With Louis Bachelor the young squatter approached Wandenong homestead in
some excitement. He had said no word to his companion about that Barbara
Golding who played such a gracious part in the home of the Osgoods. He
had arranged the movement of the story to his fancy, but would it occur
in all as he hoped? With an amiability that was almost malicious in its
adroit suggestiveness, though, to be sure, it was honest, he had induced
the soldier to talk of his past. His words naturally, and always,
radiated to the sun, whose image was now hidden, but for whose memory no
superscription on monument or cenotaph was needed. Now it was a scrap of
song, then a tale, and again a verse, by which the old soldier was
delicately worked upon, until at last, as they entered the paddocks of
Wandenong, stars and telescopes and even Governments had been forgotten
in the personal literature of sentiment.
Yet John Osgood was not quite at his ease. Now that it was at hand, he
rather shrank from the meeting of these ancient loves. Apart from all
else, he knew that no woman's nerves are to be trusted. He hoped fortune
would so favour him that he could arrange for the meeting of the two
alone, or, at least, in his presence only. He had so far fostered this
possibility by arriving at the station at nightfall. What next? He
turned and looked at the soldier, a figure out of Hogarth, which even
dust and travel left unspoiled. It was certain that the two should meet
where John Osgood, squatter and romancer, should be prompter, orchestra,
and audience, and he alone. Vain lad!
When they drew rein the young man took his companion at once to his own
detached quarters known as the Barracks, and then proceeded to the house.
After greetings with his family he sought Barbara Golding, who was in the
schoolroom, piously employed, Agnes said, in putting the final touches to
Janet's trousseau. He went across the square to the schoolroom, and,
looking through the window, saw that she was quite alone. A few moments
later he stood at the schoolroom door with Louis Bachelor. With his hand
on the latch he hesitated. Was it not fairer to give some warning to
either? Too late! He opened the door and they entered. She was sewing,
and a book lay open beside her, a faded, but stately little figure whose
very garments had an air. She rose, seeing at first only John Osgood,
who greeted her and then said: "Miss Golding, I have brought you an old
friend."
Then he stepped back and the two were face to face. Barbara Golding's
cheeks became pale, but she did not stir; the soldier, with an
exclamation of surprise half joyful, half pathetic, took a step forward,
and then became motionless also. Their eyes met and stayed intent. This
was not quite what the young man had expected. At length the soldier
bowed low, and the woman responded gravely. At this point Osgood
withdrew to stand guard at the door.
Barbara Golding's eyes were dim with tears. The soldier gently said,
"I received--" and then paused. She raised her eyes to his. "I received
a letter from you five-and-twenty years ago."
"Yes, five-and-twenty years ago."
"I hope you cannot guess what pain it gave me."
"Yes," she answered faintly, "I can conceive it, from the pain it gave to
me."
There was a pause, and then he stepped forward and, holding out his hand,
said: "Will you permit me?" He kissed her fingers courteously, and she
blushed. "I have waited," he added, "for God to bring this to pass."
She shook her head sadly, and her eyes sought his beseechingly, as though
he should spare her; but perhaps he could not see that.
"You spoke of a great obstacle then; has it been removed?"
"It is still between us," she murmured.
"Is it likely ever to vanish?"
"I--I do not know."
"You can not tell me what it is?"
"Oh, you will not ask me," she pleaded.
He was silent a moment, then spoke. "Might I dare to hope, Barbara, that
you still regard me with--" he hesitated.
The fires of a modest valour fluttered in her cheeks, and she pieced out
his sentence: "With all my life's esteem." But she was a woman, and she
added: "But I am not young now, and I am very poor."
"Barbara," he said; "I am not rich and I am old; but you, you have not
changed; you are beautiful, as you always were."
The moment was crucial. He stepped towards her, but her eyes held him
back. He hoped that she would speak, but she only smiled sadly. He
waited, but, in the waiting, hope faded, and he only said, at last, in a
voice of new resolve grown out of dead expectancy: "Your brother--is he
well?"
