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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, by Anthony
-Trollope
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-
-
-
-Title: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil
-       A Tale of Australian Bush-Life
-
-
-Author: Anthony Trollope
-
-
-
-Release Date: August 3, 2002  [eBook #5642]
-[Last updated: December 7, 2020]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team
-
-
-
-HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
-
-A Tale of Australian Bush-Life.
-
-by
-
-ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
-
-Author of
-"The Warden", "Barchester Towers," "Orley Farm," "The Small House at
-Arlington", "The Eustace Diamonds," &c., &c.
-
-Illustrated.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-HARRY HEATHCOTE
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-GANGOIL.
-
-
-Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four
-years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o'clock in the
-evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife's
-sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young
-women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for
-dinner. The wife and the wife's sister each had a child in her lap,
-the elder having seen some fifteen months of its existence, and the
-younger three months. "He has been out since seven, and I don't think
-he's had a mouthful," the wife had just said. "Oh, Harry, you must be
-half starved," she exclaimed, jumping up to greet him, and throwing
-her arm round his bare neck.
-
-"I'm about whole melted," he said, as he kissed her. "In the name of
-charity give me a nobbler. I did get a bit of damper and a pannikin
-of tea up at the German's hut; but I never was so hot or so thirsty
-in my life. We're going to have it in earnest this time. Old Bates
-says that when the gum leaves crackle, as they do now, before
-Christmas, there won't be a blade of grass by the end of February."
-
-"I hate Old Bates," said the wife. "He always prophesies evil, and
-complains about his rations."
-
-"He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the Mary," said
-her husband. From all this I trust the reader will understand that
-the Christmas to which he is introduced is not the Christmas with
-which he is intimate on this side of the equator--a Christmas of
-blazing fires in-doors, and of sleet amid snow and frost outside--but
-the Christmas of Australia, in which happy land the Christmas fires
-are apt to be lighted--or to light themselves--when they are by no
-means needed.
-
-The young man who had just returned home had on a flannel shirt, a
-pair of mole-skin trowsers, and an old straw hat, battered nearly out
-of all shape. He had no coat, no waistcoat, no braces, and nothing
-round his neck. Round his waist there was a strap or belt, from the
-front of which hung a small pouch, and, behind, a knife in a case.
-And stuck into a loop in the belt, made for the purpose, there was a
-small brier-wood pipe. As he dashed his hat off, wiped his brow, and
-threw himself into a rocking-chair, he certainly was rough to look
-at, but by all who understood Australian life he would have been
-taken to be a gentleman. He was a young squatter, well known west of
-the Mary River, in Queensland. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, who owned
-30,000 sheep of his own, was a magistrate in those parts, and able to
-hold his own among his neighbors, whether rough or gentle; and some
-neighbors he had, very rough, who made it almost necessary that a man
-should be able to be rough also, on occasions, if he desired to live
-among them without injury. Heathcote of Gangoil could do all that.
-Men said of him that he was too imperious, too masterful, too much
-inclined to think that all things should be made to go as he would
-have them. Young as he was, he had been altogether his own master
-since he was of age--and not only his own master, but the master also
-of all with whom he was brought into contact from day to day. In his
-life he conversed but seldom with any but those who were dependent on
-him, nor had he done so for the last three years. At an age at which
-young men at home are still subject to pastors and masters, he had
-sprung at once into patriarchal power, and, being a man determined to
-thrive, had become laborious and thoughtful beyond his years.
-
-Harry Heathcote had been left an orphan, with a small fortune in
-money, when he was fourteen. For two years after that he had
-consented to remain quietly at school, but at sixteen he declared his
-purpose of emigrating. Boys less than himself in stature got above
-him at school, and he had not liked it. For a twelvemonth he was
-opposed by his guardian; but at the end of the year he was fitted
-forth for the colony. The guardian was not sorry to be quit of him,
-but prophesied that he would be home again before a year was over.
-The lad had not returned, and it was now a settled conviction among
-all who knew him that he would make or mar his fortune in the new
-land that he had chosen.
-
-He was a tall, well-made young fellow, with fair hair and a
-good-humored smile, but ever carrying in his countenance marks of what
-his enemies called pig-headedness, his acquaintances obstinacy, and
-those who loved him firmness. His acquaintances were, perhaps, right,
-for he certainly was obstinate. He would take no man's advice, he
-would submit himself to no man, and in the conduct of his own business
-preferred to trust to his own insight than to the experience of
-others. It would sometimes occur that he had to pay heavily for his
-obstinacy. But, on the other hand, the lessons which he learned he
-learned thoroughly. And he was kept right in his trade by his own
-indefatigable industry. That trade was the growth of wool. He was a
-breeder of sheep on a Queensland sheep-run, and his flocks ran far
-afield over a vast territory of which he was the only lord. His house
-was near the river Mary, and beyond the river his domain did not
-extend; but around him on his own side of the river he could ride for
-ten miles in each direction without getting off his own pastures. He
-was master, as far as his mastership went, of 120,000 acres--almost
-an English county--and it was the pride of his heart to put his foot
-off his own territory as seldom as possible. He sent his wool
-annually down to Brisbane, and received his stores, tea and sugar,
-flour and brandy, boots, clothes, tobacco, etc., once or twice a year
-from thence. But the traffic did not require his own presence at the
-city. So self-contained was the working of the establishment that he
-was never called away by his business, unless he went to see some lot
-of highly bred sheep which he might feel disposed to buy; and as for
-pleasure, it had come to be altogether beyond the purpose of his life
-to go in quest of that. When the work of the day was over, he would
-lie at his length upon rugs in the veranda, with a pipe in his mouth,
-while his wife sat over him reading a play of Shakspeare or the last
-novel that had come to them from England.
-
-He had married a fair girl, the orphan daughter of a bankrupt
-squatter whom he had met in Sydney, and had brought her and her
-sister into the Queensland bush with him. His wife idolized him. His
-sister-in-law, Kate Daly, loved him dearly--as she had cause to do,
-for he had proved himself to be a very brother to her; but she feared
-him also somewhat. The people about the Mary said that she was fairer
-and sweeter to look at even than the elder sister. Mrs. Heathcote was
-the taller of the two, and the larger-featured. She certainly was the
-higher in intellect, and the fittest to be the mistress of such an
-establishment as that at Gangoil.
-
-When he had washed his hands and face, and had swallowed the very
-copious but weak allowance of brandy-and-water which his wife mixed
-for him, he took the eldest boy on his lap and fondled him. "By
-George!" he said, "old fellow, you sha'n't be a squatter."
-
-"Why not, Harry?" asked his wife.
-
-"Because I don't want him to break his heart every day of his life."
-
-"Are you always breaking yours? I thought your heart was pretty well
-hardened now."
-
-"When a man talks of his heart, you and Kate are thinking of loves
-and doves, of course."
-
-"I wasn't thinking of loves and doves, Harry," said Kate. "I was
-thinking how very hot it must have been to-day. We could only bear it
-in the veranda by keeping the blinds always wet. I don't wonder that
-you were troubled."
-
-"That comes from heaven or Providence, or from something that one
-knows to be unassailable, and therefore one can put up with it. Even
-if one gets a sun-stroke one does not complain. The sun has a right
-to be there, and is no interloper, like a free-selector. I can't
-understand why free-selectors and mosquitoes should have been
-introduced into the arrangements of the world."
-
-"I s'pose the poor must live somewheres, and 'squiters too," said
-Mrs. Growler, the old maid-servant, as she put a boiled leg of mutton
-on the table. "Now, Mr. Harry, if you're hungered, there's something
-for you to eat in spite of the free-selectors."
-
-"Mrs. Growler," said the master, "excuse me for saying that you jump
-to conclusions."
-
-"My jumping is pretty well-nigh done," said the old woman.
-
-"By no means. I find that old people can jump quite as briskly as
-young. You have rebuked me under the impression that I was grudging
-something to the poor. Let me explain to you that a free-selector may
-be, and very often is, a rich man. He whom I had in my mind is not a
-poor man, though I won't swear but what he will be before a year is
-over."
-
-"I know who you mean, Mr. Harry; you mean the Medlicots. A very nice
-gentleman is Mr. Medlicot, and a very nice old lady is Mrs. Medlicot.
-And a deal of good they're going to do, by all accounts."
-
-"Now, Mrs. Growler, that will do," said the wife.
-
-The dinner consisted of a boiled leg of mutton, a large piece of
-roast beef, potatoes, onions, and an immense pot of tea. No glasses
-were even put upon the table. The two ladies had dressed for dinner,
-and were bright and pretty as they would have been in a country house
-at home; but Harry Heathcote had sat down just as he had entered the
-room.
-
-"I know you are tired to death," said his wife, "when I see you eat
-your dinner like that."
-
-"It isn't being tired, Mary; I'm not particularly tired. But I must
-be off again in about an hour."
-
-"Out again to-night?"
-
-"Yes, indeed."
-
-"On horseback?"
-
-"How else? Old Bates and Mickey are in their saddles still. I don't
-want to have my fences burned as soon as they're put up. It's a
-ticklish thing to think that a spark of fire any where about the
-place might ruin me, and to know at the same time that every man
-about the run and every swagsman that passes along have matches in
-their pocket. There isn't a pipe lighted on Gangoil this time of the
-year that mightn't make a beggar of you and me. That's another reason
-why I wouldn't have the young un a squatter."
-
-"--I declare I think that squatters have more trouble than any people
-in the world," said Kate Daly.
-
-"--Free-selectors have their own troubles too, Kate," said he.
-
-It must be explained as we go on that Heathcote felt that he had
-received a great and peculiar grievance from the hands of one
-Medlicot, a stranger who had lately settled near him, and that this
-last remark referred to a somewhat favorable opinion which had been
-expressed about this stranger by the two ladies. It was a little
-unfair, as having been addressed specially to Kate, intending as it
-did to imply that Kate had better consider the matter well before she
-allowed her opinion of the stranger to become dangerously favorable;
-for in truth she had said no more than her sister.
-
-"The Medlicots' troubles will never trouble me, Harry," she said.
-
-"I hope not, Kate; nor mine either more than we can help."
-
-"But they do," said Mary. "They trouble me, and her too, very much."
-
-"A man's back should be broad enough to bear all that for himself,"
-said Harry. "I get ashamed of myself when I grumble, and yet one
-seems to be surly if one doesn't say what one's thinking."
-
-"I hope you'll always tell me what you're thinking, dear."
-
-"Well, I suppose I shall--till this fellow is old enough to be talked
-to, and to be made to bear the burden of his father's care."
-
-"By that time, Harry, you will have got rich, and we shall all be in
-England, sha'n't we?"
-
-"I don't know about being rich, but we shall have been free-selected
-off Gangoil.--Now, Mrs. Growler, we've done dinner, and I'll have a
-pipe before I make another start. Is Jacko in the kitchen? Send him
-through to me on to the veranda."
-
-Gangoil was decidedly in the bush--according to common Australian
-parlance, all sheep stations are in the bush, even though there
-should not be a tree or shrub within sight. They who live away from
-the towns live a "bush life." Small towns, as they grow up, are
-called bush towns, as we talk of country towns. The "bush," indeed,
-is the country generally. But the Heathcotes lived absolutely and
-actually in the bush. There are Australian pastures which consist of
-plains on which not a tree is to be seen for miles; but others are
-forests, so far extending that their limits are almost unknown.
-Gangoil was surrounded by forest, in some places so close as to be
-impervious to men and almost to animals in which the undergrowth was
-thick and tortuous and almost platted, through which no path could be
-made without an axe, but of which the greater portions were open,
-without any under-wood, between which the sheep could wander at their
-will, and men could ride, with a sparse surface of coarse grass,
-which after rain would be luxuriant, but in hot weather would be
-scorched down to the ground. At such times--and those times were by
-far the more common--a stranger would wonder where the sheep would
-find their feed. Immediately round the house, or station, as it was
-called, about one hundred acres had been cleared, or nearly cleared,
-with a few trees left here and there for ornament or shade. Further
-afield, but still round the home quarters, the trees had been
-destroyed, the run of the sap having been stopped by "ringing" the
-bark; but they still stood like troops of skeletons, and would stand,
-very ugly to look at, till they fell, in the course of nature, by
-reason of their own rottenness. There was a man always at work about
-the place--Boscobel he was called--whose sole business was to destroy
-the timber after this fashion, so that the air might get through to
-the grasses, and that the soil might be relieved from the burden of
-nurturing the forest trees.
-
-For miles around the domain was divided into paddocks, as they were
-there called; but these were so large that a stranger might wander in
-one of them for a day and never discover that he was inclosed. There
-were five or six paddocks on the Gangoil run, each of which comprised
-over ten thousand acres, and as all the land was undulating, and as
-the timber was around you every where, one paddock was exactly like
-another. The scenery in itself was fine, for the trees were often
-large, and here and there rocky knolls would crop up, and there were
-broken crevices in the ground; but it was all alike. A stranger would
-wonder that any one straying from the house should find his way back
-to it. There were sundry bush houses here and there, and the so-called
-road to the coast from the wide pastoral districts further west passed
-across the run; but these roads and tracks would travel hither and
-thither, new tracks being opened from time to time by the heavy wool
-drays and store wagons, as in wet weather the ruts on the old tracks
-would become insurmountable.
-
-The station itself was certainly very pretty. It consisted of a
-cluster of cottages, each of which possessed a ground-floor only. No
-such luxury as stairs was known at Gangoil. It stood about half a
-mile from the Mary River, on the edge of a creek which ran into it.
-The principal edifice, that in which the Heathcotes lived, contained
-only one sitting-room, and a bedroom on each side of it; but in truth
-there was another room, very spacious, in which the family really
-passed their time; and this was the veranda which ran along the front
-and two ends of the house. It was twelve feet broad, and, of course,
-of great length. Here was clustered the rocking-chairs, and sofas,
-and work-tables, and very often the cradle of the family. Here stood
-Mrs. Heathcote's sewing-machine, and here the master would sprawl at
-his length, while his wife, or his wife's sister, read to him. It was
-here, in fact, that they lived, having a parlor simply for their
-meals. Behind the main edifice there stood, each apart, various
-buildings, forming an irregular quadrangle. The kitchen came first,
-with a small adjacent chamber in which slept the Chinese man-cook,
-Sing Sing, as he had come to be called; then the cottage, consisting
-also of three rooms and a small veranda, in which lived Harry's
-superintendent, commonly known as Old Bates, a man who had been a
-squatter once himself, and having lost his all in bad times, now
-worked for a small salary. In the cottage two of the rooms were
-devoted to hospitality when, as was not unusual, guests, known or
-unknown, came that way; and here Harry himself would sleep, if the
-entertainment of other ladies crowded the best apartments. Then at
-the back of the quadrangle was the store, perhaps of all the
-buildings the most important. In here was kept a kind of shop, which
-was supposed, according to an obsolete rule, to be open for custom
-for half a day twice a week. The exigencies of the station did not
-allow of this regularity; but after some fashion the shop was
-maintained. Tea was to be bought there, and sugar, tobacco, and
-pickles, jam, nails, boots, hats, flannel shirrs, and mole-skin
-trowsers. Any body who came might buy, but the intention was to
-provide the station hands, who would otherwise have had to go or send
-thirty miles for the supply of their wants. Very little money was
-taken here, generally none. But the quantity of pickles, jam, and
-tobacco sold was great. The men would consume large quantities of
-these bush delicacies, and the cost would be deducted from their
-wages. The tea and sugar, and flour also, were given out weekly, as
-rations--so much a week--and meat was supplied to them after the same
-fashion. For it was the duty of this young autocratic patriarch to
-find provisions for all who were employed around him. For such
-luxuries as jam and tobacco the men paid themselves.
-
-On the fourth side of the quadrangle was a rough coach-house, and
-rougher stables. The carriage part of the establishment consisted of
-two "buggies"--so called always in the bush--open carriages on four
-wheels, one of which was intended to hold two and the other four
-sitters. A Londoner looking at them would have declared them to be
-hopeless ruins; but Harry Heathcote still made wonderful journeys in
-them, taking care generally that the wheels were sound, and using
-ropes for the repair of dilapidations. The stables were almost
-unnecessary, as the horses, of which the supply at Gangoil was very
-large, roamed in the horse paddock, a comparatively small inclosure
-containing not above three or four hundred acres, and were driven up
-as they were wanted. One horse was always kept close at home with
-which to catch the others; but this horse, for handiness, was
-generally hitched to a post outside the kitchen door. Harry was proud
-of his horses, and was sometimes heard to say that few men in England
-had a lot of thirty at hand as he had, out of which so many would be
-able to carry a man eighty miles in eight hours at a moment's notice.
-But his stable arrangements would not have commanded respect in the
-"Shires." The animals were never groomed, never fed, and many of them
-never shod. They lived upon grass, and, Harry always said, "cut their
-own bread-and-butter for themselves."
-
-Gangoil was certainly very pretty. The veranda was covered in with
-striped blinds, so that when the sun shone hot, or when the rains
-fell heavily, or when the mosquitoes were more than usually
-troublesome, there might be something of the protection of an
-inclosed room. Up all the posts there were flowering creepers, which
-covered the front with greenery even when the flowers were wanting.
-From the front of the house down to the creek there was a pleasant
-failing garden--heart-breaking, indeed, in regard to vegetables, for
-the opossums always came first, and they who followed the opossums
-got but little. But the garden gave a pleasant home-like look to the
-place, and was very dear to Harry, who was, perhaps, indifferent in
-regard to pease and tomatoes. Harry Heathcote was very proud of the
-place, for he had made it all himself, having pulled down a wretched
-barrack that he had found there. But he was far prouder of his
-wool-shed, which he had also built, and which he regarded as first
-and foremost among wool-sheds in those parts. By-and-by we shall be
-called on to visit the wool-shed. Though Heathcote had done all this
-for Gangoil, it must be understood that the vast extent of territory
-over which his sheep ran was by no means his own property. He was
-simply the tenant of the Crown, paying a rent computed at so much a
-sheep. He had, indeed, purchased the ground on which his house stood,
-but this he had done simply to guard himself against other
-purchasers. These other purchasers were the bane of his existence,
-the one great sorrow which, as he said, broke his heart.
-
-While he was speaking, a rough-looking lad, about sixteen years of
-age, came through the parlor to the veranda, dressed very much like
-his master, but unwashed, uncombed, and with that wild look which
-falls upon those who wander about the Australian plains, living a
-nomad life. This was Jacko--so called, and no one knew him by any
-other name--a lad whom Heathcote had picked up about six months
-since, and who had become a favorite. "The old woman says as you was
-wanting me?" suggested Jacko. "Going to be fine to-night, Jacko?"
-
-Jacko went to the edge of the veranda and looked up to the sky. "My
-word! little squall a-coming," he said.
-
-"I wish it would come from ten thousand buckets," said the master.
-
-"No buckets at all," said Jacko. "Want the horses, master?"
-
-"Of course. I want the horses, and I want you to come with me. There
-are two horses saddled there; I'll ride Hamlet."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-A NIGHT'S RIDE.
-
-
-Harry jumped from the ground, kissed his wife, called her "old girl,"
-and told her to be happy, and got on his horse at the garden gate.
-Both the ladies came off the veranda to see him start. "It's as dark
-as pitch," said Kate Daly.
-
-"That's because you have just come out of the light."
-
-"But it is dark--quite dark. You won't be late, will you?" said the
-wife.
-
-"I can't be very early, as it's near ten now. I shall be back about
-twelve." So saying, he broke at once into a gallop, and vanished into
-the night, his young groom scampering after him.
-
-"Why should he go out now?" Kate said to her sister.
-
-"He is afraid of fire."
-
-"But he can't prevent the fires by riding about in the dark. I
-suppose the fires come from the heat."
-
-"He thinks they come from enemies, and he has heard something. One
-wretched man may do so much when every thing is dried to tinder. I do
-so wish it would rain."
-
-The night, in truth, was very dark. It was now midsummer, at which
-time with us the days are so long that the coming of the one almost
-catches the departure of its predecessor. But Gangoil was not far
-outside the tropics, and there were no long summer nights. The heat
-was intense; but there was a low soughing wind which seemed to moan
-among the trees without moving them. As they crossed the little home
-inclosure and the horse paddock, the track was just visible, the
-trees being dead and the spaces open. About half a mile from the
-house, while they were still in the horse paddock, Harry turned from
-the track, and Jacko, of course, turned with him. "You can sit your
-horse jumping, Jacko?" he asked.
-
-"My word! jump like glory," answered Jacko. He was soon tried. Harry
-rode at the bush fence--which was not, indeed, much of a fence, made
-of logs lengthways and crossways, about three feet and a half
-high--and went over it. Jacko followed him, rushing his horse at the
-leap, losing his seat and almost falling over the animal's shoulders
-as he came to the ground. "My word!" said Jacko, just saving himself
-by a scramble; "who ever saw the like of that?"
-
-"Why don't you sit in your saddle, you stupid young duffer?"
-
-"Sit in my saddle! Why don't he jump proper? Well, you go on. I don't
-know that I'm a duffer. Duffer, indeed! My word!" Heathcote had
-turned to the left, leaving the track, which was, indeed, the main
-road toward the nearest town and the coast, and was now pushing on
-through the forest with no pathway at all to guide him. To ordinary
-eyes the attempt to steer any course would have been hopeless. But an
-Australian squatter, if he have any well-grounded claim to the
-character of a bushman, has eyes which are not ordinary, and he has,
-probably, nurtured within himself, unconsciously, topographical
-instincts which are unintelligible to the inhabitants of cities.
-Harry, too, was near his own home, and went forward through the thick
-gloom without a doubt, Jacko following him faithfully. In about half
-an hour they came to another fence, but now it was too absolutely
-dark for jumping. Harry had not seen it till he was close to it, and
-then he pulled up his horse. "My word! why don't you jump away, Mr.
-Harry? Who's a duffer now?"
-
-"Hold your tongue, or I'll put my whip across your back. Get down and
-help me pull a log away. The horses couldn't see where to put their
-feet." Jacko did as he was bid, and worked hard, but still grumbled
-at having been called a duffer. The animals were quickly led over,
-the logs were replaced, and the two were again galloping through the
-forest.
-
-"I thought you were making for the wool-shed," said Jacko.
-
-"We're eight miles beyond the wool-shed," said Harry. They had now
-crossed another paddock, and had come to the extreme fence on the
-run. The Gangoil pastures extended much further, but in that
-direction had not as yet been inclosed. Here they both got off their
-horses and walked along the fence till they came to an opening, with
-a slip panel, or movable bars, which had been Heathcote's intended
-destination. "Hold the horses, Jacko, till I come back," he said.
-
-Jacko, when alone, nothing daunted by the darkness or solitude,
-seated himself on the top rail, took out a pipe, and struck a match.
-When the tobacco was ignited he dropped the match on the dry grass at
-his feet, and a little flame instantly sprang up. The boy waited a
-few seconds till the flames began to run, and then putting his feet
-together on the ground stamped out the incipient fire. "My word!"
-said Jacko to himself, "it's easy done, anyway."
-
-Harry went on to the left for about half a mile, and then stood
-leaning against the fence. It was very dark, but he was now looking
-over into an inclosure which had been altogether cleared of trees,
-and which, as he knew well, had been cultivated and was covered with
-sugar-canes. Where he stood he was not distant above a quarter of a
-mile from the river, and the field before him ran down to the banks.
-This was the selected land of Giles Medlicot--two years since a
-portion of his own run, which had now been purchased from the
-government--for the loss of which he had received and was entitled to
-receive no compensation. And the matter was made worse for him by the
-fact that the interloper had come between him and the river. But he
-was not standing here near midnight merely to exercise his wrath by
-straining his eyes through the darkness at his neighbor's crops. He
-put his finger into his mouth to wet it, and then held it up that he
-might discover which way the light breath of wind was coming. There
-was still the low moan to be heard continually through the forest,
-and yet not a leaf seemed to be moved. After a while he thought he
-caught a sound, and put his ear down to the ground. He distinctly
-heard a footstep, and rising up, walked quickly toward the spot
-whence the noise came.
-
-"Who's that?" he said, as he saw the figure of a man standing on his
-side of the fence, and leaning against it, with a pipe in his month.
-
-"Who are you?" replied the man on the fence. "My name is Medlicot."
-
-"Oh, Mr. Medlicot, is it?"
-
-"Is that Mr. Heathcote? Good-night, Mr. Heathcote. You are going
-about at a late hour of the night."
