go from there.”

When Mr. Blount and his companion reached the Needle Rock, a sharp-edged monolith, the edge of which unnecessarily infringed on the perilously scanty foothold, he did not wonder at the downfall of poor Aloysius William or any other wayfarer encumbered with a horse. He recalled the “vision of sudden death” which had so nearly been realised in his own case, and shuddered as he looked over the sheer drop on to a tangled mass of “rocks and trees confusedly hurled.”

“We’ve got Bunjil Inn to make yet,” said the bushman, stepping forward briskly; “we mustn’t forget that, if we leave my old moke too long in the yard, he’ll be opening the gate or some other dodge.”

In a hundred yards from the Needle Rock the track became wider, much to Mr. Blount’s relief, for he was beginning to feel an uncanny fascination for the awful abyss, and to doubt whether if a storm came on, he should be able to stand erect, or be reduced to the ignoble alternative of lying on his face.

“They’ve passed along here all right,” said the guide, casting a casual look at the path; “trust old Keewah for that, he’s leadin’ and your moke following close up.”

Mr. Blount did not see any clear indication, and would have been quite unable to declare which animal was foremost. But he accepted in all confidence Little-River-Jack’s assurance. The track, without gaining much breadth or similarity to any civilised high road, was yet superior in all respects to the chamois path they had left behind, and when his companion exclaimed, “There’s the yard, and our nags in it, as safe as houses,” he was relieved and grateful. The loss of a horse with a new saddle and bridle, besides his whole stock of travelling apparel, spare shoes, and other indispensable matters, would have been serious, not to say irreparable.

However there were the two horses with their accoutrements complete, in the trap yard aforesaid. The yard was fully eight feet high, and though the saplings of which it was composed were rudely put together, they were solid and unyielding. The heavy gate of the same material showed a rude carpentry in the head and tail pieces, the former of which was “let into the cap” or horizontal spar placed across the gate posts, and also morticed into a round upright below, sunk into the ground and projecting securely above it.

“They must have come in and shut the gate after them,” remarked Blount; “how in the world did they manage that?”

“Well, you see, this gate’s made pretty well on the balance to swing back to the post, where there’s a sort of groove for it. It’s always left half, or a quarter open. A prop’s put loose agen it, which any stock coming in from that side’s middlin’ sure to rub, and the gate swings to. See? It may graze ’em, as they’re going in, but they’re likely to jump forward, into the yard. The gate swings back to the post, and they’re nabbed. They can’t very well open it towards themselves, they haven’t savey for that. So they have to wait till some one comes.”

This explanation was given as they were riding along a decently plain road to Bunjil township, the first appearance of which one traveller descried with much contentment.

The “Divide,” before this agreeable change, had begun to alter its austere character. The ridge had spread out, the forest trees were stately and umbrageous, the track was fairly negotiable by horse and man. A fertile valley through which dashed an impetuous stream revealed itself. On the further bank stood dwellings, “real cottages,” as Mr. Blount remarked, “not huts.” These were in all cases surrounded by gardens, in some instances by orchards, of which the size and girth of the fruit trees bore witness to the richness of the soil as well as of the age of the township.

The short winter day had been nearly consumed by reason of their erratic progress; so that the evening shadows had commenced to darken the valley, while the clear, crisp atmosphere betrayed to the experienced senses of Mr. Carter, every indication of what he described as “a real crackin’ frost.”

“We’re in luck’s way,” he said, in continuation, “not to be struck for a camp out to-night. It’s cold enough in an old man frost hereabouts, to freeze the leg off an iron pot. But this is the right shop as we’re going to, for a good bed, a broiled steak for tea, and if you make friends with Sheila (she’s the girl that waits at table) you won’t die of cold, whatever else happens to you. Above all, the house is clean, and that’s more than you can say for smarter lookin’ shops. We’d as well have a spurt to finish up with.” Drawing his rein, and touching his hack with careless heel, the bushman went off at a smart canter along the main street, apparently the only one in the little town, Mr. Blount’s cob following suit with comparative eagerness, until they pulled up at a roomy building with a broad verandah, before which stood a sign-board, setting forth its title to consideration, as the “Prospector’s Arms” by William Middleton.

Several persons stood or lounged about the verandah, who looked at them keenly as they rode up. A broad-shouldered man with a frank, open countenance, came out of a door, somewhat apart from the group. He was plainly, by appearance and bearing, the landlord.

“So you’re back again, Jack,” said he, addressing the bushman with an air of familiar acquaintance; “didn’t know what had come o’yer. What lay are ye on now?”

“Same’s usual, moochin’ round these infernal hills and gullies ov yours. There’s a bit of a rush Black Rock way. I’m goin’ to have a look in to-morrow. This gentleman’s just from England, seein’ the country in a gineral way; he’ll stay here till I get back, and then we’ll be going down river.”

“All right, Jack!” replied the host. “You can show him the country, if any one can – the missus’ll see he’s took care of,” and as he spoke he searched the speaker with a swift glance as of one comprehending all that had been said, and more that was left unspoken. “Here, take these horses round, George, and make ’em right for the night.”

An elderly individual in shirt sleeves and moleskins of faded hue here came forward, and took the stranger’s horse, unbuckling valise and pack, which the landlord carried respectfully into an inner chamber, out of which a door led into a comfortable appearing bedroom; where, from the look of the accessories, he augured favourably for the night’s rest. Mr. Carter had departed with the old groom, preferring, as he said, to see his horse fed and watered before he tackled his own refreshment; “grub” was the word he used, which appeared to be fully understanded of the people, if but vaguely explanatory to Mr. Blount.

That gentleman, pensively examining his wardrobe, reflected meanwhile by how narrow a chance the articles spread out before him had been saved from wreck, so to speak, and total loss, when a knock came to the door, and a feminine voice requested to know whether he would like supper at six o’clock or later. Taking counsel of his inward monitor, he adopted the hour named.

The voice murmured, “Your hot water, sir,” and ceased speaking.

He opened the door, and was just in time to see a female form disappear from the room.

“We are beginning to get civilised,” he thought, as he possessed himself of the hot water jug, and refreshed accordingly. After which he discarded his riding gear in favour of shoes and suitable continuations. While awaiting the hour of reflection, he took out of his valise a pocket edition of Browning, and was about to glance at it when the clock struck six.

Entering the parlour, for such it evidently was, he was agreeably surprised with the appearance of affairs. A clean cloth covered the solid cedar table, on which was a hot dish – flanked by another which held potatoes. A fire of glowing logs was cheerful to behold, nor was the “neat-handed Phyllis” wanting to complete the tableau. A very good-looking young woman, with a complexion of English, rather than Australian colouring, removed the dish covers, and stood at attention.

Here the wayfarer was destined to receive fresh information relative to the social observances of Australian society. “You have only laid covers for one,” said he to the maid. “My friend, Mr. Carter, is not going to do without his dinner surely?”

“Oh! Jack!” said the damsel, indifferently; “he won’t come in here, he’s at the second table with the coachman and the drovers. This is the gentlemen’s room.”

“How very curious!” he exclaimed. “I thought every one was alike in this part of the world; all free and equal, that sort of thing. I shouldn’t the least mind spending the evening with er – John Carter – or any other respectable miner.”

The girl looked him over before she spoke. “Well, Mr. Blount (Jack said that was your name), you mightn’t, though you’re just from England, but other people might. When the police magistrate, the Goldfields Warden, and the District Surveyor come round, they always stay here, and the down river squatters. They wouldn’t like it, you may be sure, nor you either, perhaps, if the room was pretty full.”

He smiled, as he answered, “So this is an aristocratic country, I perceive, in spite of the newspaper froth about a democratic government. Well, I must take time, and learn the country’s ways. I shall pick them up by degrees, I suppose.”

“No fear!” said the damsel. “It’ll all come in time, not but there’s places at the back where all sorts sit down together and smoke and drink no end. But not at Bunjil. Would you like some apple-pie to follow, there’s plenty of cream?”

Mr. Blount would. “Apple-pie reminds one of Devonshire, and our boyhood – especially the cream,” thought he. “What fun I should have thought this adventure a few years ago. Not that it’s altogether without interest now. It’s a novelty, at any rate.”

CHAPTER II

Mr. Blount, as he sat before the fire, enjoying his final pipe before retiring for the night, was free to confess that he had rarely spent a more satisfactory evening – even in the far-famed, old-fashioned, road-side inns of old England. The night was cold – Carter’s forecast had been accurate. It was a hard frost, such as his short stay in a coast city had not acquainted him with. The wide bush fire-place, with a couple of back logs, threw out a luxurious warmth, before which, in a comfortable arm-chair, he had been reading the weekly paper with interest.

The well-cooked, juicy steak, the crisp potatoes, the apple-pie with bounteous cream, constituted a meal which a keen-edged appetite rendered sufficient for all present needs. The difficult ride and too hazardous adventure constituted a fair day’s work – being indeed sufficiently fatiguing to justify rest without bordering on exhaustion. It was a case of jam satis.

He looked forward to an enjoyable night’s sleep, was even aware of a growing sense of relief that he was not required to take the road next morning. The cob would be better for a few days’ rest, before doing more mountain work. He would like also to ramble about this neighbourhood, and see what the farms and sluicing claims were like. And a better base of operations than the Bunjil Hotel, no man need desire.

He had gone to the stable with Carter, as became a prudent horse-owner, where he had seen the cob comfortably bedded down for the night with a plenteous supply of sweet-smelling oaten hay before him, and an unstinted feed of maize in the manger.

“They’re all right for the night,” said Carter. “Your nag will be the better for a bit of a turn round to-morrow afternoon, just to keep his legs from swellin’. I’ll be off about sunrise, and back again the fourth day, or early the next. They’ll look after you here, till then.”

Mr. Blount was of opinion that he could look after himself from what he had seen of the establishment, and said so, but “was nevertheless much obliged to him for getting him such good quarters.” So to bed, as Mr. Pepys hath it, but before doing so, he rang the bell, and questioned Sheila – for that was her name, as he had ascertained by direct inquiry – as to the bath arrangements.

“I shall want a cold bath at half-past seven – a shower bath, for choice. Is there one?”

“Oh, yes – but very few go in for it this time of year. The P.M. does, when he comes round, and the Goldfields Warden. It’s one of those baths that you fill and draw up over your head. Then you pull a string.”

“That will do very well.”

“All right – I’ll tell George; but won’t it be very cold? It’s a hard frost to-night.”

“No – the colder it is, the warmer you feel after it.”

“Well, good-night, sir! Breakfast at half-past eight o’clock. Is that right? Would you like sausages, boiled eggs and toast?”

“Yes! nothing could be better. My appetite seems improving already.”

The Kookaburra chorus, and the flute accompaniment of the magpies in the neighbouring tree tops, awakened Mr. Blount, who had not so much as turned round in bed since about five minutes after he had deposited himself between the clean lavender-scented sheets. Looking out, he faintly discerned the dawn light, and also that the face of the country was as white as if it had been snowing. He heard voices in the verandah, and saw Little-River-Jack’s horse led out, looking as fresh as paint. That gentleman, lighting his pipe carefully, mounted and started off at a fast amble up the road which skirted the range, and led towards a gap in the hills. Mr. Blount thought it would be as well to wait until Sheila had the fire well under way, by which he intended to toast himself after the arctic discipline of the shower bath, with the thermometer at 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

The bi-weekly mail had providentially arrived at breakfast time, bringing in its bags the local district newspaper, and a metropolitan weekly which skimmed the cream from the cables and telegrams of the day. This was sufficiently interesting to hold him to the arm-chair, in slippered ease, for the greater part of an hour, while he lingered over his second cup of tea.

His boots, renovated from travel stains and mud, standing ready, he determined on a stroll, and took counsel with Sheila, as to a favourable locality.

The damsel was respectful, but conversed with him on terms of perfect conversational equality. She had also been fairly educated, and was free from vulgarity of tone or accent. To him, straight from the old country, a distinctly unfamiliar type worth studying.

“Where would you advise me to go for a walk?” he said. “It’s good walking weather, and I can’t sit in the house this fine morning, though you have made such a lovely fire.”

“I should go up the creek, and have a look at the sluicing claim. People say it’s worth seeing. You can’t miss it if you follow up stream, and you’ll hear the ‘water gun’ a mile before you come to it.”

“‘Water gun?’ What ever is that?”

“Oh! it’s the name of a big hose with a four-inch nozzle at the end. They lead the water for the race into it, and then turn it against the creek bank; that undermines tons of the stuff they want to sluice – you’ll hear it coming down like a house falling!”

“And what becomes of it then?”

“Oh! it goes into the tail-race, and after that it’s led into the riffles and troughs – the water keeps driving along, and they’ve some way of washing the clay and gravel out, and leaving the gold behind.”

“And does it pay well?”

“They say so. It only costs a penny a ton to wash, or something like that. It’s the cheapest way the stuff can be treated. Our boys saw it used in California, and brought it over here.”

So, after taking a last fond look at the cob, and wishing he could exchange him for Keewah, but doubting if any amount of boot would induce Carter to part with his favourite, he set out along the bank of the river and faced the uplands.

His boots were thick, his heart was light – the sun illumined the frost-white trunks, and diamond-sprayed branches of the pines and eucalypts – the air was keen and bracing. “What a glorious thing it is to be alive on a day like this,” he told himself. “How glad I am that I decided to leave Melbourne!” As he stepped along with all the elasticity of youth’s high health and boundless optimism, he marked the features of the land. There were wheel-tracks on this road, which he was pleased to note. Though the soil was rich, and also damp at the base of the hills and on the flats, it was sound, so that with reasonable care he was enabled to keep his feet dry. He saw pools from which the wild duck flew on his approach. A blue crane, the heron of Australia (Ardea) rose from the reeds; while from time to time the wallaroo (the kangaroo of the mountain-side) put in appearance to his great delight.

The sun came out, glorifying the wide and varied landscape and the cloudless azure against which the snow-covered mountain summits glittered like silver coronets. Birds of unknown note and plumage called and chirped. All Nature, recovering from the cold and darkness of the night, made haste to greet the brilliant apparition of the sun god.

Keeping within sight of the creek – the course of which he was pledged to follow – he became aware of a dull monotonous sound, which he somehow connected with machinery. It was varied by occasional reports like muffled blasts, as of the fall of heavy bodies. “That is the sluicing claim,” he told himself, “and I shall see the wonderful ‘water gun,’ which Sheila told me of. Quite an adventure!” The claim was farther off than he at first judged, but after climbing with stout heart a “stey brae,” he looked down on the sluicing appliances, and marvelled at the inventive ingenuity which the gold industry had developed. Before him was a ravine down which a torrent of water was rushing with great force and rapidity, bearing along in its course clay, gravel, quartz, and even boulders of respectable size.

He was civilly received by the claim-holders; the manager – an ex-Californian miner – remarking, “Yes, sir, I’m a ‘forty-niner,’ – worked at Suttor’s Mill first year gold was struck there. This is a pretty big thing, though it ain’t a circumstance to some I’ve seen in Arizona and Colorado. This water’s led five hundred feet from these workings. See it play on the face of the hill-side yonder – reckon we’ve cut it away two hundred feet from grass.”

Mr. Blount looked with amazement at the thin, vicious, thread of water, which, directed against the lower and middle strata of the mass of ferruginous slate, had laid bare the alluvium through which ran an ancient river, silted up and overlaid for centuries. The course of this long dead and buried stream could be traced by the water-worn boulders and the smoothness of the rocks which had formed its bed. Where he stood, there had been a fall of forty feet as shown by the formation of the rocky channel.

The manager civilly directed the “gunner” to lower the weapon, and aim it at a spot nearer to where Blount was standing. He much marvelled to see the stones torn from the “face” and sent flying in the air, creating a fair-sized geyser where the water smote the cliff. In this fashion of undermining hundreds of tons are brought down from time to time, to be driven by the roaring torrent into the “tail-race,” whence they pass into the “sluice-box,” and so on to the creek, leaving the gold behind in the riffle bars.

“I suppose it’s not an expensive way of treating the ore in the rough?” queried Blount.

“I reckon not. Cheapest way on airth. The labour we pay at present only comes to one man to a thousand yards. This company has been paying dividends for fifteen years!”

Mr. Blount thanked the obliging American, who, like all respectable miners, was well-mannered to strangers, the sole exception being in the case of a party that have “struck gold” in a secluded spot, and naturally do not desire all the world to know about it. But even they are less rude than evasive.

He looked at his watch and decided that he had not more than enough time to get back to Bunjil in time for lunch. So he shook hands with Mr. Hiram Endicott and set out for that nucleus of civilisation.

Making rather better time on the return journey, he arrived much pleased with himself, considering that he had accomplished an important advance in bush-craft and mineralogy.

Sheila welcomed him in a clean print dress, with a smiling face, but expressed a faint surprise at his safe return, and at his having found the road to the sluice-working, and back.

“Why! how could I lose the way?” he demanded, justly indignant. “Was not the creek a sufficiently safe guide?”

“Oh! it can be done,” answered the girl archly. “There was a gentleman followed the creek the wrong way, and got among the ranges before he found out his mistake; and another one – he was a newspaper editor – thought he’d make a near cut, found himself miles lower down, and didn’t get back before dark. My word! how hungry he was, and cross too!”

“Well, I’m not very hungry or even cross – but I’m going to wash my hands, after which lunch will be ready, I suppose?”

“You’ve just guessed it,” she replied. “You’ll have tea, I suppose?”

“Certainly. Whether Australia was created to develop the tea and sugar industry, or tea to provide a portable and refreshing beverage for the inhabitants to work, and travel, or even fight on, is not finally decided, but they go wondrous well together.”

After an entirely satisfactory lunch, Mr. Blount bethought him of the cob – and knowing, as do all Englishmen, that to do your duty to your neighbour when he is a horse, you must exercise him at least once a day, he sent for George, and requested that he should be brought forth. In a few moments the valuable animal arrived, looking quite spruce and spirited, with coat much smoother and mane tidied; quite like an English covert hack, as Mr. Blount told himself. His legs had filled somewhat, but the groom assured Blount that that was nothing, and would go off.

Taking counsel of the landlord on this occasion, that worthy host said, “Would you like to see an old hand about here that could tell you a few stories about the early days?”

“Like?” answered Mr. Blount with effusion, “nothing better.” It was one of his besetting virtues to know all about the denizens of any place – particularly if partly civilised – wherever he happened to sojourn for a season. It is chiefly a peculiarity of the imaginative-sympathetic nature whereby much knowledge of sorts is acquired – sometimes. But there is a reverse side to the shield.

“George! Ge-or-ge!” shouted the landlord, “catch the old mare and bring her round. Look slippy!”

George fled away like the wind, with a sieve and a bridle in his hand, and going to the corner of a small grass paddock, under false pretences induced an elderly bay mare to come up to him (there being no corn in the sieve), then he basely slipped the reins over her head and led her away captive.

The landlord reappeared with a pair of long-necked spurs buckled on to his heels, and getting swiftly into the saddle, started the old mare off at a shuffling walk. She was a character in her way. Her coat was rough, her tail was long, there was a certain amount of hair on her legs, and yes! she was slightly lame on the near fore-leg. But her eye was bright, her shoulder oblique; and as she reined up at a touch of the rusty snaffle and stuck out her tail, Arab fashion, she began to show class, Mr. Blount thought.

“She’ll be all right, directly,” said the landlord, noticing Mr. Blount’s scrutiny of the leg, “I never know whether it’s rheumatism, or one of her dodges – she’s as sound as a bell after a mile.” To add to her smart appearance, she had no shoes.

They passed quickly through cornfields and meadow lands, rich in pasture, and showing signs of an occasional heavy crop. The agriculture was careless, as is chiefly the case where Nature does so much that man excuses himself for doing little. A cottage on the south side of the road surrounded by a well-cultivated orchard furnished the exception which proves the rule. Mr. Middleton opened the rough but effective gate, with a patent self-closing latch, without dismounting from his mare, who squeezed her shoulder against it, as if she thought she could open it herself. “Steady!” said her owner – “this gate’s not an uphill one – she’ll push up a gate hung to slam down hill as if she knew who made it. She does know a lot of things you wouldn’t expect of her.” Holding the gate open till Mr. Blount and the cob were safely through, he led the way to the cottage, from which issued a tall, upright, elderly man, with a distinctly military bearing.

“This is Mr. Blount, Sergeant,” said the host, “staying at my place for a day or two – just from England, as you see! I told him you knew all about this side, and the people in it – old hands, and new.”

CHAPTER III

“You will tell us about Dayrell, Sergeant?” said Mr. Blount. “Is it a tale of mystery and fear?”

“It was God’s judgment upon the shedding of innocent blood,” said the Sergeant solemnly; “they’re in their graves, the haill company, the betrayer and the betrayed. The nicht’s turned dark and eerie. To say truth, I wad as lieve lay the facts before ye, in the licht o’ day. It’s a dark walk by the river oaks, and a man may weel fancy he hears whisperings, and voices of the deid in the midnight blast. I’m at your sairvice ony day before ye leave Bunjil, but I’ll be makin’ tracks the noo, wi’ your permeession, sir, and my thanks to ye. Gude nicht!”

The veteran had made up his mind, and wrapped in a horseman’s cloak such as the paternal Government of Victoria still serves out to the Mounted Police Force, he marched forth into the night. The landlord parted from him on the verandah, while Blount walked up and down for an hour, watching a storm-cloud whelming in gathering gloom the dimly outlined range, until the rain fell with tropical volume necessitating a retreat to the parlour, where the logs still sent out a grateful warmth. “The old man must have missed that downpour,” he said. “He was wise to depart in good time.”

Another meeting was arranged. “Little-River-Jack” sent word by a “sure hand,” as was the wording of a missive in pre-postal days, that he would arrive in Bunjil on the next ensuing Saturday, ready for a daylight start on Sunday morning, if that would suit Mr. Blount’s convenience.

Pursuant to his promise, the Sergeant arrived to lunch at the Bunjil Hotel on the day specified. He did not make demand for the groom, but riding into the yard, opened the stable door and put up his ancient steed, slipping the bridle back over his ears, however, but leaving it ready to be replaced at short notice.

“It’s an auld habit o’ mine,” he said to the landlord, who now made his appearance with apologies for the absence of the groom, who was “out, getting a load of wood,” he explained. “We burn a lot here in the winter – it’s just as well we haven’t to pay for it – but it takes old George half his time drawing it in.”

“You’ve got some fresh horses here,” said the Sergeant, his keen eye resting on three well-conditioned nags at one end of the row of stalls; “are ye gaun to have races – the Bunjil Town Plate and Publican’s Purse – and are the lads that own thae flyers come to tak’ pairt? Yon grey’s a steeplechaser, by his looks, and the two bays are good enough for Flemington.”

The landlord fidgeted a little before answering.

“They’re some digging chaps that have a camp at Back Creek. They buy their beef from ‘Little-River-Jack,’ and he takes their gold at a price. They do a bit of trade in brumbie-shooting now and then, the hides sell well and the horse-hair – I’m told. Between that and digging they knock out a fair living.”

“Nae doot,” replied the Sergeant, slowly and oracularly. “If there’s aught to be won by a guid horse and a bould rider, these are the men that’ll no lose it for want of a sweater or twa. What names have they?” And here the old man fixed his eye searchingly on the host.

“Two O’Haras and a Rorke,” answered the host, haltingly. “So they tell me – ‘Irish natives,’ from Gippsland way they call themselves.”

“I wadna doot,” quoth the Sergeant. “Eldest brother Jemmy O’Hara, a fell chiel. But let byganes be byganes. It’s ill raking up misdeeds of fouk that’s maybe deid or repenting, repenting in sa-ack-cloth and ashes. It’ll be one o’clock, joost chappit. I’ll awa ben.”

“Ay!” said the Sergeant, lunch being cleared away, and both men sitting before the replenished fire, which the proximity of Bunjil to the snow line, as well as the frost of the night before, rendered grateful, “it’s e’en a tale of vengeance long delayed, but the price of bluid was paid – ay, and mair than paid, when the hour cam’, and the man. I was stationed at Omeo, I mind weel, years after Larry Trevenna was hangit for the crime, as well he desairved. If one had misdooted the words of Holy Writ, there was the confirmation plain for a’ men to see. ‘Be sure thy sin will find thee out.’ They were half brithers, it was weel kenned, word came frae hame to that effect, and little thought the author of their being that the bairn o’ shame, the offspring of the reckless days of wild, ungoverned youth, was born to slay the heir of his ancient house, in a far land; to die by the hangman’s cord, amid the curses of even that strange crew amang whom his life was spent. But he was fain to ‘dree his weird,’ as in auld Scottish fashion we say; all men must fulfil their appointed destiny. It’s a hard law maybe, and I canna agree with oor Presbyterian elders, that ae man is foredoomed to sin and shame, the tither to wealth and honours, and that neither can escape the lot prepared for him frae the foundation of the warld! But whiles, when ye see the haill draama played oot, and a meestery made clear, the maist careless unbeliever must acknowledge that Heaven’s justice is done even in this warld o’ appairent contradeections. Weel, aweel, I’m gey and loth to come to the tale deed o’ bluid, o’ the fearsome eend. Things had settled doon at Omeo after the events ye ken o’. There was a wheen duffing and horse-stealing to contend wi’! But siccan lifting of kye will there be, amang these mountains and glens, I had a’maist said till the Day of Judgment – but no to be profane, the country was quieter than it had been for years, when word came to heidquarters that Ned Lawless had broken gaol; had been seen makin’ across by Talbingo to the table-land, aboot Long Plain and Lobb’s Hole. There was an ‘auld gun’ (as we ca’ confairmed creeminals) in the lock-up, as the news came; a Monaro native, and haun and glove with a’ the moss-troopers and reivers south of the Snowy River.

“‘D’ye know where Inspector Dayrell is now, Sergeant?’ says he, quite free and pleasant. He was only in for ‘unlawfully using’ – a maitter o’ six months’ gaol at the warst.

“‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t; what call have ye to be speirin’?’

“‘He’ll never trouble me again, Sergeant, I’m full up of anything like a big touch now; this bit of foolishness don’t count. But if you want to do Dayrell a rale good turn, tell him to clear out to New Zealand, the Islands, San Francisco – anywhere.’

“‘Why should I?’ says I. ‘And him to lose his chance of being made a Superintendent.’

“‘Superintendent be hanged!’ (it was not in Court, ye ken), and he put his heid doon low, and spak’ low and airnest.

“‘Is a step in the service worth a man’s life? You tell him from me, Monaro Joe, that if Ned Lawless isn’t dead or taken within a month, his life’s not worth a bent stirrup iron.’

“‘And the Lawless crowd broken up?’ says I. ‘Man! ye’re gettin’ dotty. Ned’s a dour body, waur after these years’ gaol. I wadna put it past him, but he’s helpless, wantin’ mates. Coke’s a cripple with the rheumatics. Kate’s awa, naebody kens where.’

“‘Ye’re a good offisher, Sergeant,’ says he, ‘but you don’t know everything. You want a year’s duffing near Lobb’s Hole to sharpen you up. But if I lay you on to something, will you get the Beak to let me down easy about this sweating racket, a bloomin’ moke, worth about two notes! I never offered him for sale, the police know that. A rotten screw, or I shouldn’t have been overhauled by that new chum Irish trooper. I was ashamed of myself, I raly was.’

“‘If ye give information of value to the depairtment as regards this dangerous creeminal,’ says I, ‘I’ll no press the case.’

“‘Well – this is God’s truth,’ says he, quite solemn. ‘His sister Kate’s been livin’ at Tin Pot Flat for months, under another name. They say she’s off her head at times, never been right since she lost her child.’

“‘Lost her child!’ says I. ‘Ye don’t say so – the puir crater, and a fine boy he was. How cam’ that?’

“‘Well, the time Kate rode to White Rock and started Dayrell after Larry Trevenna, just as he was goin’ to clear out for the old country, passin’ hisself off for Lance (that was a caper, wasn’t it?), she left her boy with the stockrider’s young wife at Running Creek. The girl (she was a new chum Paddy) was away for a bit, hangin’ out clothes or somethin’; the poor kid got down to the creek and was drowned. Kate was stark starin’ mad for forty-eight hours. Then she took the kid in front of her on the little roan mare, and never spoke till after the Coroner come and orders it to be buried.’

“‘And she at Tin Pot Flat, and me nane the wiser! Any mair of the crowd?’

“‘You remember Dick? – the young brother – he that was left behind when they cleared for Balooka – he’s a man grown, this years and years; well, she lives with him. And they say she goes to the shaft every day that Lance was hauled out from, to kneel down and pray. What for, God only knows. Dick’s quiet, but dangerous; he’s the best rider and tracker from Dargo High Plain to Bourke, and that’s a big word.’

“‘I ken that; I’ll joost ride round, and tak’ a look – he’ll need watchin’, and if he’s joined Ned, and Kate’s makin’ a third, there’ll be de’il’s wark ere lang.’

“That evening the tent was doon, Kate and the younger Lawless chiel gane – and nane could say when, how, or where.

“For a week, and the week after that, the wires were going all day and half the nicht. Every police station on the border of New South Wales and Victoria from Monaro to Murray Downs was noticed to look up their black tracker, and have their best horses ready. As for Dayrell, they couldna warn him that the avengers o’ bluid, as nae doot they held themselves to be, were on his trail. He was richt awa amang the ‘snaw leases,’ (as they ca’d them – a country only habitable by man or beast frae late spring to early autumn;) on the trail o’ a gang o’ horse and cattle thieves that had defied the police of three colonies. They had left a record in Queensland before they crossed the New South Wales border.

“Noted men among them – ane tried for murder! A mate, suspect o’ treachery, was found in a creek wi’ twa bullets in’s heid – there were ither evil deeds to accoont for.

“Ay, they were a dour gang – fightin’ to the death. So Dayrell took five of his best men and volunteered for the capture. ‘He was getting rusty,’ he said, ‘but would break up this gang or they should have his scalp.’ These were the very words he used.

“Omeo diggings were passed on the way up. There was sure to be some one that knew him, wherever he went in any of the colonies.

“A tall man put his head out of a shaft on ‘Tin Pot’ as he rode through the Flat at the head of his troopers, and cursed him with deleeberate maleegnity until they were out of sight. ‘Ride on, you bloody dog!’ he said – grinding his teeth – ‘you won’t reign much longer now that Ned and I can work together again, and we have your tracks. I know every foot of the road you’re bound to travel now – once you’re as far as Merrigal there’s no get away between Snowy Creek and the Jibbo. It was our rotten luck the day we first set eyes on you. We were not such a bad crowd if we’d been let alone. Tessie had half persuaded Ned to drop the cross work after we got shut of the Balooka horses. The day afore he told me he’d two minds to let ’em go on the road. Then he couldn’t have been pulled for more than illegal using, which isn’t felony. But you must come along and spoil everything. Lance was copped, as innocent as a child: Ned gets a stretch – it was his death sentence. I know what it’s turned him into. Kate’s gone mad, what with losin’ the kid – a fine little chap, so he was (I cried when I heard of it)! Larry’s hanged – serve him right.

“‘Lance is dead and buried, poor chap! I don’t know what’ll become of me. And what’s more I don’t care; but I’ll have revenge, blast you! before the year’s out, if I swing for it!’

“He didna ken Dick Lawless again in his digger’s dress, and there were few that he didna remember either, if it was ten years after. So he joost gaed alang blithe and gay. The sun was abune the fog that aye hangs o’er the flat till midday, or maybe disna lift at a’ like a Highland mist. He touched his horse’s rein, and the gey, weel-trained beastie gave a dance like, and shook his heid, till bit and curb chain jingled again.

“Ah! me, these things are fearsome at the doing and but little better in the telling. He wadna hae been sae blithe had he seen anither face that peered o’er the shaft just as he turned at the angle of the road and struck into a canter with his troopers ahint him. It was the face of a haggard, clean-shaved man, with hair cut close to the head, and a wild, desperate look like a hunted beast – only one miner on the field knew who the strange man was, and he would never have kent him, but for hearin’ a whisper the night before of a ‘cross cove’ having come late at night to ‘Mrs. Jones’s’ tent.

“Dead beat and half starved to boot was he, but word went round the little goldfield that it was Ned Lawless, the famous horse and cattle ‘duffer’ who’d been arrested by Inspector Dayrell, and ‘put away’ for five years.

“Miners are no joost attached to thae kind o’ folk, and for this one, believed to have stolen wash-dirt cart-horses at Ballarat, they certainly had no love, but, as for layin’ the police on the hunted wretch, even though the reward was tempting, not a man, working as they were on a poor field, but would have scorned the action, and been vara unceevil to him that suggested it. No! that was the business of the police – they were paid for it – let them run him down or any other poor devil that was ‘wanted,’ but as for helping them by so much as raising a finger, it was not in their line.

“Anyhow, an hour before dawn, one man who had reasons for airly rising thought he saw Dick with his sister, ‘Mrs. Jones,’ and the stranger, ride down the gulley which led towards Buckley’s Crossing; the woman was on a roan pony mare, which she brought with her when she came on ‘Tin Pot,’ a year ago. The stranger had an old grey screw Dick had bought for a note, which would let any one catch him, night or day. The fog was thick, and he couldn’t say on his oath which way they went, but they took what was called the ‘mountain track.’”

“A nice crowd, as they say in these parts,” said Mr. Blount. “Where did they go and what did they do, Sergeant?”

“They were ready for any de’il’s wark, ye may believe,” said the old man, impressively, “and, as I heard frae one that daurna speak me false, they were no lang ere they were at it.

“The day after they were seen leaving ‘Tin Pot,’ they called at a small settler’s place and took his twa best horses. He was a man that had good anes, wad win races at sma’ townships.

“The wife and her sister were at hame, the man was awa’.

“They loaded up a packhorse with rations, more by token a rug and twa pairs blankets. The younger man told them the horses wad maybe stray back. He paid for the rations and the blankets, but said they must have them. It was a lonely place. The woman sat on her horse, and wadna come ben, though they asked her to have a cup of tea. She shook her head; they couldna see her face for a thick veil she wore.

“This information didna come in for some days later, when the man won hame; the women were afraid to leave the place, ye may weel believe. The raiders rode hard, maistly at nicht, keepit aff the main road, and took ‘cuts’ when they could find them. Dick Lawless knew them a’, could amaist smell them, his mates used to say.

