'An' you are the mother of a thief, I am a thief's brother; Frank is a convict, an' we must grin an' gammon we like it.'
'We must be discreet, we must be cunning, if we wish to prove we are no thieves and no kin to thieves.'
'Right you are, mother—always right.' The young man spread his rough, brown hand caressingly upon the small hand upon his knee. 'My fist always moves before my head, but I know your way is best, an' I don't mean to forget it.'
'Ephraim Shine seemed to be tryin' to do his best for Frank at the trial,' said Mrs. Haddon. 'I think he's a well-meanin' man, if he is a bit near an' peculiar in his ways. He always says it was his duty he did, an' that's true. We know Frank's not guilty, because—because we're fond of him'—here the little widow wiped her eyes, and her voice trembled—' an' know him better than others, but the case was black against him. Frank came straight up from below and into the searcher's shed, an' Shine found the gold in his crib bag, which was rolled up, an' forced under the handle of his billy.'
'Where it'd been for half the shift, the billy hanging in a dark drive where any man below might 'a 'got at it.'
'They found gold in a little box-place made in the heel of one of his workin' boots.'
'A boot that was always left in the boiler-house when he was off work.
'He had sold coarse water-worn gold to a Jew at Yarraman.'
'Yes, I know, I know. Got, he said, fossicking down the creek where nobody had ever won anything but fine gold before. Whoever put that gold in his crib bag an' faked his boot-heel salted Frank's puddling-tub. It was easy done. He on'y worked there now'n again when on night or afternoon shift, an' it was open to anyone. It was salted with Silver Stream gold by some double-damned cunning scoundrel.'
'We know it, Harry, and we have to prove it. To do that we must have all our wits about us.'
'Yes, mother, we must; but if that man ever is found I hope I may have the handling of him. Dick!' said the young man, turning suddenly.
Dick came forward somewhat diffidently, like a detected criminal.
'You know all about this business, eh?'
The boy nodded his head solemnly.
'Who do you think worked that dirty trick on my brother?' asked Harry gravely.
Dick had not thought of the matter in that light, but he answered, without hesitation:
'Ole Tinribs, I expect.'
'Dickie!' cried Mrs. Haddon, reprovingly.
'Why, why, Dick?' queried the young man.
Oh, I dunno; on'y he seems that sort, don't he?' Dick had been subjected to a grave indignity at the hands of the superintendent, and was not in a frame of mind to form a just estimate of the character of that good man. He spoke with the cheerful irresponsibility of youth.
'I'm afraid you won't be much good to us, Copper-top, old man, if you rush at conclusions in that desperate way,' said Harry.
Mrs. Hardy shook an impressive forefinger at the boy.
'You will say nothing to anybody of our intentions, Richard.'
'No,' said Dick simply; but that word given to Mrs. Hardy was a sacred oath, steel-bound and clamped.
THE school-ground next morning at nine o'clock showed little of its usual activity. Most of the boys were gathered near Sam Brierly's Gothic portico, now in unpicturesque ruins and hanging limply to the school front like an excrescence. Here Richard Haddon and Edward McKnight were standing in attitudes of extreme unconcern, heroes and objects of respectful admiration, but nevertheless inwardly ill at ease and possessed with sore misgivings. Some of their mates were offering sage advice on a matter that concerned them most nearly: how to take cuts from a cane so as to receive the least possible amount of hurt. Peterson was full of valuable information.
'See, you stan' so,' he said, giving rather a good imitation of an unhappy scholar in the act of receiving condign punishment, 'holdin' yer hand like this, you know, keepin' yer eye on Jo; an' jes' when his nibs comes down you shoves yer hand forwards, that sort, an' it don't hurt fer sour apples.'
'Don't cut no more'n nothin' at all,' added the boy 'who was calledMoonlight, in cheerful corroboration.
Ted, who was very pale, and had a hunted look in his eyes, nodded his head hopefully, and rehearsed the act with pathetic gravity.
The little girls, who should have been at the other end of the ground, clustered at the corner and peeped round the portico, some giggling, others fully seized of the gravity of the situation. Dick in spite of his fine air of sang froid was well aware that there was one little girl there, a pretty little girl of about ten, with brown hair and dark serious eyes, who was suffering keenest apprehensions on his behalf, and who would weep with quite shameless abandonment when it came to his turn to endure the torments Mr. Joel Ham knew so well how to inflict. Dick was rather superior to little girls; his tender sentiment was usually lavished on ladies ten or twelve years his senior; but he could not hide from himself the fact that Kitty Grey's affection, however hopeless it might be, was at times most gratifying. Once he had resented its manifestations with bitterness, imagining that they were likely to bring him into contempt and undermine his authority; and when she interfered in his memorable fight with Bill Cole and fiercely attacked his opponent with a picket, cutting his head and incapacitating him for fighting for the rest of the day, he felt that he could never forgive her. She had violated the rule of battle and outraged the noble principle of fair play; and, worse and worse, had disgraced him in the eyes of the world by making him appear as a weakling seeking protection behind a despised petticoat. He reviled Kitty for that action in such overwhelming language that the poor girl fled in tears, and next day it was only with the greatest difficulty that she persuaded him to accept two pears and a blood-alley as a peace offering.
Dolf Belman came later with a little comfort.
'Gotter junk o' rosum,' he said, fumbling in his school-bag.
'Hoo! have you though?' said Parrot Cann. 'Rosum's great. Put some on my hand oust when I went to ole Pepper's school at Yarraman, an' near died laughin' when he gave me twenty cuts fer copy-in' me sums.'
The boys clustered about Dolf, who produced a piece of resin about the size of a hen's egg, and waved it triumphantly.
'You pound it up wif a rock,' said he confidently, 'an' rub it on yer hands.'
The pounding process was begun at once, amidst a babel of opinions. It was a fond illusion amongst the boys that resin so applied deadened the effects of the cane. It had been tried scores of times without in the least mitigating the agony of Ham's cuts, but the faith of youth is not easily shaken; so Ted's spirits revived wonderfully, and Dick developed a keen interest in the pounding. Dolf pulverised the 'rosum,' declaring that it should be powdered in one particular way which was a great secret known only to a happy few. If it were powdered in any other way, the resin lost its efficacy as a protection, and might even aggravate the pain. Several boys volunteered testimony in support of Dolf's claim, telling of the strange immunity they had enjoyed on various occasions after applying the resin, and Peter Queen distinctly remembered 'a feller up to Clunes' who, by a judicious use of the powder, was enabled to defy all authority and preserve an attitude of hilarious derision under the most awful tortures.
'This here cove he useter have hisself rubbed all over wif rosum every mornin', then he'd go to school an' kick up ole boots. What'd he care? My word, he was a terror!'