-
-"I have to go about early and late; but I ain't later than you."
-
-"I'm close at home," said Medlicot.
-
-"I am, at any rate, on my own run," said Harry.
-
-"You mean to say that I am trespassing?" said the other; "because I
-can very soon jump back over the fence."
-
-"I didn't mean that at all, Mr. Medlicot; any body is welcome on my
-run, night or day, who knows how to behave himself."
-
-"I hope I'm included in that list."
-
-"Just so; of course. Considering the state that every thing is in,
-and all the damage that a fire would do, I rather wish that people
-would be a little more careful about smoking."
-
-"My canes, Mr. Heathcote, would burn quite as quickly as your grass."
-
-"It is not only the grass. I've a hundred miles of fencing on the
-run which is as dry as tinder, not to talk of the station and the
-wool-shed."
-
-"They sha'n't suffer from my neglect, Mr. Heathcote."
-
-"You have men about who mayn't be so careful. The wind, such as it
-is, is coming right across from your place. If there were light
-enough, I could show you three or four patches where there has been
-fire within half a mile of this spot. There was a log burning there
-for two or three days, not long ago, which was lighted by one of our
-men."
-
-"That was a fortnight since. There was no heat then, and the men were
-boiling their kettle. I spoke about it."
-
-"A log like that, Mr. Medlicot, will burn for weeks sometimes. I'll
-tell you fairly what I'm afraid of. There's a man with you whom I
-turned out of the shed last shearing, and I think he might put a
-match down--not by accident."
-
-"You mean Nokes. As far as I know, he's a decent man. You wouldn't
-have me not employ a man just because you had dismissed him?"
-
-"Certainly not; that is, I shouldn't think of dictating to you about
-such a thing."
-
-"Well, no, Mr. Heathcote, I suppose not. Nokes has got to earn his
-bread, though you did dismiss him. I don't know that he's not as
-honest a man as you or I."
-
-"If so, there's three of us very bad; that's all, Mr. Medlicot.
-Good-night; and if you'll trouble yourself to look after the ash of
-your tobacco it might be the saving of me and all I have." So
-saying, he turned round, and made his way back to the horses.
-
-Medlicot had placed himself on the fence during the interview, and he
-still kept his seat. Of course he was now thinking of the man who had
-just left him, whom he declared to himself to be an ignorant,
-prejudiced, ill-constituted cur. "I believe in his heart he thinks
-that I'm going to set fire to his run," he said, almost aloud. "And
-because he grows wool he thinks himself above every body in the
-colony. He occupies thousands of acres, and employs three or four
-men. I till about two hundred, and maintain thirty families. But he
-is such a pig that he can't understand all that; and he thinks that I
-must be something low because I've bought with my own money a bit of
-land which never belonged to him, and which he couldn't use." Such
-was the nature of Giles Medlicot's soliloquy as he sat swinging his
-legs, and still smoking his pipe, on the fence which divided his
-sugar-cane from the other young man's run.
-
-And Harry Heathcote uttered his soliloquy also. "I wouldn't swear
-that he wouldn't do it himself, after all;" meaning that he almost
-suspected that Medlicot himself would be an incendiary. To him, in
-his way of thinking, a man who would take advantage of the law to buy
-a bit of another man's land--or become a free-selector, as the term
-goes--was a public enemy, and might be presumed capable of any
-iniquity. It was all very well for the girls--meaning his wife and
-sister-in-law--to tell him that Medlicot had the manners of a
-gentleman and had come of decent people. Women were always soft
-enough to be taken by soft hands, a good-looking face, and a decent
-coat. This Medlicot went about dressed like a man in the towns,
-exhibiting, as Harry thought, a contemptible, unmanly finery. Of what
-use was it to tell him that Medlicot was a gentleman? What Harry knew
-was that since Medlicot had come he had lost his sheep, that the
-heads of three or four had been found buried on Medlicot's side of
-his run, and that if he dismissed "a hand," Medlicot employed him--a
-proceeding which, in Harry Heathcote's aristocratic and patriarchal
-views of life, was altogether ungentleman-like. How were the "hands"
-to be kept in their place if one employer of labor did not back up
-another?
-
-He had been warned to be on his guard against fire. The warnings had
-hardly been implicit, but yet had come in a shape which made him
-unable to ignore them. Old Bates, whom he trusted implicitly, and who
-was a man of very few words, had told him to be on his guard. The
-German, at whose hut he had been in the morning, Karl Bender by name,
-and a servant of his own, had told him that there would be fire about
-before long.
-
-"Why should any one want to ruin me?" Harry had asked. "Did I ever
-wrong a man of a shilling?"
-
-The German had learned to know his young master, had made his way
-through the crust of his master's character, and was prepared to be
-faithful at all points--though he too could have quarreled and have
-avenged himself had it not chanced that he had come to the point of
-loving instead of hating his employer.
-
-"You like too much to be governor over all," said the German, as he
-stooped over the fire in his own hut in his anxiety to boil the water
-for Heathcote's tea.
-
-"Somebody must be governor, or every thing would go to the devil,"
-said Harry.
-
-"Dat's true--only fellows don't like be made feel it," said the
-German, "Nokes, he was made feel it when you put him over de gate."
-
-But neither would Bates nor the German express absolute suspicion of
-any man. That Medlicot's "hands" at the sugar-mill were stealing his
-sheep Harry thought that he knew; but that was comparatively a small
-affair, and he would not have pressed it, as he was without absolute
-evidence. And even he had a feeling that it would be unwise to
-increase the anger felt against himself--at any rate, during the
-present heats.
-
-Jacko had his pipe still alight when Heathcote returned. "You young
-monkey," said he, "have you been using matches?"
-
-"Why not, Mr. Harry? Don't the grass burn ready, Mr. Harry? My word!"
-Then Jacko stooped down, lit another match, and showed Heathcote the
-burned patch.
-
-"Was it so when we came?" Harry asked, with emotion. Jacko, still
-kneeling on the ground, and holding the lighted match in his hand,
-shook his head and tapped his breast, indicating that he had burned
-the grass. "You dropped the match by accident?"
-
-"My word! no. Did it o' purpose to see. It's all just one as
-gunpowder, Mr. Harry."
-
-Harry got on his horse without a word, and rode away through the
-forest, taking a direction different from that by which he had come,
-and the boy followed him. He was by no means certain that this young
-fellow might not turn against him; but it had been a part of his
-theory to make no difference to any man because of such fears. If he
-could make the men around him respect him, then they would treat him
-well; but they could never be brought to respect him by flattery. He
-was very nearly right in his views of men, and would have been right
-altogether could he have seen accurately what justice demanded for
-others as well as for himself. As far as the intention went, he was
-minded to be just to every man.
-
-It seemed, as they were riding, that the heat grew fiercer and
-fiercer. Though there was still the same moaning sound, there was not
-a breath of air. They had now got upon a track very well known to
-Heathcote, which led up from the river to the wool-shed, and so on to
-the station, and they had turned homeward. When they were near the
-wool-shed, suddenly there fell a heavy drop or two of rain. Harry
-stopped and turned his face upward, when, in a moment, the whole
-heavens above them and the forest around were illumined by a flash of
-lightning so near them that it made each of them start in his saddle,
-and made the horses shudder in every limb. Then came the roll of
-thunder immediately over their heads, and with the thunder rain so
-thick and fast that Harry's "ten thousand buckets" seemed to be
-emptied directly over their heads.
-
-"God A'mighty has put out the fires now," said Jacko.
-
-Harry paused for a moment, feeling the rain through to his bones--for
-he had nothing on over his shirt--and rejoicing in it. "Yes," he
-said; "we may go to bed for a week, and let the grass grow, and the
-creeks fill, and the earth cool. Half an hour like this over the
-whole run, and there won't be a dry stick on it."
-
-As they went on, the horses splashed through the water. It seemed as
-though a deluge were falling, and that already the ground beneath
-their feet were becoming a lake.
-
-"We might have too much of this, Jacko."
-
-"My word! yes."
-
-"I don't want to have the Mary flooded again."
-
-"My word! no."
-
-But by the time they reached the wool-shed it was over. From the
-first drop to the last, there had hardly been a space of twenty
-minutes. But there was a noise of waters as the little streams washed
-hither and thither to their destined courses and still the horses
-splashed, and still there was the feeling of an incipient deluge.
-When they reached the wool-shed, Harry again got off his horse, and
-Jacko, dismounting also, hitched the two animals to the post and
-followed his master into the building. Harry struck a wax match, and
-holding it up, strove to look round the building by the feeble light
-which it shed. It was a remarkable edifice, built in the shape of a
-great T, open at the sides, with a sharp-pitched timber roof covered
-with felt, which came down within four feet of the ground. It was
-calculated to hold about four hundred sheep at a time, and was
-divided into pens of various sizes, partitioned off for various
-purposes. If Harry Heathcote was sure of any thing, he was sure that
-his wool-shed was the best that had ever been built in this district.
-
-"By Jimini! what's that?" said Jacko.
-
-"Did you hear any thing?"
-
-Jacko pointed with his finger down the centre walk of the shed, and
-Harry, striking another match as he went, rushed forward. But the
-match was out as soon as ignited, and gave no glimmer of light.
-Nevertheless he saw, or thought that he saw, the figure of a man
-escaping out of the open end of the shed. The place itself was black
-as midnight, but the space beyond was clear of trees, and the
-darkness outside being a few shades lighter than within the building,
-allowed something of the outline of a figure to be visible. And as
-the man escaped, the sounds of his footsteps were audible enough.
-Harry called to him, but of course received no answer. Had he pursued
-him, he would have been obliged to cross sundry rails, which would
-have so delayed him as to give him no chance of success.
-
-"I knew there was a fellow about," he said; "one of our own men would
-not have run like that."
-
-Jacko shook his head, but did not speak.
-
-"He has got in here for shelter out of the rain, but he was doing no
-good about the place."
-
-Jacko again shook his head.
-
-"I wonder who he was?"
-
-Jacko came up and whispered in his ear, "Bill Nokes."
-
-"You couldn't see him."
-
-"Seed the drag of his leg." Now it was well known that the man Nokes
-had injured some of his muscles, and habitually dragged one foot
-after another.
-
-"I don't think you could have been sure of him by such a glimpse as
-that."
-
-"Maybe not," said the boy, "only I'm sure as sure."
-
-Harry Heathcote said not another word, but getting again upon his
-horse, galloped home. It was past one when he reached the station,
-but the two girls were waiting up for him, and at once began to
-condole with him because he was wet. "Wet!" said Harry; "if you could
-only know how much I prefer things being wet to dry just at present!
-But give Jacko some supper. I must keep that young fellow in good
-humor if I can."
-
-So Jacko had half a loaf of bread, and a small pot of jam, and a
-large jug of cold tea provided for him, in the enjoyment of which
-luxuries he did not seem to be in the least impeded by the fact
-that he was wet through to the skin. Harry Heathcote had another
-nobbler--being only the second in the day--and then went to bed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-MEDLICOT'S MILL.
-
-
-As Harry said, they might all now lie in bed for a day or two. The
-rain had set aside for the time the necessity for that urgent
-watchfulness which kept all hands on the station hard at work during
-the great heat. There was not, generally, much rest during the year
-at Gangoil. Lambing in April and May, washing and shearing in
-September, October, and November, with the fear of fires and the
-necessary precautions in December and January, did not leave more
-than sufficient intervals for looking after the water-dams, making
-and mending fences, procuring stores, and attending to the ailments
-of the flocks. No man worked harder than the young squatter. But now
-there had suddenly come a day or two of rest--rest from work which
-was not of itself productive, but only remedial, and which,
-therefore, was not begrudged.
-
-But it soon was apparent that the rest could be only for a day or
-two. The rain had fallen as from ten thousand buckets, but it had
-fallen only for a space of minutes. On the following morning the
-thirsty earth had apparently swallowed all the flood. The water in
-the creek beneath the house stood two feet higher than it had done,
-and Harry, when he visited the dams round the run, found that they
-were fall to overflowing, and the grasses were already springing, so
-quick is the all but tropical growth of the country. They might be
-safe, perhaps, for eight-and-forty hours. Fire would run only when
-the ground was absolutely dry, and when every twig or leaf was a
-combustible. But during those eight-and-forty hours there might be
-comparative ease at Gangoil.
-
-On the day following the night of the ride Mrs. Heathcote suggested
-to her husband that she and Kate should ride over to Medlicot's Mill,
-as the place was already named, and call on Mrs. Medlicot. "It isn't
-Christian," she said, "for people living out in the bush as we are to
-quarrel with their neighbors just because they are neighbors."
-
-"Neighbors!" said Harry; "I don't know any word that there's so
-much humbug about. The Samaritan was the best neighbor I ever heard
-of, and he lived a long way off, I take it. Anyway, he wasn't a
-free-selector."
-
-"Harry, that's profane."
-
-"Every thing I say is wicked. You can go, of course, if you like it.
-I don't want to quarrel with any body."
-
-"Quarreling is so uncomfortable," said his wife.
-
-"That's a matter of taste. There are people whom I find it very
-comfortable to quarrel with. I shouldn't at all like not to quarrel
-with the Brownbies, and I'm not at all sure it mayn't come to be the
-same with Mr. Giles Medlicot."
-
-"The Brownbies live by sheep-stealing and horse-stealing."
-
-"And Medlicot means to live by employing sheep-stealers and
-horse-stealers. You can go if you like it. You won't want me to go
-with you. Will you have the baggy?"
-
-But the ladies said that they would ride. The air was cooler now than
-it had been, and they would like the exercise. They would take Jacko
-with them to open the slip-rails, and they would be back by seven for
-dinner. So they started, taking the track by the wool-shed. The
-wool-shed was about two miles from the station, and Medlicot's Mill
-was seven miles farther, on the bank of the river.
-
-Mr. Giles Medlicot, though at Gangoil he was still spoken of as a
-new-comer, had already been located for nearly two years on the land
-which he had purchased immediately on his coming to the colony. He
-had come out direct from England with the intention of growing sugar,
-and, whether successful or not in making money, had certainly
-succeeded in growing crops of sugar-canes and in erecting a mill for
-crushing them. It probably takes more than two years for a man
-himself to discover whether he can achieve ultimate success in such
-an enterprise; and Medlicot was certainly not a man likely to talk
-much to others of his private concerns. The mill had just been built,
-and he had lived there himself as soon as a water-tight room had been
-constructed. It was only within the last three months that he had
-completed a small cottage residence, and had brought his mother to
-live with him. Hitherto he had hardly made himself popular. He
-was not either fish or fowl. The squatters regarded him as an
-interloper, and as a man holding opinions directly averse to their
-own interests--in which they were right. And the small free-selectors,
-who lived on the labor of their own hands--or, as was said of many of
-them, by stealing sheep and cattle--knew well that he was not of their
-class. But Medlicot had gone his way steadfastly, if not happily, and
-complained aloud to no one in the midst of his difficulties. He had
-not, perhaps, found the Paradise which he had expected in Queensland,
-but he had found that he could grow sugar; and having begun the work,
-he was determined to go on with it.
-
-Heathcote was his nearest neighbor, and the only man in his own rank
-of life who lived within twenty miles of him. When he had started his
-enterprise he had hoped to make this man his friend, not
-comprehending at first how great a cause for hostility was created by
-the very purchase of the land. He had been a new-comer from the old
-country, and, being alone, had desired friendship. He was Harry
-Heathcote's equal in education, intelligence, and fortune, if not in
-birth--which surely, in the Australian bush, need not count for much.
-He had assumed, when first meeting the squatter, that good-fellowship
-between them, on equal terms, would be acceptable to both; but his
-overtures had been coldly received. Then he, too, had drawn himself
-up, had declared that Heathcote was an ignorant ass, and had
-unconsciously made up his mind to commence hostilities. It was in
-this spirit that he had taken Nokes into his mill, of whose
-character, had he inquired about it, he would certainly have heard no
-good. He had now brought his mother to Medlicot's Mill. She and the
-Gangoil ladies had met each other on neutral ground, and it was
-almost necessary that they should either be friends or absolute
-enemies. Mrs. Heathcote had been aware of this, and had declared that
-enmity was horrible.
-
-"Upon my word," said Harry, "I sometimes think that friendship is
-more so. I suppose I'm fitted for bush life, for I want to see no one
-from year's end to year's end but my own family and my own people."
-And yet this young patriarch in the wilderness was only twenty-four
-years old, and had been educated at an English school!
-
-Medlicot's cottage was about a hundred and fifty yards from the mill,
-looking down upon the Mary, the banks of which at this spot were
-almost precipitous. The site for the plantation had been chosen
-because the river afforded the means of carriage down to the sea, and
-the mill had been so constructed that the sugar hogsheads could be
-lowered from the buildings into the river boats. Here Mrs. Heathcote
-and Kate Daly found the old lady sitting at work, all alone, in the
-veranda. She was a handsome old woman, with gray hair, seventy years
-of age, with wrinkled face, and a toothless mouth, but with bright
-eyes, and with no signs of the infirmity of age.
-
-"This is gey kind of you to run so far to see an auld woman," she
-said.
-
-Mrs. Heathcote declared that they were used to the heat, and that
-after the rain the air was pleasant.
-
-"You're two bright lassies, and you're hearty," she said. "I'm auld,
-and just out of Cumberland, and I find it's hot enough--and I'm no
-guid at horseback at all. I dinna know how I'm to get aboot."
-
-Then Mrs. Heathcote explained that there was an excellent track for a
-buggy all the way to Gangoil.
-
-"Giles is aye telling me that I'm to gang aboot in a bouggey, but I
-dinna feel sure of thae bouggeys."
-
-Mrs. Heathcote, of course, praised the country carriages, and the
-country roads, and the country generally. Tea was brought in, and the
-old lady was delighted with her guests. Since she had been at the
-mill, week had followed week, and she had seen no woman's face but
-that of the uncouth girl who waited upon her. "Did ye ever see rain
-like that!" she said, putting up her hands. "I thought the Lord was
-sending his clouds down upon us in a lump like." Then she told them
-that some of the men had declared that if it went on like that for
-two hours the Mary would rise and take the cottage away. Giles,
-however, had declared that to be trash, as the cottage was twenty
-feet above the ordinary course of the river.
-
-They were just rising to take their leave, when Giles Medlicot
-himself came in out of the mill. He was a man of good presence, dark,
-and tall like Heathcote, but stoutly made, with a strongly marked
-face, given to frowning much when he was eager; bright-eyed, with a
-broad forehead--certainly a man to be observed as far as his
-appearance was concerned. He was dressed much as a gentleman dresses
-in the country at home, and was therefore accounted to be a fop by
-Harry Heathcote, who was rarely seen abroad in other garb than that
-which has been described. Harry was an aristocrat, and hated such
-innovations in the bush as cloth coats and tweed trowsers and
-neck-hand-kerchiefs.
-
-Medlicot had been full of wrath against his neighbor all the morning.
-There had been a tone in Heathcote's voice when he gave his parting
-warning as to the fire in Medlicot's pipe which the sugar grower had
-felt to be intentionally insolent. Nothing had been said which could
-be openly resented, but offense had surely been intended; and then he
-had remembered that his mother had been already some months at the
-mill, and that no mark of neighborly courtesy had been shown to her.
-The Heathcotes had, he thought, chosen to assume themselves to be
-superior to him and his, and to treat him as though he had been some
-laboring man who had saved money enough to purchase a bit of land for
-himself. He was, therefore, astonished to find the two young ladies
-sitting with his mother on the very day after such an interview as
-that of the preceding night.
-
-"The leddies from Gangoil, Giles, have been guid enough to ride over
-and see me," said his mother.
-
-Medlicot, of course, shook hands with them, and expressed his sense
-of their kindness, but he did it awkwardly. He soon, however,
-declared his purpose of riding part of the way back with them.
-
-"Mr. Heathcote must have been very wet last night," he said, when
-they were on horse-back, addressing himself to Kate Daly rather than
-to her sister.
-
-"Indeed he was--wet to the skin. Were you not?"
-
-"I saw him at about eleven, before the rain began. I was close home,
-and just escaped. He must have been under it all. Does he often go
-about the run in that way at night?"
-
-"Only when he's afraid of fires," said Kate.
-
-"Is there much to be afraid of? I don't suppose that any body can be
-so wicked as to wish to burn the grass." Then the ladies took upon
-themselves to explain. "The fires might be caused from negligence or
-trifling accidents, or might possibly come from the unaided heat of
-the sun; or there might be enemies."
-
-"My word! yes; enemies, rather!" said Jacko, who was riding close
-behind, and who had no idea of being kept out of the conversation
-merely because he was a servant. Medlicot, turning round, looked at
-the lad, and asked who were the enemies.
-
-"Free-selectors," said Jacko.
-
-"I'm a free-selector," said Medlicot.
-
-"Did not jist mean you," said Jacko.
-
-"Jacko, you'd better hold your tongue," said Mrs. Heathcote.
-
-"Hold my tongue! My word! Well, you go on."
-
-Medlicot came as far as the wool-shed, and then said that he would
-return. He had thoroughly enjoyed his ride. Kate Daly was bright and
-pretty and winning; and in the bush, when a man has not seen a lady
-perhaps for months, brightness and prettiness and winning ways have a
-double charm. To ride with fair women over turf, through a forest,
-with a woman who may perhaps some day be wooed, can be a matter of
-indifference only to a very lethargic man. Giles Medlicot was by no
-means lethargic. He owned to himself that though Heathcote was a
-pig-headed ass, the ladies were very nice, and he thought that the
-pig-headed ass in choosing one of them for himself had by no means
-taken the nicest.
-
-"You'll never find your way back," said Kate, "if you've not been
-here before."
-
-"I never was here before, and I suppose I must find my way back."
-Then he was urged to come on and dine at Gangoil, with a promise that
-Jacko should return with him in the evening. But this he would not
-do. Heathcote was a pig-headed ass, who possibly regarded him as an
-incendiary simply because he had bought some land. This boy of
-Heathcote's, whose services had been offered to him, had not scrupled
-to tell him to his face that he was to be regarded as an enemy. Much
-as he liked the company of Kate Daly, he could not go to the house of
-that stupid, arrogant, pig-headed young squatter. "I'm not such a bad
-bushman but what I can find my way to the river," he said.
-
-"Find it blindful," said Jacko, who did not relish the idea of going
-back to Medlicot's Mill as guide to another man. There was a weakness
-in the idea that such aid could be necessary, which was revolting to
-Jacko's sense of bush independence.
-
-They were standing on their horses at the entrance to the wool-shed
-as they discussed the point, when suddenly Harry himself appeared out
-of the building. He came up and shook hands with Medlicot, with
-sufficient courtesy, but hardly with cordiality, and then asked his
-wife as to her ride. "We have been very jolly, haven't we, Kate? Of
-course it has been hot, but every thing is not so frightfully parched
-as it was before the rain. As Mr. Medlicot has come back so far with
-us, we want him to come on and dine."
-
-"Pray do, Mr. Medlicot," said Harry. But again the tone of his voice
-was not sufficiently hearty to satisfy the man who was invited.
-
-"Thanks, no: I think I'll hardly do that.--Good-night, Mrs.
-Heathcote; good-night. Miss Daly;" and the two ladies immediately
-perceived that his voice, which had hitherto been pleasant in their
-ears, had ceased to be cordial.
-
-"I am very glad he has gone back," said Heathcote.
-
-"Why do you say so, Harry? You are not given to be inhospitable, and
-why should you grudge me and Kate the rare pleasure of seeing a
-strange face?"
-
-"I'll tell you why. It's not about him at this moment; but I've been
-disturbed.--Jacko, go on to the station, and say we're coming. Do you
-hear me? Go on at once." Then Jacko, somewhat unwillingly, galloped
-off toward the house. "Get off your horses, and come in."
-
-He helped the two ladies from their saddles, and they all went into
-the wool-shed, Harry leading the way. In one of the side pens,
-immediately under the roof, there was a large heap of leaves, the
-outside portion of which was at present damp, for the rain had beaten
-in upon it, but which had been as dry as tinder when collected; and
-there was a row or ridge of mixed brush-wood and leaves so
-constructed as to form a line from the grass outside on to the heap.
-"The fellow who did that was an ass," said Harry; "a greater ass than
-I should have taken him to be, not to have known that if he could
-have gotten the grass to burn outside, the wool-shed must have gone
-without all that preparation. But there isn't much difficulty now in
-seeing what the fellow has intended."
