From that instant thoughts of himself were sunk in the care and thought
of the man who in the heart of Queensland had been mate and friend and
brother to him. He did not start for England the next day, nor for many
a day.
Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party carried Sir Duke's letters
over into the Pipi Valley, from where they could be sent on to the coast.
Pierre came back in a few days to see how Shon was, and expressed his
determination of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be.
Shon hovered between life and death. It was not alone the pneumonia
that racked his system so; there was also the shock he had received in
his flight down the glacier. In his delirium he seemed to be always
with Lawless:
"'For it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise'--It's share and share
even, Lawless, and ye'll ate the rest of it, or I'll lave ye--Did ye say
ye'd found water--Lawless--water!--Sure you're drinkin' none yourself--
I'll sing it again for you then--'And it's back with the ring of the
chain and the spur'--'But burn all your ships behind you'--'I'll never go
back to Farcalladen more!'"
Sir Duke's fingers had a trick of kindness, a suggestion of comfort,
a sense of healing, that made his simple remedies do more than natural
duty. He was doctor, nurse,--sleepless nurse,--and careful apothecary.
And when at last the danger was past and he could relax watching, he
would not go, and he did not go, till they could all travel to the Pipi
Valley.
In the blue shadows of the firs they stand as we take our leave of one
of them. The Honourable and Sir Duke have had their last words, and Sir
Duke has said he will remember about the hunting traps. They understand
each other. There is sunshine in the face of all--a kind of Indian
summer sunshine, infused with the sadness of a coming winter; and theirs
is the winter of parting. Yet it is all done quietly.
"We'll meet again, Shon," said Sir Duke, "and you'll remember your
promise to write to me."
"I'll keep my promise, and I hope the news that'll please you best is
what you'll send us first from England. And if you should go to ould
Donegal--I've no words for me thoughts at all!"
"I know them. Don't try to say them. We've not had the luck together,
all kinds and all weathers, for nothing."
Sir Duke's eyes smiled a good-bye into the smiling eyes of Shon. They
were much alike, these two, whose stations were so far apart. Yet
somewhere, in generations gone, their ancestors may have toiled, feasted,
or governed, in the same social hemisphere; and here in the mountains
life was levelled to one degree again.
Sir Duke looked round. The pines were crowding up elate and warm towards
the peaks of the white silence. The river was brawling over a broken
pathway of boulders at their feet; round the edge of a mighty mountain
crept a mule train; a far-off glacier glistened harshly in the lucid
morning, yet not harshly either, but with the rugged form of a vast
antiquity, from which these scarred and grimly austere hills had grown.
Here Nature was filled with a sense of triumphant mastery--the mastery
of ageless experience. And down the great piles there blew a wind of
stirring life, of the composure of great strength, and touched the four,
and the man that mounted now was turned to go. A quick good-bye from him
to all; a God-speed-you from the Honourable; a wave of the hand between
the rider and Shon, and Sir Duke Lawless was gone.
"You had better cook the last of that bear this morning, Pierre," said
the Honourable. And their life went on.
........................
It was eight months after that, sitting in their hut after a day's
successful mining, the Honourable handed Shon a newspaper to read.
A paragraph was marked. It concerned the marriage of Miss Emily Dorset
and Sir Duke Lawless.
And while Shon read, the Honourable called into the tent: "Have you any
lemons for the whisky, Pierre?"
A satisfactory reply being returned, the Honourable proceeded: "We'll
begin with the bottle of Pommery, which I've been saving months for
this."
The royal-flush toast of the evening belonged to Shon.
"God bless him! To the day when we see him again!"
And all of them saw that day.