During the half hour bestowed on lunch the weather apparently devoted
itself to falsifying Mrs. Devereux's prediction, and raising Pollie to
the position of a prophetess. It is a curious fact that in Australia few
people are weather-wise. No one can tell, for instance, with any
certainty, when it will rain. No one can say with precision when it will
not rain. All other forms of weather, be it understood, are immaterial.
Rain means everything--peace, plenty, prosperity, the potentiality of
boundless wealth; the want of it losses and crosses, sin, suffering, and
starvation. For nearly two years the hearts of the dwellers in that vast
pastoral region had been made sick with hope deferred. Now, without
warning, with no particular indication of change from the long, warm
days and still, cloudless nights that seemed as if they would never end,
that earth would gradually become desiccated into a grave of all living
creatures, suddenly it commenced to rain as if to reproduce the Noachian
deluge.
The larger creeks bore a turgid tide, level with their banks, on the
surface of which tree-stems and branches, with differing samples of
_debris_, whirled floating down.
As the hours passed by with no abatement of violence in the falling of
the rain or the fury of the storm, in which the wind had arisen, and
raged with tempestuous fury in the darkened sky, a feeling of awe and
alarm crept over the minds of the two women.
'There is not a soul about the place, I believe,' said Mrs. Devereux;
'Mr. Gateward is away, and every man and boy with him. During all the
years I have been here I have never seen such a storm. Poor Bertram! I
hope he has taken shelter somewhere. This cold rain is enough to kill
him, with such thin clothing as he has on. But of course he will stay at
Baradeen; it would be madness to come on.'
'He said that he would be home to-night, wet or dry. Those were his last
words, and he's rather obstinate. Haven't you remarked that, mother?'
'I am afraid he is. It runs in the blood,' the elder remarked, with a
sigh. 'But there will be no danger unless the Wawanoo Creek is up. It
never rises unless the river does, and there's not rain enough for
that.'
'There seems rain enough for anything,' said the girl, shuddering.
'Hark! how it is pouring down now. It will be dark in an hour. I do wish
Bertram was home.'
The creek alluded to was a ravine of considerable size and depth, which,
serving as one of the anabranches of the river, was rarely filled except
in flood time, when it acted as a canal for the purpose of carrying off
the superfluous water. Now it was almost dry, and apparently would
remain so. It could be distinctly seen from the windows of the room
where they were sitting.
At a sudden cry from the girl Mrs. Devereux went to the window. 'What a
wonder of wonders!' she said; 'the Wawanoo is coming down. The paling
fence in the flat has been carried away.'
The fence alluded to was a high and close palisade across a portion of
the flat, down which ran one of the channels of the said Wawanoo Creek.
An unusual body of rain, falling apparently during one of the
thunder-showers, had completely submerged the valley, which, narrowing
above the said fence, and being dammed back by it, finally overbore it,
and rushed down the main channel of the creek in a yeasty flood.
'The creek will be twenty feet deep where the road crosses it now,' said
Pollie. 'If he comes to it he will have to swim. He will never think of
its being so deep, and he might be drowned. I knew something would
happen. What a lucky thing he took Guardsman!'
As she spoke her mother pointed to a spot where the track crossed the
creek. The road itself was now plainly marked as a sepia-coloured, brown
line winding through the grassless, herbless, grey levels of the
drought-stricken waste. A horseman was riding at speed along the clearly
printed track, through the misty lines of fast-falling rain.
'It is Bertram coming back,' cried Pollie. 'I know Guardsman's long
stride; how he is throwing the dirt behind him! I wouldn't mind the ride
myself if I had an old habit on. It must be great fun to be as wet as he
must be, and to know one cannot be any worse. Do you think he will try
to swim the creek?'
'He does not seem to dream of pulling up,' said Mrs. Devereux. 'Very
likely he thinks it can't be deep when he crossed dry-shod this
morning.'