-
-"Was it for a fire?" asked Kate.
-
-"Of course it was. He wouldn't have been contented with the grass and
-fences, but wanted to make sure of the shed also. He'd have come to
-the house and burned us in our beds, only a fellow like that is too
-much of a coward to run the risk of being seen."
-
-"But, Harry, why didn't he light it when he'd done it?" said Mrs.
-Heathcote.
-
-"Because the Almighty sent the rain at the very moment," said Harry,
-striking the top rail of one of the pens with his fist. "I'm not much
-given to talk about Providence, but this looks like it, does it not?"
-
-"He might have put a match in at the moment?"
-
-"Rain or no rain? Yes, he might. But he was interrupted by more than
-the rain. I got into the shed myself just at the moment--I and Jacko.
-It was last night, when the rain was pouring. I heard the man, and
-dark as was the night, I saw his figure as he fled away."
-
-"You didn't know him?" said Miss Daly.
-
-"But that boy, who has the eyes of a cat, he knew him."
-
-"Jacko?"
-
-"Jacko knew him by his gait. I should have hardly wanted any one to
-tell me who it was. I could have named the man at once, but for the
-fear of doing an injustice."
-
-"And who was it?"
-
-"Our friend Medlicot's prime favorite and new factotum, Mr. William
-Nokes. Mr. William Nokes is the gentleman who intends to burn us all
-out of house and home, and Mr. Medlicot is the gentleman whose
-pleasure it is to keep Mr. Nokes in the neighborhood."
-
-The two women stood awe-struck for a moment, but a sense of justice
-prevailed upon the wife to speak. "That may be all true," she said.
-"Perhaps it is as you say about that man. But you would not therefore
-think that Mr. Medlicot knows any thing about it?"
-
-"It would be impossible," said Kate.
-
-"I have not accused him," said Harry; "but he knows that the man was
-dismissed, and yet keeps him about the place. Of course he is
-responsible."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-HARRY HEATHCOTE'S APPEAL.
-
-
-For the first mile between the wool-shed and the house Heathcote and
-the two ladies rode without saying a word. There was something so
-terrible in the reality of the danger which encompassed them that
-they hardly felt inclined to discuss it. Harry's dislike to Medlicot
-was quite a thing apart. That some one had intended to burn down the
-wool-shed, and had made preparation for doing so, was as apparent to
-the women as to him. And the man who had been balked by a shower of
-rain in his first attempt might soon find an opportunity for a
-second. Harry was well aware that even Jacko's assertion could not be
-taken as evidence against the man whom he suspected. In all
-probability no further attempt would be made upon the wool-shed; but
-a fire on some distant part of the run would be much more injurious
-to him than the mere burning of a building. The fire that might ruin
-him would be one which should get ahead before it was seen, and scour
-across the ground, consuming the grass down to the very roots over
-thousands of acres, and destroying fencing over many miles. Such
-fires pass on, leaving the standing trees unscathed, avoiding even
-the scrub, which is too moist with the sap of life for consumption,
-but licking up with fearful rapidity every thing that the sun has
-dried. He could watch the wool-shed and house, but with no possible
-care could he so watch the whole run as to justify him in feeling
-security. There need be no preparation of leaves. A match thrown
-loosely on the ground would do it. And in regard to a match so
-thrown, it would be impossible to prove a guilty intention.
-
-"Ought we not to have dispersed the heap?" said Mrs. Heathcote at
-last. The minds of all of them were full of the matter, but these
-were the first words spoken.
-
-"I'll leave it as it is," said Harry, giving no reason for his
-decision. He was too full of thought, too heavily laden with anxiety,
-to speak much. "Come, let's get on; you'll want your dinner, and it's
-getting dark." So they cantered on, and got off their horses at the
-gate, without another word. And not another word was spoken on the
-subject that night. Harry was very silent, walking up and down the
-veranda with his pipe in his mouth--not lying on the ground in idle
-enjoyment--and there was no reading. The two sisters looked at him
-from time to time with wistful, anxious-eyes, half afraid to disturb
-him by speech.
-
-As for him, he felt that the weight was all on his own shoulders. He
-had worked hard, and was on the way to be rich. I do not know that he
-thought much about money, but he thought very much of success. And he
-was by nature anxious, sanguine, and impulsive. There might be before
-him, within the next week, such desolation as would break his heart.
-He knew men who had been ruined, and had borne their ruin almost
-without a wail--who had seemed contented to descend to security and
-mere absence from want. There was his own superintendent, Old Bates,
-who, though he grumbled at every thing else, never bewailed his own
-fate. But he knew of himself that any such blow would nearly kill
-him--such a blow, that is, as might drive him from Gangoil, and force
-him to be the servant instead of the master of men. Not to be master
-of all around him seemed to him to be misery. The merchants at
-Brisbane who took his wool and supplied him with stores had advanced
-money when he first bought his run, and he still owed them some
-thousands of pounds. The injury which a great fire would do him would
-bring him to such a condition that the merchants would demand to have
-their money repaid. He understood it all, and knew well that it was
-after this fashion that many a squatter before him had been ruined.
-
-"Speak a word to me about it," his wife said to him, imploringly,
-when they were alone together that night.
-
-"My darling, if there were a word to say, I would say it. I must be
-on the watch, and do the best I can. At present the earth is too damp
-for mischief."
-
-"Oh that it would rain again!"
-
-"There will be heat enough before the summer is over; we need not
-doubt that. But I will tell you of every thing as we go on. I will
-endeavor to have the man watched. God bless you! Go to sleep, and try
-to get it out of your thoughts."
-
-On the following morning he breakfasted early, and mounted his horse
-without saying a word as to the purport of his journey. This was in
-accordance with the habit of his life, and would not excite
-observation; but there was something in his manner which made both
-the ladies feel that he was intent on some special object. When he
-intended simply to ride round his fences or to visit the hut of some
-distant servant, a few minutes signified nothing. He would stand
-under the veranda and talk, and the women would endeavor to keep him
-from the saddle. But now there was no loitering, and but little
-talking. He said a word to Jacko, who brought the horse for him, and
-then started at a gallop toward the wool-shed.
-
-He did not stop a moment at the shed, not even entering it to see
-whether the heap of leaves had been displaced during the night, but
-went on straight to Medlicot's Mill. He rode the nine miles in an
-hour, and at once entered the building in which the canes were
-crushed. The first man he met was Nokes, who acted as overseer,
-having a gang of Polynesian laborers under him--sleek, swarthy
-fellows from the South Sea Islands, with linen trowsers on and
-nothing else--who crept silently among the vats and machinery,
-shifting the sugar as it was made.
-
-"Well, Nokes," said Harry, "how are you getting on? Is Mr. Medlicot
-here?"
-
-Nokes was a big fellow, with a broad, solid face, which would not
-have condemned him among physiognomists but for a bad eye, which
-could not look you in the face. He had been a boundary rider for
-Heathcote, and on an occasion had been impertinent, refusing to leave
-the yard behind the house unless something was done which those about
-the place refused to do for him. During the discussion Harry had come
-in. The man had been drinking, and was still insolent, and Harry had
-ejected him violently, thrusting him over a gate. The man had
-returned the next morning, and had then been sent about his business.
-He had been employed at Medlicot's Mill, but from the day of his
-dismissal to this he and Harry had never met each other face to face.
-
-"I'm pretty well, thank ye, Mr. Heathcote. I hope you're the same,
-and the ladies. The master's about somewhere, I take it.--Picky, go
-and find the master." Picky was one of the Polynesians, who at once
-started on his errand.
-
-"Have you been over to Gangoil since you left it?" said Harry,
-looking the man full in the face.
-
-"Not I, Mr. Heathcote. I never go where I've had words. And, to tell
-you the truth, sugar is better than sheep. I'm very comfortable here,
-and I never liked your work."
-
-"You haven't been at the wool-shed?"
-
-"What, the Gangoil shed! What the blazes 'd I go there for? It's a
-matter of ten miles from here."
-
-"Seven, Nokes."
-
-"Seven, is it? It is a longish seven miles, Mr. Heathcote. How could
-I get that distance? I ain't so good at walking as I was before I was
-hurt. You should have remembered that, Mr. Heathcote, when you laid
-hands on me the other day."
-
-"You're not much the worse for what I did; nor yet for the accident,
-I take it. At any rate, you've not been at Gangoil wool-shed?"
-
-"No, I've not," said the man, roughly. "What the mischief should I be
-doing at your shed at night-time?"
-
-"I said nothing about night-time."
-
-"I'm here all day, ain't I? If you're going to palm off any story
-against me, Mr. Heathcote, you'll find yourself in the wrong box.
-What I does I does on the square."
-
-Heathcote was now quite sure that Jacko had been right. He had not
-doubted much before, but now he did not doubt at all but that the man
-with whom he was speaking was the wretch who was endeavoring to ruin
-him. And he felt certain, also, that Jacko was true to him. He knew,
-too, that he had plainly declared his suspicion to the man himself.
-But he had resolved upon doing this. He could in no way assist
-himself in circumventing the man's villainy by keeping his suspense
-to himself. The man might be frightened, and in spite of all that had
-passed between him and Medlicot, he still thought it possible that he
-might induce the sugar grower to co-operate with him in driving Nokes
-from the neighborhood. He had spent the night in thinking over it
-all, and this was the resolution to which he had come.
-
-"There's the master," said Nokes. "If you've got any thing to say
-about any thing, you'd better say it to him."
-
-Harry had never before set his foot upon Medlicot's land since it had
-been bought away from his own run, and had felt that he would almost
-demean himself by doing so. He had often looked at the canes from
-over his own fence, as he had done on the night of the rain; but he
-had stood always on his own land. Now he was in the sugar-mill, never
-before having seen such a building. "You've a deal of machinery here,
-Mr. Medlicot," he said.
-
-"It's a small affair, after all," said the other. "I hope to get a
-good plant before I've done."
-
-"Can I speak a word with you?"
-
-"Certainly. Will you come into the office, or will you go across to
-the house?"
-
-Harry said that the office would do, and followed Medlicot into a
-little box-like inclosure which contained a desk and two stools.
-
-"Not much of an office, is it? What can I do for you, Mr. Heathcote?"
-
-Then Harry began his story, which he told at considerable length. He
-apologized for troubling his neighbor at all on the subject, and
-endeavored to explain, somewhat awkwardly, that as Mr. Medlicot was a
-new-comer, he probably might not understand the kind of treatment to
-which employers in the bush were occasionally subject from their men.
-On this matter he said much, which, had he been a better tactician,
-he might probably have left unspoken. He then went on to the story of
-his own quarrel with Nokes, who had, in truth, been grossly impudent
-to the women about the house, but who had been punished by instant
-and violent dismissal from his employment. It was evidently Harry's
-idea that a man who had so sinned against his master should be
-allowed to find no other master--at any rate in that district; an
-idea with which the other man, who had lately come out from the old
-country, did not at all sympathize.
-
-"Do you want me to dismiss him?" said Medlicot, in a tone which
-implied that that would be the last thing he would think of doing.
-
-"You haven't heard me yet." Then Harry went on and told of the fires
-in the heat of summer, and of their terrible effects--of the easy
-manner of revenge which they supplied to angry, unscrupulous men, and
-of his own fears at the present moment.
-
-"I can believe it all," said Medlicot, "and am very sorry that it
-should be so. But I can not see the justice of punishing a man on the
-merest, vaguest suspicion. Your only ground for imputing this crime
-to him is that your own conduct to him may have given him a motive."
-
-Harry had schooled himself vigorously during the ride as to his own
-demeanor, and had resolved that he would be cool. "I was going on to
-tell you," he said, "what occurred that night after I saw you up by
-the fence." Then he described how he and his boy had entered the
-shed, and had both seen and heard a man as he escaped from it; how
-the boy had at once declared that the man was Nokes; how the
-following day he had discovered the leaves, which Nokes no doubt had
-deposited there just before the rain, intending to burn the place at
-once; and how Nokes's manner to him within the last half hour had
-corroborated his suspicions.
-
-"Is he the boy you call Jacko?"
-
-"That's the name he goes by."
-
-"You don't know his real name?"
-
-"I have never heard any other name."
-
-"Nor any thing about him?" Harry owned, in answer to half a dozen
-such questions, that Jacko had come to Gangoil about six months
-ago--he did not know whence--had been kept for a week's job, and had
-then been allowed to remain about the place without any regular
-wages. "You admit it was quite dark," continued Medlicot.
-
-Harry did not at all like the cross-examination, and his resolution
-to be cool was quickly fading. "I told you that I saw myself the
-figure of a man."
-
-"But that you barely saw a figure. You did not form any opinion of
-your own as to the man's identity."
-
-Harry Heathcote was as honest as the sun. Much as he disliked being
-cross-examined, he found himself compelled not only to say the exact
-truth, but the whole truth. "Certainly not. I barely saw a glimpse of
-a figure, and, till I spoke to Nokes just now, I almost doubted
-whether the lad could have distinguished him. I am sure he was right
-now."
-
-"Really, Mr. Heathcote, I can't go along with you. You are accusing a
-man of committing an offense, which I believe is capital, on the
-evidence of a boy of whom you know nothing, who may have his own
-reasons for spiting the man, and whom you yourself did not believe
-till you had looked this man in the face. I think you allow yourself
-to be guided too much by your own power of intuition."
-
-"No, I don't," said Harry, who hated his neighbor's methodical
-argument.
-
-"At any rate, I can't consent to take a man's bread out of his mouth,
-and to send him away tainted as he would be with this suspicion,
-either because Jacko thought that he saw him in the dark, or
-because--"
-
-"I have never asked you to send him away."
-
-"What is it you want, then?"
-
-"I want to have him watched, so that he may feel that if he attempts
-to destroy my property his guilt will be detected."
-
-"Who is to watch him?"
-
-"He is in your employment."
-
-"He lives in the hut down beyond the gate. Am I to keep a sentry
-there all night, and every night?"
-
-"I will pay for it."
-
-"No, Mr. Heathcote. I don't pretend to know this country yet, but
-I'll encourage no such espionage as that. At any rate, it is not
-English. I dare say the man misbehaved himself in your employment.
-You say he was drunk. I do not doubt it. But he is not a drunkard,
-for he never drinks here. A man is not to starve forever because he
-once got drunk and was impertinent. Nor is he to have a spy at his
-heels because a boy whom nobody knows chooses to denounce him. I am
-sorry that you should be in trouble, but I do not know that I can
-help you."
-
-Harry's passion was now very high, and his resolution to be cool was
-almost thrown to the winds. Medlicot had said many things which were
-odious to him. In the first place, there had been a tone of
-insufferable superiority, so Harry thought, and that, too, when he
-himself had divested himself of all the superiority naturally
-attached to his position, and had frankly appealed to Medlicot as a
-neighbor. And then this new-fangled sugar grower had told him that he
-was not English, and had said grand words, and had altogether made
-himself objectionable. What did this man know of the Australian bush,
-that he should dare to talk of this or that as being wrong because it
-was un-English! In England there were police to guard men's property.
-Here, out in the Australian forests, a man must guard his own, or
-lose it. But perhaps it was the indifference to the ruin of the women
-belonging to him that Harry Heathcote felt the strongest. The
-stranger cared nothing for the utter desolation which one
-unscrupulous ruffian might produce, felt no horror at the idea of a
-vast devastating fire, but could be indignant in his mock
-philanthropy because it was proposed to watch the doings of a
-scoundrel!
-
-"Good-morning," said Harry, turning round and leaving the office
-brusquely. Medlicot followed him, but Harry went so quickly that not
-another word was spoken. To him the idea of a neighbor in the bush
-refusing such assistance as he had asked was as terrible as to us is
-the thought of a ship at sea leaving another ship in distress. He
-unhitched his horse from the fence, and galloped home as fast as the
-animal would carry him.
-
-Medlicot, when he was left alone, took two or three turns about the
-mill, as though inspecting the work, but at every turn fixed his eyes
-for a few moments on Noke's face. The man was standing under a huge
-caldron regulating the escape of the boiling juice into the different
-vats by raising and lowering a trap, and giving directions to the
-Polynesians as he did so. He was evidently conscious that he was
-being regarded, and, as is usual in such a condition, manifestly
-failed in his struggle to appear unconscious. Medlicot acknowledged
-to himself that the man could not look even him in the face. Was it
-possible that he had been wrong, and that Heathcote, though he had
-expressed himself badly, was entitled to some sympathy in his fear of
-what might be done to him by an enemy? Medlicot also desired to be
-just, being more rational, more logical, and less impulsive than the
-other, being also somewhat too conscious of his own superior
-intelligence. He knew that Heathcote had gone away in great dudgeon,
-and he almost feared that he had been harsh and unneighborly. After a
-while he stood opposite Nokes and addressed him.
-
-"Do the squatters suffer much from fires?" he said.
-
-"Heathcote has been talking to you about that," said the man.
-
-"Can't you say Mr. Heathcote when you speak of a gentleman whose
-bread you have eaten?"
-
-"Mr. Heathcote, if you like it. We ain't particular to a shade out
-here as you are at home. He has been telling you about fires, has
-he?"
-
-"Well, he has."
-
-"And talking of me, I suppose?"
-
-"You were talking of having a turn at mining some day. How would it
-be with you if you were to be off to Gympie?"
-
-"You mean to say I'm to go, Mr. Medlicot?"
-
-"I don't say that at all."
-
-"Look here, Mr. Medlicot. My going or staying won't make any
-difference to Heathcote. There's a lot of 'em about here hates him
-that much that he is never to be allowed to rest in peace. I tell you
-that fairly. It ain't any thing as I shall do. Them's not my ways,
-Mr. Medlicot. But he has enemies here as'll never let him rest."
-
-"Who are they?"
-
-"Pretty nigh every body round. He has carried himself that high they
-won't stand him. Who's Heathcote?"
-
-"Name some who are his enemies."
-
-"There's the Brownbies."
-
-"Oh, the Brownbies. Well, it's a bad thing to have enemies." After
-that he left the sugar-house and went across to the cottage.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-BOSCOBEL.
-
-
-Two days and two nights passed without fear of fire, and then Harry
-Heathcote was again on the alert. The earth was parched as though no
-drop of rain had fallen. The fences were dry as tinder, and the
-ground was strewed with broken atoms of timber from the trees, each
-of which a spark would ignite. Two nights Harry slept in his bed, but
-on the third he was on horseback about the run, watching, thinking,
-endeavoring to make provision, directing others, and hoping to make
-it believed that his eyes were every where. In this way an entire
-week was passed, and now it wanted but four days to Christmas. He
-would come home to breakfast about seven in the morning, very tired,
-but never owning that he was tired, and then sleep heavily for an
-hour or two in a chair. After that he would go out again on the run,
-would sleep perhaps for another hour after dinner, and then would
-start for his night's patrol. During this week he saw nothing of
-Medlicot, and never mentioned his name but once. On that occasion his
-wife told him that during his absence Medlicot had been at the
-station.
-
-"What brought him here?" Harry asked, fiercely.
-
-Mrs. Heathcote explained that he had called in a friendly way, and
-had said that if there were any fear of fire he would be happy
-himself to lend assistance.
-
-Then the young squatter forgot himself in his wrath. "Confound his
-hypocrisy!" said Harry, aloud. "I don't think he's a hypocrite," said
-the wife.
-
-"I'm sure he's not," said Kate Daly.
-
-Not a word more was spoken, and Harry immediately left the house. The
-two women did not as usual go to the gate to see him mount his horse,
-not refraining from doing so in any anger, or as wishing to exhibit
-displeasure at Harry's violence, but because they were afraid of him.
-They had found themselves compelled to differ from him, but were
-oppressed at finding themselves in opposition to him.
-
-The feeling that his wife should in any way take part against him
-added greatly to Heathcote's trouble. It produced in his mind a
-terrible feeling of loneliness in his sorrow. He bore a brave outside
-to all his men, and to any stranger whom in these days he met about
-the run--to his wife and sister also, and to the old woman at home.
-He forced upon them all an idea that he was not only autocratic, but
-self-sufficient also--that he wanted neither help nor sympathy. He
-never cried out in his pain, being heartily ashamed even of the
-appeal which he had made to Medlicot. He spoke aloud and laughed with
-the men, and never acknowledged that his trials were almost too much
-for him. But he was painfully conscious of his own weakness. He
-sometimes felt, when alone in the bush, that he would fain get off
-his horse, and lie upon the ground and weep till he slept. It was not
-that he trusted no one. He suspected no one with a positive
-suspicion, except Nokes, and Medlicot as the supporter of Nokes. But
-he had no one with whom he could converse freely--none whom he had
-not been accustomed to treat as the mere ministers of his will--except
-his wife and his wife's sister; and now he was disjoined from them
-by their sympathy with Medlicot! He had chosen to manage every
-thing himself without contradiction and almost without counsel; but,
-like other such imperious masters, he now found that when trouble
-came the privilege of dictatorship brought with it an almost
-unsupportable burden.
-
-Old Bates was an excellent man, of whose fidelity the young squatter
-was quite assured. No one understood foot-rot better than Old Bates,
-or was less sparing of himself in curing it. He was a second mother
-to all the lambs, and when shearing came watched with the eyes of
-Argus to see that the sheep were not wounded by the shearers, or the
-wool left on their backs. But he had no conversation, none of that
-imagination which in such a time as this might have assisted in
-devising safeguards, and but little enthusiasm. Shepherds, so called,
-Harry kept none upon the run; and would have felt himself insulted
-had any one suggested that he was so backward in his ways as to
-employ men of that denomination. He had fenced his run, and dispensed
-with shepherds and shepherding as old-fashioned and unprofitable. He
-had two mounted men, whom he called boundary riders, one an Irishman
-and the other a German--and them he trusted fully, the German
-altogether, and the Irishman equally as regarded his honesty. But he
-could not explain to them the thoughts that loaded his brain. He
-could instigate them to eagerness; but he could not condescend to
-tell Karl Bender, the German, that if his fences were destroyed
-neither his means nor his credit would be sufficient to put them up
-again, and that if the scanty herbage were burned off any large
-proportion of his run, he must sell his flocks at a great sacrifice.
-Nor could he explain to Mickey O'Dowd, the Irishman, that his peace
-of mind was destroyed by his fear of one man. He had to bear it all
-alone. And there was heavy on him also the great misery of feeling
-that every thing might depend on own exertions, and that yet he did
-not know how or where to exert himself. When he had ridden about all
-night and discovered nothing, he might just as well have been in bed.
-And he was continually riding about all night and discovering
-nothing.
-
-After leaving the station on the evening of the day on which he had
-expressed himself to the women so vehemently respecting Medlicot, he
-met Bates coming home from his day's work. It was then past eight
-o'clock, and the old man was sitting wearily on his horse, with his
-head low down between his shoulders, and the reins hardly held within
-his grasp.
-
-"You're late, Mr. Bates," said Harry; "you take too much out of
-yourself this hot weather."
-
-"I've got to move slower, Mr. Heathcote, as I grow older. That's
-about it. And the beast I'm on is not much good." Now Mr. Bates was
-always complaining of his horse, and yet was allowed to choose any on
-the run for his own use.
-
-"If you don't like him, why don't you take another?"
-
-"There ain't much difference in 'em, Mr. Heathcote. Better the devil
-you know than the devil you don't. It's getting uncommon close
-shaving for them wethers in the new paddock. They're down upon the
-roots pretty well already."
-
-"There's grass along the bush on the north side."
-
-"They won't go there; it's rank and sour. They won't feed up there as
-long as they can live lower down and nearer the water. Weather like
-this, they'd sooner die near the water than travel to fill their
-bellies. It's about the hottest day we've had, and the nights a'most
-hotter. Are you going to be out, Mr. Heathcote?"
-
-"I think so."
-
-"What's the good of it, Mr. Heathcote? There is no use in it. Lord
-love you, what can yon do? You can't be every side at once."
-
-"Fire can only travel with the wind, Mr. Bates."
-
-"And there isn't any wind, and so there can't be any fire. I never
-did think, and I don't think now, there ever was any use in a man
-fashing himself as you fash yourself. You can't alter things, Mr.
-Heathcote."
-
-"But that's just what I can do--what a man has to do. If a match were
-thrown there at your feet, and the grass was aflame, couldn't you
-alter that by putting your foot on it? If you find a ewe on her back,
-can't you alter that by putting her on her legs?"
-
-"Yes, I can do that, I suppose."