“They got the Inspector’s trail and never lost it; if they were off it for a while, they could always ‘cut’ it again. They had telegraphs plenty (bush anes) but there were nane to warn Dayrell o’ them that thirsted for his life-bluid, and were following on through the snaw, like the wolves on a Russian steppe, as the buiks tell us. He was joost ‘fey,’ in the high spirits that foretell death or misfortune, as we Hielanders believe. He had the chance o’ a capture that would ring through three colonies. It did that, but no in the way he expeckit.

“He heard tell frae a bushman, a brither o’ the man that the gang shot before he had time to do more than threaten to ‘give them away,’ that they were to be at the ‘Ghost Camp’ aboot the twentieth o’ the month. An auld fastness this, at the edge o’ broken, mountainous country, where the wild blacks cam’ to hide after killing cattle or robbing huts, when Queensland was first ta’en up by squatters. A place no that easy to ride to, maist deeficult to discover, amang the great mountain forests o’ the border. Battles had there been, between the black police and the wild native tribes that were strong and bold in the pioneer days, no kenning, puir bodies, the strength o’ ceevilised man. It was there they halted after the massacre of Wild Honey Bank, where they killed after nightfa’ the haill family, men and women, wives and weans, an awfu’ spectacle they were as they lay deid in the hot sun, unshaded, uncovered. I was tauld it by a man, was ane of the pairty that helped bury them. The pursuers slew and spared not. Wha shall judge them after the fearsome sights they saw? There’s but few of that tribe left alive, and sma’ wonder.

“An eerie, waesome spot, they tell me. The gunyahs hae na been leeved in this mony a year. The few fra-agments o’ the tribe conseeder it to be haunted, and winna gang near. It’s a’ strewed wi’ skulls, and skeletons of whites and blacks mingled, nane having been at the pains to bury them. The grass grows rank abune the mouldering relics o’ baith races. The banes gleam white when the moon is at her full, lying matted thegither amaist concealed by the growth of years.

“Weel, aweel! I’m just daundering on toward the eend, the sair, sorrowfu’ eending o’ a fearsome tale. The twa pairties, that wad be the Queensland gang, and the Sydney-side lot, were nigh hand to the ‘Ghost Camp’ aboot the same time.

“That’s sayin’ the three Lawless bodies had ridden night and day – picking up fresh horses for the men, as they came along. Kate rode the roan pony mare all through, a grand little crater she was, and weel she earned her name ‘Wallaby,’ sae ca’ed after the kangaroo beastie that wad hop frae rock to rock, like ony goat o’ the cliffs.

“The Inspector reckoned that Bradfield’s gang wad show up in the gloaming o’ the appointed day. No kenning that they had been betrayed, they wad camp careless like. Dayrell’s tracker creepit oot and lay ahint a rock while they unsaiddled and turned loose their horses. Bradfield he knew – a tall powerfu’ chiel, with a big beard, a Sydney-side native, and if he wasna the best bushman in Queensland, he wasna that far aff. Of the four men with him, twa had ‘done time,’ and were worse after they cam’ oot o’ gaol, than when they gaed in. They had grog in them; they made a fire – not a black fellow’s one – and talked and laughed and swore, as they didna care wha might hear them.

“So far, a’ went weel. Dayrell’s party lay close – made no fire – prepared to deleever attack at dawn, when dootless Bradfield’s men wad be asleep or all unsuspeecious. But were they? By no manner of means. The twa Lawless brithers and Kate had won to Wandong Creek i’ the nicht – Ned and Kate had lain them doon, joost dead beat and like to dee wi’ sheer exhaustion. Dick stowed the horse away in the gulley. It’s deep, and amaist covered in wi’ trees and fern. Then being a tireless crater and in hard work and training, he thocht he would tak’ a wee bit look oot, to make a’ safe. It was weel thocht on – though not for the police party. It wasna lang ere he heard a horse whinnie. Not the nicher o’ a brumbie, either. Then cam’ the tramp o’ anither and the jingle o’ a hobble chain. Could it be the police? He would soon know. Creeping frae tree to tree, he came on the mob. Six riding horses, and two ‘packers’ all with the Crown brand on. Dayrell’s dark chestnut, he knew him again. And a light bay with two white hind fetlocks. Police horses all, well fed and groomed. Now where was the camp?

“Keeping wide and crawling from log to log, like a night-wandering crater o’ the forest, he thought he saw a glimmer o’ a fire – not a small one either. What d – d fool had lighted that, with a hot trail so close? So he walkit, ye ken, till what suld ail him to come ram-sham on six sleeping men. Police in plain clothes? Never! It was Bradfield’s gang, believing that Dayrell was no within a colony o’ them. And now to get speech. Their revolvers were under their hands, their rifles handy ye ken. If an alarm was given it might spoil the whole plan. With two other rifles, not counting Kate (and she was a fair shot at short range), they might turn the tables on Dayrell and his blasted police.

“Keen and ready witted as are the de’il’s bairns at their master’s wark, Dick Lawless wasna lang in conseedering the pairt he was to play. Crawling on hands and knees, he got as near Bradfield as was wise like without awaking him. He then gave a low whistle, such as stockriders give to tell of cattle in sight.

“‘Who the hell’s that?’ growled Bradfield, awake and alert.

“‘All right, Jim, only Dick Lawless. Cattle going to break camp. (They had been droving in old days.) Quite like old times, isn’t it?’

“‘Wish I was back again behind a thousand Windorah bullocks,’ said the bushranger.

“‘I wouldn’t mind either, Jim. But all that’s behind us now – worse luck! Where do you think Dayrell is? Give it up? D’ye see that black ridge, with three pines on it? Well, he’s there, waiting for daylight. He’s not fool to make a fire you can see miles off. You’ve nearly been had, Jim. He came up on purpose to collar you. T’other side the black ridge, he’s planted men and horses, six of ’em and a packer.’

“‘Who’s with you?’

“‘Just Ned and Kate. They’re lying down in Wandong Creek. Kate’s goin’ dotty now, poor thing, but she would come with us. Thinks she’ll see the last of Dayrell.’

“‘Strikes me it’s a case of “Just before the battle, mother,”’ said Bradfield. ‘I’ll wake these chaps. We must have a snack and fix up the Waterloo business. It’s an hour to daylight yet.’

“Thus speaking he touched the man on his left, who awoke and touched the next. Without a spoken word the five men were aroused.

“‘Now, chaps!’ said the leader, in low but distinct tones, ‘Dick Lawless is come to give in the office. He’s on the job too. Dayrell’s behind the black ridge, with his five fancy troopers. He’s come to collar us. Dick here and Ned have come to pay off old scores. With us to help he’s like enough to do it. We’re nigh about equal members, not countin’ Kate, but the surprise they’ll get’s as good as two men.’

“‘How’s that?’ asked one of the gang.

“‘It’s this way, we’ll have first go. He thinks we don’t know he’s here. We’ll take cover, and as soon as he shows out to surprise us, we roll into him. Dick here, Ned and Kate, go at him from Wandong Creek side. That’ll put the stuns on him. Ned and Dick, both dead shots, will account for Dayrell. If he goes down the other traps won’t stand long. Dick, you’ll have a snack? No? Then, so long.’

“The faint line of clearer sky was slowly making itself veesible in the east as Dayrell at the head of his troopers moved towards Bradfield’s camp. The black tracker had showed him the position. The glimmering fire did the rest. ‘Now for a rush, men, we’ll catch them asleep.’ Saddles and swags were strewn around the fire, billy and frying-pan were there, not a man to be seen. But from five rifles at short range came a volley at the troopers, well-aimed and effective, and Dayrell’s right arm fell to his side broken or disabled.

“Three shots immediately followed from the Wandong Creek timber, on the left flank of the police. Confused at finding themselves between two fires, their leader wounded – for Dayrell’s right arm still hung useless – the troopers, after a second ineffectual volley, wavered. Just then three figures appeared, standing on a rock which ran crossways to the narrow outlet by which alone could the police party mak’ retreat.

“At the second volley two troopers dropped, one mortally, the other severely, wounded. ‘Hold up your hands, if you don’t all want to be wiped out,’ shouted Bradfield.

“‘By the Lord! that’s Kate Lawless,’ said one of the troopers, pointing to a tall woman who waved a rifle and shouted defiance after the first volley was fired.

“‘And that’s Ned, or his ghost,’ said another. ‘I thought he was safe in Ballarat Gaol. How the h – l did they get here?’

“As he spoke, the two men on the rock took deliberate aim and fired, the Inspector in return firing his revolver with the left hand.

“The clean-shaved man dropped dead, wi’ a bullet through his head; Dayrell staggered for a few seconds and making an attempt to recover himself, sank to the earth. The woman sprang down from the rock, and rushing across the line of fire raised the dying man’s head from the ground and gazed into his face, in which the signs of fast-coming death were apparent.

“‘So this is the end of Inspector Frank Dayrell,’ she said, ‘trapped like a dingo by the poor devils he was hunting down. I told you you’d repent it, if you didn’t let us alone. And now my words have come true; the Lawless family gang’s broke up, but the bloodhound hasn’t much life in him neither. I sha’n’t last the year out, the old lot’s close up dead and done for, that was so jolly, and worked hard and straight, when we first came on Ballarat. Pity we took to ‘cross’ work, wasn’t it? Love – as they call it – ’ here she smiled a strange, sad smile, ‘then jealousy, revenge, false swearing, murder – Poor Lance! I did him cruel wrong, and but for you, you, Francis Dayrell, I’d never have sworn a word to harm him. It’s driven me mad – mad! do you hear, Frank Dayrell? Good-bye, till we meet in – in – the other place!’

“The firing was o’er, Dick Lawless now showed himself between the rock and the clear space where lay the dead trooper and Dayrell. The Inspector raised himself on one arm and with the last glimmer o’licht in his glazing e’en, looked full in the woman’s face, as he drawled out the words, ‘Au revoir! Kate, pleasant journey, inner circle of mine with the left, eh?’ The light faded out of his eyes with the last word, and falling back, he was dead when his head touched the ground. The woman gazed for one moment on the still face; then in obedience to a sign from her brother, walkit over to him, and, mounting their horses, they rode away into the forest thegither. The police couldna but see they were ootnummered. Their leader and one trooper dead; anither was badly wounded. Four men – one barely able to sit on a horse – were no match for six.

“‘See here, men,’ said Bradfield, a tall, powerful native chiel wi’ a black beard, a grand bushman, too; ‘this here battle’s over, you’re euchred, your boss expected to catch us on the hop, and he’s been took himself. He was a game chap, and we don’t owe him no grudge, nor you either, though he went a bit out of his way in leavin’ his own district to collar another officer’s game. He didn’t reckon on Ned and Dick Lawless, and it’s them that knocked over his wicket. A fair fight’s righto, but it don’t do even for a policeman to get hisself disliked.’

“‘I say, Jim, the horses are up; are yer goin’ to preach here till the military’s called out?’

“‘All right, Jack, there’s no hurry. What’s to be done with the dead men? There’s Inspector Dayrell, our poor cove, and Ned Lawless. We can’t leave ’em here.’

“‘The police must pack their mates,’ said the second in command, ‘we’ll take away ours. Where’s the nearest township, or graveyard, if it comes to that?’

“‘We can make Warradombee in twenty mile’; here spoke one of the police troopers. ‘It’s close to Grant’s head station.’

“‘All right, you’ve got your packers; strap on the Inspector, and that Goulburn native, and let ’em be buried decent. We’re not black fellows. We’ll carry our man, and bury him first chance. Ned must stay where he is – he’s better there than under the gaol yard. Like as not Dick and Kate’ll come back to him. They’ve not gone far. Well, you’d better load, and clear – we’ll give you a lift, as you’re short handed. Don’t sing a bigger song than you can help. Give us a day’s law, and then we don’t care what you do. We haven’t acted so bad to you.’

“‘No, by George, you haven’t,’ said the senior constable, ‘except killin’ the two of us, and you couldn’t help that, seein’ you was fightin’ for your lives, as the sayin’ is.’

“So the enemies (as I’m tauld) helped to raise the fallen men, and fasten them on their horses. It was a sad-looking troop, as they moved off, with their dead legs tied underneath, and at the knees, to the saddles, their heads bowed low on the horses’ necks, so that they couldna fall off. But the upper bodies, with heids swaying aboot in that dreadful guise, lookit awfu’ ghaistly. Little thocht Frank Dayrell that he wad ride his last ride in siccan a fashion. But nane can foretell his eend, nor the manner o’t.

“Bradfield’s lot cleared without loss o’ time, carrying with them their dead and wounded, until a convenient burial place was reached. This duty completed, they separated, to meet in the ‘Never Never Country,’ between Burke Town and ‘The Gulf,’ a ‘strange, vain land’ (as one has written) where ‘night is even as the day,’ and the decalogue is no that sariously regairded, as in longer settled communities.

“Although the tither ootlaws wadna chairge themselves with Ned Lawless’ funeral, it is no’ to be infaired that he was buried without a prayer, or that tears werena shed o’er his lonely unhallowed grave. As had been surmeesed, Kate and the younger brother returned after nightfall.

“It was nearly midnight, the moonrays lighted up the weird shadows of the ‘Ghost Camp,’ lately throbbing wi’ gunshots, oaths, cries and exclamations. Blood had been shed; life had been taken; now all was still and deserted looking.

“Tribe had met tribe in the old, old days, and with spear-thrust, nulla nulla and boomerang, had fought oot their conflicts, waged for pride, ambition or revenge. And always to the bitter end! Then came the white invader, with his iron axes, fine clothes and magical weapons, which slew before they touched. The sheep and cattle, such delicate morsels but which except a price was paid, too often that o’ bluid – they dared na’ take. Battles then were fought in which their bravest warriors fell; or if by chance they slew stockrider or shepherd, a sair harryin’ o’ the tribe followed.

CHAPTER IV

“Down, Jerry! Down, Driver!” said the bushman, “that’ll do, you’re making row enough to frighten all the cattle in the country.” By this time the guardians of the outpost had left off their clamour, and one of them, by jumping up and fawning on Blount, showed that he had gained their friendship. The older dog, not so demonstrative, had stains of blood on his mouth and chest. “Ha! Driver, you old villain, been behind those cattle yesterday? Now lie down, and let’s see if we can raise a fire and get some tea under weigh, before the boys come in.”

After unsaddling, and turning out their horses, they entered the hut, which, though not differing materially from the bush structures which Blount had already visited, was seen to be neater than usual in the internal arrangements. “Little-River-Jack” proceeded at once to business. By lighting twigs from a store of brush-wood, laid ready for such an emergency, and adding another to the smouldering logs at the back of the huge chimney he secured a cheerful blaze, calculated to warm through his shivering companion, and to provide him speedily with the comforting, universal beverage. Opening a rude locker, he took from it a tin dish containing corned beef and “damper,” also a couple of tin plates with knives and forks of democratic appearance, and a butcher’s knife which did duty for a carver.

“You see your dinner, Mr. Blount,” said he. “I daresay you’ve got an appetite this cold day; I know I have. Help yourself, the billy’s boiling, I’ll put in the tea.” Suiting the action to the word, he took a handful of tea out of a bag hanging by a nail in the wall, and placing a pannikin of sugar on the table, invited his guest to help himself and fall to.

“It’s not quite up to the breakfast we had this morning,” he said; “but I’ve had worse many a time; tucker like this will carry a man a long way when he’s on the road or at regular work.”

This statement, more or less correct, was confirmed by the performance of both wayfarers, Mr. Blount plying a remarkably good knife and fork, besides disposing of a wedge of damper, and washing the whole down with a couple of pints of hot tea.

The fire was by this time in steady glow. Stretching his legs before it, and indulging in a luxurious smoke, the tourist expressed his opinion that he had known more artistic cookery, but had never enjoyed a meal more.

Mr. John Carter, the while, had washed and replaced the plates and pannikins; also rearranged the beef and bread with a deftness telling of previous experience. This duty concluded, they awaited the return of the gold-diggers.

“They don’t come in while there’s light to work by,” he explained; “the days are that short now, that unless you’re at it early and late there ain’t much to show for it.”

The twilight had faded into all but complete darkness when the dogs growled in a non-committal way, as though merely to indicate human approach without resenting it. “It’s my pals comin’,” the bushman observed; and, closely following the words, footsteps were heard, and a big, bearded, roughly-dressed man entered the hut. “Hullo! Jack, you’re here, and this is the gentleman from England,” he continued, fixing a bold, penetrating glance upon Blount. “Glad to see you, sir! This is a rough shop; but we’ve got fair tucker, and firewood’s plenty. We’ll soon show you the ins and outs of gold-digging, if that’s what you want to see. Jack got you a feed, I expect; fill up the billy, old man, while we get a wash.”

Seizing a handful of rough towels, and a bag which hung near the head of the bunk in the corner to the right of the speaker, he went out into the night; while certain splashing noises told that face and hands’ cleaning was in progress.

Little more than ten minutes had elapsed, when the speaker, accompanied by three other men, re-entered the hut, and after an informal mention of names to the stranger, sat down to the table, where they went to work at the beef and damper, with strict attention to business. Mr. Blount had an opportunity while they were thus engaged of a complete inspection. Though roughly dressed, there was nothing unpleasing to the educated eye about their appearance.

They wore red or blue woollen shirts, rough tweed or moleskin trousers, and heavy miners’ boots. All had beards more or less trimmed, and wore their hair rather short than long.

Three of the party were tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular; the fourth was middle-sized, slight and active-looking. He wore only a fair moustache, and seemed younger than the others. Commencing to make conversation at once, he was evidently regarded as the wit of the party.

“So you’re back again, Jack, old man!” he said, addressing the guide with a half-humorous, half-cynical expression. “Goin’ to and fro on the earth, seekin’ what you might – well, not devour exactly, but pick up in a free and easy, genteel sort o’ way, like the old chap we used to be so frightened of when we were kiddies. Don’t hear so much about him now, do we? Wonder why? He ain’t dead, or played out, what d’ye make of it?”

“You seem to take a lot of interest in him, Dick,” said the guide. “Been readin’ sermons, or beginnin’ to think o’ your latter end? Lots of time for that.”

“Well, not so much that way, but I’m seriously thinkin’ o’ clearin’ out o’ this part o’ the country and tryin’ another colony. It’s too dashed cold and wet here. I’m afraid of my precious health. I hear great talks of this West Australian side – Coolgardie, or something like that – where it never rains, hardly, and they’re getting gold in buckets’ full.”

“You’re doin’ middlin’ well here, Dick,” said one of the other men in a dissuasive tone of voice. “The lead’s sure to widen out as it gets deeper and junctions with the Lady Caroline. Why don’t you have patience, and see it out?”

“Well, haven’t I been waitin’ and waitin’, and now I’m full up; made up my mind to sell out. If any one here will give me twenty notes for my fourth share of the claim after this divide, I’m up to take it.”

“I’ll buy it,” said Mr. Blount impulsively. “I should like to have a turn at real mining, and this seems a fair chance.”

“Done with you, sir; we can write out an agreement here now. You’ll have a fourth share in the hut and tools, won’t he, mates?”

The men nodded assent. “Going cheap, Jack, isn’t it?”

“Dirt cheap, and no mistake. Mr. Blount never made a better bargain. I’ll cash his cheque on Melbourne, so you can clear to-morrow, Dick, though I think you’re a fool for your pains. We’ll witness the agreement here, and he can hold your miner’s right till he gets a transfer from the Registrar at Bunjil.”

This transaction, concluded with ease and celerity, seemed to meet with general approbation. Mr. Blount was charmed with his business insight, which had enabled him to seize upon an opportunity of joining a “bona fide going concern” in regular work.

“How’s the ‘Lady Julia’ been behaving lately?” inquired Jack Carter.

“Well, here’s the fortnight’s clean up, close on twelve ounces, I should say. Might be better, but it’s more than tucker, three ounces a man, say £40 for two weeks’ work. The month before it was £60, and of course, there’s a chance of a nugget, or a make in the lead, any day!”

“A nugget’s a lump of gold, isn’t it? What size are they?” queried the new partner.

“Any size from a pound to a hundredweight. A Chinaman turned up one worth £230 just after we came, at Back Creek,” answered the big miner; “in old ground, too. Of course, they’re not everyday finds. But there’s always a chance. That’s what makes digging so jolly excitin’, a party can always keep themselves if they work steady, and then there’s the off-chance of a big slice of luck comin’ their way.”

“I should think it did,”, assented the stranger, heartily. “A free life, perfect independence, healthy occupation. It will suit me down to the ground.”

“Early to bed and early to rise is another of the advantages given in with the honest miner’s business,” said the young man called Dick. “A feller’s so jolly tired if he’s been amusin’ himself with a pick and shovel all day, or even the cradle, that by the time he’s had tea, and a smoke, he’s glad to get to his bunk for fear he should go to sleep, like a trooper’s horse, all standin’. So Mr. Blount had better collar my bunk, which I hereby make over to him, along with my share of the ‘Lady Julia’ claim and tools, cradle, and one-fourth interest in the perlatial residence, as the auctioneers say. I’ll doss near the fire along with Jack. Mr. Blount’s got his own blankets, so that’ll be all right.”

Suiting the action to the word, Dick dragged his blankets and a few articles of attire from the bunk indicated, including a weather-worn leather valise into which he stuffed the smaller matters.

Arranging his blankets near the fire, he made a pillow of the valise, and removing his boots and coat, lit his pipe, and lay down on the earthen floor, pulling the blankets over him, and apparently quite prepared for a sound night’s rest. “Good-night all!” were his parting words.

“I’ll say good-night, too,” said Little-River-Jack, undoing the swag, which he had carried in the front of his saddle during the day’s journey, and which seemed chiefly composed of a pair of serviceable blue blankets. “Dick and I’ll take the claim by the chimney. I’ll put on a back log, to keep us all warm, and do to boil the billy to-morrow morning. So I’ll say good-night, Mr. Blount, and wish you luck now, as I’ll be off before daylight. I’d not get up, if I was you, it’s shivering cold till the sun’s up.”

The three men who were now Mr. Blount’s “mates” (or partners) in the claim lost no time in depositing themselves in their separate sleeping places, removing only the more necessary articles of clothing.

Mr. Blount sat before the fire for half an hour, lost in thought, before arraying himself in a suit of pyjamas, which would have excited the admiration of his companions had they been awake. Their regular breathing, however, denoted that such was not the case, and he, too, after a decent interval, abandoned his unwonted environment for the land of mystery and enchantment which men call sleep.

Next morning the clatter of tin plates, and other accompaniments, upon the literal “board” which stood for the table and all appurtenances, aroused the new partner from a profound slumber.

The dim light of a cloudy dawn was struggling with the smoky flame of a tallow lamp of rude shape. The “billy” full of hot tea had just been placed upon the table by the acting cook, who had previously disposed a tin dish containing fried beef steaks beside it.

Snatching up his towel and sponge bag, the stranger made a rush for the creek bank, where a rude stage permitted him to indulge in a copious sluicing of his head, neck and shoulders.

Ice-cold as was the water, he achieved a glow after a vigorous application of his rough towel, and dressing in haste, was able to dispose of his share of the meal more or less creditably.

With more consideration than might have been expected, the dish of steaks had been put down by the fire and kept warm in his absence.

“I shall not over-sleep myself another morning,” he said, apologetically, “but I suppose the long day did tire me a bit. It was awfully slow too, stumbling over those rocky tracks. I shall be in better trim shortly.”

“Expect you will,” said the big digger, “a man’s always soft for the first week, specially if he hasn’t been used to the life. We’ll start for the claim, soon’s you’re through with breakfast; Jack and Dick’s off hours ago. There were cattle to take back, left here for the butcher.” He now remembered as in a dream having heard a dog bark, and a whip crack, in the middle of the night, as it seemed to him.

“Early birds,” he remarked sententiously; after which, finishing his second pannikin of tea, he expressed himself as ready for the road.

The mists were clearing from the mountain-side, which lay dark and frowning between the little party and the East, but ere long the curving shoulders of the range became irradiated. A roseate glow suffused the pale snow crown, transmuting it gradually into a jewelled coronet, while the mountain flanks became slowly illumined, exhibiting the verdant foot-hills, in clear contrast with the sombre, illimitable forest. As the sun’s disc became fully apparent, all Nature seemed to greet with gladness the triumph of the Day-god. The birds chirped and called in the dense underwoods through which the narrow path wound.

Flights of water-fowl high overhead winged their way to distant plains and a milder air. A rock kangaroo, cleared the streamlet with a bound and fled up the hillside like a mountain hare. A cloud of cockatoos flitted ghost-like across the tree-tops, betraying by an occasional harsh cry the fact that a sense of harmony had been omitted, when their delicately white robes were apportioned to them. As the sun gained power and brilliancy, Mr. Blount found the path easy to follow and his spirits began to rise.

“How far to the claim?” he asked.

One of the miners pointed to a hillock of yellow and red earth by the side of which a rude stage had been erected, and a rope wound around, from which depended a raw hide bucket.

Moving up, he was aware of a shaft sunk to a depth of fifty or sixty feet; from appearances, the precious metal had been extracted by rude appliances on the bank of the creek, still running briskly through the little flat.

“I’m the captain of this claim,” said the big miner, “elected by a majority of the shareholders, so, till I’m turned out, I’ll have all the say.” The other diggers nodded. “You’re new to the game, mister, so I’ll give you the easiest show to begin with. Later on, you can tackle the pick and shovel. We three go below, one at a time, you see how it’s done, and be middlin’ careful: there’s a man’s life on the rope every time, and if you let the windlass run away with you, out he goes! Next man in.”

Sitting down on the “brace,” the miner took hold of the hide rope above his head with both hands, while one of the others at the windlass began to lower him slowly down, a short strong piece of pointed timber, referred to as the “sprag,” being inserted into the roller, through which the hide rope ran, in order to check its velocity, and give the man at the windlass control.

Blount looking down, saw him gradually descend, until the bottom of the shaft was reached. The second man was lowered. When the third with his foot in a bight of the rope prepared to descend, he felt a little nervous, which the miner was quick to observe. “Don’t be afraid of killin’ me, mate! just hold on to the windlass-handle like grim death. It’ll come easy after a bit.” He laughed as he commenced to descend, saying, “When you hear this tin arrangement clap together, it means ‘haul away.’”

Mr. Blount was most careful, and finding that he could manage the windlass easily, with the help of the “sprag” aforesaid, became more confident. The next excitement was when the clapper sounded, and he began to haul up. But the weight below seemed to be too great. The rope refused to draw up the bucket. Then he noticed that the “sprag” was still in the roller.

Smiling at his mistake he took it out, and immediately began to haul up. Though a good pull it was not a difficult task for an athletic young man, in high health and spirits. So he bent his back to the work, and presently the hide bucket, filled with yellow and red clay, came to the surface; this he drew on one side, and tilted over on to the “tip” or “mullock” heap, having to that extent been instructed. Lowering it again he continued the somewhat monotonous work, without cessation, till noon, when a double note on the clapper warned him that his mates desired to revisit upper air. This ascent accomplished safely, the billy was boiled, and dinner, so called, notwithstanding the early hour, was disposed of.

“My word! you’re gettin’ on fine, mate,” said the big miner, “and that reminds me, what are we to call you? You needn’t trouble about your real name, if you want to keep it dark. Many a good man’s had to do that hereabouts. Anyway, on a goldfield it’s no one’s business but the owner’s, but we must call you somethin’!”

“Call me Jack Blunt. It’s near enough for the present.”

“All right, Blunt; now you’re christened,” said the big miner. “Phelim O’Hara’s mine, and these other chaps are my brother Pat and George Dixon; we’re all natives, only as he’s Lancashire by blood we call him ‘Lanky’ for short; we may’s well go down now, and you can do a bit of pick and shovel work for a change.”

Mr. Blount considered it to be a change in the fullest sense of the word when he found himself dangling between earth and sky, with his leg in the loop of a rope, having a great inclination to turn round and round, which he combated by thrusting his leg against the side of the shaft. He realised a feeling akin to that of being lowered over a cliff, which he had read of in boyhood, reflecting, too, that he had no more real security than a man in that embarrassing position. Still the narrow shaft had an appearance of safety, which in his case prevented vertigo. The pick and shovel work was not hard to comprehend. He did his best, though easily outpaced by his mates.

In a week’s time he found himself quite au fait at the work, while improving daily in wind and muscle. “Capital training for a boat-race,” he said, “only there’s no water hereabouts, except this little brook, but we don’t seem to be getting rich very fast, do we, George?”

George was sententious. He had been a navvy. The best worker of the party, he was slow of speech, and disinclined to argue on abstract matters.

“Forty or fifty pound a fortnight for four of us ain’t so bad,” he growled out.

Not only was Mr. Blount himself becoming accustomed to this unfamiliar mode of life, but his cob, though he did not take kindly to the mountaineering work, as we have seen, became familiarised to being turned out with the claim horses and foregathered with them amicably. However, one afternoon, when they were brought in for a ride, as it was too wet to work, the cob, now fat and frolicsome, was reported missing.

His master was much annoyed and alarmed at this state of affairs. However, Phelim O’Hara volunteered to stay at home, and moreover to lend him his horse on which to search for the defaulter. Mr. Blount eagerly accepted the offer, and lost no time in going off to hunt for “John Gilpin” as the cob was facetiously named. Unlike a bushman, he rode hither and thither, not troubling himself about tracks, or keeping a course in any given direction.

The consequence was that towards nightfall he found himself several miles from camp, or indeed any landmark which he had passed in the early part of the day. He was, however, sensible enough to follow a creek, which eventually led him to the river; between which and the hilly country he had been traversing, he saw a piece of level country on which several wild horses were grazing.

He was attracted by the appearance of a handsome grey stallion, who appeared to be the leader and, so to speak, commander of the “manada,” around which he trotted or galloped, driving in the mares and colts, and indeed, with open mouth and threatening heels, forcing them to keep within bounds.

Suddenly there was the sound of a rifle shot from the side of the forest nearest to the troop. The leader gave a sudden bound forward, then dropped on his haunches. He made several unavailing attempts to rise.

Struck in the region of the spine, he was evidently paralysed. He reared himself on his fore-legs but was unable to move forward, more than once neighing piteously. The mares and foals had fled like a herd of deer at the sound of the gun, but following the habit of these steeds of the mountain parks, though “wild as the wild deer, and untamed,” came timidly back, and stood near their lord and master. As the hinds and fawns are unwilling to leave the death-stricken stag, so these descendants of man’s noblest servant refused to quit the spot where the monarch of their kingdom lies wounded to the death. They circled around him until another shot from the invisible marksman pealed forth, and a fine black mare, with a young foal, dropped dead near the wounded sire.

They scattered afresh at this new stroke of fate; Mr. Blount wondering much whether they would return. But the grey whinnied from time to time, making frantic efforts to reach the dead mare – all vainly. He swung round on his fore-legs but was unable to do more.

His struggles became tremendous, his agonised distress piteous to behold. Bathed in sweat and foam he seemed ready to succumb with terror and exhaustion, as he sunk sideways till his head, lying prone upon the grass, nearly touched that of his dead mate. Then again the deadly weapon rang out, and another victim, this time a frolicsome chestnut filly, fell to the unerring aim of the marksman, as before, invisible. Mr. Blount felt a disinclination to move from his position, not knowing exactly how near he might be to the concealed hunter’s line of fire.

At length, as nearly all the “mob” were down, a tall man in a Norfolk jacket of tweed with knickerbockers and gaiters to match, walked forth from behind an immense eucalyptus. He was plainly dressed, though Mr. Blount discerned a distinction in his air and bearing which convinced him that the man was no stockrider. He carried a Winchester magazine rifle, from which he sent a bullet into the head of the wounded horse, thus putting an end to his sufferings, and leaving him lying dead amid the females of his court.

The accost of the hunter was not markedly cordial as Mr. Blount stated that it was a lovely morning, and that the scene before him reminded him of a battlefield.

“Indeed!” he replied, with a certain amount of hauteur. “May I ask the favour of your name? and also what you are doing on this part of my run?”

“Your run! I was led to believe that I was on the area of Crown land, open, as such, to all travelling on lawful business. My name is Blount. May I ask in return for yours? As to my business, I am at present looking for a strayed horse.”

“Was he a bay cob with a short tail and hogged mane, a letter and number on the near shoulder?”

“That is his exact description.”

“Then he is safe,” said the stranger. “He had joined the station horses and was run in with them this morning. He is now in my paddock, as I assumed that he had strayed from his owner, and was making his way down to the river. My name is Edward Bruce of Marondah, which is not more than fifteen miles distant. You had better come home with me; I shall be happy to put you up for the night, and you can take your horse back in the morning.”

The day was drawing to a close. It was a long way to the claim, and Blount was by no means sure that he could find his way back or even pick up his own tracks.

“I think,” he replied, “that I can’t do better than accept your offer, for which I feel most grateful.”

“There is no real obligation, believe me,” said Mr. Bruce.

“But where is your horse?” said Blount, looking at the stranger’s serviceable leggings.

“Not far, you may be sure, and in safe keeping; my gillie is pretty handy.” Putting two fingers to his mouth, he gave the drover’s whistle, with such volume and shrillness that it might have been heard at a considerable distance. After a short interval, a high wailing sort of cry (the Australian aboriginal call) came floating through the forest, and a black boy galloped up, riding one horse, and leading another of such superior shape and action that Blount thought it criminal to run the risk of injuring him in such rough country.

The black boy led the horse to his master, but did not offer to dismount, or hold the stirrup, as an English groom would have done. Nor did such attention appear necessary, as Mr. Bruce mounted with alacrity, and motioning the boy to ride ahead followed at a brisk trot through the forest and along the rocky cattle tracks, which, though occasionally running in different directions, converged, and appeared to lead almost due south. All the while, the son of the forest sitting loose-reined and carelessly on his horse, never deviated apparently from his course, or was in doubt for a moment.

In less than two hours, when the light was becoming uncertain, and the chill evening air of these Australian highlands apparent, a chorus of baying dogs of all ages, sizes and descriptions announced the vicinity of the homestead. At the same time, the winding course of a full fed mountain stream was revealed.

