Chapter 15

Frank rode back to the hut. The mother and daughter had stood at the door watching him flog the Parson. He was in their eyes a hero; he had scourged their savage enemy, and had driven him to the rocks. They were weeping beauties--at least the daughter was a beauty in Frank's eyes--but now they wiped away their tears, smoothed their hair, and thanked their gallant knight over and over again. Two at a time they repeated their story, how they saw the blackfellow coming, how they bolted the door, and how he battered it with his club, threatening to kill them if they did not open it.

Frank had never before been so much praised and flattered, at least not since his mother weaned him; but he pretended not to care. He said:

"Tut, tut, it's not worth mentioning. Say no more about it. I would of course have done as much for anybody."

Of course he could not leave the ladies again to the mercy of the Parson, so he waited until the shepherd returned with his flock.

Then Frank rode away with a new sensation, a something as near akin to love as a rough stockman could be expected to feel.

Neddy, the shepherd, asked Mr. Calvert for the loan of arms, and he taught his wife and daughter the use of old Tower muskets. He said, "If ever that Parson comes to the hut again, put a couple of bullets through him."

After that Frank called at the hut nearly every day, enquiring if the Parson had been seen anywhere abroad.

"No," said Cecily, "we haven't seen him any more;" and she smiled so sweetly, and lowered her eyes, and spoke low, with a bewitching Tasmanian accent.

Frank was in the mud, and sinking daily deeper and deeper. At last he resolved to turn farmer and leave the run, so he rented the land adjoining Philip's garden and the forty-acre. There was on it a four-roomed, weather-board house and outbuildings, quite a bush palace. Farming was then profitable. Frank ploughed a large paddock and sowed it with wheat and oats. Then while the grain was ripening he resolved to ask Cecily a very important question. One Sunday he rode to the hut with a spare horse and side saddle. Both horses were well groomed, the side saddle was new, the bits, buckles, and stirrup-irons were like burnished silver. Cecily could ride well even without a saddle, but had never owned one. She yielded to temptation, but with becoming coyness and modesty. Frank put one hand on his knee, holding the bridle with the other; then Cicely raised one of her little feet, was lifted lightly on to the saddle, and the happy pair cantered gaily over the plain to their future home.

Frank showed his bride-elect the land and the crops, the cows and the horses, the garden and the house. Cecily looked at everything, but said next to nothing. "She is shy," Frank thought, "and I must treat her gently." But the opportunity must not be thrown away, and on their way over the plains Frank told his tale of love. I don't know precisely what he said or how he said it, not having been present, but he did not hook his fish that day, and he took home with him the bait, the horse, and the empty side-saddle. But he persevered with his suit, and before the wheat was ripe, Cecily consented to be his bride.

He was so overjoyed with his success that instead of waiting for the happy day when he had to say "With this ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he gave Cecily the worldly goods beforehand--the horse, with the beautiful new side saddle and bridle--and nearly all his cash, reserving only sufficient to purchase the magic ring and a few other necessaries.

The evening before the happy day the pair were seen walking together before sundown on a vacant lot in the township, discussing, it was supposed, the arrangements for the morrow.

It was the time of the harvest, and Philip had been engaged to measure the work of the reapers on a number of farms. I am aware that he asked and received 1 pound for each paddock, irrespective of area. On the bridal morn he walked over Frank's farm with his chain and began the measurement, the reapers, most of them broken down diggers, following him and watching him. Old Jimmy Gillon took one end of the chain; he said he had been a chainman when the railway mania first broke out in Scotland, so he knew all about land surveying. Frank was absent, but he returned while Philip was calculating the wages payable to each reaper, and he said: "Here's the money, master; pay the men what's coming to 'em and send 'em away."

Frank looked very sulky, and Philip was puzzled. He knew the blissful ceremony was to take place that day, but there was no sign of it, nor of any bliss whatever; no wedding garments, no parson, no bride.

The bare matter of fact was, the bride had eloped during the night.

"For young Lochinvar had come out of the West, And an underbred, fine-spoken fellow was he."

He was a bullock-driver of superior manners and attractive personality, and was the only man in Australia who waxed and curled his moustaches. Cecily had for some time been listening to Lochinvar, who was known to have been endeavouring to "cut out" Frank. She was staying in the township with her mother preparing for matrimony, and her horse was in the stable at Howell's Hotel.

When Frank rode away to his farm on that fateful evening, Lochinvar was watching him. He saw Cecily going home to her mother for the last night, and while he was looking after her wistfully, and the pangs of despairing love were in his heart, Bill the Butcher came up and said:

"Well, Lock, what are you going to do?"

"Why, what can I do? She is going to marry Frank in the morning."

"I don't believe it: not if you are half the man you ought to be."

"But how can I help it?"