"I hope so," she somewhat painfully replied. "Is he in Australia?"
"Yes. I have not seen him for years, but he is here." As if a thought
had suddenly come to him, he stepped nearer, and made as if he would
speak; but the words halted on his lips, and he turned away again. She
glided to his side and touched his arm. "I am glad that you trust me,"
she faltered.
"There is no more that need be said," he answered. And now, woman-like,
denying, she pitied, too. "If I ever can, shall--shall I send for you
to tell you all?" she murmured.
"You remember I told you that the world had but one place for me, and
that was by your side; that where you are, Barbara--"
"Hush, oh hush!" she interrupted gently. "Yes, I remember everything."
"There is no power can alter what is come of Heaven," he said, smiling
faintly.
She looked with limpid eyes upon him as he bowed over her hand, and she
spoke with a sweet calm: "God be with you, Louis."
Strange as it may seem, John Osgood did not tell his sisters and his
family of this romance which he had brought to the vivid close of a first
act. He felt the more so because Louis Bachelor had said no word about
it, but had only pressed his hand again and again--that he was somehow
put upon his honour, and he thought it a fine thing to stand on a
platform of unspoken compact with this gentleman of a social school
unfamiliar to him; from which it may be seen that cattle-breeding and
bullock-driving need not make a man a boor. What his sisters guessed
when they found that Barbara Golding and the visitor were old friends is
another matter; but they could not pierce their brother's reserve on the
point.
No one at Wandenong saw the parting between the two when Louis Bachelor,
his task with the telescope ended, left again for the coast; but indeed
it might have been seen by all men, so outwardly formal was it, even as
their brief conversations had been since they met again. But is it not
known by those who look closely upon the world that there is nothing so
tragic as the formal?
John Osgood accompanied his friend to the sea, but the name of Barbara
Golding was not mentioned, nor was any reference made to her until the
moment of parting. Then the elder man said: "Sir, your consideration and
delicacy of feeling have moved me, and touched her. We have not been
blind to your singular kindness of heart and courtesy, and--God bless
you, my friend!"
On his way back to Wandenong, Osgood heard exciting news of Roadmaster.
The word had been passed among the squatters who had united to avenge
Finchley's death that the bushranger was to be shot on sight, that he
should not be left to the uncertainty of the law. The latest exploit of
the daring freebooter had been to stop on the plains two members of a
Royal Commission of Inquiry. He had relieved them of such money as was
in their pockets, and then had caused them to write sumptuous cheques on
their banks, payable to bearer. These he had cashed in the very teeth of
the law, and actually paused in the street to read a description of
himself posted on a telegraph-pole. "Inaccurate, quite inaccurate," he
said to a by-stander as he drew his riding-whip slowly along it, and
then, mounting his horse, rode leisurely away into the plains. Had he
been followed it would have been seen that he directed his course to that
point in the horizon where Wandenong lay, and held to it.
It would not perhaps have been pleasant to Agnes Osgood had she known
that, as she hummed a song under a she-oak, a mile away from the
homestead, a man was watching her from a clump of scrub near by; a man
who, however gentlemanly his bearing, had a face where the devil of
despair had set his foot, and who carried in his pocket more than one
weapon of inhospitable suggestion. But the man intended no harm to her,
for, while she sang, something seemed to smooth away the active evil of
his countenance, and to dispel a threatening alertness that marked the
whole personality.
Three hours later this same man crouched by the drawing-room window of
the Wandenong homestead and looked in, listening to the same voice, until
Barbara Golding entered the room and took a seat near the piano, with her
face turned full towards him. Then he forgot the music and looked long
at the face, and at last rose, and stole silently to where his horse was
tied in the scrub. He mounted, and turning towards the house muttered:
"A little more of this, and good-bye to my nerves! But it's pleasant to
have the taste of it in my mouth for a minute. How would it look in
Roadmaster's biography, that a girl just out of school brought the rain
to his eyes?" He laughed a little bitterly, and then went on: "Poor
Barbara! She mustn't know while I'm alive. Stretch out, my nag; we've
a long road to travel to-night."