On a promontory which seemed to have dissociated itself from the forest glades, and been arrested just above the broad river meadow, stood a roomy bungalow protected by wide verandahs from sun and storm.

“This is Marondah!” said Mr. Bruce, not without a certain air of dignity – “allow me to welcome you to my home.” A black girl came running up at the moment, who showed her enviably white and regular teeth in a smile of greeting, as in a matter-of-fact way she unstrapped the guest’s valise, and led off his horse.

“You put ’em yarraman longa stable,” commanded the squatter – for such he was. “Your horse will be all right. Polly is as good a stable hand as Paddy – a turn better, I sometimes think. She’s a clever ‘gin’ all round. Ah! I see Mrs. Bruce.”

As they walked forward, a lady came through the garden gate, and met them – receiving the guest with cordiality – then turning to her husband.

“You’re rather late, Ned! What kept you? I’m always nervous when you’re out at that end of the run!”

“Well, if you must know, I found the grey horse’s mob, which I’ve been tracking for some time – and got them all – a real bit of luck. Then I fell in with Mr. Blount, who was looking for that smart cob that came in with our horses this morning. Luckily for him, as it turns out.”

“So it was. Did you shoot the poor things? I always feel so sorry for them.”

“Of course I did; they’re more trouble than all the other ‘brumbies’ on the run, galloping about, smashing fences, destroying dams, and wasting grass, for the use of which I pay the Crown rent.”

“Yes, a farthing an acre!” laughed the lady. “All the same, it’s very cruel – don’t you think so, Mr. Blount? What would they say in England of such barbarous work?”

“It would raise a scandal, Mrs. Bruce; but everything depends on the value of the animal, apart from the sentiment.”

Thus conversing, they walked through the garden, which was encompassed by an orchard of venerable age. It stretched to the river bank, along which a line of magnificent willows partly over-arched the stream with graceful, trailing foliage, while the interlaced roots performed valuable service in supporting the banks in time of flood.

Passing along the broad verandah, vine and trailer-festooned, they entered a hall, of which the door seemed permanently open.

The walls were garnished with whips, guns on racks (where Mr. Bruce carefully placed his redoubtable Winchester), the great wings of the mountain eagle, the scarlet and jet tail-feathers of the black macaw, and the sulphur-coloured crests of his white relative. These, and other curios of the Waste, relieved the apartment of any appearance of bareness, while avoiding incongruity of ornamentation. Passing into a large, comfortably-furnished room, where preparations for the evening meal were in evidence, the host pointed to a spirit-stand on the sideboard, and suggesting that a tot of whisky would not be inappropriate after a long day, invited his guest to join him. This offer Mr. Blount frankly accepted, as, besides being tired with a long, dragging ride, he felt nearly as cold as if he had been deer-shooting in the Scottish Highlands, instead of this southern mountain land.

He had donned the riding-suit in which he had arrived at Bunjil, and had also packed necessaries of travel in his valise, in case he might have to stay a day at a decent house. This sensible precaution (never needless in the wildest solitudes of Australia) now stood him in good stead. And he felt truly thankful, after being ushered into a comfortable bedroom, that he had resisted the temptation to start off without them. He was enabled, therefore, to issue forth reasonably fitted for the society of ladies, and the enjoyment of the hospitality of the period. So that, when shown into another room smaller than the first he had entered, but more ornate as to furniture, he felt comparatively at ease, notwithstanding the roughness of his late surroundings.

Mrs. Bruce was already there, and, rising from a sofa, said —

“Allow me, Mr. Blount, to introduce you to my sister Imogen.”

A tall girl had at this moment arisen, not previously referred to by his host or the lady of the house.

It was not an introduction – it was a revelation, as Blount subsequently described the interview. Mrs. Bruce was a handsome woman, tall and stately, as are many Australians, possessing, withal, fine natural manners improved by travel, and she might reasonably have been expected to possess a good-looking sister. For so much Blount stood prepared. But this divinity of the waste – this Venus Anadyomene – was above and beyond all expectation, all imagination or conception. He gazed at her, as he confessed to himself, with an expression of unconventional surprise; for Imogen Carrisforth was, indeed, a girl that no man with the faintest soupçon of taste or sentiment could behold without admiration.

Mrs. Bruce was dark-haired, with fine eyes to match, distinctly aristocratic as to air and carriage; her sister was fair, with abundant nut-brown hair shot with warmer hues, which shone goldenly as the lamplight fell across it. It was gathered in masses above her forehead and around her proudly-poised head, as she smiled a welcome to the stranger with the hospitably frank accost which greets the guest so invariably in an Australian country home. While looking into the depths of her brilliant hazel eyes, Blount almost murmured “O, Dea certe!” while doubting if he had ever before beheld so lovely a creature.

Mrs. Bruce attributed his evident surprise to the fact of his not having been informed of the fact of a second lady being at the house. “Ned ought to have told you,” she said, “that my sister was staying with us. She has just come from town, where she has been at school. She is so tall that really it seemed absurd to keep her there any longer.”

“You forget that I am eighteen,” said the young lady under observation. “My education should be finished now, if ever.”

“Indeed, I’m afraid you won’t learn much more,” said her brother-in-law, paternally, “though I’m not sure that another year under Miss Charters would not have been as well.”

“Oh! but I did pine so for the fresh air of the bush – the rides and drives and everything. I can’t bear a town life, and was growing low-spirited.”

“How about the opera, balls, the Cup Day itself, at your age too?” interposed Blount.

“All very well in their way. But society in town seems one unmeaning round with the same people you meet always. One gets dead tired of it all. I must have gipsy blood in me, I think, for the gay greenwood has a fascination, which I feel, but can’t explain.”

During dinner, Blount found Mrs. Bruce most agreeable, and, indeed, entertaining. He learned something too about the neighbours, none of whom were nearer than ten miles. Some, indeed, much farther off. It was also explained to him that the region of the Upper Sturt was not all rock and forest, swamp and scrub, but that there were rich tablelands at “the back,” which might be north or north-east. Also that the country became more open “down the river,” as well as, in a sense, more civilised, “though we don’t call ourselves very barbarous,” she added, with a smile.

“Barbarous, indeed!” repeated the guest, with well-acted indignation. “You seem to me to have all the accessories, and more of them than we in that old-fashioned country called England. Here you have books, papers, all the comforts and many of the luxuries of the Old Land, besides a free, unfettered existence, independence, and no earthly annoyance or danger.”

“I am not so sure about the last items,” said Mrs. Bruce. “Ned has been worrying himself lately about a gang of men who call themselves miners, but are more than suspected to be cattle-stealers. He has missed valuable animals lately.”

“You surprise me!” replied Blount, with a shocked expression. “The bush people whom I have come across have appeared to be such simple, hard-working fellows. But surely Mr. Bruce doesn’t apprehend danger from gold-diggers or drovers? They are so civil and well-mannered too.”

“Their manners are good enough; better, people tell us, than those of the same class at home. But they are not always to be trusted, and are revengeful when thwarted in their bad practices. Edward has more than once been warned to be more careful about riding alone near their haunts in the ranges, though he always goes armed.”

“But surely none of the ‘mountain men,’ as I have heard them called, would lie in wait for Mr. Bruce, or any other proprietor, even if he was unpopular, which I feel certain Mr. Bruce is not?”

“There is no saying. Blood has been shed in these mountains before now, peaceful as they appear. However, Edward never stirs out in that direction without his rifle, and you have seen him shoot. He has no fear, but I cannot feel free from anxiety myself. And now I think we must go into the drawing-room, or wrap up and sit in the verandah while you men smoke; what do you say, Imogen?”

“I vote for the verandah. There’s no wind, and the moon is nearly full. It’s tolerably cool; but dry cold never hurts any one. Indeed, it’s said to be the new cure for chest ailment at Davos Platz, isn’t it, Edward?”

“They say so. Doctors are always changing their theories. I prefer a climate that’s moderately cosy myself. But we must have our smoke, and you girls can talk to us, if you keep to low tones and modulated expressions.”

Blount would have vowed to renounce tobacco for the rest of his natural life if but Miss Imogen would sit by him. The moon had risen, flooding the dark woods and river pools with silver radiance. Could they but continue to listen dreamily to the rhythmic murmur of the stream, the softly-sighing, complaining sound of the trailing willows as from time to time the river current lifted them – what had life to compare with such sensations? However, this idyllic joy was in its nature fleeting, as it became apparent that the frosty air “was really too keen for reasonable people who had colds to consider and babies.” So Mrs. Bruce, thus remonstrating, arose, and with two words, “Come, Imogen!” made for one of the French windows which opened from the drawing-room to the verandah. When they entered that comfortable, well-furnished apartment – a handsome Blüthner piano stood open, with music conveniently close – Mr. Bruce quasi-paternally ordered Imogen to sing, in order that he might judge what progress she had made during the half year.

So they had a song, another, several indeed to finish up with. Mr. Blount admitted a slight knowledge of music, and even took a creditable second in one of Miss Carrisforth’s songs. The night wore on, until just before ten o’clock, a neat maid brought in a tray with glasses, and the wherewithal to fill the same. The ladies declining refreshment, said good-night, and left Mr. Bruce and his guest to have their final smoke, hoping that they would not sit up too late, as they must feel tired after their long day’s ride.

The night was glorious, the moon, nearly at its full, had floated into the mid-heaven. The cloudless, dark blue sky seemed to be illumined with star clusters and planets of greater lustre than in ordinary seasons. As they smoked silently, Blount listening to the river gurgling and rippling over its pebbly shallows, the sharp contrast of his surroundings with those he had so lately quitted, indeed even with those during the penultimate sojourn at Bunjil, struck him so forcibly that he could hardly repress a smile.

However he merely remarked – “Australia is certainly a land of wonders – my friends in England will not believe half my adventures when I tell them.”

“I can quite understand that,” replied his host. “When I returned to my native place, after ten years’ absence, mine showed signs of utter disbelief in my smaller experiences, while hazardous tales were swallowed without hesitation.”

Mr. Blount rose early and was rewarded by a view of the dawnlight suffusing the eastern horizon with pale opaline tints, gradually increasing in richness and variety of colouring. Roseate golden clouds were marshalled around the summit of the snow-crowned alp, and even the darksome forest aisles responded to the divine informing waves of light and life.

He was aroused from reverie as he gazed upon the wondrous apparition by resounding whips and the roll of hoofs, as the station horses were being run into the yard. The cob was easily distinguished by his cropped tail and mane, while, refreshed by rest and freedom, he galloped and kicked up his heels, as if he had been reared in the bush, instead of in a suburban paddock. Mr. Blount also witnessed his being caught and conveyed to the stable, in company with Mr. Bruce’s favourite hackney, and another distinguished-looking animal. With respect to the last-named, Paddy said that one “belong’n Miss Immie,” volunteering further information to this effect.

“My word! that one missy ride fustrate.” Storing this encomium in his mind, Mr. Blount repaired to his apartment, where he made all ready for departure, resolving not to remain longer away from his associates in the “Lady Julia,” however great the temptation.

This came at breakfast time, when Mrs. Bruce invited him to stay a few days, when they would show him their best bits of scenery and otherwise try to amuse him. There was a muster of fat cattle coming on, which was always held to be an interesting spectacle to visitors from the other side of the world. Mr. Bruce was convinced that he would acquire more colonial experience in a week at this particular time, than half a year would show him at a different season. A few neighbours would come over – very decent fellows, and fair specimens of Australian country gentlemen. It would be a regular “house-party,” as they say in England. The opportunity should not be lost.

Miss Imogen did not join in the endeavour to tempt Mr. Blount from the path of duty, but she looked as if such a deflection from the narrow way would meet with her approval. After his very courteous, but distinct expression of regret, that he was compelled by a business engagement to decline – with how much reluctance, he could hardly say – their most kind and flattering invitation, the request was not pressed, and the remainder of the breakfast passed off in a lively interchange of the pleasantries proper to the occasion.

“We are going to speed the parting guest, if he will not honour our abode any longer,” said Mrs. Bruce, playfully; “but we must do it after our own fashion. My husband, Imogen and I, will ride with you for part of the way – indeed nearly as far as where you met Ned yesterday, if you don’t mind?”

“Mind,” replied the guest, with a look of surprised gratitude, which caused Miss Imogen to smile and blush. “Nothing could possibly give me greater pleasure.”

“So that’s settled,” said Bruce. “I’ll order the horses round; we’ll take Paddy with us, who may as well lead your cob till we part company, and I’ll mount you on one of the best hacks in this district, or any other. It will save your horse, and as you’re likely to have a long day that’s a consideration.”

“How you are adding to my load of obligation; I shall never be able to repay half the debt.”

“Time enough when we meet again,” said the host, “but we’ve none to spare at present. So, Imogen, ten minutes and no more to put on your habit.”

“Five will do,” said the girl, as she laughingly ran out of the room, to reappear gloved, hatted, and turned out in a most accurately-fitting habit as the horses were led up.

Her brother-in-law put his hand under her dainty foot, and lifted her lightly into the saddle, while the bright chestnut mare sidled, and arched her neck, as she felt the lightest of hands on her bridle rein. Mr. Bruce guaranteed that the hunter-looking bay detailed for his guest’s use was “prompt in his paces, cool and bold” like Bevis, upon whom the spectre knight’s night-ride had such an unfortunate effect, while he himself mounted the favourite steed which his guest had remarked at their first meeting, saying: “You don’t often see a better-looking lot together; as good, too, as they are good-looking.” Mr. Blount was convinced of the justice of this valuation, and thought that the statement might even be applied to the riders. Paddy, on a veteran stock horse, brought up the rear leading the cob, whose short tail and hogged mane excited Polly’s unmeasured ridicule: “Mine thinkit, that one pfeller brother belongin’ to pig,” and seized with the comicality of the idea, she exploded in fits of laughter, as casting lingering looks of regret at the receding cavalcade, she walked soberly back to the huts.

“These two horses are the fast walkers of the party, Mr. Blount,” began the fair Imogen, as the clever hackney she rode started off at so fast a pace as to incur the suspicion of ambling. “Ned and his henchman, Paddy, will go rambling ahead or on a parallel, looking for strange tracks, denoting trespassers on the run, strayed cattle, indeed found sometimes before they are lost, that is by the lawful owners. The life of the owner of a cattle station is often ‘not a happy one.’ It is surprising how many kinds of annoyances, risks and anxieties, he may suffer from.”

“Mr. Bruce doesn’t look as if he suffered from any of the ills of life,” said Blount, gazing at his fair companion, as who should say, “How could any man be unhappy who has such a charming sister-in-law, not to mention a delightful wife and a nice baby?” However he did not wish for a catalogue of his host’s annoyances. He wanted to hear his companion’s appreciation of the grand scheme of colour, tone, light and shadow, just opening out before them, as the “glorious sun uprist” amid clouds which had recently rolled away, leaving full in view the forest-clothed uplands, the silent gorges, and the glittering summit of the majestic alp.

Right joyous are the pastimes connected with horse and hound in the older land whence our fathers came, amid the wide pastures, the hedge-bordered fields of green England.

With the hog-spear and rifle on the dusty plains and sudden appearing nullahs of Hindostan, Arab and Waler, by riders of world wide fame, are hard pressed in rivalry. In equestrian tournaments, in the polo gymkhana, and other military contests, there are trials of skill and horsemanship, with a suspicion of danger, to stir a man’s blood. But a gallop through the glades of an Australian forest, in the autumnal season of the year, or even in the so-called mid-winter under the cloudless skies and glowing sun of the southern hemisphere, yields to no sport on earth, in keenness of enjoyment or the excitement generated by the pride of horsemanship.

When the company is illumined by a suitable proportion of dames and demoiselles, right royally mounted, and practised in the manège, the combination is perfect.

CHAPTER V

And, in the joyous days of youth, the glorious, the immortal, the true, the ever-adorable deity of the soul’s childhood, unheeding, careless of the future, thinking, like charity, no evil, revelling in the purely sensuous enjoyment of the fair present, which of the so-called pleasures of the future can claim equality of richness or flavour, with those of that unsurpassable period of the mysterious human pageant! “Carpe Diem!” oh! fortunate heir of life’s richest treasure-house, is the true, the only true philosophy. Enjoy, while the pulse is high, the vigour of manhood untouched by Time, the spirit unsaddened by distrust of the future.

For you, glows that cloudless azure; for you the streams murmur, the breezes sigh, the good horse bounds freely over the elastic sward; for you shine the eyes of the beauteous maiden with a fore-taste of the divine dream of love. Thank the kind gods, that have provided so bounteous a feast of soul and sense! Oh! happy thou, that art bidden to such a banquet of the immortals; quaff the ambrosia, while the light still glows on Olympus, and Nemesis is as yet an unimagined terror.

In the days which were to come, in the destiny which the Fates were even then weaving for him, Valentine Blount told himself that never in his whole life had so many conditions of perfect enjoyment been combined as in that memorable riding party.

The sun rays prophetic of an early summer, for which the men of a thousand shearing sheds were even now mustering, were warm, yet tempered by the altitude of the region and the proximity of the snow fields. All nature seemed to recognise the voice of spring. The birds came forth from their leafy coverts, their wild but not unmusical notes sounding strangely unfamiliar to the English stranger. An occasional kangaroo dashed across their path, flying with tremendous bounds to its home on the mountain side. A lot of half-wild cattle stood gazing for a few moments, then “cleared,” as Miss Imogen expressed it, for more secluded regions.

“I wonder if I could ‘wheel’ them,” she said, as her bright glance followed the receding drove; “I see Ned and Paddy on the other wing; Mr. Blount, you can follow, but don’t pass me, whatever you do;” and in spite of Mrs. Bruce’s prudential “Oh! Imogen, don’t be rash!” away went the wilful damsel, through the thickening timber, at a pace with which the visitor, excellently mounted as he was, on a trained stock-horse, found it no easy task to keep up. Directly this enterprising movement on the part of the young lady was observed by the watchful Paddy, he called to Mr. Bruce, “Miss Immy wheel ’em, my word. Marmy! you man’em this one piccanniny yarraman, me ‘back up.’” Paddy’s old stock horse dashed off at speed, little inferior to that of the young lady’s thoroughbred, and appeared on the “off side wing” just as the fair Diana had wheeled (or turned) the leaders to the right. Paddy riding up to them on the left and menacing with his stockwhip, caused them to turn towards Imogen. This manœuvre persevered with, was finally crowned with success; inasmuch as the two protagonists, working together and causing the drove to “ring” or keep moving in a circle, finally persuaded them to stop and be examined, when with heaving flanks they bore testimony to the severity of the pace.

Mrs. Bruce, with instinctive knowledge of the points of the situation, had kept quietly behind her guest, who so far from passing his fair pilot, found that it gave him enough to do to keep sight of her.

He did service however, if unconsciously, by keeping at a certain distance behind Imogen, which prevented the cattle from “breaking” or running back behind her. Mrs. Bruce had ridden quietly behind the rear guard, or “tail” (as provincially expressed), and as Mr. Bruce, though hampered with the cob, which he had caught and led along, kept his place between Mrs. Bruce and Paddy, the disposition was theoretically perfect, also successful, which in battles as well as in the lesser pursuits of the world is the great matter, after all.

“Upon my word, Imogen!” said Mr. Bruce, “you have given us a pretty gallop, and as these bullocks are fat, it can’t have done them much good. However,” riding round as he spoke, “it gives me a chance to look through them, and, Hulloa! By Jove! it’s as well I came here to-day, somebody has put a fresh brand on that black snail-horned bullock, J. C. just over the E. H. B.; I never sold that beast, I swear! And who the dickens has put those two letters on? Been done in a pen. You can see it’s put on from above.”

“Me see um fresh brand on one feller cow,” stated Paddy, with gravity and deliberation; “me thinkum might ‘duff’ bullock alonga Wild Horse Gully, me seeum track shod horse that one day marmy shootem brumbie.”

“All right, Paddy,” said his master, “you lookem out track nother one day.”

“My word!” replied Paddy, “me track um up jolly quick.”

Mr. Bruce seemed disconcerted by the discovery just made. It was not unimportant. He had suspected that he was losing cattle at this “end of the run,” among the ranges and broken country. He had not too good an opinion of the honesty of the small parties of miners who worked the gullies and creeks which led to the river. He supposed that they got a beast now and then, but was loath to believe that there was any organised system of plunder. Now, it was as plain as print that cattle were yarded in small numbers and branded, before they were delivered to the buyers, whoever they were. How many had been taken he could hardly venture to guess at. Cattle being worth from eight to twelve pounds a head, it would not take so many to be worth a thousand pounds. It made him look grave, as he said —

“I’m afraid, after this pleasant ride of ours, that it’s time for these ladies to get home. It will be past lunch-time when they sight Marondah, and Mrs. Bruce has family responsibilities, you know. However, I’ll send Paddy on with you till he puts you on a track which will lead to your destination.”

Mr. Blount was profuse in thanks, and exhausted himself in statements that he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life, and had a glorious gallop into the bargain; that it had given him quite a new idea of Australia, that he had been slow to believe the romantic tales he had heard about Australian bush-riders and their cross-country work. He was now in a position to confirm any such statement made, and to declare that Australian ladies, in science, coolness and courage, were equal to any horsewomen in any country in the world. He should never forget the hospitality he had received, nor the lessons in bushmanship. He trusted to revisit Marondah again before long, when he might, perhaps, be permitted to taste a more leisurely enjoyment of their fascinating country life.

Dismounting, he took leave of the ladies, assuring Mrs. Bruce that he should never forget her kindness and that of Mr. Bruce. If he was less diffuse in his explanations to Miss Imogen, it may have been that there was a warmth of his final hand-clasp, or an expression as their eyes met, before she turned her horse’s head and rejoined her friends, which was comparatively satisfactory.

The return stage was short, as Blount did not desire to take the hawk-eyed aboriginal too near the claim, much less within tracking distance of the stockyard. The fresh tracks of the unwilling cattle, forced into a strange and small enclosure, would be like a placard in large letters to the wildwood scout. Hence, as soon as he had land-marks to guide him, he dismissed his Hiberno-Australian attendant, who handed over the cob and departed with a cheerful countenance and a couple of half-crowns.

Left to himself, Mr. Blount rode slowly and heedfully along what he conceived to be the way to the claim, much exercised in his mind as to his line of conduct.

Putting together various incidents and unconsidered trifles, the conviction flashed across his mind that he had been involuntarily an associate of cattle-stealers, and it might well be believed an accomplice.

What position would be his if the whole gang were arrested, and he himself included in the capture? Could it be, during that ride with Little-River-Jack, that he had assisted to drive certain fat cattle afterwards sworn to be the property of Mr. Bruce of Marondah, and bearing his well-known brand “E. H. B.”? Could he deny that he had heard cattle put into the stockyard near the “Lady Julia” claim late in the evening, by John Carter (alias “Little-River-Jack”), and taken away before daylight?

He had received his share of the money for which the gold won in the claim where he had worked was sold, or said to be sold. How could he prove that it was not a part of the price of the stolen cattle? And so on. He felt like many another man innocent of evil, or thought of evil, that, with absurd credulity, and want of reasonable prudence, he had, to a certain degree, enmeshed himself – might, indeed, find it difficult, if not impossible, to get free from the consequences of a false accusation.

Perhaps it might have been his duty, in the interests of justice, to have acquainted Mr. Bruce with the circumstances of his sojourn at the claim with the O’Haras and Dixon (otherwise Lanky); also of the suspicious cattle-dealing. This would have simply amounted to “giving away” the men whose bread he was eating, and who were, however unfortunate the position, his “mates” and comrades. Mr. Bruce would, naturally, lose no time in setting the police to work. Then, Little-River-Jack had certainly saved his life on the “Razor-Back” ridge; another second or two and the cob with his rider would have been lying among the rocks below. One such accident did happen there, when man and horse went over, and were found dead and mangled. As for the two O’Haras and George Dixon, he had no sort of doubt now of their being mixed up with the taking of Mr. Bruce’s cattle – possibly of those of other squatters in his neighbourhood. Of the men who brought the cattle to the yard, he, of course, had no knowledge, and could have none. In the half-darkness of the winter dawn he could only dimly discern a couple of horsemen, one of whom appeared to ride on with Jack Carter, the other returning.

He was glad now that he had not seen them near enough for identification. He was close to the claim now, having hit upon the track, which he remembered was only a few miles distant.

What was he to say to his late companions, and what would be their feelings towards him, if they heard of the police being after them so soon after his trip down the river? Would they be persuaded that he had not betrayed, or at any rate attracted suspicion towards them, which came to the same thing?

He was in their power, he could not but feel that. What chance could he have against three determined men, with perhaps as many more who might be members of the outside gang, the men who were heard, but not seen, for now he remembered to have heard the lowing of driven cattle more than once, and the guarded voices of drovers. There was, of course only one thing to do. He must face the position squarely and tell the truth, whatever might be the consequences. He would warn them that Mr. Bruce suspected the miners in the locality of being in league with cattle-stealers, who were selling his fat cattle to the butchers on the smaller diggings, of which there were not a few between the heads of the rivers and the foothills of the mountain range. They knew Mr. Bruce, a determined, fearless man, who would show them no mercy. They had better “clear,” to use one of their own expressions, before the pursuit was too hot.

Revolving these thoughts in his mind, he rode briskly on. He had remounted the cob, now very fresh, and led the borrowed horse, who, as he thought, deserved all reasonable consideration. When within half a mile of the camp he saw a man walking along the track towards him. It was Phelim O’Hara, the big miner, whom he had always admired as a fine specimen of an Australian. He was a good-natured giant, possessing also a large share of the rollicking, reckless humour which is the heritage of the Milesian Celt. Phelim was a native-born Australian, however, and on occasion could be sufficiently stern, not to say savage. Now he did not look so pleasant as usual.

“Safe home, Mr. Blount,” he said. “I see you’ve found that cob of yours, bad cess to him! I’ve lost a day through him, and maybe more than that. But I’m dealin’ with a gentleman, lucky for all consarned.”

“I hope so, Phelim,” said the Englishman; “but what’s the matter, the camp seems deserted?”

“The meaning’s this, Mr. Blount.” Here his voice became rough, if not menacing. “The police are after us. There’s some yarn got up about Little-River-Jack and us duffing cattle and selling them on the small diggings. Pat and Lanky have cleared. I stayed behind to get this horse of mine and give you the office. There’s some says you gave us away to Mr. Bruce, and we know what he is when he thinks he’s being robbed.”

“I’ve heard your story, Phelim, now for mine. I met Mr. Bruce, who’d been shooting wild horses. He asked me what I was doing on his run– he spoke rather shortly. I told him I was looking for my cob, and that I believed it was Crown land, open to all. He then asked me to describe the cob, and telling me it was in his paddock, invited me to stay at Marondah all night, where I was most hospitably treated. He proposed to ride part of the way back with me, and for Mrs. Bruce and his sister-in-law to accompany us.”

“That’s Miss Imogen,” said O’Hara. “Isn’t she the beauty of the world? And ride! There isn’t a stockrider from this to Omeo that she couldn’t lose in mountain country. Mrs. Bruce rides well too, I’m told.”

“Yes, indeed; we rounded up a mob of cattle. Miss Imogen ‘wheeled’ them at the start. Black Paddy, who had been brought to lead the cob, was on the other wing. After that they began to ‘ring,’ and stopped. Then Mr. Bruce, looking through them, unfortunately saw one of the ‘E. H. B.’ bullocks with a strange brand newly put on. ‘That bullock’s been yarded,’ he said, ‘and the brand “J. C.” has been put on in a crush.’ I said nothing. Paddy came with me as far as the cattle track, by the creek that leads to the claim. I remembered that. Then he gave me the cob, and I came on. Now you have the whole story. I did not say where I had come from, nor did Mr. Bruce question me. Of course I put two and two together about the fat cattle. But I said nothing. I have eaten your salt, and Little-River-Jack certainly saved my life.”

“Then you didn’t give us away,” said O’Hara, “or say where we was camped, or tell our names? O’Hara’s not a good one, more’s the pity,” and here the big mountaineer looked regretful, even repentant over the past.

“No! not by a word. As luck would have it, Mr. Bruce did not ask me where or with whom I had been living.”

“And what brought you back here? Wouldn’t it have been easy enough to clear away down the river, and get shut of us, for good and all?”

“Easy enough, and to have gone down river by steamer. But I wanted to warn you in time. I knew Mr. Bruce suspected that there were diggers hereabouts that knew about the fat cattle he missed. So I came to give you fair warning. Where are the others?”

“They’ve cleared out. I don’t think they’ll be seen in a hurry, this side anyhow. They’ve packed all they wanted, and sent word to some of their pals to come and collar the rest. They can’t be pulled for that. There’s a few ounces of gold coming to you, and the ‘clean up’ was the best we’ve had. Here it is.” And suiting the action to the word, he pulled out from a leather pouch a wash-leather bag which, for its size, felt heavy.

“Keep it, Phelim, I won’t take a penny of it. I learned a good deal while I was with you, and shall always be pleased to think that I worked with men, and could hold my own among them.”

“You’re a gentleman, sir, and we’ll always uphold you as one, no matter what happens to us. We’re not bad chaps in our way, though things has gone against us. What’ll you do now? Camp here to-night? No? Then I’ll ride with you past ‘Razor Back’; you’ll have light then and the road’s under your feet. You’d better take my horse till we pass ‘Razor Back.’ He won’t boggle at it if it was twice as narrow.”

It did not take long to pack all that was strictly necessary, which alone Mr. Blount decided to take with him. After which O’Hara boiled the billy, and produced a decent meal, which Mr. Blount, having tasted nothing since breakfast, did justice to. No time was lost then, and O’Hara leading off with the cob started at a canter, with which Blount on his horse found no difficulty in keeping up. The contract was performed, they safely negotiated the perilous pass, the mountain horse treading as securely and safely as on a macadamised high road, and the cob going very differently with a different rider. He was then bestridden by his lawful owner, who prepared to make good time into Bunjil. The moon was rising, when the men – so strangely met, and associated – parted. Blount held out his hand, which the other grasped with unconsciously crushing force. Then the mountaineer quitted the road, and plunging down the steep into the darksome forest, disappeared from sight.

“Dear Mrs. Bruce, – To say that for your kind and considerate letter I feel most deeply grateful, would be to understate my mental condition lamentably. After reading Mr. Bruce’s letter, it seemed as if the whole world was against me; and, conscious as I was of entire innocence, except of an act of egregious folly (not the first one, I may confess, which a sanguine temperament and a constitutional disregard of caution have placed to my account), my spirits were lowered to the level of despair. There seemed no escape from the dilemma in which I found myself.

“I stood convicted of egregious folly, or dishonour, with the sin of ingratitude thrown in. I could not wonder at the harsh tone of your husband’s letter. What must he – what must you all – think of me? was the inexorable query. Suicide seemed the only refuge. Moral felo-de-se had already been committed.

“At this juncture I re-read your letter, for which I shall never cease to bless the writer, and, may I add, the probable sympathiser? Hope again held up her torch, angel bright, if but with a wavering gleam. I regained courage for a rational outlook. I think I gave a sketch of my imminent peril and the rescuer to Miss Imogen, as we rode away from Marondah on that lovely morning. Her commentary was that it was not unlike an incident in Anne of Geierstein, except that the heroine was the deliverer in that case. We agreed, I think, in rating the book as one of the best in the immortal series.

“I have fully explained the position in which I stand, to Mr. Bruce in my letter, which you will doubtless see, so I need not recapitulate. I have been recalled on important business (unconnected with this regrettable affair) to Hobart, for which city I leave early to-morrow. Meanwhile, I trust that all doubts connected with my inconsistent conduct will be cleared up with the least possible delay.

“In which fullest expectation,

“I remain,

“Very gratefully yours,

“Valentine Blount.”

The writer of these important letters, after having carefully sealed them, made assurance doubly sure by walking to the post-office, and placing them with his own hands in the receptacle for such letters provided. He further introduced himself to the acting postmaster, and ascertained that all correspondence – his own included – which were addressed to the vicinity of Bunjil, would be forwarded next morning soon after daylight, reaching their destination early on the following morning. “It’s only a horse mail,” said that official, “the bags are carried on a pack-horse. But Jack Doyle’s a steady lad, and always keeps good time – better, for that matter, than some of the coach-contractors.”

The rest of Mr. Blount’s correspondence was apparently easily disposed of, some being granted short replies, some being placed in a convenient bag, and others unfeelingly committed to the flames. About the time when the Sergeant and dinner arrived, Mr. Blount held himself to be in a position of comparative freedom from care, having all his arrangements made, and, except Fate stepped in with special malignity, everything in train for a successful conclusion to a complicated, unsatisfactory beginning. His city address was left with the acting postmaster aforesaid; all letters, papers, &c., were to be forwarded to Valentine Blount, Esq., Imperial Club, Melbourne.

He would probably return in three weeks or a month; if not, full directions would be forwarded by his agent.

The dinner was quite up to the other efforts of the Bunjil Hotel chef, an expatriated artist whom advanced political opinions had caused to abandon “la belle France.” So he said, amid the confessions, indirect or otherwise, made during his annual “break-out.” But his cookery was held to confirm that part of his statement, as well as a boast that he had been chef at the Hôtel du Louvre in Paris. Whatever doubt might be cast on his statements and previous history, as related by himself, no one had ever dreamed of disparaging his cookery. This being the case, and the time wanting nearly three months to Christmas, which was the extreme limit of his enforced sobriety, neither Mr. Blount nor any one else could have complained of the banquet.

Nor was “the flow of soul” wanting. The Sergeant was less didactic than usual; he drew on his reminiscences more and more freely as the evening grew late, and the landlord contributed his quota, by no means without pith or point, to the hilarity of the entertainment. The Sergeant, however, completely eclipsed the other convives by a choice experience drawn from his memory wallet, as he turned out that receptacle of “tales of mystery and fear,” which decided the landlord and his guest to “see him home” at the conclusion of the repast.

This duty having been completed, Mr. Blount was moved to remark upon the fineness of the night. It was certainly curiously mild and still. “Quite like spring weather.”

Mr. Middleton looked up and expressed himself doubtfully as to its continuance. “It’s too warm to be natural, sir,” he said, “and if I was asked my opinion, I’d say we’re not far from a burst up, either wind or rain, I don’t say which, a good way out of the common. If you’re in a hurry to get to Melbourne, you were right to take your passage by Cobb and Co., or you might not get away for a week.”

