Turner grimly, “judging by the specimen of her temper the young lady
gave us this afternoon.”
Stanesby muttered something that was hardly a blessing under his breath,
then he caught up his hat and went down the bank to the waterhole. The
other man felt more comfortable in his absence. He sat down, lighted his
pipe, and taking up the paper again, began to read with fresh interest.
Half an hour passed. The sun sank below the horizon, gorgeous in red and
gold, and Turner watched the last rosy flush die out of the western
sky. Darkness fell, and he sat on smoking and thinking sadly, till his
comrade loomed up out of the gloom.
“Is that you, Stanesby?” he called out.
“Who the devil should it be?” Then remembering his hospitality, “Why you
Ye all in the dark! Why didn’t you light a candle!”
The girl did not make her appearance, and Turner did not comment on her
absence. Stanesby said nothing. He lighted a candle, and calling Jimmy
to his assistance, began clearing the table and washing up the dirty
plates and pannikins. Turner offered to help, but was told ungraciously
that two were enough, and so went on smoking and watched in silence.
He did not feel on intimate enough terms to comment; but he knew well
enough Stanesby had gone out to find the girl, and either failed to find
her, or at any rate failed to bring her back. It was no business of
his any way, and he sat smoking till he was called to the evening meal,
which was a repetition of the mid-day one, with milkless tea instead of
whisky for a beverage.
Stanesby apologised.
“I ‘m clean out of whisky, I ‘m sorry to say.”
“It’s all right, old man. I don’t often manage to get it at all on
Jinfalla.”
They discussed station matters then, discussed them all the evening,
though Turner could not but feel that his host’s thoughts were far away.
Still they lasted, they interested the man who was bound to live on
here, till at length Stanesby got up with a mighty yawn and suggested
they should turn in.
There was a bunk fixed against the wall, and he threw his comrade’s
blankets into it.
“It’s all I can do for you to-night, old man. Come to Heyington next
year, and I ‘ll treat you better.”
“Thanks,” said Turner. “No such luck for me.” Then he spoke the thought
that had been in his mind all the evening.
“I say, that girl hasn’t come in.”
“She’s all right, she can sleep out then. I can’t say it’ll cool her
temper, for it’s as hot as blazes still. Good night, old chap.”
Turner lay awake long after the light was out, staring up at the
unceiled roof, at the faint light that marked the open doorway and the
window, thinking, thinking, wondering at his own discontent, thinking of
the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl he had loved so well and so long. It
was all over between them now, all over; there had never been anything
except on his side, never anything at all, and now it was not much good
his even thinking of her. She would marry Dick Stanesby and never know,
never dream----
His thoughts wandered to that other girl, it was no business of his, but
it worried him nevertheless, as things that are no concern of ours do
worry us when we lie wakeful on our beds, and the _girl’s_ beautiful,
angry face haunted him. He thought of her there down by the creek,
alone in her dumb pain, so young, so ignorant, so beautiful. There was
something wrong in the scheme of creation somewhere, something wrong,
or why were such as she born but to suffer. His life was hard, cruelly
hard, he had known better things; but she--she--hers had been hard all
along. Had she known any happiness? he wondered. He supposed she had if
she cared for Dick Stanesby. When first she came, unasked and unsought,
he had been good to her; he knew his friend, he had known him from
a boy, easy-going, good-natured, with no thought for the future for
himself, how could he expect him to think for another? He had been good
to her--oh, yes, he knew Dick Stanesby--very good to her, but he had
taken no thought for her future any more than he would for his own. He
would go into the head-station with him to-morrow morning, he very much
doubted if he would come back. He would intend to at first, but it would
be very much easier to stay, and he would stay, and the girl--what
would become of her? He found himself saying it over and over again to
himself, what would become of her? What could become of her? till he
fell into an uneasy doze and dreamed that he was master of Heyington
and had married Gladys Rowan, who was no other than Dick Stanesby’s
hutkeeper, and crouched in the corner with a long, shining knife in her
hand. Then he awakened suddenly and heard the sound of voices, a woman’s
voice and Dick’s, Dick’s soft and tender. He could not hear the words,
but the tones were enough. It was the same old Dick. He did not want
her, he would rather be without her: but since she was there, he must
needs be good to her. So she had come back after all! He might have
known she was sure to come back. Why couldn’t she stop away? Why
couldn’t she join her relatives down by the creek? Alas! and alas! The
barrier between her and them was as great as it was between her and the
white man. Greater, if possible. Poor child! poor child! How was it to
end?