This was Edward Golding, the brother whom Barbara thought was still in
prison at Sydney under another name, serving a term of ten years for
manslaughter. If she had read the papers more carefully she would have
known that he had been released two years before his time was up. It was
eight years since she had seen him. Twice since then she had gone to
visit him, but he would not see her. Bad as he had been, his desire was
still strong that the family name should not be publicly reviled. At his
trial his real name had not been made known; and at his request his
sister sent him no letters. Going into gaol a reckless man he came out a
constitutional criminal; with the natural instinct for crime greater than
the instinct for morality. He turned bushranger for one day, to get
money to take him out of the country; but having once entered the lists
he left them no more, and, playing at deadly joust with the law, soon
became known as Roadmaster, the most noted bushranger since the days of
Captain Starlight.
It was forgery on the name of his father's oldest friend that had driven
him from England. He had the choice of leaving his native land for ever
or going to prison, and he chose the former. The sorrow of the crime
killed his mother. From Adelaide, where he and Barbara had made their
new home, he wandered to the far interior and afterwards to Sydney; then
came his imprisonment on a charge of manslaughter, and now he was free-
but what a freedom!
With the name of Roadmaster often heard at Wandenong, Barbara Golding's
heart had no warning instinct of who the bushranger was. She thought
only and continuously of the day when her brother should be released, to
begin the race of life again with her. She had yet to learn in what
manner they come to the finish who make a false start.
Louis Bachelor, again in his place Rahway, tried to drive away his
guesses at the truth by his beloved science. When sleep would not come
at night he rose and worked in his laboratory; and the sailors of many a
passing vessel saw the light of his lamp in the dim hours before dawn,
and spoke of fever in the port of Rahway. Nor did they speak without
reason; fever was preparing a victim for the sacrifice at Rahway, and
Louis Bachelor was fed with its poison till he grew haggard and weak.
One night he was sending his weather prognostications to Brisbane, when
a stranger entered from the shore. The old man did not at first look up,
and the other leisurely studied him as the sounder clicked its message.
When the key was closed the new-comer said: "Can you send a message to
Brisbane for me?"
"It is after hours; I cannot," was the reply. "But you were just sending
one."
"That was official," and the elder man passed his hand wearily along his
forehead. He was very pale. The other drew the telegraph-forms towards
him and wrote on one, saying as he did so: "My business is important;"
then handing over what he had written, and, smiling ironically, added:
"Perhaps you will consider that official."
Louis Bachelor took the paper and read as follows: To the Colonial
Secretary, Brisbane. I am here tonight; to-morrow find me. Roadmaster."
He read it twice before he fully comprehended it. Then he said, as if
awakening from a dream: "You are--"
"I am Roadmaster," said the other.
But now the soldier and official in the other were awake. He drew
himself up, and appeared to measure his visitor as a swordsman would his
enemy. "What is your object in coming here?" he asked.
"For you to send that message if you choose. That you may arrest me
peaceably if you wish; or there are men at The Angel's Rest and a
Chinaman or two here who might care for active service against
Roadmaster." He laughed carelessly.
"Am I to understand that you give yourself up to me?"
"Yes, to you, Louis Bachelor, Justice of the Peace, to do what you will
with for this night," was the reply. The soldier's hands trembled, but
it was from imminent illness, not from fear or excitement. He came
slowly towards the bushranger who, smiling, said as he advanced: "Yes,
arrest me!"
Louis Bachelor raised his hand, as though to lay it on the shoulder of
the other; but something in the eyes of the highwayman stayed his hand.
"Proceed, Captain Louis Bachelor," said Roadmaster in a changed tone.
