'Want can quench the eyes' bright grace,Hard toil can roughen form and face.'
'Want can quench the eyes' bright grace,Hard toil can roughen form and face.'
Although in the case of Lance Trevanion it would have been an exaggeration to have said with the poet—
'Poor wretch! The mother that him bare,In his wan cheek and sunburnt hairShe had not known her child.'
'Poor wretch! The mother that him bare,In his wan cheek and sunburnt hairShe had not known her child.'
But (and I who write have many a time witnessed the transformation) it is by no means so easy to recognise the 'lapsed gentleman' after he has, for whim, indolence, or necessity, played the bush labourer for a year or two. The roughened hands, the altered expression of face, the gradual disappearance ofles nuances, the minor society tricks of expression and manner, the rough habiliments, the changed step—all these and more—the inevitable concomitants of the comparatively rude life of the miner, the 'sundowner,' the shepherd or boundary-rider—denote the disrated aristocrat. Any one of the subdivisions of Australian manual labourdoesinevitably, indisputably, change and disguise the individual, of whatever previous history. There are exceptions, doubtless; but such are rare.
In addition to the safeguards which a miner's garb, daily labour, and rude association provided against recognition, Lance had practised of set purpose the slang phrases and ungrammatical idioms common among men of his adopted occupation. This kind of verbal deterioration is more easy to acquire by careless habit than to relinquish when an upper stratum of society is again reached, as relatives of young men returning from 'back block' sojourns or 'northern territory' explorations have discovered to their regret. Taking his privations into consideration, it must not be considered very wonderful that the 'Ballarat Harry' of Omeo was a different-appearing personage from the Lance Trevanion of No. 6, Growlers', much more the haughty, rebellious heir of Wychwood.
The expected morning broke—a transcendent day of early spring, known even to this mountain land, mist-shrouded and storm-swept though it be in its winter garb. The sky was cloudless, the air breezeless, as the sun uplifted his golden shield over the forest-clothed shoulders of the Bogong and the Buffalo.
As the pearl-gray tints of the dawn-light insensibly dissolved,—losing themselves, even as had the darker hues of the earlier morning, in a bath of delicatest pink, enriched ere the eye could trace the translucence with hues prodigal of crimson and burnished gold,—the austere marble-white snow-peaks appeared to stand forth in yet more awful and supernal splendour. Contrasted with colouring of indescribable brilliancy, they appeared a company of phantasmal apparitions in the silence of that wondrous dawn pageant.
Lance Trevanion was but a man as other men. How many times had he looked upon these and kindred wonder-signs of Nature with incurious eyes, holding them to be but ordinary phenomena with which, in the grip and peril of Circumstance, he had nought to do. But now, his nervous system being more tense, and his mental tone exalted in view of an imminent deliverance, a stir took place among faculties long disused. In curious unexplained fashion the beatific vision connected itself with his cousin Estelle, whom he had ceased to regard as a terrestrial entity. Severed from her, not less by seas and oceans than by inexorable fate, her image, bright and celestial as it had formerly appeared, was now fading rapidly; becoming fainter and yet more ethereal with each succeeding recollection.
But on this, the last morn which he hoped to spend in this wilderness, her image seemed to present itself with strangely persistent clearness before him. How she would have joyed,—she that was so passionately fond of landscape scenery, who discovered fresh beauties in every humble hillock and lowly streamlet,—could but she have stood here with him; together could they have beheld this entrancing vision. With quickened tide, the back-borne stream of memory brought to his recollection the many times they had stood hand in hand and gazed at sunset, stream, or woodland, glorified by Nature's alchemy. He could almost fancy that he heard her voice, soft and low, rich, yet so clear and distinct, as she dwelt upon each feature of the landscape with instructed enthusiasm. He recalled her dainty ways—her unvarying softness and sweetness, her unfailing tact and temper, which had so often turned the tide of the Squire's wrath, the discreet counsel that had so often been displayed in times of perplexity.
And now, what torture to think of her! of all the sweetness and beauty, divine as it now appeared to him, lost for ever, as much alien to him, henceforth and for evermore, as though she had been born on another planet!
The sudden change from the currents of his thoughts led the lonely, half-despairing man to an almost complete temporary detachment from his surroundings. He forgot much of the misery, the despair, the evil hap of this past year—that year which had been so much more eventful than the whole of his previous life. A new hope appeared to arise within his outworn, wearied heart. Might he not, if he regained the old land—might he not yet recover his position? Great heavens! was it then possible that such an elysium should be in store for him? He knew Estelle's steadfast fearless nature; he knew the sweet and loving pardon that would shine in her eyes when they met, if ever permitted by a merciful God. Was there a God? and could He be thus merciful even to a forlorn, degraded outcast like himself?
As he stood leaning, with folded arms and meditative air, against the doorpost of his humble dwelling, the clatter of hoofs along the track which led near the hillock upon which the hut stood gave a fresh current to his thoughts, and recalled him to a sense of the present. 'One day more,' he said, half aloud. 'Shall I ever see these hills and valleys again? I owe them much. They have proved good harbour for the stricken deer.'
'Who the deuce is this?' His thought shaped itself into speech as a wild-looking rider forced his horse, a half-broken colt, as near to the hut door as he could get him. The colt snorted and trembled, after the manner of his kind, but refused to budge a foot nearer. The horseman,—a long-haired, long-legged native lad,—exercising his spurs vigorously, besides devoting the colt and all his relatives to the infernal deities, was fain to hold out a scrap of paper in his hand and await Lance's approach.
'It was you as sold Number One South, on the Tinpot Reef, to Yorkey Dickson, wasn't it?' inquired the ingenuous youth, staring at Lance.
'Yes; what then?'
'Well, there's been a bloomin' row between him and his mates and Mick Doolan's crowd. They're measuring him off, and makes out as you'd took up too much ground. He wants you to come. He give me this for ye; blank ye, I'll knock the blank head off ye, if ye don't stand quiet.'
This last communication, though in strict continuation with his previous address, was apparently intended for the colt's progressive education, that vivacious animal having taken fright at Lance's approach, and swerved backward with rear and plunge directly Lance reached out his hand for the missive. He, however, retained hold of the paper, which, after some difficulty, he deciphered—
Mr. Harry Johnson.Dear Sir,—I paid you honest for Number One South, which I stand a good show of loosin' if you don't come out and prove your pegs. The Tips are trying the bluff game, and if you don't stand by me I'll be regular jumped and run off the field. Come afore dinner.Yours trewly,Yorkey Dickson.
Mr. Harry Johnson.
Dear Sir,—I paid you honest for Number One South, which I stand a good show of loosin' if you don't come out and prove your pegs. The Tips are trying the bluff game, and if you don't stand by me I'll be regular jumped and run off the field. Come afore dinner.
Yours trewly,Yorkey Dickson.
Yours trewly,Yorkey Dickson.
'My word! I'll have him steady enough by the time we get back to Tin Pot. Been backed first time the day afore yesterday, and of course he's touchy,' he explained, as the colt, after a wild rear, in which he nearly fell backwards, stood with his forefeet rooted to the ground and snorted, trumpet-like. 'Shall I say you're a-comin'?'
'I suppose so—yes,' slowly answered Trevanion, half absently. 'Curse the claim and all belonging to it! I never wanted to see it again. But I won't have the fellow done out of it. Tell him I've half a mind not to come, as I'm going to Melbourne to-morrow. It's lucky for him I got word to-day.'
'All right! I'll tell him you'll be there by dinner-time. So 'long!' and with the words on his lips he turned his horse's head, and with spur and shout forced him into a hand-gallop along the main track to the township, up the principal street, and opposite the hotel door before the half-tamed excited animal had time to halt or resist.
'It's an infernal nuisance,' said Trevanion, half aloud. 'But I don't want to leave things tangled up. Yorkey paid me good money, and I shouldn't like the poor devil to be wronged by those scoundrels. I'll walk, too; it will do me good, and keep me from thinking.'