“I wouldn’t lose a week just now for a hundred pounds.”

“Well, of course, it’s hard to say, but if the creeks and rivers come down, as I’ve seen ’em in a spring flood, and we’re close on the time now, there’ll be no getting to Warongah in a week, or perhaps a fortnight on top of that. But I think, if you get off to-morrow morning, you’ll just do it, and that’s all.”

When they returned all traces of the symposium had been removed, and the cloth laid ready for the early breakfast, which Blount trusted nothing would occur to prevent him from consuming.

On the plate at the head of the table, near the fire-place, was a half-sheet of notepaper, on which was written in bold characters:

“Dear Sir, – The groom will call you at five sharp, breakfast at 5.30. Coach leaves at six. I’ve got you the box seat.

“Yours truly,

“Sheila.”

“That’s a fine girl,” said the landlord, “she’s got ‘savey’ enough for a dozen women; and as for work, it’s meat and drink to her. The missus is afraid she’ll knock herself out, and then we’ll be teetotally ruined and done for. I hope she won’t throw herself away on some scallowag or other.”

“Yes! it would be a pity. I take quite an interest in her. But she has too much sense for that, surely?”

“I don’t know,” answered the landlord, gloomily, “the more sense a woman has, the likelier she is to fancy a fool, if he’s good-looking, that’s my tip. Good-night, sir. I’ll be up and see you off. Old George will call you.”

“Oh! I shall be up and ready, thank you.”

The landlord, however, having exceptional opportunities of studying human nature, warned old George to have the gentleman up at 5 a.m. sharp, which in result was just as well. For Blount being too excited from various causes to sleep, had tossed and tumbled about till 3 a.m., when he dropped into a refreshing slumber, so sound that George’s rat-tat-tat, vigorous and continued on his bedroom door, caused him to dream that all the police of the district, headed by Mr. Bruce and Black Paddy, had come to arrest him, and were battering down the hotel in order to effect a capture.

CHAPTER VI

A dip in the creek, and a careful if hasty toilet, produced a complete change of ideas. The morning was almost too fine, the leaves of the great poplars were unstirred, which gave an unnaturally calm and eerie appearance to the landscape. This was not dispelled by the red sun shedding a theatrical glare over the snow-peaks and shoulders of the mountain range.

“My holiday’s over, Sheila!” said he, moving from the fire front to the table upon which was such an appetising display that he wished he had gone to bed a little earlier. However, the savour of the devilled turkey reassured him, and he felt more drawn towards the menu which was to form the sustaining meal of the day. “Now, what do you think of the weather? Shall I have a safe journey to the station?”

“Well, you may, and you may not, sir. We all think there’s a big storm coming; if it’s wind, it may blow a tree down on the coach and horses; if it rains hard, there’ll be a flood, which will rise the Kiewah and the Little River in a few hours, so as they can’t be crossed under a week.”

“That’s a bad look out!” said the traveller, making good time with the scrambled eggs and toast, which succeeded the devilled turkey, “but we’ll have to go straight at it, as your friend and philosopher, Gordon, has it. By the way, I bought a copy at the post-office store, so I can read it on the way down and think of you when I come to the lines ‘Kindness in another’s trouble,’ and so on.”

“Oh! I daresay,” replied the girl, “a lot you’ll think about me when you’re on the road to Melbourne and wherever else you’re bound for. But we’ll all remember you here, never fear! And if you ever come back, you’ll see how glad all hands will be to welcome you.”

“You’re only too good to me, but why should the other people have this sort of feeling towards me?”

“Well, one reason is that you never put on any side, as they call it. You’ve been free and easy with them, without being too familiar. The country people hereabouts, and in the bush generally, may be rough, and haven’t seen much, but they know a gentleman when they see one, and besides, there’s another reason – ” And here she seemed to hesitate.

“And what might that be?”

“Well, it came out somehow, I don’t know how, that when you were ‘pinched’ (that is, nearly arrested and tried for being ‘in’ with the O’Haras and Little-River-Jack in the cattle racket), that you wouldn’t give them away; never let on that you’d been with them in the claim, or seen cattle in their yard or anything.”

“But, my dear Sheila! I heard nothing and saw nothing that the town-crier at the market-place (is there one in this droll country, I wonder?) might not have proclaimed aloud. I didn’t know there was any ‘cross’ work (is that right?) going on. I certainly guessed after I visited Mr. Bruce that I might just as well not advertise the O’Haras, and as Little-River-Jack certainly saved my life on Razor Back, how could I give him up to the law? Now, could I?”

“Not as a gentleman, sir, I should say. I suppose Mr. Bruce is pretty wild about it, after you being at his house and all that. He’s a fine man, Mr. Bruce; all he’s got he’s earned. His brother and he worked like niggers when first they came from home. Now they’re well off, and on the way to be richer still. But no man likes to be robbed, rich or poor. He’ll have Jack yet for this if he don’t mind, sharp as he is.”

“Well, I suppose it serves him right.”

“I suppose it does,” said the girl, hesitatingly; “but I can’t help feeling sorry for him, he’s so pleasant and plucky, and such a bushman. He can find his way through those Wombat Ranges, they say, the darkest night that ever was, and drive cattle besides.”

“‘’Tis pity of him, too, he cried,

Bold can he speak, and fairly ride,’

as the Douglas said about Marmion, who, though more highly placed than poor Jack, was but indifferent honest after all. Do you read Walter Scott?”

“Well, I’ve read bits of the Lady of the Lake and Marmion too. We had them to learn by heart at school. Only I haven’t much time to read now, have I? It’s early up and down late. But you’d better finish your breakfast; it’s getting on to six o’clock, and I see Josh walking down to the stable.”

“So I will; but tell me, how do you write out a receipt for a horse when you’ve sold him?”

“Oh! easy enough. ‘This is to certify that I have sold my bay horse, branded “J. R.” (or whatever he is) to Job Jones for value received.’ That’s enough; you’ve only to sign your name and put a stamp on.”

“Nothing could be simpler. Get the landlord to receipt my bill while I write out a cheque, and ask George if he’s put my saddle and bridle into the coach.”

The girl ran out. He wrote the cheque for the account, which he had seen before breakfast. Then more carefully, a receipt for the cob in the name of Sheila Maguire, in which he enclosed a sovereign. “Isn’t that your side-saddle? Where’s your horse? You haven’t got one, eh? Why, I thought every girl in this country had one.”

“Mine got away; I’m afraid I’ll never see him again.”

“What will you give me for the cob? he’s easy and safe if you don’t try the Razor Back business with him?”

“I wouldn’t mind chancing a tenner for him, sir.”

“Would you, though? Well, I’ll take it. There’s the receipt. You can pay me when I ask for it.”

At that moment, the coachman having drawn on his substantial gloves, mounted the box and called out “All aboard!” Mr. Blount pressed the receipt and the sovereign into the girl’s reluctant hand, who came out of the room with rather a heightened colour, while the driver drew his lines taut as the passenger mounted the box and was whirled off, if not in the odour of sanctity, yet surrounded with a halo (so to speak) of cheers and good wishes.

Once off and bowling along a fairly good road behind a team of four fast horses, specially picked for leaving or approaching towns, a form of advertisement for the great coaching firm of Cobb and Co. (then, as now, famed for speed, safety and punctuality throughout the length and breadth of Australasia), Mr. Blount’s spirits began to improve, keeping pace, indeed, with the rising of the sun and his own progress. That luminary in this lovely month of early spring was seen in his most favourable aspect.

The merry, brawling river, now rushing over “bars” gleaming with quartz pebbles, the boom of the “water-gun,” the deep, reed-fringed reaches, in which the water-fowl dived and fluttered, alike engaged the traveller’s alert interest. The little river took wilful, fantastic curves, as it seemed to him through the broad green meadows. Sometimes close-clinging to a basaltic bluff, over which the coach appeared to hang perilously, while on the other side was the mile-wide, level greensward, thickly covered with grazing kine and horses. The driver, a wiry native from the Shoalhaven gullies, was cheerful and communicative.

He was in a position to know and enlarge upon the names and characters of the different proprietors of the estates through which they passed. The divisions were indicated by gates in the fences crossing the roads at right angles, at which period Mr. Joshua Cable requested his passenger to drive through while he jumped down and opened the gates and shut them after the operation was concluded. As this business was only necessary at distances varying from five to ten miles apart, the stoppages were not serious; though in one instance, where the enclosure was small and the number of gates unreasonably large, his temper was ruffled.

“D – n these gates,” he said; “they’re enough to ruin a chap’s temper. They put up a new cross fence here – wire, too – since I was here last. This is a bother, but when a man is driving by himself at night it’s worse. And they can summons you, and fine you two pounds and costs for leaving a gate open, worse luck!”

“How do you manage then?” asked the passenger, all unused to seeing a coach and four without groom or guard.

“Well, it’s rather a ticklish bit of work, even with a pair, if they’re at all touchy, as I’ve had ’em, many a time. You drive round before you come to the gate and tie your leaders to the fence as close as you can get ’em. I carry halters, and that’s the best and safest way; but if you haven’t ’em with you, you must do the best you can with the lead reins. You’re close enough to jump to their heads and muzzle ’em if they’re making a move. No chance to stop four horses after they’re off. When you’ve opened the gate and driven through, you have to turn your team back and let ’em stand with the leaders’ heads over the fence till you’ve shut the gate. If it’s a gate that’ll swing back to the post, and you’ve only a pair, you may manage to give it a shove just as it clears the hind wheels, but it’s a chance. It’s a nuisance, especially at night time and in rainy weather, but there’s nothing else for it, and it’s best always to keep sweet with the owners of the property the road runs through. Now we’ve five miles without a gate,” said Josh Cable as he led his horses out and proceeded to make up time, with three horses at a hand gallop, and the off-wheeler, a very fast horse, trotting about fourteen miles an hour; “the road’s level, too. We’ll pull up in another hour at the Horse and Jockey for dinner.” It may be explained that in Australian road-travel, whatever may be the difference of climate, which ranges indeed from sunshine to snow, the “dinner” so called, is the meal taken at or about mid-day – an hour or two, one way or another, not being regarded of importance. The evening meal at sundown, allowing for circumstances, is invariably “tea,” though by no means differing in essentials from the one at mid-day. It is at the option of the traveller to order and pay extra for the orthodox “dinner,” with wine, if procurable, as an adjunct.

The Horse and Jockey Hotel was duly reached, the half-hour dinner despatched, and, at sunrise, the railway station at Warongah reached, into which, after a hurried meal, Mr. Blount was enabled to hurl himself and luggage, the train not being crowded. Long before this hour he had ample time to admire the skill used in driving on a road never free from stumps and sidelings, creeks, and other pitfalls. Certainly the seven lamps, which he had never seen before on a coach, assisted the pilot’s course, with the light afforded by the great burners, three on high above the roof of the composite vehicle, a sort of roofed “cariole” defended as to the sides by waterproof curtains; while four other lamps gave the driver confidence, as they enabled him to see around and for some distance ahead as clearly as in the day.

In sixteen hours from the terminus Mr. Blount was safely landed per cab at the Imperial Club, Melbourne, in which institution he enjoyed the privileges of an honorary member, and was enabled to learn that the Pateena would leave the Queen’s Wharf at four o’clock p.m. next day for Launceston. Here he half expected to have one or more letters in answer to his appeal to the mercy of the Court as represented by Mrs. Bruce and Miss Imogen, or its justice, in the shape of Edward Hamilton Bruce of Marondah, a magistrate of the Territory. But none came. Other epistles of no importance, comparatively; also a fiery telegram from Hobart, “Don’t lose time. Your presence urgently needed.” So making arrangements for his correspondence to follow him to the Tasmanian Club, Hobart, he betook himself to the inter-colonial steamship, and at bed-time was sensible that a “capful” of wind was vexing the oft-turbulent Straits of Bass.

Hobart – the peaceful, the picturesque, the peerless among Australian summer climates, whether late or early. Hither come no scorching blasts, no tropical rains. Nestling beneath the shadow of Mount Wellington, semi-circled by the broad and winding Derwent, proving by old-fashioned – in many instances picturesquely ruinous – edifices, it claims to be one of Britain’s earliest outposts. Mr. Blount, from the moment of his landing, found himself in an atmosphere about as peacefully secluded as at Bunjil.

From this Elysian state of repose, he was routed immediately after breakfast by the tempestuous entrance of Mr. Frampton Tregonwell, Mining Expert and Consulting Engineer, as was fully set forth on his card, sent in by the waiter.

“Bless my soul!” called out this volcanic personage, as soon as he entered the door which he shut carefully behind him. “You are a most extraordinary chap! One would think you had been born in Tasmania, instead of the Duchy of Cornwall, whence all the Captains of the great mining industry have come from since the days of the Phœnicians and even earlier. Lucky you picked up a partner who is as sharp, excuse me, as you are – ahem – Blount!”

“When I’m told what all this tirade is about, ending with an atrocious pun, perhaps I may be able to reply,” answered the object of the attack, complacently finishing his second cup of tea.

“Did you get my telegram? Answer me that, Valentine Blount.”

“I did, and have come over to this tight little island at great personal inconvenience, as you may have observed, Mr. Tregonwell!”

“Have you any recollection of our buying a half share in a prospecting silver claim, of four men’s ground, in the West Coast?”

“I do seem to recall some such transaction, just before I left for Australia. All the fellows I met in the Hobart Club told me it was a swindle, and advised me not to put a pound in it.”

“That was the reason that you did invest in it, if I know you.”

“Precisely, I’ve rarely taken advice against my own judgment that I haven’t regretted it. Did it turn out well?”

“Well! Well? It’s the richest silver lode in the island, in all Australasia – ” almost shouted Tregonwell – “fifty feet wide; gets richer, and richer as it goes down. I’ve been offered twenty thousand pounds, cash down, for my half; you could get the same if you care to take it.”

“I’ve a great mind to take it,” said Blount languidly “ – mines are so uncertain. Here to-day, gone to-morrow.”

“Take it?” said his partner, with frenzied air, and trembling with excitement, “take it! Well!” – suddenly changing his tone – “I’ll give you a drive this afternoon, capital cabs they have here, and the best horses I’ve seen out of England. The way they rattle down these hills on the metal is marvellous! We can’t start for the mine till to-morrow morning; I suppose you’d like to see it? But if you’re determined to sell, I’d like you to see a friend of mine first. He has a magnificent place a few miles out. He’d be charmed to meet you, I’m sure.”

“Certainly, by all means. What’s your friend’s name? Is he a squatter or a fruit-grower? They seem to be the leading industries over here.”

“Neither; he’s a medical man in large practice. His name is Macandrew. Medical superintendent of the new Norfolk lunatic asylum.”

“Well, really, Tregonwell, this is too bad,” answered the other partner, roused from his habitual coolness. “Has it escaped your memory that you wished to sell out before I left for Australia, that I stuck to the claim, and have been paying my share of expenses ever since?”

“Quite true, old fellow; it was your confounded obstinacy and luck combined, a sheer fluke, which has landed us where we are, not a particle of judgment on either side; and now, then, let’s get through business detail before lunch. I have it all here.”

Mr. Tregonwell was a thoroughbred Cornishman, short, square set, and immensely powerful. His coal-black, close-curled hair, with dark, deep-set eyes, short, upright forehead, and square jaw proclaimed him a “Cousin Jack” to all who had ever rambled through the picturesque Duchy, or heard the surges boom on castle-crowned Tintagil. In one way or other he had been interested in mines since his boyhood; had, indeed, delved below sea level in those stupendous shafts in his native place of Truro.

An off-shoot of a good old Cornish family, he had worked up to his present position from a penniless childhood and a youth not disdaining hard manual labour as a miner, when none better was to be had. This gave him a more thorough knowledge of the underground world and its inhabitants than he could otherwise have obtained. As a mining “Captain” therefore, his reputation had preceded him from the silver mines of Rio Tinto in Mexico and the great goldfields of California. A noted man in his way, a type worthy of observation by a student of human nature, like Valentine Blount, who, having added him to his collection, had drifted into friendship, and a speculative partnership which was destined to colour his after life.

As there remained a couple of hours open to such a task before lunch, the partners settled down to a “square business deal,” as Mr. Tregonwell (who had possessed himself of trans-Atlantic and other idioms) phrased it; in the course of which the following facts were elicited. That the stone, in the first place accidentally discovered as an out-drop in one of the wildest, most desolate, regions of the West Coast of Tasmania, was the richest ever discovered in any reefing district “South of the Line,” as Mr. Tregonwell magniloquently expressed it. On sinking, even richer ore came to light, “as much silver as stone” in some of the specimens. He, Tregonwell, had taken care to comply with the labour conditions, and the necessary rules and regulations, according to the Tasmanian Mining Act, in such case made and provided. He had satisfied the Warden of their bona fides, and this gentleman had supported him in all disputes with the “rush crowd” which, as usual under such circumstances, had swarmed around the sensational find, as soon as it was declared. Everything, so far, had been plain sailing, but there was sure to be litigation, and a testing of their title on some of the technical points of law which are invariably raised when the claim is rich enough to pay the expenses of litigation. The great thing now was to float the discovery into a company, exhibit the specimens in the larger cities and in England, and offer half the property in shares to the public. This was agreed to. Tregonwell, with practised ease, drew out the prospectus, explaining the wondrous assays which had already been made, the increasing body of the lode, its speculative value and unrivalled richness as it descended to the hundred and fifty feet level. The prospectors had invited tenders for a fifty head stamp battery to be placed on the ground. Abundance of running water was within easy reach; timber also, of the finest quality, unlimited in quantity. Carriage, of course, in a rough, mountainous country, must be an expensive item. The directors were anxious not to minimise the cost in any way, and all statements might be regarded as absolutely truthful. The stone, if it kept up quality and output, would pay for any rate of carriage and the most up-to-date machinery. When a narrow-gauge railway had been completed to the Port, where the Company had secured wharf accommodation, the transit question would be comparatively trifling.

Mr. Blount retired for lunch to the hotel in which Tregonwell had engaged rooms – a quiet, old-fashioned house of highly conservative character, selected by his partner as specially adapted for privacy. The family had inherited the business and the house from the grandfather, who had made the business, and built the house in the early days when the island was still known as Van Diemen’s Land. Mr. Polglase, whose portrait in oils still ornamented the dining-room, in company with that of Admiral Rodney, in whose flagship he had been a quartermaster, had reached Tasmania in a whaler from New Zealand.

The Clarkstone having made a successful voyage, and Mr. Polglase’s “lay” as first mate amounting to a respectable sum, he decided to quit the sea, and adopt the more or less lucrative occupation of hotel-keeping. In those days when the convict population outnumbered the free, in the proportion of fifty to one, when the aboriginal tribes and far more savage convict outlaws terrorised the settlers at a comparatively short distance from Hobart, it was not altogether a peaceful avocation. But Mark Polglase, a man of exceptional strength and courage, who had enforced discipline and quelled mutiny among the turbulent whaling crews hailing from Sydney Cove, was not the man to be daunted by rioters free or bond. The small, but orderly, well-managed inn soon came to be favourably known both to the general public and the authorities, as a house where comfortable lodging was to be procured, and, moreover, where a strict system of orderliness was enforced. When the coaching system came to be developed, for many years the best in Australasia, after admirable roads had been formed by convict labour, the Lord Rodney was the headquarters of the principal firm. From the long range of stabling issued daily in the after-time the well-bred, high-conditioned four-horse teams, which did the journey between Hobart and Launceston (a hundred and twenty miles) in a day. To be sure the metalled road was perfect, the pace, the coaches, the method of driving, the milestones even, strictly after the old English pattern. So that the occasional tourist, or military traveller, was fain to confess that he had not seen such a turn-out or done such stages since the days of the Cottons and the Brackenburys.

The pace was equal to that of the fastest “Defiance” or “Regulator” that ever kept good time on an English turnpike road. Here the erstwhile Cornish sailor settled himself for life. To that end he wrote to a young woman to whom he had become engaged before he left Truro on his last voyage, and sent her the wherewithal to pay her passage and other expenses. She was wise enough to make no objection to a home on “the other side of the world,” as Jean Ingelow puts it, and had no reason to regret her decision. Here they reared a family of stalwart sons, and blooming lasses – the latter with complexions rivalling those of Devonshire. They married and spread themselves over the wide wastes of the adjoining colonies, with satisfactory results, but never forgetting to return from time to time to their Tasmanian home, where they could smell the apple blossoms in the orchards and hear the bee humming on the green, clover-scented pastures.

The parents in the fulness of time had passed away, and lay in the churchyard, near the Wesleyan meeting house, which the old man had regularly attended and generously supported. But his eldest son, lamed through an accident on a goldfield, reigned in his stead. He too had a capable wife – it seemed to run in the family. So the name and fame of the Lord Rodney remained good as of old.

The prospectus and plan of operations being now regarded as “shipshape” by Mr. Tregonwell, he proceeded to sketch the locality. “It’s an awfully rough country – nothing you’ve ever seen before is a patch on it. We shall have to walk the last stage. A goat could hardly find footing, over not on, mind you, the worst part of the track. How Charlie Herbert, who discovered the show, got along, I can’t think. He was more than half starved, ‘did a regular perish,’ as West Australians say – more than once. However it was a feat to brag about when he did come upon it, as you’ll see when we get there.”

“So he paid his share of the expenses, went away, met all kinds of adventures and all sorts and conditions of men – with, of course, a girl or two, not wholly unattractive, and forgot all about it. I kept an eye on it, so did Charlie; complied with the labour condition, kept up the pegs, according to the Act, did a little work now and then. And now, Charlie! it’s your turn.”

Mr. Herbert put down his pipe carefully and began the wondrous tale. “You know I was always fond of mooning about – wallaby-shooting, fishing, and collecting birds and plants in mountain country. We had a sheep station on the edge of this horizontal scrub country in old times; and I used, when I had leave, to get away and spend a week or two of my Christmas holiday there. One of the shepherds was a great pal of mine. Like many of the prisoners of the Crown in old days, he had been transported wrongfully, or for very slight offences (as much to get rid of Britain’s surplus population as for any other reason it really would seem). He was fairly educated, and was a very decent, well-behaved old chap, with a taste for geology and minerals.

“When his sheep were camped in the middle of the day I would find out his flock, and we would boil the billy and have lunch, with ever so much talk.

“‘Look here, Master Charles!’ he said one day, as he took out a dull, grey-looking stone from his ‘dilly bag,’ ‘do ye know what that is?’ I did not, and like most youngsters of my age, looked upon it as rubbish, and showed that I would rather have had a shot at one of the ‘tigers’ or ‘devils’ that came every now and then and killed the sheep at the stations than all the silver ore in the country.

“‘It’s silver ore,’ said he in a solemn voice; ‘and there’s enough where that came from to buy all your father’s stations ten times over, if I could only find my way back to the place where I found it.’

“‘And why can’t you?’ said I; ‘you know all the country round here.’

“The old man looked very sad, and pointed out towards the Frenchman’s Cap, which was just being covered with mist, while a heavy shower began to fall, and a thunderstorm roared and echoed among the rocks and caves of the ‘Tiers,’ at the foot of which we managed to get shelter.

“‘It was a strange day and a strange sight I saw when I picked up this slug,’ he said. ‘I was never nearer losing my life! – but I’ll tell you all about it another day. You’d better get back to the station now, or you’ll get wet through, and maybe catch cold, and then the master won’t let you come here again.’

“So I was obliged to leave the telling of the story to another day. I forgot all about the silver ore, and, chiefly remembering the strange part of the story, was determined to hear about it from the old man another day.

“It was the late spring-time when we had this talk, old Chesterton and I; but a month or so afterwards I got a holiday, and as the weather was warm and fine I cleared out to his out station, and never rested till I bailed up the old man for another yarn. It is sometimes hot in the island, though you mightn’t think so.”

“Don’t believe him,” growled Mr. Clarke; “it’s a popular error. The seasons have changed. Listen to that!” The rain was certainly falling with a sustained volume, which discredited any references to warmth and sunshine.

“However,” continued Herbert, paying not the slightest attention, “remember, it was at the end of the Christmas holidays, and the rocks felt red hot; there had been bush fires, but the young feed, such as it was, was lovely and green. The air was clear, the sky for once hadn’t a cloud on it, and the old man was in a wonderful good humour for a shepherd.

“‘Well, Master Charles,’ he said, ‘if ye must have it, ye must. I don’t know that it can do you any harm, though it kept me awake for weeks afterwards, and every time the dog barked I felt my heart beat like, and would wake me up all of a tremble. Well, to come to the story, I was sitting on a log half asleep with the sheep camped quiet and comfortable under a big pine, when I heard my old dog growl. He never did that for nothing, so I looked up, and the blood nearly froze in my veins at what I saw. It wasn’t much to scare the seven senses out of me, but I knew how I stood.

“‘A man and a woman were coming down a gully from the direction of the mountain; they were near enough to see me, and it was no use making a bolt of it. I should only lose my life. Anyhow, I couldn’t leave the flock. I should get flogged for that. No excuse was taken for anything of that sort in those days. Following the man was a young gin with a lot of things on her back as if they had been shifting camp. She was much like any other black girl of her age, sixteen or thereabouts, maybe less; they grow up fast and get old fast, too, specially when they are worked hard, beaten, and brutally treated, as most of them are, and this one certainly was. Poor Mary! The man had no boots, and his trousers were ragged, he was mostly dressed in kangaroo skins, and had a fur cap on.

“‘He had a long beard down to his chest; his black hair fell in a mat over his shoulders. He carried a double-barrelled gun, and had a belt with a pouch in it round his waist. He looked like the pictures of Robinson Crusoe, but I didn’t feel inclined to laugh when he came close up and stared me in the face. I had seen, ay, lived with criminals of all sorts since I first came to Tasmania, but such a savage, blood-thirsty-looking brute as the man before me, I had never come across before. He saw that I was afraid; well I might be – if he had shot me there and then, it was only what he had done to others. With a fiendish grin that made him, if possible, more beast-like in appearance, he said: “Did ye ever see Mick Brady afore? No! Well, ye see him now. Maybe ye won’t live long enough to forget him!”

“‘“I’ve heard of you,” I said, “of course.” I tried to look cool, but my teeth chattered, for all the day was so hot. “I’m a Government man, like yourself. I’ve never done you any harm that I know of.”

“‘“No harm!” he shouted, “no harm! Aren’t ye one of old Herbert’s shepherds – a lot of mean crawlers that work for a bloody tyrant, and inform on poor starving brutes like me that’s been driven to take to the bush by cruelty and injustice of every kind. I came here to shoot you, and shoot you I will, and your dog too; the dingos and the tigers may work their will on the flock afterwards. He’ll feel that a d – d sight more than the loss of a shepherd. I know him, the hard-hearted old slave-driver!” God forgive him for miscalling a good man and a kind master.

“‘“Don’t shoot the dog,” I said, “he’s the best I ever had – a prisoner’s life’s not much in this country, but a dog like him you don’t see every day.”

“‘“Kneel down,” he said, “and don’t waste time; ye can say a short prayer to God Almighty, or the devil, whichever ye favour most. Old Nick’s given me a lift, many a time.”

“‘He stood there, with the death-light in his red-rimmed, wolfish eyes, and no more mercy in them than a tiger’s, lapping the blood of a Hindoo letter-carrier. When I was a soldier I’d seen the poor things brought in from the jungle, with their throats torn out, and mangled beyond knowing. Surely man was never in a worse case or nearer death. Strangely, I felt none of the fear which I did when I saw him first. I had no hope, but I prayed earnestly to God, believing that a very few moments would suffice to place me beyond mortal terrors.

“‘The girl meanwhile had crept closer to us and stood with her large eyes wide open, half in surprise, half in terror – as she leaned her laden back against one of the rock pillars which stood around. She murmured a few words in her own language – I knew it slightly – against bloodshed, and for mercy. But he turned on her with a savage oath, and made as though he would add her murder to the long list of his crimes.

CHAPTER VII

“‘At that moment, the last I ever expected to see on earth, the black girl uttered a sudden cry. The report of a gun was heard, as a bullet passed between me and Brady, flattening itself against the rock where I had been leaning just before. At the same time four men dashed across the gully and made for him. He looked at me with devilish malignity for a moment, but I suppose, wanting the charge in his gun for his own defence, turned and fled with extraordinary speed towards the forest, the police – for such they were – with a soldier and the informer, firing at him as he went. Their guns were the old-fashioned tower muskets; they were bad shots at best – so the girl and he disappeared in the thick wood, unhurt as far as I could see. I fell on my face, I know, and thanked God before I rose – the God of our fathers, who had answered my prayer and delivered me out of the hand of the “bloody and deceitful man,” in the words of the Psalmist. I took my sheep home early, and put them in the paling yard – dog proof it was – and needed to be, in that part of the country. Just as it was getting dark, the men came back, regularly knocked up, with their clothes torn to rags and half off their backs. They hadn’t caught Brady. I didn’t expect they would – he was in hard condition, and could run like a kangaroo. He got clean out of sight of them in a mile or two after they left us. What astonished me was, that they brought back the black girl, with a bullet through her shoulder, poor thing!

“‘“I suppose that was a mistake,” said I, “you didn’t fire at the poor thing, surely?”

“‘“We didn’t,” said the soldier, “but who d’ye think did?”

“‘“You don’t say?” said I.

“‘“But I do. It was that infernal villain and coward, Brady himself, that shot her. She couldn’t keep up with him, and for fear she’d fall into our hands, and give away his ‘plants,’ he fired at her, and nearly stopped her tongue for ever. But he’s overdid it this time – she’s red hot agen ’im now, and swears she’ll go with any party to help track him up.”

“‘“Serve the brute right. Let’s have a look at the poor thing’s shoulder, I wonder if the bullet’s still in it?”

“‘We washed off the blood, and between us, managed to get it out. It was wonderful how many people in those days knew something about gunshot wounds. After we’d shown Mary the bullet, we bound it up, and the poor gin thanked us, and lay down on her furs by the fire, quite comfortable. We kept watch and watch, you may be sure, for fear Brady might come in the night, and shoot one of us, but nothing happened, and after breakfast the party went back to Hobart, taking the girl with them.

“‘I was in fear for weeks afterwards that he might come and pay me out. But he didn’t do that either. He was taken not long after, and when he was, it was through that same girl, Mary, whom he tried to shoot. He met his fate through his own base bloodthirsty act, and if any one brought it on his own head, and deserved it thoroughly, Mick Brady was that man.

“‘Now this happened a many years ago, before you were born, or thought of, as the saying is. Often and often, when I could leave the flock safe, did I try to find out the place where this stone came from, but I never could drop on it again. When I found it first and saw that there was a regular lode, and plenty more “slugs” as rich as this, which is nearly pure silver, mind you, I was in such a hurry to get back to the sheep, that I’d only time to mark two or three trees, and drive in a stake, before I started for home.

“‘I was sure I could find it again. But I never did. It was hot weather, and a bush fire started that day, and burned for weeks, sweeping all that side of the country.

“‘You’ll remember reading of Black Thursday, Master Charles? it burned all Port Phillip, Victoria as they call it now, from Melbourne town to the Ottawa range. So I expect my marks were burnt out. For I never could find the way to it again: what with the fallen timber that covered over the ground, and the ashes that was heaped up a foot deep in some places, the whole face of the country was altered past knowing. You might have heard tell that ashes fell on board some of the coasting craft miles from the shore, and a black cloud hung over the coastline, for days afterwards. But, take my word for it, Master Charles, the word of a dying man, for I’m not long for this world, that whoever finds the gully where this stone came from, and takes up a prospecting claim, will own the richest silver mine, south of the line. Your father’s always been a good master to his prisoner servants, that Mick Brady told a lie when he said he wasn’t, and there’s none of ’em that wouldn’t do him a good turn, if they could; and I have known you and loved you ever since you was the height of a walking stick. So here’s the silver “slug,” and the wash-leather bag of specimens, there’s gold and copper besides, and I hope there’ll be luck with them.’

“The poor old chap didn’t live long after that. He was comfortable enough for the last year or two of his life, for my father pensioned his old servants, and his old horses too, for that matter. He couldn’t bear to think that after they’d worked well all their lives, they should be allowed to drag out a wretched existence, starved, or perhaps ill-treated, till death came to their relief. So the silver ‘slug’ was bequeathed to me, this is a bit of it on my watch-chain, with the malachite colouring showing out. It always comes with time, they say. Anyhow it brought me luck in the end, though it was a precious long time coming about.”

“As you’ve brought us so far,” said Jack Clarke, “and Mr. Blount seems interested (he hasn’t been asleep more than twice), I think it would be a fair thing to give us the last chapter. For, I suppose you did find the old man’s marked tree, and if so, how? as lawyers say.”

“As you have deduced, with your usual astuteness, that I must have found it, or we shouldn’t be here, I suppose, I may lay aside my modesty, and enlighten the company. The ‘Comstock’ has a well-marked track now, if there’s nothing else good about it. Old Parkins gave me the bearings of the ‘Lost Gully,’ as he always called it. Once a year, I always took a loaf round the locality after Christmas, poking about doing a little fishing, when there was any: shooting wallaby or anything worth while that I came across. Got an old man kangaroo bailed up at the head of a gully, one day after a big fight with my dogs. I had fired away my cartridges, and was looking round for a stick to hit him on the head with, when I backed on to a stump of an upright sapling, as I thought, out of a ‘whip stick scrub,’ which had grown up since the fire.

“It did not give way, as I expected, and putting back my hand to feel it, I found it was a stake! It was charred all round, but still sound, and hard to the core. Lucky for me, it was stringy bark timber. I pulled it up, and tried it on the old man’s skull, which it cracked like an egg shell. It had been pointed with a tomahawk, and driven well into the ground. That clinched the matter. It was the old man’s peg! The next thing was to clear the ground round about of timber and ashes, with all the accumulation of years. This I did next day, carefully, and it was not long before I discovered a couple of tomahawk marks on a big ‘mess-mate’ not far off. The bark had partly grown over it. It was in the form of a cross. Underneath the new bark the marking was perfect, as I had often seen surveyors’ marks, years and years after they had been done. Then I came upon the cap of the lode, broke off some rock, fifty per cent. ore, no mistake. Blazed my track and cleared for Hobart. Took up a prospector’s claim next morning at 10 a.m. Registered in due form. Met Clarke and accidentally Messrs. Blount and Tregonwell, new – er – that is to say, newly arrived from England, and the great silver property, known to the world as the ‘Tasmanian Comstock, Limited,’ and so on was duly launched.”