The hand fell to the old man's side. "Who are you?" he faintly
exclaimed. "I know you yet I cannot quite remember."
More and more the voice and manner of the outlaw altered as he replied
with mocking bitterness: "I was Edward Golding, gentleman; I became
Edward Golding, forger; I am Roadmaster, convicted of manslaughter, and
bushranger."
The old man's state was painful to see. "You--you--that, Edward!" he
uttered brokenly.
"All that. Will you arrest me now?"
"I--cannot."
The bushranger threw aside all bravado and irony, and said: "I knew you
could not. Why did I come? Listen--but first, will you shelter me here
to-night?"
The soldier's honourable soul rose up against this thing, but he said
slowly at last: "If it is to save you from peril, yes."
Roadmaster laughed a little and rejoined: "By God, sir, you're a man!
But it isn't likely that I'd accept it of you, is it? You've had it
rough enough, without my putting a rock in your swag that would spoil you
for the rest of the tramp. You see, I've even forgotten how to talk like
a gentleman. And now, sir, I want to show you, for Barbara's sake, my
dirty logbook."
Here he told the tale of his early sin and all that came of it. When he
had finished the story he spoke of Barbara again. "She didn't want to
disgrace you, you understand," he said. "You were at Wandenong; I know
that, never mind how. She'd marry you if I were out of the way. Well,
I'm going to be out of the way. I'm going to leave this country, and
she's to think I'm dead, you see."
At this point Louis Bachelor swayed, and would have fallen, but that the
bushranger's arms were thrown round him and helped him to a chair. "I'm
afraid that I am ill," he said; "call Gongi. Ah!" He had fainted.
The bushranger carried him to a bed, and summoned Gongi and the woman
from the tavern, and in another hour was riding away through the valley
of the Popri. Before thirty-six hours had passed a note was delivered to
a station-hand at Wandenong addressed to Barbara Golding, and signed by
the woman from The Angel's Rest. Within another two days Barbara Golding
was at the bedside of Captain Louis Bachelor, battling with an enemy that
is so often stronger than love and always kinder than shame.
In his wanderings the sick man was ever with his youth and early manhood,
and again and again he uttered Barbara's name in caressing or entreaty;
though it was the Barbara of far-off days that he invoked; the present
one he did not know. But the night in which the crisis, the fortunate
crisis, of the fever occurred, he talked of a great flood coming from the
North, and in his half-delirium bade them send to headquarters, and
mournfully muttered of drowned plantations and human peril. Was this
instinct and knowledge working through the disordered fancies of fever?
Or was it mere coincidence that the next day a great storm and flood did
sweep through the valley of the Popri, putting life in danger and
submerging plantations?
It was on this day that Roadmaster found himself at bay in the mangrove
swamp not far from the port of Rahway, where he had expected to find a
schooner to take him to the New Hebrides. It had been arranged for by a
well-paid colleague in crime; but the storm had delayed the schooner, and
the avenging squatters and bushmen were closing in on him at last. There
was flood behind him in the valley, a foodless swamp on the left of him,
open shore and jungle on the right, the swollen sea before him; and the
only avenue of escape closed by Blood Finchley's friends. He had been
eluding his pursuers for days with little food and worse than no sleep.
He knew that he had played his last card and lost; but he had one thing
yet to do, that which even the vilest do, if they can, before they pay
the final penalty--to creep back for a moment into their honest past,
however dim and far away. With incredible skill he had passed under the
very rifles of his hunters, and now stood almost within the stream of
light which came from the window of the sick man's room, where his sister
was. There was to be no more hiding, no more strategy. He told Gongi
and another that he was Roadmaster, and bade them say to his pursuers,
should they appear, that he would come to them upon the shore when his
visit to Louis Bachelor, whom he had known in other days, was over,
indicating the place at some distance from the house where they would
find him.
He entered the house. The noise of the opening door brought his sister
to the room.