Chapter 10

The first faint streaks of dawn began to show themselves in the eastern sky, and Stanesby drew a long breath.

“My God! we Ye still a mile away.”

“If they weren’t there last night we’ll be in time.”

“Poor little girl! How thankful she ‘ll be to see us. It’s all right, it must be all right.”

And the light broadened in the east, the rosy light grew deeper and deeper, then it paled to bright gold, and behind, and all around, the world looked dark against that glowing light. Up came the rim of the sun, and Stanesby, urging his tired horse forward, said, “We ought to see the hut now. The confounded sun ‘s in my eyes.”

Turner rubbed his own. But no, against the golden glowing rising sun the horizon was clean cut as ever, only the boundless plain, nothing more.

“Jimmy!” Stanesby’s voice was sharp with pain and dread.

Jimmy raised his head sullenly. He was tired too, and considered himself ill-used.

“All gone humpy,” he said.

Brighter and brighter grew the sunlight, another fierce hot day had begun. And there was nothing in sight, nothing. The plain was all around them, north, south, west, only in the east the red bluffs.

“All gone humpy.” Their haste had been of no avail. The tale was told. They had come too late.

What need to ride for all they were worth now? But so they did ride, revolver in hand. And when they arrived at what had been Dick Stanesby’s hut, an out-station of Nilpe Nilpe, there was nothing to mark it from the surrounding plain but a handful of ashes; even the hard earth showed no sign of trampling feet.

Stanesby flung himself off his horse like a madman.

“She may be all right. She must be all right. It may have been an accident. She is hidden down by the creek.”

Turner said nothing. What could he say? His thoughts flew back to the lonely hut, and the girl lying there on the hard ground in her dusky red dress, alone, cast off, a thing of use to no one. Well, she was dead, he expected nothing else, and she was avenged. Surely this home-coming would haunt the man who had left her all the days of his life.

He laid his hand heavily on the black boy’s shoulder.

“Track, you devil!”

And Jimmy led the way down towards the waterhole.

They followed him in silence.

The tall reeds looked green and fresh after the hot dry plain, but they also suggested another idea to Turner, and he tried to check his companion’s headlong career.

“Look out! You don’t know. They might be in those reed beds.”

“All gone blackfellow,” said Jimmy, and stolidly went ahead.

Then at last he brought them to what they sought. Dead, of course. Long before they started on that mad ride back her sufferings had been over. Dead! and Turner dared not look his companion in the face. No peace, no tenderness, about a death like this. It was too terrible! And this man had left her; in spite of her prayers he had left her!

They avenged her. The blacks had not gone far, but they could not follow them up that day. They spent it in the shade down by the waterhole, and Turner did not try to break his companion’s silent reverie. Then when their horses were recruited they set out for the head-station of Nilpe Nilpe. There they told their tale. It was not much of a tale after all. Only a half-caste girl murdered, and a hut burnt. Such things happen every day. But the blacks must be punished, nevertheless, and half-a-dozen men rode out to do it, Stanesby at their head.

He was very silent. They said at the station, coming into a fortune had made him stuck-up and too proud to speak to a fellow, only Turner put a different construction on his silence. And the vengeance he took was heavy. They rode down among that tribe at bright noonday, led by Stanesby’s black boy, who had been one of themselves, and when evening fell it was decimated, none left but a few scattered frightened wretches crouching down among the scanty cover in the creek bed, knowing full well that to show themselves but for a moment was to court death swift and certain. So they avenged Dick Stanesby’s hutkeeper.

They count Dick Stanesby a good fellow in his county. He is a just landlord, well beloved by his tenants. He is a magistrate and stanchly upholds law and order; and withal he is a jolly good fellow, whose hunting breakfasts are the envy and admiration of the surrounding squires. His wife is pretty too, somewhat insipid perhaps, but a model wife and mother, and always sweet and amiable.

