A GENTLEMAN FROM THE WARS.
I need hardly say that Sam was sorry when the two days which he had
allowed himself for his visit were over. But that evening, when he
mentioned the fact that he was going away in the morning, the Captain,
Alice, and Jim, all pressed him so eagerly to stay another week, that
he consented; the more as there was no earthly reason he knew of why he
should go home.
And the second morning from that on which he should have been at home,
going out to the stable before breakfast, he saw his father come riding
over the plain, and, going to meet him, found that he, too, meditated a
visit to the Captain.
"I thought you were come after me, father," said Sam. "By the bye, do
you know that the Captain's daughter, Miss Alice, is come home?"
"Indeed!" said the Major; "and what sort of a body is she?"
"Oh, she is well enough. Something like Jim. Plays very well on the
piano, and all that sort of thing, you know. Sings too."
"Is she pretty?" asked the Major.
"Oh, well, I suppose she is," said Sam. "Yes; I should say that a great
many people would consider her pretty."
They had arrived at the door, and the groom had taken the Major's
horse, when Alice suddenly stepped out and confronted them.
The Major had been prepared to see a pretty girl, but he was by no
means prepared for such a radiant, lovely, blushing creature as stepped
out of the darkness into the fresh morning to greet him, clothed in
white, bareheaded, with
"A single rose in her hair."
As he told his wife, a few days after, he was struck "all of a heap;"
and Sam heard him whisper to himself, "By Jove!" before he went up to
Alice and spoke.
"My dear young lady, you and I ought not to be strangers, for I
recognise you from my recollections of your mother. Can you guess who I
am?"
"I recognise you from my recollections of your son, sir," said Alice,
with a sly look at Sam; "I should say that you were Major Buckley."
The Major laughed, and, taking her hand, carried it to his lips: a
piece of old-fashioned courtesy she had never experienced before, and
which won her heart amazingly.
"Come, come, Buckley!" said the quiet voice of Captain Brentwood from
the dark passage; "what are you at there with my daughter? I shall have
to call out and fight some of you young fellows yet, I see."
Alice went in past her father, stopping to give him a kiss, and
disappeared into the breakfast-room. The Captain came out, and shook
hands warmly with the Major, and said,
"What do you think of her,--eh?"
"I never saw such beauty before," answered the Major; "never, by Jove!
I tell you what, Brentwood, I wish she could come out this season in
London. Why, she might marry a duke."
"Let us get her a rouge-pot and a French governess, and send her home
by the next ship; eh, Buckley?" said the Captain, with his most
sardonic smile. "She would be the better for a little polishing;
wouldn't she, eh? Too hoydenish and forward, I am afraid; too fond of
speaking the truth. Let's have her taught to amble, and mince, and----
Bah, come to breakfast!"
The Major laughed heartily at this tirade of the Captain's. He was fond
of teasing him, and I believe the Captain liked to be teased by him.
"And what are you three going to do with yourselves to-day, eh?" asked
the Captain at breakfast. "It is a matter of total indifference to me,
so long as you take yourselves off somewhere, and leave me in peace."
Alice was spokesman:--"We are going up to the Limestone Gates; Mr.
Samuel Buckley has expressed a desire to see them, and so Jim and I
thought of taking him there."
This was rather a jesuitical speech. The expedition to the Limestone
Gates involved a long ride through very pretty scenery, which she
herself had proposed. As for Sam, bless you! he didn't care whether
they rode east, west, north, or south, so long as he rode beside her;
however, having got his cue, he expressed a strong wish to examine,
geologically, the great band of limestone which alternated with the
slate towards the mountains, the more particularly as he knew that the
Captain and the Major intended to ride out in another direction, to
examine some new netting for sheep-yards which the Captain had imported.
If Major Buckley thought Alice beautiful as he had seen her in the
morning, he did not think her less so when she was seated on a
beautiful little horse, which she rode gracefully and courageously, in
a blue ridinghabit, and a sweet little grey hat with a plume of
companion's feathers hanging down on one side. The cockatoo was on the
door-step to see her start, and talked so incessantly in his
excitement, that even when the magpie assaulted him and pulled a
feather out of his tail, he could not be quiet. Sam's horse Widderin
capered with delight, and Sam's dog Rover coursed far and wide before
them, with joyful bark. So they three went off through the summer's day
as happy as though all life were one great summer's holiday, and there
were no storms below the horizon to rise and overwhelm them; through
the grassy flat, where the quail whirred before them, and dropped again
as if shot; across the low rolling forest land, where a million parrots
fled whistling to and fro, like jewels, in the sun; past the old
stockyard, past the sheep-wash hut, and then through forest which grew
each moment more dense and lofty, along the faint and narrow track
which led into one of the most abrupt and romantic gullies which pierce
the Australian Alps.