Dolf took up the theme, and enlarged upon the virtues of resin, particularly that resin of his, which was the very best kind of resin for the purpose and had been specially commended by an old swaggie with one eye, who gave it to him for a four-bladed knife and a clay pipe. So great was the effect of these representations that before Dick and Ted had transferred the powder to their pockets they had become objects of envy rather than commiseration, and one or two of their mates would gladly have changed places with them on the spot.
'Wouldn't care if I was in fer it, 'stead o' you, Dick,' said Peterson. 'Mus' be an awful lark to have Hamlet layin' it on, an' you not feelin' it all the time.'
'My oath I' said Jacker Mack feelingly.
'Good morning, boys.'
Joel Ham, B.A., had stolen in amongst them, and stood there in an odd crow-like attitude, his mottled face screwed into an expression of quizzical amiability, and his daily bottle sticking obtrusively from the inside lining of his old coat. The lads scattered sheepishly.
'Peterson,' he said, blinking his pale lashes a dozen times in rapid succession, 'the boy who thinks he can outwit his dear master is an egotist, and egotism, Peterson, is the thing which keeps us from profiting by the experiences of other fools.'
'I dunno what yer talkin' about,' answered Peter son, with heavy resentment.
Mr. Ham blinked again for nearly half a minute.
'Of course not,' he said, 'of course not, my boy.' Then he turned to Dick and Ted with quiet courtesy. 'Good morning, Richard. Good morning, Edward.'
Ted, who was painfully conscious of the large ink-splashes on the master's white trousers, kicked awkwardly at a buried stone, but Dick replied cheerily enough.
The attitude of the master throughout that morning was quite inexplicable to the scholars; he made no allusion whatever to the crimes of which Dick and Ted had been guilty, and gave no hint that he harboured any intentions that were not entirely generous and friendly. The two culprits, working with quite astounding assiduity, were beset with conflicting emotions. Dick, who had a vague sort of insight into the master's character, was prepared for the worst, and yet not blind to the possibility of a free pardon. Ted, after the first hour, was joyous and over-confident.
Mr. Peterson called during the morning and conferred with Joel for a few minutes. The gaping school knew what that meant, and awaited the out come with the most anxious interest. Mr. Peterson, a six-foot Dane, an engine-driver at the Stream, and Billy's father, was volunteering for service in case Mr. Ham should need assistance in dealing with the two culprits; but Joel sent him away, and the boys breathed freely again. Their confidence in Dolf's 'rosum' did not leave them quite blind to the advantages of an amicable settlement of their little difference with Mr. Ham.
It was not until the boys were marching out for the dinner hour, satisfied at last all was well, that Joel seemed suddenly to recollect, and he called after Ted, blighting the poor youth's new-born happiness and filling his small soul with a great apprehension.
'Teddy,' he called, 'you will remain, my boy. I have private business with you—private and confidential, Teddy.'
So Ted fell out and stood by the wall, a very monument of dejection.
When school met again the scholars noted that the ink-stains had been carefully washed and scraped from the wall and the floor, and they found Ted McKnight sprawling in his place, his head buried in his arms, dumb and unapproachable. If a mate came too close, moved by curiosity or a desire to offer sympathy, Ted lashed out at him with his heels. For the time being he was a small but cankered misanthrope full of vengeful schemes, and only one person in the whole school envied him. That person was Richard Haddon, whose turn was yet to come.
An hour passed and Dick had received no hint of the trouble in store. Then Joel Ham, prowling along the desks, inspecting a task, stopped before the boy and stood eyeing him with the curiosity with which an entomologist might regard a rare grub, clawing his thin whiskers the while. The interest he felt was apparently of the most friendly description.
'Ah, Ginger,' he said, 'I had almost forgotten that I am still your debtor. This way, Ginger, please.'
He stood Dick on his high stool, carefully tied the boy's ankles with a strap, and gave him a large slate, on which his faults were emblazoned in chalk, to hold up for the inspection of the classes; and so he left him for the remainder of the afternoon, every now and again pausing in his vicinity to deliver some incomprehensible sentiment or a sarcastic homily. This performance affected all the scholars, but it excited Gable so much that the little old man could do nothing but sit and stare at Dick with round eyes and open mouth, and mutter 'Oh, crickie!' in a frightened way. The little dark-eyed girl in the Third Class bore the ordeal badly, too, and every speech of the master's started a large tear rolling down her dimpled brown cheek.
When the rest of the youngsters marched out, Dick Haddon remained on his high perch. Kitty Grey, who brought up the tail of the procession, turned at the door and walked back to the master timorously and with downcast eyes; and Dick felt that a plea was to be made on his behalf, but could not hear what followed.
'Please, sir, if you won't cane him very much I'll give you this,' saidKitty.
The bribe was a small brooch that had originally contained the letters of the little girl's first name. It was a very cheap brooch when new, and now some of the letters were gone and the gilt was worn off, but it was still a priceless treasure in Kitty's eyes. Joel Ham examined the gift, and then looked down upon the petitioner, his face pulled sideways into its familiar withered grin.
Do you know this is bribery, little Miss Grey,' he said, 'bribery and corruption?'
Ye-es, please, sir,' said Kitty.
'And do you know that that fellow up there is a monster of infamy, a rebel and a riotous blackguard, who must be repressed in the interests of peace and good government?'
'Yes, please, sir; but—but he's only a little fellow.' The master's tremendous words seemed to call for this reminder.
Joel screwed his grin down another wrinkle or two.
'Yet you intercede for the ruffian try to buy him off, and at a valuation, too, that proves you to be deaf to the voice of reason and utterly improvident.'
'Oh, Mr. Ham, he didn't mean it—really, he didn't mean it!
Joel screwed out another wrinkle. His mirth always increased wrinkle by wrinkle, until at times it appeared as if he were actually going to screw his own neck by sheer force of repressed hilarity.
'I am incorruptible, Miss Grey,' he said. 'Take back your precious jewel; but I promise you this, my dear, our friend Dick shall not get as much as he deserves. Boys are like some metals, Miss Kitty, their temper is improved by hammering.'
Kitty left the master, entirely in the dark as to the effect of her intercession; but evidently it was not of much advantage to Dick. When the boy came from the school about half an hour later, he carried his chin high, his lips were compressed tightly, and he stared straight ahead. Three faithful friends who had waited to know the worst joined him, but no words were spoken. They followed at his heels, showing by their silence due respect for a profound emotion. Dick did not make for home; he turned off to the right and led the way down into one of the large quarries on the flat, and there turned a flushed face and a pair of flashing eyes upon his mates.
'I'm going to have it out of Ham,' he said. 'I don't care! He's a dog, and he ain't goin' to do as he likes with me.'
'How many, Dick?' asked Ted eagerly.
'Dunno,' said Dick, exposing his hands; 'he jus' cut away till he was tired, chi-ikin' me all the time. But I'll get even, you see!'