The day promised to be glorious. Slowly the mountain mist had rolled back, and gradually disclosed the tones and magically blended colour effects which the awakened morn revealed. A dull grayish green tinted the undulating prairies, stretching to the darkly dense forest which clothed the foot-hills of the Australian Alps. The sombre mountains gradually ripened in colour as the sun-rays pierced them in concentric lines, so that a graduated scale, shading from darkest green to brilliant emerald, developed hourly. Deathlike, still eternal-seeming, majestic, their snow-crowns rested on Bogong and Buffalo, with far-seen Kosciusko and Feathertop in the azure distance.
The solar heat became distinctly noticeable—indeed, bordering on oppressive. But Lance, excited in spite of himself, stepped joyously forward as he felt the miles slipping behind him, as though on some long-remembered schoolboy truant expedition. How different was the free elastic stride with which he covered the ground now from the aimless, dejected shuffle of himself and his fellow galley-slaves of thePresident! His spirits rose with each mile of the way traversed. Surely everything was turning in his favour. He would be pardoned yet, his fair fame re-established. His innocence would not be so hard to prove, after all. Tessie and Kate couldnowgive different evidence.
'Yes! England, Estelle, Wychwood! Fate would repent her of this dire injustice. He would yet again place foot on the shore of his native land, the home of his ancestors, as surely as he would presently ascend the ridge on the other side of this Mountain Ash Gully, into which he was now descending; as surely as he would behold the plain far-stretching towards the horizon, the diggers' tents in the secluded valley.'
Thus thinking, and moving forward with eager, quickened step, he reached the bottom of the ravine, which—a notable exception to the general distribution of timber—was covered with a scrub or thicket of the mountain ash saplings for some distance back. From the course of the little stream, eastward, appeared a narrow flat, riddled with shafts long worked and abandoned, but still furnishing, in this depth and closeness, a record of former richness.
'What would Kate say if she saw me here to-day?' he thought to himself. And then her warning rang in his ears. 'As you value your life,' he seemed to hear. 'When I get back,' he said, 'I will swear to take excellent care of myself.'
'If such a thing as prudence can be knocked into a Trevanion, surely what I have undergone should produce it. But what a lunatic! what a benighted idiot I was to leave England at all! Why couldn't I have borne the old man's petulance, like scores of other fellows that I have known? All would have come right in the end, with Estelle's help. What a girl she was! And what a fool I have been! Looking back, it seems incredible that I—thatany man—could have been so mad, so blindly besotted! I wonder how the old Squire is now? He and Estelle must have a lonely time enough of it in the gloomy old manor-house. Well, I swear—as God hears me now—that when I return—if I ever do—I will humble myself before the old man, and, yes, try for the rest of my life to make amends to him and to her for the sorrow and anxiety which I have cost them.'
As this last thought passed through his mind, shaping itself unconsciously into articulate speech, he stopped, with his right foot raised upon a block of stone, and listened intently, with head half turned towards the thickest portion of the scrub, which here approached the narrow track worn in old days by the cattle-herds of the surrounding pastures.
At that moment a shot was heard, and Lance Trevanion fell forward on his face, temporarily disabled, if not mortally wounded. Following the report, two men emerged from the covert, one of whom carried a gun. They were Caleb Coke and Lawrence Trevenna.
'That dropped him,' said the former, with a fiendish chuckle. 'Not far from the "curl," I'd say, if it was a bullock. Many a one the old single barrel has finished. I thought she'd carry straight that distance.'
Here the wounded man moved his arm and groaned.
'Ha! my fine gentleman!' said Trevenna, 'I swore I'd have ye under my feet yet. Where are ye now?' And here the hellish villain spurned the unresisting form of his prostrate foe. 'What do ye say about "time" now? This is the last round of all.'
'That's no good,' growled Coke, 'and d—d cowardly, into the bargain. You couldn't stand up to him when he was right, so ye may leave him alone now. He's only stunned; the ball's grazed his forehead. Lend us that tomahawk o' yourn. I'll finish him.'
Two crashing blows, one of which clove the skull even to the brain, and this man—this 'masterpiece of nature,' so lately in full possession of the strength and beauty of youth—lay a disfigured corpse.
'Now lend a hand and let's get him off the road a bit,' said Coke, as coolly as if he was directing the assistants of a slaughter-yard. 'Scrape some sand over that blood; there ain't much, but it might show. We've got to strip him first, and then it won't take long to drop him where he won't be seen again in a hurry.'
Dragged through the scrub some twenty yards or more, the dead man lay with dreadful widely open eyes as they had placed him. A heartrending spectacle surely, had but the men who now busied themselves in stripping the corpse possessed the feelings of ordinary humanity. But a lifetime of crime, for the most part undetected, had dulled the heart and brain of the older ruffian, to the exclusion of all but the baser instincts—a veritable demon disguised in form of man. Fiends of the pit could scarce have exceeded him in remorseless cruelty.
In Trevenna's case the love of gain, the hope of booty, together with complicated feelings of jealousy and revenge, rendered him callous to all natural feeling. Swiftly was the dead man divested of his clothing; his watch, a few bank notes, which he had perhaps placed in his purse in readiness for the morrow, were secured, and after counting and inspection, taken possession of by Trevenna.
This done, the old man pointed to a mound a few yards distant around which the saplings clustered thickly, showing that some time had elapsed since the shaft which it marked had been commenced.
'That's the deepest shaft on the flat; they was a-sinking for the blue "lead" and bottomed on rock. You take hold of him.'
A combined effort placed the dead man on the edge of a shaft, down which the old man peered with ghoulish glee, as if to gauge the depth. 'Hold on,' he said, as he dropped a stone. The men waited for some seconds, which seemed long, until a dull thud came up from the lower level, telling by its delay that the shaft was little under a hundred feet.
In another moment the unresisting form was drawn to the edge of the yawning black-mouthed pit, which, so wondrous straight and narrow, had been driven deeply into the bowels of the earth. A push, a heave, and the once noble and beautiful form of him who was Lance Trevanion disappeared from the face of the earth, hidden from the light of the sun, from the ken of mortal man, for ever and for ever!
As the strange dull sound, so unlike any other, which follows the fall of a human body down a deep shaft came up from below, Trevenna shuddered in spite of his hardihood.
The old man laughed aloud. 'You're only half baked yet, Larry, with all your blowing. When you've seen as many coves rubbed out as I have, you'll have better narves. We've got a ticklish game to play yet, mind ye, so don't go a-shivering and shaking like a school-girl. Take off yer duds now and collar his, and let's see how yer look.'
Trevenna, with a rude oath, repelled the accusation of softness, and doffing his own garments, which he made into a bundle and threw down the shaft, proceeded to dress himself in the dead man's clothes. This transformation effected, the curious similarity between the two men became so apparent to the only spectator that Coke yelled with apparent amazement and danced around him with fiendish delight.
'By ——!' he cried, 'if that ain't the rummiest fake ever I see. Your own mother wouldn't know the difference. Hanged ifIcould tell, and I knowed the pair on ye purty well. Pitch a log or two down the hole; it won't be long afore it falls in. It's bad standing ground, and then he won't need no tombstone. We'd as well collar our horses now and get to the cove's hut after dark. Then you start fair to-morrow morning as 'Ballarat Harry,' alias Lance Trevanion, Esquire, and I'm d—d if there's a digger on Omeo as'll know the difference. What are ye lookin' in the grass for?'
'When we had the—the mill—I swear he had a watch-chain. It must have dropped hereabouts.'
'Well, I'm blowed!' chuckled the older ruffian, 'if that ain't a good 'un. Takin' a man's life, his money, his duds, and his watch, and then growlin' because the chain's a-missin'. You'll find it in his hut, I'll go bail.'
