_THE MASSACRE AT FINDLAYSON'S FARM._
By the time Elsie and Rupert had returned from their wanderings
winter was once more coming on; but already both the sister and
brother had got a complexion.
The house was quite furnished now, guest-room and all. It was indeed
a mansion, though I would not like to say how much money it had cost
Archie to make it so. However, he had determined, as he said himself
to Bob, to do the thing properly while he was about it.
And there is no doubt he succeeded well. His garden too was all he
had depicted it in his letter home.
That Archie had succeeded to his heart's content in breaking ties
with the old country was pretty evident, from a letter received by
him from his father about mid-winter.
"He had noticed for quite a long time," the Squire wrote, "and was
getting more and more convinced, that this England was,
agriculturally speaking, on its last legs. Even American inventions,
and American skill and enterprise, had failed to do much for the
lands of Burley. He had tried everything, but the ground failed to
respond. Burley was a good place for an old retired man who loved to
potter around after the partridges; but for one like himself, still
in the prime of his life, it had lost its charms. Even Archie's
mother, he told him, did not see the advisability of throwing good
money after bad, and Uncle Ramsay was of the same way of thinking.
So he had made up his mind to let the place and come straight away
out. He would allow Archie to look out for land for him, and
by-and-bye he would come and take possession. Australia would
henceforth reap the benefit of his genius and example; for he meant
to show Australians a thing or two."
When Archie read that letter, he came in with a rush to read it to
Bob, Harry, and Sarah.
"I think your father is right," said Bob.
"I tell you, Bob, my boy, it isn't father so much as mother. The
dear old mummy speaks and breathes through every line and word of
this epistle. Now I'm off to astonish Elsie and Roup. Come along,
Bounder."
* * * * * *
Meanwhile Findlayson became a regular visitor at the farm.
"Why," Archie said to him one evening, as he met him about the outer
boundary of the farm, "why, Findlayson, my boy, you're getting to be
a regular 'sundowner.' Well, Miss Winslow has come, and Craig is
with us, and as I want to show Branson a bit of real Australian
sport, you had better stop with us a fortnight."
"I'll be delighted. I wish I'd brought my fiddle."
"We'll send for it if you can't live without it."
"Not very weel. But I've something to tell you."
"Well, say on; but you needn't dismount."
"Yes, I'll speak better down here."
Findlayson sat up on top of the fence, and at once opened fire by
telling Archie he had fallen in love with Elsie, and had determined
to make her his wife. Archie certainly was taken aback.
"Why, Findlayson," he said, "you're old enough to be her father."
"A' the better, man. And look here, I've been squatting for fifteen
years, ever since there was a sheep in the plains almost. I have a
nice little nest egg at the bank, and if your sister doesna care to
live in the Bush we'll tak' a hoose in Sydney. For, O man, man,
Elsie is the bonniest lassie the world e'er saw. She beats the
gowan."*
* Gowan = mountain daisy.
Archie laughed.
"I must refer you to the lady herself," he said.
"Of course, man, of course--
"'He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the test
To win or lose it all.'"
So away went Findlayson to put his fate to the test.
What _he_ said or what _she_ said does not really concern us; but
five minutes after his interview Archie met the honest Scot, and
wondrously crest-fallen he looked.
"She winna hae me," he cried, "but _nil desperandum_, that'll be my
motto till the happy day."
The next fortnight was in a great measure given up to pleasure and
sport. Both Branson and Bounder received their baptism of fire,
though the great Newfoundland was wondrously exercised in his mind as
to what a kangaroo was, and what it was not. As to the dingoes, he
arrived at a conclusion very speedily. They could beat him at a
race, however; but when Bounder one time got two of them together, he
proved to everybody's satisfaction that there was life in the old dog
yet.
Gentleman Craig never appeared to such excellent advantage anywhere
as in ladies' society. He really led the conversation at the
dinner-table, though not appearing to do so, but rather the reverse,
while in the drawing-room he was the moving spirit.
He also managed to make Findlayson happy after a way. The Scotchman
had told Craig all his troubles, but Craig brought him his fiddle, on
which he was a really excellent performer.
"Rouse out, Mr. Findlayson, and join the ladies at the piano."
"But, man," the squatter replied, "my heart's no in it; my heart is
broken. I can play slow music, but when it comes to quick, it goes
hard against the grain."
