one-pounders--that is right. Then, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten----tenners; and five twenties, and two fifties. And
the gold----'
'I fear you do not approve of this proceeding, Dr. Langdale?' said
Stella as they shook hands.
'If anyone is to be blamed it's me, sir,' said the woman, who seemed to
be thoroughly roused by the process of reckoning up the hoard before
her.
The doctor tested her temperature, and found it rather high. 'If you
throw yourself back, you know----' he began, in a grave voice.
'Well, sir, I know it makes my head beat; but it would have been worse
to keep on thinking p'r'aps it was lost. I don't rightly remember
things for days before I got here. That's my marriage lines, ma'am,' she
said, holding out a very soiled slip of paper to Stella. 'I don't know
what makes you so good to me, such an object as I must have been when
you saw me. You couldn't tell what sort I might be. And I'd like you
to know I'm an honest woman. And if things go wrong----'
'Oh, things will go all right, if you keep quiet,' said Langdale. 'You
have an iron constitution.'
'Thank you, sir; but I'd sooner tell the young lady and you how it was,
in case; and then I know I'll feel more restful like. I've laid here
many an hour turning things over when I wasn't able to wag my tongue. I
don't know whether you've heard of Poor Man's Diggings ever. They don't
make no flare, but from seventy to eighty men have been working there
quietly for two years. Jack and me was there eighteen months--that's my
husband. The men called the cockie after him, because he was a great
swearer, and the bird was the dead spit of him in that way. Jack was a
digger, and we had a little general store and a sly-grog shanty. But he
was fined so often, at last I said to him it would be cheaper to take
out a license, and so he did. But he took to hard drinking and gambling,
and six months ago we left, for we had enough money to go back to our
friends in Sydney. We was both born there. There was no one to take
the license off our hands, so Jack carried away all the grog that was
left, and that was the ruin of him. When we came across any teamsters,
he used to gamble for a couple of days at a time. I've seen him play at
poker and lose two bottles of rum and a five-pound note and one of the
horses all within an hour. And then he'd have to buy his horse back.
'At last I took and planted the money and the gold you see here. It was
once when he was drinking very bad, and gambling with a little man
called One-leg Bill. He had followed us from the diggings--'t any rate,
so I believe, though he pretended to come upon us quite by accident. But
none is so surprised as them that gives their mind to it, and that was
the way with One-leg, I'm pretty sure. Jack was that given to the
gamble, when there was no one else he'd play with me. But then there
wasn't enough "go" in it, for if he lost to me, he could take it from
me. Well, One-leg had his horse and swag and kep us company for near a
month, winning a good deal more money nor he lost. At last, when Jack
wasn't by, I told him to clear, and I'd give him twenty pounds without
no playing nor cheating. He was a unhonest vermin, if ever there lived
any!
'Well, he tuk the twenty pounds, but still he hung round, till one day
we camped at a water-hole, and he said he was going to take a cut off
for the nearest railway line to Melbourne in the morning. I dunno why,
but I didn't b'lieve him. Certainly, he never told the truth, unless he
had an accident in speaking like. But it wasn't that only. In the
middle of the night I heard a noise, and I put my head out quiet-like,
and there was One-leg sitting by the camp fire, polishing up his
revolver. That gave me a turn, and I didn't sleep another wink. Of
course, people has to keep their firearms in order travelling in the
Bush, but still----
'Well, in the morning Jack was very drowsy-like, and when he woke up he
didn't seem inclined to make an early start. No more did One-leg. I
gathered up the things and put-to the horses in the afternoon, and
One-leg saddled hisen. Then, just as I thought we was going to start,
they both set off for a little stroll. I knowed well that what Jack
wanted was to gamble. He had took a Bible oath to me two days afore not
to touch a card with One-leg again, and he was 'shamed to do it before
me. Many's the time since I wished I'd let him alone; but I meaned it
for good, though it come out very crooked. I made signs to Jack to come
to me and ast him to take his rifle. But when a man has been drinking
off and on so long, he don't have his wits about him much to speak of.
'I watched 'em go out of sight in the woods, and all to once I began to
cooey after Jack as loud as I could. But he never turned his head.