He tossed and turned and the voices went on softly murmuring. He thought
of Gladys and grew angry, and finally, when he had given up all hope, he
fell fast asleep.
Next morning he found that peace reigned. The girl came in and quietly
cleared away the remnants of last night’s meal and began making
preparations for breakfast. Her mind was at ease evidently. She had
no doubts about the permanency of her heaven; and when she saw him she
smiled upon him the same slow, lazy, contented smile with which she had
first greeted him, apparently forgetting and expecting him to forget all
disagreeable episodes of the day before. How long would this peace last?
asked Guy Turner of himself.
The meal done, Stanesby called to his black boy to bring up the horses,
and touching the girl on the shoulder drew her aside, evidently to
explain that he was going into the head-station and wanted provisions
for the journey.
“We’ll take a packhorse between us,” said he to Turner, “it’ll save
trouble; and I ‘ll show you a decent camping-place for to-night.” Then
he followed the girl outside, and his companion began rolling up his
swag.
He came back a few moments later, the girl following, and Turner could
not but note the change in her face. It was not angry now, there
was hardly even a trace of sullenness on it. Fear and sorrow seemed
struggling with one another for the upper hand, and she was sobbing
every now and then heavily, as if she could not help herself.
“Good Lord! Stanesby, what the dickens have you been doing to the girl?”
he said.
Stanesby looked at him angrily.
“You seem to take a confoundedly big interest in the girl,” he said.
“Well, hang it all, man, she looks as if she had been having a jolly bad
time, and really she’s only a child.”
“A child, is she? A child that’s very well able to take care of herself.
I haven’t been beating her, if that’s what you ‘re thinking. I suppose
I may be allowed to go into the head-station occasionally without asking
my hutkeeper’s leave.”
“Oh! that’s the trouble, is it? Depends upon your hutkeeper, I should
say. I don’t ask mine, but then--”
Turner paused, and Stanesby answered the unspoken thoughts with an oath.
“Oh, if you feel that way,” began Turner, but his companion flung
himself out of the hut angrily.
Then the girl turned round, and Turner wondered to himself if she were
going to repeat the performance of last night. But no, she was quiet and
subdued now, as if all hope, all resentment even, had left her.
“Going to the head station?” she asked, and her voice was soft and low
and very sweet, with just a trace of the guttural enunciation of
her mother’s race; but she spoke good English, far better than her
appearance seemed to warrant, and did no small credit to old Miss
Howard’s training.
“Yes, yes, of course. We’re going to the head station, but Stanesby ‘ll
be back in a day or two,” he added soothingly, because of the sorrow on
her face. And then he hated himself for saying so much. What business
was it of his?
She stepped forward and laid both hands on his arm.
“Don’t take him away, don’t, don’t!” she pleaded.
Her big dark eyes were swimming with tears, and there was an intensity
of earnestness in her tones that went to the young man’s heart. Besides,
he was young, and she was very good to look upon.
“My dear child,” he said, his anger against his old friend growing,
“I have nothing in the world to do with it. He must go into the
head-station sometimes. He must have gone often before.”
She dropped her hands and leaned back wearily against the wall.
“No,” she said, “no, not when the myalls are down along the creek.”
“Good Lord! Those d----d black fellows! I never thought of them. But
they won’t touch you!”
She looked up and smiled faintly, as if amused at his ignorance.
“Kitty tumble down,” she said, relapsing into the blackfellows’ English.
“Oh! come, I say,” said Turner, “this’ll never do.” And he went outside
in search of Stanesby, whom he found strapping their swags on to the
packhorse.
“Look here, I say, old man, that poor little beggar’s frightened out of
her wits of the myalls down by the creek there.”
Stanesby shrugged his shoulders.
“All bunkum! I know her ways. She wants to get me to stop. She seems to
guess there’s something in the wind. The myalls! pooh! They ‘re as tame
as possible. They steal any odds and ends that are left about--that’s
about their form.”
“But the poor child is frightened.”
“Frightened! Get out. There wasn’t much fright about her when she took
the knife to you last night! She knows very well how to take care of
herself, I can tell you.”
“But those myalls. On Jinfalla we--Well, it really seems to me risky to
leave her all alone. Even if there isn’t any danger--the very fact of
being alone--.”
“Pooh! Considering she tramped from the head-station here all the eighty
miles on foot, just because of some breeze with the cook there, she must
be mightily afraid of being alone. However, if you don’t like her being
left, it ‘s open to you to stop and look after her. I ‘m going to start
in about two minutes.”
“Oh, well, if you think it s all right--”
“Of course it’s all right. There ‘s Jimmy got your horse for you. Come
on, old chap.”