Lance Trevanion, dwelling and working by himself, had accustomed the miners around Omeo to his irregular, independent mode of life. Sometimes he was absent for days together, returning at midnight or dawn, as the case might be. When it was reported that he had been seen to enter his hut just after dark in company with another man, no one looked upon the circumstance as calling for comment. He had been at the claim which he had sold to Yorkey Dickson early in the day, and being detained there, discussing the intricacies of a mining dispute, had reached his home after sunset.
On the next morning—the one fixed for the departure of the escort for Melbourne—he was heard inquiring from the Barker storekeeper if his gold had been properly labelled and directed. 'He was not sure about going himself,' he said, 'but thought it likely he might at the last minute.' The storekeeper looked at him with a certain air of surprise. 'What are you staring at?' he asked abruptly, at the same time fixing his eyes intently on the man.
'Oh, nothing, Harry,' Barker replied apologetically, 'only I thought there was something queer about you this morning. If you'd been a drinking man I'd have thought you'd had a booze on the quiet. And your face ain't got rid of them marks yet. Seemed they was about gone, last time I seen yer.'
'They'll not last much longer,' he said grimly, 'and the man that gave them to me got the worst of it. He won't be so ready for a row in future.'
'Is that so?' inquired the trader confidentially. 'We all thought it must have been his fault, you bein' such a quiet card in a general way. Serve him right, I say.'
'So I say too,' replied his auditor. 'By the way, just send your boy over to the post-office to see if there are any letters for me. I'll have a smoke while he runs over.'
In a few minutes the letters came. One from the banker in Melbourne acknowledging his last draft and informing 'Mr. Henry Johnson' that they would receive and hold to his order the parcel of gold of which they had advices. The other, addressed to 'Mr. Henry Johnson, Long Creek, Omeo,' was in a female hand. Mr. Johnson placed it in his pocket unread, saying carelessly that it would do to read when he got home.
'He's a rum chap, that Ballarat Harry, as ever I see in Omeo,' said the storekeeper. 'Sometimes so jolly in a quiet way, and then he's as stiff and stand off as can be. But I'm dashed if ever I seen him as queer as he was to-day; why, I hardly knowed him when he came in first!'
When 'Harry Johnson' reached his hut, he sat down, and shutting the door, which he carefully secured with a bolt, took out the letter and read as follows—a sardonic smile upon his features the while—
Toorak,10th September 185-.My own darling Lance—Could you ever expect to receive a letter from me written in this country? In your wildest dreams, did it ever occur to you that I should come out to Australia in search of you? I told you at our last parting at dear old Wychwood that I would come, if you did not return within the time specified. I don't know that the time has quite elapsed, but when the poor old Squire died (how changed and softened he was, Lance, in his latter days you can hardly think) I could not stay in England. You never wrote. We did not know what had become of you: whether you were dead or alive. I promised him, Lance, on his deathbed, that I would seek you out. And you know we Chaloners and Trevanions hold to our word.Iknow nowall that you have done and suffered, my poor darling—all! I can partly understand why you did not write. Still you should have done so; you know you should. I am not going to reproach you or to write a long letter. But fancy me having been up at Ballarat and stayed at Mrs. Delf's inn at 'Growlers',' and know Jack Polwarth and his wife and dear little Tottie—who hasn't forgotten you—and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Stirling! I was actually there when your letter came from Omeo!Why didn't I write? You seenowhow hard it is to bear when friends are silent. But I refrained, sorely against the grain,for your sake. It might unsettle you, I thought, even tempt you to come to Melbourne, where the risk would be terrible. So I waited till I could get a really good opportunity and escort for Omeo. You will see me—I am almost beside myself with joy at the thought—almost as quickly as this letter reaches you, Mr. Vernon, my kind host, says. He bought me a delightful horse—so safe and pleasant. I shall quite enjoy the ride up. A storekeeper, his wife and daughter, also an assistant, are my companions, so you see I am well protected. Have you got the ring and the token? I have mine safe. Ever and till we meet, your ownEstelle.
Toorak,10th September 185-.
My own darling Lance—Could you ever expect to receive a letter from me written in this country? In your wildest dreams, did it ever occur to you that I should come out to Australia in search of you? I told you at our last parting at dear old Wychwood that I would come, if you did not return within the time specified. I don't know that the time has quite elapsed, but when the poor old Squire died (how changed and softened he was, Lance, in his latter days you can hardly think) I could not stay in England. You never wrote. We did not know what had become of you: whether you were dead or alive. I promised him, Lance, on his deathbed, that I would seek you out. And you know we Chaloners and Trevanions hold to our word.
Iknow nowall that you have done and suffered, my poor darling—all! I can partly understand why you did not write. Still you should have done so; you know you should. I am not going to reproach you or to write a long letter. But fancy me having been up at Ballarat and stayed at Mrs. Delf's inn at 'Growlers',' and know Jack Polwarth and his wife and dear little Tottie—who hasn't forgotten you—and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Stirling! I was actually there when your letter came from Omeo!
Why didn't I write? You seenowhow hard it is to bear when friends are silent. But I refrained, sorely against the grain,for your sake. It might unsettle you, I thought, even tempt you to come to Melbourne, where the risk would be terrible. So I waited till I could get a really good opportunity and escort for Omeo. You will see me—I am almost beside myself with joy at the thought—almost as quickly as this letter reaches you, Mr. Vernon, my kind host, says. He bought me a delightful horse—so safe and pleasant. I shall quite enjoy the ride up. A storekeeper, his wife and daughter, also an assistant, are my companions, so you see I am well protected. Have you got the ring and the token? I have mine safe. Ever and till we meet, your own
Estelle.
'Well, I'm blowed,' was the reader's inelegant but characteristic exclamation as he folded up the letter,—oh! rare and precious outpouring of a fond woman's love and tenderness,—'if this game isn't right into my hand! I've got his gold. I've got his cash. His girl's running fair into my arms, and, if the luck holds, I'll have his house and land in the old country. Lance Trevanion, if I haven't got square with you, the devil's in it, or Caleb Coke, which comes to the same thing! I've got to take carehedon't turn dog on me, though. It was he put me on to plant for Trevanion in Mountain Ash Gully. We're both in it, though he fired the shot and knocked him on the head afterwards. We've gone whacks so far in the nuggets and cash in the hut; who'd 'a thought he'd such a pile stowed away there? But if I can get to Melbourne, take the girl on the hop, marry her, and clear out to England or 'Frisco the day after, as I expect he intended to have done, old Caleb may whistle for his share. By Jove! what a lucky job it was that Coke and I had a good overhaul of the hut on the quiet. It's put me up to all I wanted to know to act Lance Trevanion to the life. I've done it before, but now I'm up in my part to the letter. I've got the very clothes he was last seen in, the marks on my facehegave me, damn him, much about the same as I gavehim; with putting on a bit of a drawl that he always had, the devil himself wouldn't know us apart. I wonder if he will whenmyturn comes below?'
Then the villain laughed aloud, a ghastly sound in the lonely hut and still night The unnatural sound died away,—guilt rarely laughs long,—when, lighting his pipe and stirring the embers of the fire in the chimney, he recommenced his meditative plotting.
'Now then, the devil of it is, that I'll have deuced little time to work things in, if this girl Estella, or whatever she calls herself, comes up to-morrow or next day. However, perhaps the shorter the time the better the chance; she'll be bustled, and won't have time to think. All I've got to do is to play Lance Trevanion to the life for a day or two, get her off to Melbourne, and follow up after. The sooner I'm off the better, for fear Kate gets wind of it and blows the whole bloomin' plant to blazes. There's nothing she'd like better, blast her! I think I can do the swell business middling near the mark. I've been studying some of those squatter toffs that come to Monaro for store catch. If a bit of slang leaks out, or a slip in grammar, why, of course, it's from associating with rough cards at the diggings, not to mention the chain-gang business; she'll believe, like all these flats of new chums, that Australian life's enough to take the shine out of any man's mind and manners, grammar, and good looks. Then the wedding! Ha! ha! if that won't be the best joke out. Fancy Larry Trevenna spliced to a real lady—a dashed handsome girl I believe she is—anyhow her likeness says so. Next day off to England or America,—the last if I can fix it—and no more Australia for yours truly.