One-leg turned round and waved his hand with a grin, and then hobbled
on. He had a wooden leg and used a stick, and there was his lather bag
with the revolver on his back. I waited and waited, but they didn't
come back; and then about sunset I heard two shots--one after She uther.
I went cold all over, and, if you b'lieve me, I felt is if the blood was
running out of my side, and a horrid, burning pain. I sot where I was
in the waggon, not able to move; and then it went through me like sparks
of fire: "One-leg ull come and put a bullet through me next, and then
he'll have everything, and never a soul to peach on him."
'With that I tuk the reins and made a start, and then I thought, "If I
leave his horse Sambo, he'll overtake me in no time." So I put a piece
of rope round his neck, and tied him to the waggon. He had got used to
following like that when Jack and One-leg sot playing cards, and I druv.
They was all pretty fresh, for there was good grass round the
water-hole, and we had spelled for nearly two days. Everything was
swimming before me, and somehow I tuk the wrong turn--came back istid of
going towards New South Wales boundary. I thought of turning round, but
there was One-leg coming out of the wood--alone, and yelling after me
like mad. I just whipped up the horses as fast as they would go, and
Sambo come on after the waggon fine. But the way that One-leg run and
roared no one would b'lieve. It made me go cold all over to think Sambo
might break the rope and fall into his hands. But he didn't, and he was
soon out of sight. I travelled all night, and kep the horses up to it
as fast as they would go, and took cross roads. Next day they was so
knocked up I had to spell them.
'But my sleep went off altogether. I was waiting always for One-leg to
come and shoot me. I dunno how long it was--I dunno what country. I
met people now and then--teamsters and hawkers mostly, and I passed the
time of day, but I never ast one a question. I'd got to be suspicious
of men--they seemed, all of 'em I knew, such a poor mean lot. Sometimes
when I passed people I kept up a talk as if poor Jack was sitting
inside. But at night that made me feel creepy. Jill began to be very
raw and knocked up, so one day I put Sambo in, but 'twas as if the very
mischief was in him. He broke the bridle all to pieces, and ran away
with all of us till he couldn't move. Everything got worn out. When I
put the other bridle on him that was broke too; till I had never a
bit--leastways, I had the bits, but nothing rightly to fasten them to.
Not that it mattered much, for they was now that tame--what with no
grass, and very little water, and going on and on, not knowing where,
but hoping always to come to a little township, but never one. I used
to take a track this way and that--and I think many a time I turned my
back straight on what would have took me to a township with womenfolk
and children and police.
'At last, when I was getting to know I'd got some sort of fever on me, I
met a hawker, and I asked him the nearest way to a township, and he said
to keep on and I'd come to Narryhoouta, or some such name. And I kep
on, but I lost count of days, and I hadn't strength to take the horses
out of the waggon, and I could see they wouldn't go much farther. I
dozed away like, seeing all sorts of things, just like poor Jack when he
had the horrors. Then it came like a dream that a young lady looked in
at me, and spoke to me so gentle I couldn't hear what she said. And
then I saw more ladies, but everyone was so kind it seemed all dreams.
And then I woke up at nights, and I thought maybe 'tis true about
heaven--but 'twas a deal more cheerfuller than I've ever heard tell
about heaven; what with one soft light burning, and no crowd, and one
kind woman to attend on me, and nothing to do, not even to sing, but
just lie still in white soft things, and no awful creaking going on and
on. And then in the daytime you come to me--often in white, ma'am. I
just used to shut my eyes and keep still for fear it would all go
different. And then there was you, sir, as kind as anyone, though a
man.'
'Yes; but I'll not be kind if you say any more to-day,' said Dr.
Langdale very gently.
'Very well, sir--I'm quite content to lie still now. The money is all
safe, and the young lady and you knows all. Yes, the saddle of course
must go, but if the young lady would put the notes and gold away till I
get about; and if I don't there's the address of my father and mother on
the back of my marriage-lines.'
'That was a curious little story--so characteristically Australian,'
said Langdale, after they had left the sick-room, leaving Mrs. Claude
with the patient, and were strolling toward the orchard, close to which
Stella had discovered a hymenosperum in bloom a few days previously.
