WHICH IS THE LAST CHAPTER BUT ONE IN THE SECOND VOLUME.
The state of terror and dismay into which poor Mary Hawker was thrown
on finding that her husband, now for many years the BETE NOIR of her
existence, was not only alive, but promising fairly to cause her more
trouble than ever he did before, superadded, let me say, for mere
truth's sake, to a slight bilious attack, brought on by good living and
want of exercise, threw her into a fever, from which, after several
days' delirium, she rose much shattered, and looking suddenly older.
All this time the Doctor, like a trusty dog, had kept his watch, and
done more, and with a better will than any paid doctor would have been
likely to do. He was called away a good deal by the prosecution arising
out of that unhappy affair with the other doctor, and afterwards with a
prosecution for perjury, which he brought against the sawyer; but he
was generally back at night, and was so kind, so attentive, and so
skilful that Mary took it into her head, and always affirmed
afterwards, that she owed her life to him.
She was not one to receive any permanent impression from anything. So
now, as day by day she grew stronger, she tried to undervalue the
mischief which had at first so terrified her, and caused her
illness;--tried, and with success, in broad daylight; but, in the
silent dark nights, as she lay on her lonely bed, she would fully
appreciate the terrible cloud that hung over her, and would weep and
beat her pillow, and pray in her wild fantastic way to be delivered
from this frightful monster, cut off from communion with all honest men
by his unutterable crimes, but who, nevertheless, she was bound to
love, honour, and obey, till death should part her from him.
Mrs. Buckley, on the first news of her illness, had come up and taken
her quarters at Toonarbin, acting as gentle a nurse as man or woman
could desire to have. She took possession of the house, and managed
everything. Mrs. Barker, the house-keeper, the only one who did not
submit at once to her kindly rule, protested, obstructed, protocolled,
presented an ultimatum, and, at last, was so ill advised as to take up
arms. There was a short campaign, lasting only one morning,--a decisive
battle,--and Mrs. Barker was compelled to sue for peace. "Had Mr.
Troubridge been true to himself," she said, "she would never have
submitted;" but, having given Tom warning, and Tom, in a moment of
irritation, having told her, without hesitation or disguise, to go to
the devil (no less), she bowed to the circumstances, and yielded.
Agnes Buckley encouraged Dr. Mulhaus, too, in his legal affairs, and, I
fear, was the first person who proposed the prosecution for perjury
against the sawyer: a prosecution, however, which failed, in
consequence of his mate and another friend, who was present at the
affair, coming forward to the sawyer's rescue, and getting into such a
labyrinth and mist of perjury, that the Bench (this happened just after
quarter sessions) positively refused to hear anything more on either
side. Altogether, Agnes Buckley made herself so agreeable, and kept
them all so alive, that Tom wondered how he had got on so long without
her.
At the end of three weeks Mary was convalescent; and one day, when she
was moved into the verandah, Mrs. Buckley beside her, Tom and the
Doctor sitting on the step smoking, and Charles sleepily reading aloud
"Hamlet," with a degree of listlessness and want of appreciation
unequalled, I should say, by any reader before; at such time, I say,
there entered suddenly to them a little-cattle dealer, as brimful of
news as an egg of meat. Little Burnside it was: a man about eight stone
nothing, who always wore top-boots and other people's clothes. As he
came in, Charles recognised on his legs a pair of cord breeches of his
own, with a particular grease patch on the thigh: a pair of breeches he
had lent Burnside, and which Burnside had immediately got altered to
his own size. A good singer was Burnside. A man who could finish his
bottle of brandy, and not go to bed in his boots. A man universally
liked and trusted. An honest, hearty, little fellow, yet, one who
always lent or spent his money as fast as he got it, and was as poor as
Job. The greatest vehicle of news in the district, too. "Snowy river
Times," he used to be called.
After the usual greetings, Tom, seeing he was bursting with something,
asked him, "What's the news?"
Burnside was in the habit of saying that he was like the Lord Mayor's
fool--fond of everything that was good. But his greatest pleasure, the
one to which he would sacrifice everything, was retailing a piece of
news. This was so great an enjoyment with him that he gloried in
dwelling on it, and making the most of it. He used to retail a piece of
news, as a perfect novel, in three volumes. In his first he would take
care to ascertain that you were acquainted with the parties under
discussion; and, if you were not, make you so, throwing in a few
anecdotes illustrative of their characters. In In his second, he would
grow discursive, giving an episode or two, and dealing in moral
reflections and knowledge of human nature rather largely. And in his
third he would come smash, crash down on you with the news itself, and
leave you gasping.
