TIME'S WHIRLIGIG
John Dent was a Yorkshire yeoman, born in the last years of the
eighteenth century, of that hardy northern stock which is England's
biceps to this day. As a very little boy he was sent to Richmond Grammar
School, and there eventually educated beyond the needs of his vocation,
which was to live all his days upon the land of his fathers. John Dent
was quite prepared to do so when he had seen something of the world; and
by thirty he had not only seen more of it than was usual in those times,
but had fallen in love on his travels with a young Irish girl of a
social station indubitably above his own. What was more important, the
young Irish girl had fallen in love with John Dent, who was handsome,
huge, and gentle, with no great sense of humour, but of tenderness and
strength compact.
Being what he was, John Dent came to his point with startling
directness, was accepted, left the party which he proposed to deplete,
and traveled like the crow to Dublin, where a perfect old gentleman sent
him about his business in the sweetest imaginable brogue. John Dent
returned to Yorkshire with hardly a word, set his affairs in order,
ascertained his income to a nicety, chartered a little ship at
Whitehaven, and landed in Dublin with his business books under his arm
and certain family documents in his wallet. This time he sent a note to
Merrion Square, and was content to beard the perfect old gentleman in
his official quarters. But to no purpose; he was not even suffered to
produce his books or his papers; neither deed, document, nor yet
banker's reference, he was smilingly informed, would recommend the match
to which he aspired. John Dent replied that he was sorry, as he
certainly meant to realize his aspiration, and since his beloved was of
age, at the earliest possible moment. Dogged as could be seen, but more
enterprising than was supposed, he went straight aboard his vessel,
where Nora Devenish actually awaited him; and in two or three days they
were leaving Gretna Hall as man and wife when a Carlisle coach rattled
over the bridge and up the hill with the perfect old gentleman screaming
curses from the box.
Such was the story of the marriage of Denis's parents in the last days
of George IV. Right or wrong, justified or unjustifiable, it led neither
to long life nor to prosperity. Nora Devenish had the spirit to cut
herself off from her own flesh and blood, but Nora Dent had neither the
heart nor the health to bear a permanent severance. They never forgave
her, and it broke her heart. Meanwhile the perpetual care of an ailing
wife combined with the new Corn Laws to impoverish John Dent's estate.
He did not live to see the repeal of the measures which had helped to
ruin him; and he too died unforgiven, not only by his wife's family, but
by himself for her early death. And the last thing that John Dent
foresaw from his deathbed was the reunion of his name with that of
Devenish in the very next generation.
Nevertheless, just as John Merridew had himself foreshadowed in a moment
of emotion on the Australian coast, the place that was made for Denis in
his firm led almost at once to a junior partnership. But the new partner
was now enabled to bring in a little capital, and that at a time when
the growing need of steamers was involving every line in large expense;
his few thousands, however, were as nothing compared with his practical
knowledge of the sea; and so, still in the 'fifties, a Devenish and a
Dent were hand-in-glove.
Denis and Nan were not married until the winter before the Indian
Mutiny, because Denis made a quick enough recovery to abide by an
impulse, as he had always done, and to fight through the rest of the
Crimean War. He was a sergeant of that ragged remnant of the Guards
Brigade which marched through London on a midsummer's day and which the
Queen welcomed from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Thereafter Denis
had quickly and quietly bought himself out, and it was as a civilian,
once more shorn of his picturesque tatters, that he drove down to
Hertfordshire for the second time in his life. He looked several years
older. His habitual expression was a little grim and wary, the movement
of head and eyes something staccato. But that wore off. And many people
never noticed that the curve of one nostril was much deeper than the
other, though it was there a Russian bayonet had been driven through his
face.
They lived in London, if the part that was still Old Kensington could be
so reckoned at that time. But in summer they took a cottage near Mr.
Merridew, partly because it was called The Fortune, and was yet one of
the smallest fortunes in the world, and partly because Nan loved roses,
which grew on that rich soil as on no other. Shortly after Mr.
