Part 7

He must have had a bad heart, indeed, not to be touched by the way she begged him, to be true to anything that was good in him, and to turn over a new leaf, and lead a worthy life. And then she promised him that she would always be his friend, and that she and Nick would do everything in their power to help him.

He listened to her for a bit, and then, when she begged him to give her the proofs he had promised her, he came closer to her, and broke out into a wild declaration of love; he told her he couldn’t live without her, abused Nick, and implored her to throw Nick over and run away with him.

I don’t know what idea he had in his mind about carrying her off.

Anyhow, he wasn’t given the chance of trying the experiment. Directly his arm went out to draw Nan to him, there was a dash and a scuffle, and before I could fling myself forward, as I had been about to do on Nan’s behalf, I saw that another man had darted from the shadow of the hut, on the opposite side to where I had hidden myself, and that it was Nick who was wrestling with his enemy, and who finally flung him to the ground.

The fellow lay half stunned; his head had struck against the post, which supported the bough-shade of the hut, and when I stooped over him, I saw that blood was streaming from his mouth and nose.

“I’ve knocked one of his teeth out,” said Nick savagely. “Oh, Nan, Nan, my darling, how could you make me so anxious and miserable?”

They were in each other’s arms, the two completely reconciled. And Nan begged Nick to forgive her, and then they saw me and there was an explanation, and a half hysterical laughing and crying on Nan’s part.

Nick gripped my hand. “God bless you, Curran,” he said. He told me how he, too, had been hanging round the Postmaster’s house trying to make up his mind to go in.

And at first, in the dusk, he had fancied I was Rummles, and when he had seen Nan come out and me follow her, he had followed us both with rage and jealousy tearing at his heart, till, when he had reached the hut, and Rummles appeared, he had found out his mistake.

Rummles groaned at his pain, and Nick told me to stay and look after him, and took Nan’s hand to lead her away.

Nan, however, clung to the idea of the proofs of Nick’s innocence, which Rummles had promised her, and would not leave till Nick showed her, that there could be no proof except Rummles’ own full confession, and that he had been fooling her all the time.

This episode brought things to a crisis between Nan and Nick. Nan was so remorseful for the suffering she had caused Nick that she was ready to agree to anything he wished. And the whole thing had shaken her nerves, and she longed to get away from Eungella.

As for Nick, he had an almost superstitious dread of Rummles, whom he looked upon as his evil genius, and was firmly convinced, that, if they all three remained at the Diggings, Rummles would in the end accomplish his evil purpose of separating him from Nan. And so, saying no word to anyone at first, he quietly made his arrangements for departure.

On Christmas Eve the downward steamer would touch at the seaport for Eungella—a half day’s coach journey from the Diggings. And on the morning of Christmas Eve Nick was married to Nan.

Nick had got a special licence, and the wedding took place very early in the morning, and had but few spectators.

The day was tropical in its heat, but a faint breeze crept up the gully, and there were some misty clouds in the bright blue sky. The grapes were ripening in the Chinamen’s gardens on the gully slope, and we gathered some jasmine flowers for Nan to wear. Strange irony of fate—to use the old penny-a-liner phrase—it was I who gave Nan to her husband.

I went with them to the seaport, and waited with them till the steamer came in.

It was just such a night as this, and the Southern Cross was shining as brightly as it shines on me to-night. And in a garden by the wharf there was a tree of great ghostly strong-scented trumpet flowers.

As I stood on the wharf and watched the steamer going out to sea, taking Nan out of my life for ever, the clock struck, and I knew it was Christmas Day. And it seemed a mockery of my sorrow, when the voices of the children came down to me, from the road above, singing the old carol of frosty nights and ice-bound roads and clear glistening Northern constellations, singing here, under these tropical skies and strange stars, and in the murmurous night laden with rich sickly perfume—

“God bless you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ our Saviour Was born this Christmas Day.”

And Nan was gone!

I went back to Eungella and duly chronicled the wedding and the departure of the bride and bridegroom in _The Star_. And I wrote a leader on Nick’s sudden gain of fortune, and on the finding of big nuggets in general, and I made Nick the text for a sermon on pluck and perseverance and fidelity.

But I didn’t write anything about my own aching heart.

I was in _The Star_ office reading over the slips of proof, one night not long after, when a digger I knew came in. He was one of the “Honourables,” and he and I were rather chums.

“There’s some ‘copy’ for you down at Ruffey’s,” he said.

Ruffey’s was the big public-house of the place.

“I couldn’t stand it. This devil’s hole has finished me. I am going to clear out of it to-morrow.”

“What’s the row?” I asked carelessly. Rows were common enough at Eungella, and knife scratches too.

“Oh, a regular ‘go-as-you-like-it’ fight,” he said. “A digger called Voucher—you know him, next claim to mine—and another fellow, a good-looking counter-jumper sort of fellow.