Nevertheless, Findlayson took his stand beside the piano, and the ice
thus being broken, he played every night, though it must be
confessed, for truth's sake, he never refused a "cogie" when the
bottle came round his way. Towards ten o'clock Findlayson used,
therefore, to become somewhat sentimental. The gentleman sat up for
a wee half hour after the ladies retired, and sometimes Findlayson
would seize his fiddle.
"Gentlemen," he would say, "here is how I feel."
Then he would play a lament or a wail with such feeling that even his
listeners would be affected, while sometimes the tears would be
quivering on the performer's eyelashes.
At the end of the fortnight Findlayson went to Brisbane. He had some
mysterious business to transact, the nature of which he refused to
tell even Archie. But it was rumoured that a week or two later on,
drays laden with furniture were seen to pass along the tracks on
their way to Findlayson's farm.
Poor fellow, he was evidently badly hit. He was very much in love
indeed, and, like a drowning man, he clutched at straws.
The refurnishing of his house was one of these straws. Findlayson
was going to give "a week's fun," as he phrased it. He was
determined, after having seen Archie's new house, that his own should
rival and even outshine it in splendour. And he really was insane
enough to believe that if Elsie only once saw the charming house he
owned, with the wild and beautiful scenery all around it, she would
alter her mind, and look more favourably on his suit.
In giving way to vain imaginings of this kind, Findlayson was really
ignoring, or forgetting at all events, the sentiments of his own
favourite poet, Burns, as impressed in the following touching lines:
"It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth,
That bought contentment, peace, or pleasure;
The bands and bliss o' mutual love,
O that's the chiefest warld's treasure!"
His sister was very straightforward, and at once put her brother down
as a wee bit daft. Perhaps he really was; only the old saying is a
true one: "Those that are in love are like no one else."
* * * * * *
It was the last month of winter, when early one morning a gay party
from Burley New Farm set out to visit Findlayson, and spend a week or
two in order to "'liven him up," as Harry expressed it.
Bob was not particularly fond of going much from home--besides,
Winslow and he were planning some extensions--so he stopped on the
Station. But Harry went, and, as before, when going to the kangaroo
hunt, Gentleman Craig was in the cavalcade, and of course Rupert and
Elsie.
It would have been no very difficult matter to have done the journey
in a single day, only Archie was desirous of letting his brother and
sister have a taste of camping out in the Bush.
They chose the same route as before, and encamped at night in the
self-same place.
The evening too was spent in much the same way, even to singing and
story-telling, and Craig's lullaby to Baby, when she and Elsie had
gone to their tent.
Morning dawned at last on forest and plain, and both Harry and the
brothers were early astir. It would have been impossible to remain
asleep much after daybreak, owing to the noise of the birds,
including the occasional ear-splitting clatter of the laughing
jackasses.
Besides, towards morning it had been exceedingly cold. The first
thing that greeted their eyes was a thorough old-fashioned hoar
frost, the like of which Archie had not seen for many a year.
Everything gleamed white almost as coral. The grass itself was a
sight to see, and the leaves on the trees were edged with lace. But
up mounted the sun, and all was speedily changed. Leaves grew
brightly green again, and the hoar frost was turned into glancing,
gleaming, rainbow-coloured drops of dew.
The young men ran merrily away to the pool in the creek, and most
effectually scared the ducks.
The breakfast to-day was a different sort of a meal to the morsel of
stiff damper and corned junk that had been partaken of at last
bivouac. Elsie made the tea, and Etheldene and she presided. The
meat pies and patties were excellent, and everyone was in the highest
possible spirits, and joyously merry.
Alas! and alas! this was a breakfast no one who sat down to, and who
lives, is ever likely to forget.
Have you ever, reader, been startled on a bright sunshiny summer's
day by a thunder-peal? And have you seen the clouds rapidly bank up
after this and obscure the sky, darkness brooding over the windless
landscape, lighted up every moment by the blinding lightning's flash,
and gloom and danger brooding all round, where but a short half-hour
ago the birds carolled in sunlight? Then will you be able, in some
measure, to understand the terribleness of the situation in which an
hour or two after breakfast the party found themselves, and the awful
suddenness of the shock that for a time quite paralyzed every member
of it.