'Oh, look!' cried the girl, with a long-drawn inspiration. 'He has
ridden straight in without stopping. What a plunge! They are both over
head and ears in it. But Guardsman swims well. Mr. Gateward told me he
saw him in the last flood, when he was only a colt. I can see his head;
how he shakes it! Gallant old fellow! And there is Bertram sitting as
quietly as if he was on dry land. They will be carried down lower, but
it is good shelving land on this side. Now they are out, rather
staggering, but safe. Thank God for that! Oh, mother are you not glad?'
As Bertram and the brown made joint entrance to the square opposite the
stable-yard, dripping like a sea-horse bestridden by a merman, he saw a
feminine figure in the verandah of the barracks gesticulating wildly to
him, and in a fashion demanding to be heard.
'Mother says you are to come in directly and change your clothes and
take something hot, and not to stay out a moment longer than you can
help.'
'I must see Guardsman made snug first,' answered the young man, with the
same immovable quiet voice, in which not the slightest inflection
betrayed any hint of unusual risk. 'I really couldn't answer it to my
conscience to turn him out to-night. I won't be long, however.'
* * * * *
'When it _does_ rain here it rains hard, I must admit!' said Mr.
Devereux an hour afterwards, as, completely renovated and very carefully
attired, he presented himself at dinner. 'Could not have imagined such a
transformation scene of earth and sky. The plain has become a gigantic
batter pudding, and the ludicrous attempt at a brook--the Wawanoo
Creek--is a minor Mississippi. I thought the old horse would have been
swept right down once.'
'You will find our rivers and some other Australian matters are not to
be laughed at,' answered Pollie, with a heightened colour. 'But mother
and I are too glad to see you back safe to scold you for anything you
might say to-night.'
'Really I feel quite heroic,' he answered, with a smile which was rarely
bestowed with so much kindness; 'I suppose people _are_ drowned now and
then.'
'I should think so,' said Pollie. 'Do you remember that poor young
Clarence, from Amhurst, two or three years ago? He was very anxious to
get to the Bindera station, where they were having a party; he was told
the creek was dangerous, but would try. His horse got caught in a log or
something, and came over with him. He was drowned, and carried into the
Bindera house next morning a corpse.'
'Very sad. But men must drop in life's battle now and then. There would
be too many of us fellows else "crawling between earth and heaven," as
Hamlet says.'
'What a cold-blooded way to talk!' said Pollie; 'but of course you
really do not think so. Think of quitting life suddenly with all its
pleasures.'
'Pleasures?' replied Mr. Devereux abruptly. 'Yes! I daresay very young
persons look at it in that light. After all it's quite a lottery like
other games of pitch and toss. Sometimes the backers have it all their
own way. Then comes a "fielder's" year, and the first-named are
obliterated.'
'Then do you really think life is only another name for a sort of Derby
Day on a large scale, or a Grand National?' demanded Pollie, with a
shocked expression of countenance--'at the end of which one man is borne
in a shining hero, aglow with triumph, while another breaks his neck
over the last leap, or loses fame and fortune irrevocably; and that
neither can help the appointed lot?'
Her cousin regarded her for a moment with a fixed and searching gaze.
Then a ripple of merriment broke over his features, and a rarely seen
expression of frank admiration succeeded to the ordinary composure of
his visage. 'I don't go quite as far as that.
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."
But I am afraid few of us live as if we thought so. That ever I should
have found myself in Australia was at one time so unlikely, so all but
impossible, that I may well believe in the interposition of a Ruler of
Events.'
* * * * *
'I believe they've had rain,' is the usual answer to him who 'speirs' in
Australia as to the pastoral welfare of a particular province, district,
or locality. It is unnecessary to say more. 'Man wants but little here
below' is comparatively true; but a short supply of the aqueous fluid on
land parallels in its destructive effects the over abundance at sea.
When the rain is withheld for a year or two years, as the case may be,
losses accumulate, and ruin stalks on apace. The severity of the
acknowledged droughts, not merely accidental drynesses, is comparative,
and is often matter of conversation.