Dick's palms were very puffy; there were a couple of blue blisters on his fingers, and across each wrist an angry-looking white wheal. The boys were sufficiently impressed, and, in spite of his wrath against Joel Ham, Dicky could not resist a certain gratification on that account. Boys take much pride in the sufferings they have borne, and their scars are always exhibited with a grave conceit. Ted displayed his hands, still betraying evidence of the morning's caning, and Jacker Mack spoke feelingly of stripes and bruises remaining since Tuesday. Peterson was the only one quite free from mark or brand of the master's, and he recollected many thrashings with extreme bitterness, and was quite in sympathy with the party.
'What say if we give him a scare?' said Dick. 'Are you on?'
Jacker and Ted were dubious. It was too sudden; their recent experiences had made them unusually respectful of the master. Dick marked the hesitation, and said scornfully:
'Oh, you fellows needn't be afraid. You won't be let in for it. I know a trick that's quite safe—bin thinkin' about it all the afternoon.'
If Dick were quite sure it was safe, and if there were not the smallest possible chance of their complicity being disclosed, Jacker and Ted were quite agreeable. Peterson was always agreeable for adventure, however absurd. Dick explained:
'Hamlet's gone down to the pub. He's sure to get screwed to-night. There's a fool feller there from McInnes, knockin' down a cheque an' shoutin' mad. Hamlet'll get his share in spite of all, an' he'll be as tight as a brick by ten o'clock. You know my joey 'possum? Well, I'll fix him up into the awfullest kind of a blue devil, with feathers an' things. We'll push him into Jo's room, and when Jo comes home an' strikes a light he'll spot him, an' think he's got delirious trimmens again. That'll give him a shakin'.'
'My oath, won't it!' ejaculated Peterson.
Jacker was elated, and grinned far and wide.
'P'raps he'll go nippin' round, thinkin' he's chased by 'em like he did las' Christmas holidays,' suggested the elder McKnight gleefully.
This villainous scheme was the result of the boys' extraordinary familiarity with many phases of drunkenness. Waddy was a pastoral as well as a mining centre, and strange ribald men came out of the bush at intervals to 'melt' their savings at the Drovers' Arms. The Yarraman sale-yards for cattle and sheep were near Waddy too, and brought dusty drovers and droughty stockmen in crowds to the town ship every Tuesday. These men were indiscreet and indiscriminate drinkers, and often a vagrant was left behind to finish a spree that surrounded him with unheard-of reptiles and strange kaleidoscopic animals unknown to the zoologist. It must be admitted, too, that Joel Ham, B.A., was in a measure responsible for the boys' unlawful knowledge. Twice at holiday times, when he was not restricted at the Drovers' Arms, he had continued his libations until it was necessary for his own good and the peace of the place to tie him down in his bunk and set a guard over him; and on one of these occasions he had created much excitement by rushing through the township at midnight, scantily clad, under the impression that he was being pursued by a tall dark gentleman in a red cloak and possessed of both horns and hoofs.
It was nearly nine o'clock that night when the four conspirators met to carry out their nefarious project. Dick was carrying a bag—in which was the joey—a bull's-eye lantern, various coloured feathers, and other small necessaries, and the party hastened in the direction of Mr. Ham's humble residence. Ham was 'a hatter'—he lived alone in a secluded place on the other side of the quarries. The house was large for Waddy, and had once been a boarding-house, but was now little better than a ruin. The schoolmaster had reclaimed one room, furnished it much like a miner's but, with the addition of a long shelf of tattered books, and here he 'batched,' perfectly contented with his lot for all that Waddy could ever discover to the contrary. There was no other house within a quarter of a mile of the ruin, which was hemmed in with four rows of wattles, and surrounded by a wilderness of dead fruit-trees—victims to the ravages of the goats of the township—and a tangled scrub of Cape broom. The boys approached the house with quite unnecessary caution, keeping along the string of dry quarry-holes, and creeping towards the back door through the thick growth as warily as so many Indians on the trail. Dick Haddon cared nothing for an enterprise that had no flavour of mystery, and was wont to invest his most commonplace undertakings with a romantic significance. For the time being he was a wronged aboriginal king, leading the remnants of his tribe to wreak a deadly vengeance on the white usurper. A short conference was held in the garden.
'We'll go into one o' the old rooms, an' fix the joey up there. Then we can wait till Hamlet comes, if yonse fellows 're game,' said Dick softly.
'I'm on,' whispered Peterson.
'He won't be long, I bet. McKnight, 'r Belman, 'r some o' the others is sure to roust him out when he's properly tight. Foller me.'
Dick led the way up to the door, pushed it open, and entered. The others were about to follow, but to their horror they saw a large figure start forward from the pitch darkness beyond, heard an oath and the sound of a blow, and saw Dick fall face downwards upon the floor. Then the door was slammed from within, and the three terrorstricken boys turned and fled as fast as their legs would carry them.
Dick lay upon the floor with outthrown arms, and the figure stood over him in a listening attitude.
'Good God! 'ye you killed him?' cried someone in the far corner of the room.
'Sh-h, you cursed fool!' hissed the big man.
'Who is it?' asked the other tremulously.
The big man seized Dick, and dragged him to where the grey moonlight shone through a shattered window.
'Young Haddon,' he said. 'Blast the boy! a man never knows where he will poke his nose next.'
'The others 'ye gone?'
'Yes. They were on'y boys.'
'Didn't I tell you it wouldn't do to be meetin' in places like this? No more of it for me. They've been listenin', an' we're done men. We'll be nabbed!'
'Shut up your infernal cackle! The boys hadn't any notion we was here.They had some lark on. They couldn't have seen us—we're all right.'
'If they saw us together it'd be enough.'
'But they couldn't, I tell you. Here, clear out, the boy's comin' round. Go the front way, an' make for the paddocks. I'll go up the gully. Look slippy!'
A few seconds after the men had left the house Dick scrambled to his feet, and stood for a moment in a confused condition of mind, rubbing his injured head. Then he took up his hat and lantern, and stumbled from the room. As yet he had only a vague idea of what had happened, and his head felt very large and full of fly-wheels, as he expressed it later; but a few moments in the open air served to revive him. Along by the big quarry he met his mates returning. After talking the matter over they had come to the conclusion that the schoolmaster had got a hint of their intention, and had lain in wait. They gathered about Dick, whose forehead was most picturesquely bedabbled with blood.
'Crikey! Dick,' cried the wondering Jacker, 'did he hammer you much?'
'Feel,' said Dick, guiding one hand after another to a lump on his head that increased his height by quite an inch.
'Great Gosh!' murmured Peterson; 'ain't he a one-er? The beggar must 'a' tried to murder you.'
Dick nodded.
'Yes,' he said; 'but 'twasn't Hamlet.'
'Go on!' The boys looked back apprehensively.
'No, 'twasn't. 'Twas a big feller. I dunno who; but he must 'a' bin a bushranger, 'r a feller what's escaped from gaol, 'r someone. Did you coves see which way he went?'