All this became classic ground to them afterwards, and the causes which
made it so were now gathering to their fulfilment, even now, while
these three were making happy holiday together, little dreaming of what
was to come. Afterwards, years after, they three came and looked on
this valley again; not as now, with laughter and jokes, but silently,
speaking in whispers, as though they feared to wake the dead.
The road they followed, suddenly rising from the forest, took over the
shoulder of a rocky hill, and then, plunging down again, followed a
little running creek up to where a great ridge of slate, crossing the
valley, hemmed them in on either side, leaving only room for the creek
and the road. Following it further, the glen opened out, sweeping away
right and left in broad curves, while straight before them, a quarter
of a mile distant, there rose out of the low scrub and fern a mighty
wall of limestone, utterly barring all further progress save in a
single spot to the left, where the vast grey wall was split, giving a
glimpse of another glen beyond. This great natural cleft was the
limestone gate which they had come to see, and which was rendered the
more wonderful by a tall pinnacle of rock, which stood in the centre of
the gap about 300 feet in height, not unlike one of the same kind in
Dovedale.
"I don't think I ever saw anything so beautiful," said Alice. "How fine
that spire of rock is, shooting up from the feathered shrubs at the
base! I will come here some day and try to draw it."
"Wait a minute," said Jim; "you have not seen half yet."
He led them through the narrow pass, among the great boulders which
lined the creek. The instant they came beyond, a wind, icy cold, struck
upon their cheeks, and Alice, dropping her reins, uttered a cry of awe
and wonder, and Sam too exclaimed aloud; for before them, partly seen
through crowded tree stems, and partly towering above the forest, lay a
vast level wall of snow, flecked here and there by the purple shadow of
some flying summer cloud.
A sight so vast and magnificent held them silent for a little; then
suddenly, Jim, looking at Alice, saw that she was shivering.
"What is the matter, Alice, my dear?" he said; "let us come away; the
snow-wind is too much for you."
"Oh! it is not that!" she said. "Somebody is walking over my grave."
"Oh, that's all!" said Jim; "they are always at it with me, in cold
weather. Let 'em. It won't hurt, that I know of."
But they turned homeward nevertheless; and coming through the rock
walls again, Jim said,
"Sam, what was that battle the Doctor and you were reading about one
day, and you told me all about it afterwards, you know?"
"Malplacquet?"
"No; something like that, though. Where they got bailed up among the
rocks, you know, and fought till they were all killed."
"Thermopylae?"
"Ah! This must be just such another place, I should think."
"Thermopylae was by the sea-shore," said Alice.
"Now, I should imagine," said Sam, pointing to the natural glacis
formed by the decay of the great wall which they had seen fronting them
as they came up, "that a few determined men with rifles, posted among
those fern-trees, could make a stand against almost any force."
"But, Sam," said Jim, "they might be cut up by cavalry. Horses could
travel right up the face of the slope there. Now, suppose a gang of
bushrangers in that fern-scrub; do you think an equal number of police
could not turn them out of it? Why, I have seen the place where Moppy's
gang turned and fought Desborough on the Macquarrie. It was stronger
than this, and yet--you know what he did with them, only kept one small
one for hanging, as he elegantly expressed it."
"But I ain't talking of bushrangers," said Sam. "I mean such fellows as
the Americans in the War of Independence. See what a dance they led our
troops with their bushfighting."
"I wonder if there will ever be a War of Independence here," said Alice.
"I know which side I should be on, if there was," said Sam.
"Which would that be?" asked Jim.
"My dear friend," said Sam, testily, "how can you, an officer's son,
ask me, an officer's son, such a question? The King's (I beg pardon,
the Queen's) side, of course."
"And so would I," said Jim, "if it came to that, you know."
"You would never have the honour of speaking to your sweet sister
again, if you were not," said Alice.
"But I don't think those Americans were in the wrong; do you, Miss
Brentwood?" said Sam.