There have been found men who were Goths enough to object to Mrs. Stanesby’s innocent, loving prattle about her eldest boy and her third girl, and the terrible time they had when her second little boy had the measles, and they were so terrified for the first twenty-four hours lest it should turn to scarlet fever; there have been men, I say, who have objected to this as “nursery twaddle,” but their womenkind have invariably crushed them. They believe in Mrs. Stanesby and in Dick Stanesby too.

“Their story is too sweet,” says Ethel De Lisle, his sister’s sister-in-law. “It reminds one that the chivalry of the olden times has not yet died out among true Englishmen. Only think, he loved silently because he was too poor to speak. He went away to Australia, and he worked and waited there all among the blacks and all sorts of low people, and at the end of four years, when his cousin died and left him Heyington, he came back faithful still and he married her. I call it too sweet for words.”.

But Mrs. De Lisle has never met Guy Turner. He is still “riding tracks” on Jinfalla, and consequently she knows nothing of Dick Stanesby’s hutkeeper, or of a solitary grave by the Woonawidgee creek.

THE YANYILLA STEEPLECHASE

My dear, my dear, so you want to know why I am an old maid?

Well, nobody asked me to marry them, I suppose that must have been it.

No? What? You think I must have been pretty. Pretty, was I pretty?

They said I was then, dear, but you see there wasn’t another lady within fifty miles, and that made the difference, just all the difference. You ‘ve a pretty little girl, Hope--it wasn’t fair to have called you Hope, it’s such an unlucky name--but if you’d been young when I was they’d just have raved about you.

Had I lovers, dear?

Of course I had lovers. Every woman who isn’t downright repulsive has, I think. Willie Maclean doesn’t come here to see me, does he? Ah! I thought--

There, never mind, there’s no harm done. It’s thirty years since the men used to ride across the ranges just to stay the night at Yanyilla, and I don’t _think_ it was wholly for your grandfather’s society they came. Of course I had lovers. It’s so long ago I can tell you about them now; but mostly, dear, I don’t think a woman should tell. She gets the credit of it, I know, but she ought not to, and I do think there are many things a nice woman, I mean a good woman, keeps to herself.

Oh yes! I had lovers, like every other girl, but there was only one I cared about--and I cared--I cared--I believe I care still, for all I lost him three and thirty years ago. I used to look forward to dying and meeting him in heaven, dear, but I was young then, and after I passed thirty, and began to go down hill, I got to know that he’d never recognize in an old woman the girl he loved on earth. It troubled me sorely, sorely, for he was only thirty when he died, but afterwards I thought we must have been put into this weary world for some good purpose, and surely if there is a great God he won’t let me waste my life for nothing. I have tried to do my best, but somehow my life has been a failure all round; I ‘m not much use to anybody. They say love doesn’t last, but I think they are wrong; I know it has lasted me all these years, and the thought of seeing him again--well, well, you will think an old woman foolish, dear, but it makes my heart beat like a young girl’s. Suppose--suppose I should not be quite all he thought me; suppose he should have changed.

Why, Hope, you’re smiling at my foolishness, but isn’t that the way every woman feels when she’s in love; and I ‘m in love still, after three and thirty years, God help me, and a woman in the main is always the same, whether her hair is golden, or whether it ‘s grey and she hides it under a cap.

But this isn’t telling you my story, is it, child?

Not that there’s much to tell. You know Yanyilla. You know what a station was like in the old days. They have been described over and over again. But Yanyilla was always a nice place. A hundred and eighty miles from Melbourne is a good way even now in these railway days, and it was much further when we had to do the whole journey by Cobb’s coach. Oh, we were very much out of the world, and at first I used to feel lonely. My father--well you know pretty well what kind of a man your grandfather was, so it’s no use my trying to gloss over his character--and your grandmother, ah, my poor mother, I was always fond of my mother, but she had a hard life, and it made her fretful and not much of a companion for a young girl. She thought the world was a hard place for a woman to live in, and the sooner I found it out and indulged in no vain hopes the better for me. I thought then, rather vaguely to be sure, that she was wrong, and I know it now. But she is dead long, long ago, and perhaps she too knows it. Then there was my brother Ben, your father, Hope, he was always a dear good boy, but he was so much younger than me, I don’t suppose he ever thoroughly understood it all.