'No,' said Ted fearfully; and a simultaneous move was made towards the township. The boys were not cowards, but they had plenty of discretion.
'Look here,' Dick continued impressively; 'no matter who 'twas, we've gotter keep dark, see. If we don't it'll be found out what we was all up to, an' we'll get more whack-o.'
The party was unanimous on this point; and when Dick returned home he shocked his mother with a lively account of how he slipped in the quarry and fell a great depth, striking his head on a rock, and being saved from death only by the merest chance imaginable.
The small, wooden Wesleyan chapel at Waddy was perched on an eminence at the end of the township furthest from the Drovers' Arms. The chapel, according to the view of the zealous brethren who conducted it, represented all that counted for righteousness in the township, and the Drovers' Arms the head centre of the powers of evil. For verbal convenience in prayer and praise the hotel was known as 'The Sink of Iniquity,' and the chapel as 'This Little Corner of the Vineyard,' and through the front windows of the latter, one sabbath morn after another for many years, lusty Cornishmen, moved by the spirit, had hurled down upon McMahon and his house strident and terrible denunciations.
Materially the chapel had nothing in common with a vineyard; it was built upon arid land as bare and barren as a rock; not even a blade of grass grew within a hundred yards of its doors. The grim plainness of the old drab building was relieved only by a rickety bell-tower so stuffed with sparrows' nests that the bell within gave forth only a dull and muffled note. The chapel was surrounded with the framework of a fence only, so the chapel ground was the chief rendezvous of all the goats of Waddy—and they were many and various. They gathered in its shade in the summer and sought its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always content with an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of their importance, and of a familiar and impudent breed. Sometimes a matronly nanny would climb the steps, and march soberly up the aisle in the midst of one of Brother Tregaskis's lengthy prayers; or a haughty billy, imposing as the he-goat of the Scriptures, would take his stand within the door and bay a deep, guttural response to Brother Spence; or two or three kids would come tumbling over the forms and jumping and bucking in the open space by the wheezy and venerable organ, spirits of thoughtless frivolity in the sacred place.
It was Sunday morning and the school was in. The classes were arranged in their accustomed order, the girls on the right, the boys on the left, against the walls; down the middle of the chapel the forms were empty; nearest to the platform on either hand of Brother Ephraim Shine, the superintendent, were the Sixth Class little boys and girls, the latter painfully starched and still, with hair tortured by many devices into damp links or wispy spirals that passed by courtesy for curls. Very silent and submissive were little girls of Class VI., impressed by the long, lank superintendent in his Sunday black, and believing in many wonders secreted above the dusty rafters or in the wide yellow cupboards. The first classes were nearest the door. The young ladies, if we make reasonable allowance for an occasional natural preoccupation induced by their consciousness of the proximity of the young men, were devoted students of the gospel a interpreted by Brother Tresize, and sufficiently saintly always, presuming that no disturbing element such as a new hat or an unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. The young men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdry imitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence; and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man of the band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, a class of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who made the good man's life a misery to him, and were at war with all authority. Peterson, Jacker Mack, Dolf Belman, Fred Cann, Phil Doon, and Dick Haddon, and a few kindred spirits composed this class; and it was sheer lust of life, the wildness of bush-bred boys, that inspired them with their irreverent impishness, although the brethren professed to discover evidence of the direct influence of a personal devil.
The superintendent arose from his stool of office and shuffled to the edge of the small platform, rattling his hymn-book for order. Ephraim never raised his head even in chapel, but his cold, dull eyes, under their scrub of overhanging brow, missed nothing that was going on, as the younger boys often discovered to their cost.
'Dearly beloved brethren, we will open this morn-in's service with that beautiful hymn—'
Brother Shine stopped short. A powerful diversion had been created by the entrance of a young man. The new-corner was dressed like a drover, wearing a black coat over his loose blue shirt, and he carried in his right hand a coiled stockwhip. His face had the grey tinge of wrath, and his lips were set firm on a grim determination. He walked to a form well up in front, and seated himself, placing his big felt hat on the floor, but retaining his grip on the whip hanging between his knees.
Jacker Mack kicked Dick excitedly. 'Harry Hardy!' he said.
Dick nodded but did not speak; he was staring with all his eyes, as was every man, woman, and child in the congregation. Harry Hardy had not fulfilled expectations; he had been home five days, and had done nothing to avenge his brother. He moved about amongst the men, but was reserved and grew every day more sullen. He had heard much and had answered nothing; and now here he was at chapel and evidently bent on mischief, for the stockwhip was ominous. Ephraim Shine had noticed it and retreated a step or two, and stood for quite a minute, turning his boot this way and that, but with his eyes on Harry all the time. Now he cleared his throat, and called the number of the hymn. He read the first verse and the chorus with his customary unction, and, all having risen, started the singing in a raspy, high-pitched voice.
Harry Hardy stood with the rest, a solitary figure in the centre of the chapel, still holding the long whip firmly grasped in his right hand. Attention was riveted on him, and the singing of the hymn was a dismal failure. The young man stared straight before him, seeing only one figure, that of Ephraim Shine, until he felt a light touch on his arm. Someone was standing at his side, offering him the half of her hymn-book. Harry raised his hand to the leaves mechanically, and noticed that the hand on the other side was white and shapely, the wrist softly rounded and blue-veined. The voice that sounded by his side was low and musical.
'Oh! Harry, what are you going to do?' His neighbour had ceased singing, and was whispering tremulously under cover of the voices of the congregation.
Harry's face hardened, and he set it resolutely towards the platform.
'Don't you know me, Harry? I am Christina Shine. You remember Chris? We were school mates.'
His daughter! The young man let his left hand fall to his side.
'Please don't. You have come to quarrel with father, but you won't do it, Harry? You saved my life once, when we were boy and girl. You will promise me this?'
Harry Hardy answered nothing, and the pleading voice continued:
'For the sake of the days when we were friends, Harry, say you won't do it—you won't do it here, in—in God's house.'
'It was here, in God's house, he slandered my mother.' The man's voice sounded relentless.
'No, no, not that! He prayed for her. He did not mean it ill.'
'I have heard of his praying—how under the cover of his cant about saving souls he scatters his old-womanish scandals an' abuses his betters.'
'He means well. Indeed, indeed, he means well.'
'An' he prays for my mother—him! Says she's bred up thieves because she did not come here to learn better. Says she's an atheist because she does not believe in Ephraim Shine. He's said that, an' I'm here to make him eat his words.'
Harry's whispering was almost shrill in the heat of his passion, and the singing of the hymn became faint and thin, so eager were the singers to catch a word of that most significant conversation. Dick had not taken his eyes off the pair, and already had woven a very pretty romance about Chris and the young man. Christina Shine had only recently been raised to the pedestal in his fond heart formerly occupied by an idol who had betrayed his youthful affections, disappointed his hopes, and outraged his sense of poetical fitness. He espoused her cause with his whole soul, whatever it might be.
