'Where are ye thinking of going, boss, when we get to Bairnsdale?
Twofold Bay's a terrible long way off to go prospectin'. I'd a deal
sooner chance Omeo. It's only twenty miles farther on.'
'Omeo, Omeo!' repeated Lance. 'Why should I go to Omeo?'
'Haven't ye heard? There's a big show struck close by the old township.
They say they're leaving Ballarat, lots of 'em, to go there. It's the
richest find yet, by all accounts; shallow ground too!'
'Omeo, Omeo!' Lance again repeated half unconsciously to himself. Had
not Tessie made reference to it in the coach from Ballarat? Had she not
said that Lawrence Trevenna was there, the man to whose baleful shadow
he owed ruin and dishonour, the ineradicable disgrace which would always
be associated with his name? He had a heavy account to settle with him.
When they met all scores would be cleared off. This much he had vowed to
himself in the prison cell at Ballarat, in the hulk _President_ in the
silence of midnight, in that foetid hold of the prison-ship, where he
could scarcely breathe the polluted atmosphere, laden with crime, heavy
with curses. There, in that time of horror and dread, again and again
had he sworn to take his enemy's life--that one or other should die when
next they met, be it where it might.
And then again, as he hoped to efface himself, to feel secure from the
pursuit which he heard in every breeze and feared in every echoing hoof,
where could he find so safe and unsuspected a refuge as this new
digging--wild, rough, isolated as Omeo must necessarily be? Far from
civilisation of any kind, on a lone mountain plateau, snow-covered in
winter, only to be reached by paths so devious and precipitous that
wheels could not be employed, where every pound of merchandise or
machinery was fain to be carried on pack-horses. There could be no
better place for a hunted man to disappear, to obliterate himself. There
he could remain for the present,--unknown, invisible to all who had
known the former Lance Trevanion,--until he matured his plans and could
make his way to a foreign shore.
Here, as he recovered health and strength under the influence of the
mountain breezes and the wild woodlands which lay so near the
river-sources and the snow summits, it would be comparatively easy to
transmit his share of the Number Six washings, still safe in the
Joint-Stock Bank in the custody of Charlie Stirling. Here, once located
and established as Dick, Tom, or Harry--surnames were in the nature of
superfluities at goldfields of the class which Omeo was pretty sure to
be--he could make arrangements for selling out to Jack Polwarth. Quietly
and without suspicion he could arrange to have the whole of his property
transferred to him in cash, and some fine morning, under cover of a trip
to Melbourne on business or pleasure, he would show Australia a clean
pair of heels, and in America, North or South, in some far land where
his name was never heard, would live out the rest of a life with such
solace as he might, might even--when Time, the healer, should have
dulled the heart-pangs which now throbbed and agonised so
mordantly--might even reach some degree of contentment, if not of
happiness.
And Estelle! Estelle! There was the sharpest sting--the bitterest
grief--the direst pang of all. Could he ever look again into those
lovely, trusting eyes, having undergone what he had done? Could he ask
her--angel of purity that she was; the embodiment of the refinement of
generations of stainless ancestors; sheltered, as she had been, by the
conditions of her birth and education from all knowledge of the evil
that there is in the world,--could he ask her to lay her head upon a
felon's breast?--to take his hand in life-long pledge of happiness, when
at any time, in any land where this long arm of extradition could reach,
the hand of justice might seize him? No! Such companionship, such love,
could never be his in the future. He had lost them for ever. On the
lower level to which he had sunk he must remain. To its privations he
must accustom himself; the surroundings he must endure. There was no
help for it. If Tessie Lawless chose to share his lot he might not deny
her. She knew the whole of his story. She loved him. She had been
faithful and true. She deserved any poor recompense, such as the damaged
future of his life, that of a nameless man, could offer, if she chose to
accept it. For Trevanion of Wychwood was dead, and his early love, with
all his high hopes and noble aspirations, lay deep in the grave of his
buried honour.
* * * * *
From the day of Lance Trevanion's arrest at Balooka, no word, by letter
or otherwise, had reached Wychwood of the fortunes of its heir. Days,
weeks, months succeeded each other in the uneventful round into which
country life in England has a tendency to settle when ordinary interests
are withdrawn or unduly concentrated. It was pitiable to note the
squire's anxiety when the Australian mail was due. For him, as for
Estelle, there seemed to be but one man whose fortunes were worth
following in the whole world--from whom letters were as the breath of
life. And now these tidings from a far land, regular, if brief and
sententious, up to this time, were suddenly withheld.
With the failing health of the Squire--for he suffered from one of the
mysterious class of complaints before which strong men go down like
feeble children--passed away much of his fierce obstinacy, his pride and
arrogance. He thought of his son as he had last seen him,--haughty,
tameless, defiant, with all his faults a true Trevanion,--and now, when
he hoped to have seen him once again, grown and developed, though
bronzed and possibly roughened by the rude life of a colony, when he had
schooled himself to recall rash words and to make the _amende_ as far as
his nature would permit, here he was thwarted, bewildered, maddened by
this sudden arrest of all knowledge of his fate.
'The boy has had the best of the fight,' he groaned out.