'Yes,' she answered slowly, 'it seems as if there were more heart-beats
in situations that belong essentially to new countries. That reminds me
of a little story I heard from a sick man before I left home.'
'May I hear it, St. Charity?'
'Yes--that is, if you are good, as the children say.'
'How can I be otherwise when I am with you?'
'A fine for saying that. Friends do not pay each other compliments.'
'No; nor yet fine each other for telling the truth.'
'Another fine. But seriously, you do not know how bad it is for me to
be made vain.'
'If you wish to malign yourself, St. Charity, you must get a more
sympathetic audience.'
'What has put you into this mood to-day?' she said, laughing in his
face.
'To-day?' he echoed, his eyes kindling. 'Do you think a man can be
privileged to be near you so often, to watch your gracious kindliness,
your perfect courtesy, your varying moods, each one more charming than
the last, without----'
He stopped abruptly--and then Stella, who had grown suddenly pale,
replied in a voice that was a little tremulous:
'Werthester Freund, I remit all those fines; for when you speak like
that I feel as lowly as Dunstan's worm.' At this they both laughed, for
Stella had in due course related the worthy gardener's reflections and
reminiscences on the day she had first dressed the wounds of the
'caravan' horses, as they were called. Their sores were now quite
healed, and the poor animals were rapidly putting on flesh in the
adjacent stock-paddock. Indeed, Sambo had been observed to kick up his
heels on more than one occasion.
'Hush,' said Stella suddenly; 'there are strange bird-notes,' and sure
enough there were plaintive long-drawn calls heard on the banks of the
swallow-pool, in the Oolloolloo, near which the two were then standing.
Stella stole on tiptoe nearer the bank, and Langdale followed her as
noiselessly as he could. 'Oo-da-warra, oo-da-warra,' the groves
resounded with these cries. They came from two bronze-winged pigeons on
the brink of the pool. It would be difficult to name any other birds
whose plumage forms a more perfect model of harmonious tints. The wings
gleamed more lustrously than precious stones--dark, and pale-brown
feathers, with iridescent gleams as of mother-of-pearl on the coverts; a
deep, gleaming purplish tint on the breast, and the legs a perfect
carmine. They drank repeatedly of the water, rested for a little, and
flew on their way westward.
'Charming woodland visitors--they drank of our swallow-pool, rested in
the shade of our trees, and then flew away!' said Stella wistfully.
'Did you notice,' she added, 'what soft appealing eyes they had?'
The truth was that Langdale had watched her face rather than the
bronze-winged pigeons.
'Yes, they were lovely!' he answered, Jesuitical fashion--speaking of
those he had seen, while his words conveyed another meaning.
'So are all pigeons' eyes!' Stella went on, encouraged by her friend's
evident enthusiasm; 'very different from parrots, who have hard beady
eyes--even the sweet little shell parrots, perfect sonnets as they are
in emerald and pale jonquil.'
'And parrots scream rather badly, too; don't they?'
'Yes; but there are times when they warble most musically; not only the
smaller kinds, like the shells, the porphyry-headed, and the little ones
with deep-red faces, but also larger ones, like the rock-pebblers. We
watched some of them in the orchard the other day, wandering on the
ground, picking up seeds and things and making the gentlest cooing
sounds imaginable. The male bird was a magnificent creature, in scarlet
and dark green and yellow and lazuline blue.'
And while chatting after this fashion, they reached the hymenosperum, a
beautiful tree of Eastern Australia, with glossy eucalyptus-like leaves
and drooping clusters of long slender bell-blossoms, from eight to
twelve in a bunch, ranging in colour from delicate cream to saffron, and
fragrant as orange-flowers. Stella uttered an exclamation of surprise
when she saw the tree arrayed in opening blooms.
'There were so few out two or three days ago,' she cried, 'and now they
are out in hundreds! But that is always the way in our spring. It is
like what Pliny says of the oak-galls, that they break out altogether in
one night about the beginning of June.'
'But don't forget,' said Langdale, smiling, 'that Pliny the Elder gave
good reason for being styled _mendaciorum patrem_. But this tree of
yours is perfectly lovely. When your Australian trees do blossom, they
do it in a wonderfully generous fashion--and how exquisitely scented!'