"Why no; I don't suppose that such a man as General Washington, for
instance, would have had much to do with them if they had been."
"However," said Sam, "we are talking of what will never occur here. To
begin with, we could never stand alone against a great naval power.
They would shut us up here to starve. We have everything to lose, and
nothing to gain by a separation. I would hardly like myself, for the
sake of a few extra pounds taxes, to sell my birthright as an
Englishman."
"Conceive," said Alice, "being in some great European city, and being
asked if you were British, having to say, No!"
They were coming through the lower pass, and turned to look back on the
beautiful rock-walled amphitheatre, sleeping peaceful and still under
the afternoon sun. The next time (so it happened) that Sam and Jim
looked at that scene together, was under very different circumstances.
Now the fronds of the ferntrees were scarce moved in the summer's
breeze, and all was silent as the grave. They saw it again;--when every
fern tuft blazed with musketry, and the ancient cliffs echoed with the
shouts of fighting, and the screams of dying men and horses.
"It is very early," said Alice. "Let us ride to the left, and see the
great waterfall you speak of, Jim."
It was agreed. Instead of going home they turned through the forest,
and debouched on the plains about two miles above Garoopna, and,
holding their course to the river, came to it at a place where a great
trap dike, crossing, formed a waterfall, over which the river, now full
with melting snow, fell in magnificent confusion. They stood watching
the grand scene with delight for a short time, and then, crossing the
river by a broad, shallow ford, held their way homeward, along the
eastern and more level bank, sometimes reining up their horses to gaze
into the tremendous glen below them, and watch the river crawling on
through many impediments, and beginning to show a golden light in its
larger pools beneath the sloping, westering sun.
Just as they sighted home, on the opposite side of the river, they
perceived two horsemen before them, evidently on the track between
Major Buckley's and Garoopna. They pushed on to "overhaul them," and
found that it was Doctor Mulhaus, whom they received with boisterous
welcome, and a tall, handsome young gentleman, a stranger.
"A young gentleman, Sam," said the Doctor, "Mr. Halbert by name, who
arrived during your father's absence with letters of introduction. I
begged him to follow your father over here, and, as his own horse was
knocked up, I mounted him at his own request on Jezebel, he preferring
her to all the horses in the paddock on account of her beauty, after
having been duly warned of her wickedness. But Mr. Halbert seems of the
Centaur species, and rather to enjoy an extra chance of getting his
neck broke."
Politeness to strangers was one of the first articles of faith in the
Buckley and Brentwood families; so the young folks were soon on the
best of terms.
"Are you from Sydney way, Mr. Halbert?" said Sam.
"Indeed," said the young man, "I have only landed in the country six
weeks. I have got three years' leave of absence from my regiment in
India, and, if I can see a chance, I shall cut the army and settle
here."
"Oh!" said Alice, "are you a soldier, Mr. Halbert?"
"I have that honour, Miss Brentwood. I am a lieutenant in the Bengal
Horse Artillery."
"That is delightful. I am a soldier's daughter, and Mr. Buckley here
also, as you know, I suppose."
"A soldier's daughter, is he?" said impudent Jim. "A very fine girl
too!"
Sam, and Jim too, had some disrespectful ideas about soldiers' riding
qualities; Sam could not help saying,--
"I hope you will be careful with that mare, Mr. Halbert; I should not
like a guest of ours to be damaged. She's a desperate brute,--I'm
afraid of her myself."
"I think I know the length of her ladyship's foot," said Halbert,
laughing good-naturedly.
As they were speaking, they were passing through a narrow way in a
wattle scrub. Suddenly a blundering kangaroo, with Rover in full chase,
dashed right under the mare's nose and set her plunging furiously. She
tried to wheel round, but, finding herself checked, reared up three or
four times, and at last seemed to stand on her hind legs, almost
overbalancing herself.
Halbert sat like a statue till he saw there was a real chance of her
falling back on him; then he slipped his right foot quickly out of the
stirrup, and stood with his left toe in the iron, balancing himself
till she was quieter; then he once more threw his leg across the
saddle, and regained his seat, laughing.
Jim clapped his hands; "By Jove, Sam, we must get some of these army
men to teach us to ride, after all!"
"We must do so," said Sam. "If that had been you or I, Jim, with our
rough clumsy hands, we should have had the mare back atop of us."