“Well done, Charlie, my boy! No idea you’d so much poetry in your composition! You were not regarded as imaginative at the old ‘Hutchins Institute,’ where we both had ‘small Latin and less Greek’ hammered into us. But you were a sticker, I will say that for you. Now that I’m hors de combat, I seem to see that quality in a new light. Main strength and stupidity we used to call it in your case.”

“I’ve no doubt; you were horribly ill-mannered, even without a sprained ankle,” retorted Herbert, “but we make allowances for your condition as an invalid. By the time we get that corduroy track finished, and traffic other than ‘man-power’ restored, we shall look for improvement.”

The next day, being bright with sunshine, dispersed some of the gloom which wet, cold and unwonted fatigue had imposed upon the partners. The shafts of sunlight, flashing through the endless glades and thickets of the primeval forest, formed a thousand glittering coruscations of all imaginable forms and figures.

The pools of water reflected the glimpses of cloudless sky, framed in sombre but still burnished shades of green. Birds called and twittered in approval of the change, while strings of water-fowl, winging their way to the great mountain lakes, told of a happier clime, and the undisturbed enjoyment in which the tribes of the air might revel.

The obvious primary duty after breakfast was to get to the mine itself. The distance was not great, but the task was less easy than might be supposed. The track through the jungle of scrub and forest was necessarily narrow, as the labour necessary for clearing it was great and, therefore, expensive. The tremendous rainfall had turned the adjoining country into a quagmire, the only means of crossing which was by a corduroy road.

On this inconvenient makeshift the friends stumbled along until they came to a collection of huts and tents, the usual outcrop of a mining township, which springs up, mushroom-like, at the faintest indication of proved, payable gold, silver or copper in any part of Australia. Of course there was a “store,” so called, from which proudly flaunted a large calico flag, with “Comstock Emporium” rudely painted thereon, while a few picks and shovels, iron pots and frying-pans, with a half-emptied case of American axes outside the canvas door, denoted the presence of the primary weapons used in the war with nature.

A score or more of shafts, above which were the rude windlasses with rope and bucket of the period, disclosed the beginning of mining enterprise, advertising the hope and expectation of a subterranean treasure-house – the hope invariable, the expectation, alas! so often doomed to barren disappointment and eventual despair.

However, when the prospectors’ claim was reached, within the area of which no intrusion was allowed, the dull grey rock from which Mr. Blount was urged to break down a few fragments disclosed a perfect Aladdin’s cave of the precious metal. His enthusiasm, slow to arouse, became keen, stimulated by this “potentiality of boundless wealth.” His more emotional partner was loudly enthusiastic upon the immense value of the discovery.

“See that stone,” he said, knocking off a corner of the “face,” “it’s all fifty per cent. stuff – when it’s not seventy-five. Look at the native silver and the malachite! I’ve been on the ‘Comstock,’ and the ‘Indian Chief’ in Denver, and can make affidavit that in their best days they never turned out better stone than that – most of it was less than half the percentage, indeed. The ore bodies were larger, you say? No such thing. This lode widens out; the deeper you go, the more there is of it. Easy worked, too. Freight expensive? Wait till the corduroy’s finished to the main road; we’ll have stores and hotels, the electric light, hot and cold water laid on; a couple of clubs, with the last month’s magazines, and The Times itself on the smoking-room table. You don’t know how everything comes to ‘a big field,’ gold, silver or copper, as soon as the precious metal is proved – proved, mind you – to have a settled abode there. Fortune? There’s a fortune apiece for every proprietor here to-day – even for Clarke, who’s now in his bunk reading a yellow-back novel.”

All this fairy-appearing relation turned out to be a sober and accurate statement of facts, as far as could be gathered from the survey made by the partners in the enterprise. The stone, which was of surpassing richness, was principally found in a well-defined lode, forty feet wide, increasing in volume as the shafts pierced more deeply into the bowels of the earth.

A mining expert of eminence turned up, who had, after many perils and disasters, found his way to Comstock. On being permitted a “private view,” he confirmed Mr. Tregonwell’s wildest flights of fancy.

“Nothing in the Southern Hemisphere as rich, or half as rich, has ever been discovered,” he said. He doubted, as did Tregonwell, whether in all the mines from Peru to Denver such a deposit had ever been unearthed. He proved by reference to scientific geological treatises that it was so rare as to have been doubted as a possibility that such a find could occur, but if so, the most apocryphal yield of Peru and Chile would have paled before the size and richness of this Silverado of the Wilderness, so long hidden from the gaze of man.

Then an adjournment was made to the “Emporium,” as it was proudly styled, the meagreness of its materials and adornments being in the inverse proportion to its imposing designation.

But the glory of the future, the assured development of the mine, and, as a natural sequence, of the “field,” was shed around with irradiating effect and brilliancy of colouring. Upon this the proprietor proceeded to dilate, after an invitation to a calico shielded sanctum, sacred to the account books and documents of the establishment. In the centre of the compartment stood a table composed of the top of a packing case, placed upon stakes driven into the earthen floor. At one side was a stretcher with his blankets and bedclothes, surmounted by a gaily coloured rug, upon which the visitors were invited to sit, while the host after placing a bottle of whisky of a fashionable brand upon the festive board, cordially requested his guests to join him in drinking the health of the energetic and spirited proprietors of the Great Comstock Silver Mine.

“Not that it looks much now, gentlemen; no more does this stringy bark and calico shanty of mine. But that says nothing. I was at Ballarat in the ‘fifties,’ and Jack Garth, the baker, had just such a gunya as this. I brought up a load of flour for him, and was paid a hundred and fifty pound a ton for the carriage. The roads were bad certainly – puts me in mind of this hole, in that way; but you could travel, somehow. And look at Ballarat now, with trams, and town halls, and artificial lakes, and public gardens and statues – just like the old country. And Jack Garth, well, he’s worth a couple of hundred thousand pounds, if he’s worth a penny; owns farms and prize stock, and hotels, and everything a man can want in this world. How came that, gentlemen? Because he was a hardworking straightgoing chap? No! that wouldn’t have done it, though he’d always have made a good living – any man of the right sort can do that in Australia. But the gold was there! It was there then, and it’s there now. It floated the whole place up to fortune and fame, the diggers, the storekeepers, the publicans, the commissioners, the carriers, the very police made money: some of ’em saved it too. Didn’t one of ’em own a whole terrace of houses afterwards? Well, the gold was there, and the silver’s here; that’s all that’s wanted for miners to know, and they’ll follow it up, if it was to the South Pole; and mark my words, gentlemen, this place’ll go ahead, and grow and flourish, and make fortunes for us men standing here, and for the er – er – babe unborn.” Concluding his peroration with this effective forecast, which showed that his connection, as member, with the Bungareeshire council had not been without effect on his elocution, Mr. Morgan replenished his glass, and invited his distinguished guests to do likewise.

Hobart, at length. Mr. Blount was unaffectedly pleased, even joyous, when for the second time he sighted the towering summit and forest-clothed sides of Mount Wellington, overlooking the picturesque city, the noble stretches of the Derwent, and the Southern main. Impatient of delay, and feverishly anxious to receive the letters which he had not cared to trust to the irregular postal service of Silverado; almost certain, as he deemed, of answers to his letters from Mrs. Bruce and Imogen, even if the master of the house had not relented, he had stayed a day to ensure the company of the mining expert, the road being lonely, the weather bad, and the conversation of a cultured companion valuable under the circumstances. Mr. Blount ran rapidly through the pile of letters and papers which he found awaiting him; indeed, made a second examination of these former missives.

A feeling of intense disappointment overcame him when no letters with the postmark of the village on the Upper Sturt turned up, nor did he discover the delicate, yet free and legible handwriting, which conveyed such solace to his soul at Bunjil.

Looking over the correspondence, mechanically, however, he came across the postmark of that comparatively obscure townlet, and recalling the bold, characteristic hand of Sheila Maguire, tore it open. It ran as follows: —

“Dear Mr. Blount, – You told me when you went away that cold morning, that if anything happened here that I thought you ought to know, I was to write and tell you. We all thought there would be a heavy fall of rain, and most likely a big storm that night. I expect you just missed it, but there must have been a waterspout or something, for the Little River, and all the creeks at the head of the water, came down a banker. It knocked the sluicing company’s works about, above a bit, and flooded the miners’ huts – but the worst thing it did was to drown poor Johnny Doyle the mailman. Yes! poor chap, it wasn’t known for days afterwards, when the people at Marondah wondered why they didn’t get their mail. He was never known to be late before. However, drowned he was, quite simple too. He could swim first-rate, but the pack-horse was caught in a snag, and he must have jumped in, to loose the bags, and got kicked on the head and stunned. So the packer was drowned, and him too, worse luck! His riding horse was found lower down – he’d swum out all right. They fished up the pack saddle with the mail-bags, but the letters were squashed up to pulp – couldn’t be delivered.

“So, if you wrote to any one down the river, she didn’t get it.

“I thought it as well to let you know, as you might be waiting for an answer, and not getting one, go off to foreign parts in a despairing state of mind. Bunjil’s much the same as when you left, except that Little-River-Jack, the two O’Haras, and Lanky Dixon were arrested in Gippsland, but not being evidence enough, the P.M. here turned them up. A report came that you had struck it rich in Tasmania, so you may be sure of getting all your letters now and some over. I’ve noticed that. So long. I send a newspaper with the account in it of the flood.

“Believe me always,

“Your sincere friend and well-wisher,

“Sheila Maguire.

“P.S. – The cob goes first-rate with me. I’m learning him to jump. He’s christened ‘Bunjil.’ I’m going to live in Tumut after Christmas, and he will remind me of the time you came here first.”

“By Jove! Sheila, you’re a trump!” was Mr. Blount’s very natural exclamation, as he arose and walked up and down the room, after mastering the contents of the momentous epistle. “This clears up the mystery of their silence. No wonder they didn’t write, Bruce thinking that I was willing to let judgment go by default. Mrs. Bruce and Imogen believing Heaven knows what? That I must be a shady character, at any rate, no gentleman, or I would have answered one or other of their letters – sent in the goodness of their hearts. So this is the explanation!”

The temporary relief accorded to the recipient of Sheila’s letter encouraged him to hunt through the pile of newspapers for the unassuming Bunjil, Little River, and Boggy Creek Herald, which, presently descrying, he fastened upon the headlines, “Disastrous flood.” “Great destruction of property.” “Lamentable death by drowning.”

“We regret deeply to be compelled to chronicle the melancholy and fatal accident by which Mr. John Doyle, a valued employé of the Postal Department, lost his life last week.

“The mail from the township to the Tallawatta Post-Office, by no means inconsiderable or unimportant, is carried on horseback, though we have repeatedly pointed out its inadequacy as a mode of transport. Our remonstrance has unfortunately been emphasised by the drowning of the mail-carrier, and the total loss of the letters and papers. Mr. Doyle was a fine young man, of steady habits, a good horseman and expert swimmer. It is surmised that in attempting to free the pack-horse, since discovered entangled in a sunken tree root, he was kicked by the struggling animal and stunned; the post-mortem examination before the inquest, made by Dr. Dawson, M.D., who came over from Beechworth for the purpose, disclosed a deep cut on the temple and the mark of a horseshoe. The coroner, with a jury of six, brought in a verdict of ‘Accidental death by drowning.’ At the funeral, nearly a hundred persons attended, showing the respect in which the deceased was held by the neighbours. Father O’Flynn of the Presbytery at Hovell conducted the service. This occurrence has cast quite a gloom over our township and the surrounding district.”

So much for poor Johnny Doyle, a game, active, hardworking son of the soil; sober and well conducted, the chief support of his widowed mother, with a brood of half-a-dozen young children.

There was some argument after the funeral upon the mystery of permitted evil, and the dispensation which allowed the sacrifice of poor Johnny, whose life was a benefit in his humble sphere, to all connected with him, while as to certain worthless members of the body politic, freely referred to by name, the invariable verdict upon an apparently charmed life was, “You couldn’t kill ’em with an axe.”

It had magnificent proportions, and was decorated, according to traditional usage, with the spoils of the chase – mostly indigenous, though the forest trophies gave evidence that the men of the house had not always been home-keeping youths. In addition to fine heads of red, and fallow deer, kangaroo skins, and dingo masks, “tigers” and “devils” (Australian variety) stuffed, as also the rarer wombat and platypus, there were trophies which told of hunting parties in the South African “veldt,” and the jungles of Hindostan. Horns of the eland, and the springbok, alternated with lion and tiger skins, bears and leopards!

The sons of the first generation of landholders had gone far afield for sport and adventure before they decided to settle down for life, in the fair island which their fathers had won from the forest and the savage.

There was scant leisure to muse over these, or other gratifying developments, as the buzz of conversation, extremely mirthful and vivacious, which was in full swing when Mr. Dereker and his young companion entered the hall, was apparently accelerated by their arrival.

A certain amount of chaff had evidently been directed against the two collegians, so lately returned from their university. How did the men and maidens of the old country compare with their compatriots here – in athletics, in field sports, in looks (this related only to the feminine division), and so forth? Mr. Joe and Mr. Bertie Bowyer had been apparently hard set to hold their ground; beset as they were by sarcastic advice, adjured to keep to the strict line of truth on one side – but not to desert their native land on the other – they were in imminent danger of wreck from Scylla, or Charybdis. Their opinions were chiefly as follows:

In athletics and field sports the colonists held their own fairly well, with perhaps a trifle to spare. Notably in the hunting field; the small enclosures and high stiff fences of Tasmania giving them practice and experience over a more dangerous line of country than any in Britain. In horsemanship, generally, the colonists were more at home, from having been in youth their own grooms and horse-breakers. In shooting, and the use of the gloves, particularly in the art of self-defence, the Australians showed a disposition to excel. Already a few professionals from Sydney had shown good form and staying power. In boating there was a distinct and growing improvement, few of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-races being without a colonist in one or other crew. There was often one in both. This state of matters is hailed with acclamation. The great advantage which the old country possessed in the way of sport lay in the social environment. The difference between its pursuit here and in Britain consisted in the fact that the seasons were carefully defined, and the laws of each division strictly adhered to. Moreover, in whatever direction a man’s tastes lay, hunting, fishing, shooting, or coursing, he was always sure of the comradeship of the requisite number of enthusiastic habitués and amateurs.

After lunch, which was a conspicuously cheerful reunion, it was decided that a start homeward was to be made at four o’clock sharp. In the meantime, the brothers Bowyer intimated their intention to drive over in a mail phaeton, which they had brought out with them, built by Kesterton of Long Acre, with all the newest improvements of the most fashionable style. One of the Misses Bowyer and her friend, Jessie Allan, an acknowledged belle from Deloraine, would join the party; Reggie might come too, as he was a light weight, and would be useful for opening gates. The intervening time was spent in exploring the orchard and gardens, both of which were on an unusually extensive scale. The fruit trees, carefully pruned and attended to, were of great age. Indeed Mr. Blount felt impelled to remark that apparently one of the first things the early settlers seem to have done, after building a house, not a mansion, for that came afterwards, was to plant a garden and orchard.

“Our grandfathers,” said Mr. Joe Bowyer, “remind me of the monks of old, who, in establishing the abbeys, which I always examined in our walking tours, for I am an archaeologist in a very small way, always took care to choose a site not far from a trout stream, and with good meadow lands adjoining, equally suitable for orchard, corn or pasture. These estates mostly commenced with a Crown grant of a few thousand acres, such as were given at the discretion of the early Governors, to retired officers of the army and navy, many of whom decided to settle permanently in the island. The grantee had a certain time allotted to make his choice of location. This he employed in searching for the best land, with access to markets, &c. In a general way, the country being open, and there being at that time no system of sale by auction of bush land, the nucleus was secured of what has since become valuable freeholds.”

“I should think they were,” said the stranger guest, “and in the course of time, with the increase of population, as the country becomes fully settled, must become more valuable still. Do you look forward to spending the whole of your lives here, you and your brother, or retiring to England, where your rents, I should suppose, would enable you to live very comfortably?”

“We might have a couple of years in the old country,” said the Tasmanian squire, “before we get too old to enjoy things thoroughly, but after a run over the Continent, for a final memory, this is our native land, and here we shall live and die.”

“But the fulness of life in Britain, foreign travel, the great cities of the world, music, art, literature such as can be seen and enjoyed in such perfection nowhere else, why leave them for ever?”

“Yes, of course, all that is granted, but a man has something else to do in the world but merely to enjoy himself, intellectually or otherwise. This land has made us, and we must do something for it in return. Luxuries are the dessert, so to speak, of the meal which sustains life. They fail to satisfy or stimulate after a while. We are Australians born and bred; in our own land we are known and have a feeling of comradeship with our countrymen of every degree. The colonist, after a few years, has an inevitable feeling of loneliness in Europe, which he cannot shake off. It is different with an Englishman however long he has lived here. He goes home to his family and friends, who generally welcome him, especially if he has made a fortune. Even they, however wealthy and used to English life, often return to Australia. There is something attractive in the freer life, after all.”

“Yes, I suppose there must be,” and a half sigh ended the sentence, as he thought of Imogen Carrisforth’s hazel eyes and bright hair, her frank smile and joyous tones, a very embodiment of the charm and graces of divine youth. A cloud seemed to have settled upon his soul, as his companion led the way to the entrance hall, where the whole party was collecting for the homeward drive. However, putting constraint upon his mental attitude, he took his seat with alacrity beside his fair companion of the morning.

CHAPTER VIII

The return drive was made in slightly better time than the morning journey, the English mail phaeton of the Messieurs Bowyer, with a pair of exceptional trotters, taking the lead. The mounted contingent followed at a more reasonable pace, as they had from time to time to put “on a spurt” to come up with the drag, harness work, as is known to all horsemen, keeping up a faster average pace than saddle. However, everybody arrived safely at the Hall in excellent spirits, as might have been gathered from the cheerful, not to say hilarious, tone which the conversation had developed. Mr. Blount, in especial, whose ordinary optimism had reasserted sway, told himself that (with one exception) never had he enjoyed such a delicious experience of genuine country life. There was no more time available than sufficed for a cup of afternoon tea and the imperative duty of dressing for dinner. At this important function the mistress of the house had exercised a wise forecast, since, when the great table in the dining-room, duly laid, flowered, and “decored with napery,” met the eyes of the visitors, it was seen that at least double as many guests had been provided for as had assembled at breakfast. “Dick!” said the host to Mr. Dereker, “Mrs. Claremont says you are to take the vice-chair; you’ll have her on your right and Miss Allan on your left – wisdom and beauty, you see – so you can’t go wrong. Philip, my boy! you’re to take the right centre, with Joe Bowyer and Miss Fotheringay on one side, Laura and Mr. Blount on the other. Jack Fotheringay fronts you, with any young people he can get. I daresay he’ll arrange that. You must forage for yourselves. Now I can’t pretend to do anything more for you. I daresay you’ll shake down.”

So they did. There was much joking and pleasant innuendo as the necessary shufflings were made, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives having to be displaced and provided with neighbours not so closely related. Nothing was lacking as far as the material part of the dinner was concerned – a famous saddle of mutton, home-grown from a flock of Southdowns kept in the park, descended from an early English importation; a grand roast turkey, upon which the all-accomplished Mr. Dereker operated with practised hand, as did the host upon the Southdown, expatiating at intervals upon the superiority of the breed for mutton purposes only. The red currant jelly was a product of the estate, superintended in manufacture by one of the daughters of the house; trout from the river, black duck from the lake, equal to his canvas-back relative of the Southern States; a haunch, too, of red deer venison, Tasmanian born and bred. For the rest, everything was well cooked, well served, and excellent of its kind. Worthy of such viands was the appetite of the guests, sharpened by the exercise and a day spent chiefly in the open air, the keen, fresh, island atmosphere.

The host’s cellar, famous for age and quality in more than one colony, aided the general cheerfulness. So that if any of the fortunate guests at that memorable dinner had aught but praise for the food, the wines, the company, or the conversation, they must have been exceptionally hard to please. So thought Mr. Blount, who by and by joined the ladies, feeling much satisfied with himself and all the surroundings. Not that he had done more than justice to the host’s claret, madeira, and super-excellent port. He was on all occasions a temperate person. But there is no doubt that a few glasses of undeniably good wine, under favourable conditions, such as the close of an admirable dinner, with a dance of more than common interest to follow, may be considered to be an aid to digestion, as well as an incentive to a cheerful outlook upon life, which tends, physicians tell us, to longevity, with health of body and mind.

It happened, fortunately, to be a moonlight night. The day had been one of those of the early spring, which warm, even hot, in the afternoon, presage, in the opinion of the weather-wise, an early summer, which prediction is chiefly falsified. But while this short glimpse of Paradise is granted to the sons of men, no phrase can more truly describe it. Cloudless days, warmth, without oppressive heat, tempered by the whispering ocean breeze, beseeching the permission of the wood nymphs to invade their secret haunts, all flower, and leaf, and herb life responsive to the thrilling charm – the witchery of the sea voices.

Such had been the day. That the drives and rides through the green woodland, the hill parks, the meadow fields, had been absolutely perfect all admitted. Now the evening air seemed to have gained an added freshness. When the French windows of the ballroom were thrown open it was predicted that many a couple would find the broad verandahs, or even the dry and shaded garden paths, irresistibly enticing after the first few dances.

Such, indeed, was the case. What with accidental and invited guests, the number had been increased to nearly twenty couples, all young, enthusiastic, fairly musical, and devoted to the dance.

The music, indeed, had been an anxiety to the hostess. The piano was a fine instrument, luckily in perfect tune. Half the girls present could play dance music effectively. But another instrument or two would be such an aid in support.

Then inquiry was made; Chester of Oaklands was a musical amateur, the violin was his favourite instrument, he was so good-natured that he could be counted upon. Then there was young Grant of Bendearg, who played the cornet. So, messengers with polite notes were despatched on horseback, and both gentlemen, being luckily found at home, were secured. The band was complete. Mr. Blount, with proper precaution, had secured the hand of Miss Laura Claremont at dinner, for two waltzes, a polka, and the after-supper galop; among her sisters and the late arrivals he had filled his card. These had been written out by volunteer damsels during the after-dinner wait.

He had, therefore, no anxiety about his entertainment for the evening. No time was lost after the conclusion of the dinner. The young ladies from Cranstoun and Deepdene had, of course, brought the necessary evening wear with them. Mr. Blount’s English war-paint had been stored in Melbourne while he was learning something about gold-fields and cattle-lifting, this last involuntarily. He was “accoutred proper,” and as such, not troubled with anxiety about his personal appearance. The Bowyers, of course, were resplendent in “the very latest” fashion; as to canonicals, the other men were fairly up to the standard of British evening toggery, and for the few who were not, allowances were made, as is always the case in Australia. People can’t be expected to carry portmanteaux about with them, especially on horseback, and as they were among friends they got on quite as well in the matter of partners as the others.

It certainly was a good dance. The music kept going nobly. The young lady at the piano was replaced from time to time, but the male musicians held on till supper time without a break. When that popular distraction was announced half-an-hour’s interval for refreshments was declared, after which a good-natured damsel stole in, and indulged the insatiable juniors with a dreamy, interminable waltz. Then the two men recommenced with the leading lady amateur, and a polka of irresistible swing and abandonment soon filled the room.

Certainly a dance in the country in any part of Australia is an object lesson as to the vigour and vitality of the race. All Australian girls dance well – it would seem to be a natural gift. Chiefly slender, lissom, yet vigorous in health, and sound in constitution, they dance on, fleet-footed and tireless, as the fabled Nymphs and Oreads of ancient Hellas. Hour after hour passed, still unwearied, unsated, were the dancers, until the arrival of the soup suggested that the closure was about to be applied. But the dawnlight was stealing over the summit of the mountain range when the last galop had come to an end, and a few couples were by way of cooling themselves in the verandah or the garden paths. Here, and at this hour, Mr. Blount found himself alone with Laura Claremont, who had indeed, in spite of faltering maiden remonstrance, completed her fifth dance with him. He was not an unstable, indiscriminate admirer, least of all a professional trifler with the hearts of women, but he had been strongly attracted (perhaps interested would be the more accurate word) by her quiet dignity, conjoined with refinement and high intelligence.

She had read largely, and formed opinions on important questions with greater thoroughness than is the habit of girls generally. Without being a recognised beauty, she had a striking and distinguished appearance. Her dark hair and eyes, the latter large and expressive, the delicate complexion for which the women of Tasmania are noted, in combination with a noble figure and graceful shape, would have given her a foremost position by looks alone in any society. The expression of her features was serious rather than gay, but when the humorous element was invoked a ripple of genuine mirth spread over her countenance, the display of which added to her modest, yet alluring array of charms.

Such was the woman with whom Blount had been thrown temporarily into contact for the last few days, and this night had shown him more of her inward thoughts and feelings, unveiled as they were by the accidents of the dance and the driving party, than he had ever dreamed of. Returning to the ballroom, the final adieus were made, and as he pressed her yielding hand he felt (or was it fancy?) an answering clasp.

On the following day he had arranged to leave for Hobart, as he expected to deal with propositions lately submitted for the amalgamation of the original prospecting claim with those adjoining, thus to include a larger area upon which to float a company to be placed upon the London market, with an increased number of shares.

This had been done at the suggestion of Mr. Tregonwell, whose energetic temperament was constantly urging him to cast about for improved conditions of management, and a more profitable handling of the great property which kind fortune had thrown into their hands.

“What is the sense,” he had asked in his last letter from the mine, “of going on in the slow, old-fashioned way, just turning out a few thousand ounces of silver monthly, and earning nothing more than a decent income, this fabulously rich ore body lying idle, so to speak, for want of organisation and enterprise? The specimens already sent home have prepared the British investors for the flotation of a company, of which a large proportion of the shares will be offered to the public. I propose to call a meeting of the shareholders in Number One and Two, North, and South, and submit a plan for their consideration at once.

“With our property thrown in we can increase the shares to five hundred thousand one pound shares, resuming a hundred thousand paid up original shares from the prospectors. You and I, Herbert and Clarke, pool the lot and put them before the public, allotting so many to all applicants before a certain day – after which the share allotment list will be closed. With the increased capital, we can then carry out and complete such improvements as are absolutely necessary for the working of the mine on the most productive scale, ensuring a return of almost incredible profits within a comparatively short period. In a series of years, the price of silver may fall – the money market, in the event of European wars, become restricted, and in fact the future, that unknown friend or enemy to all mundane affairs, may blight the hopes and expectations which now appear so promising.

“Everything is favourable now, the mine, the output, the market – money easy, machinery available on fair terms. But we don’t know how soon a cloud may gather, a storm – financial or political – may burst upon us. The directors in the great Comstock Mine in America looked at things in that light – doubled their capital, quadrupled their plant, built a railway, and within five years banked dollars enough to enable the four original prospectors (I knew Flood and Mackay well – worked with them in fact – when we were all poor men) to become and remain millionaires to the end of their lives. Meanwhile giving entertainments, and building palaces, which astonished all Europe, and America as well – a more difficult matter by far.

“Now, what do we want, you will ask, for all this development, this Arabian Night’s treasure house? I say – and I am talking strict business – that we must have, presuming that the ‘Great Tasmanian Proprietary Comstock and Associated Silver Mines Company, Limited,’ comes off, and the shares will be over-applied for twice over – what do we want, I repeat? A battery with the newest inventions and improvements – a hundred stamps to begin with. It may be, of course, increased; we shall provide for such a contingency.

“Secondly, we must have a railway – from the mine to the port – to carry our men – materials, supplies generally. We can’t go back to this Peruvian mode of transit-carrying – on men’s backs, at a frightful waste of time and money. We can’t afford the time– it’s not a question so much of money as of time, which is wasting money at compound interest. We want a wharf at Strahan and a steamer of our own to take the ore to Callao. She’ll pay for herself within the year. Is that all? I hear you asking with your cynical drawl, which you affect, I know you, when you’re most interested.

“No, sir! as we all learnt to say in the States – the best comes last. We want a first-class American mining manager – a real boss – chock full of scientific training from Freiberg, practical knowledge gathered from joining the first crowd at Sutter’s Mill – and more important than all, the knack of keeping a couple of thousand miners, of different creeds, countries and colours, all pulling one way, and him keeping a cool head in strikes and other devilries that’s bound to happen in every big mine in the world, specially when she’s doin’ a heap better than common – see! His price is £5,000 a year, not a cent less – if you want the finished article!” Here, Mr. Tregonwell’s fiery eloquence, albeit confined to cold pen and ink, led him into the mining American dialect, so easy to acquire, so difficult to dislodge – which he had picked up in his early experiences. In the class with which he had chiefly associated in earlier years, and to which he belonged in right of birth, he could be as punctiliously accurate in manner and speech, as if he had never quitted it. With a certain reluctance, as of one committing himself to a voyage upon an unknown sea, his more prudent, but less practical partner gave a guarded consent to these daring propositions, premising, however, that the company must be complete in legal formation and the shares duly allotted, before a cheque was signed by Frampton Tregonwell and Company, in aid of operations of such colossal magnificence.

Mr. Blount excused himself from accepting a pressing invitation to remain another week at this very pleasant reproduction of English country house life, on the plea of urgent private affairs, but he acceded to Mr. Dereker’s suggestion that he should stay a night with him at Holmby, on the way to Hobart, where he would undertake to land him an hour or two before the coach could arrive. This was a happy conjunction of business and pleasure, against which there was no valid argument. So, with many regrets by guest and entertainers, and promises on the part of the former to return at the earliest possible opportunity, he after breakfast started in Mr. Dereker’s dog-cart from the hospitable precincts of Hollywood Hall.

Holmby, the well-known headquarters of the sporting magnates of the island, was reached just “within the light,” though, as the road was exceptionally good – metalled, bridged, and accurately graded all through – the hour of arrival was not of great consequence.

Mr. Dereker was a bachelor, and had mentioned something about bachelor’s fare and pot luck generally, to which Mr. Blount, feeling equal to either fortune, had made suitable reply. Rather to his surprise, however, as his host had driven round to the stables they saw grooms and helpers busy in taking out the team of a four-in-hand drag.

The equipage and appointments arrested his attention, and caused him to utter an exclamation. They constituted indeed an uncommon turn-out. An English-built coach – such as the Four-in-hand and the coaching clubs produce on the first day of the season, for the annual procession, so anxiously awaited, so enthusiastically watched, – complete with every London adjunct, from hamper to horn, etc. The horses had just been detached, and were, at Mr. Dereker’s order, detained for inspection. Four flea-bitten greys, wonderfully matched, and sufficiently large and powerful to warrant their easy action in front of so heavy a drag, as the one in which they had been driven over. Their blood-like heads, and striking forehands, not less than their rounded back ribs, and powerful quarters, denoted the fortunate admixture of the two noblest equine families – the Arab and the English thoroughbred: of size and strength they had sufficient for all or any harness work, while their beauty and faultless matching would have graced any show-ground in England.

“This team was bred by a relative of mine, who is a great amateur in the coaching line, and is thought to be the best team in Australasia! His place, Queenhoo Hall, is only fifteen miles off. He is a connection by marriage: therefore we don’t stand on ceremony. I suspect he is giving his team an airing before driving them to the Elwick Races next month, where he always turns out in great style. You will not have a dull evening, for his wife and a niece or two are sure to have accompanied him.”

In passing through the outer hall, such an amount of mirthful conversation reached the ear, as led to the belief in Mr. Blount’s mind, that either the number of the Squire’s nieces had been under-stated, or that, according to the custom of the country, the coach had been reinforced on the way. So it proved to be – the hall was apparently half full of men and maidens, unto whom had been added a few married people, as well as a couple of subalterns from a regiment then quartered in Hobart. The chaperons were not noticeably older than their unmarried charges, so that the expectation of a dance was fully justified.

Mr. Blount was introduced to the “Squire,” as he was universally called, as also to his nieces, two attractive-looking girls; and of course, to all the other people, civil and military. He felt as he once did in the west of Ireland, where he accepted so many invitations to spend a month, that the number of months would have had to be increased if he had not more than a year in which to keep holiday. He complimented the Squire, with obvious sincerity, on his wonderful team, and promised, strictly reserving compliance until after the flotation of the great mining company, to visit him at Queenhoo Hall in the summer time now approaching. The dinner and the dance were replicas of those he had enjoyed at Hollywood. Here he had another opportunity of admiring the lovely complexions, graceful figures, and perfect grace and fleetness of the daughters of the land in the waltz or galop, and when he started for Hobart soon after sunrise, the drive through the fresh morning air dispelled all feelings of weariness, which, under the circumstances, he might have felt, after hearing the cock crow two mornings running before going to bed.

“Heaven knows how long this sort of thing might have lasted, if that letter of Tregonwell’s had not turned up last night,” he told himself. “There is a time for all things – and if I do not mistake, it is high time now, as our pastors and masters used to say, to make a stern division between work and play – ‘poculatum est, condemnatum est,’ so ‘nunc est agendum’ in good earnest.”

Hobart, reached two hours before the coach could have drawn up before the post-office, reassured him as to Mr. Dereker’s guarantee holding good. A cab from the nearest stand bore him and his luggage to the Tasmanian Club, where, freed from the distractions of country houses, he was able to collect his thoughts before attacking the great array of letters and papers, which met his eye when he entered his room.

A copy of the morning paper reposing on the dressing-table disclosed the fact in an aggressive headline that the Proprietary Tasmanian Comstock and Associated Silver Mines Company (Limited) was already launched upon the Australian mining world, and indeed upon that of Europe, and the Universe generally.

“The Directors of this magnificent silver property, which includes the original Comstock Claim – amalgamated with the Associated Silver Mines Company we understand” – wrote the fluent pen of the Editor of the Tasmanian Times– “have at length succumbed to outside pressure, and in the interest of the British and Colonial Public, consented to form these mines of unparalleled richness into a company. The Directors are Messrs. Valentine Blount, Frampton Tregonwell, and Charles Herbert and John Westerfield Clarke, names which will assure the shareholders of honourable and straightforward dealing at the hands of those to whom their pecuniary interests are committed. These names are well and favourably known in England, in Mexico, in the United States of America, and the Dominion of Canada. Comment is superfluous – they speak for themselves.

