HOW THEY PASS THE EVENING AT SURPRISE.
The last week of October was ending. At Surprise seven red-hot days
had crowded after one another; six breathless nights had brought
men and women gasping to their doors. The seventh evening had seen,
an hour since, the moon come up, white, round and full, behind the
Conical Hill; and with the moon arrived a flagging breeze--not cold,
not even cool, but with life left to turn the narrow gum-leaves, to
move the tent walls and the hessian blinds on the verandahs of the
iron houses. The moon had climbed the hilltop an hour since, and now
was some distance in the sky. Falling with a broad white light over
the ranges, and no doubt upon the plain beyond, it found a way to
the valley holding the stifled camp. It picked out the iron roofs,
and discovered the trees, to make of their leaves bunches of silver
fingers: it counted the tents straggling down the distance, and on the
journey wove many patterns of light and shade. The stones in the bed
of the dry creek shone with polished faces. The white ball in the sky
numbered the panels of the yard, where the buggy horses--two greys, two
bays--stood reflecting on their fate; and it numbered the crinkles in
the stable roof.
The breeze had moved several times down the valley, and as often as it
passed the people of Surprise turned gratefully in their seats. Mr.
Robson, shift-boss, found heart to swear appreciation and light a pipe;
Mrs. Boulder, brisk and brawny, reached from her chair to slap the
youngest child; and Mr. Horrington, general agent--unappreciated cousin
of Sir James Horrington, Bart., of Such-and-such Hall, England--pledged
again his lost relatives in whisky and a dash of water. The members of
the staff, telling smoking-room stories from their long chairs outside
the mess-room, re-settled for something newer and choicer.
Two sounds were repeated, and helped to make the stillness live. They
were the stamp of horses near the creek, and the cornet of Mr. Wells,
storeman. The cornet player was feeling the way, with poor luck but an
honest persistence, through the pitfalls and crooked ways of "The Death
of Nelson." He had reached the thirteenth verse. The thirteenth verse
was the unlucky verse: unlucky for him, because he broke down, unlucky
for his listeners, because he repeated it. The notes fell slowly,
uncertainly, mournfully upon the night. As the fourteenth verse began,
Mr. Neville, manager of Surprise, swore with feeling.
The old man of Surprise sat in the recess of his verandah, on a
full-length wicker chair, both legs at easiest angle, heavy walking
stick at hand, a glass at his elbow, a pipe in his clutch. The hessian
blinds, nailed to the woodwork, threw the place into gloom, unless
crevices let in a beam of the moon. Old Neville sat back in the
half-dark, a man of small and tough make, covered from collar to ankles
in white duck, with brown, wrinkled face, bristling grey moustache,
shaggy white eyebrows, and an aggressive manner. He was seventy; but
he was to be reckoned with still. Behind him, two canvas waterbags
hung midway from the roof, and the single small table, with the whisky
bottle and the box of matches on it, he had taken for himself. He put
out bony fingers for the matches.
"Damn that wretched fellow! I'll hunt him off the place to-morrow."
A girl and two men were his company. The girl sat between the men, and
the three people leaned back in canvas chairs. The nearest man, who was
dressed in riding clothes, was young--no more than thirty-five. He was
tall, and of a wiry make, and his skin was tanned. His face was clean
shaven, with a trace of temper in it, while he had the manner of one
well able to take care of himself. He gave his attention to a pipe. He
was known through all that country as James Power of Kaloona Station.
The girl was dressed in white. She was not thirty years old, but the
climate had not spared her. She was not tall, she was rather slight,
and her face challenged no second glance; but he who looked closely
might find thought behind her eyes, and humour in her mouth. The
carriage of her head showed courage. Here was a girl with thoughts to
think and with dreams to dream. A girl with a stout heart, who would
be ready to drink deeply from the cups of joy and sorrow: a mate worth
winning. Maud Neville was her name, and Neville of Surprise was her
father. Just now, with both hands, she marked the fall of the cornet
notes which continued their troubled passage.