"Indeed," said Alice, "you are a splendid rider, Mr. Halbert: but don't
suppose, from Mr. Buckley's account of himself, that he can't ride
well; I assure you we are all very proud of him. He can sit some
bucking horses which very few men will attempt to mount."
"And that same bucking, Miss Brentwood," said Halbert, "is just what
puzzles me utterly. I got on a bucking horse in Sydney the other day,
and had an ignominious tumble in the sale-yard, to everybody's great
amusement."
"We must give one another lessons, then, Mr. Halbert," said Sam;--"but
I can see already, that you have a much finer hand than I."
Soon after they got home, where the rest of the party were watching for
them, wondering at their late absence. Halbert was introduced to the
Major by the Doctor, who said, "I deliver over to you a guest, a young
conqueror from the Himalayas, and son of an old brother-warrior. If he
now breaks his neck horse-riding, his death will not be at my door; I
can now eat my dinner in peace."
After dinner the three young ones, Sam, Alice, and Jim, gathered round
the fire, leaving Halbert with the Major and the Captain talking
military, and the Doctor looking over an abstruse mathematical
calculation, with which Captain Brentwood was not altogether satisfied.
Alice and Sam sat in chairs side by side, like Christians, but Jim lay
on the floor, between the two, like a blackfellow; they talked in a low
voice about the stranger.
"I say," said Jim, "ain't he a handsome chap, and can't he ride? I dare
say, he's a devil to fight too,--hear him tell how they pounded away at
those Indians in that battle. I expect they'd have made a general of
him before now, only he's too young. Dad says he's a very distinguished
young officer. Alice, my dear, you should see the wound he's got, a
great seam all down his side. I saw it when he was changing his shirt
in my room before dinner."
"Poor fellow!" said Alice; "I like him very much. Don't you, Mr.
Buckley?"
"I like him exceedingly;--I hope he'll stop with us," continued Jim.
"And I also," said Sam, "but what shall we do to-morrow?"
"Let's have a hunt," said Jim. "Halbert, have you ever been kangaroo
hunting?"
"Never!--I want to go!"
"Well, we can have a capital hunt to-morrow: Sam has got his dog Fly
here, and I'll take one of my best dogs, and we'll have a good run, I
dare say."
"I shall come, too," said Alice: "that is," added she, looking shyly at
Sam, "if you would be kind enough to take care of me, and let Mr.
Halbert and Jim do the riding. But I'm afraid I shall be sadly in your
way."
"If you don't go," said Sam, "I shall stay at home: now then!"
At this minute, the housekeeper came in bearing jugs and glasses.
"Eleanor," said Jim, "is Jerry round?"
"Yes, sir; he's coiled somewhere in the woodhouse," said she.
"Just rouse him out and send him in."
"Who is this Jerry who coils in woodhouses?" said Halbert.
"A tame black belonging to us. He is great at all sorts of hunting; I
want to see if he can find us a flying doe for to-morrow."
Jerry entered, and advanced with perfect self-possession towards the
fire. He was a tall savage, with a big black beard, and wavy hair like
a Cornishman. He was dressed in an old pair of dandy riding breeches of
Jim's, which reached a short way below the knees, fitting closely, and
a blue check shirt rolled up above the elbow showing his lean wiry
forearm, seamed and scarred with spear wounds and bruises. He addressed
nobody, but kept his eyes wandering all over the room; at length he
said, looking at the ceiling,--
"Cobbon thirsty this fellow: you got a drop of brandy?"
"Jerry," said Jim, having produced the brandy, "you make a light
kangaroo."
"All about plenty kangaroo," said Jerry.
"Yowi; but mine want it big one flying doe."
"Ah-h-h! Mine make a light flying doe along a stockyard this morning;
close by, along a fent, you see!"
"That'll do," says Jim. "We'll be up round the old stockyard after
breakfast to-morrow. You, Jerry, come with us."
It was a fresh breezy autumn morning in April, when the four sallied
forth, about nine o'clock, for their hunt. The old stockyard stood in
the bush, a hundred yards from the corner of the big paddock fence, and
among low rolling ranges and gullies, thickly timbered with gum,
cherry, and sheoak: a thousand parrots flew swiftly in flocks,
whistling and screaming from tree to tree, while wattled-birds and
numerous other honeyeaters clustered on the flowering basksias. The
spurwinged plover and the curlew ran swiftly among the grass, and on a
tall dead tree white cockatoos and blue cranes watched the intruders
curiously.
