said that women take the outward polish of civilization more quickly
than men, but that inwardly they remain more truly savage?'
'Ah, that is the sort of paradox which even a luminous-minded Frenchman
cannot resist. It is so glaringly untrue--there must be something in
it--so it is wrapped up in a neat little epigram. But about the
dressmaking?'
'Well, I think a woman who makes dresses that fit perfectly, adds more
to the practical Christianity of the world than most people are aware
of. If you could peep into the mind of a woman when a costly dress
comes home that makes her waist what it shouldn't be, you would believe
the Frenchman a little more. She may have sat at the feet of sages and
be in touch with much of the wisest and the best, but in that moment she
has taken a great leap back to the anthropoidal era.'
'But when her waist is what--no, I am afraid--but when the dressmaker
has done her work nobly?'
'Why, then a sort of flow of philanthropy suffuses one's whole being.
Yes, to make a dress well--without a pinch or a wrinkle in it--that is
one of the least mischievous things a woman can do. As for your sex----
Well, what do you say to a shoemaker--one who does not cripple the foot,
and makes good shoes with honest workmanship? With such shoes, one
feels impelled to walk more; and to walk more is to be in the open air;
and to be in the open air is to be--dare I say happy?'
'Oh, why not! "On the whole, stick close to words."'
'Where is that?'
'"On the whole, stick close to words, then shall you go through the sure
portal into the temple of certainty." That is Mephistopheles speaking
to the student. Don't you think it is time you spoke German to me?'
'Yes, I have two anecdotes to tell you in German. But for the summit of
well-being in the open air, don't you think we are more indebted to the
horse than the shoemaker? You see where the Messmate Ranges fall off
into flat country? That is the beginning of one of our unoccupied
spaces; and the scenery---but perhaps you know it?'
'No, I don't think I do.'
'Claude and I rode there the other morning early. I had Duke, a
delightful horse who skims the ground like a bird.'
'How far did you go then?'
'Thirteen miles. We reached No Man's Land, which stretches away close
up to the New South Wales boundary. Nothing but sand and slender stringy
bark trees, that grow so thick the sun can hardly pass between them. It
was a most glorious ride, in the keen morning air loaded with the
fragrance of gum-leaves.'
'I wonder if you would let me come with you some morning?'
'Oh, we shall be delighted; but then it is in the mornings you write
your novel. Tell me how are your people going on? Do the wrong ones
still make love to each other?'
Stella went on to sketch imaginary plots, ending in the most fabulous
forms of happiness and good-luck, and introducing such extraordinary
dialogues that, by the time the sound of a gong summoned them to
afternoon tea on the western veranda, the two were laughing
continuously, like a pair of school-children.
*CHAPTER XXXI.*
Two days later, Stella had again ridden in the direction of No Man's
Land; but this time she was alone, except for Dustiefoot and her horse,
and she had an 'adventure.' Shearing was soon to begin, and all hands
were busily occupied on the station. Under these circumstances, Stella
insisted on her birthright, as an Australian born, to ride through her
native woods without any companionship beyond a swift well-bred horse
and her beloved dog. There was some talk of getting Maisie to practise
riding on a not very young pony, whose wildest pace had long been a
gentle canter, so that during the time there was a premium on all male
workers she might accompany her mistress. But Stella rejected the
proposal with comic horror. Maisie by herself, or Andy by himself,
might be borne; but the united caution of the two would mar the most
delectable ride that could be offered by spring and Duke. If they
really objected to her riding alone--'Look at the hypocritical Baby
pretending to give in!' cried Claude, 'as if she ever failed to get her
own way in anything!' 'I wish I could go,' said Mrs. Claude, making a
rueful little face; but her husband did not echo the wish. 'I shall ask
Dr. Langdale to come with me,' thought Stella; but somehow she did not,
which could hardly be deemed the action of unbiased friendship.