-
-"What does a man live for except to alter things? When a man clears
-the forest and sows corn, does he not alter things?"
-
-"That's not your line, Mr. Heathcote," said the cunning old man.
-
-"If I send wool to market, I alter things."
-
-"You'll excuse me, Mr. Heathcote. Of course I'm old, but I just give
-you my experience."
-
-"I'm much obliged to you; though we can't always agree, you know.
-Good-night. Go in and say a word to my wife, and tell them you saw me
-all right."
-
-"I'll have a crack with 'em, Mr. Heathcote, before I turn in."
-
-"And tell Mary I sent my love."
-
-"I will, Mr. Heathcote; I will."
-
-He was thinking always of his wife during his solitary rides, and of
-her fear and deep anxiety. It was for her sake and for the children
-that he was so care-worn, not for his own. Had he been alone in the
-world he would not have fretted himself in this fashion because of
-the malice of any man. But how would it be with her should he be
-forced to move her from Gangoil? And yet, with all his love, they had
-parted almost in anger. Surely she would understand the tenderness of
-the message he had just sent her.
-
-Of a sudden, as he was riding, he stopped his horse and listened
-attentively. From a great distance there fell upon his accustomed ear
-a sound which he recognized, though he was aware that the place from
-whence it came was at least two miles distant. It was the thud of an
-axe against a tree. He listened still, and was sure that it was so,
-and turned at once toward the sound, though in doing so he left his
-course at a right angle. He had been going directly away from the
-river, with his back to the wool-shed; but now he changed his
-course, riding in the direction of the spot at which Jacko had nearly
-fallen in jumping over the fence. As he continued on, the sounds
-became plainer, till at last, reining in his horse, he could see the
-form of the woodman, who was still at work ringing the trees. This
-was a job which the man did by contract, receiving so much an acre
-for the depopulation of the timber. It was now bright moonlight,
-almost as clear as day--a very different night, indeed, from that on
-which the rain had come--and Harry could see at a glance that it was
-the man called Boscobel still at work. Now there were, as he thought,
-very good reasons why Boscobel at the present moment should not be so
-employed. Boscobel was receiving wages for work of another kind.
-
-"Bos," said the squatter, riding up, and addressing the man by the
-customary abbreviation of his nickname, "I thought you were watching
-at Brownbie's boundary?" Boscobel lowered his axe, and stood for a
-while contemplating the proposition made to him. "You are drawing
-three shillings a night for watching; isn't that so?"
-
-"Yes, that's so. Anyways, I shall draw it."
-
-"Then why ain't you watching?"
-
-"There's nothing to watch that I knows on--not just now."
-
-"Then why should I pay you for it? I'm to pay you for ringing these
-trees, ain't I?"
-
-"Certainly, Mr. Heathcote."
-
-"Then you're to make double use of your time, and sell it twice over,
-are you? Don't try to look like a fool, as though you didn't
-understand. You know that what you're doing isn't honest."
-
-"Nobody ever said as I wasn't honest before."
-
-"I tell you so now. You're robbing me of the time you've sold to me,
-and for which I'm to pay you."
-
-"There ain't nothing to watch while the wind's as it is now, and that
-chap ain't any where about to-night."
-
-"What chap?"
-
-"Oh, I know. I'm all right. What's the use of dawdling about up there
-in the broad moonlight, and the wind like this?"
-
-"That's for me to judge. If you engage to do my work and take my
-money, you're swindling me when you go about another job as you are
-now. You needn't scratch your head. You understand it all as well as
-I do."
-
-"I never was told I swindled before, and I ain't a-going to put up
-with it. You may ring your own trees, and watch your own fences, and
-the whole place may be burned for me. I ain't a-going to do another
-turn in Gangoil. Swindle, indeed!" So Boscobel shouldered his axe,
-and marched off through the forest, visible in the moonlight till the
-trees hid him.
-
-There was another enemy made! He had never felt quite sure of this
-man, but had been glad to have him about the place as being
-thoroughly efficient in his own business. It was only during the last
-ten days that he had agreed to pay him for night-watching, leaving
-the man to do as much additional day-work as he pleased--for which,
-of course, he would be paid at the regular contract price. There was
-a double purpose intended in this watching--as was well understood by
-all the hands employed: first, that of preventing incendiary fire by
-the mere presence of the watchers; and secondly, that of being at
-hand to extinguish fire in case of need. Now a man ringing trees five
-or six miles away from the beat on which he was stationed could not
-serve either of these purposes. Boscobel therefore had been
-fraudulently at work for his own dishonest purposes, and knew well
-that his employment was of that nature. All this was quite clear to
-Heathcote; and it was clear to him, also, that when he detected fraud
-he was bound to expose it. Had the man acknowledged his fault and
-been submissive, there would have been an end of the matter.
-Heathcote would have said no word about it to any one, and would not
-have stopped a farthing from the week's unearned wages. That he had
-to encounter a certain amount of ill usage from the rough men about
-him, and to forgive it, he could understand; but it could not be his
-duty, either as a man or a master, to pass over dishonesty without
-noticing it. No; that he would not do, though Gangoil should burn
-from end to end. He did not much mind being robbed. He knew that to a
-certain extent he must endure to be cheated. He would endure it. But
-he would never teach his men to think that he passed over such
-matters because he was afraid of them, or that dishonesty on their
-part was indifferent to him.
-
-But now he had made another enemy--an enemy of a man who had declared
-to him that he knew the movements of "that chap," meaning Nokes! How
-hard the world was! It seemed that all around were trouble to him. He
-turned his horse back, and made again for the spot which was his
-original destination. As he cantered on among the trees, twisting
-here and there, and regulating his way by the stars, he asked himself
-whether it would not be better for him to go home and lay himself
-down by his wife and sleep, and await the worst that these men could
-do to him. This idea was so strong upon him that at one spot he made
-his horse stop till he had thought it all out. No one encouraged him
-in his work. Every one about the place, friend or foe, Bates, his
-wife, Medlicot, and this Boscobel, spoke to him as though he were
-fussy and fidgety in his anxiety. "If fires must come, they will
-come; and if they are not to come, you are simply losing your labor."
-This was the upshot of all they said to him. Why should he be wiser
-than they? If the ruin came, let it come. Old Bates had been ruined,
-but still had enough to eat and drink, and clothes to wear, and did
-not work half as hard as his employer. He thought that if he could
-only find some one person who would sympathize with him and support
-him, he would not mind. But the mental loneliness of his position
-almost broke his heart.
-
-Then there came across his mind the dim remembrance of certain old
-school words, and he touched his horse with his spur and hurried
-onward: "Let there be no steps backward." A thought as to the
-manliness of persevering, of the want of manliness in yielding to
-depression, came to his rescue. Let him, at any rate, have the
-comfort of thinking that he had done his best according to his
-lights. After some dim fashion, he did come to recognize it as a fact
-that nothing could really support him but self-approbation. Though he
-fell from his horse in utter weariness, he would persevere.
-
-As the night wore on he came to the German's hut, and finding it
-empty, as he expected, rode on to the outside fence of his run. When
-he reached this he got off his horse, and taking a key out of his
-pocket, whistled upon it loudly. A few minutes afterward the German
-came up to him.
-
-"There's been no one about, I suppose?" he asked.
-
-"Not a one," said the man.
-
-"You've been across on Brownbie's run?"
-
-"We're on it now, Mr. 'Eathcote." They were both on the side of the
-fence away from Gangoil station.
-
-"I don't know how that is, Karl. I think Gangoil goes a quarter of a
-mile beyond this. But we did not quite strike the boundary when we
-put up the fence."
-
-"Brownbie's cattle is allays here, Mr. 'Eathcote, and is knocking
-down the fence every day. Brownbie is a rascal, and 'is cattle as bad
-as 'isself."
-
-"Never mind that, Karl, now. When we've got through the heats, we'll
-put a mile or two of better fencing along here. You know Boscobel?"
-
-"In course I know Bos."
-
-"What sort of a fellow is he?" Then Harry told his German dependent
-exactly what had taken place between him and the other man.
-
-"He's in and in wid all them young Brownbies," said Karl.
-
-"The Brownbies are a bad lot, but I don't think they'd do any thing
-of this kind," said Harry, whose mind was still dwelling on the
-dangers of fire.
-
-"They likes muttons, Mr. 'Eathcote."
-
-"I suppose they do take a sheep or two now and then. They wouldn't do
-worse than that, would they?"
-
-"Not'ing too 'ot for 'em; not'ing too 'eavy," said Karl, smoking his
-pipe. "The vind, vat there is, comes just here, Mr. 'Eathcote." And
-the man lifted up his arm, and pointed across in the direction of
-Brownbie's run.
-
-"And you don't think much of Boscobel?"
-
-Karl Bender shook his head.
-
-"He was always well treated here," said Harry, "and has had plenty of
-work, and earned large wages. The man will be a fool to quarrel with
-me."
-
-Karl again shook his head. With Karl Bender, Harry was quite sure of
-his man, but not on that account need he be quite sure of the
-correctness of the man's opinion.
-
-Thence he went on till he met his other lieutenant, O'Dowd, and so,
-having completed his work, he made his way home, reaching the station
-at sunrise.
-
-"Did Bates tell you he'd met me?" he asked his wife.
-
-"Yes, Harry; kiss me, Harry. I was so glad you sent a word. Promise
-me, Harry, not to think that I don't agree with you in every thing."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE BROWNBIES OF BOOLABONG.
-
-
-Old Brownbie, as he was usually called, was a squatter also, but a
-squatter of a class very different from that to which Heathcote
-belonged. He had begun his life in the colonies a little under a
-cloud, having been sent out from home after the perpetration of some
-peccadillo of which the law had disapproved.
-
-In colonial phrase, he was a "lag"--having been transported; but this
-was many years ago, when he was quite young; and he had now been a
-free man for more than thirty years. It must be owned on his behalf
-that he had worked hard, had endeavored to rise, and had risen. But
-there still stuck to him the savor of his old life. Every one knew
-that he had been a convict; and even had he become a man of high
-principle--a condition which he certainly never achieved--he could
-hardly have escaped altogether from the thralldom of his degradation.
-He had been a butcher, a drover, part owner of stock, and had at last
-become possessed of a share of a cattle-run, and then of the entire
-property, such as it was. He had four or five sons, uneducated,
-ill-conditioned, drunken fellows, who had all their father's faults
-without his energy, some of whom had been in prison, and all of whom
-were known as pests to the colony. Their place was called Boolabong,
-and was a cattle-run, as distinguished from a sheep-run; but it was a
-poor place, was sometimes altogether unstocked, and was supposed to
-be not unfrequently used as a receptable for stolen cattle.
-
-The tricks which the Brownbies played with cattle were notorious
-throughout Queensland and New South Wales, and by a certain class of
-men were much admired. They would drive a few head of cattle, perhaps
-forty or fifty, for miles around the country, across one station and
-another, traveling many hundreds of miles, and here and there, as
-they passed along, they would sweep into their own herd the bullocks
-of the victims whose lands they passed. If detected on the spot, they
-gave up their prey. They were in the right in moving their own
-cattle, and were not responsible for the erratic tendencies of other
-animals. If successful, they either sold their stolen beasts to
-butchers on the road, or got them home to Boolabong. There were
-dangers, of course, and occasional penalties. But there was much
-success. It was supposed, also, that though they did not own sheep,
-they preferred mutton for their daily uses, and that they supplied
-themselves at a very cheap rate.
-
-It may be imagined how such a family would be hated by the
-respectable squatters on whom they preyed. Still there were men, old
-stagers, who had know Moreton Bay before it was a colony--in the old
-days when convicts were common--who almost regarded the Brownbies as
-a part of the common order of things, and who were indisposed to
-persecute them. Men must live; and what were a few sheep? Of some
-such it might be said, that though they were above the arts by which
-the Brownbies lived, they were not very scrupulous themselves; and it
-perhaps served them to have within their ken neighbours whose
-morality was lower even than their own. But to such a one as Harry
-Heathcote the Brownbies were utterly abominable. He was for the law
-and justice at any cost. To his thinking, the Colonial Government was
-grossly at fault, because it did not weed out and extirpate not only
-the identical Brownbies, but all Brownbieism wherever it might be
-found. A dishonest workman was a great evil, but, to his thinking, a
-dishonest man in the position of master was the incarnation of evil.
-As to the difficulties of evidence, and obstacles of that nature,
-Harry Heathcote knew nothing. The Brownbies were rascals, and should
-therefore be exterminated.
-
-And the Brownbies knew well the estimation in which their neighbour
-held them. Harry had made himself altogether disagreeable to them.
-They were squatters as well as he--or at least so they termed
-themselves; and though they would not have expected to be admitted to
-home intimacies, they thought that when they were met out-of-doors or
-in public places, they should be treated with some respect. On such
-occasions Harry treated them as though they were dirt beneath his
-feet. The Brownbies would be found, whenever a little money came
-among them, at the public billiard-rooms and race-courses within one
-hundred and fifty miles of Boolabong. At such places Harry Heathcote
-was never seen. It would have been as easy to seduce the Bishop of
-Brisbane into a bet as Harry Heathcote. He had never even drank a
-nobbler with one of the Brownbies. To their thinking, he was a proud,
-stuck-up, unsocial young cub, whom to rob was a pleasure, and to ruin
-would be a delight.
-
-The old man at Boolabong was now almost obsolete. Property, that he
-could keep in his grasp, there was in truth none. He was the tenant
-of the run under the Crown, and his sons would not turn him out of
-the house. The cattle, when there were cattle, belonged to them. They
-were in no respect subject to his orders, and he would have had a bad
-life among them were it not that they quarreled among themselves, and
-that in such quarrels he could belong to one party or to the other.
-The house itself was a wretched place--out of order, with doors and
-windows and floors shattered, broken, and decayed. There were none of
-womankind belonging to the family, and in such a house a decent
-woman-servant would have been out of her place. Sometimes there was
-one hag there and sometimes another, and sometimes feminine aid less
-respectable than that of the hags. There had been six sons. One had
-disappeared utterly, so that nothing was known of him. One had been
-absolutely expelled by the brethren, and was now a vagabond in the
-country, turning up now and then at Boolabong and demanding food. Of
-the whole lot Georgie Brownbie, the vagabond, was the worst. The
-eldest son was at this time in prison at Brisbane, having on some
-late occasion been less successful than usual in regard to some
-acquired bullocks. The three youngest were at home--Jerry, Jack, and
-Joe. Tom, who was in prison, was the only stanch friend to the
-father, who consequently at this time was in a more than usually
-depressed condition.
-
-Christmas-day would fall on a Tuesday, and on the Monday before it
-Jerry Brownbie, the eldest of those now at home, was sitting, with a
-pipe in his mouth, on a broken-down stool on the broken-down veranda
-of the house, and the old man was seated on a stuffy, worn-out sofa
-with three legs, which was propped against the wall of the house, and
-had not been moved for years. Old Brownbie was a man of gigantic
-frame, and had possessed immense personal power--a man, too, of will
-and energy; but he was now worn out and dropsical, and could not move
-beyond the confines of the home station. The veranda was attached to
-a big room which ran nearly the whole length of the house, and which
-was now used for all purposes. There was an exterior kitchen, in
-which certain processes were carried on--such as salting stolen
-mutton and boiling huge masses of meat, when such work was needed.
-But the cookery was generally done in the big room. And here also two
-or three of the sons slept on beds made upon stretchers along the
-wall. They were not probably very particular as to which owned each
-bed, enjoying a fraternal communism in that respect. At the end of
-this chamber the old man had a room of his own. Boolabong was
-certainly a miserable place; and yet, such as it was, it was
-frequented by many guests. The vagabondism of the colonies is
-proverbial. Vagabonds are taken in almost every where throughout the
-bush. But the welcome given to them varies. Sometimes they are made
-to work before they are fed--to their infinite disgust. But no such
-cruelty was exercised at Boolabong. Boolabong was a very Paradise for
-vagabonds. There was always flour and meat to be had, generally
-tobacco, and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler. The Brownbies
-were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very
-existence that they should have friends in the land. On the Sunday
-the father and Jerry Brownbie were sitting out in the veranda at
-about noon, and the other two sons, Jack and Joe, were lying asleep
-on the beds within.
-
-The heat of the day was intense. There was a wind blowing, but it was
-that which is called there the hot wind, which comes dry, scorching,
-sometimes almost intolerable, over the burning central plain of the
-country. No one can understand without feeling it how much a wind can
-add to the sufferings inflicted by heat. The old man had on a dirty,
-wretched remnant of a dressing-gown, but Jerry was clothed simply in
-trowsers and an old shirt. Only that the mosquitoes would have flayed
-him, he would have dispensed probably with these. He had been
-quarreling with his father respecting a certain horse which he had
-sold, of the price of which the father demanded a share. Jerry had
-unblushingly declared that he himself had "shaken" the horse--Anglice,
-had stolen him--twelve months since on Darnley Downs, and was
-therefore clearly entitled to the entire plunder. The father
-had rejoined with animation that unless "half a quid"--or ten
-shillings--were given him as his contribution to the keep of the
-animal, he would inform against his son to the squatter on the Darnley
-Downs, and had shown him that he knew the very run from which the
-horse had been taken. Then the sons within had interfered from their
-beds, swearing that their father was the noisiest old "cuss" unhung,
-they having had their necessary slumbers disturbed.
-
-At this moment the debate was interrupted by the appearance of a man
-outside the veranda. "Well, Mr. Jerry, how goes it?" asked the
-stranger. "What, Bos, is that you? What brings you up to Boolabong? I
-thought you was ringing trees for that young scut at Gangoil? I'll be
-even with him some of these days! He had the impudence to send a man
-of his up here last week looking for sheep-skins."
-
-"He wasn't that soft, Mr. Jerry, was he? Well, I've dropped working
-for him.--How are you, Mr. Brownbie? I hope I see you finely, Sir.
-It's stiffish sort of weather, Mr. Brownbie, ain't it, Sir?"
-
-The old man grunted out some reply, and then asked Boscobel what he
-wanted.
-
-"I'll just hang about for the day, Mr. Brownbie, and get a little
-grub. You never begrudged a working-man that yet."
-
-Old Brownbie again grunted, but said no word of welcome. That,
-however, was to be taken for granted, without much expression of
-opinion.
-
-"No, Mr. Jerry," continued Boscobel, "I've done with that fellow."
-
-"And so has Nokes done with him."
-
-"Nokes is at work on Medlicot's Mill. That sugar business wouldn't
-suit me."
-
-"An axe in your hand is what you're fit for, Bos."
-
-"There's a many things I can turn my hand to, Mr. Jerry. You couldn't
-give a fellow such a thing as a nobbler, Mr. Jerry, could you? I'd
-offer money for it, only I know it would be taken amiss. It's that
-hot that a fellow's very in'ards get parched up."
-
-Upon this Jerry slowly rose, and going to a cupboard, brought forth a
-modicum of spirits, which he called Battle-Axe, but which was
-supposed to be brandy. This Boscobel swallowed at a gulp, and then
-washed it down with a little water.
-
-"Come, Jerry," said the old man, somewhat relenting in his wrath,
-"you might as well give us a drop, as it's going about." The two
-brothers, who had now been thoroughly aroused from their sleep, and
-who had heard the enticing sound of the spirit bottle, joined the
-party, and so they drank all round.
-
-"Heathcote's in an awful state about them fires, ain't he?" asked
-Jerry.
-
-Boscobel, who had squatted down on the veranda, and was now lighting
-his pipe, bobbed his head.
-
-"I wish he was clean burned out--over head and ears," said Jerry.
-
-Boscobel bobbed his head again, sucking with great energy at the
-closely staffed pipe.
-
-"If he treated me like he does you fellows," continued Jerry, "he
-shouldn't have a yard of fencing or a blade of grass left--nor a ewe,
-nor a lamb, nor a hogget. I do hate fellows who come here and want to
-be better than any one about 'em--young chaps especially. Sending up
-here to look for sheep-skins, cuss his impudence! I sent that German
-fellow of his away with a flea in his ear."
-
-"Karl Bender?"
-
-"It's some such name as that."
-
-"He's all in all with the young squire," said Boscobel. "And there's
-a chap there called Jacko--he's another. He gets 'em down there to
-Gangoil, and the ladies talks to 'em, and then they'd go through fire
-and water for him. There's Mickey--he's another, jist the same way. I
-don't like them ways, myself."
-
-"Too much of master and man about it, ain't there, Bos?"
-
-"Just that, Mr. Jerry. That ain't my idea of a free country. I can
-work as well as another, but I ain't going to be told that I'm a
-swindler because I'm making the most of my time."
-
-"He turned Nokes out by the scruff of his neck?" said Jerry. Boscobel
-again bobbed his head. "I didn't think Nokes was the sort of fellow
-to stand that."
-
-"No more he ain't," said Boscobel.
-
-"Heathcote's a good plucked un all the same," said Joe.
-
-"It's like you to speak up for such a fellow is that," said Jerry.
-
-"I say he's a good plucked un. I'm not standing up for him. Nokes is
-half a stone heavier than him, and ought to have knocked him over.
-That's what you'd've done, wouldn't you, Bos? I know I would."
-
-"He'd 've had my axe at his head," said Boscobel.
-
-"We all know Joe's game to the backbone," said Jerry.
-
-"I'm game enough for you, anyway," said the brother. "And you can try
-it out any time you like."
-
-"That's right; fight like dogs, do," said the old man.
-
-The quarrel at this point was interrupted by the arrival of another
-man, who crept up round the corner on to the veranda exactly as
-Boscobel had done. This was Nokes, of whom they had that moment been
-speaking. There was silence for a few moments among them, as though
-they feared that he might have heard them, and Nokes stood hanging
-his head as though half ashamed of himself. Then they gave him the
-same kind of greeting as the other men had received. Nobody told him
-that he was welcome, but the spirit jar was again brought into use,
-Jerry measuring out the liquor, and it was understood that Nokes was
-to stay there and get his food. He too gave some account of himself,
-which was supposed to suffice, but which they all knew to be false.
-It was Sunday, and they were off work at the sugar-mill. He had come
-across Gangoil run, intending to take back with him things of his own
-which he had left as Bender's hut, and having come so far, had
-thought that he would come on and get his dinner at Boolabong. As
-this was being told, a good deal was said of Harry Heathcote. Nokes
-declared that he had come right across Gangoil, and explained that he
-would not have been at all sorry to meet Master Heathcote in the
-bush. Master Heathcote had had his own way up at the station when he
-was backed by a lot of his own hands; but a good time was coming,
-perhaps. Then Nokes gave it to be understood very plainly that it was
-the settled practice of his life to give Harry Heathcote a thrashing.
-During all this there was an immense amount of bad language, and a
-large portion of the art which in the colony is called "blowing."
-Jerry, Boscobel, and Nokes all boasted, each that on the first
-occasion he would give Harry Heathcote such a beating that a whole
-bone should hardly be left in the man's skin.
-
-"There isn't one of you man enough to touch him," said Joe, who was
-known as the freest fighter of the Brownbie family.
-
-"And you'd eat him, I suppose," said Jerry.
-
-"He's not likely to come in my way," said Joe; "but if he does, he'll
-get as good as he brings. That's all."
-
-This was unpleasant to the visitors, who, of course, felt themselves
-to be snubbed. Boscobel affected to hear the slight put upon his
-courage with good humor, but Nokes laid himself down in a corner and
-sulked. They were soon all asleep, and remained dozing, snoring,
-changing their uncomfortable positions, and cursing the mosquitoes,
-till about four in the afternoon, when Boscobel got up, shook
-himself, and made some observation about "grub." The meal of the day
-was then prepared. A certain quantity of flour and raw meat, ample
-for their immediate wants, was given to the two strangers, with which
-they retired into the outer kitchen, prepared it for themselves, and
-there ate their dinner, and each of the brothers did the same for
-himself in the big room--Joe, the fighting brother, providing for his
-father's wants as well as his own. One of them had half a leg of cold
-mutton, so that he was saved the trouble of cooking, but he did not
-offer to share this comfort with the others. An enormous kettle of
-tea was made, and that was common among them. While this was being
-consumed, Boscobel put his head into the room, and suggested that he
-and his mate wanted a drink. Whereupon Jerry, without a word, pointed
-to the kettle, and Boscobel was allowed to fill two pannikins. Such
-was the welcome which was always accorded to strangers in Boolabong.