"Help it? Just go and take her. Saddle your horse and her own, take 'em up to the cottage, and ask her just to come outside for a minute. And if you don't persuade her in five minutes to ride away with you to Ballarat, I'll eat my head off. I know she don't want to marry Frank; all she wants is an excuse not to, and it will be excuse enough when she has married you."

These two worthy men went to the Hotel and talked the matter over with Howell. The jolly landlord slapped his knee and laughed. He said: "You are right, Bill. She'll go, I'll bet a fiver, and here it is, Lock; you take it to help you along."

This base conspiracy was successful, and that was the reason Frank was so sulky on that harvest morning.

He was meditating vengeance. Love and hate, matrimony and murder, are sometimes not far asunder, but Frank was not by nature vengeful; he had that "foolish hanging of the nether lip which shows a lack of decision."

I would not advise any man to seek in a law court a sovereign remedy for the wounds inflicted by the shafts of Cupid; but Frank tried it. During his examination in chief his mien was gloomy and his answers brief.

Then Mr. Aspinall rose and said: "I appear for the defendant, your Honour, but from press of other engagements I have been unable to give that attention to the legal aspects of this case which its importance demands, and I have to request that your Honour will be good enough to adjourn the court for a quarter of an hour."

The court was adjourned for half an hour, and Mr. Aspinall and his solicitor retired to a room for a legal consultation. It began thus:

"I say, Lane, fetch me a nobbler of brandy; a stiffener, mind."

Lane fetched the stiffener in a soda-water bottle, and it cleared the legal atmosphere.

When the court resumed business, Frank took his stand in the witness box, and a voice said: "Now, Mr. Barlow, look at me."

Frank had been called many names in his time, but never "Mr. Barlow" before now. He looked and saw the figure of a little man with a large head, whose voice came through a full-grown nose like the blast of a trumpet.

"You say you gave Cecily some money, a horse, saddle, and bridle?"

"I did."

"And you bought a wedding ring?"

"I've got it in my pocket."

"I see. Your Honour will be glad to hear that the ring, at any rate, is not lost. It will be ready for another Cecily, won't it, Mr. Barlow?"

Barlow, looking down on the floor of the court and shaking his head slowly from side to side, said:

"No, it won't No fear. There 'ull be no more Cecilies for me."

There was laughter in the court, and when Frank raised his eyes, and saw a broad grin on every face, he, too, burst into a fit of laughter.

I saw Mr. Aspinall and Dr. Macadam walking together arm-in-arm from the court. The long doctor and the little lawyer were a strange pair. Everybody knew that they were sliding down the easy slope to their tragic end, but they seemed never to think of it.

Frank returned to Nyalong, happier than either. He related the particulars of the trial to his friends with the utmost cheerfulness. Whether he recovered all the worldly goods with which he had endowed Cecily is doubtful, but he faithfully kept his promise that "There 'ull be no more Cecilies for me."

There was a demon of mischief at work on Philip's hill at both sides of the dividing fence. Sam was poisoned by a villainous butcher; Bruin had been killed by Hugh Boyle; Maggie had eloped with a wild native to a gum-tree; Joey had been eaten by Pussy; Barlow had been crossed in love, and then the crowning misfortune befell the hermit.

Mrs. Chisholm was a lady who gave early tokens of her vocation. At the age of seven she began to form benevolent plans for the colonies of Great Britain. She built ships of broad beans, filled them with poor families of Couchwood, sent them to sea in a wash-basin, landed them in a bed-quilt, and started them growing wheat. Then she loaded her fleet with a return cargo for the British pauper, one grain of wheat in each ship, and navigated it safely to Old England. She made many prosperous voyages, but once a storm arose which sent all her ships to the bottom of the sea. She sent a Wesleyan minister and a Catholic priest to Botany Bay in the same cabin, strictly enjoining them not to quarrel during the voyage. At the age of twenty she married Captain Chisholm, and went with him to Madras. There she established a School of Industry for Girls, and her husband seconded her in all her good works.

Mr. Chamier, the secretary, took a great interest in her school; Sir Frederick Adams subscribed 20 pounds, and officers and gentlemen in Madras contributed in five days 2,000 rupees. The school became an extensive orphanage.

Mrs. and Captain Chisholm came to Australia in 1838 for the benefit of his health, and they landed at Sydney. They saw Highland immigrants who could not speak English, and they gave them tools and wheelbarrows wherewith to cut and sell firewood.

Captain Chisholm returned to India in 1840, but the health of her young family required Mrs. Chisholm to remain in Sydney.