'The best of it is, even if Iamnabbed, I can easily prove thatI'm not him. Then there's the bigamy racket, though I daresay if I let Kate off, she'd be glad enough to take her own way and clear out. It's a ticklish business, of course; but I stand to win or lose a heavy stake, and I'll play it out, by God! I don't see how she can doubt I'm the real man. I've read his letters and things till I nearly know all the places and people by heart. I've got the ring and the locket she talks about, and a lot of family trinkets and nicknacks, and there's no mistake weareas like—that is, were—as two peas. Why the deuce we should be, the devil only knows. Well, I'll have another smoke and turn in. There's a deal to think about to-morrow.'
Next day being Sunday, which even at the wildest Australian digging differs somewhat from other days, Mr. Harry Johnson dressed himself more carefully than usual, and after breakfast went 'down town'—that is, he proceeded to Barker's store, in order to gather up news generally and discover whether Miss Chaloner was on the road up, so that he might be fully prepared for the momentous meeting.
As it happened, he found out precisely what he wanted. A young fellow had arrived that morning and had passed a party one stage back on the road answering to their description. The young man was not a miner, but a cattle-dealer, making a forced march to Monaro in order to buy store cattle. The price was rising daily, so he was riding post-haste for fear of losing the market. He had overtaken the storekeeper's party, in which were three women—one a fine-looking girl—to this he could swear—and riding a clever, well-bred hackney: such a horse was never bought in Melbourne under a hundred pounds. He believed they would be in Omeo to-morrow evening before sundown, and were going to stay at the Reefers' Arms.
On Monday, therefore, Lawrence Trevenna devoted the whole of his energies to the fullest preparation for the leading part which he had to play. He neglected no precaution. He made fresh search among the papers of Lance Trevanion. He read and re-read the letters contained in the brass-bound portmanteau which had been sent to Omeo by Charles Stirling. He reckoned up over and over again the various points on which it was necessary for him to be accurately informed in order to satisfy any lurking doubt of Miss Chaloner.
He had noted more than one reference to the chain with a coin attached, and an almost historical heirloom which he had given her at parting. The ring which Lance always wore, and which he had taken from the dead man's finger, was also alluded to. The half threat which Estelle had made to come to Australia, if Lance did not return, or write, was spoken of. Of course, as a passenger in theRed Jacket, he knew the day on which that vessel sailed, when she arrived in Melbourne, and those occurrences of the voyage which Lance had described in his home letters. The doubt in his mind was naturally whether this high-born damsel would throw herself into his arms with the unreserve of plighted love, and be ready to marry and depart with him from Australia at the earliest possible period; or whether she might have her doubts as to his being the right man, and so work confusion or even danger. Much was on the cards. All depended on the deal. But he held a strong hand, he told himself. Trumps, too, in profusion. And, with the hardihood of a born and practised gambler, he stood prepared to back his luck to the last.
The following day passed slowly; but as the evening wore on he lounged over to the hotel at which the travellers were to arrive, and made it carelessly but generally known that he expected a young lady who was coming up with Caldwell and his wife and sister. He was thereupon congratulated in a jocular manner, when finally, as the early spring day was fading fast into the short twilight, the tramp of horses' feet was heard along the well-worn track which came up from the coast town, and the little cavalcade, composed of two men and three women, halted before the hotel verandah.
The inn loungers gathered around the strangers, proffering aid, much stimulated by the prospect of news. The ladies had been assisted from their steeds, and the landlord was leading the way to the principal sitting-room, in which a cheerful fire was blazing, when a tall man came through the party, and, pausing before the young lady who followed at the rear of the party, said, in a voice tremulous with emotion, 'Estelle, my darling, we meet at last!'
The girl gazed earnestly in his face for a moment, his eyes meanwhile fixed on hers with an intense and even increasingly fervid glance; then, as he wound his arm around her waist and drew her towards him, she murmured with undoubting faith—'Lance, ah! my dearest Harry, I hardly knew you at first. It must be your beard, I think. And how did you happen to be here to meet me?' she continued, disengaging herself from his embrace, as a sense of shyness and confusion commenced to assert itself as she looked around.
'And why did you not write and tell me you were in Australia before?' he said, half menacingly; 'it was hardly fair to me, I think.'
'It is a long story; we shall have plenty of time to talk it over. I did it for the best, though I daresay you will blame me. But I must go and rest a little; we are all terribly tired. You will be here this evening, though I warn you we shall go to bed early.'
She did not appear at the ordinary evening meal, sending out word that she was fatigued, and had a quite too overpowering headache. The storekeeper's wife and daughter were loud in praise of the uncomplaining manner in which Miss Chaloner had undergone the hardships of the journey. 'It's not as if she was used to it, poor dear,' said the matron, 'like me and Bessie here, as has had to rough it all our lives, pretty near. Yet there she was, taking everything as it come, and never a growl out of her. My word! she can ride though.'
'And that horse of hers is a plum,' assented Miss Bessie; 'she looked after him well, and he's worth it. I'd like to have him, I know, instead of my old crock. I believe he's thoroughbred, or close up; and if they ever have races in this beastly hole, he'd win all the money they're game to put up, hands down.'
'Nonsense, Bessie,' replied the elder woman; 'how do you know? Your tongue goes too fast, Miss. Don't you think so, Mr. Johnson? I don't know what's come to the girls nowadays, they're that forward and think they know everything. But you're a lucky man, if it's true as you're engaged to be married to the young lady, as it seems is a fact. There's very few girls like her in this country or any other, you mark my words, and I hope you're good enough for her, that I do. I'll just go and see how she is.'
The worthy dame, on returning from the bedchamber, brought the intelligence that Miss Chaloner could not appear again, being prostrated by a nervous headache, but sent a message to Mr. Johnson that she would be quite well in the morning, and would be glad to see him after breakfast. With this ultimatum 'Mr. Johnson' was fain to be outwardly content, and, though inwardly chafing, betook himself to his hut, there to spend the night with what 'companions of Sintram' might be available. He was not, however, wholly dissatisfied with the progress made. 'Anyhow,' he thought, as, after a couple of potent 'nips,' he sat smoking over his fire, 'the first act's over, and pretty right too. She believes I'm the man, and though something or other's startled her,—like a half-broken filly,—she'll come to, after a bit. I must have a regular good pitch to her to-morrow, and bring out the cove's rings, and trinkets, and keepsakes, that she knows about. I'll have the whole thing out with her, and settle about when we're to meet in Melbourne and get spliced. It's a job that won't stand waiting about. I must get her away and on the road in a day or two, and pick up the escort and get down by myself. If I leave with her, that infernal Kate'll get wind of it and be on our track as sure as a gun. She thinks I went to Monaro for horses, and won't be back for a month, but she'd fossich out any woman business if I was the other side of h—l, I do believe.'
'I shall be cornered,' he said to himself, pursuing the same train of thought, 'if she wants to stay here a while and see where I was working, and all that rot that women are so dashed foolish about. I must lay it out that I might be taken any day, and the sooner we both get to Melbourne and off by the first ship—the day after we're married, if possible—the safer for her dearest Lance—that's me—me!'—here the villain laughed aloud with fiendish enjoyment of the base deceit of which the unhappy girl was to be the victim. 'If he could only see us! ha! ha! Once we're married, there's no get over that. Once we're clear away, hang it, I'd almost like to have him alive again, to enjoy the sight of his face and see how he took it. His lady-cousin—his wife as was to be, that wouldn't touch me with a pair of tongs—if she knew—ifshe only knew—that it was Larry Trevenna, that used to be a stable-boy, a farm-lad, a horse-dealer's tout. If mother hadn't died, things might have been better, and old granddad too. She used to talk as if there was some mystery. I wonder if there was, and what sort. Anyhow there will be, and that's enough for the present, if it comes off.'