Alice and Sam rode together soberly, and before them were Halbert and
Jim, just up, ready for the chase. Before them, again, was the active
blackfellow, holding the dogs in a leash,--two tall hounds, bred of
foxhound and greyhound, with a dash of colley.
A mob of kangaroos crosses their path, but they are all small; so the
dogs, though struggling fiercely, are still held tight by Jerry: now he
crosses a little ridge before them and looks down into the gully
beyond, holding up his hand.
The two young men gather up their reins and settle themselves in their
seats. "Now, Halbert," says Jim, "sit fast and mind the trees."
They ride up to the blackfellow; through the low wattles, they can see
what is in the gully before them, though the dogs cannot.
"Baal, flying doe this one," says Jerry in a whisper. "Old man this
fellow, cobbon matong, mine think it."
A great six-foot kangaroo was standing about two hundred yards from
them, staring stupidly about him.
"Let go, Jerry," said Jim. The dogs released; sprang forward, and, in
an instant, saw their quarry, which, with a loud puff of alarm, bounded
away up the opposite slope at full speed, taking twenty feet at each
spring.
Halbert and Jim dashed off after the dogs, who had got a good start of
them, and were laying themselves out to their work right gallantly;
Sam's dog, Fly, slightly leading. Both dogs were close on the game, and
Halbert said,--
"We are going to have a short run, I'm afraid."
"Talk about that twenty minutes hence," said Jim, settling to his work.
Over range after range they hold their headlong course. Now a bandicoot
scuttles away from under their feet to hide in his hollow log; now a
mob of terrified cattle huddle together as they sweep by; now they are
flying past a shepherd's hut, and the mother runs out to snatch up a
child, and bear him out of harm's way, after they are safe past. A
puppy, three weeks old, joins the chase with heart and soul, but "eaves
in" at about fifty yards, and sits him down to bark. Now they are
rushing on through a broad flat, with another great range before them.
Still always the grey bounding figure holds on, through sunlight and
shadow, with the dogs grim and steadfast close in his wake.
The work begins to tell on the horses. Fat Jezebel, who could hardly be
held at first, now is none the worse for a little spur; and Jim's lean,
long-legged horse, seems to consider that the entertainment ought to
conclude shortly. "Well done, Fly!" he shouts; "bravely tried, my
girl!" She had drawn herself ahead, and made a bold strike at the
kangaroo, but missed him. Now the other dog, Bolt, tries it, but
without luck; and now they have both dropped a little back, and seem in
for another mile or so.
Well done, lass!--there she goes again! With a furious effort she
pushes ahead, and seizes the flying beast by the hock--this time with
some luck, for down he goes in a cloud of dust and broken sticks, and
both the dogs are on him at once. Now he is up again and running, but
feebly. And see, what is the matter with the young dog? He runs on, but
keeps turning, snapping fiercely at his side, and his footsteps are
marked with blood. Poor lad! he has got a bad wound in that last
tumble,--the kangaroo has ripped up his flank with a kick from his hind
foot. But now the chase is over,--the hunted beast has turned, and is
at bay against a tree, Fly standing before him, waiting for assistance,
snarling fiercely.
They pulled up. Jim took out a pistol and presented it to Halbert.
"Thank you," said he. "Hair trigger?"
"Yes."
He balanced it for a second, and in another the kangaroo was lying
quivering on the ground, shot through the heart.
"Well done!" said Jim. "Now, I must look to this dog."
All his flank along the ribs was laid open, and Jim, producing a needle
and thread, proceeded to sew it up.
"Will you let me do that for you?" said Halbert.
"I wish you would. I'm fond of the poor thing, and my hand shakes.
You've seen the surgeons at work, I expect."
"Yes, indeed." And he tenderly and carefully stitched up the dog's
side, while Jim held him.
"What do we do with the game?" said he.
"Oh, Jerry will be along on our tracks presently," said Jim. "He brings
me the tail, and does what he likes with the rest. I wonder where Sam
and Alice are?"
"Oh, they are right enough," said Halbert, laughing. "I dare say they
are not very anxious about the kangaroo, or anything else. That's 'a
case,' I suppose?"