The homestead was just on the slope where the hills ran down into the plain country. Away to the west and north stretched the dull grey plains far as the eye could see, and behind us to the east and south were the ranges; dull and grey too, I used to think when first I went there, but I changed my mind afterwards. When the sun shone he transformed all things, and the sun shone very often in those days--he does so still maybe, if only I could see with the same eyes--and I loved those ranges. I liked to steal away on a hot day into the deep fern gullies, where the tall green tree-ferns were high over my head, and the dainty maidenhair grew among the rocks and stones at my feet. And someone else loved those gullies too--it’s all part of the story, dear, the same old story which comes to every woman at least once in her life.

The boundary between Yanyilla and Telowie was among those ranges, and Paul Griffith was the overseer at Telowie. I met him once or twice at musters at our place, and then we met again once or twice by accident in the gullies, where he was looking for stray cattle and I was gathering ferns. It was only once or twice it was by accident, afterwards it was by design. I can’t tell you now exactly how we made the appointments without putting it into so many words; but you are a girl, I dare say you will understand thoroughly. Ah! he was so good-looking, my Paul, so tall and fair and strong, and he had such kind blue eyes. Ah dear, ah dear, how different my life might have been!

Well it went on and on all through the months of August and September, and each time we parted the parting grew harder, and each time we met it was--I can’t tell you--just heaven to me, I think. Then one day--shall I ever forget it?--he told me that he loved me, but he told me too how poor he was, far too poor to ask my father for me; for though we were very poor ourselves, my mother had a way of always saying that never should her daughter be as badly off as she had been, so he knew and I knew it was hopeless to think of our being engaged. He said he ought not to see me again, and he would go away; but I cried then, I could not help it, the world seemed such a dreary place without him. Then--it was my fault, I suppose it generally is the woman’s fault--he took me in his arms and called me his little girl, and kissed me again and again. He ought not to have kissed me if we were to part, he ought not. You know the old couplet:

“Take hands and part with laughter, Touch lips and part with tears.”

And so it was with us, but it was not his fault I loved him, I loved him with all my heart, and I wanted to be kissed, and those kisses have cost me--no matter what they have cost me--I know now they were worth it.

But we could not make up our minds to part I was young and so was he, and first I made him tell me he loved me better than anything on earth, and then I laughed and said if it was only his poverty that stood between us, I would wait for him all my life. I wondered afterwards at my boldness--it did seem terribly bold, but there was nothing else to be done--it seemed the only thing, I believe it was the only thing, as I should have found it so utterly impossible to take my mother into my confidence, and so you see, my dear, we two embarked on that most foolish of all things, a secret engagement. But the fault was not his, it was mine entirely. He wanted to go and tell my father all about it; it would be better, he said, to be open and above board, and he didn’t think my father would mind much; but I wouldn’t let him.

I can excuse myself even now, for I was young, and I felt I could not stand my mother’s perpetual moan. She would have spoiled my Eden with her prognostications of possible evil. We met in the nearest gully whenever we had the chance, and after all it was not so bad. Now I look back on those two months of spring as the very happiest of my life. If anything went wrong at home, and things did go wrong very often, for my father was sure to be drunk once a week, and my mother’s misery made me unhappy, I always consoled myself with the reflection that Paul would understand, that Paul would pity and comfort me. And he never failed me, not once, my darling, not once.

Then there came upon me a new and unexpected trouble, one I might have foreseen had I been a little older and known something more of the world’s ways. Stanton of Telowie owned all the country for miles back, and consequently was a well-to-do man. I do not think he was a very reputable man, though he was my father’s great friend and boon companion. My mother, usually so hard on men who drank ever so little, and, as she said, led my father astray, would never blame Dick Stanton. It was for my sake he did it, she said, and I don’t know now whether she was right or not; he sold out and went to England thirty years ago, and I have never heard of him since. But I do know Paul Griffith, his overseer, hated him with a bitter hatred, and what Paul did I did. I was not a bad-looking little girl, and he may probably have meant to be kind, but it was not his kindness I wanted. Like many another man in those days, he wanted a wife, and this my mother dinned into my unwilling ears morning, noon, and night.