The other man smoked a cigar in heavy content. He was growing
middle-aged and stout. He breathed with deep breaths, but the sultry
night excused him. A dark moustache covered his mouth. His face was
filling with flesh; and his eyes were cold though rather wise. Just now
he was well pleased with the world. He was John King, accountant of
Surprise.
The girl spoke. Her voice was full of lights and shades.
"Don't always be growling at Wells, father. He maddened me once; but
I have accepted him long ago. He will learn something else soon. The
cornet is new. He got it two or three coaches ago. Mr. King, do you
remember the concertina last summer? The heat unstuck it or something.
That's why he sent for the cornet. One day I asked him why he was so
persistent, and he put his hands on his chest very grandly like this
and said--'Miss Neville, it is in here. It must come out.'"
The old man screwed up his face. "He can tell the flies that to-morrow
when he takes the track."
King took the cigar from his mouth very deliberately.
"Maybe we listen to more than a poor storeman--a lover, a poet rather.
Who can say? A lover whose beloved has wandered afar: a poet born
tongueless, whose breast must break with fullness. Then what do our
ears matter, while he finds relief?"
Power laughed. "You're an amusing idiot, King." But the old man snorted.
"I've something else to even up with besides that trumpet. Every man
jack on the place is doing what he likes with the water tanks these
last two months. They're three part done. There'll be a drought here
'fore the rains come, sure as I sit here, there will. I believe half
the women wash their brats in it. They've got the devil's impidence. I
watched Wells to-day carry half-a-dozen kerosene tins for Mrs. Simpson
and Mrs. Boulder. I'd have seen he knew about it, if I'd been nearer.
I'll fix the lot of 'em up yet. I'll settle them quick."
"You'll have to ration them," Power said.
"Ration them! I'll ration them till their tongues hang out. They can go
to the pub for a drink."
A chair creaked in the dark, grunts followed the creak, and Neville got
to his feet. He steadied himself with his stick, and started towards
the door into the house. On the threshold he paused and looked round.
"Ye know Gregory, the gouger from Mount Milton way? He was in at the
store this afternoon. Says he's struck a first class copper show on the
river. He was blowing hard about it there, and had specimens with him.
He was after gettin' a lot of tucker on account; but I settled that. I
may be wrong, huh, huh! but I reckon he wasn't long from the pub."
"Where's his show?" King asked.
"On Pelican Pool. He'll get drowned when the rains come."
"He can have only just struck it. Nobody was on the hole a fortnight
back," Power answered.
"Is the show any good?" asked King.
"Bah! Of course not."
"How do you know?" Maud cried.
"Of course it'll be no good."
"You don't know anything about it."
King put his cigar in his mouth, and it grew red in the dark. He took
it away again. "Isn't Gregory the fellow with the pretty daughter?"
The old man began to chuckle. "Huh, huh! I've heard more talk of
Gregory's daughter these last two weeks than of his copper show. If
the show is as good as the gal, his fortune is made. She's a fetching
little hussy." He wagged his head.
"You've seen her?" questioned Power.
"Three days back. I was down in the buggy looking at the pipe line. I
told Maud about her. She's something in King's way. I hear he never
misses anything."
King shrugged his shoulders. "My name gone, you may send me along the
pipe line as soon as you like."
"Ye'll have to look sharp. Half the fellers on the lease know about
her." The old man chuckled himself into the house.
"I want to see her," Maud cried. "Her fame has gone all over these
parts. They say she turned everyone's head Mount Milton way. Why are
you so behindhand, Mr. King?"
"She has only been once to the store, and ill-luck kept me wrestling
with accounts. Afterwards I heard she had passed through like some
Royal Presence, moving so greatly every man under fifty that he gave up
work for the afternoon."
"And," said Power, "my Mrs. Elliott's story is that Mick O'Neill, our
head man, has lost his head over her."