Estelle rose early next morning with a view to survey at leisure her novel surroundings. She had perfectly recovered from the fatigue of the previous day. The regular exercise of the bush journey had acted beneficially upon her health and spirits, as indeed such a term of travel does upon all normally constituted people. The night had been clear and frosty. As she paced the verandah, which, as in most houses of the class, absorbed the whole front of the hotel, she was first surprised, then charmed and excited, by the view of the majestic Alpine range, the snow-covered peaks of which were glittering in the rays of the morning sun.
'How grand! how inconceivably lovely!' said she, half aloud; as gradually the view opened out, in a sense expanded itself before her rapturous gaze. 'How little I expected to feast my eyes upon a scene like this! Poor Lance, poor fellow! how often such a glorious landscape as this must have comforted him in his loneliness! Perhaps he thought of me at such times; he could not help it. He used to tease me at Wychwood, I remember, about what he called my craze for scenery. I must remind him of it to-day. Yes, to-day; how strangely it sounds! I shall have to make up my mind——' and here she seemed to fall into a musing mood, while a sigh from time to time escaped involuntarily. 'Yes,' she thought; 'it would be hardly advisable to live here after we—after we were married. Reports would be sure to get abroad, and then, perhaps, if he was recaptured his punishment would be increased, and that would kill him—would kill us both indeed. I could never survive it, I feel sure.
'Then, what would be the safer course to pursue? To go to some seaport, where they could take ship for Europe or America, as the case might be? Why should they not take their passage for San Francisco? Once landed there, who was to know Lance from any other Australian digger, numbers of whom had been backward and forward since the earliest "rush," in 1849? Melbourne in some respects would be the better port of shipment; it was nearer, more easily reached, and there was such a mixed multitude of "pilgrims and strangers," miners, speculators, colonists, Europeans, and foreigners, that any number of persons "illegally at large" (an expression she had caught in Melbourne) might pass unnoticed.'
The clang of the breakfast-bell put an end to her meditation, and exchanging the keen air of the outer world for a seat near the glowing fire, high piled with logs, she took the place reserved for her near her travelling companions of the previous day. The social atmosphere of thetable d'hôtewas less 'select' than that at 'Growlers',' but the utmost decorum nevertheless prevailed. Among the strangers to her was a middle-aged man, whom she heard addressed as Mr. Gray, and more familiarly as Con. He was a gold-buyer, about to leave for Melbourne on the following day.
'How many ounces are you taking down this time, Con?' asked a jocular miner at the other end of the table 'You'll be waited for some day, if you don't look out.'
'Not much this time, old man,' said Gray. 'But you're right; itisa risky game, and I don't think I'll chance it much longer. Indeed this may be my last trip.'
'Right you are,' said the furnisher of the raw material. 'I'm blessed if I'd travel that road the way you fellows do, and known to have gold on you, for all the percentage you make out of it. There's too many cross chaps about, for my fancy and so I tell you.'
'Well, a man must live, you know, Johnny,' replied the gold-buyer good-humouredly. 'But I think I'll take your advice and cut the road after this.'
When her lover arrived, Estelle, as was natural, bent an earnest gaze upon his form and features. Neatly but plainly dressed, his stalwart figure, erect and stately, showed to great advantage among the carelessly attired loungers who thronged the entrance. His bold regard, his dark and clustering hair, his regular features, stamped him as a being of different mould, in her eyes, from the ordinary persons around them. A thickly growing beard and moustache hid the lower part of his face, and concealing much of his mouth and chin, somewhat altered (Estelle thought) the expression of his countenance. It was not wholly an improvement, though she could understand his reason for adopting the prevailing Australian fashion.
He passed carelessly into the parlour, where there were still a few people gathered around the fireplace. Putting his arm round her waist, he said jocularly, as he drew her towards him, 'So you have recovered from your fatigue. After our long separation, it seems awfully hard on me that we should see so little of each other.'
The storekeeper's wife smiled, and Miss Bessie giggled, as Estelle, blushing deeply, withdrew herself from his clasp, saying hurriedly, 'I don't think there's any necessity for being so affectionate in public. We have a great deal to talk over and decide to-day.'
It was a strange feeling that had come over her for the moment. Added to her natural dislike to such endearments before spectators of the class then present, a curious indefinable sensation of repulsion took possession of her temporarily, as strong as it was instinctive. He drew back, with a half-angry look; then, assuming an air of injured dignity, said, 'I ought to apologise. I forgot you hadn't been long out from home. We don't mind these trifles in Omeo. Do we, Mrs. Caldwell?'
'Not when people's engaged,' said the matron; while Miss Bessie tossed her head, and said, 'She thought all the gentlemen wanted keeping in their places; she'd let them know when she'd a young man of her own, that she would.'
All this was of course painful to Estelle; but fearing, from his changed expression, that she had hurt his feelings, she proceeded to make amends, after the manner of her sex, by hastily proffering concessions. The sudden thought of his melancholy life, of his wrongs and misfortunes, almost impelled her to beg his pardon in the humblest manner for the involuntary slight. Yet the thoughtwouldobtrude itself of how differently Mr. Stirling or Mr. Dalton would have acted under the same circumstances, and a sigh told how grieved she felt that any environment, how sad and mournful soever, should have obscured the refinement so inherent in the blood of Trevanion.
Prompt to redress the fancied injury, she placed her hand within his arm, saying, 'I think the best thing we can do is to go for a nice long walk on this lovely day, and you shall show me a little of the "field,"—you see I understand diggers now,—and your hut, where you have been living all this time by yourself, you poor lonely hermit that you were.'
"Now that's the way to behave," said Mrs. Caldwell, smiling, with motherly approval; "I see you'll know all you've got to do after a while—girls is flighty at first, Mr. Johnson."
So they walked forth along the principal (and only) street of Omeo, not wholly without observation from the miscellaneous crowd of miners, teamsters, wayfarers, tradespeople, bushmen, and others, with which a mining town where gold is abundant—and such was then the stage at which Omeo had arrived—is filled up. More than one head was turned from time to time to gaze with interest and surprise at the distinguished-looking though plainly dressed girl 'who had come up to Ballarat Harry.'
'His luck's in, my word,' was the remark of a stalwart miner, who, pick on shoulder, was following a cart with his mate, conveying their worldly possessions. 'I wonder if they're going to live in that hut of his on the ridge. She don't look as if she'd been used to cook in a slab fireplace, or lift the lid off a camp-oven.'
'Camp-oven be blowed,' rejoined his mate, who was affectionately carrying a long-handled shovel, as being too valuable an implement to be trusted in a vehicle, 'they're a-goin' to Melbourne to be spliced; and most like he'll settle there and take to gold-buying on a big scale. He's well in, is Harry, by all accounts.'
'It beats me what she sees in him, then—a gal like her, as might have any man in the whole bloomin' colony, in a manner of speaking. Harry was a jolly, free-handed chap, as you'd see when he first come, but he's got that surly and short lately as you'd hardly know him as the same man.'
'Well, I warn't here when he first come, but from the look of him, when I see him the other day, I shouldn't be surprised if there was something "cronk" about him, for all his gold-buying.'
All unheeding of this careless but not inaccurate criticism, the lovers sauntered on. As they cleared the outskirts of the town, Estelle said, 'Now you must show me your hut. Imustsee the place where you have lived your lonely life, poor fellow. How I used to pity you, when I thought of it.'
'There it is, on that rise—this track leads up to it. It's such a miserable hovel, I hardly like you to see it.'
'Nonsense! you forget I've been to Growlers' and Ballarat, and know all about diggings. Why, it's the regular thing, like a shooting-box or a bothy in the Highlands. Everybody does it. Better men than you (I was going to say) live in huts. Why, this is quite a grand hut! What fine broad slabs, and a big padlock too. I thought the miners were so honest?'
'Sometimes,' he said; 'not always.'