Then Stella drew his attention to a bee that was struggling hard to
penetrate into the depths of one of the deep flower-bells. It was too
slender for the industrious creature's body, or its thighs were too
heavily laden with wax; for after writhing for some time, with a muffled
half-angry hum, the bee drew out its head and shoulders. Instead,
however, of going to any of the myriad flowers around, it still clung to
the coveted blossom, and began to bite a hole at the base of the
delicate waxen tube, so as to get at its honeyed treasures from the
outside.
'I must put that into my country journal,' said Stella.
'Do you put everything into your journal?' asked Langdale.
He noticed a soft flush mantling in her cheeks as she answered:
'Yes; spiders and bees, when I catch them "writing deep morals upon
Nature's pages." As a special favour you may come and see our pet
spider web; it is in a hawthorn-bush, whose first spray budded
yesterday, that is, on the third of September.'
On their way to this treasure, Stella pointed out wide groups of her
favourite spring-flowers, now in full beauty--here a clump of the Santa
Maria narcissus, blue Apennine windflowers, and other wide white ones of
the Japanese variety; everywhere golden daffodils and settlements of the
velvet-soft many-coloured polyanthus.
'How little notice you take of these brilliant bushes of flowers, St.
Charity!'
'Oh, the petunias and rhodanthes! Well, most of them are so hard and
scentless. With a cunning pair of scissors, wire, and a few sheets of
French-coloured paper, one might turn out basketfuls of these you would
hardly know from the originals.'
'Now, how can you urge that as an objection when you love the native
"immortelle" so dearly?'
'But don't you see the difference between flowers so much cared for and
cultivated, and those that spring up in sandy deserts? Flowers in
gardens are the Hebrews, with prophets and leaders and angelic
visitations. But when Marcus Aurelius says, "If there are no gods it is
ill to live; if there are gods, it is well to die"--that is an
everlasting in the desert.'
'I humbly crave pardon for my foolish objection. Yet I am glad I made
it, for the sake of your answer.'
'This is our spider-web!' said Stella, pausing by the hawthorn-bush.
'See what a delicate tracery of silk and light it is, with a cloud-like
little woof in the centre. Now, is that to turn into the spiders of the
future?'
'Yes, I imagine so, when the time is fulfilled,' said Langdale, looking
at the web with grave attention. 'Who bent this spray, and fastened it
so as to protect the web?'
'I did. You see, this tiny hammock--the most exquisite baby-cradle of
nature--looked so forlornly exposed to all the caprices of fate: the
wind, and insects, and fowls of the air.'
'Yes; we all live at each other's cost, whether we dwell in palaces or
the crevices of a tree's bark; but the spider has a sterner struggle
than most: he hangs perpetually in suspense, unless St. Charity devises
schemes to protect him. But why does she watch this little cocoon with
so much interest?'
'I have an incredible curiosity to see one or more infant spiders of
unblemished life, "ere sin could blight or sorrow fade"--even before
they have tasted the blood of a fly. It is a sorrowful thought that
though I have seen so many thousand spiders, I have never seen an
innocent one!'
He laughed, but all the time one who observed him closely might see that
he was becoming more constrained and preoccupied, as if there were some
struggle going on in his mind.
'You have not told me that other little story yet. Suppose you tell it
to me by the hymenosperum tree; and, by the way, you must say something
distinctive about that graceful creature--something that will go with
the image of it when it rises in my memory: tall and slender, arrayed in
pale saffron, like an Eastern bride.'
'I am sure I cannot think of anything more distinctive than that,'
laughed Stella. 'I shall borrow a metaphor and give it to you. "As a
saint is to ordinary good people, so is a hymenosperum to other
flowering trees."'
'Here is our tree,' said Langdale, 'with a little rural seat near. Now,
please tell me your story.'
She told him Thomson's little narrative, not forgetting to give a rapid,
brilliant little sketch of her old friend Mr. Ferrier--'the best little
man in the world; but he is like cheese o'er renneted; so much in
earnest that he can enjoy hardly any of the play of life.'
'I think we may put that down as a thirty-seventh tragic situation,'
said Langdale; 'the poor man trying in his simple fashion to
Christianize the savage mother of his child; and the two breaking into
loud laughter at him in the night.'