"Well, I hope it is," said Jim; "but you see I don't know. Girls are so
odd."
"Perhaps he has never asked her."
"No; I don't think he has. I wish he would. You are not married, are
you?"
"My God--no!" said Halbert, "nor ever shall be."
"Never?"
"Never, Jim. Let me tell you a story as we ride home. You and I shall
be good friends, I know. I like you already, though we have only known
one another two days. I can see well what you are made of. They say it
eases a man's mind to tell his grief. I wish it would mine. Well;
before I left England I had secretly engaged myself to marry a
beautiful girl, very much like your sister, a governess in my
brother-in-law's family. I went off to join my regiment, and left her
there with my sister and her husband, Lord Carstone, who treated her as
if she was already one of the family--God bless them! Two years ago my
father died, and I came into twenty thousand pounds; not much, but
enough to get married on in India, particularly as I was getting on in
my profession. So I wrote to her to come out to me. She sailed in the
Assam, for Calcutta, but the ship never arrived. She was spoken off the
Mauritius, but never seen after. The underwriters have paid up her
insurance, and everyone knows now that the Assam went down in a
typhoon, with all hands."
"God bless you," said Jim! "I'm very sorry for that."
"Thank you. I have come here for change of scene more than anything,
but I think I shall go back soon."
"I shall come with you," said Jim. "I have determined to be a soldier,
and I know the governor has interest enough to get me into some
regiment in India." (I don't believe he had ever thought of it before
that morning.)
"If you are determined, he might. His services in India were too
splendid to have been forgotten yet."
"I wonder," said Jim, "if he will let me go? I'd like to see Alice
married first."
They jogged on in silence for a little, and slowly, on account of the
wounded dogs. Then Jim said,--
"Well, and how did you like your sport?"
"Very much, indeed; but I thought bush-riding was harder work. We have
only had one or two leaps over fallen logs altogether."
"There ain't much leaping, that's a fact. I suppose you have been
fox-hunting?"
"My father was a master of hounds," replied Halbert. "On the first day
of the season, when the hounds met at home, there would be two hundred
horsemen on our terrace, fifty of them, at least, in pink. It was a
regular holiday for all the country round. Such horses, too. My
father's horse, the Elk, was worth three hundred pounds, and there were
better horses than him to be seen in the field, I promise you."
"And all after a poor little fox!"
"You don't know Charley I can see," said Halbert. "Poor little fox,
indeed! Why, it's as fair a match between the best-tried pack of hounds
in England, and an old dog-fox, as one would wish to see. And as hard
work as it is to ride up to them, even without a stiff fence at every
two hundred yards, to roll you over on your head, if your horse is
blown or clumsy. Just consider how many are run, and how few are
killed. I consider a fox to be the noblest quarry in the world. His
speed, courage, and cunning are wonderful. I have seen a fox run
fifteen miles as the crow flies, and only three of us in at the death.
That's what I call sport."
"So do I, by Jove!" said Jim. "You have some good sport in India, too?"
"Yes. Pig-sticking is pretty--very pretty, I may say, if you have two
or three of the right sort with you. All the Griffins ought to hunt
together though. There was a young fellow, a King's-officer, and a
nobleman too, came out with us the other day, and rode well forward,
but as the pig turned he contrived to spear my horse through the
pastern. He was full of apologies, and I was outwardly highly polite
and indifferent, but internally cursing him up hill and down dale. I
went home and had the horse shot; but when I got up next morning, there
was a Syce leading up and down a magnificent Australian, a far finer
beast than the one which I had lost, which my Lord had sent up to
replace my unfortunate nag. I went down to his quarters and refused to
accept it; but he forced me in the end, and it gave me a good lesson
about keeping my temper over an unavoidable accident, which I don't
mean to forget. Don't you think it was prettily done?"
"Yes, I do," said Jim; "but you see these noblemen are so rich that
they can afford to do that sort of thing, where you or I couldn't. But
I expect they are very good fellows on the whole."
"There are just as large a proportion of good noblemen as there are of
any other class--more than that you have no right to expect. I'm a
Liberal, as my father was before me, and a pretty strong one too; but I
think that a man with sixty thousand acres, and a seat in the House of
Lords, is entitled to a certain sort of respect. A Grand Seigneur is a
very capital institution if he will only stay on his estates some part
of the year."