The young woman in the stress of her fears had clasped Harry's arm, as if to restrain him, and he felt the soft agitation of her gentle bosom with a new emotion that weakened his tense thews, and stirred the first doubt; but he fought it down. His revenge had become almost a necessity within the last three days. Nothing he had heard offered the faintest hope for his brother's cause; he was baffled and infuriated by the general unquestioning belief in Frank's guilt, and a dozen times had been compelled to sit biting on his bitterness, when every instinct impelled him to square up and teach the fools better with all the force of his pugilistic knowledge. Of late years he had been schooled in a class that accepted 'a ready left' as the most convincing argument, and, being beyond the immediate province of law and order, repaired immediately with all its grievances to a twenty-four-foot 'ring' and an experienced referee. But whilst there was a little diffidence amongst the men in expressing their opinions about Frank, there was no reserve when they came to tell of Ephraim Shine's method of improving the occasion with prayer and preachment; and for a considerable time Harry had collected bitterness till it threatened to choke him and bade him defy all his mother's cautious principles.
Ephraim had given out the third verse, and the singing went on.
'Are you thinking?' whispered the girl. 'Do, do think! Think of the disgrace of it.'
'Disgrace! There's the disgrace whining on the platform, the brute that insults a woman in her sorrow, thinking there's no one handy to take it out of the coward hide of him!
'It was wrong, Harry. I know it was wrong and cruel. I told him that, and he has promised me never to do it again. He has promised me that, really, truly.'
The word that slid through Harry's teeth was ferocious but inaudible.
'Say you won't do it!
The singing ceased suddenly, and the superintendent, who all the time had kept a lowering and anxious eye on the young couple, gave out the third verse again.
'Harry, you will not. Please say it!
The hand holding the stockwhip stirred threateningly, and the hymn was almost lost in the agitation of the worshippers. Chris remained silent, and Harry, who had taken the book again, had shifted his stern eyes to the slim white thumb beside his broad brown one. A stifled sob at his side startled him, and he turned a swift glance upon the face of his companion. That one glance, the first, left his brave resolution shaken and his spirit awed.
Harry remembered Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than himself, with large limbs and a sort of manly squareness of the shoulders and erectness of the figure, but neatly gowned, with little feminine touches of flower and ribbon that belied the savour of unwomanliness in her size and her bearing. Her complexion was clear and fair, her abundant hair the colour of new wheat, her features were large, the nose a trifle aquiline, the chin square and, finely chiselled; the feminine grace was due to her eyes, large, grey, and almost infantile in expression. The people of Waddy called her handsome, and no more tender term would suit; but they knew that this fair girl-woman, who seemed created to dominate and might have been expected to carry things with a high hand everywhere, was in reality the simplest, gentlest, and most emotional of her sex. She looked strong and was strong; her only weakness was of the heart, and that was a prey to the sorrows of every human being within whose influence she came in the rounds of her daily life.
Hardy was amazed; almost unconsciously he had pictured the grown-up Chris an angular creature, lean, like her father, and resembling him greatly; and to find this tall girl, with the face and figure of a battle queen, tearfully beseeching where in the natural course of events she should have been commanding haughtily and receiving humble obedience, filled him with a nervousness he had never known before. Only pride kept him now.
'Say you will go! Say it!'
Harry lowered his head, and remained silent.
'Go now. Your action would pain your mother more than my father's words have done—I am sure of that.'
The hymn was finished, but Shine read out the last verse once more. His concern was now obvious, and the congregation was wrought to an unprecedented pitch. Never had a hymn been so badly sung in that chapel. It was taken up again without spirit, a few quavering voices carrying it on regardless of time and tune. Chris had noted Harry's indecision.
'Do not stay and shame yourself. Go, and you will be glad you did not do this wicked thing. You are going. You will! You will!
He had stooped and seized his hat. He turned without a word or a glance, and strode from the chapel. The congregation breathed a great sigh, and as he passed out the chorus swelled into an imposing burst of song—a paean of triumph, Harry thought.
Through the chapel windows the congregation could see Harry Hardy striding away in the direction of the line of bush.
Christina, from her place amongst her girls, watched him till he disappeared in the quarries; and so did Ephraim Shine, but with very different feelings. Many of the congregation were disappointed. They had expected a sensational climax. Class II was inconsolable, and made not the slightest effort to conceal its disgust, which lasted throughout the remainder of the morning and was a source of great tribulation to poor Brother Bowden.
HARRY HARDY sought the seclusion of the bush, and there spent a very miserable morning. He was forced to the conclusion that he had made a fool of himself, and the thought that possibly that girl of Shine's was now laughing with the rest rankled like a burn and impelled many of the strange oaths that slipped between his clenched teeth. The more he thought of his escapade the more ridiculous and theatrical it seemed. It was born of an impulse, and would have been well enough had he carried out his intention; but, oh the ignominy of that retreat from the side of the grey-eyed, low-voiced girl under the gaze of the whole congregation! It would not bear thinking of, so he thought of it for hours, and swung his whip-lash against the log on which he sat, and quite convinced himself that he was hating Shine's handsome daughter with all the vehemence the occasion demanded.
In many respects Harry was a very ordinary young man; bush life is a wonderful leveller, and he had known no other. His father had been a man of education and talent, drawn from a profession in his earlier manhood to the goldfields, who remained a miner and a poor man to the day of his death. His wife was not able to induce their sons to aspire to anything above the occupations of the class with which they had always associated, so they were miners and stockmen with the rest. But the young men, even as boys, noticed in their mother a refinement and a clearness of intellect that were not characteristic of the women of Waddy; and out of the love and veneration they bore her grew a sort of family pride—a respect for their name that was quite a touch of old-worldly conceit in this new land of devil-may-care, and gave them a certain distinction. It was this that served largely to make the branding of Frank Hardy as a thief a consuming shame to his brother. Harry thought of it less as a wrong to Frank than as an outrage to his mother. It was this, too, that made the young man burn to take the Sunday School superintendent by the throat and lash him till he howled himself dumb in his own chapel.
Harry returned to his log in Wilson's back paddock again in the afternoon to wrestle with his difficulties, and, with the gluttonous rosellas swinging on the gum-boughs above, set himself to reconsider all that he had heard of Frank's case and all the possibilities that had since occurred to him. Here Dick Haddon discovered him at about four o'clock. Dick was leading a select party at the time, with the intention of reconnoitring old Jock Summers's orchard in view of a possible invasion at an early date; but when he saw Harry in the distance he immediately abandoned the business in hand. An infamous act of desertion like this would have brought down contempt upon the head of another, and have earned him some measure of personal chastisement; but Dick was a law unto himself.
'So long, you fellows,' he said.
'Why, where yer goin'?' grunted Jacker Mack.
''Cross to Harry Hardy. He's down by that ole white gum.'
'Gosh! so he is. I say, we'll all go.'