“Wherever gold or silver mining is carried on the names of Clarke and Tregonwell are familiar as ‘household words’ and always associated with skilled treatment and successful operations. That this enterprise will have a beneficial effect not only upon the mining, but on the commercial, and all other industries of Tasmania, lifting her, with her fertile soil, her equable climate, her adaptability for all agricultural and pastoral products to her proper place in the front rank of Australian colonies no sane man can henceforth doubt. A line of steamers from Strahan to Hobart, a short though expensive railway, and a metalled coach road, are among the indispensable enterprises which Mr. Tregonwell assured our representative would be commenced without delay. Advance, Tasmania!”

Looking hastily through the pile of unopened letters, but keeping private-and-confidential-appearing correspondence strictly apart, and relegating those in Mr. Tregonwell’s bold, rapid handwriting, to a more convenient season, he started, and trembled, as his eye fell upon a letter in Mrs. Bruce’s handwriting which bore the Marondah postmark. His heart almost stopped beating, when an enclosed note fell out, still more likely to affect his inmost soul. Yes! it was in the handwriting, so closely scanned, so dearly treasured in the past, of Imogen Carrisforth. For the moment, a spasm of regret, even remorse affected him painfully. He stood self-convicted by his conscience of having lingered in frivolous, social enjoyment, while uncertain of the welfare and feelings of one who had aroused the deepest emotions of his being, nor had he (with shame he reflected) taken all possible means to discover to what circumstance it was that his letters had been apparently treated with indifference or contempt.

“The Manager, Mackenzie, and I were riding along rather late one evening, and a good twelve or fifteen miles from home. The weather (of course) was fine, but the hour was late, and the sun, which had been glaring at us all day, only just about to set.

“‘By George! that’s a big mob of horses,’ said Mac., ‘going fast too. Coming from the back of Goornong and heading for Burnt Creek. Six men and a black boy. Depend upon it, there’s something “cronk.” They might see us yet. Yes, they do! They’ve halted. Left two men and the boy with the mob, and the rest, four men, are coming across the plains to us.’

“‘Do you know who they are?’

“‘I can pretty well guess,’ he said. ‘They’re a part of that crowd that we broke up last year, a very dangerous lot! The big man with the beard is Joe Bradfield, the best bushman in all Queensland, and perhaps Australia, to boot. The chap alongside him is “Jerry the Nut.” He’s a double-dyed scoundrel, if you like, twice tried for murder, and ought to have been hanged years ago, if he’d got his rights. Supposed to have shot “Jack the Cook,” who quarrelled with him, and started in for Springsure to give the lot away, but never got there. Found dead in the Oakey Creek with two bullets in him. Jerry was proved to have overtaken him on the road; was the last man seen with him alive. Put on his trial – a strong case against him, but not sufficient evidence. Here they come. We’ve seen them in possession of stolen horses. I expect they’ve duffed them from that Bank station, that was taken over last week. They may think it safer to “rub us out.” They’re villains enough for anything. You’re armed, and my “navy, No. 1” is pretty sure at close quarters. Cut off by – ! we may have to ride for it too – ’ As he spoke, three men emerged from a clump of brigalow at an angle from the line at which the ‘horse thieves’ were riding. They also made towards us, and riding at speed, seemed as if they desired to reach us at about the same time as the others. Such, it appeared, would be the case.

“The four men that had left the mob of horses, rode at the station overseer and me as if they would ride over us. Then pulled up with the stock-horses’ sudden halt, not brought up on their haunches, like those of the gaucho of Chile or the cowboy of the Western States, by the merciless wrenching curb, but with the half pull of the plain snaffle, the only bit the bushman knows, when with loose rein, and lowered head, the Australian camp horse drives his fore-feet into the ground, and stops dead as if nailed to the earth.

“‘What the h – l are you two doing here?’ shouted the tall man, a Hercules in height and breadth of shoulder, yet sitting his horse with the ease and closeness of early boyhood, though his beard and coal-black hair were already streaked with grey. Tracking us down? My God! it’s the worst lay you was ever on. Isn’t a man to ride across a plain in the blasted squatters’ country without he has a pass from a magistrate? That’s what it’s coming to. Well, you’re on the wrong lay this trip. Come along back with us, or we’ll make yer.

“‘And look dashed quick about it, or ye’ll not come back at all. Bring up the darbies, Joe! We’ll see how the bloomin’ swells like ’em.’

“As the last speaker uttered this threat, he and the other men raised their revolvers.

“‘I’ll see you d – d first,’ I replied (excuse bad language). ‘We’re from Trelawney this morning, and on our lawful business.’ Here I drew my revolver.

“The encounter looked doubtful, when the three new arrivals rode up, and, like the other bushmen, stopped dead, with their horses side by side.

“‘No, yer don’t!’ said one of the new arrivals, a man as tall and massive as the first ‘robber’ (for such he seemed). ‘I’m not goen’ to stand by and see Mr. Bruce, of Marondah, double-banked by you Queensland duffers while I’m round. There’s been trouble between him and our crowd; but he’s a man and a gentleman, and I’m here to stand by him to the bitter end. It’s five go four now, so fire away, and be d – d to you!’

“‘Who the devil are you?’

“‘I’m Phelim O’Hara, and this is Little-River-Jack, and my brother Pat. We’ve come up, like the Proosians at Waterloo, rather late in the day; but “better late than never.” You’re Joe Bradfield, that we’ve heard of, and Jerry the Nut that murdered his mate, I suppose. So you’d better go back to the French, and let the allies go their own way. No one’s goen’ to give you away, if your own foolishness doesn’t. We’re on our own ground, so hear reason and clear out. I heard a big lot of police, and Superintendent Gray, of Albany, was on yer track.’

“‘When did you hear that?’

“‘No later than yesterday. And you’re ridin’ straight into their bloomin’ arms, if yer don’t get back the way yer kem’ in. Take a fool’s advice, and get into the ranges again. This country’s too open for your crowd, and you’ll have to do the gully-raker’s racket for a month or two, till the “derry’s” toned down a bit.’

“This apparently reasonable advice seemed to have weight with the troop of highly irregular horse, as, after a short colloquy, they rode back to their companions in charge of the horses, and heading them towards the distant ranges, disappeared shortly from sight.

“‘O’Hara!’ said I, ‘whatever you and your mates may have done in the past – at any rate, as far as I am concerned – is now past and gone. I freely forgive anything that there may have been to forgive, in consequence of your manly conduct to-day. If you will come back with me to the head station, I dare say Mr. Mackenzie can find you something to do in this bad season. Unfortunately, we have only too many vacancies for bushmen like yourselves and Jack Carter.’

“‘We’ll take your word for it, Mr. Bruce,’ said Little-River-Jack; ‘and, if we come to terms, there’ll be no station on the Upper Sturt that’ll lose fewer stock – barrin’ from the season – while we’re to the fore.’

“‘All right,’ said Mackenzie, ‘you’re just the chaps we want this awful season; and, now you’re going straight, each of you will be worth half a dozen ordinary men.’”

The day was still warm, not much change from the 110° in the shade which the sunset-hour had registered, but a gradual coolness commenced to o’erspread the heated landscape. “The stars rush out, at one strike comes the dark,” making an appearance of coolness, to which the abnormal dryness of the air in mid-Australia lends a perceptible relief. Confident of a welcome, and the hospitable reception of a head-station – always superior in comfort to the more casual arrangements of the out-stations – the five horsemen rode steadily forward in peace and amity; Mr. Mackenzie, as knowing every foot of the run, taking the lead with the two O’Haras, while Mr. Bruce and Little-River-Jack followed quietly in the rear.

CHAPTER IX

“‘I’d like to tell you, sir,’ said Carter, ‘how we first got acquainted, me and Mr. Blount, to put him right with you, because I heard a whisper that you thought he must be in with us, in the “cross” butchering line.’

“‘I don’t deny,’ I answered, ‘that I thought it very suspicious that a man like him should be living with you fellows, and yet have no idea that dishonest work was going on?’

“‘All right, Mr. Bruce, don’t spare us. It was dishonest, there’s no two ways about it, and we chaps ought to be ashamed of ourselves, as are well able to get a living straight and square, and under fear of no man. Now we’ve had a fright and been let off you’ll never hear another word against us. But I wanted to have a word about Mr. Blount. If he had been copped along with us, it would have been a cruel shame, a regular murder, and him as innocent as the child unborn. His horse was knocked up, or next door to it, when I came across him a few miles from the “Lady Julia”; I’d a few cattle with me, and asked him to help me drive them. He stayed at our place that night. The man I was selling them to sent for them before daylight, and all he could hear was them being let out of the yard.’

“‘He was a dividing mate after that, though?’ said I, knowing that such mining agreements comprehend all knowledge in heaven and earth, and under the sea.

“Carter answered my unspoken thought when he said, ‘He bought Tumberumba Dick’s share, him as went to Coolgardie, and if he knew mullock from wash dirt, then, it’s as much as he did. As for cattle, he hardly knew a cow from a steer. Then he lost his moke and went down the river to get word of him.’

“‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I met him then; he came on me just as I was shooting a small mob of wild horses. I had been watching for them for months. They seldom came so far in; but I dropped the stallion first shot, a noted grey, said to be thoroughbred; the mares and foals wouldn’t leave him, so I got them all, one by one.’

“‘Mr. Blount was astonished, I suppose? Seems a pity, too, they were a well-bred lot. I’ve had many a gallop after the same lot, thinkin’ to yard ’em, but they always got away. Anyhow, they’re no blessed good, if you do yard ’em; mostly sulk and always clear the first chance. His cob, it seems, joined your horses, and was run in to the paddock. So you put him up for the night and sent him home on his own horse. Came part of the way with him, you and the ladies, and Black Paddy. Nigh hand to the “Lady Julia” you spotted your “E. H. B.” bullock with a fresh brand on. And he never said nothen’. Next day Black Paddy ran our tracks to the claim and the stockyard, found where the last bullocks had been driven to the Back Creek slaughter yards. That was as plain as A B C, and we had to clear. Phelim waited on to get his horse back that he’d lent him, and start after Pat and Lanky, who were well on their way to Omeo.’

“‘All quite correct,’ I said; ‘but why didn’t he act straightforwardly and tell me like a man that he had been working in your claim?’

“‘Because he didn’t want to give us away, and if he said what he knew, but didn’t understand, the police would have been up next day and collared the lot of us before we had a chance to cut it.’

“‘But why was he so tender about your party?’ I said. ‘You had deceived him, and he might naturally have felt angry at being let in for aiding and abetting cattle stealers, and all the more anxious to see you punished.’

“‘That’s all right, Mr. Bruce; but you see there was another reason why he stood by us, though he didn’t wait an hour after he knew we were on the cross; wouldn’t take his share of the gold neither, which he’d worked as hard for as any of us.’

“‘What was the other reason?’

“‘Well, sir,’ rather shamefacedly, ‘he thought I’d saved his life, as it were.’

“‘Saved his life? How could that be?’

“‘It was this way, sir.’ As he spoke, he looked quite sad and confused. ‘You know that Razor Back ridge on the short track to Bunjil?’

“‘Yes! I was over it once, and a brute of a track it was. That was where Paddy Farrell was killed.’

“‘The same; well, when we was coming along it from Bunjil to the claim, that cob of his – a flat-country horse – got frightened, and had half a mind to back over the edge. I was thinkin’ of somethin’ else; when I looked back I saw Mr. Blount was confused-like, he didn’t know how to stop him. I slipped off, and held the cob, while he did the same, and started old Keewah along the track, with the reins tied to the stirrup-iron. My old moke trotted on, and the cob after him, till they came to the trap-yard, where we found them when we came up, half an hour after. There wasn’t much in it. Any man who’d lived in rangey country couldn’t have helped doin’ it; but he chose to believe I’d saved his life. So it was chiefly that that made him not let on to you about where he’d lived. Nothing might have come of it; but it was a close shave, and no mistake.’

“‘I’m very glad to hear the explanation, Carter. I don’t see how he could have acted differently, as a man or gentleman. I shall write and tell him so. And now, a word with you; which you can pass on to your mates. Make no mistake, you’ve got a fresh start in life! You three fellows are young. Anything there is against you, as far as I know, is over and done with. These warrants are just waste paper. But be careful for the future. If you stick to the Nundooroo station till the drought’s over, you’re made men. I’ll let the Inspector-General of Police know how you behaved.’

“‘All right, sir; we’re on. We won’t go back on you,’ was his reply.

“‘You may expect to see me at Marondah, within the month, though travelling through a desert, as this country is virtually now, is very slow and unsatisfactory. I must pick up a riding camel, a “heirie,” such as I’ve seen in the East, warranted to keep going for twenty-four hours on end, without water or food. However, I suppose rain will come some time or other.’”

Thus fully exonerated, it may be believed that Blount made the best use of his time at Marondah, where he had the field all to himself with the advantage of the most considerate of chaperons, in the person of Mrs. Bruce, who had always been, as she told him, his staunch supporter, even in the dark days, when her husband forbade his name to be mentioned, and when from adverse circumstances no letters had arrived to clear his character.

“I never doubted you for a moment,” murmured Imogen, “but it must be confessed, it was hard work holding to my trust in you, when so many rumours were flying through the country. I never could make out why you joined such people at all, or what you were to gain by it. If you wished to know what a miner’s life was like, there are plenty of gentlemen glad enough to go into any venture of the sort, with the aid of a little capital – men such as you have described at the ‘Comstock’ or at Zeehan.”

“But how was I to find them?”

“Just the same way in which you would have done in England, through introductions to men of mark out here. They would have advised you for your good. And there would have been no risk of your being compromised by any action of theirs.”

“No doubt it was indiscreet of me, but I wanted to see for myself, and form my own opinion by personal experience of a society so different from any I had known before.”

“That is where you conceited Englishmen” – here she held up a warning finger – “make a mistake, indeed tons of mistakes. In vain we tell you that there is no special difference here between the classes of society, or the laws which rule them, and those of your own beloved country, which we are proud to resemble.”

“But are they not different?”

“Not radically, by any means. Any departure from English manners and customs is chiefly superficial. Your squire, or lord of the manor, says ‘Mornin’, Jones! crops doin’ so-so, too dry for the roots,’ and so on. ‘Nice four year old of yours. Looks as if he’d grow into a hunter.’ But there’s no real equality, nor can there be. Jones doesn’t expect it.”

“Mr. Bruce, I suppose, has much the same feeling for the farmers here, and they meet on much the same terms. Except when the suspicion of ‘duffing’ comes in, eh? then – then – relations are strained, indeed, as between the same classes, if poaching was discovered, and brought home to the guilty ones.”

They had these, with many other, talks and disquisitions, such as are interesting to lovers, and lovers only, in the long delicious evenings and unquestioned idlesse which are the prerogatives of the halcyon days which follow a declared engagement, and before the completed drama of marriage.

The soft, mild months of the southern spring were now heralding the less romantic season of the Australian summer. The sun god was daily strengthening his power, without as yet the fierce noonday glare or burning heat. Chiefly precious to them were the moonlight walks by the river side when the shadows of the great willows which fringed the river bank fell over the hurrying tide, when star sheen or moonrays glinted through the close foliage or sparkled diamond bright on the rippling bars. There was a winding path a few feet from the bank, accurately marked by the cattle and horses, which roved unchecked through the great meadows.

Here the lovers were at liberty to indulge in fullest confidences. He told her that he had loved her from the very first moment that his eyes fell upon her, when, not knowing that any other than Mrs. Bruce was in the house he had been almost unconventional in the surprise of the meeting and his instant admiration. “That moment sealed our destiny,” he said, “or rather, would have left me a lifelong regret had I never set eyes on you again. And what was your feeling, Imogen?” looking suddenly into her eyes, which, lit up by a fairy moonray, seemed to his eager gaze to glow with unearthly radiance. So, in old days did the fabled Oread enthrall the heart of the doomed shepherd or woodsman, luring him to follow into her enchanted bower, which he was fated never again to discover, wasting life wandering through the forest aisles, wearing out health, youth and passion, in the ever-fleeting, illusory pursuit.

“I think,” she answered softly, as her eyes fell before his ardent gaze, “that I must have been similarly affected, why, I cannot tell, but the fact remains that if you had never returned – and we had not much time for love-making, had we, between that day and your return to the ‘Lady Julia’ claim, and the fascinating society of Mr. Little-River-Jack? – I should have ‘fallen into a sadness, then into a fast, thence into a weakness,’ and so on. As it was, I was very melancholy and low for a while, and between that and influenza, very nearly ‘went out,’ as my maid, Josephine Macintyre, phrased it. Then, when I was coming round, and reaching the stage of ‘the common air, the sea, the skies, to “her” are opening Paradise,’ and would have written to you, we heard that you had become a millionaire or a ‘silver king’ in Tasmania. It was foolish, I know, but I thought it might look as if I wanted to recall you because of your wealth – a vulgar idea, but still one that works for good or evil in this silly life of ours. But now, all will be forgiven, ‘if this should meet the eye,’ &c., as the advertisements say. You will forgive me, and I will forgive you, and there will never be any more doubts or despair, will there?”

That Mr. Blount made a short but impressive reply to this query may be taken for granted. The river marge, the sighing, trailing willows, the rippling murmuring stream, the friendly moon, all these were conditions eminently favourable to “love’s young dream.” Nor did they fail in this instance to ratify the solemn, irrevocable vow, often lightly, rashly, falsely sworn, but in this instance repeated with all the passion of ardent manhood, responded to with the heart’s best and truest affection, the sacred, intensely glowing flame of the maiden’s love, imperishable, immortal.

“You told me, the last time we met,” she whispered, “that some day I should know why you came here to lead an aimless, wandering life. I always thought there was some mystery about it. Will you tell me now? It is lovely and mild, there could not be a better time. How clearly you can hear the ripple in the shallows. Was there a woman in it?”

“Of course there was, but mind, it all happened seven years ago. So if what I say may be used against me on my trial, I shall be dumb.”

“I’ve copied out depositions now and then, for Edward,” replied the girl, archly. “Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything? comes next. So I’ll promise not to take advantage of your voluntary confession, if you make a clean breast of it, once for all. I have no fear of the dear, dead women, whoever they were.”

“You need not,” said Blount, as he drew her more closely to him, “not if Helen of Troy were of the company.”

On their return to the verandah, where they found Mrs. Bruce still occupied with the needlework, which took up (so she said), fortunately, so much of her time, Imogen pleaded fatigue and retired, leaving the field free to her sister and the guest, who thereupon commenced a long, and apparently serious conversation.

Mr. Blount spoke more unreservedly of his private affairs than he had hitherto thought it expedient to do. Independently of his share in the Great Comstock Company, for which he had already been offered a hundred thousand pounds – he had a handsome allowance from his father – as also, thinking it might be needed, a letter of credit upon the Imperial Bank for five thousand pounds.

“It will always be a puzzle to me and Imogen,” said Mrs. Bruce, “how, with all that money at your disposal, you should ever have run the risks you did in this gipsy business, with the people we found you with, or would have done, if you had remained a few days longer with them. You didn’t want to learn their language, like Borrow – what other reason could there be?”

“My dear Mrs. Bruce,” he replied, “you have been so good, considerate, and friendly to me, that I must make a clean breast of it. I have already told Imogen all there is to tell of a by no means uncommon event in a man’s life, when one of your adorable, yet fatal sex is mixed up with it.”

“I see, I understand, the ‘eternal feminine’; we have not many romances of the kind in these quiet hills, but of course they are not wholly unknown, even in our sequestered lives. You are going to tell me of your tragedy.”

“It was not far removed from the ordinary run of such adventures, though there might easily have been a catastrophe. I was young, I said it was seven years ago, since which I have industriously wasted life’s best gifts, in trying to forget her. Beautiful, yes, as a dream maiden! a recognised queen of society, flattered, worshipped, wherever her fairy footsteps trod; but vain, ambitious and false as the Lorelei, or the mermaiden, that lures the fated victim. More than one man had thrown life, character, or fortune at her feet, unavailingly. I had heard this, but with the reckless confidence of youth, I heeded not. I met her at the quiet country house of a relative; men being scarce, she condescended to play for so poor a stake as the heart of a younger son, an undistinguished lover’s existence, and she won!

“How could it be otherwise? She turned the full battery of her charms upon the undefended fort. We rode together, we fished the trout stream, more dangerous still. We read in the old library, morning after morning, and here my not unmarked university career served me well, as I thought. I had been reading aloud from a novel of the hour, when, looking up suddenly I saw a light in her eyes, which gave me hope, more than hope. I took her hand, I poured out protestations, entreaties, vows of eternal love; whatever man has distilled from the inward fires of soul and sense, under the alembic of love at white heat, I found words for and poured into her not unwilling ear.

“She was visibly agitated. Her cold nature, serenely lovely as she always was, seemed to kindle into flame under the fire of my impetuous avowal. I gained her other hand, I threw myself on my knees before her, and drew her down to the level of my face. I clasped her yielding form, and kissed her lips with soul-consuming ardour. To my surprise, she made no resistance, her colour came and went, she might have been the veriest country milkmaid, surprised into consent by her rustic lover’s eagerness. ‘You are mine, say you are mine for ever!’ I whispered into her shell-like ear as her loosened hair fell over her cheek.

“‘Yours,’ she said in a low intense murmur, ‘now and for ever.’ Then gently, disengaging herself from my arms, ‘This is a foolish business. I confess to being rather unprepared, but I suppose we must consider it binding?’

“‘Binding,’ said I, shocked at the alteration of her tone and manner. ‘To the end of the world, and afterwards, in life, in death, my heart is yours unalterably – to wear in true love’s circlet or to break and cast beneath your feet.’

“‘Poor Val!’ said she, smoothing my hair with her dainty jewelled fingers, ‘yet women have played false before now to their promises, as fondly made, and men’s hearts have not been broken. They have lived to smile, to wed, to enjoy life much as usual – or old tales are untrue.’

“‘Do not jest,’ said I, ‘a man’s life – a woman’s heart, are treasures too precious to win – too perilous to lose; say you are not in earnest?’

“‘Perhaps not,’ she said, lightly. ‘Yes! you may have your good-night kiss,’ and we parted. You would not think it was for ever.

“The house-party was not large at Kingswood, but it was as much disturbed and excited when our engagement was given out, as if it had been a much more exalted gathering.

“My devotion had not been unmarked, but the betting had been against me. I was too young, too undistinguished – what had I done? not even in the army – in literature, beyond a few tentative minor successes, I was unknown. How had I presumed to propose to – indeed to win this belle of the last two seasons – the admitted star of the most aristocratic, exclusive, socially distinguished set? I was fairly good-looking – so much was admitted – my family was unimpeachable, old and honoured, but where is the money to come from to uphold the dignity and pay the bills of a queen of beauty and fashion such as Adeline Montresor?

“She had not come down from her room next morning when we men adjourned to the grounds for a smoke, and the usual after breakfast stroll.

“I was in the stable examining a strain which had lamed my hunter a few days since, and which had accounted for my presence in the library on the eventful afternoon, when my attention was attracted by an observation made by one man to another who held out a morning paper for his friend to see.

“‘I thought there was something “by ordinar,” as our Scotch gardener says.

“‘Death of Sir Reginald Lutterworth, all his money and the lovely place left to his nephew, Valentine Blount, the younger son of Lord Fontenaye.’

“‘By Jove!’ said his friend. ‘What a throw in! This accounts for the unaccountable, to put it mildly. The fair Adeline sees something beyond the personal merits of our enthusiastic young friend.

“‘A house in town – a place in the country, etc., presented at Court, Marlborough House in the future – what girl of the period could say no to such a present – with a still more gorgeous perspective?’

“‘Certainly not Miss Montresor, nor any of her set. But what about Colonel Delamere?’

“‘He’ll receive a neat, carefully worded note, which being interpreted, needs only one word of translation, “farewell.”

“‘Perhaps to soften the blow, as the phrase runs, something like “my people so badly off, pressure brought to bear – feelings unchanged – bow to Fate, etc.”’

“‘Wonder if she saw it?’

“‘My man says it’s in all the evening papers, but we were so hard at work at bridge, that no one thought of looking at them. She couldn’t have seen it, unless the maid took it up to her room when she went to dress for dinner. Ha! didn’t think of that.’

“On inquiry, I found that my enslaver and her maid had left for London by the early train. A note had been left for me, containing only a few words. ‘Dearest, I feel I must go home. See you at Oldacres. Au revoir.’

“I felt disappointed. Still I had no rational ground for distrust. It was most natural that a girl under such circumstances should wish to go home to her mother, and relieve her heart, when such an important step had been decided upon. I sent a telegram in answer, and arranged to leave for London, having to make certain arrangements in accordance with what would doubtless be my altered position.

“We wrote to one another daily. The letters, though not particularly ardent on her side, were affectionate and apparently sincere. A few days passed in making necessary financial arrangements, in receiving congratulations, freely tendered by friends and acquaintances.

“By my own family, I was regarded as a Spanish galleon, laden with treasure, which had come to redeem the faded glories of the estate, and to aid the wearer of a title, unsupported by an adequate income. Life was roseate, radiant with dazzling splendour.

“What cared I for the wealth? Was I not the proud possessor of the heart of the loveliest girl in England? I was invited to her father’s place in the Midlands, for the forthcoming hunting season.

“The kindest, semi-maternal letter informed me that ‘darling Adeline’ had overtaxed her nervous system, and not been quite herself for the last few days. I could understand why. However, she was looking her best once more, and all impatience to greet me at Oldacres, next week, when some of their more intimate neighbours would be able to pay their respects. I made rather a wry face at the extra week’s delay, thus imposed upon me, but suppressed any impatience as much as was possible, while thinking of the rapturous delight awaiting me, at the end of the probation. On the morning of the day on which I was to leave London, I received another of the extra-legal, important-looking documents, with which I had been so familiar lately. I was on the point of throwing it into the drawer of my writing table to await my return when I should be able to settle all formal matters in one morning’s work. Something, however, urged me to open the bothering thing, and have done with it, so as not to have it hanging over me when I was impatient of business of any sort or kind.

“I read over the first page twice before I fully grasped its purport.

“‘My Dear Sir, – We regret deeply the unpleasant nature of the communication which we are reluctantly compelled to make. We cannot sufficiently express our surprise at the apparent carelessness of Messrs. Steadman and Delve, who have been your uncle’s trusted lawyers and agents for fifty years, and in point of fact acted in that capacity for your grandfather, the late Lord Fontenaye, and we apologise, with sincere regrets, for not having verified with greater care the precise nature of Sir Reginald’s last will and testament.

“‘It now appears that the testator made another will a year after the one by which you were to benefit so largely. That other will has been found in a secret drawer, and is now in the possession of Messrs. Steadman and Delve. By it all former wills are revoked, and there is a total omission of your name as a beneficiary. With the exception of comparatively trifling annuities and legacies, the whole of the testator’s very large estates, together with the sum of £300,000 invested in the three per cents, is willed to your elder brother, the present Lord Fontenaye.’

CHAPTER X

Hobart, where it was decided to spend the honeymoon, from their joint experience of its unequalled summer climate, and picturesque beauty, was reached on the following day. A charming villa “by the sad sea waves” had been secured for them, by a friend, the all-potential personage who “ran,” so to speak, the social, sporting, and residential affairs of the city, and whose dictum, at once suave and authoritative, no Tasmanian, whether foreign visitor or native born, was found bold enough to withstand. The bridegroom remembered driving there in a tandem cart, drawn by a refractory pair, which he had reduced to subjection, doing the twelve miles out, at a creditable pace, though not quite in time for dinner. But the view, the isolation and the forest paths of this ideal private paradise had imprinted themselves indelibly on his memory.

As it happened, the person in charge of the cottage was absent, but refreshment was sent in by the housekeeper, which they were in a mood thoroughly to enjoy, looking forward to the many divine repasts which they would share in this enchanting retreat.

From the open window of the morning room, looking eastward, they gazed over the south arm of the Derwent; a broad estuary having the cloud effects and much of the spacious grandeur of the ocean. The headland, on which the bungalow stood, commanded a wide and varied view, in which sea and crag, land and water were romantically mingled. Scrambling down the cliff by a precipitous path to the beach, they found to their great delight that a raspberry plantation had been formed on the cliff-sheltered slope, much of which was in full bearing. The modified English climate of Tasmania is eminently favourable to the production of the smaller fruits, such as the currant, strawberry, gooseberry, raspberry and blackberry – this last growing in wild profusion in hedges and over fences.

“Oh! how delightful,” cried Imogen, as, seated on a large stone she applied herself to the consumption of an enticing raspberry feast spread upon a leaf platter, woven deftly by the hands of her husband. “Look at the calm water – the fishing boats, the gulls, the small waves breaking on the beach! Was there ever such an ideal honeymoon lodge? And these lovely raspberries. We can get cream at the house. And what a leaf platter! Where did you learn to make one, sir? you must have had practice.”

“At Nuku-heva! I was stranded there for six months once. The girls taught me.”

“Girls, indeed! That sounds very general and comprehensive. No savage maiden in particular. Quite sure, now? No photograph?”

“If there was, I’ve forgotten all about her. I don’t keep photographs. There’s only one damsel that is imperishably engraved upon heart and soul – memory, aye, this mortal frame – by a totally new process. It has the effect of destroying all former negatives – the best specimens of photography are put to shame, and obliterated.

“And that is called – ?”

“The last love of the mature man – the answering fondness of the woman – the best love – the true love – the only love which survives the burden of care, the agony of grief, the chances and changes of life. The steady flame which burns even brighter in the dark depths of despair.”

“Oh! I daresay – fascinating creatures, I suppose – were they not?”

“I have forgotten all about them. There is one fascination for me, henceforth, and one only. It will last me until my life ends or hers. I pray that mine may be the first summons.”

“Men were deceivers, ever,” hummed Imogen. “But I must make the best of it, now I have got you. The Fates were against us at first, were they not? What a strange thing is a girl’s heart! How short a time it takes to cast itself at a man’s feet. How long – long – endless, wretched, unendurable are the days of doubt, grief, anguish unutterable, if he prove faithless, or the girl has over-rated his attachment. It nearly killed me, when I thought you had gone away without caring.”

“And suppose I had never returned? I began to believe you had decided not to answer my letters. That Edward had not relented. That you did not care – transient interest, and so on. It is so with many women.”

“Transient interest!” cried Imogen, jumping up and scattering the raspberries in her excitement. “Why, there was not one single hour from the time you left Marondah till I saw you again, that my heart was not full of thoughts of you. Why should I not think of you? You told me you loved me – though it was so short a time since we had met, and my every sense cried out that your love was returned – redoubled in fervour and volume.”

“How little we know of women and their deeper feelings,” mused Blount. “How often you hear of a pair of lovers, that he or she has ‘changed their mind.’ The ordinary platitudes are rehearsed to friends and acquaintances. When they separate – perhaps for ever – the outside world murmurs cynically, ‘better before marriage than after,’ and the incident is closed.”

“Closed, yes,” answered Imogen, “because one heart is bleeding to death.”

While rambling through the old house, which was handsomely furnished, though not in modern fashion, they came upon a morning room, which had evidently been regarded as a fitting apartment for treasures of art and literature, etchings, etc.

In it was a bookcase, containing old and choice editions. The dates, those of the last century, told a tale of the family fortunes, presumably at a higher level of position than in these later days. A “dower chest” of oak was rubbed over, and the inscription deciphered; a few rare etchings were noted and appreciated. Through these the lovers went carefully hand in hand, Blount, who was a connoisseur of experience, pointing out to Imogen any special value, or acknowledged excellence; when, suddenly letting go her hand, he rushed over to a dim corner of the room, where he stopped in front of an oil painting, evidently of greater age and value than the other pictures.

“Yes,” he said, first carefully removing the dust from the left hand corner of the canvas, under which, though faint and indistinct, the name of a once famous artist, with a date, could be distinguished.

“I thought so, it is a Romney. He was famed for his portraits. But what a marvellous coincidence! Perfectly miraculous! I was told that in Tasmania I should fall across curious survivals, as at one time the emigration of retired military and naval officers was officially stimulated by the English Government. The promise of cheap land and labour (that of assigned servants, as they were called) in a British colony with a mild climate and fertile soil, attracted to a quasi-idyllic life those heads of families, whose moderate fortunes forbade enterprise in Britain. Special districts, such as Westbury and New Norfolk, were indicated as peculiarly adapted for fruit and dairy farms.”

“I remember quite well,” said Imogen, “when I was here at school in Hobart, that many of the girls belonged to families such as you mention. Such nice people, with grand old names, but so very, very poor. The parents were not the sort to get on in a new country, though the sons, as they grew up, mostly altered that state of affairs. But they did not remain in Tasmania. No! they went to Queensland, New Zealand, or Victoria till they made money. Then they generally returned to marry an old sweetheart and settle down for life near Launceston or Hobart. They were very patriotic, and awfully fond of their dear little island. But what is all this coincidence? You seem quite excited about it.”

“Will you have the goodness to look at this picture, Mrs. Blount?”

“I am looking,” said she. “It must be a very life-like portrait of somebody. And how beautifully painted! Quite a gem, evidently. The more you look at it the more life-like it appears. What lovely blue eyes! A girl in the glory of her youthful graces; I mustn’t add airs, I suppose, for fear of being thought cynical. But the expression must have been caught with amazing fidelity. Stamped, as it were, for ever. I suppose it is very valuable?”

“If it is the portrait which I have reason to believe it is its value is great. The original was found in an old manor house belonging to the De Cliffords. The house – once a king’s – though not untenanted, was let to people unacquainted with art, and had been so neglected as to be almost in ruins. The owner of the estate, an eccentric recluse, was a very old man. He refused to have any of the furniture removed, or the paintings taken down from the walls. At his death, people were permitted to view the place, which was afterwards sold. The heir-at-law turned everything he could into money, and emigrated to Tasmania.”

“Quite the proper thing to do. We did something of the same sort, whereof the aforesaid Imogen (I was so described in my settlement) met with one Blount, and marrying him, became the happiest girl in Australia or out of it. Didn’t she?”