Merridew's death his house, being sold, was turned into a school; after
some years it became a great school; and their boys, the grandsons of
the old red place, went back there on the way to Harrow.
Denis kept in touch with his first partners on the gold-fields, though
it was some years before he saw either of them again. Doherty did almost
as well as ever for some time after his departure, but the life was no
longer what it had been, and the lad gave it up on hearing from Denis
that there was no chance of his return. He went back to the station on
the craggy coast where the _North Foreland_ had met her doom. Denis next
heard of him as a pioneer squatter in the Riverina country, and a
partner of his former master, the kindly Kitto; and when they did meet
in after life the younger man happened to be the richer of the two. His
career was checkered but honourable, and his memory is one of the few
green things in the district of his adoption. Denis saw more, however,
of a bland clergyman who called on him in the City one fine May morning:
he had come in for a family living in East Anglia, where the Dents found
Parson Moseley as great a success with his crass parishioners as he had
proved a failure among the quick and energetic diggers of the early
days.
There was one other figure of those days whom Denis encountered twice in
the 'fifties, once for a minute in Pall Mall, when an ill-advised
expression of gratitude on the part of Denis curtailed an interchange of
much interest, and a few years later at a social function of some
magnitude to which Nan enticed her husband. She recognized the tall and
lazy-looking gentleman who recognized Denis; in point of fact he was a
public man, and far less lazy than he looked; but as Nan did not know
him she withdrew to the nearest ottoman, where she looked very beautiful
under the glass chandelier of the period (in spite of its unregenerate
skirts) during the little conversation which Denis was careful not to
cut short again.
"I hope you saw the news?" said the tall man, as though he and Denis had
been meeting every day.
"The news from where, sir?"
"Black Hill Flat, if you happen to recollect such a place."
"I should think I did!" cried Denis. "But I haven't seen anything about
it in the paper."
"I knew you had a good memory," said the tall man, smiling a little over
his beard. "I suppose it doesn't by any chance hark back to what I told
you would some day happen on Black Hill Flat?"
"Rather!" cried Denis again. "You used to say that gold would be found
there sooner or later."
"It was found the other day, within a few feet of the top."
"You said it would be!"
"On the Native Youth side, and plenty of it, including a solid lump
nearly as big as the one you got out of my old shaft. They call it the
Nil Desperandum Nugget, which amuses me, because I never met another man
who didn't despair of the place. I'm surprised you hadn't heard of it,"
said the old deep-sinker, and with his old nod passed on.
Nan was immensely excited under the glass chandelier; and excitement and
bright lights still became her; but Denis had never known his wife so
bad a listener.
"But you know who it is?" she asked him both at beginning and end.
"Indeed I don't."
"You know that man to speak to, and you don't know him by name?"
"No; who is he?"
And she told him with bated breath.
THE END
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original edition have been corrected.
In Chapter II, =shrewd cuft and calculated kick= was changed to =shrewd
cuff and calculated kick=.
In Chapter VII, a quotation mark was added after =for fear you should
misunderstand!=
In Chapter XV, ="I've been trying it ever since," returnd Denis= was
changed to ="I've been trying it ever since," returned Denis=, and =it
might be better to turn back to Dallarat= was changed to =it might be
better to turn back to Ballarat=.
In Chapter XX, =then we shan't get wrong= was changed to =then we sha'n't
get wrong= (for consistency with other uses of sha'n't).
In Chapter XXIV, a period was changed to a question mark after =Could he
trust Jewson to raise him in the bucket=.
In Chapter XXVI, =his long confinement aboardship= was changed to =his long
confinement aboard ship=.
In Chapter XXVII, =Yes--"I am married to that villain!"= was changed to
="Yes--I am married to that villain!"=
Several words, such as wide-awake/wideawake, appear in both hyphenated
and unhyphenated forms.