“But, mother,” I said at last, driven to bay, “how do you know he wants me?”

“My dear,” she answered, “do you think I have lived all these years in the world for nothing? What do you suppose the man comes here twice a week for?”

“To see father,” I answered hotly, “and I hate him for it. Why can’t he let us alone? He comes, and it’s always ‘Another bottle, Hope; open another bottle for Mr. Stanton.’ I hate him, mother, I hate him.”

“Oh, Hope,” she went on unheeding, “it would be such a great thing for you. He’s worth at least three thousand a year, and he’s head over heels in love with you. Think what it’d be, child, never to be worried about money again,” and she sighed; my poor mother, she had been worried about every conceivable thing, and more especially this weary money, all her life, and she never expected to be free from care again.

“Think what it ‘d be like to be tied to a brute like Dick Stanton all your life!” But she only shook her head and said again, “he was so much in love with me I could do what I liked with him;” and then she added, that if I did not know what was good for me, she, my mother, did, and she would take care my interests did not suffer. It was her duty to look after them as my mother, and she would. Oh! that little word “duty”! It seems to me all sorts of petty cruelties are committed in the name of “duty.” And after that Dick Stanton never came to the house, but I, more unwilling than ever, was sent for to entertain him. Even now I don’t know whether he really cared, or whether it was simply that he wanted a wife, and I was the only decent-looking girl within reach. And I hated him for it with all my heart, and at last, as things got worse, for my mother had told him that my coldness was all shyness on my part, I was so miserable and perplexed I cried my heart out in the gully, and Paul came and found me and got the whole truth out of me. How angry he was! I can see him now walking up and down talking to himself, and I dried my eyes and began to think things were not half so bad, since I had thrown all my cares on him.

“But Paul,” I said, with an attempt at a smile, “you know after all it’s very foolish of me to make such a fuss. They can’t make me marry a man I don’t want to. And I hate him, I hate him. You just don’t know how I hate him.”

“My darling,” he said, sitting down on a log and drawing me towards him, “how am I to help you? I can’t have my little sweetheart’s life worried out of her in this way. Hope, I had better go to your father and tell him all about it.”

“And that would end it all effectually,” I sobbed. “Mother would say I was too young to know my own mind. She would say once you were away I would forget you, and she would get Dick Stanton to--to--”

“Give me the sack,” said Paul bitterly. “Who knows; perhaps it might be best for you. I ‘m not bringing you much happiness, dear.”

“Yes, yes, yes; what should I do without you, Paul? I wish I had not told you! You know--you must know--you’re all the happiness I have in my life.”

“I ‘m sure,” he said, kissing me fondly, “you make all the brightness in mine. But what am I to do to help you?”

“Just nothing. As I said before, they must give me a say in the matter before they marry me right out.”

“My colonial oath! Here ‘s a nice deceitful piece of baggage! Upon my word, Miss Hope! So you ‘re the shy little girl who’s quite overcome if a fellow so much as looks at her!”

He was standing on the rise of the hill close above us, and how he had come there without our seeing I ‘m sure I don’t know, except that lovers always are caught sooner or later, and I suppose it was our fate. I ‘d rather almost anybody than Dick Stanton had caught us though; for he was a vindictive little wretch, I always felt, and whether he cared for me or not he would not like to find himself cut out by his own overseer. We two sprang apart guiltily, and I saw my lover’s face grow red and angry, but not as dark and threatening as the one above me.

“So Mr. Griffith,” said our unwelcome third party, “it’s you who ‘ve been poaching on my manor. What the devil do you mean by it, sir?”