He took out a little pocket diary as he spoke, and with it an unopened
letter.
'Oh, I had forgotten this,' he said. 'The English mail was delivered as
I left the house this morning.'
'Do you put aside letters without reading them?' said Stella in
surprise.
'Well, not as a rule,' he answered, smiling; 'but there were family
letters that kept me occupied till I got here; and then, you know, at
Lull there are things so much more interesting than letters from one's
lawyer.'
'You may read it now--I will excuse you,' said Stella, and she went to
gather clusters of the fragrant hymenosperum blossoms, picking out those
that had just opened, which were pale cream, and mixing with them a few
of those that had been opened a few days, which had assumed a delicate
saffron tint. Then the clear musical song of a superb warbler rose
near, and she saw one on a laurustinus bush not far off--a little male
bird, gorgeous in its spring attire of shining pale azure and dark blue,
its little tail erect as that of a fan tail pigeon.
Stella was away long enough to permit the perusal of many pages. But
when she returned Langdale still stood engrossed with his letter. He
looked hard at the girl as she drew near to him, and his face, usually
so calm, betrayed curious signs of agitation.
'You have had no ill news, I hope?' said Stella softly.
'Ill news?--no. St. Charity, is it true---- But I have no right to
force your confidence. Only there are affairs that hasten my departure
for England--and there is something I want to know. Will you think my
curiosity an abuse of our friendship?'
'Oh no, I am sure I shall not,' she answered promptly.
'Then--are you engaged to be married?'
'Certainly not. I was once, for a short time,' she added, colouring
deeply; 'but it was a mistake.'
She saw his eyes suddenly grow radiant.
'Then, sweet St. Charity, I am going to ask a great favour. May I write
to you after I get to England?'
His face was very pale, and his voice shaken. No one who heard and saw
him could deem that the permission he asked was concerned with the
interchange of merely friendly sentiments. Least of all Stella, whose
quick insight played round even indifferent matters with the fellowship
of wide sympathy.
She struggled with some rising emotion. But her voice was clear and
firm as she answered:
'Yes--you may; and here is a little bouquet I have gathered for you.'
He took it and held it to his lips. And then for a little time, as they
turned homeward, neither spoke. There are moments in life when speech
is an impertinence--when words the most winged and penetrating are too
leaden-soled for the thoughts that rise in endless succession--swift and
golden as sun-rays glancing upon waves.
'I shall write to your mother and Hector, you know, at the same time,'
he said, as they drew near the house.
'But the longest letter must be to me,' she answered, trying to speak
lightly; 'and it must be very wise, and partly in German.'
'When do you leave, St. Charity?'
'On the fifteenth--eleven days from this. And you?'
'I should like to leave the same day you do, only I must stay till
Morrison gets his assistant. He is overdone and overworked. But he is
advertising in the Melbourne and Adelaide papers. I shall be back in
four months, I suppose, from the time I sail. Will you----'
He stopped abruptly. He was evidently struggling with conflicting
currents of thought. Stella, who, in the tumult of her own emotion, was
keenly conscious of the agitation that betrayed itself in Langdale's
voice and manner, tried in vain to speak of some indifferent subject.
But seeing Louise near at hand among the shrubs, her courage returned.
*CHAPTER XXXIII.*
Stella sat that night writing till late, and then for hours, by her open
window, looking into the starry skies, an expression of peaceful
happiness on her face, which for a time was unclouded by even a passing
shadow. She had been sure for many days past that her ideal friendship
was in peril. She knew that, time after time, words and questions had
risen to Langdale's lips which he had kept back. She had seen that he
strove with contending emotions, and once or twice she had lightly
parried one of those leading questions which, if not turned aside, would
have been as the letting in of waters. She found it so entirely
exquisite, the bliss of loving and being loved, without the gadgrind of
outside opinion, without the desperate seriousness of having to think of
the future as a fixed, imponderable, menacing responsibility; nay,
without any avowal spoken by the lips. And now the precious secret would
be hers for four long months to come. There would be no interchange of
vows, no assurances. They had met as friends, and as friends they would
part. She laughed a low, glad laugh to herself, as she pictured
Esther's face when she would tell her this. It would be quite true--till
he returned.