'This is the worst drought known for many years,' was remarked to a
young but war-worn pioneer.
'Pretty well, but not equal to that of 187-,' he made answer.
'Why do you think so?'
'When that drought commenced,' he said slowly, 'we had nine thousand
head of cattle on our run on the Darwin. When it broke up we mustered
sixteen hundred, and on foot too: we had not had a horse to ride for
eighteen months.'
From such merciless disaster was Corindah now saved. Prosperity was
assured for at least two years, as well to that spacious property which
comprehended 290,000 acres (and not a bad one among them, as Mr.
Gateward was fond of asserting) as to a hundred similar pastoral
leaseholds from the Macquarie to the Darr. An entirely new state of
matters had suddenly arisen. In all directions telegraphic messages were
speeding through space, withdrawing this lot of 20,000 ewes or that of a
thousand store bullocks from sale; while eager forecasting operators
like Mr. Jack Charteris had swept up the supply of saleable sheep, and
left their more cautious comrades lamenting their inability to purchase
except at prices which 'left no margin,' the alternative being to have
tens of thousands of acres of waving prairie 'going to waste' for want
of stock to eat it. The face of Nature had indeed changed. Within a
fortnight the arid dusty plains, so barren of aspect, were carpeted with
a green mantle, wondrously vivid of hue and rapid of growth. The creek
ran musically murmuring towards the river, which itself 'came down,' a
tawny, turbid stream bank high, and in places overflowing into long dry
lagoons and lakelets. Even the birds of the air seemed to be apprised of
the wondrous atmospheric change. Great flocks of wild-fowl soared in,
migrating from undreamed of central wastes. The lakelets and the river
reaches were alive with the heron and the egret. The bird of the
wilderness, with giant beak and sweeping wing, was there in battalions;
while the roar of wings when a cloud of wild-fowl rose from water was
like a discharge of artillery.
Bertram Devereux was, in his heart, truly astonished at the wondrous
change wrought in the outward appearance of the region, in the manner
and bearing of the dwellers therein, in the tone of the leading
newspapers, in everybody's plans, position, and prospects, which had
been wrought by so simple and natural an agent. He, however, carefully
preserved his ordinary incurious, impassive immobility, and after
casually remarking that this was evidently one of the lands known to the
author of the _Arabian Nights_, and that somebody had been rubbing the
magic lamp, and commanded a genie to fetch a few million tons of water
from Ireland or Upper India, where it was superfluous, and deliver it
here, made no other observation, but rode daily with Mr. Gateward over
the sodden, springing pastures, wading through the overflowing marshes,
and swimming the dangerous creeks 'where ford there was none,' as if he
had always expected the West Logan to be akin to the west of Ireland as
to soil and climate, and was not disappointed in his expectation.
On the morning after the flood Harold Atherstone had betaken himself to
the metropolis, only to be forestalled by Jack Charteris in his rapid
and comprehensive purchases of stock. Doubtless other pastoral
personages had been duly informed by the magic wire of the momentous
change, but even then, such had been the terror, the suffering, the dire
endurance of every evil of a twofold ruin, that numbers of owners were
found willing to sell their advertised sheep at a very slight advance
upon the pre-pluvial prices. So might they be assured of the solvency
and security which they had dreaded would never be theirs again. So
might they again lay their heads on their pillow at night, thanking God
for all His mercies, and for the safety of the future of those dear to
them. So might they again be enabled to go forth among their fellow-men,
strong in the consciousness that the aching dread, the long-deferred
hope, the dark despair slowly creeping on like some dimly seen but
implacable beast of prey, were things of the past, phantoms and shadows
to be banished for ever from their unhaunted lives.
All these but lately altered circumstances were distinctly in favour of
a quick and decisive operator, as was Harold Atherstone when he 'saw his
way.' Not a plunger like Jack Charteris, he was firm and rapid of
evolution when he had distinctly demonstrated his course of action. So
when he returned to Maroobil after a month's absence, he had as many
sheep on the road, at highly paying prices, as would keep that
'well-known fattening station' and Corindah besides in grass-eaters for
many a month to come. Mrs. Devereux was full of gratitude towards him
for managing her delegated business so safely and promptly, and again
and again declared that there was no living man like Harold Atherstone.