Blount responded appropriately; it would seem convincingly, for the dialogue was resumed as they again went out. She desired to know why, and wherefore, this particular portrait was so very precious. Other young women, doubtless, in that long dead time, had had their portraits painted.

“Because this is the very picture, I am almost certain, which inspired Robert Montgomery with those lovely lines of his: ‘To the Portrait of an Unknown Lady.’ Have you never read them?”

“No! I have heard some one speak of them, though.”

“Well, the picture disappeared before the sale. The family would never explain. There was evidently some mystery, painful or otherwise, connected with it. Montgomery’s lines had made it famous. And it was a disappointment to intending buyers, many of whom came long distances to bid for it.”

“Rather a long story, but wildly interesting. To think that we should have come across it on our wedding trip, and here of all places. Well, as a punishment for your taking so much interest in an unknown lady you shall repeat the lines. I daresay you know them by heart.”

“I think I do. At any rate I know the leading ones. If there are more we can read them together afterwards.

 
“‘Image of one who lived of yore,
Hail to that lovely mien!
Once quick and conscious, now no more
On land or ocean seen;
Were all life’s breathing forms to pass
Before me in Agrippa’s glass,
Many as fair as thou might be,
But oh! not one, not one like thee!’”
 

Here the girl’s head sank on her lover’s shoulder, and as her slender form reclined with the unconscious abandon of a child against his breast, while his arm wound closely and yet more closely around her yielding waist, “Oh! go on, go on, my darling! let me hear it all,” she murmured:

 
“‘Thou art no child of fancy – thou
The very look dost wear
That gave enchantment to a brow,
Wreathed with luxuriant hair —
Lips of the morn, embalmed in dew,
And eyes of evening’s starry blue,
Of all that e’er enjoyed the sun,
Thou art the image of but one!
 
 
“‘And who was she in virgin prime
And May of womanhood,
Whose roses here, unplucked by time,
In shadowy tints have stood?
While many a winter’s withering blast
Hath o’er the dark cold chamber passed,
In which her once resplendent form
Slumbered to dust beneath the storm.
 
 
“‘Of gentle blood, upon her birth
Consenting planets smiled,
And she had seen those days of mirth
Which frolic round the child:
To bridal bloom her youth had sprung,
Behold her beautiful and young;
Lives there a record which hath told
That she was wedded, widowed, old?
 
 
“‘How long the date, ’twere vain to guess,
The pencil’s cunning art
Can but one single glance express,
One motion of the heart,
A smile, a blush, a transient grace
Of air and attitude and face,
One passion’s changing colour mix,
One moment’s flight, for ages fix.
 
 
“‘Where dwelt she? ask yon aged oak
Whose boughs embower the lawn,
Whether the bird’s wild minstrelsy
Awoke her here at dawn?
Whether beneath its youthful shade
At noon, in infancy, she played?
If from the oak no answer come
Of her, all oracles are dumb!’
 

“There are more verses; I will show you the poem so that you may enjoy the spirit of it. It was a favourite of mine, since boyhood. And now I see the crests of the waves towards the southern skyline, rearing higher. The sea breeze is often chill. Suppose we scramble up the path and go inside?”

“What a lovely view! and what delicious verses,” cried the girl. “Shall we always be as happy as we are now? I feel as if I did not deserve it.”

“And I am lost in wonder and admiration at the supernatural state of bliss in which I find myself,” answered Blount. “I ought to throw something of value into the deep, to avert the anger of Nemesis. Here goes,” and before Imogen could prevent him, he had unfastened a bangle which he wore on his wrist, and hurled it far into the advancing tide. “Let us hope that no fish will swallow it, and return it, through the agency of the cookmaid.”

“Now, I call that wasteful and superstitious,” quoth Imogen, pretending to be angry. “You will need all the silver in the South Pacific Comstock, if you throw about jewellery in that reckless fashion. And who gave you that bangle, may I ask? You never showed it to me.”

“I won it in a bet, long ago. The agreement was that whoever won was to wear the bangle till he or she was married. After that, they might dispose of it as they thought fit. I forgot all about it till to-day. So this seemed an auspicious hour, and I sacrificed it to the malign deities.”

“And this is man’s fidelity!” quoted Imogen. “For of course, it was a woman. Confess! Didn’t your heart give a little throb, as you pitched away the poor thing’s gift?”

“Hm! the poor thing, as you call her, is happily married ‘to a first-class Earl, that keeps his carriage.’ I daresay she’s forgotten my name, as I nearly did that of the possessor of the bangle.”

The allotted term of happiness passed at the Hermitage, for such had been the name given to it by the original owner, who lived there for the last remaining years of a long life, too quickly came to an end. For happiness, it surely was, of the too rare, exquisitely attempered quality, undisturbed by regrets for the past, or forebodings for the future. Such wounds and bruises of the heart, as he had encountered, though painful, even in a sense agonising, at the time, were of a nature to be cured by the subtle medicaments of the old established family physician, Time. They were not “his fault,” so to speak. Such sorrows and smarts are not of the nature of incurable complaints. The agony abates. The healthful appetite in youth for variety, for change of scene, the solace of bodily exercise, and the competition with new intelligences, extinguish morbid imaginings: thus leaving free the immortal Genius of Youth to range amid the unexplored kingdoms of Romance, where in defiance of giants and goblins, he is yet fated to discover and carry off the fairy princess.

“And I did discover her, darling, didn’t I?” said he, fondly pressing her hand which lay so lovingly surrendered to his own, as after a long stroll through the fern-shadowed glades of the still untouched primeval forest, they came in sight of the Hermitage, and halted to watch the breakers rolling on the beach below the verandah, where during their first delirium they had so often watched the moon rise over a summer sea.

“All very well, sir,” replied Imogen, with the bright smile which irradiated her countenance like that of a joyous child, “but the ‘carrying off’ ‘hung fire’ (to return to the prose of daily life), until the princess became apprehensive, lest she might not be carried off at all, and was minded to set out to reverse the process, and carry off the knight. How would that have sounded? What a deathblow to all the legends of chivalry! The page’s dress would be rather a difficulty, wouldn’t it? Fancy me appearing amongst all those nice girls and men at Hollywood Hall! Inquiring, too, for ‘a gentleman of the name of Blount!’ I hardly did know your name then, which would have been a drawback. I am tall enough for a page, though, and could have arranged the ‘clustering ringlets, rich and rare,’ like poor Constance de Beverley. How I wept for her, when I was a school-girl, little thinking that I should have to weep bitter tears for myself in days to come.”

“And did she weep, my heart’s treasure, in her true knight’s absence?”

“Weep?” cried she, while – in the midst of her mockery and simulated grief, the true tears filled her eyes at the remembrance, “‘wept enough to extinguish a beacon light’ – I took to reading dear Sir Walter Scott again in sheer desperation. Ivanhoe and Rob Roy saved my life, I really believe, when I was recovering from that – hm – ‘influenza.’ Oh, how wretched I was! As the Sturt, that dear old river, flowed before my window, more than once I thought what a release it would be from all but unendurable pangs. I don’t wonder that women drown or hang themselves in such a case. I knew of one – yes – two instances – poor things!”

“Any men?”

“Yes; two also. So the numbers are even. We don’t seem to be growing cheerful, though, do we? I feel just a little tired; afternoon tea must be nearly ready. There’s nothing left for us now (as Stevenson says), ‘not even suicide, only to be good,’ a fine resolve to finish up with.”

“Let us seal the contract, those who are in favour, etc. Carried unanimously!”

The day’s post brought a letter from Mr. Tregonwell, which, like a stone thrown into a pond, disturbed the smoothness of their idyllic life. An incursion of the emissaries of Fate was imminent.

“Mr. Blount’s presence was absolutely, urgently necessary at the mine. There was industrial trouble brewing. The ‘wages men’ – as those labourers at a mine are called, who are not shareholders – had increased necessarily to a large number; they wanted higher pay, the weather being bad and the discomforts considerable. The British shareholders were in a majority on the London Board and were beginning to make their power felt. No serious dispute, but better to arrange in time. Would have come himself to Hobart, but thought it imprudent at present to leave the mine. Very rich ore body just opened out. Prospects absolutely wonderful. Sorry to bother him, but business urgent.”

“What a terrible man!” moaned Imogen. “Wherever we are he will always be coming suddenly down upon us and destroying our peace of mind. I suppose, however, that he is a necessary evil.”

“He is a first-rate worker and very prudent withal, but to show the element of luck in these matters it is to my decision, not his, that we retained the share which is now likely to become a fortune.”

“Oh! but there must be some special quality among your bundle of qualities which you are so fond of decrying,” said Imogen, with wifely partiality; “some quick insight into the real value of things, which is in so many cases superior to mere industry and perseverance.”

“There must be,” said Blount thoughtfully, accepting the compliment, “or how should I have secured one priceless treasure to which all the mines of Golconda are but as pebbles and withered leaves.”

“What treasure? Oh, flatterer!” said the girl; “how you have capped my poor but honest belief in you. Well, time alone must tell how this particularly clever human investment is going to turn out. It won’t do for this lady to ‘protest too much.’ Now where shall I stay until my knight returns from the war?”

“In Hobart, I should say, most decidedly. It is a cheerful city at this season of year. The coolness of the summer, the charm of the scenery, the cheerfulness of the society – this being the play-place of six other colonies. Any chance of Mrs. Bruce coming over? Suggest the idea.”

“Perhaps she might.”

“Tell her I have taken a cottage between Sandy Bay and Brown’s River for her specially; one of the loveliest suburbs. If she’ll come over and take care of you, I shall be eternally indebted to her for the second time. You remember the first? How good she was. But for her – , etc.”

“She must come as our guest, and bring Black Paddy and Polly, and the babies, for offside groom and nurserymaid – (that’s good Australian, isn’t it? nearly equal to ‘Banjo’ Paterson).”

“Stuff and nonsense! Australians talk the purest English; rather better, in fact, than the home-grown article. But oh! how I should love to have her here and the dear chicks. Edward could come for her afterwards.”

So that was settled. Mrs. Bruce, replying, wrote that Edward had given her leave to come for a couple of months. It was really getting very hot and baby was pale. He, Edward, not the baby, was going to Sydney on business; thought of selling out of Queensland, so would cross over and spend the end of the visit with them.

These arrangements were carried out. Mrs. Bruce, with her servants and children, were safely bestowed at the pretty villa at Sandy Bay, where Black Paddy, as groom and coachman, and Polly, as under-nursemaid, excited as much attention as Mrs. Huntingdon’s ayah from Madras. Mr. Blount was free to depart for the South Pacific Comstock (Proprietary), which included a decided change from these Arcadian habitudes. Arrived at Strahan, he perceived various improvements, which he correctly attributed to Tregonwell’s boundless energy and aroused imagination.

Long stretches of corduroy, regularly repaired, rendered the transit business comparatively free from difficulty. Great gangs of men were employed in clearing the track for the projected railway. The work of piercing the forest was tremendous. The great size of the trees (a scientist had measured one eighty feet in circumference), the density and confused nature of the jungle, through which the way had almost to be tunnelled, if such an expression can be applied to operations above ground, retarded progress. The masses of fallen timber at the sides of the track, the whole laborious task carried on under ceaseless rain, was sufficient to over-task the energies of all but the stubborn, resistless Anglo-Saxon.

But on the mining fields of Australasia, if but the precious metal, gold, silver, or copper, be visible, or even believed to be within reach in sufficient quantities, no toil, no hardship is sufficient to daunt the resolute miner; neither heat, nor cold, the burning dust storms of Broken Hill, the icy blasts that sweep from the solitudes of Cape Nome over the frozen soil of Klondyke, have power to stay the conquering march of the men, ay, of the women of our race, or slake the thirst for adventure which is as the breath of their nostrils.

So, by the time Mr. Blount arrived on the scene, after a single day’s journey from the coast, the melodramatic action of a progressive mining town was “in full blast.”

The hotels and stores were comparatively palatial. Tall weatherboard buildings with balconies, enabled the inmates to gaze over the waving ocean of tree-tops and to mark where the jungle had been invaded by the pioneer’s axe, that primary weapon of civilisation. The streets, miry and deep-rutted, had yet side walks with wooden curbs, which provisionally, at any rate, preserved the foot passengers from the slough into which the ceaseless trampling of bullocks, horses and mules had worn the track. As in all such places in their earlier stages, money was plentiful. Wages were high, labour was scarce. The adventurers who came to inspect the “field” necessarily brought capital with them. Under the Mining Act and Regulations of the colony, allotments had been marked out in the principal streets to be acquired by purchase or lease. Legal occupation had succeeded the early scramble for possession. A Progress Committee had been formed, precursor of municipal action, of which Mr. Tregonwell, of course, was the elected President. Its members advised the Government of the day of urgently necessary reforms, or demanded such, with no lack of democratic earnestness. Behind all this life and movement there was the encouraging certainty of the still-increasing richness of the principal mine, the original shares in which rose to a height almost unprecedented.

Among other necessities of civilisation, a newspaper had, of course, been established. The Comstock Clarion subserved its purpose by clean type, smart local intelligence, and accurate reviews of all mining enterprises from Australia to the ends of the earth. Having been waited upon by the editor without loss of time, Mr. Blount found himself thus presented to an intelligent and enterprising public: —

“A Distinguished Visitor

“Yesterday morning we had the honour of welcoming to our thriving township a gentleman, to whose courage and enterprise the public of Comstock are indebted for the inception of a great national industry, the founding of a city fated to rival, if not surpass, in wealth and population both Hobart and Launceston. Mr. Blount courteously supplied, in answer to our request, the following interesting notes of his original connection with the great mine in which he owns a controlling interest.

“Visiting Tasmania en route for England a few years since, he was offered shares in a newly-prospected silver mine. Mr. Tregonwell was then associated with him in mining ventures. The partners were offered a half share in the claim newly taken up of four men’s ground, Messrs. Herbert and Clarke owning the remainder. Mr. Tregonwell, though experienced and sanguine – of which qualities we have ample proof before our eyes – advised the rejection of the ‘show.’ Mr. Blount, for a reason not stated, was firm in retaining it. He was in a position to find the cash for payment of lease application, rents, and working expenses until the discovery of the richest silver lode south of the line was an accomplished fact. ‘Si monumentum queris, circumspice.’”

The Latin quotation was inappropriate, inasmuch as it was not proposed to erect any kind of memorial structure in honour of Mr. Blount, but it looked well, and few of the readers of the Clarion were critical. However, the article had the effect of directing all eyes to the visitor, unobtrusively dressed as he was, whenever he appeared. He was, of course, fêted and invited to banquets given by leading citizens or mining celebrities. The financial condition of the mine was eminently satisfactory, even brilliant. It held a high place among British investors and foreign syndicates. Members even of the British Parliament did not disdain to take passages in the “P. and O.” or “Messageries’” boats for the special purpose of inspecting the wonderful mine. They returned laden with lumps of ore, being fragments of a silver mountain which they had seen with their eyes and driven a pick into when personally conducted by the American “mining Captain,” who received £5,000 a year salary, and was promised another £1,000 should things continue to go well.

As the season had advanced the weather even in that austere and dreadful wilderness relaxed its icy grip. The forest trees, the giant eucalypts and towering pines, “had a tinge of softer green.” The moss looked bright “touched by the footsteps of spring,” haunting even that unlovely wild. Mr. Blount, though loyally impatient to return to his Imogen and the calm delights of Hobart, felt distinctly in better spirits. He even took a mild gratification in marking the heterogeneous element of the stranger hordes that arrived daily, gathered as they were from the ends of the earth, of all nations apparently, and several colours. “Gentle and simple,” forlorn workers and wayfarers from many a distant land, mingled with derelicts of the classes akin to “Mr. and Mrs. Winchester.” The men feverishly anxious to strike some lucky find or chance investment, the women poorly dressed, working at the humblest household tasks, all wearing the vague, yearning, half-despairing expression, which comes of the heart-sickness of “hope deferred.” Theirs was the harder lot. Still, with but few exceptions, they faced the rude living and unaccustomed toil with the courage women invariably show when hard fortune makes a call on their nobler attributes.

Nowhere is the ascent of the “up grade” of mining prosperity, when the tide of fortune is flowing, and the financial barometer is “set fair,” made easier than in Australasia. Rude as may be the earlier stages, the change from the mining camp, the collection of rude cabins, to the town, the city even, is magically rapid. To the gold or silver deposit, as the case may be, everything is attracted with resistless force as by the loadstone mountain of Sindbad. Time, distance, the rude approach by land travel, the stormy seas, all are defied. And though delays and dangers are so thickly strewn before the path of the adventurer, he and his like invariably arrive at their goal and would get there somehow, if behind every tree stood an armed robber, and were every trickling creek a turbulent river.

Mr. Tregonwell had proved himself capable of carrying out the rather extensive programme, financial and otherwise, which he had produced for the inspection of his partners on their first meeting at the mine. The manager of world-wide experience and unequalled reputation had been procured from America; had been paid the liberal salary; had proved himself more than worthy of his fame. The railway to Strahan was in process of completion. Contracts, let at many different points, were nearing one another with startling rapidity.

The price of provisions had fallen. Wages were high – yet the contractors were making as much money as the shareholders. With the exception of the very poor and the chronic cases of ill-luck from which no community is, ever has been, or ever will be free, the Great Silver Field was the modern exemplar of a place where every one had all that he wanted now, and was satisfied that such would be the case for the future.

The wages misunderstanding had been settled, an arrangement made with one of the most stable banks in Australia, by which the Directors agreed to cash Mr. Tregonwell’s drafts for all reasonable, and, indeed, unreasonable, amounts, as some over-cautious, narrow-minded people considered. The predominant partner began to revolve the question of an early departure. The juniors, Charlie Herbert and Jack Clarke, had earned golden opinions from Tregonwell as cheerful workers and high-couraged comrades. He willingly agreed to their holidays at Christmas time, now drawing nigh, if one would remain with him for company, and perhaps assistance in time of need, while the other enjoyed himself among his relatives and friends in one of the charming country houses of his native land. As for himself, he did not require change or recreation, his duty was to the shareholders, who had entrusted him with such uncontrolled powers of dictatorship.

CHAPTER XI

A description of “the season” in Hobart, whether regarded as a summer land for tourists, a safe run ashore for the men and officers of the South Pacific “fleet in being” detailed at Hobart, or as an object lesson for untravelled inhabitants – would seem to consist mainly of a record of recreational events. A list of picnics and pleasure parties, driving and fishing excursions, with pedestrian rambles – chiefly by day, but occasionally au clair de la lune.

The rivers named after Messrs. Brown and Huon, long dead celebrities, received more than their share of patronage, it would seem, in the entertainment of reckless revellers, whose polo meets and gymkhanas alternated with the legitimate annual races and steeplechases.

There must have been business transactions, but they were eluded or postponed – the only exception being the Great Silver Bonanza, which kept its bond-slaves hard at work, by means of remuneration on the higher scale. Night and day, work proceeded with the regularity of one of its own steam-engines. The Hobart weather was delightful – occasionally threatening rain but chiefly relenting, and ending towards the close of day with soft and cooling sea breezes, which refreshed the pleasure-driven crowds to the inmost fibre of the nervous system.

In all these ingenious projects for lessening the strain upon the minds and bodies of ordinary humanity the officers and men of H.M. Royal Navy were conspicuously effective. At all aristocratic entertainments “Man-of-War Jack” was utilised to keep the gangways clear, to hold the rope of division in the ball-room, and otherwise, as “the handy man,” in spotless array, to display his disciplined alertness. Even the naval Church parade was attended by the fair ones of perhaps the last night’s entertainment. On each Sunday morning, therefore, boat-loads of worshippers, in silk or muslin, might be descried crossing the waters of the harbour, rowed by an ample crew, under the charge of an all-important middy, to the flag-ship or frigate, where divine service was celebrated by the Chaplain of the Fleet, or other amphibious clergyman, provided by the Lords of the Admiralty.

In this sense, perhaps, the gay season of Hobart constituted a social federation of the Australasian States, when other matters, not of ephemeral weight, might be suitably discussed. From the wave-beaten isles of New Zealand, where the mountain-crested billows rolled on their stormy march from the ice-fields of the ultimate pole, to the mangrove-bordered marshes of Northern Queensland; from the “Never-Never country” and the “back blocks”; from “the Gulf” and the buffalo lands of Essington and Darwin, came languid, fever-stricken squatters, to breathe the cool air of this southern Lotus Land, differing among themselves in minor respects as to manner, accent, stature and ordinary habitude, but in heart and brain, British to the core. Roving sons of the Great Mother Land, holding God’s Commission of the strong hand, the steadfast brain, to occupy the Waste Places of the earth and develop their inborn trend towards justice and mercy, law and order. With such inherited gifts, going forth conquering, and to conquer, to weld into one solid, enduring fabric, the Empire of Britain. Thus, handing down to their children’s children lands of freedom “broad-based upon the people’s will,” where equal laws administered with moderation and mercy are to be the heritage of England’s sons. The Greater Britains of the South, for all time; and whether in peace or war, loyal, self-contained, immovable, one and indivisible.

The great event of the season was to be the Polo Ball, looked forward to with almost feverish eagerness, not only by the young men and maidens of the Happy Isle, but by the large important contingents from abroad, which exceeded in number, and social value, those of any previous year. Hence applications for tickets were beyond all calculation.

Requests, even entreaties poured in, almost until the opening of the doors of the great hall secured for the function. Claude Clinton was, as he said, “walked off his legs,” having indeed hardly time to dress and eat his dinner, while the committee, who had the onerous and responsible task of deciding upon the fitness of applicants, had to improvise a late sitting, so as not to disappoint the arrivals by the train from Launceston, just landed from the New Zealand Company’s extra service boat, the Rotorua. The funds of the Club, however, would be benefited to such an extent, that the secretary and committee worked loyally till the last moment, and when Mr. Clinton had given a last authoritative order, and made a final inspection of the decorations, he sat down to his dinner at the Travellers’ Club, and drank his pint of champagne with a conviction that everything had been done to deserve success, and that the issue lay with Fate.

Imogen had condescended to inform her relations that a friend of hers had arrived from Melbourne, who, having made up her mind at the last moment, would dress and join their party after dining at the Orient Hotel, where rooms had been secured for her previously.

She had written confidentially to Mr. Clinton and had her name properly submitted to and passed by the committee. All was arranged, and she would go under Imogen’s chaperonage to the ball, and perhaps stay with them all night.

“What is her name? Do I know her, Imogen?” inquired her husband. “You are very mysterious, my dear!”

“You have seen her, she tells me, but I am not certain whether you will recognise her. She comes from some place near Adelong in New South Wales; her people used to live in Tumut.”

“Then the probability is that she will be good-looking,” said Mr. Blount. “Some of the handsomest girls I ever saw came from that sequestered spot. However, we must wait till she shows up. Was she a schoolfellow of yours?”

“No, not exactly, but I knew her when she was younger. You will know all about her when the time comes. I feel desperately hungry, after this exciting day. Oh, I hear the dinner gong.”

The dinner was not unduly prolonged, as any one of experience in the anxieties and precautions which precede such an important function will understand. So that after an adjournment to the drawing-room, when, about nine o’clock, the maid delivered a message, sotto voce, to Mrs. Imogen, who forthwith left the room, everyone revolved great expectations. These were chiefly realised, when the hostess reappeared, accompanied by a tall, handsome, exceedingly well-dressed girl, who blushed and smiled, as she was introduced to the company as “Miss Maguire of Warranbeen.” “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Maguire,” began Blount, but, with a sudden alteration of tone and manner, “Why, it’s Sheila! by all the Powers, what a transformation!” as Mrs. Bruce shook her warmly by the hand, while Imogen stood by her charge, apparently charmed with the metamorphosis which leisure, the use and reputation of “money” had effected in the unformed country girl, so lately the “maid of the Inn,” at the secluded village of Bunjil, on the Upper Sturt.

“You didn’t know me, Mr. Blount, I could see that. I had half a mind to ask you what you’d like for breakfast. I’m turned into a young lady, nowadays, you see! And Mrs. Blount, in her great kindness, persuaded me to come to the ball to-night, with her and Mrs. Bruce. I’ve been to the Show Ball at Wagga, and one or two in Tumut, by way of a start. But this is such a grand affair; I feel frightened.”

“I am sure, Sheila, you have no cause to be,” said Mrs. Bruce, reassuringly; “you native girls can all dance – it seems an instinct; your dress is charming, and you will gather confidence as the ball goes on – and your card is filled. You are a mysterious stranger, for the present. That alone will be an attraction. We’ll see to your introductions; and there are naval men in profusion.”

“I like sailors,” said Sheila, “they are so unaffected and jolly, put on no side” (she had been at a country ball at the age of sixteen, to which the officers of a man-of-war, then in Sydney, had been bidden by a liberal-minded squatter, who had invited the whole of the “township” inhabitants, in one act, and a great success it was), for Sheila bore about with her for all time the memory of two polkas, a waltz, and a galop danced with the Honourable Mr. de Bracy, midshipman of the period, to their mutual satisfaction and enjoyment.

“I think you will have your share of partners, Sheila,” said her hostess; “you certainly do credit to your dressmaker, and the Upper Sturt complexion will give you a chance with these Tasmanian girls, who are justly celebrated for theirs.”

“What a transformation!” said Blount to his wife, before they put on their wraps. “I never could have believed it. Of course she has fined down since the Bunjil days. I believe old Barney sold a Queensland station, with 30,000 head of cattle, just before the seasons turned dry. So she and her sister are considerable heiresses. She has, as you see, self-possession, and sense enough to avoid anything outré.”

“You’ll see she’ll get on quite well – make a success, indeed. People say money isn’t everything; but it goes a long way in this, or any other country, especially combined with looks, and other good qualities. You had better dance the opening set of lancers with her for a start.”

Mrs. Imogen’s predictions were verified. There was a certain amount of romantic interest attached to the fresh-looking, handsome stranger, reputed wealthy, and who danced so well. “Came, too” (people said), “with that nice, high-bred-looking Mrs. Bruce and the bride.” She danced the first lancers with Mr. Blount, and while exhibiting familiarity with the figures, moved with the graceful indifference which has succeeded the erstwhile precision with which the “steps” were anciently performed. Mr. Blount managed to secure an early waltz, and the naval men coming by shiploads, as it appeared to her, Sheila’s programme was filled in no time.

That there could not have been a better ball, all the authorities combined to declare. The ever-successful secretary and plenipotentiary had once more covered himself with glory; the arrangements were perfect, the supper was “a dream,” and when Sheila found herself taken in by the Captain of the flag-ship, the Admiral and the Governor being in the immediate vicinity, she wondered whether she was likely to fall down in a fit, or if some other kind of death would result from such an overflowing flood of triumphant, ecstatic bliss.

However, she did not die, or indeed was she likely to perish of nervous excitement consequent on pure, unadulterated pleasure; the early bush-training, together with a naturally good constitution, would always preserve her from such an untimely fate.

Imogen was carefully, prudently, introduced to Miss Laura Claremont, who prophesied that they would be great friends, and invited her and her sister to Hollywood. Both of which Imogen accepted conditionally on her husband’s – she laid a slight emphasis upon that very possessive word – “on her husband’s not being hurried away by Mr. Frampton to that horrid Zeehan.” The Upper Sturt party, as we may for convenience describe them, got their full share of partners it may be believed, being all of the age when, if there be an ear for music, and a terpsichorean taste “what time the raving polka spins adown the rocking floor,” with good music, suitable partners, and a smooth surface, nothing much better among the lighter enjoyments of life is to be found. With Miss Claremont Blount had danced before, when their steps appeared to suit extremely well. On this occasion, he saw no reason why he should deny himself the fleeting indulgence of once more gliding and sliding about with her in the accepted fashion.

She graciously acceded to his request for an after supper dance, and in one of the partly deserted side-rooms they came to a mutual understanding, which each felt was more or less needed.

“I owe you a few words,” she said, “if our friendship is to continue – and I should be sorry for it to end abruptly. It appears to me that we were both in an exceptional state of mind when we met at Hollywood for the first time, and if something had not happened – which did happen – one of us would have felt a right to blame the other.”

“You have stated the position most fairly,” he said.

“I hope you don’t think I am so logical,” she replied, “as to be deficient in feeling. Believe me when I tell you” – and here her dark eyes glowed with a transient gleam of hidden fire, which he had never before noticed in them – “I don’t exaggerate when I say that it was a fateful crisis, such as I had never before experienced.”

“It was most truly a supreme moment in my destiny,” he replied, as she faltered and then stopped, overcome by emotion.

“But, let me go on, I entreat, to make open and full confession, for I can never recur to the subject, and I trust you to make a similar promise.”

“It is given,” said Blount in all sincerity.

“Then,” said Miss Claremont, “I will not deny that I was attracted to you at our first meeting, more, perhaps, than towards any man whom I had ever met, with one exception. You were different from any one with whom I had previously come into contact. This impression was confirmed as we saw more of each other. I recognised your mental qualities. I approved highly of your opinions, your personal attributes and general character appealed to me strongly. My heart was in an unsettled state; I was weary of waiting, and began to doubt whether Richard Dereker, with whom I had been in love ever since I could remember, intended to declare himself. I am not believed to be impulsive, but, under certain conditions, am very much so.”

“All women are,” interjected Blount.

“Possibly; but let me finish;” and she hurried on – her voice changed from the deliberate calmness with which she usually spoke, to a hurried monotone – “If you had proposed to me that night, I should have consented, I believe. But your departure next morning gave me time to reflect; saved me, most likely, both of us, from life-long incompleteness, which, to a woman at least, means settled unhappiness. Then, just after you left, my fairy prince ‘made up his mind,’ as people say, and I am the happiest girl in Tasmania. I need not ask about your feeling – it is written in large print over both of you, and – here she comes! I don’t wonder.”

“I was in a most forlorn and wretched state,” said Blount, “when you took pity on me and healed my wounds by your sympathetic kindness. Never think you could have done me an injury – and you must let me say, even under our changed conditions, that I should not have been a life-long sufferer. But, as in your case, the fairy princess was persuaded of her knight’s fidelity; the falsehoods set about by enemies were disproved, and the castle rang with troubadour ballads, and the usual merry-making, when the ‘traitours and faitours’ were put in their proper places; and so the incident is closed, and in all gratitude and enduring friendship it is a case of ‘as you were.’”

“Yes; I know, I know,” said the fair Laura; “no more protestations, or else your wife will require explanations, too. Who is the very handsome damsel she has with her?”

“Well; a great friend of mine, who stood by me staunchly in my tribulations and rendered me timely aid. She is a New South Wales heiress. I will tell you about her another time.”

“We have been looking for you, Miss Claremont,” said Imogen. “I was anxious to introduce my friend, Miss Maguire, a friend of my husband’s, too, who did him important service at a critical juncture without which (between you and me) things might have turned out differently.”

“Mr. Blount gave me to understand as much,” said Miss Claremont, “and I am most happy to welcome any friend of yours or his to our island home. I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Miss Maguire?”

“More than I ever did in my life before,” said Sheila, with such evident sincerity, that no one could help smiling. “I think the people here are the kindest and pleasantest I ever met. I have often heard of Hobart hospitality, but never expected to find it anything like this.”

“I hope we shall continue to deserve such a good character. Strangers do generally approve of us, and there is no doubt we are always delighted to see them. I suppose we ought to make a move, Mrs. Blount, I see Richard looking out anxiously for me. We must all go and thank Claude Clinton if he isn’t dead with fatigue. We owe a great deal to him.”

“That we do,” said Sheila, naïvely, “he told me he had been hard at work since daylight, arranging thousands of things. Poor fellow! I quite pitied him. I was nearly offering to help with the supper – I am supposed to be clever in that line.”

“You might have come off as well as the girl who volunteered to take the parlourmaid’s place when her sister was short of one at a big dinner, and afterwards married a baronet with ten thousand a year, who thought she said ‘Sherry, sir?’ so nicely!”

“I see Claude Clinton over there,” interposed Blount, who thought the situation was becoming critical. “He’ll be fast asleep if we don’t go and pelt him with congratulations. Say something nice to him, Sheila!”

“That I will,” said she, with effusion, “I quite love him for his kind-heartedness.”

“You’re not the only grateful one,” said Miss Claremont, “but you’ll have to wait your turn. Dick must make a speech, and we’ll all say Amen.”

“I’ll do anything if you’ll come home,” said that gentleman. “You girls would stay till daylight, I believe. Claude, my boy! come here and be publicly thanked. These ladies have constituted themselves a deputation and wish to assure you that this is the best ball they ever were at in their lives; that it wouldn’t have been half as good but for you; that they will be everlastingly grateful for the perfect arrangements you have made. Miss Maguire can’t express her feelings in words, but is most anxious to – ”

“Oh! Mr. Dereker!” cried Sheila, blushing to the roots of her hair, “pray don’t – Oh!”

“Don’t interrupt. She’s most anxious to say ‘Amen.’”

“Amen!” said Sheila, gravely, and evidently much relieved.

“For what we have received, etc., etc.,” continued Mr. Dereker. “Now for shawls and the carriage. Can we set you down at the club, Claude? And you can make a suitable reply on the way.”

Possibly he did, as he was wedged in, close to Sheila, and what he had to say was in a softly, murmurous tone; akin to that of the surges on the shore, which the silence of the summer night made clearly audible.

After the triumphant success of the ball, other entertainments followed in quick succession, in which the visitors, civil, naval and military, vied with each other in keeping up the excitement, so that the season of 18 – was long known as the most successful, harmonious, and generally mirthful period recorded in Tasmanian annals. Races, regattas, picnics, gymkhanas, were in turn attended by crowds of visitors from all the colonies.

Of four-in-hand drags there was quite a procession. Agriculture was prospering. Stock was high in price and quality. Mining operations and investments not only in this, but in all the other colonies, were phenomenally payable. The financial glow shed by the ever increasing, almost fabulous yield of the Comstock, and of the great copper and tin mines, Mount Lyell and Mount Bischoff, gave a magical lustre to all monetary transactions. A kind of Arabian Nights’ glamour was cast over the existence of the dwellers in the land, and of all the excited crowds who had hurried to the favoured isle, where Aladdin’s Cave seemed suddenly to have opened its treasure chambers in real life and in broad day, to the favoured inhabitants of the Far South Isle.