'No, you won't. Youse go an' see 'bout them cherries. Harry Hardy don't want a crowd round.'
'How d'yer know he wants you?'
'Find out. Me 'n him's mates.'
'Yo-ow?' This in derision.
''Sides, I got somethin' privit to say to him—somethin' privit 'n important, see.'
This was more convincing, but it excited curiosity.
''Bout Tin ribs?' queried Peterson.
'Likely I'd tell you. Clear out, go on. You can be captain of the band if you like, Jacker; 'n mind you don't give it away.'
Dick gained his point, as usual, and prepared for a quite casual descent upon Harry, who had not yet seen the boys. The plan brought Dicky, 'shanghai' in hand, under the tree where Hardy sat. The boy was apparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it was not till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man's salutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered some commonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and a tame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies in Wilson's paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he got down to his point rather suddenly after all.
'Say, Harry, was you goin' to lambaste Tinribs?'
Tinribs?
'Yes, old Shine—this mornin', you know.'
Harry looked into the boy's eye and lied, but Dick was not deceived.
''Twould a-served him good,' he said thoughtfully; 'but you oughter get on to him when Miss Shine ain't about. She's terrible good an' all that—better 'n Miss Keeley, don't you think?'
Miss Keeley was a golden-haired, high-complexioned, and frivolous young lady who had enjoyed a brief but brilliant career as barmaid at the Drovers' Arms. Harry had never seen her, but expressed an opinion entirely in favour of Christina Shine.
'But her father,' continued Dick, with an eloquent grimace, 'he's dicky!
'What've you got against him?'
'I do' know. Look here, 'tain't the clean pertater, is it, for a superintendent t' lay into a chap at Sunday School for things what he done outside? S'pose I float Tinribs's puddlin' tub down the creek by accident, with Doon's baby in it when I ain't thinkin', is it square fer him to nab me in Sunday School, an' whack me fer it, pretendin' all the time it's 'cause I stuck a mouse in the harmonium?'
Dick's contempt for the man who could so misuse his high office was very fine indeed.
'That's the sorter thing Tinribs does,' said the boy. 'If I yell after him on a Saturdee, he gammons t' catch me doin' somethin' in school on Sundee, an' comes down on me with the corner of his bible, 'r screws me ear.'
Harry considered such conduct despicable, and thought the man who would take such unfair advantage of a poor boy might be capable of any infamy; and Dick, encouraged, crept a little nearer.
'I say,' he whispered insinuatingly. 'You could get him any day on the flat, when he comes over after searchin' the day shift.'
Harry shook his head, and slowly plucked at the dry bark.
'I don't mean to touch him,' he said.
Dick was amazed, and a little hurt, perhaps. His confidence had been violated in some measure. He thought the matter over for almost a minute.
'Ain't you goin' to go fer him 'cause of her, eh?' he asked.
'Her? Who d'you mean?'
'Miss Chris.'
'It's nothin' to do with her.'
Dick deliberated again.
'Look here, she was cryin' after you went this mornin'. Saw her hidin' her face by the harmonium, an' wipin' her eyes.'
Harry had not heard evidently; he was, it would appear, devoting his whole attention to the antics of a blue grub. Dick approached still closer, and assumed the tone of an arch-conspirator.
'Heard anything 'bout Mr. Frank?'
'Not a thing, Dick.'
'What yer goin' to do?'
'I can't say, my boy.'
'Well, I'll tell you. Know what Sagacious done?'
'Sagacious? Who is he?'
'Sam Sagacious—Sleuth-hound Sam.'
Harry looked puzzled.
'What, don't you know Sleuth-hound Sam? He's a great feller in a book, what tracks down criminals. Listen here. One time a chap what was a mate of his got put in gaol for stealin' money from a bank where he worked, when it wasn't him at all. Sam, he went an' got a job at the same bank, and that's how he found out the coves 'at done it.'
The young man turned upon Dick, and sat for a moment following up the inference. Then he gripped the latter's hand.
'By thunder!' he cried excitedly, 'that's a better idea than I could hit on in a week.'
Dick did not doubt it; he had but a poor opinion of the resourcefulness of his elders when not figuring in the pages of romantic literature, but he was gratified by Harry's ready recognition of his talent, and proceeded to enlarge upon the peculiar qualities of Sleuth-hound Sam, give instances of his methods, and relate some of his many successes.
At tea that evening Harry broached the subject of his visit to the chapel. He knew his mother would hear of it, and thought it best she should have the melancholy story from his lips.
'Do you see much of Shine's daughter, mother?' he asked.
'I do not see her often, but she has grown into a tall, handsome girl; very different from the wild little thing you rescued from the cattle on the common eight years ago.'
'Yes; I've seen her—saw her in the chapel this morning.'
'In the chapel,' said Mrs. Hardy, turning upon him with surprise; 'were you in the chapel, Henry?'
Harry nodded rather shamefacedly.
'Yes, mother,' he said, 'I went to chapel, an' took my whip with me. I meant to scruff Shine before the lot o' them, an' lash him black an' blue.'
'That was shameful—shameful!
'Anyhow, I didn't do it. She came an' put me off, an' I sneaked out as if I'd been licked myself. I couldn't have hammered the brute before her eyes, but—but—'
'But you meant to; is that it? Henry, you almost make me despair. Have you no more respect for yourself? Have you none for me?'
'I couldn't stand it. You've heard. It made me mad!'
'I have heard all, and I think Mr. Shine is a well intentioned man whose faith, such as it is, is honest; but he is ignorant, coarse-fibred, and narrow-minded. He is doing right according to his own poor, dim light, and could not be convinced otherwise by any word or act of ours; but his preachings can do me no injury. They do not irritate me in the least—indeed, I am not sure that they do not amuse me.'
'Ah, mother, that's like you; you philosophise your way through a difficulty, and I always want to fight my way out. It's so much easier.'
'Yes, dear; but do you get out? Do you know that Ephraim Shine is the most litigious man in the township? He runs to the law with every little trouble, whilst inviting his neighbours to carry all theirs to the Lord. Had you beaten him he would have proceeded against you, and—Oh! my boy, my boy! are you going to make my troubles greater? And I had such hopes.'
'Hush, mother. 'Pon my soul, I won't! I'm going to hold myself down tight after this. An', look here, I've got an idea. I'm going to Pete Holden to-morrow to ask him to put me on at the Stream, same shift as poor Frank was on, if possible.'
'Put on the brother of the man who—'
'Yes, mother, the brother of the thief. But Holden is a good fellow; he spoke up for Frank like a brick. Besides, d'you know what the men are saying? That the gold-stealing is still going on. I'll tell Holden as much, an' promise to watch, an' watch, like a cat, if he'll only send me below.'
'Yes, yes; we can persuade him. I wonder we did not think of this before.'
''Twas young Dick Haddon put me up to it, with some yarn of his about a detective.'