It was her second ride alone, one breezy sunshiny forenoon, when four
miles from the head-station on the road that led to No Man's Land,
Stella came upon the strangest spectacle she had ever seen. It was a
very old-looking waggon, with a tilt-cover, drawn by two horses,
followed by another, tied to the vehicle behind, and all three lean to
the last degree of emaciation, while the pace at which they went was
that of animals worn out with famine and fatigue; and everything else
was in keeping with the worn, famished look of the horses. At each slow
revolution of the wheels, the waggon creaked and groaned as though it
would fall to pieces. The woodwork was warped and splintered, with here
and there dim greenish streaks--faint reminiscences of having, at some
remote period, been painted. The canvas cover was draggled and patched,
saturated with reddish sand and long-accumulated dust, frayed into
tatters at one side and flapping dismally in the wind. The harness was
entirely composed of untanned lengths of kangaroo skin; the horses had
no bits in their mouths, but there was a ragged remnant of a bridle on
each, to which knotted ropes were attached, that hung loosely on the
poor lean necks. Every rib might be counted at a distance. They
crawled on with drooping heads, the sound of their worn unshod hoofs
completely drowned by the perpetual rumbling and groaning of the
disjointed waggon. No hand guided them; no voice urged them on.
It was all so unspeakably forlorn and dreary, that the sight filled
Stella with dismay. Dustiefoot, who was trotting on gaily in front,
paused as he drew near this battered vehicle, drawn by horses that
looked only fit to be the food of carrion crows, and he, too, was
plainly smitten with something akin to fear. Whether this was
occasioned by the strange rumbling and groaning or the weird appearance
of the whole, it would be hard to say. But he suddenly stopped short,
and, with the hair round his neck bristling angrily, began to bark in a
loud defiant way. 'Quiet, good dog; quiet,' said Stella coaxingly. She
had reined in her horse, and it suddenly flashed across her mind that
this extreme misery must be rooted in some catastrophe. At the sound of
the dog's barking the horses came to a standstill. It seemed as though
they were glad of an excuse to give up even the snail's pace at which
they crawled. Still no sign of life in the waggon. Women of
well-descended natures, who have been protected from every form of harm
all their lives, are usually not lacking in courage. Stella was
certainly no coward. But she had a powerful imagination of an
essentially picture-forming kind.
Was there anyone in this spectral-looking conveyance alive?--or was its
occupant worn with fatigue and asleep? She had heard strange stories of
people who had been overtaken by drought or illness, and had been
imprisoned sometimes for months, sometimes for a year, in a far-away
corner beside a permanent water-hole, unvisited by any human being. She
advanced slowly to the side of the waggon, and using the well-known Bush
salutation, she said 'Good-day,' in a loud, clear voice. But there was
no reply. Her own words came back to her with mocking emphasis. She
shrank from dismounting to look into the waggon, shrank still more from
the sight that might meet her there. Should she return home and get
Hector or Claude or one of the station-hands to come to the rescue?
Whether there was a human being in distress or beyond it, the famished
horses needed help sorely. To Stella, an animal in want or pain was
very little, if at all, less important than a human being. The sight of
these three poor creatures, with their bones almost projecting through
the skin, with drooping heads and dim eyes, standing in their patient
dumbness, went straight to her heart. No; she could not bear the
thought of leaving them. She would start them on and take them home,
where they would be fed and rested; and if there was anyone in
there----'Oh, I must not be such a coward,' she said to herself
impatiently; and then, with a fast-beating heart, she rode close to the
side of the waggon, on which the cover was tattered and fluttering in
the soft spring wind that blew from the west. She reined in Duke, the
proud, graceful young horse she rode, who had come off victor in many
well-contested local races, and who was gentle and tractable as only a
well-bred horse can be when ridden by an affectionate well-trained
rider.
She bent down and looked in. The first thing she saw was a woman's
long, fair hair--unkempt and matted. The next was a dingy white
cockatoo that had been fast asleep, and now woke up and began to mumble,
'Confound your eyes, confound your eyes,' in a faint, rapid way that was
infinitely eerie. The woman's face was partly hidden by one hand, which
covered her eyes and the upper part of her face--a brown, sunburnt,
grimy hand, very lean and unwashed, and unwomanly-looking. No, she was
not dead, as Stella at first feared. She moved and moaned, and as the
bird went on mumbling, descending to a still lower depth of imprecation,
the sound, and then Stella's sympathetic voice saying, 'I am afraid you
are very ill,' seemed partly to rouse her. She half sat up, but her eyes
remained glazed and unresponsive. 'Gee up, Jerry; Jill, Jill!' Her
tones were shrill, though quavering, and at the words the horses pulled
and strained, and once more resumed their weary, incredibly slow walk.