He was always to be relied on in the hour of need. He never made
mistakes, or was taken in, or forgot things, or procrastinated, like
other men. When he said he would do a thing, that thing was done, if it
was in the compass of mortal man to do it.
'In short,' said Pollie, before whom and for whose benefit and
edification this effusive statement was made, 'in short, he is
perfection--a man without a fault. What a pity it is that paragons are
never attractive!'
'Beware of false fires, my darling,' said the tender mother--'misleading
lights of feeling apart from reason, which are apt to wreck the
trusting, and to end in despairing darkness.'
Among the visitors to Corindah, who made at least a bi-monthly call, was
the Honourable Hector MacCallum, M.L.C.
He was a prosperous bachelor, verging on middle age, with several good
stations, and an enviable power of leaving them in charge of managers
and overseers, while he disported himself in the pleasantest spots of
the adjacent colonies, or indeed wheresoever he listed--sometimes even
in Tasmania, where he was famed for his picnics, four-in-hand driving,
and liberality in entertaining. In that favoured isle, where maidens
fair do so greatly preponderate, Mr. MacCallum might have brought back a
wife from any of his summer trips; and few would have asserted that the
damsel honoured by his choice was other than among the fairest and
sweetest of that rose-garden of girls.
But then something always prevented him. He wanted to go to New Zealand.
It was impossible to settle down before he had seen the wonders of that
wonderland--the pink-and-white terraces, the geysers, the paradisiacal
gardens, the Eves that flitted through the 'rata' thickets, the
fountains that dripped and flashed through the hush of midnight.
Something was always incomplete. He would come again. And more than one
fair cheek grew pale, and bright eyes lost their lustre, ere the
inconstant squatter prince was heralded anew.
But now it seemed as if the goodly fish, which had so often drawn back
and disappeared, was about to take the bait.
Mr. MacCallum's visits were apparently accidental. He happened to be in
that part of the country, and took the opportunity of calling. He was on
his way to Melbourne or Sydney, and was sure he could execute a
commission for Mrs. Devereux or Miss Pollie. This, of course, involved a
visit on the way back. He was a good-looking, well-preserved man, so
that his forty odd years did not put him at much disadvantage, if any,
when he came into competition with younger men. Indeed, it is asserted
by the experienced personages of their own sex that young girls are in
general not given to undervalue the attentions of men older than
themselves. It flatters their vanity or gratifies their self-esteem to
discover that their callow charms and undeveloped intellects, so lately
emancipated from the prosaic thraldom of the schoolroom, suffice to
attract men who have seen the world--have, perhaps, borne themselves
'manful under shield' in the battlefield of life, have struck hard in
grim conflicts where quarter is neither given nor received, and been a
portion of the great 'passion-play' of the universe. They look down upon
their youthful admirers as comparatively raw and inexperienced, like
themselves. Theirs is a career of hope and expectation all to come, like
their own. They like and esteem them, perhaps take their parts in
rehearsals of the old, old melodrama. But in many cases it is not till
they see at their feet the war-worn soldier, the scarred veteran who has
tempted fate so often in the great hazards of the campaign, who has
shared the cruel privations, the deadly hazards of real life--that the
imaginative heart of woman fills up all the spaces in the long-outlined
sketch of the hero and the king, the lord and master of her destiny, to
whom she is henceforth proud to yield worship and loving service.
Why Mr. MacCallum did not marry all this time--he owned to thirty-seven,
and his enemies said he was more like forty-five--the dwellers in the
country towns on the line of march exhausted themselves in conjecturing.
The boldest hazarded the guess that he might have an unacknowledged wife
'at home.' Others averred that he was pleasure-loving, of epicurean,
self-indulgent tastes, having neither high ambition nor religious views.