Female immigrants arriving in Sydney were regularly hired on board ship, and lured into a vicious course of life. Mrs. Chisholm went on board each ship, and made it her business to protect and advise them, and begged the captain and agent to act with humanity. Some place of residence was required in which the new arrivals could be sheltered, until respectable situations could be found for them, and in January, 1841, she applied to Lady Gipps for help. A committee of ladies was formed, and Mrs. Chisholm at length obtained a personal audience from the Governor, Sir George Gipps. He believed she was labouring under an amiable delusion. He wrote to a friend:

"I expected to have seen an old lady in a white cap and spectacles, who would have talked to me about my soul. I was amazed when my aide introduced a handsome, stately young woman, who proceeded to reason the question as if she thought her reason, and experience too, worth as much as mine."

Sir George at last consented to allow her the use of a Government building, a low wooden one. Her room was seven feet by seven feet. Rats ran about in it in all directions, and then alighted on her shoulders. But she outgeneraled the rats. She gave them bread and water the first night, lit two candles, and sat up in bed reading "Abercrombie." There came never less than seven nor more than thirteen rats eating at the same time. The next night she gave them another feast seasoned with arsenic.

The home for the immigrants given her by Sir George had four rooms, and in it at one time she kept ninety girls who had no other shelter. About six hundred females were then wandering about Sydney unprovided for. Some slept in the recesses of the rocks on the Government domain. She received from the ships in the harbour sixty-four girls, and all the money they had was fourteen shillings and three half-pence.

She took them to the country, travelling with a covered cart to sleep in. She left married families at different stations, and then sent out decent lasses who should be married.

In those days the dead bodies of the poor were taken to the cemetery in a common rubbish-cart.

By speeches and letters both public and private, and by interviews with influential men, Mrs. Chisholm sought help for the emigrants both in Sydney and England, where she opened an office in 1846.

In the year 1856 Major Chisholm took a house at Nyalong, near Philip's school. Two of the best scholars were John and David. When David lost his place in the class he burst into tears, and the Blakes and the Boyles laughed. The Major spoke to the boys and girls whenever he met them. He asked John to tell him how many weatherboards he would have to buy to cover the walls of his house, which contained six rooms and a lean-to, and was built of slabs. John measured the walls and solved the problem promptly. The Major then sent his three young children to the school, and made the acquaintance of the master.

Mrs. Chisholm never went to Nyalong, but the Major must have given her much information about it, for one day he read a portion of one of her letters which completely destroyed Philip's peace of mind. It was to the effect that he was to open a school for boarders at Nyalong, and, as a preliminary, marry a wife. The Major said that if Philip had no suitable young lady in view, Mrs. Chisholm, he was sure, would undertake to produce one at a very short notice. She had the whole matter already planned, and was actually canvassing for pupils among the wealthiest families in the colony. The Major smiled benevolently, and said it was of no use for Philip to think of resisting Mrs. Chisholm; when she had once made up her mind, everybody had to give way, and the thing was settled. Philip, too, smiled faintly, and tried to look pleased, dissembling his outraged feelings, but he went away in a state of indignation. He actually made an attack on the twelve virtues, which seemed all at once to have conspired against his happiness. He said: "If I had not kept school so conscientiously, this thing would never have happened. I don't want boarders, and I don't want anybody to send me a wife to Nyalong. I am not, thank God, one of the royal family, and not even Queen Victoria shall order me a wife."

In that way the lonely hermit put his foot down and began a countermine, working as silently as possible.

During the Christmas holidays, after his neighbour Frank had been jilted by Cecily, he rode away, and returned after a week's absence. The Major informed him that Mrs. Chisholm had met with an accident and would be unable to visit Nyalong for some time. Philip was secretly pleased to hear the news, outwardly he expressed sorrow and sympathy, and nobody but himself suspected how mean and deceitful he was.

At Easter he rode away again and returned in less than a week. Next day he called at McCarthy's farm and dined with the family. He said he had been married the previous morning before he had started for Nyalong, and had left his wife at the Waterholes. McCarthy began to suspect that Philip was a little wrong in his head; it was a kind of action that contradicted all previous experience. He could remember various lovers running away together before marriage, but he could not call to mind a single instance in which they ran away from one another immediately after marriage. But he said to himself, "It will all be explained by-and-by," and he refrained from asking any impertinent questions merely to gratify curiosity.

After dinner Gleeson, Philip, and McCarthy rode into the bush with the hounds. A large and heavy "old man" was sighted; and the dogs stuck him up with his back to a tree. While they were growling and barking around the tree Gleeson dismounted, and, going behind the tree, seized the "old man" by the tail. The kangaroo kept springing upwards and at the dogs, dragging Gleeson after him, who was jerking the tail this way and that to bring his game to the ground, for the "old man" was so tall that the dogs could not reach his throat while he stood upright. Philip gave his horse to McCarthy and approached the "old man" with his club.

"Shoot him with your revolver," said Gleeson. "If I let go his tail, he'll be ripping you with his toe."

"I might shoot you instead," said Philip; "better to club him. Hold on another moment."