"Ay!" said Jim; who was a shrewd fellow in his way. "They know that
here, well enough: look at our Macarthurs and Wentworths,--but then
they must be men, and not snobs, as the governor says."
When they got home, they found Sam and Alice sitting in the verandah as
comfortable as you please.
"Well," said Jim, "you are a nice lot! This is what you call
kangaroo-hunting!"
"Oh, you went too fast for us. Have you killed?"
"Yes! out by the big swamp."
"You have taken your time to get home then."
"Poor Bolt is cut up, and we couldn't go out of a walk. Now give us
something to eat, will you, Alice?"
"Well, ring the bell and we will have lunch."
But just as Jim rang the bell, there was a loud voice outside, and the
three young men went out to see who it was, and found two horsemen in
front of the door.
One, who was still sitting on his horse, was a darkhaired slight young
man, Charles Hawker in fact, whom we know already, but the other, who
had dismounted, and was leaning against his horse, was a highbred,
delicate little fellow, to whom we have yet to be introduced.
He was a slight lad, perhaps not more than eighteen, with one of the
pleasantest, handsomest faces of his own that you could wish to see,
and also a very intellectual look about him, which impressed you at
once with the idea that if he lived he would have made some sort of
figure in life. He was one of the greatest dandies, also, in those
parts, and after the longest ride used to look as if he had been turned
out of a bandbox. On the present occasion he had on two articles of
dress which attracted Jim's attention amazingly. The first was a new
white hat, which was a sufficiently remarkable thing in those parts at
that time; and the second, a pair of yellow leather riding-trousers.
"Why, Cecil Mayford!" said Sam, "How do you do? Charley, how are you?
Just in time for lunch. Come in."
Jim was walking round and round Cecil without speaking a word. At last
the latter said, "How do YOU do, James Brentwood?"
"How do your breeches do, Cecil?" answered Jim; "that is a much more
important question, By-the-bye, let me introduce you to Mr. Halbert.
Also, allow me to have the honour to inform you that my sister Alice is
come home from school."
"I am aware of that, and am come over to pay my respects. Sam, leave me
alone. If I were to disarrange my dress before I was presented to Miss
Brentwood, I would put a period to my existence. Jim, my dear soul,
come in and present me. Don't all you fellows come mobbing in, you
know."
So Jim took Cecil in, and the other young fellows lounged about the
door in the sun. "Where have you come from, Charley?" asked Sam.
"I have been staying at the Mayfords'; and this morning, hearing that
you and your father were here, we thought we would come over and stay a
bit."
"By-the-bye," said Sam, "Ellen Mayford was to have come home from
Sydney the same time as Alice Brentwood, or thereabouts. Pray, is she
come?"
"Oh, yes!" said Charles; "she is come this fortnight, or more."
"What sort of a girl has she grown to be?"
"Well, I call her an uncommonly pretty girl. A very nice girl indeed, I
should say. Have you heard the news from the north?"
"No!"
"Bushrangers! Nine or ten devils, loose on the upper Macquarrie, caught
the publican at Marryong alone in the bush; he had been an overlooker,
or some such thing, in old times, so they stripped him, tied him up,
gave him four dozen, and left him to the tender mercies of the
blowflies, in consequence of which he was found dead next day, with the
cords at his wrists cutting down to the bone with the struggles he made
in his agony."
"Whew!" said Sam. "We are going to have some of the old-fashioned work
over again. Let us hope Desborough will get hold of them before they
come this way."
"Some of our fellow-countrymen," said Halbert, "are, it seems to me,
more detestably ferocious than savages, when they once get loose."
"Much of a muchness--no better, and perhaps no worse," said Sam. "All
men who act entirely without any law in their actions arrive at much
the same degree, whether white or black."
"And will this Captain Desborough, whom you speak of, have much chance
of catching these fellows?" asked Halbert.
"They will most likely disperse on his approach if he takes any force
against them," said Sam. "I heard him say, myself, that the best way
was to tempt them to stay and show fight, by taking a small force
against them, as our admirals used to do to the French, in the war.
By-the-bye, how is Tom Troubridge? He is quite a stranger to me. I have
only seen him twice since he was back from Port Phillip."
"He is off again now, after some rams, up to the north."
"I hope he won't fall in with the bushrangers. Anybody with him?"
"William Lee," answered Charles.
"A good escort. There is lunch going in,--come along."