Turner mounted, and Stanesby was just about to do the same, when with a
quick cry the girl ran out of the hut and caught his arm.
She said no word, and before he, taken by surprise, could stop her, she
had wound both her arms around his neck and laid her face against his
breast.
Turner put his spurs into his horse, and rode off smartly. It was no
affair of his. The whole thing made him angry whenever he thought of it.
As for Dick Stanesby, though usually never anything but gentle with a
woman, he was thoroughly angry now; he had felt angry before, but now he
was roused, which did not often happen, to put his anger into words.
“Confound you, Kitty! Do you hear me? Don’t be a fool!” and he roughly
shook her off, so roughly that she lost her balance, staggered, and
fell. He made a step forward to take his horse, which was held by the
stolid black boy, but she was too quick for him and, grovelling on
the ground at his feet, put out her arms and held him there, murmuring
inarticulate words of tenderness and love. Stanesby stooped down, and
caught her wrists in both his hands.
“Get up!” he said roughly, and dragged her to her feet. She stood there,
leaning all her weight on his supporting hands, looking at him with
reproachful eyes.
They were beautiful eyes, and there was need enough for her sorrow had
she only known; but what Stanesby was thinking of was the awkwardness of
the situation. He did not mind the black boy, he counted him as so much
dirt--but Turner! Already this girl had made an exhibition of him, and
now it was worse than ever. Every moment he dreaded he would turn
round, and even though he did not it was equally bad, he kept his face
purposely averted.
The girl broke out into passionate prayer to him not to leave her, then,
seeing he was still unmoved, she began to call him every tender name her
limited vocabulary contained, though there was little enough need to do
that, her eyes said enough.
“Kitty, go back to the hut this moment! For God’s sake, don’t be such a
fool! One would think I was going to murder you.”
“The myalls will,” she said. Then she paused, and added solemnly,
“to-morrow.”
“What confounded rot!”
He let go her hands suddenly, and she fell to her knees and tried to
put her arms round him again; but with a quick movement he stepped
backwards, and she fell forward on to her face. He pushed her aside
roughly, angrily, with an anger that was not all against her, and
mounted hurriedly, snatched the packhorse’s rein from the black boy, and
was off at full gallop after his friend before she could regain her feet
But she did not try to, once she realised that all hope was gone. He had
left her, it was all over with her, she might just as well lie there.
At the sound of the galloping horses behind him Turner looked round.
Through the haze of the early morning, the haze that promised fierce
heat later on, he saw the horses coming towards him, and beyond,
half-veiled by the dust they made as they passed, a dusky red bundle
flung carelessly out on the plain, of use to no one. The black boy
walked away, it was no business of his. There was the lonely hut and
the far-reaching plain, nothing in sight but the bluffs far away to
the east, nothing at all, only that red bundle lying there alone and
neglected.
He had no words for his comrade when he did come up. That dusky red
heap seemed to fill all his thoughts, and about that silence was best.
Stanesby checked his horses, and they rode on slowly as men who have a
long journey before them. The sun climbed up and up to the zenith, but
there was no shelter, no place for the noonday rest. Then away in the
distance arose a line of trees raised up above the horizon, and Stanesby
pointed it out to his companion.
“We can spell there a bit,” he said. “It’s only that beastly prickly
bush, for all it looks like a forest of red gum at the very least from
here, but there’ll be a scrap of shade, and I’m getting tired. There’s
water there sometimes, but it was dry as a bone last time I passed.”
“It’s a grand country!” sighed Turner.
“By George!” said Stanesby, “I never will come back this way. Why should
I, now I ‘m free to do as I please?”
Why, indeed? And Turner’s thoughts immediately flew back to the
dark-eyed girl, and the solitary hut as he had last seen it through the
haze of the morning, with that red heap lying there carelessly flung
aside, and the black fellow stalking away. Why should he go back? Why
indeed? Only to have that scene repeated. Better go straight on to
England, and home, and pretty, fair-haired, blue-eyed Gladys Rowan.
So they lay there in the scanty shade and spelled, and built a small
fire of dry sticks, and filled the billy from the waterbag that hung at
each horse’s neck, and boiled their tea, and ate their humble mid-day
meal, and dozed the afternoon away, lazily watching the hobbled horses
as they searched on the still damp edges of the shallow clay pan for
such scanty grass as the moisture induced to grow there. They
hardly spoke, they had nothing in common now; once they reached
the head-station, they would part never to meet again. Each felt it
instinctively, and each was thankful that it should be so. The sooner
the parting came, the better now.