They would be sorry to trust Angelina or Frederica to such a
guardianship. Besides, he was getting quite old. In a few years there
would be a great change in him. He had aged a good deal since that last
trip of his to Europe, when he had the fever in Rome. Of course he was
wealthy, but money was not everything, and a man who spent the greater
part of the year at his club was not likely to make a particularly good
husband.
The object of all this criticism, comment, and secret exasperation was a
squarely built, well-dressed man, slightly above the middle height, and
with that indefinable ease of manner and social tact that travel,
leisure, and the possession of an assured position generally produce. He
was kindly, amusing, invariably polite, and deferential to women of all
ages; and there were few who did not acknowledge the charm of his
manner, even when they abused him in his absence, or deceived him for
their own purposes. In spite of all he was popular, was the Honourable
Hector, a man of wide and varied experience, of a bearing and general
_tournure_ which left little to be desired. In the matter of courtship
he knew sufficiently well that it was injudicious to force the running;
that a waiting race was his best chance. He took care never to prolong
his visit; always to encircle himself with some surrounding of interest
during his stay at Corindah. He pleased Pollie and her mother by being
in possession of the newest information on all subjects in which he knew
they were interested. He was good-natured and _bon camarade_ with the
young men, at the same time in a quiet way exhibiting a slight
superiority--as of one whose sphere was larger, whose possessions,
interests, opportunities, and prospects generally, placed him upon a
different plane from that with which the ordinary individual must be
contented. This, of course, rendered more effective the habitual
deference which he invariably yielded to both the ladies whom he wished
to propitiate, rightly deeming that all the avenues to Pollie's heart
were guarded by the mental presentment of her mother.
'Really, we quite miss Mr. MacCallum when he leaves Corindah,' said
Pollie one day, as she watched the well-appointed mail-phaeton and
high-bred horses which that gentleman always affected, disappearing in
the distance. 'He's most amusing and well-informed; his manners are so
finished--really, there is hardly anything about him that you could wish
altered.'
'So clever and practical, too, said Mrs. Devereux. 'He showed me in a
few minutes how he was going to lay out the garden at the new house at
Wanwondah. Really, it will be the most lovely place. And the irrigation
is from a plan of his own.'
'It's almost a pity to be so extravagant there, isn't it?' said her
daughter. 'He told me he never saw it except in the winter and spring.
He always spends the summer in some other colony. This year he will go
to the hot springs of Waiwera, and see all that delicious North Island,
and those unutterably lovely pink-and-white terraces. How I should like
to go!'
'Quite easy,' said Harold Atherstone, who had been standing by the
mantlepiece apparently in a fit of abstraction. 'You've to say "yes" to
the Honourable Hector's unspoken prayer, and he'll take you there, or to
the moon, when Mr. Cook discovers a practicable route. He's not more
than twenty years older than you are--hardly that.'
'So you think I am likely to marry for the new house at Wanwondah
Crossing-place?' retorted Pollie. 'Also for the power of going away and
leaving all you stupid people to be roasted and boiled during the long
dismal summer? Poor things! what would you do without me to tease you
all? But it's a strange peculiarity of society, I believe, that a girl
can never make any personal remark but invariably the next idea
suggested to her by her friends is, "Whom is she trying to marry?" That
being so, why shouldn't I marry Mr. MacCallum? Not that he has ever
asked me.'
'But he will--you know he will--and if you allow yourself to be carried
away by dreams of luxury and unlimited power of travel, which is more
likely, you will regret it once only--that is, all your life after.'
'But say you are not serious, my darling,' said her mother, with a
half-alarmed look. 'Really, I will take you to Tasmania, or even New
Zealand, though it's dreadfully rough--anywhere, rather than you should
be tempted to act against your better judgment. Mr. MacCallum is
extremely nice and suitable--but he is far too _old_ for you.'