They walked into Ballarat Harry's hut. Estelle sat herself down on a three-legged stool by the side of the still smouldering fire, and gazed into the pile of ashes on the hearth. Here, for so many a lonely evening, had he sat and smoked and thought—ah! with what bitterness—of a lost home, a forfeited birthright, of a father's curse, which, harmless as thistledown at first, had commenced to be so fatally prophetic. Itwashard. Fate had been against him—against them from the beginning. But she would make up to him—as far as woman's love might repair the wrongs of destiny and the cruelty of man—for this dreadful episode of his life.
'Oh Lance—dear Lance!' she said; 'how you have lived through it all I can hardly imagine.'
'If I had not had the thoughts of you to keep me up,' he said, looking at her with eyes of bold admiration, 'I might have given in. But I kept always saying to myself,shewill reward me, Stella will be mine when we meet, and all the past will be forgotten—and youaremine,' he said, as he took her hand in his and made as if to exact the betrothed lover's accustomed tribute.
But again a shrinking feeling of denial—for which she could not account—possessed her whole frame. She drew back shuddering. 'Pray, don't let us have any nonsense of that kind,' she said; 'there will be plenty of time by and by. At present, I feel as if I had so much rather hear all about your trial and the cruel unjust sentence which ruined you, and of your life in those dreadful hulks; I always wonder how you managed to escape.'
For one moment the flash of his eyes in stern displeasure reminded her vividly of bygone days and their lovers' quarrels at Wychwood. Then he spoke, in a voice studiously free from irritation—
'I got out through the help and managing of Tessie Lawless—a girl that cared a deal more for me than you do, if that's the way you're going to treat me. You've forgotten our old Wychwood days, I suppose. Well, as you'll have to leave to-morrow, or next day at furthest, for Melbourne, and we go different ways, we mustn't fall out, must we? I can wait. So we'd better talk over this journey.'
'Now don't be cross, my dear Lance; you must give me time. Remember, I've been a lonely and very sad woman for years, and all thoughts of love and marriage were put out of my head. Do tell me of your escape.'
'Well, IDIDescape,—which is the chief thing that concerns us now,—or I believe I should have hanged myself, like the fellow that was in my cell before me—or got shot, like two other men, for trying to clear out by day. What I suffered, no tongue can tell!'—here he assumed the most tragic expression possible, and groaned as if at the recollection,—'the very thoughts of it make my blood boil.'
'But how did this girl—Tessie Lawless, was that her name?—succeed in releasing you?'
'Well, she persuaded a man who, I believe, was pretty sweet afterher, to come one dark night with a boat to the stern of the old hulk. She sent money and bribed my warder, so I was able to get out and drop down into the boat. After I was free, she sent a man and two horses to where I could meet them, and I came up here.'
'What a brave girl! I should like to see and thank her. She must have been a great friend of yours?'
'Well, I suppose she thought a good deal of me in her way, poor thing. I believe she's in Melbourne somewhere, but I've never seen her since.'
'You don't seem to have been very anxious to thank her for all the devotion and courage, I must say. It's the way of the world, I suppose, and Australia is very like other places in essentials, I begin to suspect. And now, what are our plans to be? It will be a risk for you to remain here longer, I suppose?'
'To be sure it will. You can't tell what may happen. Any day I might be arrested. Our dart—our plan, I mean—is to get to Melbourne as soon as possible. You can go down with Holmes Dayton and Con Gray. A policeman goes with them as escort, and, I think, Gray's sister-in-law. You couldn't have a safer party. I shall go across country towards the Murray, and travel a way of my own. We can meet in Melbourne at any place you arrange, and be married at once—that is, the day before the vessel sails that we take our passage in for San Francisco. Then we're off as Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and no one the wiser! What do you say to that?'
'I suppose,' she answered slowly and reflectively, 'that it would be the best plan.'
'The best plan!' he repeated, almost angrily, while a sudden flash shone from his eyes, and a frown of impatience crossed his face, which brought back old memories with magical suddenness. 'Why, of course it is. There can't be any other, unless I hang on here till that infernal hound Dayrell track me down. But you don't seem to be half keen about it. Can it be'—and here he changed his voice and looked earnestly, almost pleadingly, into the girl's face—'that you have changed your mind? If you have, say so. I have lost home and friends—everything—I know. Am I to lose you too?'
His eyes rested on the girl with almost magnetic power. Then a blush came to her cheek, as she replied—
'You have my promise, Lance, and the word of a Chaloner is sacred. Surely you should know that? Of course I will do as you wish. But—and here she smiled and raised her eyes pleadingly—you must not be hasty, but bear with me a little. All things are so strange, and the time is short. After all my looking forward to our meeting, you have taken me a little by surprise.'
'Forgive me, my darling,' he said, with well-acted warmth; 'Iwashasty, but you know the Trevanion temper—my pride was touched. And you will be ready to start to-morrow? That horse of yours (old Vernon, or whatever his name was, is no bad judge, if he picked him) is as fit for the road as when he left Melbourne. I suppose he expected to get a commission out of you?'
'You must not talk in that way of my good old friend,' she said gravely. 'He was like a father to me; I can't be too grateful to him and his dear good wife. But I shall be quite ready to start in the morning with the people you mention. I am so glad there is a girl in the party.'
As they walked back to the inn, the arrangements for meeting in Melbourne were discussed in detail and completely sketched out. She was to go to Mr. Vernon's house, and thence, when apprised of his arrival, she would meet him at the South Yarra Church, only escorted by her friends. Mr. Vernon would 'give her away,' and she would ask them to keep the matter secret. The ceremony would be deferred till the day before the sailing of their vessel for Honolulu or San Francisco, as might be decided. Unless Fate intervened with unexampled unkindness, it seemed as though a burst of sunshine was about to break through the cloud of misfortune which had so long encircled them.
'By this time to-morrow evening,' he said, 'you will be on your way to Melbourne. It's lucky you've had so much practice lately in riding. I suppose you found it rather awkward at first?'
'Awkward?' she said, gazing at him with astonishment, 'Why, you surely must have forgotten that I hunted regularly the season before you left home.'
'Oh yes; of course—of course,' he said. 'But I seem to have forgotten so many things,'—here he assumed an air as of one indistinctly recalling long-past incidents. 'Then the horses out here are so different.'
'I don't think that at all,' she answered; 'I have seen some wonderfully fine horses here. And I am sure my good old Wanderer, that I rode up, is as grand a hackney as ever was saddled. You mustn't run down Australian horses, you know.'
'Never mind the horses,' he said pettishly; 'I wishI'dnever seen one, out here at any rate; and now let us settle it all, how we're to meet, and all the rest of it. I'm to send a note to John Vernon and Company, Flinders Lane,—is that the address?—and you'll be ready at a day's notice, won't you?'
'Yes,' she said slowly and half absently; 'I suppose so.'
'You see it's this way,' he said, coming still nearer to her and looking into her face as if to read her inmost thoughts. 'I can't afford to hang about Melbourne. What I've got to do is to find out the first steamer, take our passages as Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, then get the license: there's a church close by the Vernons, isn't there, where all the swells go?—Toorak, or some such name. We slip over there before lunch, and next day we're man and wife and at sea—clear of Australia—free and safe for ever! What a sell it will be for those bloodhounds of police!'
As he spoke rapidly, his eyes gleamed with unholy triumph, carefully schooled as was the general expression of his countenance. In spite of her deep abiding sympathy for his sorrows, the girl's gentle spirit recoiled from the savage satisfaction displayed in his closing words.
'Oh! Lance,' she said, 'do not speak like that. It pains me to hear even a tone of lightness about our deliverance. If God permits it, we should be thankful all our lives. But even if there has been pursuit, these men that you so hate have only been doing what they supposed to be their duty.'
'You are an angel,' he said, with an air of deepest conviction and tenderness, 'too good for me and for every one. For your sake, I suppose I must forgive these rascally traps, especially if they don't run me down. And now, as we shan't see each other in the morning, just one kiss before we part for the last time.'