King bowed reverently in the dark. "She must be wonderful--a poem of
golden words, a melody of diamond notes. She must be fit to rank with
those dead women generations of men have sung about. The Helen of
Homer: Deirdre, princess of Ulster, whom four kings fought over, and
for love of whom three brothers slew themselves: Poppæa, mistress of
Nero, for whose bath five hundred asses let down their milk: a Ninon
de l'Enclos, who rode abroad on early autumn mornings, while the poor
brutal peasants covered themselves, believing an angel passed by. When
I go down the pipe line, I shall take my fly-veil with me that my sight
may not be destroyed."
"You may meet me there, with or without a veil," said Power.
"Don't count yet on going, Mr.-my-friend-Power," Maud Neville said. "I
must look myself first."
"And now," said King, leaning heavily forward in his chair which
creaked out loud, "I think it becomes me to salute such loveliness." He
stretched a hand for the whisky and poured out a noble peg.
A bellow came from inside. "Power!"
"Hullo!"
"I want ye!"
Power got up. "I'll see what is wanted. But first our pledge."
The steps of Power died away, and King and Maud Neville were left
alone. Nelson had died at last, and now the cornet asked, "Alice,
where art thou?" One or two crickets beneath the house accompanied it.
Presently King must have moved his chair, because there was a sudden
creak.
"I am going to write a treatise on love to aid the beginner."
"How many volumes?"
King shook his head. "You mock me. You think because my heart is widely
proportioned, and because there are several little dead affairs stacked
neatly on upper shelves, that each of those visitors cost nothing to
admit, and that now one cannot be told from another. You are mistaken."
Again he shook his head. "Each of those visitors left its footprints
on the threshold, and memory can still find them in the dustiest, most
forgotten corners. No, hide your smiles."
"Go on, you stupid, I love listening to you."
"Love comes always in the same way, whether it be the great affair
that tramples ruthless and leaves us crushed on the road, or whether
it arrives with hammer and chisel, playfully to knock off a corner of
the heart. For love flows forward in a ripple of waters over which pass
sweetest breezes. So slowly it moves, so gently it rises, that one is
lost ere the danger be discovered. In the first sprays that dash the
drowner's mouth lie its best, its purest."
"And after?"
"Alas! the tide brings refreshment with it, and lovers wake hungry, and
what had seemed two shafts from heaven become a woman's eyes. And so
the descent to earth is trod again in steps of kisses." He held out his
arm. "Look at the moon slung there, a great silver platter! How many
thousands of us have cried out for it? Yet it is only a barren mountain
region, scarred and ugly. But we never learn this, because we do not
draw near. Love is a mirage. Love is the dancing of the marsh lights.
Therefore pursue, but do not draw near. For once you touch the shining
thing its glamour shall depart, and as the millstone of satiation it
shall hang about your neck."
"But I understand you never practise your preaching."
"I am too eager in pursuit. I blunder on the shining thing, and then--"
He shrugged his shoulders with infinite regret.
Maud Neville joined her hands behind her head. She frowned the least
little bit. She spoke in a hurry.
"No, that's not love. That's anything you like; but it isn't love. Love
is quite a different thing. Listen to me. Love is the eye that takes
no sleep, the foot that knows no stony road, the heart that bleeds and
feels no wound, the brain that always understands."
"I see," King said.
A second time they had nothing to say. As they sat thus, the breeze
journeyed again down the valley. It stirred the hessian blinds against
the fly-proof netting. It came through the open doorway at the verandah
end, and moved the water-bags behind Neville's empty chair. The two
opened their arms to it. It must have brought charity to the heart of
Mr. Wells, for he packed up his cornet for the night: and it may have
touched King's tongue with eloquence. Soon it had gone by. But King got
up and walked to the doorway to throw away his dead cigar. He stood
there some while looking over the country, and the moonbeams revealed
him a stout man, past first youth. Maud Neville fell to examining him.
Now the cornet no more made plaint, complete silence waited on the
night. Something moved her to break the spell.
"How still it is," she said. "How empty!"