The shadows of the thorny bushes began to grow longer and longer as
the sun sank in the west, and they mounted their horses and started off
again. Then the sun went down, and the colour faded out of the sky as
the stars, bright points of light, came out one by one. The new moon was
a silver rim clear cut in the west, and not a sound broke the stillness.
How lonely it was, how intensely lonely! Turner thought of the poor girl
alone in the hut miles behind them, and wondered if his companion too
were thinking of her. After all, surely the very loneliness gave safety.
At any rate, she was safe at night. If the blacks did not attack at dusk
they would leave her alone for the night. But the morning--next morning!
Was it right to leave her? He himself had no faith in the myall blacks,
they were treacherous, they were cruel. Had he not come over to arrange
some plan of campaign against them? And yet he went away and left that
girl at their mercy, completely at their mercy. He felt strongly tempted
to turn back. If they could not stop with her, at least they might
have brought her along with them. She was defenceless; her blood was
no protection, rather the reverse. And then, when he turned to speak to
Stanesby, the recollection of his scornful, “It’s open to you to stop
and look after her,” tied his tongue. After all, it was not likely
Stanesby would have left if there was the slightest danger; he had lived
among these blacks, he understood them thoroughly; it was an insult to
the man he had known all his life to suppose anything else; and yet the
thought of the girl’s loneliness haunted him. The moon set, and by the
starlight they saw looming up ahead some rocks, isolated rocks, roughly
piled together by some giant hand.
“We’ll camp there,” said Stanesby, “there’s a little water down under
the rocks--about enough to keep life in the horses; there’s some grass
and a bush or two to make a fire. What more could the heart of man
desire?”
Out in the bush not much time is wasted, and soon after they had halted
their blankets were spread, and they were asleep, or lying, if not
asleep, staring up at the bright starlit sky of the southern hemisphere.
But Turner could not sleep, it was worse than it had been the night
before. Why should he be haunted in this way? Why should he take
Stanesby’s sins on his shoulders? The girl was all right, she must be
all right; why should she haunt his dreams, and keep him wakeful on
his hard bed, when he had a long journey still before him? Stanesby was
sleeping peacefully as a child. He could hear his deep breathing; if
there was anything to be feared he would not sleep like that. It was hot
still, very hot. This was an awful climate, a cruel life, and Stanesby
had done with it all. No wonder he slept soundly.
He sat up restlessly. A sound in the distance broke the stillness, then
he started, surely it was the trotting of a horse. He rubbed his eyes.
Their own three horses were there close beside them, he could see them
vague and indistinct in the gloom. They were there right enough. What
could this be? Who could be riding about at this time of night? They
were still a good forty miles from the head-station, and this horse was
coming from the opposite direction.
He put out his hand, and shook his companion awake.
“Some one’s coming,” he said shortly.
“Some one! Gammon! Good Lord!--”
There was no doubt about it, and he rose to his feet It was the other
side of the rocks, and they walked round quietly. They were only
curious, there was nothing to fear. In the dim starlight they saw a man
on horseback advancing towards them.
“Hallo!” called out Stanesby, as he came quite close, “who the devil are
you?”
The horse was done. They could hear his gasping breath, and the man bent
forward as if he too had come far and fast, but he did not answer, and
as he came closer Turner saw he was a blackfellow.
Stanesby saw it too, and saw more, for he recognised his own black boy
Jimmy.
“Good God! Jimmy, is it you?”
There must be something wrong, very wrong indeed, that would bring a
black-fellow, steeped in superstitious fears of demons and evil spirits,
out at dead of night.
“Jimmy!” Stanesby caught him by the shoulder, and fairly pulled him from
his horse, “What’s the meaning of this?”
Jimmy did not answer for a moment. He was occupied with his horse’s
bridle, then he said carelessly, as if he were rather ashamed of making
such a fuss about a trifle.
“Myalls pull along a hut.”
“My God!” cried Turner. It seemed like the realisation of his worst
fears.
But Stanesby refused to see any cause for alarm.
“And you ‘ve ridden like blazes, and ruined the mare, to tell us rot
like that. What if they do come up to the hut? They’ve been there
before.”
The answer was more to his companion than his servant, but Jimmy
answered the implied reproach.
“Blackfellow burn hut,” he stated.
“Nonsense!”
“This fellow sit down along a bush,” he went on stolidly.
“Well--if you did! I wish to heaven you had stopped alongside your
confounded bush before you ruined my mare.”
“Bungally you!” said Jimmy, who was no respecter of persons, meaning
“you are very stupid.” “Blackfellow put firestick in humpy and--”
“Good God! Stanesby, I knew it. The myalls are going to burn down the
hut, and this beggar’s got wind of it.”