'Bless the boy! he is unique—the worst and the best I have ever known.Johnnie, how dare you?'
The last remark was addressed to Gable, who had been eating industriously for the last quarter of an hour. The old man, finding himself ignored, had smartly conveyed a large spoonful of jam from the pot to his mouth. He choked over it now, and wriggled and blushed like a child taken red-handed.
''Twas only a nut,' he said sulkily.
'You naughty boy! Will you never learn how to behave at table? Come here, sir. Ah, I see; as I suspected. You did not shave this morning. Go straight to bed after you have finished your tea. How dare you disobey me, you wicked boy!'
Gable knuckled his eyes with vigour, and began to snivel. He hated to have a beard on his chin, but would put off shaving longer than Mrs. Hardy thought consistent with perfect neatness. The ability to shave himself was the one manly accomplishment Gable had learned in a long life.
This ludicrous incident had not served to draw Harry's thoughts from his project. All his life he had seen his Uncle Jonnie treated as a child, and there was nothing incongruous in the situation, even 'when the grey-haired boy was rated for neglecting to shave or sent supperless to bed for similar sins of omission or commission. To Mrs. Hardy also it was a simple serious business of domestic government. Ever since she was ten years old Uncle John, who was many years her senior, had been her baby brother and her charge, and although gifted with a good sense of humour, the necessity of admonishing him did not interfere with the gravity of mind she had brought to bear on the former conversation.
'Mr. Holden was an old friend of your father's, Henry,' she said.
'I know,' Harry replied. 'They were mates at Buninyong and Bendigo. I'll remind him of that.'
Harry Hardy found Manager Holden in his office at the Silver Stream when he called on the following morning.
'Couldn't do it, my lad,' said the old miner; 'but I'll put in a word for you with Hennessey at the White Crow.'
'I want a job here on the Stream—want it for a purpose,' said Harry.
'There'd be a row. The people at Yarraman would kick up, after the other affair. I'd be glad to, Harry; but you'd best try somewhere else.'
'Mr. Holden,' said the young man, 'do you believe my brother guilty?'
The manager met his eager eyes steadily.
''Tisn't a fair question, lad,' he answered. 'I always found Frank straight, an' he looked like an honest man; but that evidence would have damned a saint.'
'Do you think the gold-stealing has stopped?'
The manager looked up sharply.
'Do you know anything?'
'I know what the men hint at; nothing more. If they could speak straight they wouldn't do it.'
'Well, to tell you God's truth, Hardy, I believe we are still losing gold.'
'Send me below, then, an' by Heaven I'll spot the true thieves if they're not more cunning than the devil himself. You think Frank guilty, so do most people; it's what we ought to expect, I s'pose.' Harry's hands were clenched hard—it was a sore subject. 'We don't, Mr. Holden; we believe his story, every word of it. Give me half a chance to prove it. You were our father's mate; stand by us now. Put me on with the same shift as Frank worked with.'
'Done!' said the manager, starting up. 'Come on at four. Go trucking; it'll give you a better chance of moving round; and good luck, my boy! But take a hint that's well meant: if the real thief is down there, see he plays no tricks on you.'
'I've thought of that—trust me.'
Harry Hardy's appearance below with the afternoon shift at the Stream occasioned a good deal of talk amongst the miners; but he heard none of it. Shine was in the searching-shed when he came up at midnight, on his knees amongst the men's discarded clothes, pawing them over with his claw-like fingers.
The searcher rarely spoke to the men, never looked at them, and performed his duties as if unconscious of their presence. Custom had made him exceedingly cautious, for it was the delight of the men to play tricks upon him, usually of an exceedingly painful nature. The searcher is no man's friend. When putting on his dry clothes, Harry heard Joe Rogers, the foreman, saying:
'D'yer know them's Harry Hardy's togs yer pawin', Brother Tinribs?'
Shine's mud-coloured eyes floated uneasily from one form to another, but were raised no higher than the knees of the men, seemingly.
'Yes, search 'em carefully, Brother. I s'pose you'd like ter jug the whole family. 'Taint agin yer Christian principles, is it, Mr. Superintendent, to send innocent men to gaol? Quod's good fer morals, ain't it? A gran' place to cultivate the spirit o' brotherly love, ain't it—eh, what? Blast you fer a snivellin' hippercrit, Shine! If yer look sidelong at me I'll belt you over—'
Rogers made an ugly movement towards the searcher; but Peterson and another interposed, and he returned to the form, spitting venomous oaths like an angry cat. Shine, kneeling on the floor, had gone on with his work in his covert way, as if quite unconscious of the foreman's burst of passion.
JACKER MACK'S report having been entirely favourable, the invasion of Summers' orchard was under taken at dinner-time on the Tuesday following. The party, which consisted of Dick Haddon, Jacker McKnight, Ted, Billy Peterson, and Gable, started for the paddocks immediately school was out, intending to make Jock Summers compensate them for the loss of a meal. It was not thought desirable to take Gable, but he insisted, and Gable was exceedingly pig-headed and immovable when in a stubborn mood. Dick tried to drive him back, but failed; when the others attempted to run away from him the old man trotted after them, bellowing so lustily that the safety of the expedition was endangered; so he was allowed to stand in.
'He'll do to keep nit,' said Dick.
Gable could not run in the event of a surprise and a pursuit, but that mattered little, as it was long since known to be hopeless to attempt to extract evidence from him, and his complicity in matters of this kind was generously overlooked by the people of Waddy.
The expedition was not a success. Dick planned it and captained it well; but the best laid plans of youth are not less fallible than those of mice and men, and one always runs a great risk in looting an orchard in broad daylight—although it will be admitted, by those readers who were once young enough and human enough to rob orchards, that stealing cherries in the dark is as aggravating and unsatisfactory an undertaking as eating soup with a two-pronged fork.
Dick stationed Gable in a convenient tree, with strict orders to cry 'nit' should anybody come in sight from the black clump of fir-trees surrounding the squatter's house. Then he led his party over the fence and along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover to where the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun. Dick was very busy indeed in the finest of the trees when the note of warning came from Ted McKnight.
'Nit! nit! NIT! Here comes Jock with a dog.'
Dick was last in the rush. He saw the two McKnights safe away, and was following Peterson, full of hope, when there came a rush of feet behind and he was sent sprawling by a heavy body striking him between the shoulders. When he was quite able to grasp the situation he found himself on the broad of his back, with a big mastiff lying on his chest, one paw on either side of his head, and a long, warm tongue lolling in his face with affectionate familiarity. The expression in the dog's eye, he noticed, was decidedly genial, but its attitude was firm. The amiable eye reassured him; he was not going to be eaten, but at the same time he was given to understand that that dog would do his duty though the heavens fell.
A minute later the mastiff was whistled off; Dick was taken by the ear and gently assisted to his feet, and stood defiantly under the stern eye of a rugged, spare-boned, iron-grey Scotchman, six feet high, and framed like an iron cage. Jock retained his hold on the boy's ear.