The man at the doorway did not turn round; but he looked out into the
open as though proving her words. "Still?" he said. His tongue strings
were loosened. "Empty?" He pointed his hand. "Up there, this way, that
way, hear the roar of worlds rolling through the crowded ways of space.
Hear the bellowings of the furnaces, the shrieks of passage, the crash
of collision! Worlds are growing fiery there, worlds are growing cold.
Worlds are dying there. Worlds are finding new birth. The Angel of Life
and his assistant the Angel of Death take no rest.
"Lift up your veil, O Night, for we would look in.
"Yes, joy is here, and sorrow is here; hunger is here and repletion is
here; sin is here and righteousness here: hope and despair, love and
hate, anger and forgiveness--all are here.
"The young lion roars in his triumph, and the old toothless lion has
missed his kill. The nightingale sings from the cypress; and the mouse
is squeaking where the owl swooped down. In a hundred jungles the
beast of prey fills himself; and in haunts of men the ravenous are
abroad also. The lover cries that the couch is waiting, and in the
shadow lurks the assassin. Where men are dying, mothers stand weeping;
and mothers are writhing where men are being born. The student, pale
with learning, trims his lamp and asks for the night to continue;
and the tempest-torn mariner is praying for the dawn. The youngster
smiles at his rosy dreams; and round his father breaks the shock of
battle. The rich man toys with his heaped meats: and to a fireless
garret has crept the pauper. The statesman toils in his chamber; and
the well-dined burgher turns in his sleep. Age pulls the coverlet over
a bony breast; and in the halls of vice youth spends its strength.
In solitude the shepherd guards his flock; and in retreat no less
lonely the miser counts his gold. And hairs are greying, and eyes are
dimming, and babes are crowing. And voices are laughing, and voices are
scolding, and voices are sobbing. How empty the night is? How still the
night is? No! How crowded! How deafening!"
King came to a full stop. His hand fell to his side. He did not turn
round, and presently he lit another cigar with irritating calm. All
the while, the girl had not stirred in her chair. At last King moved
from the doorway, and at the same time Neville sounded his stick in the
house. He appeared on the verandah with Power behind. The old man was
chuckling to himself and holding out some keys.
"Huh, huh! I may be wrong; but I think I'll settle that little crowd.
See these? For the tanks. See 'em? I'll be along and fix them up right
away. To-morrow you can watch them line up with their tongues out. Old
Horrington can live on whisky for a while. It's done him before to-day.
Mrs. Johnson can wash in last week's water. It'll make good soup for
the baby. He, he! Huh, huh, huh!"
"What are you going to do, Father?"
"Lock the tanks, of course. What d'ye think I mean to do? Drink 'em
dry?"
"You can't do that."
"Can't? I may be wrong, but I reckon I can." He wagged his head; and
next gripped his stick and began to stamp down the verandah, but half
way brought up short with a second nod. "Moon or no moon," he said, "I
shall do better with a lantern where I'm going." He went indoors again.
At the same time King pulled out a watch. "I'll get back."
Maud from her chair called out to him. "Already, Mr. King? It's not
late. Are you tired of us?"
"The night is getting cool, and I haven't slept for a week."
Power looked at the moon. "What's it? Ten?"
"Twenty to. We may get a change out of this."
"I don't think so," Power said.
"At least we'll hope next week is better," Maud cried. "Let's wish for
a storm."
"And after it the flying ants?"
"Oh bother them!" Maud said. "Where's the romance of the wilderness?"
King answered her. "Romance is somewhere just out of sight. Some day I
shall sit in a cooler country, having forgotten the taste of heat and
flies, and I shall start sighing for the old romantic days at Surprise.
And now for a nightcap before bed."
"Mr. King, you are breaking rules."
"But this is Surprise and we are in the last week of October. Much can
be forgiven when you live at Surprise during the last week of October."
"The rule is three, and that makes number five."
"Alas!"
"Well, never again."
King put down his empty glass. "Good night.
"Good night."