Jimmy nodded approvingly.
“All gone humpy,” he said, stretching out his hands as if to denote the
deed was done.
“But the girl, Jimmy, the girl!”
“Poor gin tumble down.”
“I--Jimmy,” Stanesby caught him by the shoulder, and shook him
violently, and Turner knew by the change in his voice that his fears
were roused at last, “how did you know this? When did you hear it?”
“Sit down along a bush,” said Jimmy again. His vocabulary was limited.
“But when--when? It must have been all right when you left?”
“Blackfellow pull along a humpy to-night,” said Jimmy, nodding his head
solemnly, feeling that at last he had got a serious hearing, and hoping
to hear no more about the mare.
“But the girl--the girl! Where’s the girl?”
“That one myall hit him gin along a cobra big fellow nulla-nulla? Gin
tumble down.” {1}
“But--my God! what ‘d you leave her there for?”
“Myall got ‘em nulla-nulla for this fellow.”
“You brute!” cried Turner, “why didn’t you bring her with you?”
“Only got ‘em one yarramen,” said the blackfellow nonchalantly. There
was only one horse, he had taken it and saved his skin. He had come to
warn the white man of the destruction of his dwelling, but he did not
count the half-caste girl of any value one way or another. The blacks
would attack the hut at sundown when they saw the coast clear.
1 A blackfellow has hit the woman over the head with a big
stick or club. The woman is dead.
The white man would be angry at the destruction of his hut, he had
ridden after him to tell him, and also because safety lay with the white
man; but the girl--if there had been a horse in the little paddock, he
might possibly have brought her out of danger, but even as a blackfellow
he looked with contempt on a half-caste; and as a woman--well, a woman
was worth nothing as a woman. There were plenty more to be got. He lay
down on the ground, and lazily stretched himself out at full length.
There was nothing more to be got out of him.
Stanesby kicked him, and went for his horse.
“This is terrible!” he said, in a hoarse, husky whisper. “That poor
child! Old man, I ought to have taken your advice. My God! Why did you
let me leave her?”
Turner was saddling his own horse, and asking himself the self-same
question. That girl’s blood was on his head he felt, and yet--and
yet--it was no business of his. Stanesby had declared all safe.
“What are you going to do?”
“Going straight back, of course.”
“We’ll be too late. Jimmy certainly said at sundown.”
“He may be wrong, you know; besides, there’s no trusting these devils.
They might have changed their minds. You ‘ll help me, old man, won’t
you?”
“Of course.”
It took but a few moments to prepare for that journey back. Each man saw
that his revolvers were loaded, saddled his horse, and they were ready.
The horse Jimmy had ridden was done.
“Shall we leave him?” said Stanesby, contemptuously stirring him with
his foot.
“No, by Jove! no,” said his companion, “we must have him. He knows all
the sign.”
So they forced the reluctant Jimmy to mount the packhorse, and
distributed his load between them, taking only what was absolutely
necessary.
When they were quite ready Stanesby looked at his watch.
“Ten o’clock,” he said. “We must be there before daylight if we want to
do any good;” and Turner could not but note that there was a more hopeful
ring in his voice. Evidently he thought that perhaps all would be well
after all.
They rode in silence, each man busy with his own thoughts. They had
to ride judiciously too, for their horses were poor, and they had
done forty miles already that day. Could they ever get back to the
out-station before breakfast? Could they? And would they be in time if
they did? Turner asked himself the question again and again, and he felt
that his companion was doing the same thing. Whenever he touched his
horse with the spur till the poor beast started forward with a fresh
burst of energy, his companion felt he was thinking that the girl’s life
was forfeit by his carelessness, was wondering would they ever be in
time.
Dawn would be about six o’clock. Forty miles to go, and eight hours to
do it in. Forty miles straight ahead, with absolutely nothing to break
the monotony except the little patch of prickly bush where they had
spelled that afternoon. They went farther before they spelled to-night,
and they did not stop then till it was very evident to both that the
horses must have a rest, if it was only for half an hour. Turner lay on
the ground and stared up at the starlit sky, and listened to the deep
breathing of the black boy, and the restless pacing up and down of
his companion. Then he fell into a doze from which he was aroused by
Stanesby, and they were on their way again.
“We can’t stop now till we get there,” he said. “Old man, we must be in
time. We must!”
But the other man said nothing. He could not judge, he could only hope.
And now at the end of the journey, weary and tired, his hopes had gone
down to zero.
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.