Paul, I saw, was too angry to trust himself to speak, only he waved his hand to me as if he would have sent me home; but I was too frightened to go. I was not twenty remember, and it seemed to me the two men were on the brink of a violent quarrel, and vaguely I hoped my presence might restrain them. I was wrong, I know now; I ought to have gone, and perhaps--who can tell? But there--all the misery of our lives is just summed up in thinking whether we might not have acted differently. And so I took no notice of Paul, though I saw he wanted me gone, and I stayed. Then Dick Stanton, seeing Paul did not speak, for the moment lost all control of himself, and raged and stormed and used such language as I had never heard in my life before, and I was well accustomed to bad language; for my father, when he had pretty well got to the bottom of the brandy bottle, didn’t care much what he said, but he never spoke as Dick Stanton did; oh, never. He was a gentleman at least, my father. Paul stood it just for a minute; I think he was too dumb-founded to speak, and then he made one step forward and caught the other man by the neck--he was so tall and strong, my sweetheart--and shook him as if he had been a child. It was Dick Stanton’s turn to look surprised then, and at first he swore harder than ever; then all at once he looked up in Paul’s face and burst out laughing.

“What the devil are we quarrelling about, Griffith?” he said, and his voice sounded amiable, though I never would have trusted him.

Paul was still very angry, and only made some unintelligible reply, and Stanton went on with a smile which I thought rather forced.

“I say, Griffith, old chap, you needn’t cut up so blessed rough. It’s me who ought to cry out, I think. I go courting a girl; I’ve made that plain enough in all conscience. All the country round knows it, and her father and mother go dinning it into me that she ‘s awful fond of me, but she ‘s young and she ‘s shy--oh so shy!--and the first time I come across the ranges I find this--this--”

I really think he was too angry to think of a word to call me, for he skipped out my name altogether, and went on, “and there I find her cuddled up in your arms.”

“She has a right to choose,” said Paul, a little sullenly.

“And she has chosen. Just my blooming luck all over.”

“And seeing she has chosen,” said Paul, still angry, “suppose you leave me to see her safe home.”

“And what’ll papa say, Miss Hope? He’d rather have the rich squatter for a son-in-law than a poor roustabout, I ‘ll bet.”

“It’s no business of my father’s,” I said hotly, and then he laughed sneeringly.

“By Jove! Dan Forde ‘ll have something to say to that, or I ‘m very much mistaken. Just you wait till to-night,” and he turned away and ran up the hill to where, I suppose, he had left his horse. Some one must have told him to come and look for us, of course; he ‘d never have come to that lonely gully, and on foot, too, else; but to this day I don’t know who it was.

Paul comforted me all he knew; but still I went home very frightened, though I wouldn’t let him come with me. I did not quite believe Dick Stanton would be quite so mean as to carry out his threat and tell my father, and if he did not, I was glad, now that it was all over, that he should understand how unwelcome were his attentions to me.

That night he came round as usual, and as usual I was sent for to pour out their brandy for them, and to make myself pleasant to the guest. He did not say anything to make me feel uncomfortable, indeed he was almost kind and I had never liked him better, only I saw in his eyes he had not forgotten the meeting of the morning and did not mean that I should either. Presently they began to talk about the race meeting. We always had a race meeting at Yanyilla once a year, just about the beginning of November. I forget whether there was a cup in those days, but I know all the people about were quite as much excited about the Yanyilla meeting as you are now about the cup. The township was on our run, only three miles away, and took its name from the station, and the paddock we used as a race course was just within sight of the house. We always took great interest in the races, more especially those for the station horses, which were all supposed to be grass-fed, and therefore, when my father and his friend got on the subject of the entries, I felt quite safe and breathed quite freely for the first time that evening.

“I ‘ve entered Boatman for the Yanyilla Steeplechase,” said my father, “but I ‘m blest if I know who I ‘ll get to ride him. The beggar’s an awful powerful brute, and all the boys are afraid.”

“And grass-fed! Surely not. He can’t do much harm.”

“Oh, he ‘s a brute, I must confess,” said my father, “and no mistake; but he’s all there, and if I can get anybody to risk it, I ‘ll put the pot on him.”

“You think he’s good to win, then? Can he beat my Vixen?”

“Beat her! He ‘ll beat any horse this side of the Dividing Range, once he gets started with the right man on his back. But there’s just the difficulty.”