But again she drew back; the same indefinable feeling of repulsion arose in her instinctively, as strong, as inexplicable. 'You have not long to wait now,' she said softly; 'until then, you must humour all my whims. You will, Lance, won't you?'
'I suppose so,' he said half sullenly; 'women are all alike, full of fancies. But Ididthink you would remember old days. You used not to be so stand off and distant.'
'We were girl and boy then,' she said. 'Everything seems so changed. I can hardly fancy even now that we are to be married in a fortnight, though I have come all this way to find you out. Some strange mysterious feeling stirs within me from time to time. I can hardly explain it. It is almost like a presentiment of evil.'
He laughed suddenly, and as suddenly stopped. 'Iam not changed,' he said, 'except by what I have gone through'; then he dropped his voice into a mournful murmur, as he carelessly and apparently by chance touched the Chaloner ring. 'But if you can't make up your mind; if you would like to cry off, to leave me to my fate, say so in time. Perhaps it would be better for you after all.'
'No, Lance!' she said, and as she spoke she raised her eyes heavenward, moist with tears of tenderest sympathy, as the thought rushed across her brain of his lonely and desperate condition, abandoned byheras by all the world. 'We Chaloners keep faith. I am your plighted bride, and I am ready to fulfil my vow, my promise to the living and to the dead. But you must bear with a woman's weakness and consider how little time I have to prepare. What would they say at Wychwood, I wonder?'
'We're in Australia, Stella, and not in England—don't forget that,' he answered, the frown again darkening his countenance. 'I hope we shan't see the old country for many a day. We must learn to forget old ways and fashions.'
'I can never do so, wherever we may wander,' she answered, with quiet emotion. 'I don't like to hear you speak of it as a thing of course, and I wish you would call me Estelle, Lance, not Stella. You never used to do so.'
'Very well, Estelle,' he said, 'I won't do it again, if it bothers you. Stella's a common name out here; that's the reason, I suppose. And now, as we're at the hotel, we'd better say good-bye. I won't come in the morning. It's no use making people talk; they're ready enough, without helping them. You and that Miss Graham can get away with old Dayton to-morrow. It's the way everybody up here travels, and nothing's thought of it. I'll write the moment I get down. Most likely I'll be in Melbourne as soon as you.'
They parted with a simple hand-clasp, she gazing into his face as if to read the signs of a spirit worn and wearied with the worldly injustice. His face was calm, and betrayed no emotion other than deep regret at the departure of a friend. He tried to throw into the parting words the sentiment which the occasion demanded, but it was patently an effort, and had not the ring of truth or tenderness.
'Heischanged,' she told herself, as she moved forward across the verandah of the hotel and sought her bedroom. 'How changed, I could hardly have imagined. But who would not have been altered by the frightful experience he has gone through! I must try and make him happy, as some poor recompense for all his sorrows.'
Could she have noted the dark and evil expression of her companion's face, as he lit his pipe and strode savagely along the path to his solitary hut, heard the foul oaths with which from time to time he essayed to relieve his feelings, or the vows of vengeance upon her for her coldness, she would have deemed him changed indeed.
The morning of their departure rose bright and cloudless. The air was fresh and bracing, for the hoar-frost lay unthawed for hours on the wire-grass in the sheltered valleys, adown which the little cavalcade passed on the Gippsland road. The trooper, a young mounted constable of the Victorian Police, with the storekeeper, Holmes Dayton, rode in front. Then came Estelle Chaloner and her travelling companion, Janie Graham, a young girl born and nurtured in the bush, the niece of the gold-buyer Constantine Gray. She had been on a visit to Omeo (save the mark!), and was now returning to her friends. They had not gone far when Dayton, the storekeeper, turning into a forest track which ran at right angles to the main road, explained that he had occasion to meet an acquaintance on business, and would rejoin them at the next stopping-place. The trooper then fell back to effect companionship with Gray, while the girls succeeded to the leading position.
Mounted on the good steed which she had learned to love, Estelle's spirits rose as she felt his free elastic motion. Rested by his sojourn in the inn stable, he paced fast and easily along the forest paths.
Though unable to account for the feeling, Estelle was conscious of a distinct sensation of relief, almost amounting to exhilaration. She was quitting Omeo for ever, and she looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to the few days of wayfaring which the journey to Melbourne would necessitate.
'It will be my last week of freedom,' she told herself. 'I shall have to sell you, though, my poor Wanderer, you dear, good, faithful creature!' and she patted her horse's arching neck and pushed over a stray lock of his mane. 'Well, wherever I go, and whenever I see the old land again, I shall never have a better horse. I have ridden some good ones in the old country, but I doubt if any one of the lot was as sure-footed, as easy, as untiring—certainly not on the food and treatment you have had to put up with. I wish I could take you home. Indeed, if we were going back in the ordinary fashion, Iwouldtake you with me, whatever it cost. It would be only buying you over again; and good horses are cheaper here, even at gold prices, than in England.
'Now let me see,' she continued, in soliloquy, 'we shall be near Melbourne by the end of this week. Then, for I suppose it would be dangerous for him to wait, I must huddle up a few dresses and be married at once.Married at once!' Here she sighed; the light died out of her eyes, and the freshness of the morn seemed to fade out of her face. How different was it from the meeting in Australia which she had promised herself in her more sanguine imaginings! Even if he had been comparatively poor, her fortune would have sufficed for all needs until he was enabled to claim his paternal heritage. But now, how immeasurably worse than poverty was his condition!—disgrace, dishonour,—irrevocable, perhaps inexpiable,—possibly debarring him from ever claiming his rights! She saw herself after the vow had been sworn which bound her to a dishonoured man, a passenger in a foreign vessel, voyaging to a distant land, with perhaps dangers and privations in store of which she had no previous conception. How strange and unreal it all seemed!
But it was too late to despond—to falter. She had promised: she would perform. Shrinking with maidenly reluctance from the hasty, and in a measure clandestine, union to which she found herself committed, she felt compelled to call up all the reserves of resolution, of which she had so uncommon a portion, before she could still the instinctive dislike to the next act in the drama of her destiny.
As these thoughts—sombre, hopeful, and desponding by turns—passed through her brain, the bright spring day wore on; the babbling brooklets, through which their horses plashed ever and anon, ran clear and sparkling. As Estelle Chaloner mused over her surroundings and gazed upwards through the tall white-stemmed eucalypts which, rank upon rank, hemmed in the rugged bridle-track, looked at the trooper, the gold-buyer, the rustic damsel who was to be by day and night her closely associated companion, she could hardly realise her own identity. 'How changed is mymonde,' she thought, 'in the course of a few short months—my daily thoughts and feelings, my plans of the present, my prospects in the future! Am I indeed the same Estelle Chaloner who sat in the old hall at Wychwood for all the long sad autumn months, who saw the red leaves fall in those ancient woods, waiting the while for the last sands of a sick man's life to run out? And now, where am I? andwhat am I? What I shall be in the future I almost tremble to think.'
Immersed in reverie, she had trusted the conduct of her horse almost entirely to his own discretion. A hackney exceptionally good in the slow paces, as are many Australian horses, the Wanderer had, for his own pleasure and satisfaction, gone forward at the top of his walking speed, which was sufficiently fast to keep her companion's horse at a jog-trot. From time to time, at an earlier stage, the rustic maiden had laughingly protested; then Wanderer was held back. However, in this particular instance the failure of consideration was unnoticed, until Estelle was aroused by a cry from her companion, so loud and vehement in tone that she knew at once that no ordinary occurrence had called it forth.
Reining up sharply, she turned in her saddle to behold a sight which blanched her cheek and well-nigh froze the life-blood in her veins.