'Eh, eh, what is it, laddie?' he said, 'enterin' an' stealin', enterin' an' stealin'. A monstrous crime. Come wi' me.'
Dick followed reluctantly, but the grip on his ear lobe was emphatic, and in his one short struggle for freedom he felt as if he were grappling with the great poppet-legs at the Silver Stream. Summers paused for a moment.
'Laddie,' he said, 'd'ye mind my wee bit dog?'
The dog capered like a frivolous cow, flopped his ears, and exhibited himself in a cheerful, well-meaning way.
'If ye'd rather, laddie, the dog will bring ye home,' continued the man.
'Skite!' said Dick, with sullen scorn; but he went quietly after that.
At the house they were met by Christina Shine, and Dick blushed furiously under her gaze of mild surprise. Christina had been a member of the Summers household for over five years, ever since the death of her mother, and had won herself a position there, something like that of a beloved poor relation with light duties and many liberties.
'Dickie, Dickie, what have you been doing this time?' asked Miss Chris.
'Robbin' my fruit-trees, my dear. What might we do with him, d'ye think?'
Miss Chris thought for a minute with one finger pressed on her lip.
'We might let him go,' she said, with the air of one making rather a clever suggestion.
'Na, na, na; we canna permit such crimes to go unpunished.'
'Poor boy, perhaps he's very fond of cherries,' said Chris in extenuation.
Summers regarded the young woman dryly for a moment.
'Eh, eh, girl,' he said, 'ye'd begin to pity the very De'il himself if ye thought maybe he'd burnt his finger.'
Dick was greatly comforted. As a general thing he writhed under sympathy, but, strangely enough, he found it very sweet to hear her speaking words of pity on his behalf, and to feel her soft eyes bent upon him with gentle concern. Probably no young woman quite understands the deep devotion she has inspired in the bosom of a small boy even when she realises—which is rare indeed—that she is regarded with unusual affection by Tommy or Billy or Jim. Jim is probably very young; his hair as a rule appears to have been tousled in a whirlwind, his plain face is never without traces of black jam in which vagrant dust finds rest, and in the society of the adored one he is shy and awkward. The adored one may think him a good deal of a nuisance, but deep down in the dark secret chamber of his heart she is enshrined a goddess, and worshipped with zealous devotion. Men may call her an angel lightly enough; Jim knows her to be an angel, and says never a word. His romance is true, and pure, and beautiful while it lasts—the only true, pure, and beautiful romance many women ever inspire, and alas! they never know of it, and would not prize it if they did.
That was the feeling Dick had for Christina Shine. Thore had been others—Richard Haddon was not bigoted in his constancy—but now it was Miss Chris, and to him she was both angel and princess; a princess stolen from her royal cradle by the impostor Shine under moving and mysterious circumstances, and at the instigation of a disreputable uncle. It only remained for Dick to slaughter the latter in fair fight, under the eyes of an admiring multitude, in order to restore Chris to all her royal dignities and privileges.
Jock Summers had not relaxed his grip on the boy's ear. He led him to a small dairy sunk in the side of the hill and roofed with stone.
Ye may bide in there, laddie,' he said, 'till I can make up my mind. I think I might just skin ye, an' I think maybe I might get ye ten years to Yarraman Goal, but I'm no sure.'
Dick had to go down several steps to the floor of the dairy, and when the door was shut his face was on a level with the grating that let air into the place. He passed the first few minutes of his imprisonment making offers of friendship to the dog that sprawled out side, opening its capacious mouth at him and curling its long tongue as if anxious to amuse. The boy had no fears as to his fate; he felt he could safely leave that to Miss Chris; and, meanwhile, the dog was entertaining. The animal was new to Dick: had he known of its existence, his descent upon the orchard would have been differently ordered. In time Maori came to be intimately known to every boy in Waddy as the most kindly and affable dog in the world, but afflicted with a singularly morbid devotion to duty. If sent to capture a predatory youth he never failed to secure the marauder, and always did it as if he loved him. His formidable teeth were not called into service; he either knocked the youngster down and held him with soft but irresistible paws, or he gambolled with him, jumped on him, frisked over him, made escape impossible, and all the time seemed to imply: 'I have a duty to perform, but you can't blame me, you know. There's no reason in the world why we shouldn't be the best of friends.' And they were the best of friends in due course, for Maori bore no malice; there came a time when youngsters invaded Jock's garden for the pleasure of being captured by his wonderful dog.
Ere Dick had been in his prison ten minutes Chris came to him with tea and cake and scones, and when he had finished these she showered cherries in upon him. This time she whispered through the grating:
'You haven't got a cold, have you, Dick?'
'No, miss; I never have colds.'
'Oh, dear, that's a pity! I thought if you could catch a cold I might be able to get you out.'
'Oh!' Dick thought for a moment, and then coughed slightly.
'It will have to be a very bad cold, I think.'
Dick's cough became violent at once, and when Chris led Summers into the vicinity of the dairy a few minutes later the cold had developed alarmingly. Summers heard, and a quizzical and suspicious eye followed Christina.
'He—he doesn't appear to be a very strong boy, Mr. Summers,' said the young woman with obvious artfulness.
'Strong as a bullock,' said Summers.
'He looked very pale, I thought, and that place is damp—damp and dangerous.'
Summers dangled the keys.
'Let the rascal go,' he said. 'Justice will never be done wi'in range o' those bright eyes. Let the young villain loose.'
Chris liberated the boy, and filled his pockets with fruit before sending him away.
'My word, you are a brick,' murmured Dick, quite overcome, and then Chris, being hidden from the house by the shrubbery, did an astounding thing; she put her arm about the boy's neck and kissed him, and Dick's face flamed red, and a delicious confusion possessed him. If he were her worshipper before he was her slave now—her unquestioning, faithful slave.
'You know,' she said, 'I must be your friend, because if it had not been for you my father might have died out there.'
Dick had recalled the incident several times lately, but always, it must be regretfully admitted, with a pang of angry compunction. There were occasions when he felt that it would have been wise to have left the superintendent to his fate. He wondered now, casually, why the daughter should entertain sentiments of gratitude that never seemed to find a place in the arid bosom of her sire.
'Oh, that ain't nothin',' he said awkwardly, digging his heel into the turf, all aglow with novel emotions. Never had he felt quite so grand before.
'Dick, will you take a message from me to—to—' The young woman was toying with his sleeve, her cheeks were ruddy, and the girlish timidity she displayed was in quaint contrast with her fine face and commanding figure.
'To Harry Hardy?' said Dick, with ready conjecture.
'Yes,' said Chris. 'However could you have guessed that? Tell him I am very thankful to him—'
'Fer clearin' out Sunday. Yes, I'll tell him. I say, Miss Chris, do you know I think he's awful fond o' you—awful.'
'No, Dick, he is not. He hates us—father and I.'