They kept in the middle of the road, and Stella could but try to make
Duke fall into the same pace. But this was impossible. He could stand
stock still, or he could walk his slowest. But being neither lame on
four legs, nor starved, nor born to drudgery, he could not absolutely
crawl. It took this strange little procession the best part of two
hours to get within sight of Lullaboolagana home-station. No words can
express the air of mingled pride and responsibility with which
Dustiefoot marshalled them all. He made circles round them, he trotted
on in front, he walked behind, he panted; his scarlet young tongue hung
out with joy and anxiety, his handsome bushy tail was arched upwards
more airily than ever. He had the same insuperable difficulty that
beset Duke of being unable to regulate his pace by that of animals so
famished, so overborne and jaded, that even their hides would have been
worthless. As Stella examined them more closely she saw that they had
sores all over them--under the jagged collars that were held together
with half-untwisted strands of rope, on their shoulders, sides, and
thighs. So utterly maimed and defeated did they look as they dragged
one quivering, shrunken leg after another, the only wonder was that they
had not long since lain down to die.
When Dustiefoot found himself getting too far ahead--and if a young dog
walked at all, that was inevitable--he turned round and waited, gazing
at his mistress, and then at the horses and their load, till he was
forced to give expression to his feelings in one or two barks, which
might be classified as of the glad-excitement order. Those who have the
privilege of being intimate with dogs are aware that no living creature
is so pleased all over at an unusual event as a collie in the second
year of his age.
Before the strange little cavalcade had reached the house, it was seen
and met first by some of the children, then the maids, and finally by
Mrs. Courtland and Mrs. Claude. Dunstan was at once despatched for Dr.
Morrison. But before he came the poor woman was refreshed with wine,
washed, arrayed in fine linen, and comfortably in bed. It was a case of
collapse through long privation and exposure. There was nothing to eat
or drink in the waggon beyond the stony remains of a damper, and a
little muddy water in a brown earthen jar. She partly recovered
consciousness after she had been in bed for a couple of hours. Dr.
Morrison, on seeing her, came to the conclusion that careful nursing and
dieting would bring her round in a few days. There was some dispute as
to who should be chief nurse, but finally Stella convinced her
sisters-in-law that, as she had discovered the patient, she must be
primarily held responsible.
'You have a name for finding many ailing sorts of creatures, Miss
Stella; but I think this is the biggest cargo of any,' said the doctor,
with an amused twinkle in his eyes. And then he gave his instructions
with due emphasis. 'I shall be away to-morrow, and perhaps the next
day, but Dr. Langdale will look after her. By-the-way, how is your last
patient, the crow? Langdale had grave fears as to his recovery at one
time.'
Soon after the doctor left the patient fell into a deep sleep, and
leaving Maisie in charge of the sick-room, Stella went to see after the
horses. She found Dunstan giving them small measures of bran and oats,
and looking at them with a mingled pity, amazement, and scorn that was
irresistibly funny.
'You have unharnessed them, Dunstan? That is right. Oh, you poor, poor,
dear things!'--and Stella stroked each in turn.
'Unharnessed them, Miss Stelly? Well, yes, if you calls them bits o'
broken rope and rawr hide harness. I'm jiggered, but it's the very
rummiest turn-out ever I seed. And what can have come to her husband?'
'Oh, she may not have one, Dunstan.'
But Dunstan shook his head. 'Ah, Miss Stelly, you don't never find a
female get into such a hole without she's a married 'oman. That's the
way along o' some women. If they want to enjy themselves at all, and are
proper-like, they gets married, and then mostly they has a very bad
time. They're like these yaller little birds; you sticks 'em in a cage,
and they buzz agin the wires; and yet, if you let them go out into the
wilds, they get knocked about, and can't get proper tucker.'
Dunstan spoke in a leisurely, high-pitched voice, which had a very odd
effect. He was given to moralizing, and had those quaint reaches of
fancy that are often found with men whose lives are passed out-of-doors
in gardening, or shepherding, or other undrudging avocations.
Stella with difficulty refrained from laughter at this summing-up of the
disabilities of her sex.
'I don't think you would like to be a woman, Dunstan?'