“They brought some tools in to sharpen, and they went drinking, and the end was a flourish of the tomahawk, Voucher was sharpening. Voucher hit the other chap on the head with the edge and rubbed it in with the flat.

“I made for the tomahawk and collared it after a scuffle, but not before the other chap had pulled out a knife. That was the signal for Voucher’s bowie knife, and the other fellow got a nasty wound. I came off for a doctor, and I’ve sent him along to Ruffey’s, and now I shall go and turn in.”

One used to get callous to that sort of thing at Eungella. But it was “copy” for me. I prepared for a move to the scene of the fight.

“Who is the man, who has been stabbed?” I asked.

“The chap that was after that girl you saw married the other day—Sister Nan. He is not a friend of yours, is he? If he is, I am sorry for you. But you needn’t be uneasy. He’ll get over his scratch right enough. They all do, worse luck.”

“No, he is not a friend of mine,” I answered. And I did not wait for another word. An idea had taken possession of me. It seemed to me a call of fate. I took up my hat and rushed to Ruffey’s.

The bar had a curiously quiet look. The men who were in it seemed awed, I thought.

There was a policeman hanging about, and policemen were not common at Eungella, and generally kept out of the way when there was a row.

I pushed my way into the inner parlour. A crowd of people were collected there, and I saw the doctor bending over a stretcher covered with a red blanket, on which lay the wounded man. The man was Rummles.

I asked the doctor what he thought of the case. “It’s a bad business,” he answered. “They have sent for the Police Magistrate. He says he wants to make a deposition, and he had better make haste.”

Rummles looked up and saw me. “You’ll do,” he said, in a broken, hoarse voice. “I’m done for, and I’d best make what amends I can. I’m doing it for her; not for justice, mind you, but for her—for Nan.”

The Police Magistrate and the clergyman came in just then. The doctor cleared a space round the dying man, and he made his last confession.

He confessed that it was he, who had stolen the watch and had placed it in Nick’s pocket, and allowed Nick to be punished for the theft.

The deposition was read out to him, and, with an effort, he signed his name. “She’s brought me bad luck,” were his last words. “I’ve never had any luck since I took that watch. I’ve never had any luck, since I fell in love with Nan. And just as I was beginning to get on, she came back, and here’s the worst luck of all. But I’d like her to know that I loved her, and that it’s done—for Nan.”

ALFRED CURRAN.

EVE THE SIXTH.

REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P., RELATIVE TO AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE.

_By JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY._

I HAVE found, in the course of a pretty long acquaintance with men and things, that the House of Commons is one of the few places of which one is never weary.

I am speaking for myself, of course. I know there are other men, who think differently from me, who regard the House of Commons with disdain, if not with positive dislike, and the men, I have at this moment in my mind, are not men who affect a contempt for the unattainable thing, but men who have been in the House of Commons and who could be there again, if they wished.

But, for my own part, I candidly confess that I am unable to understand their state of mind on the matter.

To me the House of Commons is always a delightful place. I offer it the uncompromising admiration that young poets lay at the feet of their mistresses; I feel for it the affection that a friend feels for a friend. But I do not wish it to be supposed, because I say all this, that I am convinced that I have in me the makings of a great statesman, or, indeed, that my presence at Westminster is in any serious degree indispensable to the safety of the commonweal.

I like, of course, to think that, when I have given a vote, I have given it as an honest man for the side which I think to be in the right.

I like, of course, to think that, when I make my little speech—and I confess that I address the House not infrequently, and the House is good enough to hear me with patience—that I am doing what lies in me to advance the general good. But my interest in the House of Commons does not come in the first instance from philanthropy or a zeal for the Constitution.

I like the House of Commons as other men like a theatre, as other men like to travel. I like the theatre, too, and I like to travel; but I would rather have the House of Commons, than any theatre that ever was built, and would rather walk through the lobbies, than wander over Europe.

What play was ever so keenly exciting as a heavy debate at Westminster; what travels bring one more into touch with all varieties of men than long experience of the ways of Westminster? None, none, none.

The House of Commons is like the _Eau de Jouvence_; it makes old men young again, and revives, in the hearts of respectable elderly gentlemen, the feverish pulses of youth.

The excitement, which leads a noble lord to leap upon the benches and halloo for joy over a Ministerial defeat, is as keen as any which moves the pulses of boyhood in the cricket field or the pulses of manhood in battle or exploration. So the House of Commons is to me as the great theatre of life, and I find unending pleasures in its acts and its actors.

I have seen some pretty stirring scenes, too, in my time. I have been in the House of Commons now for nearly twenty years, and, in that time, I have been present at almost every event of any note, that has animated its precincts and inspired its orators.