He followed this plan on the present occasion. He answered Tom's
question by asking,--
"Do you know Desborough?"
"Of course I do," said Tom; "and a noble good fellow he is."
"Exactly," said Burnside; "super of police; distinguished in Indian
wars; nephew of my Lord Covetown. An Irishman is Desborough, but far
from objectionable."
This by way of first volume: now comes his second:--
"Now, sir, I, although a Scotchman born, and naturally proud of being
so, consider that until these wretched national distinctions between
the three great nations are obliterated we shall never get on, sir;
never. That the Scotch, sir, are physically and intellectually
superior----"
"Physically and intellectually the devil," burst in Tom. "Pick out any
dozen Scotchmen, and I'll find you a dozen Londoners who will fight
them, or deal with them till they'd be glad to get over the borders
again. As for the Devon and Cornish lads, find me a Scotchman who will
put me on my back, and I'll write you a cheque for a hundred pounds, my
boy. We English opened the trade of the world to your little two
millions and a-half up in the north there; and you, being pretty well
starved out at home, have had the shrewdness to take advantage of it;
and now, by Jove, you try to speak small of the bridge that carried you
over. What did you do towards licking the Spaniards; eh? And where
would you be now, if they had not been licked in 1588, eh? Not in
Australia, my boy! A Frenchman is conceited enough, but, by George, he
can't hold a candle to a Scotchman."
Tom spoke in a regular passion; but there was some truth in what he
said, I think. Burnside didn't like it, and merely saying, "You
interrupt me, sir," went on to his third volume without a struggle.
"You are aware, ladies, that there has been a gang of bushrangers out
to the north, headed by a miscreant, whom his companions call Touan,
but whose real name is a mystery."
Mrs. Buckley said, "Yes;" and Tom glanced at Mary. She had grown as
pale as death, and Tom said, "Courage, cousin; don't be frightened at a
name."
"Well, sir," continued Burnside, putting the forefinger and thumb of
each hand together, as if he was making "windows" with soapsuds,
"Captain Desborough has surprised that gang in a gully, sir, and,"
spreading his hands out right and left, "obliterated them."
"The devil!" said Tom, while the Doctor got up and stood beside Mary.
"Smashed them, sir," continued Burnside; "extinguished them utterly. He
had six of his picked troopers with him, and they came on them suddenly
and brought them to bay. You see, two troopers have been murdered
lately, and so our men, when they got face to face with the cowardly
hounds, broke discipline and wouldn't be held. They hardly fired a
shot, but drew their sabres, and cut the dogs down almost to a man.
Three only out of twelve have been captured alive, and one of them is
dying of a wound in the neck." And, having finished, little Burnside
folded his arms and stood in a military attitude, with the air of a man
who had done the thing himself, and was prepared to receive his meed of
praise with modesty.
"Courage, Mary," said Tom; "don't be frightened at shadows."--He felt
something sticking in his throat, but spoke out nevertheless.
"And their redoubted captain," he asked; "what has become of him?"
"What, Touan himself?" said Burnside. "Well, I am sorry to say that
that chivalrous and high-minded gentleman was found neither among the
dead nor the living. Not to mince, matters, sir, he has escaped."
The Doctor saw Mary's face quiver, but she bore up bravely, and
listened.
"Escaped, has he?" said Tom. "And do they know anything about him?"
"Desborough, who told me this himself," said Burnside, "says no, that
he is utterly puzzled. He had made sure of the arch-rascal himself;
but, with that remarkable faculty of saving his own skin which he has
exhibited on more than one occasion, he has got off for the time, with
one companion."
"A companion; eh?"
"Yes," said Burnside, "whereby hangs a bit of romance, if I may profane
the word in speaking of such men. His companion is a young fellow,
described as being more like a beautiful woman than a man, and bearing
the most singular likeness in features to the great Captain Touan
himself, who, as you have heard, is a handsome dog. In short, there is
very little doubt that they are father and son."
Tom thought to himself, "Who on earth can this be? What son can George
Hawker have, and we not know of it?" He turned to Burnside.
"What age is the young man you speak of?" he asked.
"Twenty, or thereabouts, by all description," said the other.
Tom thought again: "This gets very strange. He could have no son of
that age got in Van Diemen's Land: it was eight years before he was
free. It must be some one we know of. He had some byeblows in Devon, by
all accounts. If this is one of them, how the deuce did he get here?"
But he could not think. We shall see presently who it was. Now we must
leave these good folks for a time, and just step over to Garoopna, and
see how affairs go there.