'Well, no, Miss Stelly. If so be that such a thing could happen, and
God A'mighty give me the pick to be a female or a worm, I'd say a worm,
if you please; meaning no disrespect to the A'mighty or to you, Miss
Stelly. A worm, to be sure, has a lowly life, and unless it's cut in
two or swallered alive, not much happens in the span of its days. But
what's that to having things allays happening, and each one worse than
t'other? I ought to know. I'm married to my third wife, and not one of
the three ever had six months proper health on end.'
Dunstan was portioning out further doles of oats and giving them to the
horses as he spoke, so that Stella could enjoy these reflections without
checking the flow of his thoughts. Dunstan himself seldom laughed, and
when others did so at his serio-comic sayings, it disconcerted and, in
the end, silenced him.
'I b'lieve they have had enough; but the poor old karkisses look so
starved,' he said, as the horses set to once more.
'And they are so galled. Dunstan, don't you think if I bathed their
sores with a little warm water--oh yes, I am sure of it.' Stella
hastened away, and soon returned with a china bowl of tepid water and a
soft sponge, with which she deftly bathed one sore after another.
'They seem to enjoy it just as if they was Christians,' said Dunstan,
and then he went to the kitchen and brought out a pailful of warm water,
as that in the basin soon got discoloured with the dust and sand. Then
he stood by as Stella went from one poor skinny creature to another,
caressing and speaking to them in a low, fond voice.
Both were so much absorbed that they did not notice the approach of
Hector Courtland and Dr. Langdale, who stood at a little distance
looking on at the scene with faces full of an amused interest, and some
deeper feeling withal, as they watched the girl's tender ministration on
the poor galled scarecrow horses.
'Why, here's Dr. Langdale with the master,' said Dunstan, suddenly
perceiving them. 'It must be serious for the poor female if she must
have two doctors.' Though Langdale was so frequent a visitor, Dunstan
somehow connected his appearance at that juncture with the event of the
day.
'Well, Stella, this little performance of yours caps all your previous
finds,' said Hector, looking at the three horses with beaming eyes.
'St. Charity, I would give much to have your picture painted as you
stood here bathing the sores of these horses,' said Langdale, and as she
returned his greeting there was an expression in his face which made her
look quickly away.
'And this is only part of the caravan, sir,' said Dunstan, addressing
his master. 'Besides these horses that the crows would hardly get a
mouthful on, there's the waggon, fit only for firewood, a cockatoo that
would set your hair on end with blasphemy, and a onfortinate female as
can't say a word, good or bad.'
'We cannot permit you to keep the cockatoo, St. Charity,' said Langdale.
'I understand he is worse than any of the orthodoxies, consigning people
to eternal and entire perdition irrespective of their opinions.'
'Well, he does swear very badly,' said Stella, smiling. 'We fed him and
put him in exile. He is on a perch in the stable.'
'But who ever heard of a backslider being reformed in a stable? Look
here, Courtland, cannot you suggest a better asylum for a foundling
whose moral nature has been perverted?'
'His native woods, I should think; unless you take him in hand yourself,
Langdale, as well as the "onfortinate female" as Dunstan calls her.'
'Are you going to look after my patient, Dr. Langdale?' asked Stella,
who stood sponging the roan horse's neck for the second time.
'Yes--free, gratis, for nothing, unless you are a refractory nurse; in
which case I shall charge you a guinea a visit. Now, if you let me put a
little vaseline on these sore places, your new pets will recover all the
sooner.'
Stella went immediately to beg a pot of vaseline from Louise.
'There must be a semi-tragic story behind this curious little
adventure,' said Langdale, examining the waggon. And then Courtland
recalled some curious stories that had come to his knowledge in past
years of people who had attempted to make long journeys with horses or
teams of bullocks through unknown country and came to signal grief. 'But
this is the first time I ever heard of a woman and a blaspheming
cockatoo journeying through the Bush, evidently for months.'
*CHAPTER XXXII*
There are probably few who have passed their first youth without
indulging now and then in conjectures as to how many would really
befriend them if they were completely stranded in life--say, without
money or position, and under the shadow of some imputed crime. We begin
the world as a rule with pathetic confidence in ourselves and others.