I have had my share of all-night sittings; have seen men stand at the bar of the House; have watched the rise and ruin of reputations; have seen Ministry after Ministry reel to its fall.

But I honestly think that I have never seen a more remarkable scene, than the one to which you have referred, and about which you have asked me, as an eye-witness, to give you some few particulars.

I saw Mr. John Drury on the day when he entered the House of Commons, and I remember very well how struck I was by his commanding presence and singularly beautiful face.

I use the word “beautiful” advisedly. It is a word we reserve mostly nowadays for the faces of women; but John Drury’s face impressed me immediately with a sense of its beauty—its strong, calm, honourable beauty.

All I knew of him was, that he came from the colonies; that he was reputed to be wealthy, even very wealthy; and that he had come into the House of Commons at a by-election, as the advocate of views, which he had championed with great success in the columns of the London daily paper, _The Planet_, which he himself owned and had founded.

That was all I knew then. There was, however, much more to know, and I learned it later in a sufficiently remarkable manner.

It was a winter session, I remember. Fond as I am of the House of Commons I have no great passion for winter sessions.

My affection for the House is a legitimate, not an abnormal affection, and I like it to pursue its orderly course.

London is not pleasant in winter, while Cairo is; and, as a general rule, I would rather spend my Christmas on the Nile than by the Thames. But I would not have missed seeing the event, which I am about to tell you, even to have been at Luxor a few weeks earlier, for I got off to Egypt immediately after the House rose, thank goodness!

That winter session was unavoidable. There were things to do, which ought to have been done before, and which had to be done then, on the “better late than never” principle. We were really not very far off from Christmas Eve, when the event took place, which compensated me at least for the grey city and the weary winter days and the belated Commons.

Mr. Drury had proved himself to be a force in English public life, before he entered the House of Commons.

His newspaper, _The Planet_, had made itself the outspoken mouthpiece of all the interests of the labouring classes and of the poor, and he himself had earned a very considerable reputation, as a public speaker at more than one platform in the mining and agricultural regions of England.

Naturally, when a man attains to any degree of eminence in England, his fellow citizens want to know all about him. Demand creates a supply, and the Society papers afforded the world at large the opportunity of learning a number of facts about the past life of Mr. Drury.

It was soon well known that he had made his fortune at the gold-fields.

It was well known, also, that when he went to the gold-fields he went as a pardoned felon, as a convict, who had been set at liberty on account of his gallant conduct in saving a warder’s life, during a mutiny of his fellow prisoners on board the transport ship.

It would be idle to deny that at first the stories which got into circulation raised a kind of prejudice against Mr. Drury.

Of course the wrong version of any story always gets the greatest hearing, and, as the particular line which Mr. Drury took up in politics was not calculated to make him extremely popular with the easy-going and with the well-to-do, the wrong story obtained a very considerable amount of credence.

But it was an entirely wrong story, and its wrongfulness was made plain soon enough, even to the most obstinate intelligence. For Mr. Drury took the bull by the horns at once.

He published in _The Planet_ the whole of the proceedings connected with his trial; he repeated with the most admirable firmness and coolness his own denial of the crime, and he concluded his defence very triumphantly by producing the written confession of the real thief—a man named Rummles, I believe—who died in a drunken brawl at Eungella Diggings, a confession duly attested by the police magistrate, the clergyman, and Mr. Alfred Curran, who has since become conspicuous in Colonial politics as the editor of Mr. Drury’s Australian paper, _The Southern Cross_.

Of course, this confession silenced everybody, or nearly everybody.

Unhappily, there is a class of politician, a small class I am glad to believe, who will stick at nothing to harm an antagonist, and this small class, like all other classes, does occasionally find its representative in the House of Commons.

Mr. Drury had not been long in the House of Commons before he began to make a name there, as he had already made a name in journalism. It does not take long nowadays for a man to make his mark at St. Stephen’s.

In old days, before my time, and even in my time, it was a slow business for a man to take his right place in the House. It was a kind of unwritten law that a man should not speak at all till he had been in the House for at least a session, and very scrupulous or very old-fashioned persons carried the period of probation to a further degree still. But we have changed all that, as _Sganarelle_ says in Molière’s play.

I have heard a new member make his maiden speech on the very night, on which he entered the House for the first time, and within a few hours of the ceremony of taking the oath.

Mr. Drury was not like that, indeed; but neither did he belong to the old-fashioned school of politicians. He waited a decorous week before speaking, and when he spoke for the first time, he spoke exceedingly well, with a modest dignity which pleased all his hearers—or almost all his hearers—and which won him at once a promising place amongst the “young men.”

I shall not forget that night, less because of Drury’s first speech, good though it was, and glad though I always am to hear a good speech, than for another reason. If I remember rightly, it is Goethe who says somewhere, that one should never pass a day without reading a beautiful poem or looking upon the face of a beautiful woman.