They had left the dismal depths of the forest, and were out on the
open pasture-land, and nearing Findlayson's house, when Craig and
Archie, riding on in front, came upon the well-known bobtailed
collie, who was the almost constant companion of the squatter. The
dog was alive, but dying. There was a terrible spear-gash in his
neck. Craig dismounted and knelt beside him. The poor brute knew
him, wagged his inch-long tail, licked the hand that caressed him,
and almost immediately expired. Craig immediately rode back to the
others.
"Do not be alarmed, ladies," he said. "But I fear the worst. There
is no smoke in Findlayson's chimney. The black fellows have killed
his dog."
Though both girls grew pale, there were no other signs of fear
manifested by them. If Young Australia could be brave, so could Old
England.
The men consulted hurriedly, and it was agreed that while Branson and
Harry waited with the ladies, Archie and Craig should ride on towards
the house.
Not a sign of life; no, not one. Signs enough of death though, signs
enough of an awful struggle. It was all very plain and simple,
though all very, very sad and dreadful.
Here in the courtyard lay several dead natives, festering and
sweltering in the noonday sun. Here were the boomerangs and spears
that had fallen from their hands as they dropped never to rise again.
Here was the door battered and splintered and beaten in with
tomahawks, and just inside, in the passage, lay the bodies of
Hurricane Bill and poor Findlayson, hacked about almost beyond
recognition.
In the rooms all was confusion, every place had been ransacked. The
furniture, all new and elegant, smashed and riven; the very piano
that the honest Scot had bought for sake of Elsie had been dissected,
and its keys carried away for ornaments. In an inner room,
half-dressed, were Findlayson's sister and her little Scotch maid,
their arms broken, as if they had held them up to beseech for mercy
from the monsters who had attacked them. Their arms were broken, and
their skulls beaten in, their white night-dresses drenched in blood.
There was blood, blood everywhere--in curdled streams, in great
liver-like gouts, and in dark pools on the floor. In the kitchen
were many more bodies of white men (the shepherds), and of the fiends
in human form with whom they had struggled for their lives.
It was an awful and sickening sight.
No need for Craig or Archie to tell the news when they returned to
the others. Their very silence and sadness told the terrible tale.
Nothing could be done at present, however, in the way of punishing
the murderers, who by this time must be far away in their mountain
fastnesses.
They must ride back, and at once too, in order to warn the people at
Burley and round about of their great danger.
So the return journey was commenced at once. On riding through the
forest they had to observe the greatest caution.
Craig was an old Bushman, and knew the ways of the blacks well. He
trotted on in front. And whenever in any thicket, where an ambush
might possibly be lurking, he saw no sign of bird or beast, he
dismounted and, revolver in hand, examined the place before he
permitted the others to come on.
They got through the forest and out of the gloom at last, and some
hours afterwards dismounted a long way down the creek to water the
horses and let them browse. As for themselves, no one thought of
eating. There was that feeling of weight at every heart one
experiences when first awakening from some dreadful nightmare.
They talked about the massacre, as they sat under the shadow of a gum
tree, almost in whispers; and at the slightest unusual noise the men
grasped their revolvers and listened.
They were just about to resume their journey when the distant sound
of galloping horses fell on their ears. Their own nags neighed. All
sprang to their feet, and next moment some eight or nine men rode
into the clearing.
Most of them were known to Craig, so he advanced to meet them.
"Ah! I see you know the worst," said the leader.
"Yes," said Craig, "we know."
"We've been to your place. It is all right there with one exception."
"One exception?"
"Yes; it's only the kid--Mr. Cooper's little daughter, you know."
"Is she dead?" cried Archie aghast.
"No, sir; that is, it isn't likely. Mr. Cooper's black girl left
last night, and took the child."
"Good heavens! our little Diana! Poor Bob! He will go raving mad!"
"He is mad, sir, or all but, already; but we've left some fellows to
defend the station, and taken to the trail as you see."
"Craig," said Archie, "we must go, too."
"Well," said the first speaker, "the coast is all clear betwixt here
and Burley. Two must return there with the ladies. I advise you to
make your choice, and lose no time."
It was finally arranged that Branson and one of the newcomers should
form the escort; and so Archie, Harry, and Craig bade the girls a
hurried adieu, and speedily rode away after the men.