Heaven is full of beneficence, earth crowded with friends. There is so
much that we can do; there are so many whose eyes will brighten at the
prizes we are to pluck by the way. And then our contests are to be won
without stooping to the stratagems of canvassing; we are to head our
polls without the indignity of hedging. Later on, there is still much
to be done; but little quite so well worth dying for as our own hearts
and the poets whispered in the early days. We begin to suspect, too,
that Providence sends biscuits chiefly to those who have no teeth. Our
dearest aims have a trick of eluding us, and leaving the tedious hours
full of the memories of spent bubbles. The rude breath of
experience--that _figmentum malum_ in the life of man--has shrivelled so
many tender illusions. Life is not so amusing. Some of its most comical
jokes are elaborated at our own expense. This kind of payment impairs
one's sense of humour. And those myriad orbs that were to sparkle at
our feats? Alas! most of the eyes we now know are keen only to detect
that the plumage of our prize-bird is gray rather than white. And so in
our more egotistical moments--and these come to all--the question may
arise, 'If I were entirely defeated in this tiresome drama, which begins
in youth, like the rising of a curtain on a fairy scene, and goes on
like a scene in which there is nothing fairy-like, save gold, how many
would really stand by me?' If one were thus defeated, in fact as well
as imagination, probably the very best thing that could befall one would
be to find one's self in the Australian Bush not very far from a
head-station.
So at least it proved in the case of the poor woman Stella Courtland had
come upon. She was dangerously ill for several days.
During this time, Stella and Langdale saw each other daily, and drew
very near to each other. The woman's first coherent inquiry was for
'Jack,' which turned out to be the cockatoo. Stella brought him into
the bedroom the woman occupied. He erected his crest, and fluttered
about, muttering imprecations of various kinds.
'He knows me, sure enough,' said his mistress in a gratified tone. 'You
can't think, ma'am, what a comfort it was to hear him when I was alone.
He do swear badly, but it was like having a Christian body near one to
hear him.... He never come back. I didn't expect he would, after
hearing the shots; but, if I live long enough, Bill Taylor will swing
for it.... The saddle--oh, the saddle, Miss Stella!--was it took care
of?' (She started up in bed in great excitement. Stella assured her it
was all right in the harness-room.) 'Oh, but I must get it--I must see
it. I'll put somethin' round me, and go out to look at it.'
Stella thought this was but a freak of the fever that still lingered in
her brain; and to keep the woman quiet, she sent Maisie for the saddle,
which was old and worn and externally destitute of any points that would
justify one in setting such high value on it. But appearances are
proverbially deceitful.
The woman clutched it eagerly. She had never acquired any of those
amenities that, even among the lower orders of women, help as a rule to
keep social intercourse on a higher plane than the primeval scramble in
which egotism was the sole standard of conduct. And yet she had many
distinctly human qualities.
Maisie went out of the room, and resumed her sewing in the nursery,
where the upper nurse sat with the six-months-old baby in her arms.
'Is your young lady going out riding this morning?' she asked.
'Indeed, Jane, I cannot tell ye,' answered Maisie with a toss of her
head. 'What Miss Stella's ma would say to her nursing an ill-mannered
person like yon I don't know. Miss Stella should leave her till us, and
then she'd be cured a little of whims and whams. There, she has that
awfu' swearin' cockie in the room, and now a dirty old saddle, and there
comes the doctor. I wish he would cure her soon, and let her be packing
with her duds and screws of horses.'
Servants who are accustomed to the refined courtesy of gentlewomen
resent nothing more strongly than being spoken to roughly. This,
indeed, is one of the causes which often creates a disastrous barrier
between them and men in their own rank.
The sight which met Dr. Langdale on entering the sick-room that morning
was a curious one. The large, dingy cockatoo stood on the toilet-table,
close to the bed, muttering, 'Hang him--hang him!' in a rough, deep
voice. The patient was sitting up in bed, an old saddle turned upside
down before her, the lining ripped open, disclosing underneath one side
a deep layer of extremely soiled bank-notes, on the other nuggets of
gold, ranging from the size of peas to pigeon-eggs, some embedded in
quartz, others with the earth still clinging to them. Stella stood at
the foot of the bed, looking on in silent wonder. Neither had heard the
doctor's tap, and even when he opened the door, saying, 'May I come in?'
the patient went on with a calculation which absorbed all her faculties.