'I don't see that at all,' replied the young lady petulantly. 'I like
some one I can look up to. All women do. He knows the world of society,
letters, politics--not only of these colonies either. Most other girls
would--perhaps the phrase is vulgar--"jump at him." Besides, he is most
amusing. Not a mere talker, but full of crisp, pleasant expressions and
suggestions. He is a new magazine, with the leaves uncut. Not like some
people, gloomy and abstracted half the time.'
'You don't see _him_ when he's off colour--excuse my slang,' answered
the young man. 'He is not always amusing, people say. But that's not my
affair. If age and experience are the valued qualities, I'm sorry I was
not born a generation earlier. And now I must say good-bye; I'm wanted
at the back-block Inferno, and have no idea when I shall see you again.'
'If you are not here this day fortnight,' said the young lady, with a
solemn and tragic expression, 'and at tea-time, see to it.'
'But there's all sorts of trouble at Ban Ban. The dogs are showing up.
All the sheep have to come in. There are no shepherds to be got. My
working overseer is laid up with acute rheumatism. How can I----'
'Shepherd or no shepherd,' persisted the girl,--'rain or
shine--rheumatism or not--this day fortnight, or you will take the
consequence.'
'I suppose I must manage it,' quoth the unfortunate young man. 'Do you
remember your _Ivanhoe_: "Gurth, the son of Beowulf, is the born thrall
of Cedric of Rotherwood"? Seems to me that villenage is not extinct,
even in this colonial and democratic community.'
'And a very good thing too,' retorts this haughty, undisciplined damsel.
'The feudal system had an amazing deal of good about it. I don't see why
we shouldn't revive it out here.'
'Looks rather it at present!' grumbled Harold. 'Good-bye, Mrs. Devereux.
Fortunately the rain's general, so we can stand a good deal of
oppression and intimidation.'
* * * * *
'In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
love,'
sang the laureate. And the parallel is sound. Of course it always rains
in spring in England.
But suppose it didn't--as in Australia? He would find that things went
differently. The 'wanton lapwing' would not get himself another crest,
and the poet would have to furnish himself with another example.
In the absence of rain we can assure our readers that things are much
otherwise, even with the dumb and feathered tribes. The wild-fowl do
come down in a serious, philosophical sort of way. But what they do in
effect is this:--
They say--'We have ciphered this thing out, and have come to the
conclusion that it is not going to rain, that it will be a dry spring.
That being the case, we are not going to pair, or build, or lay eggs, or
going through the ordinary foolishness, in anticipation of rain and
certain other adjuncts to matrimony, which _will not come_.
And they do _not_ pair.
How are such things managed? Who teaches the birds of the air? How do
they know it is going to keep dry?
Yet the results are as I state. There is no young family to provide for,
no presents, no trousseaux--and a very good thing, too, under the
circumstances.
So with the social and amatory enterprises of the human inhabitants of
the dry country; the phenomenon of six inches of rain or otherwise makes
all the difference. Mr. Oldhand had promised to build his youngest son
Dick a new cottage at the Bree Bree station, which he had managed for
him successfully for several years, after which Dick's marriage with
Mary Newcome was to take place, they having been engaged, as was well
known to the neighbours here, for the last three years. But the season
'set in dry.' Dick had a bad lambing, and lost sheep besides. So the
cottage can't be built this year, the marriage is put off, and Dick's
manly countenance wears an air of settled gloom.
_Ergo_, it follows that immediately upon the supervening of a period of
unexampled prosperity, consequent upon the abnormal rainfall which 'ran'
Wawanoo Creek in half an hour, and narrowly escaped devoting Bertram
Devereux to the unappeased deities of the waste as a befitting
sacrifice, proposals of marriage were thick in the air, and matrimonial
offers became nearly as plentiful as bids for store sheep.
When Hector MacCallum therefore, as became him, gallantly took the lead
as representative of the marrying pastoral section, no one wondered.