From out the tangled forest growth, emerging from behind a gigantic eucalypt, two men, masked and armed, had stepped into the roadway, abreast of the gold-buyer and the trooper. A third man, half hidden by the bushes, levelled his fire-arm a few paces in the rear. Both girls sat horror-stricken on their horses as the trooper's carbine and the fire-arms of the robbers appeared to make simultaneous reports. The gold-buyer fell heavily from his horse in the road; the trooper staggered and swayed in the saddle, dropping his reins, but recovered himself, though evidently hard hit and unable to control his horse. The wounded man rose to his knees, but at that moment one of the masked strangers rushed over and struck him over the head. Estelle's eyes darkened, and she felt as if all sensation was leaving her; but, recovering herself, she shook her reins, and the free horse dashed down the slope leading to the creek of which they had been told, with the speed of a racer, accompanied by her terror-stricken companion, whose hackney followed suit with the instinct of his kind.
The creek was crossed almost immediately. Mile after mile fled away like a dream before either of the girls thought of drawing rein. At length, at the foot of a steep and rocky range, the horses commenced to slacken speed.
'My God!' said the girl, 'did you see that? They have murdered my poor uncle! Whatever shall we do? Do you think they will come after us? Is there any house that we can go to along this horrid road? I know we shall both be killed and planted so as never to be heard of again.'
'Let us think over our best course,' said Estelle, aroused to the necessity of self-possession in the hour of need, and in the presence of a weaker nature. 'I remember this range. Five miles on the other side is an inn, near a water-race. If we can get there we are safe; there seemed to be a good many people about when we passed up. But I hear horses galloping after us. Good heavens!'
They stopped, and, listening, could plainly hear the sound of more than one horse coming fast along the rocky road behind them.
'We must turn into the wood,' said Estelle; 'fortunately it is thick enough to hide us until we see who are following up.'
They rode some distance into the forest, the low-growing pendent shrubs of which, the product of a damp climate and constant rainfall, were sufficiently dense to shield them from observation.
Nearer and nearer came the hoof-beats. The girls gazed anxiously through the close foliage. Then a chestnut horse came round a corner of the range, upon which sat a man whose arms were apparently helpless.
'Great Heaven!' said Estelle, 'it is Beresford the police trooper. He has been wounded in the arms. See! he cannot hold the reins, poor fellow!'
'That's his chestnut horse,' said the rural young lady excitedly; 'I'd know his blaze and white stockings a mile off. But what's follerin' him up? I'm blessed if it ain't poor old Uncle Con's horse, and he's got his pack all right and reg'lar too. Those chaps is gone cronk and done their villainy for nothing. I'm dashed if I ever see the like!'
'We had better catch them up,' said Estelle; 'the Lawyers Rest is hardly five miles distant. We might help that poor Beresford.'
Suddenly relieved from the deadly fear of the close presence of the wretches whose deed of blood they had witnessed, the girls put their horses to full speed and overtook one fugitive before he reached the hill-top. Bending down from her saddle, the Australian maid caught the pack-horse's bridle, bursting into tears and loud lamentation as she recognised her dead kinsman's effects attached to different sections of the pack-saddle.
'Poor old Uncle Con,' she said, 'there's his mackintosh, his water-bag, his billy-can—all the old traps I know so well. Many a time I've joked him about them—so particular to have everything handy for camping, he was. He won't camp no more, poor old man! He said it would be his last trip, and so it was. I wonder if I shall live to see those villains hanged? That old wretch Coke's in it for one, I'll swear.'
Scarcely had they ridden another mile when they overtook the police trooper. Partly disabled and in pain, and guiding his horse with difficulty, the deathlike pallor of his face told of weakness from loss of blood; yet he braced himself gallantly for the work that lay before him.
'Let me hold your rein,' said Estelle, as she rode up to his horse's shoulder; 'are your arms badly hurt?'
'Riddled through and through,' said the young fellow, groaning. 'The brute must have loaded with slugs; my wrists feel the worst, and there's a hole in my shoulder as well. I may get some one to ride back with me from the inn. I can't leave poor Con dead on the road.'
The sight of the unpretentious slab edifice with a bark verandah which was dignified with the title of Lawyers' Rest was more grateful to Estelle's strained vision than would have been the most palatial hotel in Europe, for around it stood a dozen men, while several horses, 'hung up' to the palings of the little garden, testified to an unusual gathering. The trooper's dull eye brightened at the sight, and he looked as if the spirit within him had power to overcome the weakness of the flesh. They rode up to the door, a strange cortège, in the eyes of the miners and squatters there assembled—a woman leading a horse, upon which swayed and bent forward a wounded man, while a girl followed with a pack-horse heavily laden and mud-splashed to the eyes.
As they reined up amid the excited crowd, the trooper lay forward in a deathlike swoon, and was only saved from falling by the strong arms which lifted him from the saddle and bore him tenderly to a couch.
In broken and disjointed sentences Estelle described the deed of blood, while the gold-buyer's niece inveighed wildly against the murderers of her uncle. He was a well-known man, and a corresponding degree of indignation was aroused, while all necessary steps were taken for the relief of the fugitives.
The gold was removed, and, after being weighed in the presence of witnesses, deposited with the landlord, as also the other effects of the deceased. Wanderer and his comrades were stabled, a comfortable room prepared by the landlord's wife for the girls, while a dozen well-armed men were ready to start for the scene of murder within ten minutes of their arrival. With them rode Trooper Beresford, recovered from his faint. Revived with eau-de-vie de Cognac, he insisted on accompanying them.
But this was a bootless errand. Beresford pointed out where the men first appeared from behind the buttress of the forest giant. The tracks were as a printed page to the experienced dwellers in the waste who stood beside him. But the gold-buyer lay dead in the centre of the road. From a gunshot wound the blood had welled forth into a pool, while his skull had been cleft with more than one stroke of an axe.
'We'd better take him back to the shanty with us, boys,' said one of the older men, by common consent elected to act as leader. 'You young chaps as has got sharp eyes hunt about, and don't leave so much as a button behind if you come across one, next or anigh him. It's no use follerin' the tracks for more than a bit, just to see which way they've headed. Beresford here ain't fit, and if they're the men we suspect, one of 'em's near Mount Gibbo by this, and the rest many a mile off some other way.'
So the dead man was placed on a horse, and the party wended their way sadly back to the little hostelry with their silent blood-stained companion.
On the morrow, at a formal meeting, it was decided that a strong body of volunteers, with a black tracker, should follow up the trail of the murderers. A reward sufficiently large to tempt an accomplice was offered for information leading to a conviction, an old comrade of the dead man subscribing more than half the amount. A messenger had been despatched to the nearest police station, and the Coroner shortly arrived to hold an inquest upon the body.
This melancholy business having been completed, and a verdict of 'wilful murder by persons unknown' having been brought in, Estelle felt sufficiently recovered to recommence her journey. Now that she had experienced one of the dread realities of goldfields life, much of her former confidence had departed. She felt an overwhelming impatience to regain the security of civilisation, and cheerfully accepted the offer of the escort of the Coroner, who was also a police magistrate. He accompanied her as far as the next township on the way to Melbourne. There were also a couple of police troopersen routefor the barracks at Jolimont, so that nothing better could be wished. At the township they fell in with a squatter and his daughter bound for Melbourne, with whom they joined forces till Toorak once more rose to view and the winding Yarra Yarra. And now this strange and terrible occurrence had passed like the horror of a dream, and Estelle Chaloner was again in Melbourne, safe under the sheltering wing of Mrs. Vernon. Awakening on the first morning in that well-ordered home, she felt as if evil-hap or danger could never menace her more. Shaken in nerve and outworn by the journey, words could faintly express the need she felt for rest. Yet a shuddering dread possessed her lest she might be destined for experiences not less terrifying and lawless in her future.
But no season of repose was as yet for her. She must risk whatever further trials fate had in store. Her word was given; the plighted vow must be kept. The life, the very soul of him to whom she was pledged to entrust all that womanhood holds most sacred, trembled in the balance. Was she, from girlish timidity, from mere nervous shrinking and feminine reluctance, to which she could not give a name, to draw back meanly from mere personal considerations? What were her wrongs and probable privations tohis? The die was cast.