-
-After their meal the men came back on to the veranda, and there were
-more smoking and sleeping, more boasting and snarling. Different
-allusions were made to the spirit jar, especially by the old man; but
-they were made in vain. The "Battle-Axe" was Jerry's own property,
-and he felt that he had already been almost foolishly liberal. But he
-had an object in view. He was quite sure that Boscobel and Nokes had
-not come to Boolabong on the same Sunday by any chance coincidence.
-The men had something to propose, and in their own way they would
-make the proposition before they left, and would make it probably to
-him. Boscobel intended to sleep at Boolabong, but Nokes had explained
-that it was his purpose to return that night to Medlicot's Mill. The
-proposition no doubt would be made soon--a little after seven, when
-the day was preparing to give way suddenly to night. Nokes first
-walked off, sloping out from the veranda in a half-shy, half-cunning
-manner, looking nowhither, and saying a word to no one. Quickly after
-him Boscobel jumped up suddenly, hitched up his trowsers, and
-followed the first man. At about a similar interval Jerry passed out
-through the big room to the yard at the back, and from the yard to a
-shed that was used as a shambles. Here he found the other two men,
-and no doubt the proposition was made.
-
-"There's something up," said the old man, as soon as Jerry was gone.
-
-"Of course there's something up," said Joe. "Those fellows didn't
-come all the way to Boolabong for nothing."
-
-"It's something about young Heathcote," suggested the father.
-
-"If it is," said Jack, "what's that to you?"
-
-"They'll get themselves hanged, that's all about it."
-
-"That be blowed," said Jack; "you go easy and hold your tongue. If
-you know nothing, nobody can hurt you."
-
-"I know nothing," said Joe, "and don't mean. If I had scores to quit
-with a fellow like Harry Heathcote, I should do it after my own
-fashion. I shouldn't get Boscobel to help me, nor yet such a fellow
-as Nokes. But it's no business of mine. Heathcote's made the place
-too hot to hold him. That's all about it." There was no more said,
-and in an hour's time Jerry returned, to the family. Neither the
-father nor brother asked him any questions, nor did he volunteer any
-information.
-
-Boolabong was about fourteen miles from Medlicot's Mill. Nokes
-had walked this distance in the morning, and now retraced it at
-night--not going right across Gangoil, as he had falsely boasted of
-doing early in the day, but skirting it, and keeping on the outside
-of the fence nearly the whole distance. At about two in the morning
-he reached his cottage outside the mill on the river-bank; but he was
-unable to skulk in unheard. Some dogs made a noise, and presently he
-heard a voice calling him from the house. "Is that you, Nokes, at
-this time of night?" asked Mr. Medlicot. Nokes grunted out some
-reply, intending to avoid any further question. But his master came
-up to the hut door and asked him where he had been.
-
-"Just amusing myself," said Nokes.
-
-"It's very late."
-
-"It's not later for me than for you, Mr. Medlicot."
-
-"That's true. I've just ridden home from
-
-"From Gangoil? I didn't know you were so friendly there, Mr.
-Medlicot."
-
-"And where have you been?"
-
-"Not to Gangoil, anyway. Good-night, Mr. Medlicot." Then the man took
-himself into his hut, and was safe from further questioning that
-night.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-"I WISH YOU'D LIKE ME."
-
-
-All the Saturday night Heathcote had been on the run, and he did not
-return home to bed till nearly dawn on the Sunday morning. At about
-noon prayers were read out on the veranda, the congregation
-consisting of Mrs. Heathcote and her sister, Mrs. Growler, and Jacko.
-Harry himself was rather averse to this performance, intimating that
-Mrs. Growler, if she were so minded, could read the prayers for
-herself in the kitchen, and that, as regarded Jacko, they would be
-altogether thrown away. But his wife had made a point of maintaining
-the practice, and he had of course yielded. The service was not long,
-and when it was over Harry got into a chair and was soon asleep. He
-had been in the saddle during sixteen hours of the previous day and
-night, and was entitled to be fatigued. His wife sat beside him,
-every now and again protecting him from the flies, while Kate Daly
-sat by with her Bible in her hand. But she, too, from time to time,
-was watching her brother-in-law. The trouble of his spirits and the
-work that he felt himself bound to do touched them with a strong
-feeling, and taught them to regard him for the time as a young hero.
-
-"How quietly he sleeps!" Kate said. "The fatigue of the last week
-must have been terrible."
-
-"He is quite, quite knocked up," said the wife.
-
-"I ain't knocked up a bit," said Harry, jumping up from his chair.
-"What should knock me up? I wasn't asleep, was I?"
-
-"Just dozing, dear."
-
-"Ah, well; there isn't any thing to do, and it's too hot to get out.
-I wonder Old Bates didn't come in for prayers."
-
-"I don't think he cares much for prayers," said Mrs. Heathcote.
-
-"But he likes an excuse for a nobbler as well as any one. Did I tell
-you that they had fires over at Jackson's yesterday--at Goolaroo?"
-
-"Was there any harm done?"
-
-"A deal of grass burned, and they had to drive the sheep, which won't
-serve them this kind of weather. I don't know which I fear most--the
-grass, the fences, or the sheep. As for the buildings, I don't think
-they'll try that again."
-
-"Why not, Harry?"
-
-"The risk of being seen is too great. I can hardly understand that a
-man like Nokes should have been such a fool as he was."
-
-"You think it was Nokes?"
-
-"Oh yes, certainly. In the first place, Jacko is as true as steel. I
-don't mean to swear by the boy, though I think he is a good boy. But
-I'm sure he's true in this. And then the man's manner to myself was
-conclusive. I can not understand a man in Medlicot's position
-supporting a fellow like that. By Heavens! it nearly drives me mad to
-think of it. Thousands and thousands of pounds are at stake. All that
-a man has in the world is exposed to the malice of a scoundrel like
-Nokes! And then a man who calls himself a gentleman will talk about
-it being un-English to look after him. He's a 'new chum;' I suppose
-that's his excuse."
-
-"If it's a sufficient excuse, you should excuse him," said Kate, with
-good feminine logic.
-
-"That's just like you all over. He's good-looking, and therefore it's
-all right. He ought to have learned better. He ought, at any rate, to
-believe that men who have been here much longer than he has must know
-the ways of the country a great deal better."
-
-"It's Christmas-time, Harry," said his wife, "and you should endeavor
-to forgive your neighbors."
-
-"What sort of a Christmas will it be if you and I, and these young
-fellows here, and Kate, are all burned out of Gangoil? Here's
-Bates.--Well, Mr. Bates, how goes it?"
-
-"Tremendous hot, Sir."
-
-"We've found that out already. You haven't heard where that fellow
-Boscobel has gone?"
-
-"No; I haven't heard. But he'll be over with some of those Brownbie
-lads. They say Georgie Brownbie's about the country somewhere. If so,
-there'll be a row among 'em."
-
-"When thieves fall out, Mr. Bates, honest men come by their own."
-
-"So they say, Mr. Heathcote. All the same, I shouldn't care how far
-Georgie was away from any place I had to do with." Then the young
-master and his old superintendent sauntered out to his back premises
-to talk about sheep and fires, and plans for putting out fires. And
-no doubt Mr. Bates had the glass of brandy-and-water which he had
-come to regard as one of his Sunday luxuries. From the back premises
-they went down to the creek to gauge the water. Then they sauntered
-on, keeping always in the shade, sitting down here to smoke, and
-standing up there to discuss the pedigree of some particular ram,
-till it was past six.
-
-"You may as well come in and dine with us, Mr. Bates," Harry
-suggested, as they returned toward the station.
-
-Mr. Bates said that he thought that he would. As the same invitation
-was given on almost every Sunday throughout the year, and was
-invariably answered in the same way, there was not much excitement in
-this. But Mr. Bates would not have dreamed of going in to dinner
-without being asked.
-
-"That's Medlicot's trap," said Mr. Bates, as they entered the yard.
-"I heard wheels when they were in the horse paddock."
-
-Harry looked at the trap, and then went quickly into the house.
-
-He walked with a rapid step onto the veranda, and there he found the
-sugar grower and his mother. Mrs. Heathcote looked at her husband
-almost timidly. She knew from the very sound of his feet that he was
-perturbed in spirit. Under his own roof-tree he would certainly be
-courteous; but there is a constrained courtesy very hard to be borne,
-of which she knew him to be capable. He first went up to the old
-lady, and to her his greeting was pleasant enough. Harry Heathcote,
-though he had assumed the bush mode of dressing, still retained the
-manners of a high-bred gentleman in his intercourse with women. Then,
-turning sharply round, he gave his hand to Mr. Medlicot.
-
-"I am glad to see you at Gangoil," he said; "I was not fortunate
-enough to be at home when you called the other day. Mrs. Medlicot
-must have found the drive very hot, I fear."
-
-His wife was still looking into his face, and was reading there, as
-in a book, the mingled pride and disdain with which her husband
-exercising civility to his enemy. Harry's countenance wore a look not
-difficult of perusal, and Medlicot could read the lines almost as
-distinctly as Harry's wife.
-
-"I have asked Mrs. Medlicot to stay and dine with us," she said, "so
-that she may have it cool for the drive back."
-
-"I am almost afraid of the bush at night," said the old woman.
-
-"You'll have a full moon," said Harry; "it will be as light as day."
-So that was settled. Heathcote thought it odd that the man whom he
-regarded as his enemy, whom he had left at their last meeting in
-positive hostility, should consent to accept a dinner under his roof;
-but that was Medlicot's affair, not his.
-
-They dined at seven, and after dinner strolled out into the horse
-paddock, and down to the creek. As they started, the three men went
-first, and the ladies followed them; but Bates soon dropped behind.
-It was his rest day, and he had already moved quite as much as was
-usual with him on a Sunday.
-
-"I think I was a little hard with you the other day," said Medlicot,
-when they were alone together.
-
-"I suppose we hardly understand each other's ideas," said Harry. He
-spoke with a constrained voice, and with an almost savage manner,
-engendered by a determination to hold his own. He would forgive any
-offense for which an apology was made, but no apology had been made
-as yet; and, to tell the truth, he was a little afraid that if they
-got into an argument on the matter Medlicot would have the best of
-it. And there was, too, almost a claim to superiority in Medlicot's
-use of the word "hard." When one man says that he has been hard to
-another, he almost boasts that, on that occasion, he got the better
-of him.
-
-"That's just it," said Medlicot; "we do not quite understand each
-other. But we might believe in each other all the same, and then the
-understanding would come. But it isn't just that which I want to say;
-such talking rarely does any good."
-
-"What is it, then?"
-
-"You may perhaps be right about that man Nokes."
-
-"No doubt I may. I know I'm right. When I asked him whether he'd
-been at my shed, what made him say that he hadn't been there at
-night-time? I said nothing about night-time. But the man was there
-at night-time, or he wouldn't have used the word."
-
-"I'm not sure that that is evidence."
-
-"Perhaps not in England, Mr. Medlicot, but it's good enough evidence
-for the bush. And what made him pretend he didn't know the distances?
-And why can't he look a man in the face? And why should the boy have
-said it was he if it wasn't? Of course, if you think well of him
-you're right to keep him. But you may take it as a rule out here that
-when a man has been dismissed it hasn't been done for nothing. Men
-treated that way should travel out of the country. It's better for
-all parties. It isn't here as it is at home, where people live so
-thick together that nothing is thought of a man being dismissed. I
-was obliged to discharge him, and now he's my enemy."
-
-"A man may be your enemy without being a felon."
-
-"Of course he may. I'm his enemy in a way, but I wouldn't hurt a hair
-of his head unjustly. When I see the attempts made to burn me out, of
-course I know that an enemy has been at work."
-
-"Is there no one else has got a grudge against you?"
-
-Harry was silent for a moment. What right had this man to
-cross-examine him about his enmities--the man whose own position in
-the place had been one of hostility to him, whom he had almost
-suspected of harboring Nokes at the mill simply because Nokes had
-been dismissed from Gangoil? That suspicion was, indeed, fading away.
-There was something in Medlicot's voice and manner which made it
-impossible to attribute such motives to him. Nevertheless the man was
-a free-selector, and had taken a bit of the Gangoil run after a
-fashion which to Heathcote was objectionable politically, morally,
-and socially. Let Medlicot in regard to character be what he might,
-he was a free-selector, and a squatter's enemy, and had clinched his
-hostility by employing a servant dismissed from the very run out of
-which he had bought his land. "It is hard to say," he replied at
-length, "who have grudges, as against whom, or why. I suppose I have
-a great grudge against you, if the truth is to be known; but I
-sha'n't burn down your mill."
-
-"I'm sure you won't."
-
-"Nor yet say worse of you behind your back than I will to your face."
-
-"I don't want you to think that you have occasion to speak ill of me,
-either one way or the other. What I mean is this--I don't quite think
-that the evidence against Nokes is strong enough to justify me in
-sending him away; but I'll keep an eye on him as well as I can. It
-seems that he left our place early this morning; but the men are not
-supposed to be there on Sundays, and of course he does as he pleases
-with himself."
-
-The conversation then dropped, and in a little time Harry made some
-excuse for leaving them, and returned to the house alone, promising,
-however, that he would not start for his night's ride till after the
-party had come back to the station. "There is no hurry at all," he
-said; "I shan't stir for two hours yet, but Mickey will be waiting
-there for stores for himself and the German."
-
-"That means a nobbler for Mickey," said Kate. "Either of those men
-would think it a treat to ride ten miles in and ten miles back, with
-a horse-load of sugar and tea and flour, for the sake of a glass of
-brandy-and-water."
-
-"And so would you," said Harry, "if you lived in a hut by yourself
-for a fortnight, with nothing to drink but tea without milk."
-
-The old lady and Mrs. Heathcote were soon seated on the grass, while
-Medlicot and Kate Daly roamed on together. Kate was a pretty, modest
-girl, timid withal and shy, unused to society, and therefore awkward,
-but with the natural instincts and aptitudes of her sex. What the
-glass of brandy-and-water was to Mickey O'Dowd after a fortnight's
-solitude in a bush hut, with tea, dampers, and lumps of mutton, a
-young man in the guise of a gentleman was to poor Kate Daly. A
-brother-in-law, let him be ever so good, is after all no better than
-tea without milk. No doubt Mickey O'Dowd often thought about a
-nobbler in his thirsty solitude, and so did Kate speculate on what
-might possibly be the attractions of a lover. Medlicot probably
-indulged in no such speculations; but the nobbler, when brought close
-to his lips, was grateful to him as to others. That Kate Daly was
-very pretty no man could doubt.
-
-"Isn't it sad that he should have to ride about all night like that?"
-said Kate, to whom, as was proper, Harry Heathcote at the present
-moment was of more importance than any other human being.
-
-"I suppose he likes it."
-
-"Oh no, Mr. Medlicot; how can he like it? It is not the hard work he
-minds, but the constant dread of coming evil."
-
-"The excitement keeps him alive."
-
-"There's plenty on a station to keep a man alive in that way at all
-times."
-
-"And plenty to keep ladies alive too?"
-
-"Oh, ladies! I don't know that ladies have any business in the bush.
-Harry's trouble is all about my sister and the children and me. He
-wouldn't care a straw for himself."
-
-"Do you think he'd be better without a wife?"
-
-Kate hesitated for a moment. "Well, no. I suppose it would be very
-rough without Mary; and he'd be so lonely when he came in."
-
-"And nobody to make his tea."
-
-"Or to look after his things," said Kate, earnestly. "I know it was
-very rough before we came here. He says that himself. There were no
-regular meals, but just food in a cupboard when he chose to get it."
-
-"That is not comfortable, certainly."
-
-"Horrid, I should think. I suppose it is better for him to be
-married. You've got your mother, Mr. Medlicot."
-
-"Yes: I've got my mother."
-
-"That makes a difference, does it not?"
-
-"A very great difference. She'll save me from having to go to a
-cupboard for my bread and meat."
-
-"I suppose having a woman about is better for a man. They haven't got
-any thing else to do, and therefore they can look to things."
-
-"Do you help to look to things?"
-
-"I suppose I do something. I often feel ashamed to think how very
-little it is. As for that, I'm not wanted at all."
-
-"So that you're free to go elsewhere?"
-
-"I didn't mean that, Mr. Medlicot; only I know I'm not of much use."
-
-"But if you had a house of your own?"
-
-"Gangoil is my home just as much as it is Mary's; and I sometimes
-feel that Harry is just as good to me as he is to Mary."
-
-"Your sister will never leave Gangoil."
-
-"Not unless Harry gets another station."
-
-"But you will have to be transplanted some day."
-
-Kate merely chucked up her head and pouted her lips, as though to
-show that the proposition was one which did not deserve an answer.
-
-"You'll marry a squatter, of course, Miss Daly?"
-
-"I don't suppose I shall ever marry any body, Mr. Medlicot."
-
-"You wouldn't marry any one but a squatter? I can quite understand
-that. The squatters here are what the lords and the country
-gentlemen are at home."
-
-"I can't even picture to myself what sort of life people live at
-home." Both Medlicot and Kate Daly meant England when they spoke of
-home.
-
-"There isn't so much difference as people think. Classes hang
-together just in the same way; only I think there's a little more
-exclusiveness here than there was there."
-
-In answer to this, Kate asserted with innocent eagerness that she was
-not at all exclusive, and that if ever she married any one she'd
-marry the man she liked.
-
-"I wish you'd like me," said Medlicot.
-
-"That's nonsense," said Kate, in a low, timid whisper, hurrying away
-to rejoin the other ladies. She could speculate on the delights of
-the beverage as would Mickey O'Dowd in his hut; but when it was first
-brought to her lips she could only fly away from it. In this respect
-Mickey O'Dowd was the more sensible of the two. No other word was
-spoken that night between them, but Kate lay awake till morning
-thinking of the one word that had been spoken. But the secret was
-kept sacredly within her own bosom.
-
-Before the Medlicots started that night the old lady made a
-proposition that the Heathcotes and Miss Daly should eat the
-Christmas dinner at Medlicot's Mill. Mrs. Heathcote, thinking perhaps
-of her sister, thoroughly liking what she herself had seen of the
-Medlicots, looked anxiously into Harry's face. If he would consent to
-this, an intimacy would follow, and probably a real friendship be
-made.
-
-"It's out of the question," he said. The very firmness, however, with
-which he spoke gave a certain cordiality even to his refusal. "I must
-be at home, so that the men may know where to find me till I go out
-for the night." Then, after a pause, he continued, "As we can't go to
-you, why should you not come to us?"
-
-So it was at last decided, much to Harry's own astonishment, much to
-his wife's delight. Kate, therefore, when she lay awake, thinking of
-the one word that had been spoken, knew that there would be an
-opportunity for another word.
-
-Medlicot drove his mother home safely, and, after he had taken her
-into the house, encountered Nokes on his return from Boolabong, as
-has been told at the close of the last chapter.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-"I DO WISH HE WOULD COME!"
-
-
-On the Monday morning Harry came home as usual, and, as usual, went
-to bed after his breakfast. "I wouldn't care about the heat if it
-were not for the wind," he said to his wife, as he threw himself
-down.
-
-"The wind carries it so, I suppose."
-
-"Yes; and it comes from just the wrong side--from the northwest.
-There have been half a dozen fires about to-day."
-
-"During the night, you mean."
-
-"No; yesterday--Sunday. I can not make out whether they come by
-themselves. They certainly are not all made by incendiaries."
-
-"Accidents, perhaps."
-
-"Well, yes. Somebody drops a match, and the sun ignites it. But the
-chances are much against a fire like that spreading. Care is wanted
-to make it spread. As far as I can learn, the worst fires have not
-been just after midday, when, of course, the heat is greater, but in
-the early night, before the dews have come. All the same, I feel that
-I know nothing about it--nothing at all. Don't let me sleep long."
-
-In spite of this injunction, Mrs. Heathcote determined that he should
-sleep all day if he would. Even the nights were fearfully hot and
-sultry, and on this Monday morning he had come home much fatigued. He
-would be out again at sunset, and now he should have what rest nature
-would allow him. But in this resolve she was opposed by Jacko, who
-came in at eleven, and requested to see the master. Jacko had been
-over with the German; and, as he explained to Mrs. Heathcote, they
-two had been in and out, sometimes sleeping and sometimes watching.
-But now he wanted to see the master, and under no persuasion would
-impart his information to the mistress. The poor wife, anxious as she
-was that her husband should sleep, did not dare in these perilous
-times to ignore Jacko and his information, and therefore gently woke
-the sleeper. In a few minutes Jacko was standing by the young
-squatter's bedside, and Harry Heathcote, quite awake, was sitting up
-and listening. "George Brownbie's at Boolabong." That at first was
-the gravamen of Jacko's news.
-
-"I know that already, Jacko."
-
-"My word!" exclaimed Jacko. In those parts Georgie Brownbie was
-regarded almost as the Evil One himself, and Jacko, knowing what
-mischief was, as it were, in the word, thought that he was entitled
-to bread and jam, if not to a nobbler itself, in bringing such
-tidings to Gangoil.
-
-"Is that all?" asked Heathcote.
-
-"And Bos is at Boolabong, and Bill Nokes was there all Sunday, and
-Jerry Brownbie's been out with Bos and Georgie."
-
-"The old man wouldn't say any thing of that kind, Jacko."
-
-"The old man! He knows nothing about it. My word! they don't tell him
-about nothing."
-
-"Or Tom?"
-
-"Tom's away in prison. They always cotches the best when they want to
-send 'em to prison. If they'd lock up Jerry and Georgie and Jack! My
-word! yes."
-
-"You think they're arranging it all at Boolabong?"
-
-"In course they are."
-
-"I don't see why Boscobel shouldn't be at Boolabong without intending
-me any harm. Of course he'd go there when he left Gangoil. That's
-where they all go."
-
-"And Bill Nokes, Mr. Harry?"
-
-"And Bill Nokes too. Though why he should travel so far from his work
-this weather I can't say."
-
-"My word! no, Mr. Harry."
-
-"Did you see any fires about your way last night?"
-
-Jacko shook his head.
-
-"You go into the kitchen and get something to eat, and wait for me. I
-shall be out before long now."
-
-Though Heathcote had made light of the assemblage of evil spirits at
-Boolabong which had seemed so important to Jacko, he by no means did
-regard the news as unessential. Of Nokes's villany he was convinced.
-Of Boscobel he had imprudently made a second enemy at a most
-inauspicious time. Georgie Brownbie had long been his bitter foe. He
-had prosecuted and, perhaps, persecuted Georgie for various offenses;
-but as Georgie was supposed to be as much at war with his own
-brethren as with the rest of the world at large, Heathcote had not
-thought much of that miscreant in the present emergency. But if the
-miscreant were in truth at Boolabong, and if evil things were being
-plotted against Gangoil, Georgie would certainly be among the
-conspirators.
-
-Soon after noon Harry was on horseback and Jacko was at his heels.
-The heat was more intense than ever. Mrs. Heathcote had twisted round
-Harry's hat a long white scarf, called a puggeree, though we are by
-no means sure of our spelling. Jacko had spread a very dirty fragment
-of an old white handkerchief on his head, and wore his hat over it.
-Mrs. Heathcote had begged Harry to take a large cotton parasol, and
-he had nearly consented, being unable at last to reconcile himself to
-the idea of riding with such an accoutrement even in the bush. "The
-heat's a bore," he said, "but I'm not a bit afraid of it as long as I
-keep moving. Yes, I'll be back to dinner, though I won't say when,
-and I won't say for how long. It will be the same thing all day
-to-morrow. I wish with all my heart those people were not coming."
-
-He rode straight away to the German's hut, which was on the
-northwestern extremity of his further paddock in that direction. From
-thence the western fence ran in a southerly direction, nearly
-straight to the river. Beyond the fence was a strip of land, in some
-parts over a mile broad, in others not much over a quarter of a mile,
-which he claimed as belonging to Gangoil, but over which the
-Brownbies had driven their cattle since the fence had been made,
-under the pretense that the fence marked the boundary of two runs.
-Against this assumption Heathcote had remonstrated frequently, had
-driven the cattle back, and had exercised the ownership of a Crown
-tenant in such fashion as the nature of his occupation allowed.
-Beyond this strip was Boolabong; the house at Boolabong being not
-above three miles distant from the fence, and not above four miles
-from the German's hut. So that the Brownbies were in truth much
-nearer neighbors to the German than was Heathcote and his family. But
-between the German and the Brownbies there raged an internecine feud.