He went through the doorway into the open and down the steps. His
footfalls crunched on the bed of the dry creek. The return of Neville
overwhelmed them. The old man held a lighted lantern, and fumbled
impatiently at the wick. "Where's King?" he demanded, lifting shaggy
eyebrows over the top.
"Gone home a moment ago," Maud said.
"Er! I knew as much. He knows what he's about. I meant him to come with
me."
"He's good company," Power said, settling again in the old seat.
"I love him," Maud said. "One moment he makes me laugh and the next
he makes me think. I don't know yet whether he is a wise man or a
mountebank."
"Where does he come from?" Power asked. "You said he was a solicitor,
didn't you?"
The old man snapped down the glass of the hurricane lamp.
"I heard tell he was a solicitor somewhere and got kicked out. As soon
as he touches money he can't go straight. He would sell his mother up.
Huh, huh! He's a gentleman to walk shy of while you've a few pounds to
spare. Go to him for a goat, and he'll sell you one of mine. He has
done business over half the fowls on the lease, though he never owned
a feather. He, he! I can't help respecting his abilities. He's got a
finger in most copper shows within fifty miles. The silly coves get him
to draw up their agreements, and he takes care that his name comes in
somewhere or other." Neville chuckled himself to the end of his tale,
then said, "You had better be away, Power. I'm going to bed when I get
back." He went through the door.
"Take care!" Maud called out.
"Er?"
"Take care."
A growl was her thanks. In course of time the old man had scrambled
down the steps and across the creek.
"So much for our friend, John King," said Power.
At Surprise Valley the rule is early to bed. First chop the wood and
milk the goats. Then soothe or slap the baby to sleep. After tea,
a seat in the doorway and a smoke. After a smoke, an exchange of
maledictions on the weather. The lamps in the tents begin to go out by
nine o'clock. The frustrated moths and flying ants betake themselves
elsewhere, and the mosquito sings a solo requiem in the dark. On cool
nights and nights of breezes, the people of Surprise put out lights at
even an earlier hour, for sleep is likely to prove kinder mistress.
To-night already three parts of Surprise were sleeping. To be true,
Mr. Wells was thinking of a last pipe; and Mr. Horrington, whisky
bottle at elbow, was cogitating a nightcap. Also, a light burned yet in
the latest rigged tent. Mr. Pericles Smith--travelling schoolmaster,
arrived here on his rounds--after chopping the firewood, hunting the
goats away, putting the kettle off the boil, and performing sundry
other exercises, was snatching a few moments with the help of a candle
at his monumental work on the aboriginal languages of Australia.
Nowhere else lights pierced the walls. The moon fell over high land
and low land, upon house and tent, and steeped in romance the dreary
prospects of the day. The Man in the Moon looked down on a fairy city.
. . . . . . .
I have brought you now to the beginning of my chronicle: I have laid
the stage and you are left with the chief players. The story is written
in a thumbed volume of the Book of Life, and it is time to lift down
the tome from its shelf. Look for no tremendous tale, for at Surprise
the day wags through its journey as elsewhere--sorrow tastes as bitter
here, pleasure drinks as sweetly, and the human heart beats time to
old, old tunes. Look for no great story then, for I have it not to
tell--you are to find two lovers, you are to have the history of their
loves, and learn how one was rude apprentice to the trade, and what
apprenticeship had to teach him.
. . . . . . .
The man and woman on the verandah had tumbled into their own thoughts.
But presently Power rose in his seat, and moved it beside Maud Neville.
He sat down again--he leaned forward and raised one of her hands.
Fingers closed on his own. "Kiss me, Maud," he said, in no more than a
whisper.
He bent close over the girl. His face approached hers until he and she
saw each other clearly in the dark. They kissed with much passion. As
Maud released him, she touched his forehead with her lips.
"I thought we should never be left alone. I was getting disgusted and
going home. I came with a lot to tell you. I was full of ideas, but you
were bent on avoiding me."
"Poor fellow! As bad as that? You should have come earlier. I couldn't
get up and leave the others, you silly. Mr. King doesn't come very
often. What have you to say so important?"