Philip's first blow was dodged by the kangaroo, but the second fell fairly on the skull; he fell down, and Ossian, a big and powerful hound, seized him instantly by the throat and held on. The three men mounted their horses and rode away, but Philip's mare was, as usual, shying at every tree. As he came near one which had a large branch, growing horizontally from the trunk, his mare spring aside, carried him under the limb, which struck his head, and threw him to the ground. He never spoke again.

After the funeral, McCarthy rode over to the Rocky Waterholes to make some enquiries. He called at Mrs. Martin's residence, and he said:

"Mr. Philip told us he was married the day before the accident, but it seemed so strange, we could not believe it; so I thought I would just ride over and enquire about it, for, of course, if he had a wife, she will be entitled to whatever little property he left behind him."

"Yes, it's quite true," said Mrs. Martin. "They were married sure enough. He called here at Christmas, and said he would like to see Miss Edgeworth; but she was away on a visit to some friends. I asked him if he had any message to leave for her, but he said, 'Oh, no; only I thought I should like to see how she is getting along. That's all, thank you. I might call again at Easter.' So he went away. On last Easter Monday he came again. Of course I had told Miss Edgeworth, about his calling at Christmas and enquiring about her, and it made me rather suspicious when he came again. As you may suppose, I could not help taking notice; but for two days, nor, in fact, for the whole week, was there the slightest sign of anything like lovemaking between them. No private conversation, no walking out together, nothing but commonplace talk and solemn looks. I said to myself, 'If there is anything between them, they keep it mighty close to be sure.' On the Tuesday evening, however, he spoke to me. He said:

"'I hope you won't mention it, Mrs. Martin, but I would like to have a little advice from you, if you would be so kind as to give it. Miss Edgeworth has been living with you for some time, and you must be well acquainted with her. I am thinking of making a proposal, but our intercourse has been so slight, that I should be pleased first to have your opinion on the matter.'

"'Mr. Philip,' I said, 'you really must not ask me to say anything one way or the other, for or against. I have my own sentiments, of course; but nobody shall ever say that I either made a match or marred one.'

"Nothing happened until the next day. In the afternoon Miss Edgeworth was alone in this room, when I heard Mr. Philip walking down the passage, and stopping at the door, which was half open. I peeped out, and then put off my slippers, and stepped a little nearer, until through the little opening between the door and the door-post, I could both see and hear them. He was sitting on the table, dangling his boots to and fro just above the floor, and she was sitting on a low rocking-chair about six feet distant. He did not beat about the bush, as the saying is; did not say, 'My dear,' or 'by your leave, Miss,' or 'excuse me,' or anything nice, as one would expect from a gentleman on a delicate occasion of the kind, but he said, quite abruptly:

"'How would you like to live at Nyalong, Miss Edgeworth?'

"She was looking on the floor, and her fingers were playing with a bit of ribbon, and she was so nice and winsome, and well dressed, you couldn't have helped giving her a kiss. She never raised her eyes to his face, but I think she just looked as high as his boots, which were stained and dusty. The silly man was waiting for her to say something; but she hung down her head, and said nothing. At last he said:

"'I suppose you know what I mean, Miss Edgeworth?'

"'Yes,' she said, in a low voice. 'I know what you mean, thank you.'

"Then there was silence for I don't know how long; it was really dreadful, and I couldn't think how it was going to end. At last he heaved a big sigh, and said:

"'Well, Miss Edgeworth, there is no need to hurry; take time to think about it. I am going to ride out, and perhaps you will be good enough to let me know your mind when I come back.'

"Then he just shook her hand, and I hurried away from the door. It was rather mean of me to be listening to them, but I took as much interest in Miss Edgeworth as if she were my own daughter.

"'There is no need to hurry,' he had said, but in my opinion there was too much hurry, for they were married on the Saturday, and he rode away the same morning having to open school again on Monday.

"Of course, Miss Edgeworth was a good deal put about when we heard what had happened, through the papers, but I comforted her as much as possible. I said, 'as for myself, I had never liked the look of the poor man with his red hair and freckles. I am sure he had a bad temper at bottom, for red-haired men are always hasty; and then he had a high, thin nose, and men of that kind are always close and stingy, and the stingiest man I ever knew was a Dublin man. Then his manners, you must remember, were anything but nice; he didn't wasteany compliments on you before you married him, so you may just fancy what kind of compliments you would have had to put up with afterwards. And perhaps you have forgotten what you said yourself about him at Bendigo. You were sure he was a severe master, you could see sternness on his brow. And however you could have consented to go to the altar with such a man I cannot understand to this day. I am sure it was a very bad match, and by-and-by you will thank your stars that you are well out of it.'

"I must acknowledge that Miss Edgeworth did not take what I said to comfort her very kindly, and she 'gave me fits,' as the saying is; but bless your soul, she'll soon get over it, and will do better next time."