-No doubt Harry Heathcote, in his heart, liked the German all the
-better on this account; but it behooved him both as a master and a
-magistrate to regard reports against Boolabong coming from the German
-with something of suspicion. Now Jacko had been introduced to Gangoil
-under German auspices, and had soon come to a decision that it would
-be a good thing and a just to lock up all the Brownbies in the great
-jail of the colony at Brisbane. He probably knew nothing of law or
-justice in the abstract, but he greatly valued law when exercised
-against those he hated. The western fence of which mention has been
-made ran down to the Mary River, hitting it about four miles west of
-Medlicot's Mill; so that there was a considerable portion of the
-Gangoil run having a frontage to the water. As has been before said,
-Medlicot's plantation was about fourteen miles distant from the house
-at Boolabong, and the distance from the Gangoil house to that of the
-Brownbies was about the same.
-
-The oppressiveness of the day was owing more to the hot wind than to
-the sun itself. This wind, coming from the arid plains of the
-interior, brought with it a dry, suffocating heat. On this occasion
-it was odious to Harry Heathcote, not so much on account of its own
-intrinsic abominations, as because it might cause a fire to sweep
-across his run from its western boundary. Just beyond the boundary
-there lay Boolabong, and there were collected his enemies. A fire
-that should have passed for a mile or so across the pastures outside
-and beyond his own farm would be altogether unextinguishable by the
-time that it had reached his paddock. The Brownbies, as he knew well,
-would care nothing for burning a patch of their own grass. Their
-stock, if they had any at the present moment, were much too few in
-number to be affected by such a loss. The Brownbies had not a yard of
-fencing to be burned; and a fire, if once it got a hold on the edge
-of their run, would pass on away from them, right across Harry's
-pastures and Harry's fences. If such were the case, he would have
-quite enough to do to drive his sheep from the fire, and it might be
-that many of them also would perish in the flames. The catastrophe
-might even be so bad, so frightful, that the shed and station and all
-should go; though, in thinking of all the fires of which he had
-heard, he could remember none that had spread with fatality such as
-that.
-
-He found Karl Bender in his hut asleep. The man was soon up,
-apologizing for his somnolence, and preparing tea for his master's
-entertainment. "It is not Christmas like at home at all; is it, Mr.
-'Eathcote? Dear, no! Them red divils is there ready to give us a
-Christmas roasting." Then he told how he had boldly ridden up to
-Boolabong that morning, and had seen Georgie and Boscobel with his
-own eyes. When asked what they had said to him, he replied that he
-did not wait till any thing had been said, but had hurried away as
-fast as his horse could carry him.
-
-"I'll go up to Boolabong myself," said Harry.
-
-"My word! They'll just about knock your head off," suggested Jacko.
-
-Karl Bender also thought that the making of such a visit would be a
-source of danger. But Heathcote explained that any personal attack
-was not to be apprehended from these men. "That's not their game," he
-said, arguing that men who premeditated a secret outrage would not
-probably be tempted into personal violence. The horror of the
-position lay in this--that though a fire should rise up almost under
-the feet of men who were known to be hostile to him, and whose
-characters were acknowledged to be bad, still would there be no
-evidence against them. It was known to all men that, at periods of
-heat such as that which was now raging, fires were common. Every day
-the pastures were in flames, here, there, and every where. It was
-said, indeed, that there existed no evidence of fires in the bush
-till men had come with their flocks. But then there had been no
-smoking, no boiling of pots, no camping out, till men had come, and
-no matches. Every one around might be sure that some particular fire
-had been the work of an incendiary, might be able to name the culprit
-who had done the deed; and yet no jury could convict the miscreant.
-Watchfulness was the best security, watchfulness day and night till
-rain should come; and Heathcote calculated that it would be better
-for him that his enemies should know that he was watchful. He would
-go up among them and show them that he was not ashamed to speak to
-them of his anxiety. They could hear nothing by his coming which they
-did not already know. They were well aware that he was on the watch,
-and it might be well that they should know also how close his watch
-was kept. He took the German and Jacko with him, but left them with
-their horses about a mile on the Boolabong side of his own fence,
-nigh to the extreme boundary of the Debatable Land. They knew his
-whistle, and were to ride to him at once should he call them.
-
-He had left the house about noon, saying that he would be home to
-dinner--which, however, on such occasions, was held to be a feast
-movable over a wide space of time. But on this occasion the women
-expected him to come early, as it was his intention to be out again
-as soon as it should be dark. Mrs. Growler was asked to have the
-dinner ready at six. During the day Mrs. Heathcote was backward and
-forward in the kitchen. Then was something wrong she knew, but could
-not quite discern the evil. Sing Sing, the cook, was more than
-ordinarily alert; but Sing Sing, the cook, was not much trusted. Mrs.
-Growler was "as good as the Bank," as far as that went, having lived
-with old Mr. Daly when he was prosperous; but she was apt to be
-downhearted, and on the present occasion was more than usually low in
-spirits. Whenever Mrs. Heathcote spoke, she wept. At six o'clock she
-came into the parlor with a budget of news. Sing Sing, the cook, had
-been gone for the last half hour, leaving the leg of mutton at the
-fire. It soon became clear to them that he had altogether absconded.
-
-"Them rats always does leave a falling house," said Mrs. Growler.
-
-At seven o'clock the sun was down, though the gloom of the tropical
-evening had not yet come. The two ladies went out to the gate, which
-was but a few yards from the veranda, and there stood listening for
-the sound of Harry's horse. The low moaning of the wind through the
-trees could be heard, but it was so gentle, continuous, and unaltered
-that it seemed to be no more than a vehicle for other sounds, and was
-as death-like as silence itself. The gate of the horse paddock
-through which Heathcote must pass on his way home was nearly a mile
-distant; but the road there was hard, and they knew that they could
-hear from there the fall of his horse's feet. There they stood from
-seven to nearly eight, whispering a word now and then to each other,
-listening always, but in vain. Looking away to the west every now and
-then, they fancied that they could see the sky glow with flames, and
-then they would tell each other that it was fancy. The evening grew
-darker and still darker, but no sound was heard through the moaning
-wind. From time to time Mrs. Growler came out to them, declaring her
-fears in no measured terms. "Well, marm, I do declare I think we'd
-better go away out of this."
-
-"Go away, Mrs. Growler! What nonsense! Where can we go to?"
-
-"The mill would be nearest, ma'am, and we should be safe there. I'm
-sure Mrs. Medlicot would take us in."
-
-"Why should you not be safe here?" said Kate.
-
-"That wretched Chinese hasn't gone and left us for nothing, miss, and
-what would we three lone women do here if all them Brownbies came
-down upon us? Why don't master come back? He ought to come back;
-oughtn't he, ma'am? He never do think what lone women are."
-
-Mrs. Heathcote took her husband's part very strongly, and gave Mrs.
-Growler as hard a scolding as she knew how to pronounce. But her own
-courage was giving way much as Mrs. Growler's had done. "We are bound
-to stay here," she said; "and if the worst comes, we must bear it as
-others have done before us." Then Mrs. Growler was very sulky, and,
-retreating to the kitchen, sobbed there in solitude. "Oh, Kate, I do
-wish he would come," said the elder sister.
-
-"Are you afraid?"
-
-"It is so desolate, and he may be so far off, and we couldn't get to
-him if any thing happened, and we shouldn't know."
-
-Then they were again silent, and remained without exchanging more
-than a word or two for nearly half an hour. They took hold of each
-other, and every now and then went to the kitchen door that the old
-woman might be comforted by their presence, but they had no
-consolation to offer each other. The silence of the bush, and the
-feeling of great distances, and the dread of calamity almost crushed
-them. At last there was a distant sound of horse's feet. "I hear
-him," said Mrs. Heathcote, rushing forward toward the outer gate of
-the horse paddock, followed by her sister.
-
-Her ears were true, but she was doomed to disappointment. The
-horseman was only a messenger from her husband--Mickey O'Dowd, the
-Irish boundary rider.
-
-He had great tidings to tell, and was so long telling them that we
-will not attempt to give them in his own words. The purport of his
-story was as follows: Harry had been to Boolabong House, but had
-found there no one but the old man. Returning home thence toward his
-own fence, he had smelled the smoke of fire, and had found within a
-furlong of his path a long ridge of burning grass. According to
-Mickey's account, it could not have been lighted above a few minutes
-before Heathcote's presence on the spot. As it was, it had got too
-much ahead for him to put it out single-handed; a few yards he might
-have managed, but--so Mickey said, probably exaggerating the
-matter--there was half a quarter of a mile of flame. He had therefore
-ridden on before the fire, had called his own two men to him, and had
-at once lighted the grass himself some two hundred yards in front,
-making a second fire, but so keeping it down that it should be always
-under control. Before the hinder flames had caught him, Bender and
-Jacko had been with him, and they had thus managed to consume the
-fuel which, had it remained there, would have fed the fire which was
-too strong to be mastered. By watching the extremities of the line of
-fire, they overpowered it, and so the damage was for the moment at an
-end.
-
-The method of dealing with the enemy was so well known in the bush,
-and had been so often canvassed in the hearing of the two sisters,
-that it was clearly intelligible to them. The evil had been met in
-the proper way, and the remedy had been effective. But why did not
-Harry come home?
-
-Mickey O'Dowd, after his fashion, explained that too. The ladies were
-not to wait dinner. The master felt himself obliged to remain out at
-night, and had gotten food at the German's hut. He, Mickey, was
-commissioned to return with a flask full of brandy, as it would be
-necessary that Harry, with all the men whom he could trust, should be
-"on the rampage" all night. This small body was to consist of Harry
-himself, of the German, of Jacko, and, according to the story as at
-present told, especially of Mickey O'Dowd. Much as she would have
-wished to have kept the man at the station for protection, she did
-not think of disobeying her husband's orders. So Mickey was fed, and
-then sent back with the flask--with tidings also as to the desertion
-of that wretched cook, Sing Sing.
-
-"I shall sit here all night," said Mrs. Heathcote to her sister. "As
-things are, I shall not think of going to bed."
-
-Kate declared that she would also sit in the veranda all night; and,
-as a matter of course, they were joined by Mrs. Growler. They had
-been so seated about an hour when Kate Daly declared that the heavens
-were on fire. The two young women jumped up, flew to the gate, and
-found that the whole western horizon was lurid with a dark red light.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-THE BUSH FIGHT.
-
-
-Harry Heathcote had on this occasion entertained no doubt whatever
-that the fire had been intentional and premeditated. A lighted torch
-must have been dragged along the grass, so as to ignite a line many
-yards long all at the same time. He had been luckily near enough to
-the spot to see almost the commencement of the burning, and was
-therefore aware of its form and circumstances. He almost wondered
-that he had not seen the figure of the man who had drawn the torch,
-or at any rate heard his steps. Pursuit would have been out of the
-question, as his work was wanted at the moment to extinguish the
-flames. The miscreant probably had remembered this, and had known
-that he might escape stealthily without the noise of a rapid retreat.
-
-When the work was over, when he had put out the fire he had himself
-lighted, and had exterminated the lingering remnants of that which
-had been intended to destroy him, he stood still a while almost in
-despair. His condition seemed to be hopeless. What could he do
-against such a band of enemies, knowing as he did that, had he been
-backed even by a score of trusty followers, one foe might still
-suffice to ruin him? At the present moment he was very hot with the
-work he had done, as were also Jacko and the German. O'Dowd had also
-come up as they were completing their work. Their mode of
-extinguishing the flames had been to beat them down with branches of
-gum-tree loaded with leaves. By sweeping these along the burning
-ground the low flames would be scattered and expelled. But the work
-was very hard and hot. The boughs they used were heavy, and the air
-around them, sultry enough from its own properties, was made almost
-unbearable by the added heat of the fires.
-
-The work had been so far done, but it might be begun again at any
-moment, either near or at a distance. No doubt the attempt would be
-made elsewhere along the boundary between Gangoil and Boolabong--was
-very probably being made at this moment. The two men whom he could
-trust and Jacko were now with him. They were wiping their brows with
-their arms and panting with their work.
-
-He first resolved on sending Mickey O'Dowd to the house. The distance
-was great, and the man's assistance might be essential. But he could
-not bear to leave his wife without news from him. Then, after
-considering a while, he made up his mind to go back toward his own
-fence, making his way as he went southerly down toward the river.
-They who were determined to injure him would, he thought, repeat
-their attempt in that direction. He hardly said a word to his two
-followers, but rode at a foot-pace to the spot at his fence which he
-had selected as the site of his bivouac for the night.
-
-"It won't be very cheery, Bender," he said to the German; "but we
-shall have to make a night of it till they disturb us again."
-
-The German made a motion with his arms intended to signify his utter
-indifference. One place was the same as another to him. Jacko uttered
-his usual ejaculation, and then, having hitched his horse to the
-fence, threw himself on his back upon the grass.
-
-No doubt they all slept, but they slept as watchers sleep, with one
-eye open. It was Harry who first saw the light which a few minutes
-later made itself visible to the ladies at the home station. "Karl,"
-he exclaimed, jumping up, "they're at it again--look there."
-
-In less than half a minute, and without speaking another word, they
-were all on their horses and riding in the direction of the light. It
-came from a part of the Boolabong run somewhat nearer to the river
-than the place at which they had stationed themselves, where the
-strip of ground between Harry's fence and the acknowledged boundary
-of Brownbie's run was the narrowest. As they approached the fire,
-they became aware that it had been lighted on Boolabong. On this
-occasion Harry did not ride on up to the flames, knowing that the use
-or loss of a few minutes might save or destroy his property. He
-hardly spoke a word as he proceeded on his business, feeling that
-they upon whom he had to depend were sufficiently instructed, if only
-they would be sufficiently energetic.
-
-"Keep it well under, but let it run," was all he said, as, lighting a
-dried bush with a match, he ran the fire along the ground in front of
-the coming flames.
-
-A stranger seeing it all would have felt sure that the remedy would
-have been as bad as the disease, for the fire which Harry himself
-made every now and again seemed to get the better of those who were
-endeavoring to control it. There might perhaps be a quarter of a mile
-between the front of the advancing fire and the line at which Harry
-had commenced to destroy the food which would have fed the coming
-flames. He himself, as quickly as he lighted the grass, which in
-itself was the work but of a moment, would strain himself to the
-utmost at the much harder task of controlling his own fire, so that
-it should not run away from him, and get, as it were, out of his
-hands, and be as bad to him as that which he was thus seeking to
-circumvent. The German and Jacko worked like heroes, probably with
-intense enjoyment of the excitement, and, after a while, found a
-fourth figure among the flames, for Mickey had now returned.
-
-"You saw them," Harry said, panting with his work.
-
-"They's all right," said Mickey, flopping away with a great bough;
-"but that tarnation Chinese has gone off."
-
-"My word! Sing Sing. Find him at Boolabong," said Jacko.
-
-The German, whose gum-tree bough was a very big one, and whose every
-thought was intent on letting the fire run while he still held it in
-hand, had not breath for a syllable.
-
-But the back fire was extending itself, so as to get round them.
-Every now and then Harry extended his own line, moving always forward
-toward Gangoil as he did so, though he and his men were always on
-Brownbie's territory. He had no doubt but that where he could succeed
-in destroying the grass for a breadth of forty or fifty yards he
-would starve out the inimical flames. The trees and bushes without
-the herbage would not enable it to travel a yard. Wherever the grass
-was burned down black to the soil, the fire would stop. But should
-they, who were at work, once allow themselves to be outflanked, their
-exertions would be all in vain. And then those wretches might light a
-dozen fires. The work was so hard, so hot, and often so hopeless,
-that the unhappy young squatter was more than once tempted to bid his
-men desist and to return to his homestead. The flames would not
-follow him there. He could, at any rate, make that safe. And then,
-when he had repudiated this feeling as unworthy of him, he began to
-consider within himself whether he would not do better for his
-property by taking his men with him on to his run, and endeavoring to
-drive his sheep out of danger. But as he thought of all this, he
-still worked, still fired the grass, and still controlled the flames.
-Presently he became aware of what seemed to him at first to be a
-third fire. Through the trees, in the direction of the river, he
-could see the glimmering of low flames and the figures of men. But it
-was soon apparent to him that these men were working in his cause,
-and that they, too, were burning the grass that would have fed the
-advancing flames. At first he could not spare the minute which would
-be necessary to find out who was his friend, but, as they drew
-nearer, he knew the man. It was the sugar planter from the mill and
-with him his foreman.
-
-"We've been doing our best," said Medlicot, "but we've been terribly
-afraid that the fire would slip away from us."
-
-"It's the only thing," said Harry, too much excited at the moment to
-ask questions as to the cause of Medlicot's presence so far from his
-home at that time of the evening. "It's getting round us, I'm afraid,
-all the same."
-
-"I don't know but it is. It's almost impossible to distinguish. How
-hot the fire makes it!"
-
-"Hot, indeed!" said Harry. "It's killing work for men, and then all
-for no good! To think that men, creatures that call themselves men,
-should do such a thing as this! It breaks one's heart." He had paused
-as he spoke, leaning on the great battered bough which he held, but
-in an instant was at work with it again. "Do you stay here, Mr.
-Medlicot, with the men, and I'll go on beyond where you began. If I
-find the fire growing down, I'll shout, and they can come to me." So
-saying, he rushed on with a lighted bush torch in his band.
-
-Suddenly he found himself confronted in the bush by a man on
-horseback, whom he at once recognized as Georgie Brownbie. He forgot
-for a moment where he was and began to question the reprobate as to
-his presence at that spot.
-
-"That's like your impudence," said Georgie. "You're not only
-trespassing, but you're destroying our property willfully, and you
-ask me what business I have here. You're a nice sort of young man."
-
-Harry, checked for a moment by the remembrance that he was in truth
-upon Boolabong run, did not at once answer.
-
-"Put that bush down, and don't burn our grass," continued Georgie,
-"or you shall have to answer for it. What right have you to fire our
-grass?"
-
-"Who fired it first?"
-
-"It lighted itself. That's no rule why you should light it more. You
-give over, or I punch your head for you."
-
-Harry's men and Medlicot were advancing toward him, trampling out
-their own embers as they came; and Georgie Brownbie, who was alone,
-when he saw that there were four or five men against him, turned
-round and rode back.
-
-"Did you ever see impudence like that?" said Harry. "He's probably
-the very man who set the match, and yet he comes and brazens it out
-with me."
-
-"I don't think he's the man who set the match," said Medlicot,
-quietly; "at any rate there was another."
-
-"Who was it?"
-
-"My man, Nokes. I saw him with the torch in his hand."
-
-"Heaven and earth!"
-
-"Yes, Mr. Heathcote. I saw him put it down. You were about right, you
-see, and I was about wrong."
-
-Harry had not a word to say, unless it were tell the man that he
-loved him for the frankness of his confession. But the moment was
-hardly auspicious for such a declaration. There was no excuse for
-them to pause in their work, for the fire was still crackling at
-their back, and they did no more than pause.
-
-"Ah!" said Harry, "there it goes; we shall be done at last." For he
-saw that he was being outflanked by the advancing flames. But still
-they worked, drawing lines of fire here and there, and still they
-hoped that there might be ground for hope. Nokes had been seen; but,
-pregnant as the theme might be with words, it was almost impossible
-to talk. Questions could not be asked and answered without stopping
-in their toil. There were questions which Harry longed to ask. Could
-Medlicot swear to the man? Did the man know that he had been seen? If
-he knew that he had been watched while he lit the grass, he would
-soon be far away from Medlicot's Mill and Gangoil. Harry felt that it
-would be a consolation to him in his trouble if he could get hold of
-this man, and keep him, and prosecute him--and have him hung. Even in
-the tumult of the moment he was able to reflect about it, and to
-think that he remembered that the crime of arson was capital in the
-colony of Queensland. He had endeavored to be good to the men with
-whom he had dealings. He had not stinted their food, or cut them
-short in their wages, or been hard in exacting work from them. And
-this was his return! Ideas as to the excellence of absolute dominion
-and power flitted across his brain--such power as Abraham, no doubt,
-exercised. In Abraham's time the people were submissive, and the
-world was happy. Harry Heathcote, at least, had never heard that it
-was not happy. But as he thought of all this he worked away with his
-bush and his matches, extinguishing the flames here and lighting them
-there, striving to make a cordon of black bare ground between
-Boolabong and Gangoil. Surely Abraham had never been called on to
-work like this!
-
-He and his men were in a line covering something above a quarter of a
-mile of ground, of which line he was himself the nearest to the
-river, and Medlicot and his foreman the farthest from it. The German
-and O'Dowd were in the middle, and Jacko was working with his master.
-If Harry had just cause for anger and sorrow in regard to Nokes and
-Boscobel, he certainly had equal cause to be proud of the stanchness
-of his remaining satellites. The men worked with a will, as though
-the whole run had been the personal property of each of them. Nokes
-and Boscobel would probably have done the same had the fires come
-before they had quarreled with their master. It is a small and narrow
-point that turns the rushing train to the right or to the left. The
-rushing man is often turned off by a point as small and narrow.
-
-"My word!" said Jacko, on a sudden, "here they are, all o'
-horseback!" And as he spoke, there was the sound of half a dozen
-horsemen galloping up to them through the bush. "Why, there's Bos,
-his own self," said Jacko.
-
-The two leading men were Joe and Jerry Brownbie, who, for this night
-only, had composed their quarrels, and close to them was Boscobel.
-There were others behind, also mounted--Jack Brownbie and Georgie,
-and Nokes himself; but they, though their figures were seen, could
-not be distinguished in the gloom of the night. Nor, indeed, did
-Harry at first discern of how many the party consisted. It seemed
-that there was a whole troop of horsemen, whose purpose it was to
-interrupt him in his work, so that the flames should certainly go
-ahead. And it was evident that the men thought that they could do so
-without subjecting themselves to legal penalties. As far as Harry
-Heathcote could see, they were correct in their view. He could have
-no right to burn the grass on Boolabong. He had no claim even to be
-there. It was true that he could plead that he was stopping the fire
-which they had purposely made; but they could prove his handiwork,
-whereas it would be almost impossible that he should prove theirs.
-
-The whole forest was not red, but lurid, with the fires, and the air
-was laden with both the smell and the heat of the conflagration. The
-horsemen were dressed, as was Harry himself, in trowsers and shirts,
-with old slouch hats, and each of them had a cudgel in his hand. As
-they came galloping up through the trees they were as uncanny and
-unwelcome a set of visitors as any man was ever called on to receive.
-Harry necessarily stayed his work, and stood still to bear the brunt
-of the coming attack; but Jacko went on with his employment faster
-than ever, as though a troop of men in the dark were nothing to him.
-
-Jerry Brownbie was the first to speak. "What's this you're up to,
-Heathcote? Firing our grass? It's arson. You shall swing for this."
-
-"I'll take my chance of that," said Harry, turning to his work again.
-
-"No, I'm blessed if you do. Ride over him, Bos, while I stop these
-other fellows."
-
-The Brownbies had been aware that Harry's two boundary riders were
-with him, but had not heard of the arrival of Medlicot and the other
-man. Nokes was aware that some one on horseback had been near him
-when he was firing the grass, but had thought that it was one of the
-party from Gangoil. By the time that Jerry Brownbie had reached the
-German, Medlicot was there also.
-
-"Who the deuce are you?" asked Jerry.
-
-"What business is that of yours?" said Medlicot.
-
-"No business of mine, and you firing our grass! I'll let you know my
-business pretty quickly."
-
-"It's that fellow, Medlicot, from the sugar-mill," said Joe; "the man
-that Nokes is with."
-
-"I thought you was a horse of another color," continued Jerry, who
-had been given to understand that Medlicot was Heathcote's enemy.
-"Anyway, I won't have my grass fired. If God A'mighty chooses to send
-fires, we can't help it. But I'm not going to have incendiaries here
-as well. You're a new chum, and don't understand what you're about,
-but you must stop this."
-
-As Medlicot still went on putting out the fire, Jerry attempted to
-ride him down. Medlicot caught the horse by the rein, and violently
-backed the brute in among the embers. The animal plunged and reared,
-getting his head loose, and at last came down, he and his rider
-together. In the mean time Joe Brownbie, seeing this, rode up behind
-the sugar planter, and struck him violently with his cudgel over the
-shoulder. Medlicot sank nearly to the ground, but at once recovered
-himself. He knew that some bone on the left side of his body was
-broken; but he could still fight with his right hand, and he did
-fight.