"Maybe I'm not telling it now."
He was laughed at for his pains. "You want coaxing? Is that what's the
matter?"
"This is it then. I can't wait longer. We have been engaged long
enough. I want you to marry me--soon I mean, this month or next.
Everything is ready over there. We'll choose a date to-night."
"And you are ready for Father?"
"He can't refuse again. We've waited so long."
"Perhaps."
"Then desperation will give me courage. Now for the promise."
"I said nothing about a promise. You must think I am awfully fond of
you."
Power leaned forward again. Their faces came close together. Her eyes
were wide open and looked straight into his. Fondness appeared in them,
deep as the sea. Power began again to speak.
"It has become so lonely over there. I think about you all day long.
The house has grown miserable. It has turned to a graveyard. If you
appeared there, things would become what they were. You must marry me
soon. I have been too patient."
He stooped and, in place of speech, he began to kiss her hair, her
face, her hands. Presently she put an arm about his neck, and kept him
willing prisoner. "What about your promise?" he said once more.
She had not done with coquetry. "What makes you think I am so fond of
you?"
"And don't you like me a little bit? A little bit?"
"Perhaps a little bit." She put both arms about his neck. "My good
friend, you are everything in the world to me. My silly life begins and
ends in you. This great love of mine has quite eaten me up. Why, what
would I do without you. You came as a brand to a cold hearth and set it
aflame. Something in my heart sings now all day long."
Passion came over them as a surge of the sea, as a storm of wind. They
bent close to each other, thinking no thought. Their breaths mingled.
Their hearts marked one time.
At last she released her prisoner. Her eyes were shining in the dark.
She began to speak in a low, eager voice. She might have been a
messenger bringing glad tidings.
"You will never understand what this love has meant to me. You and
I--we are different metals refining in the same furnace, and the fire
does not treat us alike. My life at last has become easy to live. It
is a simple and a grand thing. Think of Dingo Gap or Pelican Pool
without sun or flies. Wouldn't they be wonderful places? Well, I find
life changed as much as that. The little happenings no more have power
to annoy. My eyes are strong to see straight ahead. In all matters I
am undisturbed. This love of mine is a holy thing. It will brook no
meanness. It will stoop to no crooked ways. Something cries out in my
heart to grow and grow. I would bring you a wide-open mind. I would
offer you a body as beautiful as that girl we talked of half-an-hour
ago."
She began again. "And now, my good friend--yes, you who look at me so
fondly--I am going to hurt you a little bit. I am going to tell you you
have brought me my moments of sorrow. For a long time now I have known
that your love and my love are of different kinds. Bad hours arrived
for me once when an evil spirit whispered that you did not understand
me, and therefore you could not truly love me. The whisperer said
Nature demanded you should go hungering after a woman, and there was no
choice but me. The whisperer said until you knew me, and demanded me
because of your new knowledge, that my affections were anchored in the
sands.
"But I have pushed aside the whisperer. I love you, and that is all
that matters. For love knows nothing of hunger and unrest, of hope
grown old and other miseries. Love is the clear light, and those the
winds that wrestle for it, that are not of it and can never hurt it.
But you will not test my strength? Answer me. You will not test it?"
"No, my girl. But your words could be kinder. I have no quick tongue
like yours to tell my tale. I know this, that I am weary of waiting for
you. Don't let us waste more of life. We have the whole world to see,
and when we have grown tired, we shall come back here. The old home I
am so sick of will grow beautiful under your care. I shall ride away in
the morning, knowing evening will find you waiting for me----"
"Yes, yes, I shall be waiting for you, and you will arrive hot and
tired, and you will say 'I won't eat anything.' But I shall coax you.
And later on we shall sit together in the light of this same old moon,
which will have travelled round a few times more, and will have become
a little paler with watching. And we shall talk about olden days. And
then we shall begin to grow old together, and I shall count your first
grey hairs and--why, Jim, you are laughing at me!"