Speculation and conjecture doubtless, were evoked as to where the
many-stationed Sultan might deign to cast his coveted kerchief. In
despite of inter-provincial jealousies, however, no one was much
astonished when reliable information was disseminated to the effect that
he had been on a visit of nearly a week to Corindah, had been seen
driving Mrs. and Miss Devereux to points of interest in the
neighbourhood in his mail-phaeton, that his groom's livery was more
resplendent than ever, and that the famous chestnuts had been replaced
by a team of brown horses, admirably matched, thorough-bred, and said to
be the most valuable turn-out in work on this side of the line.
Acidulated persons, as usual, made exclamation to the effect that 'they
never could see what there was in that girl; some people had wonderful
luck; boldness and assurance seemed to take better than any other
qualities with the men nowadays,' and so on. But when gradually it oozed
out that there was no triumphant proclamation of engagement after all,
that Mr. MacCallum was going to England, could not be back for two or
three years, etc.--all of which certainly pointed to the fact of his
proposals having been declined, impossible as such a fact would
appear--the clamour of the hard-to-please contingent rose loud and high.
'What did the girl want? Was she waiting for a prince of the blood?
After having befooled all the men within her reach, from Jack Charteris
to the parson, and ending up with a man old enough to be her father, and
who certainly should have known better, was it not heartless and
indecent to treat him as she had done? Would not the whole district cry
shame upon her, and she be left lamenting in a few years, deserted by
every one that had any sense? A vinegary old maid in the future--it
would be all her own fault, and that of her mother's ridiculous vanity
and indulgence.'
All unknowing or careless of these arrows of criticism, the free and
fearless maiden pursued her career. Mr. MacCallum had, at a well-chosen
moment, made his effort and pressed with practised persistence for a
favourable answer. But in vain. Under other conditions, men of his age
and attributes have been frequently successful, to the wrath and
astonishment of younger rivals. But circumstances have been in their
favour. Poverty, ignorance of the world, ambition on the part of the
girl's friends, gratitude, have all or each conspired in such case to
turn the scale in favour of the wealthy and adroit, if mature, wooer.
And so the contract, often a fairly happy one, is concluded.
But in this case Love, the lord of all, had fair play for once. Pollie
had distinctly made up her mind, since she was conscious of possessing
such a faculty, that she would never marry any one unless she was in
love with him ardently, passionately, romantically, without any manner
of doubt. People might come and try to please. She could not help that.
It was hardly in her nature to be cold or rude to anybody. But as to
marrying any one she only liked, she would die first.
She liked, she respected, she in every way approved of Mr. MacCallum;
but no! She was much honoured, flattered, and pleased, and really shrank
from the idea of giving him so much pain. Mr. MacCallum exaggerated his
probable agonies in such a way that a weaker woman might probably have
given in--from sheer pity. But as to marrying him, it was out of the
question. Her answer was 'No,' and nothing could ever alter it.
So the Honourable Hector had to depart in a more disappointed and
disgusted frame of mind than had happened to His Royal Highness for many
a day. Drought, debts, dingoes, travelling sheep, were all as nothing to
this crowning disaster. Everything else being so flourishing, it was a
thunderbolt out of a blue sky, crushing his equanimity and
self-satisfaction to the dust.
Not his happiness, however. A middle-aged bachelor with a good digestion
and enviable bank balance is not--whatever the sensational novelist may
assert--usually slaughtered by one such miscalculation. He does not like
it, of course. He fumes and frets for a week or two, and probably says,
'Confound the girl! I thought she really liked me.' Then he falls back
upon the time-honoured calculation--a most arithmetically correct
one--of those 'other fish in the sea.' Claret has a soothing effect. The
Club produces alleviating symptoms. And the Laird of Cockpen either
marries the next young lady on his list, or, departing to far lands,
discovers that the supply of Calypsos and Ariadnes is practically
unlimited.
MacCallum, like a shrewd personage, as he was, held his tongue and took
the next mail for Europe, reappearing within two years with an
exceedingly handsome and lady-like wife, who did full justice to his
many good qualities, was very popular, and made Wanwondah quite the show
country-house of the neighbourhood.