-
-Boscobel and Georgie Brownbie both attempted to ride over Harry
-together, and might have succeeded had not Jacko ingeniously inserted
-the burning branch of gum-tree with which he had been working under
-the belly of the horse on which Boscobel was riding. The animal
-jumped immediately from the ground, bucking into the air, and
-Boscobel was thrown far over his head. Georgie Brownbie then turned
-upon Jacko, but Jacko was far too nimble to be caught, and escaped
-among the trees.
-
-For a few minutes the fight was general, but the footmen had the best
-of it, in spite of the injury done to Medlicot. Jerry was bruised and
-burned about the face by his fall among the ashes, and did not much
-relish the work afterward. Boscobel was stunned for a few moments,
-and was quite ready to retreat when he came to himself. Nokes during
-the whole time did not show himself, alleging as a reason afterward
-the presence of his employer Medlicot.
-
-"I'm blessed if your cowardice sha'n't hang you," said Joe Brownbie
-to him on their way home. "Do you think we're going to fight the
-battles of a fellow like you, who hasn't pluck to come forward
-himself?"
-
-"I've as much pluck as you," answered Nokes, "and am ready to fight
-you any day. But I know when a man is to come forward and when he's
-not. Hang me! I'm not so near hanging as some folks at Boolabong." We
-may imagine, therefore, that the night was not spent pleasantly among
-the Brownbies after these adventures.
-
-There were, of course, very much cursing and swearing, and very many
-threats, before the party from Boolabong did retreat. Their great
-point was, of coarse, this--that Heathcote was willfully firing the
-grass, and was, therefore, no better than an incendiary. Of course
-they stoutly denied that the original fire had been intentional, and
-denied as stoutly that the original fire could be stopped by fires.
-But at last they went, leaving Heathcote and his party masters of the
-battle-field. Jerry was taken away in a sad condition; and, in
-subsequent accounts of the transaction given from Boolabong, his fall
-was put forward as the reason of their flight, he having been the
-general on the occasion. And Boscobel had certainly lost all stomach
-for immediate fighting. Immediately behind the battle-field they come
-across Nokes, and Sing Sing, the runaway cook from Gangoil. The poor
-Chinaman had made the mistake of joining the party which was not
-successful.
-
-But Harry, though the victory was with him, was hardly in a mood for
-triumph. He soon found that Medlicot's collar-bone was broken, and it
-would be necessary, therefore, that he should return with the wounded
-man to the station. And the flames, as he feared, had altogether got
-ahead of him during the fight. As far as they had gone, they had
-stopped the fire, having made a black wilderness a mile and a half in
-length, which, during the whole distance, ceased suddenly at the line
-at which the subsidiary fire had been extinguished. But while the
-attack was being made upon them the flames had crept on to the
-southward, and had now got beyond their reach. It had seemed,
-however, that the mass of fire which had got away from them was
-small, and already the damp of the night was on the grass; and Harry
-felt himself justified in hoping not that there might be no loss, but
-that the loss might not be ruinous.
-
-Medlicot consented to be taken back to Gangoil instead of to the
-mill. Perhaps he thought that Kate Daly might be a better nurse than
-his mother, or that the quiet of the sheep station might be better
-for him than the clatter of his own mill-wheels. It was midnight, and
-they had a ride of fourteen miles, which was hard enough upon a man
-with a broken collarbone. The whole party also was thoroughly
-fatigued. The work they had been doing was about as hard as could
-fall to a man's lot, and they had now been many hours without food.
-Before they started Mickey produced his flask, the contents of which
-were divided equally among them all, including Jacko.
-
-As they were preparing to start home Medlicot explained that it had
-struck him by degrees that Heathcote might be right in regard to
-Nokes, and that he had determined to watch the man himself whenever
-he should leave the mill. On that Monday he had given up work
-somewhat earlier than usual, saying that, as the following day was
-Christmas, he should not come to the mill. From that time Medlicot
-and his foreman had watched him.
-
-"Yes," said he, in answer to a question from Heathcote, "I can swear
-that I saw him with the lighted torch in his hand, and that he placed
-it among the grass. There were two others from Boolabong with him,
-and they must have seen him too."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-HARRY HEATHCOTE RETURNS IN TRIUMPH.
-
-
-When the fight was quite over, and Heathcote's party had returned to
-their horses, Medlicot for a few minutes was faint and sick, but he
-revived after a while, and declared himself able to sit on his horse.
-There was a difficulty in getting him up, but when there he made no
-further complaint. "This," said he, as he settled himself in his
-saddle, "is my first Christmas-day in Australia. I landed early in
-January, and last year I was on my way home to fetch my mother."
-
-"It's not much like an English Christmas," said Harry.
-
-"Nor yet as in Hanover," said the German.
-
-"It's Cork you should go to, or Galway, bedad, if you want to see
-Christmas kep' after the ould fashion," said Mickey.
-
-"I think we used to do it pretty well in Cumberland," said Medlicot.
-"There are things which can't be transplanted. They may have roast
-beef, and all that, but you should have cold weather to make you feel
-that it is Christmas indeed."
-
-"We do it as well as we can," Harry pleaded. "I've seen a great
-pudding come into the room all afire--just to remind one of the old
-country--when it has been so hot that one could hardly bear a shirt
-on one's shoulders. But yet there's something in it. One likes to
-think of the old place, though one is so far away. How do you feel
-now? Does the jolting hurt you much? If your horse is rough, change
-with me. This fellow goes as smooth as a lady." Medlicot declared
-that the pain did not trouble him much. "They'd have ridden over us,
-only for you," continued Harry.
-
-"My word! wouldn't they?" said Jacko, who was very proud of his own
-part in the battle. "I say, Mr. Medlicot, did you see Bos and his
-horse part company? You did, Mr. Harry. Didn't he fly like a bird,
-all in among the bushes! I owed Bos one; I did, my word! And now I've
-paid him."
-
-"I saw it," said Harry. "He was riding at me as hard as he could
-come. I can't understand Boscobel. Nokes is a sly, bad, slinking
-follow, whom I never liked. But I was always good to Bos; and when he
-cheated me, as he did, about his time, I never even threatened to
-stop his money."
-
-"You told him of it too plain," said the German.
-
-"I did tell him--of course--as I should you. It has come to that now,
-that if a man robs you--your own man--you are not to dare to tell him
-of it! What would you think of me, Karl, if I were to find you out,
-and was to be afraid of speaking to you, lest you should turn against
-me and burn my fences?" Karl Bender shrugged his shoulders, holding
-his reins up to his eyes. "I know what you ought to think! And I wish
-that every man about Gangoil should be sure that I will always say
-what I think right. I don't know that I ever was hard upon any man. I
-try not to be."
-
-"Thrue for you, Mr. Harry," said the Irishman.
-
-"I'm not going to pick my words because men like Nokes and Boscobel
-have the power of injuring me. I'm not going to truckle to rascals
-because I'm afraid of them. I'd sooner be burned out of house and
-home, and go and work on the wharves in Brisbane, than that."
-
-"My word! yes," said Jacko, "and I too."
-
-"If the devil is to get ahead, he must, but I won't hold a candle to
-him. You fellows may tell every man about the place what I say. As
-long as I'm master of Gangoil I'll be master; and when I come across
-a swindle I'll tell the man who does it he's a swindler. I told Bos
-to his face; but I didn't tell any body else, and I shouldn't if he'd
-taken it right and mended his ways."
-
-They all understood him very well--the German, the Irishman,
-Medlicot's foreman, Medlicot himself, and even Jacko; and though, no
-doubt, there was a feeling within the hearts of the men that Harry
-Heathcote was imperious, still they respected him, and they believed
-him.
-
-"The masther should be the masther, no doubt," said the Irishman.
-
-"A man that is a man vill not sell hisself body and soul," said the
-German, slowly.
-
-"Do I want dominion over your soul, Karl Bender?" asked the squatter,
-with energy. "You know I don't, nor over your body, except so far as
-it suits you to sell your services. What you sell you part with
-readily--like a man; and it's not likely that you and I shall
-quarrel. But all this row about nothing can't be very pleasant to a
-man with a broken shoulder."
-
-"I like to hear you," said Medlicot. "I'm always a good listener when
-men have something really to say."
-
-"Well, then, I've something to say," cried Harry. "There never was a
-man came to my house whom I'd sooner see as a Christmas guest than
-yourself."
-
-"Thankee, Sir."
-
-"It's more than I could have said yesterday with truth."
-
-"It's more than you did say."
-
-"Yes, by George! But you've beat me now. When you're hard pressed for
-hands down yonder, you send for me, and see if I won't turn the mill
-for you, or hoe canes either."
-
-"So 'll I; my word! yes. Just for my rations."
-
-They had by this time reacted the Gangoil fence, having taken the
-directest route for the house. But Harry, in doing this, had not been
-unmindful of the fire. Had Medlicot not been wounded, he would have
-taken the party somewhat out of the way, down southward, following
-the flames; but Medlicot's condition had made him feel that he would
-not be justified in doing so. Now, however, it occurred to him that
-he might as well ride a mile or two down the fence, and see what
-injury had been done. The escort of the men would be sufficient to
-take Medlicot to the station, and he would reach the place as soon as
-they. If the flames were still running ahead, he knew that he could
-not now stop then, but he could at least learn how the matter stood
-with him. If the worst came to the worst, he would not now lose more
-than three or four miles of fencing, and the grass off a corner of
-his run. Nevertheless, tired as he was, he could not bear the idea of
-going home without knowing the whole story. So he made his proposal.
-Medlicot, of course, made no objection. Each of the men offered to go
-with him, but he declined their services. "There is nothing to do,"
-said he, "and nobody to catch; and if the fire is burning, it must
-burn." So he went alone.
-
-The words that he had uttered among his men had not been lightly
-spoken. He had begun to perceive that life would be very hard to him
-in his present position, or perhaps altogether impossible, as long as
-he was at enmity with all those around him. Old squatters whom he
-knew, respectable men who had been in the colony before he was born,
-had advised him to be on good terms with the Brownbies. "You needn't
-ask them to your house, or go to them, but just soft-sawder them when
-yon meet," an old gentleman had said to him. He certainly hadn't
-taken the old gentleman's advice, thinking that to "soft-sawder" so
-great a reprobate as Jerry Brownbie would be holding a candle to the
-devil. But his own plan had hardly answered. Well, he was sure, at
-any rate, of this--that he could do no good now by endeavoring to be
-civil to the Brownbies. He soon came to the place where the fire had
-reached his fence, and found that it had burned its way through, and
-that the flames were still continuing their onward course. The fence
-to the north, or rather to the northwestward--the point whence the
-wind was coming--stood firm at the spot at which the fire had struck
-it. Dry as the wood was, the flames had not traveled upward against
-the wind. But to the south the fire was traveling down the fence. To
-stop this he rode half a mile along the burning barrier till he had
-headed the flames, and then he pulled the bushes down and rolled away
-the logs, so as to stop the destruction. As regarded his fence, there
-was less than a mile of it destroyed, and that he could now leave in
-security, as the wind was blowing away from it. As for his grass,
-that must now take its chance. He could see the dark light of the low
-running fire; but there was no longer a mighty blaze, and he knew
-that the dew of the night was acting as his protector. The harm that
-had been as yet done was trifling, if only he could protect himself
-from further harm. After leaving the fire, he had still a ride of
-seven or eight miles through the gloom of the forest--all alone. Not
-only was he weary, but his horse was so tired that he could hardly
-get him to canter for a furlong. He regretted that he had not brought
-the boy with him, knowing well the service of companionship to a
-tired beast. He was used to such troubles, and could always tell
-himself that his back was broad enough to bear them; but his
-desolation among enemies oppressed him. Medlicot, however, was no
-longer an enemy. Then there came across his mind for the first time
-an idea that Medlicot might marry his sister-in-law, and become his
-fast friend. If he could have but one true friend, he thought that he
-could bear the enmity of all the Brownbies. Hitherto he had been
-entirely alone in his anxiety. It was between three and four when he
-reached Gangoil, and he found that the party of horsemen had just
-entered the yard before him. The sugar planter was so weak that he
-could hardly get off his horse.
-
-The two ladies were still watching when the cavalcade arrived, though
-it was then between three and four in the morning. It was Harry's
-custom on such occasions to ride up to the little gate close to the
-veranda, and there to hang his bridle till some one should take his
-horse away; but on this occasion he and the others rode into the
-yard. Seeing this, Mrs. Heathcote and her sister went through the
-house, and soon learned how things were. Mr. Medlicot, from the mill,
-had come with a bone broken, and it was their duty to nurse him till
-a doctor could be procured from Maryborough. Now Maryborough was
-thirty miles distant. Some one must be dispatched at once. Jacko
-volunteered, but in such a service Jacko was hardly to be trusted. He
-might fall asleep on his horse, and continue his slumbers on the
-ground. Mickey and the German both offered; but the men were so
-beaten by their work that Heathcote did not dare to take their offer.
-
-"I'll tell you what it is, Mary," he said to his wife, "there is
-nothing for it but for me to go for Jackson." Jackson was the doctor.
-"And I can see the police at the same time."
-
-"You sha'n't go, Harry. Yon are so tired already you can hardly stand
-this moment."
-
-"Get me some strong coffee--at once. You don't know what that man has
-done for us. I'll tell you all another time. I owe him more than a
-ride into Maryborough. I'll make the men get Yorkie up"--Yorkie was a
-favorite horse he had--"while you make the coffee; and I'll lead
-Colonel"--Colonel was another horse, well esteemed at Gangoil.
-"Jackson will come quicker on him than on any animal he can get at
-Maryborough." And so it was arranged, in spite of the wife's tears
-and entreaties. Harry had his coffee and some food, and started, with
-his two horses, for the doctor.
-
-Nature is so good to us that we are sometimes disposed to think we
-might have dispensed with art. In the bush, where doctors can not be
-had, bones will set themselves; and when doctors do come, but come
-slowly, the broken bones suit themselves to such tardiness. Medlicot
-was brought in and put to bed. Let the reader not be shocked to hear
-that Kate Daly's room was given up to him, as being best suited for a
-sick man's comfort, and the two ladies took it in turn to watch him.
-Mrs. Heathcote was, of course, the first, and remained with him till
-dawn. Then Kate crept to the door and asked whether she should
-relieve her sister. Medlicot was asleep, and it was agreed that Kate
-should remain in the veranda, and look in from time to time to see
-whether the wounded man required aught at her hands. She looked in
-very often, and then, at last, he was awake.
-
-"Miss Daly," he said, "I feel so ashamed of the trouble I'm giving."
-
-"Don't speak of it. It is nothing. In the bush every body, of course,
-does any thing for every body." When the words were spoken she felt
-that they were not as complimentary as she would have wished. "You
-were to have come to-day, you know, but we did not think you'd come
-like this, did we?"
-
-"I don't know why I didn't go home instead of coming here."
-
-"The doctor will reach Gangoil sooner than he could the mill. You are
-better here, and we will send for Mrs. Medlicot as soon as the men
-have had a rest. How was it all, Mr. Medlicot? Harry says that there
-was a fight, and that you came in just at the nick of time, and that
-but for you all the run would have been burned."
-
-"Not that at all."
-
-"He said so; only he went off so quickly, and was so busy with
-things, that we hardly understood him. Is it not dreadful that there
-should be such fighting? And then these horrid fires! You were in the
-middle of the fire, were you not?" It suited Kate's feelings that
-Medlicot should be the hero of this occasion.
-
-"We were lighting them in front to put them out behind."
-
-"And then, while you were at work, these men from Boolabong came upon
-you. Oh, Mr. Medlicot, we shall be so very, very wretched if you are
-much hurt. My sister is so unhappy about it."
-
-"It's only my collar-bone, Miss Daly."
-
-"But that is so dreadful." She was still thinking of the one word he
-had spoken when he had--well, not asked her for her love, but said
-that which between a young man and a young woman ought to mean the
-same thing. Perhaps it had meant nothing! She had heard that young
-men do say things which mean nothing. But to her, living in the
-solitude of Gangoil, the one word had been so much! Her heart had
-melted with absolute acknowledged love when the man had been brought
-through into the house with all the added attraction of a broken
-bone. While her sister had watched, she had retired--to rest, as Mary
-had said, but in truth to think of the chance which had brought her
-in this guise into familiar contact with the man she loved. And then,
-when she had crept up to take her place in watching him, she had
-almost felt that shame should restrain her. But was her duty; and, of
-course, a man with a collar-bone broken would not speak of love.
-
-"It will make your Christmas so sad for you," he said.
-
-"Oh, as for that, we mind nothing about it--for ourselves. We are
-never very gay here."
-
-"But you are happy?"
-
-"Oh yes, quite happy, except when Harry is disturbed by these
-troubles. I don't think any body has so many troubles as a squatter.
-It sometimes seems that all the world is against him."
-
-"We shall be allies now, at any rate."
-
-"Oh, I do so hope we shall," said Kate, putting her hands together in
-her energy, and then retreating from her energy with sad awkwardness
-when she remembered the personal application of her wish. "That is, I
-mean you and Harry," she added, in a whisper.
-
-"Why not I and others besides Harry?"
-
-"It is so much to him to have a real friend. Things concern us, of
-course, only just as they concern him. Women are never of very much
-account, I think. Harry has to do every thing, and every thing ought
-to be done for him."
-
-"I think you spoil Harry among you."
-
-"Don't you say so to Mary, or she will be fierce."
-
-"I wonder whether I shall ever have a wife to stand up for me in that
-way?"
-
-Kate had no answer to make, but she thought that it would be his own
-fault if he did not have a wife to stand up for him thoroughly.
-
-"He has been very lucky in his wife."
-
-"I think he has, Mr. Medlicot; but you are moving about, and you
-ought to lie still. There! I hear the horses; that's the doctor. I do
-so hope he won't say that any thing very bad is the matter."
-
-She jumped up from her chair, which was close to his bed, and as she
-did so just touched his hand with hers. It was involuntary on her
-part, having come of instinct rather than will, and she withdrew
-herself instantly. The hand she had touched belonged to the arm that
-was not hurt, and he put it out after her, and caught her by the
-sleeve as she was retreating. "Oh, Mr. Medlicot, you must not do
-that; you will hurt yourself if you move in that way."
-
-And so she escaped, and left the room, and did not see him again till
-the doctor had gone from Gangoil.
-
-The bone had been broken simply as other bones are broken; it was now
-set, and the sufferer was, of course, told that he must rest. He had
-suggested that he should be taken home, and the Heathcotes had
-concurred with the doctor in asserting that no proposition could be
-more absurd. He had intended to eat his Christmas dinner at Gangoil,
-and he must now pass his entire Christmas there.
-
-"The sugar can go on very well for ten days," Harry had said. "I'll
-go over myself and see about the men, and I'll fetch your mother
-over."
-
-To this, however, Mrs. Heathcote had demurred successfully. "You'll
-kill yourself, Harry, if you go on like this," she said.
-
-Bender, therefore, was sent in the buggy for the old lady, and at
-last Harry Heathcote consented to go to bed.
-
-"My belief is, I shall sleep for a week," he said, as he turned in.
-But he didn't begin his sleep quite at once. "I am very glad I went
-into Maryborough," he said to his wife, rising up from his pillow.
-"I've sworn an information against Nokes and two of the Brownbies,
-and the police will be after them this afternoon. They won't catch
-Nokes, and they can't convict the other fellows. But it will be
-something to clear the country of such a fellow, and something also
-to let them know that detection is possible."
-
-"Do sleep now, dear." she said.
-
-"Yes, I will; I mean to. But look here, Mary; if any of the police
-should come here, mind you wake me at once. And, Mary, look here; do
-you know I shouldn't be a bit surprised if that fellow was to be
-making up to Kate."
-
-Mrs. Heathcote, with some little inward chuckle at her husband's
-assumed quickness of apprehension, reminded herself that the same
-idea had occurred to her some time ago. Mrs. Heathcote gave her
-husband full credit for more than ordinary intelligence in reference
-to affairs appertaining to the breeding of sheep and the growing of
-wool, but she did not think highly of his discernment in such an
-affair as this. She herself had been much quicker. When she first saw
-Mr. Medlicot, she had felt it a godsend that such a man, with the
-look of a gentleman, and unmarried, should come into the
-neighborhood; and, in so feeling, her heart had been entirely with
-her sister. For herself it mattered nothing who came or did not come,
-or whether a man were a bachelor, or possessed of a wife and a dozen
-children. All that a girl had a right to want was a good husband. She
-was quite satisfied with her own lot in that respect, but she was
-anxious enough on behalf of Kate. And when a young man did come, who
-might make matters so pleasant for them, Harry quarreled with him
-because he was a free-selector. "A free fiddle-stick!" she had once
-said to Kate--not, however, communicating to her innocent sister the
-ambition which was already filling her own bosom. "Harry does take
-things up so--as though people weren't to live, some in one way and
-some in another! As far as I can see, Mr. Medlicot is a very nice
-fellow." Kate had remarked that he was "all very well," and nothing
-more had been said.
-
-But Mrs. Heathcote, in spite of Harry's aversion, had formed her
-little project--a project which, if then declared, would have filled
-Harry with dismay. And now the young aristocrat, as he turned himself
-in his bed, made the suggestion to his wife as though it were all his
-own!
-
-"I never like to think much of these things beforehand," she said,
-innocently.
-
-"I don't know about thinking," said Harry; "but a girl might do
-worse. If it should come up, don't set yourself against it."
-
-"Kate, of course, will please herself," said Mrs. Heathcote. "Now do
-lie down and rest yourself."
-
-His rest, however, was not of long duration. As he had himself
-suggested, two policemen reached Gangoil at about three in the
-afternoon, on their way from Maryborough to Boolabong, in order
-that they might take Mr. Medlicot's deposition. After Heathcote's
-departure it had occurred to Sergeant Forrest of the police--and
-the suggestion, having been transferred from the sergeant to the
-stipendiary magistrate, was now produced with magisterial
-sanction--that, after all, there was no evidence against the
-Brownbies. They had simply interfered to prevent the burning of the
-grass on their own run, and who could say that they had committed any
-crime by doing so? If Medlicot had seen Nokes with a lighted branch
-in his hand, the matter might be different with him; and therefore
-Medlicot's deposition was taken. He had sworn that he had seen Nokes
-drag his lighted torch along the ground; he had also seen other
-horsemen--two or three, as he thought--but could not identify them.
-Jacko's deposition was also taken as to the man who had been heard and
-seen in the wool-shed at night. Jacko was ready to swear point-blank
-that the man was Nokes. The policemen suggested that, as the night was
-dark, Jacko might as well allow a shade of doubt to appear, thinking
-that the shade of doubt would add strength to the evidence. But Jacko
-was not going to be taught what sort of oath he should swear.
-
-"My word!" he said. "Didn't I see his leg move? You go away."
-
-Armed with these depositions, the two constables went on to Boolabong
-in search of Nokes, and of Nokes only, much to the chagrin of Harry,
-who declared that the police would never really bestir themselves in
-a squatter's cause. "As for Nokes, he'll be out of Queensland by this
-time to-morrow."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-SERGEANT FORREST.
-
-
-The Brownbie party returned, after their midnight raid, in great
-discomfiture to Boolabong. Their leader, Jerry, was burned about his
-hands and face in a disagreeable and unsightly manner. Joe had hardly
-made good that character for "fighting it out to the end" for which
-he was apt to claim credit. Boscobel was altogether disconcerted by
-his fall. And Nokes, who had certainly shown no aptitude for the
-fray, was abused by them all as having caused their retreat by his
-cowardice; while Sing Sing, the runaway cook, who knew that he had
-forfeited his wages at Gangoil, was forced to turn over in his
-heathenish mind the ill effects of joining the losing side. "You big
-fool, Bos," he said more than once to his friend the woodsman, who
-had lured him away from the comforts of Gangoil. "I'll punch your
-head, John, if you don't hold your row," Boscobel would reply. But
-Sing Sing went on with his reproaches, and, before they had reached
-Boolabong, Boscobel had punched the Chinaman's head.
-
-"You're not coming in here," Jerry said to Nokes, when they reached
-the yard gate.
-
-"Who wants to come in? I suppose you're not going to send a fellow on
-without a bit of grub after such a night's work?"
-
-"Give him some bread and meat, Jack, and let him go on. There'll be
-somebody here after him before long. He can't hurt us; but I don't
-want people to think that we are so fond of him that we can't do
-without harboring him here. Georgie, you'll go too, if you take my
-advice. That young cur will send the police here as sure as my name
-is Brownbie, and, if they once get hold of you, they'll have a great
-many things to talk to you about."