Foremost among the gay throngs who seemed bent upon taking fullest advantage of the revelries of the period – so appropriate, so suitable, so thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the hour, were the festive celebrities of the Victorian party, by which name they began to be known.

Mr. Blount had no notion of receiving all the benefits of his newly acquired possessions without doing something in requital. His liberality was unbounded. He subscribed generously to all charitable societies and local institutions. He gave picnics, dances and fishing parties. He even went the length of chartering a steamer and carrying off a large fashionable party to the weird, gloomy solitudes of Macquarie Harbour.

Here the frolic-minded crowd found their spirits lowered, and their imagination darkly disturbed, as they roamed amid the ruinous prison-houses, where rotting timbers told the tale of long neglect; of fast-fading memories of crime and suffering. They gazed on the immense, tenantless buildings, with hundreds of cubicles, the mouldering walls, roofless and ivy-grown, the church where it was deemed that the wretches whose lives were one long foretaste of hell, might be turned to hopes of Heaven, after completing a life of imprisonment, torture and despair. Vehicles were in attendance, besides saddle-horses and guides, under whose safe conduct the revellers made their way to the silent, deserted settlement, whence long ago the ghastly procession of chained men marched at morn to commence each day – a day in which they cursed their birth hour at dawn and eve, ending it by trusting that each night might be their last. The visitors trod the rotting planks of the stage, where fierce dogs had bayed and torn at their chains, as they scented the escaping convict – where more than one such desperate felon had been literally torn in pieces, or escaped the hounds to die a more terrible death amid the sharks which swarmed around the pier. These and other relics of the bad old days of mystery and fear, having been shudderingly regarded by the awed and whispering company, the Albatross departed with a fair wind, a smooth sea, and her much relieved visitors, who,

 
“Ignorant of ‘man’s’ cruelty,
Marvelled such relics here should be.”
 

Yet as the stars came out and sat upon thrones, looking with sleepless eyes upon the shadowy outlines of the darksome forest and the savage coast, a wailing nightwind arose sounding as a ghostly accompaniment to the dirge-like murmur of the great army of the dead – buried and unburied – around the accursed charnel-houses, which had polluted even that Dantean wilderness!

“Oh! let us get away from this dreadful place!” said Imogen, clinging to her husband’s arm, “and I vote against seeing any other Chamber of Horrors. We come to Hobart for rest and pleasure while this halcyon season lasts. Let us not sadden our souls by one thought of the terrors in which this place is steeped. I should like to blot out their very memory and consume the relics off the face of the earth.”

It must not be considered, either, that the “Truce of God” (as cessation of siege or battle was medievally termed), which the Happy Isle proclaimed to the war-worn denizens of other colonies, less happily situated for rest and recreation, was entirely devoted to Play. This year was the session, wisely ordained as fitting in with the general vacation, for the meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Science.

Hither came, therefore, to leaven the ordinary frivolities, learned professors from Australasian universities, legal luminaries, judges, the Q.C. and the rising barrister, mercantile magnates, statisticians of world-wide fame, even, indeed, Sir Gregory Gifford, also Sir Harold Harfager, an ex-Proconsul of our Indian empire. They were vice-regal guests. Minor luminaries, such as authors, war correspondents, politicians, home-grown and foreign – in fact almost all the men of “light and leading” were represented at this unique gathering. Missionaries from far Pacific Isles, who had faced cannibal hordes, and heard the yell from crowded war canoes, when poisoned arrows were in the air. They had their philological treasures and hard-won trophies to exhibit. The crowded lecture rooms testified to the interest taken in the soldiers of the Army of Peace. To add to the satisfaction with which the various excitements and entertainments were availed of by the party from the Upper Sturt, it so chanced that, in consequence of the favourable seasons Edward Bruce was enabled to join them a month earlier than he had expected. He was, moreover, in excellent spirits, openly avowing his intention to devote his stay in Hobart to pleasure unalloyed, as compensation for his late pastoral anxieties. He was not contented, however, after a fortnight’s “idlesse,” without organising a trip to The Mine, which had lately so developed in wealth, prestige, and reputation, that it was difficult to say whether it belonged to Tasmania or Tasmania belonged to it.

Everything and everybody appeared to be in a state of unprecedented prosperity in that happy and care-free annus mirabilis if ever there was one. Mrs. Bruce and Imogen mildly reproached Bruce for being in such a hurry to leave his family after so long an absence, and what was worse, carrying off Imogen’s husband. However, he, a man of unresting energy and enterprise, declared that he could not stand any more of this lotus-eating life, and that if he did not get away out to the mine, he would have to return to Marondah.

At this dreadful threat Mrs. Bruce capitulated, fearing a premature departure from this land of Utopian delights, where the children were improving so fast, and gaining a reserve of vigour impossible in a hotter climate. This consideration, in the devoted mother’s eyes, overbore all others, and caused her to look philosophically upon the proposed expedition – which was accordingly decided upon, and a day fixed for the start, the which came off without accident or delay.

It may be doubted whether, except in theatrical stage life, anything surpasses in rapidity of transformation the change from a fragment of the primeval wilderness into a thickly populated town, founded on a gold or silver field of proved richness. Macadamised streets and level footpaths take the place of miry dray tracks and sloughs of despond. So was it in the city of Comstock. Handsome hotels and shop fronts, with plate glass windows, had succeeded weatherboard and slab shanties with bark roofs. The electric light in globe and street lamps shed its searching radiance through main thoroughfare and alley.

The diurnal coach, by which our travellers arrived, was well horsed and punctual to a fault. The police magistrate and warden of goldfields, assisted by a strong body of police, preserved order and punished evil-doers with such deterrent strictness that offences against the laws were almost unknown. A municipality, with mayor, councillors, and aldermen had been formed after the British pattern. Thus the foundations of earliest English law had been laid, and as the erstwhile barren, hopeless lodge in the wilderness increased in wealth and population, so the State, “broad based upon the people’s will,” emerged ready made, only awaiting that gradual development which comes instinctively in Anglo-Saxon communities, to pass from the rude stage of the mining camp to the perfected organisation of the city. It was soon made apparent to the party that Hobart was not the only place where public entertainments and festive gatherings were to be found. The mayor and corporation of Comstock, waiting upon the distinguished visitors, whose arrival was duly chronicled in the Clarion, invited them to a formal banquet, where champagne in profusion was exhibited, and the health of their guests proposed by the mayor, Mr. Frampton Tregonwell, who made honourable mention of that distinguished pastoralist and explorer, Mr. Edward Hamilton Bruce.

Before this function they had been taken to the lower levels of the mine, when the “drives” being lighted up, and a few judiciously selected masses of “native silver” and malachite looked up for the occasion, Mr. Bruce formed the opinion that he stood in a “quarry” of one of the chief precious metals. Being a man of business habits, as well as of pastoral experience, he took the opportunity, under Mr. Tregonwell’s authority, to inspect the accounts of the Company, and, after examining the astonishing values of crude and treated ore, he came to the conclusion that his sister-in-law (untoward as had been the early stages of their acquaintance) had displayed the unerring instinct with which her sex is credited in her venture in the matrimonial lottery. The audit demonstrated the cheering fact that an income of from ten to twenty thousand a year was assured to each of the four original shareholders in this most fortunate enterprise.

“I suppose you and Imogen will be taking a trip home in a few months?” he said. “With all this money, and the prospects of the season in London, Australia will lose some of its interest.”

“Such is our intention; unless anything unforeseen comes in the way after the Hobart season has come to an end and you good folks have wended your way back to the Upper Sturt, I think of taking our passage by the first P. and O. steamer from Sydney.”

“Won’t it be rather cold to arrive in England so early in the year?”

“We propose to stay a month or two in Cairo on the way, refreshing our memories of the Arabian Nights; trans-shipping by the Brindisi route, and after a week or two in Paris, reaching London in May, in time for Imogen to hear her first nightingale.”

“A very sensible programme, I wish we were going with you. However, later on, if the seasons and the stock keep up, we may come and stay at your country seat.”

“It was the most fortunate day of my life when I stayed at yours, though appearances were against me, I confess. However, I look forward to seeing you and Hilda in my native county, which is not wholly without interest, especially in shooting, hunting, and fishing. However, I think it’s drawing on to feeding time. Champagne goes better after subterranean experiences than before.”

The banquet was a success. Blount found himself referred to, not only as the original capitalist in the formation of the great Mineral Property, which had advanced Tasmania by half a century, socially, commercially, and mineralogically (the last word a trifle slurred), but as “a patron of the fine arts, a generous supporter of local charities, and a citizen of whom they would all be proud, and would remember gratefully in days to come. They trusted that even in the splendid pageantry of the old and venerated society, in which he and his amiable wife were so soon to share, the humble, but heartfelt hospitality of the ‘tight little island,’ called Tasmania would not be wholly forgotten. Their honoured guests had accepted invitations to be present at a ball to be given that evening for the purpose of supplementing the funds of the local hospital, and all hoped to meet them there. They knew that there were several representative institutions, including the library, of which they were justly proud, to inspect. They would not detain the guests by making further remarks.”

Mr. Blount had no hesitation in saying that he was never more genuinely surprised than by witnessing the astonishing, he might say unparalleled, progress made by the town and district since his last visit. In the formation of the streets, in the water service, in the installation of electric lighting, in the hospital and library, Comstock was ahead of many old-established country towns in Britain. Personally, he should always take a deep interest in the municipal, as well as the material, progress of the city, and feel genuine pride in having contributed to its inception and development.

A general inspection of the local institutions filled up the afternoon. The free library attracted much attention. It had been commenced by subscription, and with private donations, supplemented by books from tourists and visitors, who generally left any they brought to read by train or steamer on the journey up. It was a heterogenous collection, ranging from very light fiction to works on metallurgy, theology, and civil engineering. However, there was no lack of works of solid value, so that the miner who wished to improve or distract his mind had no difficulty in finding books to suit his taste. At the hospital, apart from typhoid fever and dysentery patients, the cases were mostly fractures and other injuries resulting from mining accidents. This establishment, as at all gold and silver fields, was most liberally supported, irrespective of race, creed, or colour. No working miner knew whose turn it might be the next to be carried there in agony or insensibility. Many were the gifts, unostentatiously bestowed, by former patients in the shape of necessaries or luxuries for convalescents. These duty visits performed, dinner was undertaken at the Palace Hotel, a stately three-storeyed building, with a verandah nearly twenty feet wide and balconies to match. After a more or less sumptuous repast in the salle à manger, electric lighted, where they were served by well-dressed waiters, with wines of undoubted excellence, and a menu almost extravagant in variety, and but sparingly partaken of; Messrs. Bruce, Blount, and Tregonwell sallied forth accompanied by a dozen dignitaries to the Town Hall. In this imposing building, a crowd of dancers in “plain or fancy” dress were already in the full swing of pleasurable excitement.

CHAPTER XII

A gold or silver field of decent rank and reputation must always compare favourably in its amusements with a town. In the wide range of his experiences, in war and peace, on land and water, British or foreign, the roving miner may challenge comparison with all sorts and conditions of men. Thus, he is never at a loss for a character to represent, a costume in which to disguise, or to heighten his personal attractions. The same rule applies to the women of the family, who have followed his wanderings, sharing in his privations or triumphs, as the case may be. Bearing with exemplary patience the inevitable hardships, they are none the less eager to recoup themselves when legitimate opportunities arise for amusement.

When Messrs. Bruce, Blount, and other magnates arrived on the scene, they were accommodated with seats on the daïs, where they sat proudly in full public view, reflecting how sharply contrasted was the scene before them with any possible gathering on the site of the “Comstock Claim” – “of four men’s ground” – little more than a year ago! The great hall, seventy feet in length, by thirty in width, was brilliantly lighted, draped with flags of all nations, above which, surmounting the daïs, the Union Jack reigned supreme. Upon the satin-like Huon pine floor strolled a motley crowd. Pirates and princes, peasants and brigands, ballerinas and matadors, mingled with dairy maids and broom girls, flower sellers and fishwives (whose “caller herrin’” had the smack of the well-remembered cry), while dowagers and duchesses, grisettes, tricoteuses, shepherds and sundowners, jostled here and there, in the dance, with a Red Indian, a cow-boy, or even an aboriginal in his blanket.

“The distinguished visitors,” so described in the morning’s Clarion, paid due respect to their municipal and other entertainers. They stood high in the estimation of their partners, whose looks and enthusiasm for the dance they would have been indeed hypercritical to have criticised. Charlie Herbert and Jack Clarke, the latter having got rid of his unfortunate lameness, were habited as a bushranger and a stock-rider, respectively. They remained till supper was over, during which exceedingly festive refection, Mr. Blount’s health, as a fearless explorer, was enthusiastically toasted, while Mr. Tregonwell was referred to as a world-renowned mining captain, and the father of the field. Charlie Herbert was eulogised as a worthy son of the soil, who, like Mr. Dereker – the speaker must say “Dick” Dereker (cheers) – was an honour to his native land, and like him, destined to make a name in the great world. Here every one rose, and cheered to the echo. The speeches in requital of this courtesy were brief but pointed; and long before the conclusion of the function, Messrs. Bruce and Blount quietly departed and soon after sunrise were on the way back to Hobart, accompanied by Charlie Herbert and Clarke, who deemed themselves to have a just claim to exceptional recreation after their pioneer experiences. Moreover, they explained that they could afford to enjoy themselves with a clear conscience, while Mr. Tregonwell remained on guard – a man never known to sleep on his post. So these young men chartered a four-in-hand drag, a few miles out of Hobart, and having borrowed a coach-horn, entered that city with all proper pomp and circumstance. When Charlie Herbert proceeded to “swing his reefing leaders,” and pull up at the General Post-Office, quite a crowd had assembled, eager to gaze on, and to welcome the prospectors of the wondrous Comstock mine.

After depositing themselves and their belongings at the Tasmanian Club, the junior shareholders stated with decision that, having had a fair allowance of hard work and hard living, they were now going to enjoy themselves; also to make some return for the hospitality they had enjoyed in former years. As pleasant detrimentals, though suspiciously regarded by cautious matrons, they had always, on the whole, been popular, their want of capital being overlooked in favour of their engaging manners and family connections. Now, as original shareholders in the great mining property of the day, they were princes, paladins, long-lost brothers; in fact, most desirable and distinguished. Everybody, from the Supreme Court judges downward, called on and made much of them. Without them no party was complete. At the polo meets they were conspicuous; they rode splendidly, every one said, as indeed they did, but not having been able to keep ponies in former years, this was their first opportunity of exhibiting that accomplishment in public.

Of course, they were not long in letting people know that they wanted to give their friends, and more particularly the ladies of Hobart, some kind of entertainment; the question now being of what pattern and dimensions it should consist. To this end grave consultations were held; of balls and parties there had been nearly enough – the young people were, strange to say, beginning to be tired of dancing.

Laura Claremont talked of going home to Hollywood soon. If not earlier, certainly next week. Mr. Bruce was becoming impatient; he began to think about mustering those polled Angus bullocks in the river paddocks for the Melbourne market, when a chance remark by Mrs. Blount settled the matter, and decided the character of the entertainment.

“How would it be to have a picnic party to the Hermitage?” she inquired, with an air of much innocence and simplicity. “There is a lovely road by Brown’s River, and such a view! No one is at the Bungalow now but a caretaker. There is one fine large room, and a grand verandah looking out to sea. The eatables, etc., could be arranged early in the day, and if we were a little late coming home, the nights are so lovely. We can have all the men-of-war people, and just in time, too; I heard they were to be off to the islands soon.”

“Magnificent!” cried out Charlie Herbert and Jack Clarke in one breath. “Mrs. Blount, you have saved our lives. Jack and I were getting quite low-spirited and suicidal. We could think of nothing worth while. Balls are played out. The races at Elwick were about the last excitement. A picnic on a vast and comprehensive scale is the very thing. Miss Maguire, when does the Admiral give the order for Nukuheva?”

Sheila blushed, and seemed taken aback, but rallying, answered, “‘The captain bold does not confide in any foremast hand, Matilda!’ Isn’t that in one of the Bab Ballads?”

“Oh! I thought Vernon Harcourt might have told you,” said Charlie. “You and he seemed so confidential the other evening.”

“Suppose you ask him yourself, Mr. Herbert? But, at any rate, it won’t be till the week after next.” Here everybody laughed, and the girl, seeing that she had “given herself away,” looked confused.

“Tell him not to be rude, Sheila. What business is it of his? Say you won’t go to his picnic, and then it will be a dismal failure.” Mrs. Blount stood alongside her protégée and looked threateningly at Master Charlie, who pretended to be shocked at his faux pas, and went down on one knee to Sheila to implore forgiveness.

“I’ve a great mind to box your ears, Mr. Herbert!” she said, as her face lighted up with a smile of genuine mirth, “but I suppose I must forgive you this time. Now, what about this picnic? that’s the real question, and where is it to be?”

“I vote for the Hermitage,” said Imogen. “Don’t you, Hilda? I drove you there one day with ‘Matchless.’”

“A lovely spot,” said Mrs. Bruce; “only I was afraid the mare would jump over the cliff once. The road is lovely; I feel sure all the world will come. We must have half-a-dozen four-in-hands – Imogen and I will be chaperons. I suppose you young men can forage up two more?”

“Miss Claremont!” suggested Jack Clarke. “She is so nice.”

“Quite agree with you,” said Imogen; “but she is not married yet. Suppose you ask Mrs. Wendover, of the Châlet, she is so kind, and, at the same time, capable of keeping order, which is necessary, Mr. Herbert, isn’t it?”

“Now, don’t be severe, Mrs. Blount! All you young married women get so dreadfully proper, and talk alarmingly about your husbands. I’ll find security for good behaviour.”

“Only my fun,” said Imogen. “But I’m afraid you’ve hurt Sheila’s feelings. Has she forgiven you?”

“Oh! Mrs. Blount, don’t tease him any more,” cried Sheila. “He looks really sorry. It was all my fault, for taking his chaff seriously.”

“What do you think of Lady Wood?” said Mrs. Bruce, “from West Australia?”

“The very one,” cried out all the council. “She has a habit of authority, as the wife of the Premier of the Golden West Colony – (“and, though this is a silver mine, ‘Shivoo,’ the relationship is obvious,” this interpolation was Mr. Jack Clarke’s). Those who are in favour, hold up your hands! Against it, nobody. The resolution is carried.”

“Now for ways and means,” said Charles Herbert. “First of all, the four-in-hand drags – there mustn’t be fewer than half-a-dozen, with power to add to their number; the men, too, must be able to drive. Claude Clinton and I will see to that. Of course we make him an honorary member of the committee of management. The affair wouldn’t be complete without him.”

“Of course not. (Chorus) ‘For he’s etc. etc.’”

“Isn’t it rather early for a song?” queried Mrs. Bruce.

“Not at all, when two such voices as yours and Mrs. Blount’s are available, and this is such a grand room to sing in. Music after breakfast – when you’ve nothing to do afterwards, is simply delicious.”

“Well, only one verse – Sheila and I will join in,” said Mrs. Bruce. “If Edward comes in, he’ll think we’re going out of our minds.”

The tribute to Mr. Clinton’s merits having been rendered with feeling, Sheila’s fresh voice holding a good position, the council went on to strict business.

“The drags first,” said Mr. Herbert, “the affair must be started properly – now, who are there? There’s Gerald Branksome from W.A., he can drive, I know – he won the tandem race at the Polo Gymkhana, and the Victoria Cross race at Hurlingham last year. He can be guaranteed. There’s Jim Allanson just down from Sydney, a well-known whip, I’ve seen him drive to Randwick from the Union Club. The Quorn Hall drag with its four greys will take some beating. I wired to Dick Dereker, he’ll turn up. Jack, are you good for the brake, with that off leg of yours? It’s a responsible position.”

“Count me in,” said that gentleman, who had been to San Francisco; “Joe Bowman will help with the brake business.”

“That’s good enough,” said Herbert, “Joe will keep an eye on you going down hill. I’ll have one, if I have to wire to Melbourne for a team, that makes the half-dozen, doesn’t it? I daresay there’ll be another or two by and by. Buggies, tandem carts, and private carriages may be left to their own discretion, or that of their owners – there’ll be no lack of them, I daresay.”

Once the great event was decided upon, neither difficulties nor delays were considered worthy of notice. The date was fixed: the invitations were sent out next morning. The social status of the entertainment being exceptional, no one dreamed of refusing. Rumours of the scale of magnificence upon which it was to be carried out commenced to circulate – for one of the conditions of unparalleled advantage in such affairs, an unrestricted bank balance, was in this case notorious.

Money being no object to these youthful Monte Christos, they were able to indulge, therefore, all the fancies of generous dispositions, with excited imaginations. No expense was spared; no thoughtful kindness omitted. A large proportion of the hackney carriages and other livery stable vehicles were secured. As at a contested election, they plied from the General Post-Office to the Hermitage, with free transit for all holders of invitation cards. The arrangements were complete and successful, beyond all previous holiday experiences, and when Charlie Herbert took the lead with an impressive team, and the belle of Hobart on the box seat of his drag, life, it may be confidently stated, had few richer moments, or more dazzling triumphs in store for him.

If he did not quote “let Fate do her worst,” there could be no doubt that he felt, deep down in his heart, the delicious, ever new, ever fresh sentiment of the poet.

Next in order came Edward Bruce, with Sheila on the box beside him, wild with joy and the excitement of such a position, of which, except in a dream fairy tale, she had never realised the possibility. Imogen, beside her, had insisted on relinquishing the place of honour. “No, Sheila, my dear! My fortune is told, your turn has yet to come, and you have all our best wishes, you know.”

“You are too good, Miss Imogen, Mrs. Blount, I mean! Really I don’t know what I am saying.”

“Well, you’re looking your best to-day, Sheila! Your dress couldn’t be better, and this lovely day has sent all the roses to your cheeks. Why, you might pass for a Tasmanian girl, really – and we know what that means.”

“Now, you girls!” said Edward Bruce, in accents of veiled command, “keep your eyes about you, going down this hill. It’s trying with a heavy load, and I’ve heard of accidents. Imogen, put your foot on the brake that side, and give me the least bit of help. Now, we’re on the level again. Isn’t that view of the sea lovely?”

Reginald Vernon Harcourt, R.N., Flag Lieutenant of H.M.S. Orlando, was understood to be of that opinion, as he leaned forward from his seat in the body of the coach, immediately behind the two young women aforesaid, and remarked as much. This was not the only statement he made before the procession pulled up at the Sandy Bay Hotel, at the base of the hill immediately below the Hermitage. And it did not go unnoted, that, being favourably situated for talking to Sheila over her right shoulder, he made prompt use of the position, as a naval strategist of experience, while Imogen and Jack Clarke similarly situated, did not appear to be quite so eager for conversation.

The enumeration of the drags and traps following would resemble that of the Greek ships at the siege of Troy. It will be sufficient to say that Mr. Dereker’s grey team was held to be the best, as to matching and style; Dick Dereker, the most finished exponent of the coaching science – worthy of the great annual pageant in Hyde Park. There were a few dissentients, who thought the Quorn Hall team and drag faultless. But the opposition votes were too powerful. He was “Dick Dereker,” therefore unapproachable in love, war, sport, and every other form of manly excellence. There was nothing more to be said. His name settled the matter.

As it happened, nothing could possibly have been more deliciously perfect than the weather. Warm, without oppressive heat or sultry feeling, the faint sea breeze, the murmuring lazy surge-roll, completed the magic spell, which invited to sensuous enjoyment, the happy possessors of unworn youth – in which class, the greater proportion of the guests were fortunately included.

The day, the season, the environment and attendant circumstances being propitious, so was the gathering, which was beyond all precedent successful. All the four-in-hands had turned up; there was such a crowd at the General Post-Office, that traffic was temporarily impeded. But that did not matter in Hobart, as it certainly would have done in Melbourne or Sydney – where indignation would have been aroused. The Tasmanian population is kindly and forbearing, especially to the stranger within their gates, through whom, in the season, it must be admitted, their revenues are substantially benefited. So, as the four-in-hands passed in single file down Davey Street, cheers rent the air, and hearty popular enthusiasm was evoked. The hill below the Hermitage was long and steep, so it was arranged that the drags and carriages were to be left at the hotel, where adequate accommodation had been provided, as well for the horses, as for the grooms and drivers to them appertaining. The walk up hill was neither long nor unduly fatiguing; providing also for reasonable deviations into the forest paths, whence more extended views might be enjoyed, or confidential communications exchanged. This arrangement seemed to suit the majority of the guests, who might, without loss of time, have been seen scattered over the sides and summit of the forest hill. At the sound of the great Chinese gong, a fragment of loot from the Summer Palace at Pekin, in the half-forgotten Chinese war, a strong converging force prepared to invest the Hermitage. Here were seen tables on trestles in the principal room, laden with all the good things which a very active, well-paid caterer had been able to collect. Haunches of venison, barons of beef, saddles of mutton, turkeys of great size and amplitude, wild fowl of all descriptions, lake trout, fresh salmon (frozen), grouse and pheasant, from the same miraculous arrangement, rendered the choice of viands difficult, and the taste of the most fastidious “gourmet,” easy to satisfy. With the popping of the first champagne corks, the conversation began to strike the note of cheerfulness proper to the occasion, after which the “crescendo” was maintained at an uninterruptedly joyous, even vivacious level.

Speeches were sternly deprecated; an immediate adjournment to the beach was proposed and promptly carried out. The shining sands invited to every kind of game and dance suitable to an open air revel. Sets of lancers were formed; games such as “twos and threes,” “oranges and lemons,” “hide and seek,” found enthusiastic supporters, while those pairs who had anything particular to say to each other found quiet paths and shady nooks in the forest fringe, which lay so conveniently close to the beaches and headlands.

There was, apparently, no lack of mutual entertainment, or necessity for the givers of the feast to invent fresh frolics, for, just as the low sun gave warning, and the last game of “rounders” came to an end – in which, by the way, Sheila, who was as active as a mountain colt, had particularly distinguished herself – the recall bugle was sounded. A late afternoon tea was served, and a descent made to the lower level, where the drags, carriages, buggies and dog-carts stood, with horses harnessed up, ready to start. Among these last-mentioned vehicles was one, a dog-cart, which was originally intended to accommodate more than one pair. The driver regretted his inability to take up a third person for want of room. It subsequently came out that, being a youth of foresight, he had removed the back seat before leaving Hobart, holding the ancient averment, “two’s company, three’s none,” still to be in force and acceptation. However, after the inevitable amount of bustle and occasional contention of ostlers, all the teams were duly mustered and loaded up in the same order as before.

There were, of course, certain reconstructions, among which it was noted that Mrs. Blount had relinquished her seat next to Miss Maguire, in favour of the Flag-Lieutenant of the Orlando, alleging preference for the higher seat behind, as by this removal she commanded a more extensive view of the glorious landscape, spread out by sea and shore, below and around. Sheila and Lieutenant Harcourt did not appear to be so deeply interested in scenery – at least, on this occasion – as they kept their heads down mostly, and spoke, though uninterruptedly, in rather a low tone during the homeward drive.

On one occasion, however, they looked up suddenly as a fresh young voice commenced the opening verse of a well-known song, and before the magical couplet of “The ship is trim and ready, and the jolly days are done,” was well over, the whole of the occupants of the drag, as well as those of the one immediately behind, joined in with tremendous enthusiasm, until, when the comprehensive statement that “They all love Jack” was reached, the very sea-gulls on the beach were startled, and flapped away with faint cries of remonstrance. Then, for one moment, the Flag-Lieutenant and Sheila looked into one another’s eyes, and read there something not wholly subversive of the sentiment.

The moon had risen, illumining the broad estuary, over which, in shimmering gleams, lustrous lines of fairy pathways stretched to the silvery mist of the horizon; star-fretted patches of lambent flame traversed the wavelets, which ever and anon raised a glittering spray upward, while from time to time the low but distinct rhythmic roll of the surges fell on the ear. Higher and higher rose the moon in the dark blue, cloudless sky – the surroundings were distinctly favourable to those avowals which the moon has, from time immemorial, had under her immediate favour and protection. If some of the merry maidens of the day’s festa listened to vows more ardent than are born of the prosaic duties of every-day life, what wonder? Next morning there was great excitement at the clubs, and among all the inner circles of Hobart society. Two engagements were “given out,” one being that of Lieutenant Vernon Harcourt, of the Orlando, to Miss Sheila Maguire, of Tumut Park, New South Wales, and the other of Mr. Charles Herbert, and a young lady to whom he had long been attached, though circumstances had hitherto delayed his declaration. Suspicions had been aroused as to Mr. Jack Clarke and another fair maid, but nothing was as yet “known for a fact.” Of course, little was done on the day following this stupendous entertainment. Everybody was too tired, or declared themselves to be so. The members of the Polo Club got up a scratch match, however, just to “shake off the effects of a late sitting at whist.”

A few ladies rode out to this affair, the ground being situated picturesquely on the bank of the broad Derwent. Among these Dianas was Sheila, riding a handsome thoroughbred, and escorted by Mr. Bruce, also exceptionally well mounted. Mr. Harcourt was observed to join them from time to time, when his “quarter” was up at polo. He was the show player of the fleet; always in a foremost position at the gymkhana. In this particular match, Sheila was observed to take great interest, turning pale, indeed, on one occasion when he was knocked off his horse in a violent passage at arms.

His opponent was adjudged to have been in the wrong, and well scolded by the captain of his side; the game went on, and Sheila recovered her roses – her spirits also, sufficiently to join in the cheering when Lieutenant Harcourt’s side won the match by a goal and two behinds.

Both of the engagements met with general approbation. The Tasmanian young lady and her lover belonged to (so to speak) “county” families, known from childhood to all the squirearchy of the island – always general favourites. So everybody congratulated sincerely and wished them luck. The over-sea couple were, of course, strangers, and under other circumstances, local jealousy might have been aroused by a girl from another colony carrying off a handsome naval officer, always a prize in colonial cities. But Sheila’s simple, kindly, unaffected manner had commended her to even the severe critics of her own sex, the more sensible members excusing his invidious preference among so many good-looking, well-turned-out damsels, something after this fashion:

“You see, he’s only a lieutenant; it may be years before he gets a ship. He couldn’t afford to marry yet, without money. They say she has tons of it, and she is certainly very good-looking, and nice in her manner. So Mr. Harcourt hasn’t done himself so badly.” One person was slightly dissatisfied. That was his captain. “He is my sailing-master, and a very good one, too,” he said, in an ill-used tone of voice. “He’ll always be thinking of her now, and counting the days till he can leave the service. Suppose the ship runs on a rock, I get my promotion stopped, and all because of this confounded girl.” Different point of view!

As for Sheila and her lieutenant, they were perfectly, genuinely, unmistakably happy. They were both young, she just twenty, he not quite arrived at thirty. He was a rising man in his profession, and Sheila’s money, which was, very properly, to be settled upon herself, would allow them to live most comfortably while he was on shore; besides aiding – as money always does, directly or indirectly – in his promotion. So the immediate prospect was bright. Sheila declared that she had always loved sailors since that eventful ball, where she had joined in the dance on equal terms with the nobility of Britain. What a fortunate girl she was, to have such friends; and how much more fortunate she had become since!

This memorable picnic, often referred to in after years, was considered to be virtually, if not officially declared, the closing event of the season. The fleet was to sail in a week or ten days for “the islands,” a comprehensive term for a general look round the lands and seas of the South Pacific, in the interests of British subjects. They would be back in Sydney in three or four months, at the end of which time – a terrifically long and wearisome period Sheila thought – she and her sailor were to be married. The Admiral’s ship and officers would then return to England, after a month’s stay in Hobart and Sydney – the time of his commission having expired – and another Admiral, with another flag-lieutenant, would replace them. Sheila would also go to England, but not in the Orlando, modern regulations having put a stop to that pleasing privilege. But she could take passage in a P. and O. steamer, leaving about the same time, and be in England ready to receive him in a pretty house of their own – their very own – where they would be as happy as princes – happier indeed than some! After the departure of the fleet, a certain calmness – not exactly a dullness, but bordering on something of that nature – began to settle upon the Isle of Rest and Recreation. The Queenslanders, the New South Wales division, the Victorians, South Australians, and New Zealanders were taking their passages. Edward Bruce began to get more and more fidgety – he was certain that he was wanted at the station; really, if his wife and Imogen could not make up their minds to leave, he must go home and leave them to follow.

Matters were in this unsettled state, when suddenly in the cable column appeared the startling announcement, “The Earl of Fontenaye died suddenly yesterday, at Lutterworth, soon after hearing the news of his eldest son’s death at Malta from an accident at polo. The title and estates devolve upon the younger son, the Honourable Robert Valentine Blount, at present in Australia.”

This news, it may well be imagined, was received with mingled feelings by the people most nearly concerned. The Earl had been in failing health for years past; but as a confirmed invalid, had not aroused apprehension of a sudden termination to his succession of ailments. Blount and his father had been on excellent terms; their only serious disagreement had been on the subject of the younger son’s unreasonable wandering – as the old man termed it – to far countries and among strange people. He had not gone the length of prohibition, however, and his last letter had assured the errant cadet of his father’s satisfaction at his marriage, and of his anxiety to welcome the bride to the home of their race. Now all this was over. Blount would never behold the kind face lighting up with the joy of recognition, or have the pride of presenting Imogen in all her grace and beauty to the head of his ancient house. His brother Falkland too, who used to laugh at his pilgrimages, as he called them, and ask to be shown his staff and scrip, with the last news of the Unholy Land, as he persisted in naming Australia. What good chums they were, and had always been! His brother had never married; in that respect only withstanding his father’s admonitions, but promising an early compliance. Now, of course, in default of a baby heir Blount was Lord Fontenaye, the inheritor of one of the oldest historic titles and estates of the realm – a position to which he had never dreamed of succeeding; the thought of which, if it had ever crossed his mind, was dismissed as equivalent in probability to the proverbial “Château en Espagne.” Perhaps his most powerful consolation, independently of the change involved in becoming an English nobleman, with historical titles and a seat in the House of Lords, was the contemplation of Imogen as Lady Fontenaye.