Certainly the day in which one does look upon a beautiful woman, is better than days less blessed, and I am always glad and grateful for the privilege of seeing a beautiful woman. And I saw a very beautiful woman that night.

I had gone up into the Ladies’ Gallery to look after the wife and daughter of a constituent, whom I had been lucky enough to get places for, when I saw in the gallery a woman’s face, such a glorious face. In its divine, dark beauty it conquered my attention, my admiration. I forgot manners, and stared—simply stared.

I don’t think she noticed me at all. She seemed to be entirely occupied by looking steadfastly at someone who was seated in the Chamber below. Whoever he was, I envied him to have earned the homage of those glorious, midnight eyes.

As I was leaving the gallery, I asked Wilson, the doorkeeper, who the lady was, the dark, handsome lady in the front row of the gallery. Wilson glanced in the direction I indicated, and answered me directly.

“That, sir,” he said, “is Mrs. John Drury.”

As I went down the stairs, to get to the corridor which leads to the Chamber, I could not help reflecting upon the generous way in which destiny seemed to have made amends to John Drury. Still young, very rich, a famous journalist, a rising politician, and, above all, blessed with a wife of such extraordinary beauty.

“John Drury,” I said to myself, “you are a lucky man, and I hope and believe that you deserve it.”

But the event, which I know you want particularly to hear about, took place some little time after that—a couple of weeks later if I remember rightly.

There were some friends dining with me that night; there were ladies in the party, and I had got one of the pleasantest tables in the ladies’ dining-room for my little group.

It chanced that John Drury and his wife were dining at the next table, and if I had thought her beautiful before in the dim light of the Ladies’ Gallery, I thought her still more radiantly fair in the bright light of the dining-room.

I guessed from her presence that Drury was about to speak; it was an important debate on some question of the hours of labour, and by this time everyone “in the know” was not willing to miss a chance of hearing John Drury.

So, when our dinner was over, I bundled my little party upstairs, saw the ladies into their gallery, succeeded in wedging the men in “Under the Clock,” and got back to my own seat, as soon as I could.

It was very lucky I did so, for I heard a fine speech, which I had expected and hoped for, and witnessed a scene which I had neither expected nor hoped for.

John Drury made his speech, and a very able speech it was, spoken with a Saxon simplicity and straightforwardness, which reminded me a little of Bright, but enriched with an amount of illustration, which showed a far wider reading than Bright’s.

In its way I don’t think I ever heard a better speech. I daresay I didn’t agree with all his arguments—that didn’t matter at all; it was a real pleasure to listen to such a speech. Its very defect, in being too eloquent for the modern conversational standard debate in the House of Commons, gave it a freshness and a charm of its own.

Drury, too, had one great secret—he never wearied his audience. He never uttered a sentence, never uttered a syllable too much. He said all that he wanted to say, fully and finely, and then he sat down, as he always sat down, amidst rapturous applause.

On this particular evening he spoke at his best; and when he sat down the applause, on his side, was loud and long. While it lasted, I glanced up at the gilded bars, which hide the occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery, and thought of that dark, beautiful face which watched its lover’s triumph, of the glorious dark eyes that widened with delight at their lover’s success.

By the time that I had sighed the little sigh of envy, which one pays as a tribute to the happy possessor of youth and beauty, the applause, which had rung out for Drury’s eloquent championship of the poor, had died away, and I noticed that a pert young member of the Government had jumped to his feet to answer him.

As an answer it was ridiculous enough, about as valuable a contribution, to the question in hand, as the suggestion of the luckless queen, that, if the poor people had no bread to eat, they might eat cakes instead. But it had one significant passage.

The young fellow, flushed and excited by his own pertness, lost his head and with it his manners.

“The honourable gentleman,” he said, pointing offensively in the direction, where John Drury sat quietly listening to him; “the honourable gentleman has made an eloquent appeal for the idle, for the improvident, for all who go to make up what are rightly called the dangerous classes. Well, Sir, in this House we go in for the representation of minorities, and though I am thankful to think that the dangerous classes are in the minority in this country, it is, no doubt, according to the latest political lights, fit and proper that they, too, should find their representative in this House.”

The speaker had got thus far, when several of the men on our side of the House began to interrupt with cries of “Oh, oh,” which were somewhat hotly responded to, by cheers from some of the men in the immediate vicinity of the speaker. Goaded by the hostility and the applause, the speaker flung out one last defiant, insolent sentence.

“Yes, Sir, the dangerous classes must have their representative in this House, and where could they, by any possibility, find a better representative than a convicted felon——”

He was not allowed to finish the sentence. The hubbub that arose of angry groans and defiant cheers—for I am sorry to say that the foolish young gentleman had his backers—drowned the rest of his sentence, and he sat down amidst a display of the stormiest excitement on both sides of the House.