-
-Georgie grumbled when he heard this, but he knew that the advice
-given him was good, and he did not attempt to enter the house. So
-Nokes and he vanished, away into the bush together--as such men do
-vanish--wandering forth to live as the wild beasts live. It was still
-a dark night when they went, and the remainder of the party took
-themselves to their beds.
-
-On the following afternoon they were lying about the house, sometimes
-sleeping, and sometimes waking up to smoke, when the two policemen,
-who had already been at Gangoil, appeared in the yard. These men were
-dressed in flat caps, with short blue jackets, hunting breeches, and
-long black boots--very unlike any policemen in the old country, and
-much more picturesque. They leisurely tied their horses up, as though
-they had been in the habit of making weekly visits to the place, and
-walked round to the veranda.
-
-"Well, Mr. Brownbie, and how are you?" said the sergeant to the old
-man.
-
-The head of the family was gracious, and declared himself to be
-pretty well, considering all things. He called the sergeant by his
-name, and asked the men whether they'd take a bit of something to
-eat. Joe also was courteous, and, after a little delay in getting a
-key from his brother, brought out the jar of spirits, which, in the
-bush, is regarded as the best sign known of thorough good-breeding.
-The sergeant said that he didn't mind if he did; and the other man,
-of course, followed his officer's example.
-
-So far every thing was comfortable, and the constables seemed in no
-hurry to allude to disagreeable subjects. They condescended to eat a
-bit of cold meat before they proceeded to business. And at last the
-matter to be discussed was first introduced by one of the Brownbie
-family.
-
-"I suppose you've heard that there was a scrimmage here last night,"
-said Joe. The Brownbie party present consisted of the old man, Joe
-and Jack Brownbie, and Boscobel, Jerry keeping himself in the
-background because of his disfigurement. The sergeant, as he
-swallowed his food, acknowledged that he had heard something about
-it. "And that's what brings you here," continued Joe.
-
-"There ain't nothing wrong here," said old Brownbie.
-
-"I hope not, Mr. Brownbie," said the sergeant. "I hope not. We
-haven't got any thing against you, at any rate." Sergeant Forrest was
-a graduate of Oxford, the son of an English clergyman, who, having
-his way to make in the world, had thought that an early fortune would
-be found in the colonies. He had come out, had failed, had suffered
-some very hard things, and now, at the age of thirty-five, enjoyed
-life thoroughly as a sergeant of the colonial police.
-
-"You haven't got any thing against anybody here, I should think?"
-said Joe.
-
-"If you want to get them as begun it," said Jack, "and them as ought
-to be took up, you'll go to Gangoil."
-
-"Hold your tongue, Jack," said his brother. "Sergeant Forrest knows
-where to go better than you can tell him."
-
-Then the sergeant asked a string of questions as to the nature of the
-fight; who had been hurt; and how badly had any body been hurt; and
-what other harm had been done. The answers to all these questions
-were given with a fair amount of truth, except that the little
-circumstance of the origin of the fire was not explained. Both
-Boscobel and Joe had seen the torch put down, but it could hardly
-have been expected that they should have been explicit as to such a
-detail as that. Nor did they mention the names of either their
-brother George or Nokes.
-
-"And who was there in the matter?" asked the sergeant.
-
-"There was young Heathcote, and a boy he has got there, and the two
-chaps as he calls boundary rulers, and Medlicot, the sugar fellow
-from the mill, and a chap of Medlicot's I never set eyes on before.
-They must have expected something to be up, or Heathcote would not
-have been going about at night with a tribe of men like that."
-
-"And who were your party?"
-
-"Well, there were just ourselves, four of us, for Georgie was here,
-and this fellow Boscobel. Georgie never stays long, and he wouldn't
-be welcome if he did. He turned up just by chance like, and now he's
-off again."
-
-"That was all, eh?"
-
-Of course they all knew that the sergeant knew that Nokes had been
-with them. "Well, then, that wasn't all," said old Brownbie. "Bill
-Nokes was here, whom Heathcote dismissed ever so long ago, and that
-Chinese cook of his. He dismissed him too, I suppose. And he
-dismissed Boscobel here."
-
-"No one can live at Gangoil any time," said Jack. "Every body knows
-that. He wants to be lord a'mighty over every thing. But he ain't
-going to be lord a'mighty at Boolabong."
-
-"And he ain't going to burn our grass either," said Joe. "It's like
-his impudence coming on to our ran and burning every thing before
-him. He calls hisself a magistrate, but he's not to do just as he
-pleases because he's a magistrate. I suppose we can swear against him
-for lighting our grass, sergeant? There isn't one of us that didn't
-see him do it."
-
-"And where is Nokes?" asked the sergeant, paying no attention to the
-application made by Mr. Brownbie, junior, for redress to himself.
-
-"Well," said Joe, "Nokes isn't any where about Boolabong."
-
-"He's away with your brother George?"
-
-"I shouldn't wonder," said Joe.
-
-"It's a serious matter lighting a fire, you know," said the sergeant.
-"A man would have to swing for it."
-
-"Then why isn't young Heathcote to swing?" demanded Jack.
-
-"There is such a thing as intent, you know. When Heathcote lighted
-the fire, where would the fire have gone if he hadn't kept putting it
-out as fast as he kept lighting it? On to his own run, not to yours.
-And where would the other fire have gone which somebody lit, and
-which nobody put out, if he hadn't been there to stop it? The less
-you say against Heathcote the better. So Nokes is off, is he?"
-
-"He ain't here, anyways," said Joe. "When the row was over, we
-wouldn't let him in. We didn't want him about here."
-
-"I dare say not," said the sergeant. "Now let me go and see the spot
-where the fight was." So the two policemen, with the two young
-Brownbies, rode away, leaving Boscobel with the old man.
-
-"He knows every thing about it," said old Brownbie.
-
-"If he do," said Boscobel, "it ain't no odds."
-
-"Not a ha'porth of odds," said Jerry, coming out of his hiding-place.
-"Who cares what he knows? A man may do what he pleases on his own
-run, I suppose."
-
-"He mayn't light a fire as 'll spread," said the old man.
-
-"Bother! Who's to prove what's in a man's mind? If I'd been Nokes,
-I'd have staid and seen it out. I'd never be driven about the colony
-by such a fellow as Heathcote, with all the police in the world to
-back him."
-
-Sergeant Forrest inspected the ground on which the fire had raged,
-and the spot on which the men had met; but nothing came of his
-inspection, and he had not expected that any thing would come of it.
-He could see exactly where the fire had commenced, and could trace
-the efforts that had been made to stop it. He did not in the least
-doubt the way in which it had been lit. But he did very much doubt
-whether a jury could find Nokes guilty, even if he could catch Nokes.
-Jacko's evidence was worth nothing, and Mr. Medlicot might be easily
-mistaken as to what he had seen at a distance in the middle of the
-night.
-
-All this happened on Christmas-day. At about nine o'clock the same
-evening the two constables re-appeared at Gangoil, and asked for
-hospitality for the night. This was a matter of course, and also the
-reproduction of the Christmas dinner. Mrs. Medlicot was now there,
-and her son, with his collar-bone set, had been allowed to come out
-on to the veranda. The house had already been supposed to be full,
-but room, as a matter of course, was made for Sergeant Forrest and
-his man. "It's a queer sort of Christmas we've all been having, Mr.
-Heathcote," said the sergeant, as the remnant of a real English
-plum-pudding was put between him and his man by Mrs. Growler.
-
-"A little hotter than it is at home, eh?"
-
-"Indeed it is. You must have had it hot last night, Sir."
-
-"Very hot, sergeant. We had to work uncommonly hard to do it as well
-as we did."
-
-"It was not a nice Christmas game, Sir, was it?"
-
-"Eh, me!" said Mrs. Medlicot. "There's nae Christmas games or ony
-games here at all, except just worrying and harrying, like sae many
-dogs at each other's throats."
-
-"And you think nothing more can be done?" Harry asked.
-
-"I don't think we shall catch the men. When they get out backward,
-it's very hard to trace them. He's got a horse of his own with him,
-and he'll be beyond reach of the police by this time to-morrow.
-Indeed, he's beyond their reach now. However, you'll have got rid of
-him."
-
-"But there are others as bad as he left behind. I wouldn't trust that
-fellow Boscobel a yard."
-
-"He won't stir, Sir. He belongs to this country, and does not want to
-leave it. And when a thing has been tried like that and has failed,
-the fellows don't try it again. They are cowed like by their own
-failure. I don't think you need fear fire from the Boolabong side
-again this summer."
-
-After this the sergeant and his man discreetly allowed themselves to
-be put to bed in the back cottage; for in truth, when they arrived,
-things had come to such a pass at Gangoil that the two additional
-visitors were hardly welcome. But hospitality in the bush can be
-stayed by no such considerations as that. Let their employments or
-enjoyments on hand be what they may, every thing must yield to the
-entertainment of strangers. The two constables were in want of their
-Christmas dinner, and it was given to them with no grudging hand.
-
-As to Nokes, we may say that he has never since appeared in the
-neighborhood of Gangoil, and that none thereabouts ever knew what was
-his fate. Men such as he wander away from one colony into the next,
-passing from one station to another, or sleeping on the ground, till
-they become as desolate and savage as solitary animals. And at last
-they die in the bush, creeping, we may suppose, into hidden nooks, as
-the beasts do when the hour of death comes on them.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-CONCLUSION.
-
-
-The constables had started from Gangoil, on their way to Boolabong, a
-little after four, and from that time till he was made to get out of
-bed for his dinner Harry Heathcote was allowed to sleep. He had
-richly earned his rest by his work, and he lay motionless, without a
-sound, in the broad daylight, with his arm under his head, dreaming,
-no doubt, of some happy squatting land, in which there were no
-free-selectors, no fires, no rebellious servants, no floods, no
-droughts, no wild dogs to worry the lambs, no grass seeds to get
-into the fleeces, and in which the price of wool stood steady at two
-shillings and sixpence a pound. His wife from time to time came into
-the room, shading the light from his eyes, protecting him from the
-flies, and administering in her soft way to what she thought might be
-his comforts. His sleep was of the kind which no light, nor even
-flies, can interrupt. Once or twice she stooped down and kissed his
-brow, but he was altogether unconscious of her caress.
-
-During this time old Mrs. Medlicot arrived; but her coming did not
-awake the sleeper, though it was by no means made in silence. The old
-woman sobbed and cried over her son, at the same time expressing her
-thankfulness that he should have turned up in the forest so exactly
-at the proper moment, evidently taking part in the conviction that
-her Giles had saved Gangoil and all its sheep. And then there were
-all the necessary arrangements to be made for the night, in
-accordance with which almost every body had to give up his or her bed
-and sleep somewhere else. But nothing disturbed Harry. For the
-present he was allowed to occupy his own room, and he enjoyed the
-privilege.
-
-Kate Daly during this time was much disturbed in mind. The reader may
-remember--Kate, at any rate, remembered well--that, just as the
-doctor had arrived to set his broken bone, Mr. Medlicot, disabled as
-he was, had attempted to take her by the arm. He had certainly chosen
-an odd time for a declaration of love, just the moment in which he
-ought to have been preparing himself for the manipulation of his
-fractured limb; but, unless he had meant a declaration of love,
-surely he would not have seized her by the arm. It was a matter to
-her of great moment. Oh, of what vital importance! The English girl
-living in a town, or even in what we call the country, has no need to
-think of any special man till some special man thinks of her. Men are
-fairly plentiful, and if one man does not come, another will. And
-there have probably been men coming and going in some sort since the
-girl left her school-room and became a young lady. But in the bush
-the thing is very different. It may be that there is no young man
-available within fifty miles--no possible lover or future husband,
-unless Heaven should interfere almost with a miracle. To those to
-whom lovers are as plentiful as blackberries it may seem indelicate
-to surmise that the thought of such a want should ever enter a girl's
-head. I doubt whether the defined idea of any want had ever entered
-poor Kate's head. But now that the possible lover was there--not only
-possible, but very probable--and so eligible in many respects, living
-so close, with a house over his head and a good business; and then so
-handsome, and, as Kate thought, so complete a gentleman! Of course
-she turned it much in her mind. She was very happy with Harry
-Heathcote. There never was a brother-in-law so good! But, after all,
-what is a brother-in-law, though he be the very best? Kate had
-already begun to fancy that a house of her own and a husband of her
-own would be essential to her happiness. But then a man can not be
-expected to make an offer with a broken collar-bone--certainly can
-not do so just when the doctor has arrived to set the bone.
-
-Late on in the day, when the doctor had gone, and Medlicot was,
-according to instructions, sitting out on the veranda in an armchair,
-and his mother was with him, and while Harry was sleeping as though
-he never meant to be awake again, Kate managed to say a few words to
-her sister. It will be understood that the ladies' hands were by no
-means empty. The Christmas dinner was in course of preparation, and
-Sing Sing, that villainous Chinese cook, had absconded. Mrs. Growler,
-no doubt, did her best; but Mrs. Growler was old and slow, and the
-house was full of guests. It was by no means an idle time; but still
-Kate found an opportunity to say a word to her sister in the kitchen.
-
-"What do you think of him, Mary?"
-
-To the married sister "him" would naturally mean Harry Heathcote, of
-whom, as he lay asleep, the young wife thought that he was the very
-perfection of patriarchal pastoral manliness; but she knew enough of
-human nature to be aware that the "him" of the moment to her sister
-was no longer her own husband. "I think he has got his arm broken
-fighting for Harry, and that we are bound to do the best we can for
-him."
-
-"Oh yes; that's of course. I'm sure Harry will feel that. He used,
-you know, to--to--that is, not just to like him, because he is a
-free-selector."
-
-"They'll drop all that now. Of course they could not be expected to
-know each other at the first starting. I shouldn't wonder if they
-became regular friends."
-
-"That would be nice! After all, though you may be so happy at home,
-it is better to have something like a neighbor. Don't you think so?"
-
-"It depends on who the neighbors are. I don't care much for the
-Brownbies."
-
-"They are quite different, Mary."
-
-"I like the Medlicots very much."
-
-"I consider he's quite a gentleman," said Kate.
-
-"Of course he's a gentleman. Look here, Kate--I shall be ready to
-welcome Mr. Medlicot as a brother-in-law, if things should turn out
-that way."
-
-"I didn't mean that, Mary."
-
-"Did you not? Well, you can mean it if you please, as far as I am
-concerned. Has he said any thing to you, dear?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Not a word?"
-
-"I don't know what you call a word; not a word of that kind."
-
-"I thought, perhaps--"
-
-"I think he meant it once--this morning."
-
-"I dare say he meant it. And if he meant it this morning, he won't
-have forgotten his meaning to-morrow."
-
-"There's no reason why he should mean it, you know."
-
-"None in the least, Kate; is there?"
-
-"Now you're laughing at me, Mary. I never used to laugh at you when
-Harry was coming. I was so glad, and I did every thing I could."
-
-"Yes, you went away and left us in the Botanical Gardens. I remember.
-But, you see, there are no Botanical Gardens here; and the poor man
-couldn't walk about if there were."
-
-"I wonder what Harry would say if it were to be so."
-
-"Of course he'd be glad--for your sake."
-
-"But he does so despise free-selectors! And then he used to think
-that Mr. Medlicot was quite as bad as the Brownbies. I wouldn't marry
-any one to be despised by you and Harry."
-
-"That's all gone by, my dear," said the wife, feeling that she had to
-apologize for her husband's prejudices. "Of course one has to find
-out what people are before one takes them to one's bosom. Mr.
-Medlicot has acted in the most friendly way about these fires, and
-I'm sure Harry will never despise him any more."
-
-"He couldn't have done more for a real brother than have his arm
-broken."
-
-"But you must remember one thing, Kate, Mr. Medlicot is very nice,
-and like a gentleman, and all that. Bat you never can be quite
-certain about any man till he speaks out plainly. Don't set your
-heart upon him till you are quite sure that he has set his upon you."
-
-"Oh no," said Kate, giving her maidenly assurance when it was so much
-too late! Just at this moment Mrs. Growler came into the kitchen, and
-Kate's promises and her sister's cautions were for the moment
-silenced.
-
-"How we're to manage to get the dinner on the table, I for one don't
-know at all," said Mrs. Growler. "There's Mr. Bates'll be here; that
-will be six of 'em; and that Mr. Medlicot will want somebody to do
-every thing for him, because he's been and got hisself smashed. And
-there's the old lady has just come out from home, and is as
-particular as any thing. And Mr. Harry himself never thinks of things
-at all. One pair of hands, and them very old, can't do every thing
-for every body." All of which was very well understood to mean
-nothing at all.
-
-Household deficiencies--and, indeed, all deficiencies--are
-considerable or insignificant in accordance with the aspirations
-of those concerned. When a man has a regiment of servants in his
-dining-room, with beautifully cut glass, a forest of flowers, and an
-iceberg in the middle of his table if the weather be hot, his guests
-will think themselves ill used and badly fed if aught in the banquet
-be astray. There must not be a rose leaf ruffled; a failure in the
-attendance, a falling off in a dish, or a fault in the wine is a
-crime. But the same guests shall be merry as the evening is long with
-a leg of mutton and whisky toddy, and will change their own plates,
-and clear their own table, and think nothing wrong, if from the
-beginning such has been the intention of the giver of the feast. In
-spite of Mrs. Growler's prognostications, though the cook had
-absconded, and the chief guest of the occasion could not cut up his
-own meat, that Christmas dinner at Gangoil was eaten with great
-satisfaction.
-
-Harry had been so far triumphant. He had stopped the fire that was
-intended to ruin him, he had beaten off his enemies on their own
-ground, and he was no longer oppressed by that sense of desolation
-which had almost overpowered him.
-
-"We'll give one toast, Mrs. Medlicot," he said, when Mrs. Growler and
-Kate between them had taken away the relics of the plum-pudding. "Our
-friends at home!"
-
-The poor lady drank the toast with a sob. "That's vera weel for you,
-Mr. Heathcote. You're young, and will win your way hame, and see auld
-friends again, nae doubt; but I'll never see ane of them mair, except
-those I have here." Nevertheless, the old lady ate her dinner and
-drank her toddy, and made much of the occasion, going in and out to
-her son upon the veranda.
-
-Soon after dinner Heathcote, as was his wont, strayed out with his
-prime minister Bates to consult on the dangers which might be
-supposed still to threaten his kingdom, and Mrs. Heathcote, with her
-youngest boy in her lap, sat talking to Mrs. Medlicot in the parlor.
-Such was not her custom in weather such as this. Kate had been sent
-out on to the veranda, with special commands to attend to the wants
-of the sufferer, and Mrs. Heathcote would have followed her had she
-not remembered her sister's appeal, "I did every thing I could for
-you."
-
-In those happy days Kate had been very good, and certainly deserved
-requital for her services. And therefore, when the men had gone out,
-Mrs. Heathcote, with her guest, remained in the warm room, and went
-so far as to suggest that at that period of the day the room was
-preferable to the veranda. Poor Mrs. Medlicot was new to the ways of
-the bush, and fell into the trap; thus Kate Daly was left alone with
-her wounded hero.
-
-When told to take him out his glass of wine, and when conscious that
-no one followed her, she felt herself to have been guilty of some
-great sin, and was almost tempted to escape. She had asked her sister
-for help; and this was the help that was forth-coming--help so
-palpable, so manifest, as to be almost indelicate! Would he think
-that plans were being made to catch him, now that he was a captive
-and impotent? The thought that it was possible that such an idea
-might occur to him was terrible to her. She would rather lose him
-altogether than feel the stain of such a suggestion on her own
-conscience. She put the glass of wine down on the little table by his
-side, and then attempted to withdraw.
-
-"Stay a moment with me," he said. "Where are they all?"
-
-"Mary and your mother are inside. Harry and Mr. Bates have gone
-across to look at the horses."
-
-"I almost feel as though I could walk, too."
-
-"You must not think of it yet, Mr. Medlicot. It seems almost a wonder
-that you shouldn't have to be in bed, and you with your collar-bone
-broken only last night! I don't know how you can bear it as you do."
-
-"I shall be so glad I broke it, if one thing will come about."
-
-"What thing?" asked Kate, blushing.
-
-"Kate--may I call you Kate?"
-
-"I don't know," she said.
-
-"You know I love you, do you not? You must know it. Dearest Kate, can
-you love me and be my wife?" His left arm was bound up, and was in a
-sling, but he put out his right hand to take hers, if she would give
-it to him. Kate Daly had never had a lover before, and felt the
-occasion to be trying. She had no doubt about the matter. If it were
-only proper for her to declare herself, she could swear with a safe
-conscience that she loved him better than all the world.
-
-"Put your hand here, Kate," he said.
-
-As the request was not exactly for the gift of her hand, she placed
-it in his.
-
-"May I keep it now?"
-
-She could only whisper something which was quite inaudible, even to
-him.
-
-"I shall keep it, and think that you are all my own. Stoop down,
-Kate, and kiss me, if you love me."
-
-She hesitated for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. She did
-love him, and was his own; still, to stoop and kiss a man who, if
-such a thing were to be allowed at all, ought certainly to kiss her!
-She did not think she could do that. But then she was bound to
-protect him, wounded and broken as he was, from his own imprudence;
-and if she did not stoop to him, he would rise to her. She was still
-in doubt, still standing with her hand in his, half bending over him,
-but yet half resisting as she bent, when, all suddenly, Harry
-Heathcote was on the veranda, followed by the two policemen, who had
-just returned from Boolabong. She was sure that Harry had seen her,
-and was by no means sure that she had been quick enough in escaping
-from her lover's hand to have been unnoticed by the policemen also.
-She fled away as though guilty, and could hardly recover herself
-sufficiently to assist Mrs. Growler in producing the additional
-dinner which was required.
-
-The two men were quickly sent to their rest, as has been told before;
-and Harry, who had in truth seen how close to his friend his
-sister-in-law had been standing, would, had it been possible, have
-restored the lovers to their old positions; but they were all now on
-the veranda, and it was impossible. Kate hung back, half in and half
-out of the sitting-room, and old Mrs. Medlicot had seated herself
-close to her son. Harry was lying at full length on a rug, and his
-wife was sitting over him. Then Giles Medlicot, who was not quite
-contented with the present condition of affairs, made a little
-speech.
-
-"Mrs. Heathcote," he said, "I have asked your sister to marry me."
-
-"Dearie me, Giles," said Mrs. Medlicot.
-
-Kate remained no longer half in and half out of the parlor, but
-retreated altogether and hid herself. Harry turned himself over on
-the rug, and looked up at his wife, claiming infinite credit in that
-he had foreseen that such a thing might happen.
-
-"And what answer has she given you?" said Mrs. Heathcote.
-
-"She hasn't given me any answer yet. I wonder what you and Heathcote
-would say about it?"
-
-"What Kate has to say is much more important," replied the discreet
-sister.
-
-"I should like it of all things," said Harry, jumping up. "It's
-always best to be open about these things. When you first came here,
-I didn't like you. You took a bit of my river frontage--not that it
-does me any great harm--and then I was angry about that scoundrel
-Nokes."
-
-"I was wrong about Nokes," said Medlicot, "and have, therefore, had
-my collar-bone broken. As to the land, you'll forgive my having it if
-Kate will come and live there?"
-
-"By George! I should think so.--Kate, why don't you come out? Come
-along, my girl. Medlicot has spoken out openly, and you should answer
-him in the same fashion." So saying, he dragged her forth, and I fear
-that, as far as she was concerned, something of the sweetness of her
-courtship was lost by the publicity with which she was forced to
-confess her love. "Will you go, Kate, and make sugar down at the
-mill? I have often thought how bad it would be for Mary and me when
-you were taken away; but we sha'n't mind it so much if we knew that
-you are to be near us."
-
-"Speak to him, Kate," said Mrs. Heathcote, with her arm round her
-sister's waist.
-
-"I think she's minded to have him," said Mrs. Medlicot.
-
-"Tell me, Kate--shall it be so?" pleaded the lover.
-
-She came up to him and leaned over him, and whispered one word which
-nobody else heard. But they all knew what the word was. And before
-they separated for the night she was left alone with him, and he got
-the kiss for which he was asking when the policemen interrupted them.
-
-"That's what I call a happy Christmas," said Harry, as the party
-finally parted for the night.
-
-
-
-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL***
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