"Am I? Then give me my promise, for I must go home."
"What am I to say, Jim? You know I want the marriage as much as you
do. But father is an old man, and there is nobody but me to look after
him. He wouldn't think of giving up the mine to live with us. If you
like, we can ask him again to-night. Then if he says no, I shall stay
with him a little longer, and at last we must tell him it is our turn
to choose. That's fair, Jim, isn't it? No, don't look sulky. I am quite
right."
"You won't always put it off like this? I am growing bad-tempered over
there."
"You silly boy, you are only a few miles away. We see each other every
week. But we may catch father in a soft moment. We must find him after
he has locked the tanks. He'll be in such a good humour at the thought
of a fight to-morrow, that he may say yes. Let's find him now. Go away,
stupid, I want to get up."
Maud rose to her feet, shook out her dress, and pushed her hair out
with her fingers. She kissed Power for the last time, and they went
down the steps into the moonlight. She ran ahead, taking little heed
of her footing. The stones in the creek were thick and rough, and she
trod them with quick feet while Power crunched behind. The stable was
not far away, and they followed the fence towards it. The horses stood
together with drooped heads at the lower end of the yard. All this
quarter of the camp was picked out plainly in the moonlight.
A figure moved about the stable. It was Neville back from his rounds.
Maud nodded her head in his direction.
"There's father waiting for us," she said. "Now Mr.-my-friend-Jim, are
you feeling as brave as you were?"
"You must look after me."
"Certainly not. I never pretended to be brave."
"I shall find courage somehow."
Old Neville's voice arrived. "Be smart ye two. You've been an awful
time. I expected ye gone long ago, Power. That fool groom has jammed
the door so as I can't get in. I'll let him hear about it to-morrow.
See if you can do anything. He, he! ye'll have to do something, or
ye'll go bareback home. What did ye want to come along for, Maud? Can't
you let him alone for a minute? That's the way to sicken a man of ye."
All three met outside the stable door. "D'ye see what I mean?" Neville
said.
Power moved the door in course of time. The old man went in first with
the lantern. "Take the saddle and hurry up. I want to get to bed."
Power carried the saddle to the fence. Maud had taken the bridle and
had gone in search of the horse which knew her and would stand. In a
little while she was leading it back. Power had taken his opportunity.
"Mr. Neville, Maud and I talked things over to-night, and we want to
get married. You won't mind, I hope?"
The old man was rooting with his stick in a corner of the stable. "Er?"
he said, looking up.
"We're thinking of getting married," Power said again louder.
"Have you still that in your heads? I told ye 'No' before. Here, come
here. Look at that fellow! I'll fire him off the lease before he's any
older. Look at him! Thrown it all in a corner. No, ye must wait. Ye're
both young, and I'm an old man. Goodness! look here! Maud's an annoying
girl, but I'd be put out without her. Here's the mare. Come outside
with ye. Maud, I hear you're on again about gettin' married. I won't
have it. Ye've plenty of time for that sort of thing."
"You're not fair, father. You're not a bit fair. You won't listen to
reason. You never discuss anything. I'm not a child still. When will
you realize that?"
The old man lifted his shaggy eyebrows over the lantern. He seemed
rather surprised. "Listen to reason! And you come to me when everyone
is in bed. Ye call that reason! It's just like you. Bah!"
"Maud is right, Mr. Neville. You haven't been fair about this." Power's
temper was never hard to discover, and Maud frowned him quiet. The old
man looked at the ground, and scratched his head a moment or two and
wagged it.
"I suppose, Power, ye'll be round in a day or two?"
"I'm bringing cattle through the end of this week."
"I'll talk about it then. Now be away with you. Come home, Maud."
The old man of Surprise blew out the lantern and began the journey to
the house. Maud in meek mood followed him.
"Good night, Jim," were her last words.
"Good night," Power called back.
Power saddled the mare, and let down the slip-rail of the yard. His
whip was coiled on his arm. In a moment he was mounted and had turned
towards home.