Ever at his side, at this crisis chief counsellor and consoler, Estelle
here rose to her true position in the house. Awakened to the necessity
of taking a leading part in the family fortunes, the added weight of
responsibility appeared to nerve and mould her to a loftier resolve, to
a more sublimely unselfish purpose. She it was who suggested to the
desponding father every shade of excuse for the stoppage of the letters
which were as the life-blood to his failing constitution. She it was who
ransacked the newspapers for reports, meagre as they mostly were, of the
great Australian gold fields. She it was who looked up maps and
authorities upon the colonies, until she even acquired the recondite
knowledge, granted to so few Britons, that Victoria is not situated in
New South Wales, nor Tasmania the capital of Western Australia.
Torn and rent as was her own heart when she allowed herself to think of
her lover,--lost to her in the wilds of a far country, perishing in the
wilderness for all she knew, exposed to dangers among savages and
outlaws even more ruthless,--she yet braced up her courage. She nerved
herself to bear the worst, if only she might soften the pain and anxiety
which began increasingly to sap the strength of the failing head of the
ancient house.
More than once had she interviewed the passengers in vessels returning
from Melbourne, hungrily eager for any shred of news from Ballarat. Did
they know a miner named Trevanion, or even Polwarth? How long was it
since they had seen him, and what were his present circumstances? But
these inquiries were vain. Few of the returning adventurers had troubled
themselves to remember the names of their chance acquaintances. Others
indeed had heard of the untoward fate of the young Englishman, but
thought it no kindness to tell his friends. They could not possibly aid
him or alleviate his condition. Better to let the bad news unfold itself
in due time.
So the weary days went on. Spring glided into summer. The ancient oaks
and 'immemorial elms' of Wychwood Chase were clothed anew with tender
greenery. The glad, brief life of the northern summer burst into joyous
fulness, then paled and waned. Autumn, with slow pace but ruthless hand,
despoiled the glades and strewed the forest aisles with withered leaves
and fallen chaplets. Ere the blasts of winter had commenced to herald
the doom of the dying year, it became generally known that the Squire of
Wychwood was failing fast--would, indeed, hardly last over the coming
Christmastide. It was observed that he buried himself in his library,
that he had given up all habitual modes of exercise. No guests were
invited to the house, and Miss Estelle more often dined by herself than
not in the great, lonely dining-room which had so often echoed with
festive mirth, or, in older days, still rang with ruthless revelry.
As the Squire's health declined his affections seemed to concentrate
themselves upon his niece. She had in all respects borne herself as a
daughter to him--had shown even more than a daughter's sympathy and
constant, watchful care.
The younger son was at college. He would be the heir to Wychwood in
case the adventurer on the far Australian goldfield never returned to
claim his inheritance. Amiable, well conducted, of respectable ability
and fair attainments, he had never (such is the perversity of the human
heart) been a favourite of his father's. The stern old man--bitterly as
he had quarrelled with the disobedient elder brother, whose nature was
in so many respects a reflex of his own, yet in his heart owned him for
the higher nature--recognised in him the befitting heir to his ancient
demesne, to the hall in which nobles had sat and princes feasted. Now to
his gloomy and brooding soul all hope was lost. Some dire misfortune,
even a fatal accident, had doubtless happened--must have occurred,
indeed, or Lance's chronicle of his life and adventures, meagre as to
detail, but of regular recurrence, would have continued. If only he
could have set eyes on Lance before he died! Could he but have told him
how he had regretted the rash words and bitter speech, the prayers he
had prayed for his safe return; ay, the tears he had shed in the agony
of his remorse--he, the proud, inexorable Trevanion of Wychwood! It was
well-nigh incredible. None of his old-time comrades and
fellow-roysterers could have believed it of the Dark Squire, as the
villagers then named him, with lowered tones and bated breath. But in
the days of sorrow and failing strength,--when the strong man is brought
low; when those hours, so long approaching, so long menacing, have come;
when death seems no longer a strange visitant but a familiar friend,
more welcome in truth than the sad alternation of sorrow and
unrest,--the haughtiest pride of man is lowered. In those hours of
lonely grief and dark despair many a recantation is made--many a vow
recorded undreamed of in life's festal season.
* * * * *
The death-day came at last. He lingered on past the season fixed by
general expectancy; but ere the first bud of the swelling leaflet had
been set free by the breath of spring in his ancestral glades, the
Squire lay with his warrior forefathers in the historic vault, which had
not been opened since the last Lady of Wychwood had been carried there,
long ere her beauty had faded. The retainers of the house, and not a few
of the notables of the county, assembled to pay the last form of respect
to one whom, in despite of his latter-day life of seclusion, they
recognised as one of the born leaders of the land. As the long
procession passed slowly along the winding road, which at one point
skirted the sea-cliff, to the venerable chapel which had seen so many
solemn ceremonies celebrated connected with the family, more than one
inquiry was made for the absent heir, and uniform regret expressed that
he should not have returned from the far south land to claim his own and
assume his rights.
When the last sad duties had been paid to him whom, in spite of his
stormy outbursts of temper, Estelle could not help holding in love and
pity, a strong resolve appeared to actuate the once timid girl,
shrinking, as carefully-nurtured women do, from independent action and
strange surroundings. The estate would go, of course, to the
heir-at-law, strictly entailed as it had been for many generations. But
it had been in the old man's power to dispose as he pleased of the large
amount accruing from the savings of late years, and from the sale of an
estate which was not included in the entail. This bequest, which had
been made while the testator was of perfectly sound mind and body, was
of such amount as to render Estelle perfectly independent for the rest
of her life; indeed, to exalt her somewhat to the position of an
heiress.
In the long conversations held in his latter days of decadence between
the Squire and his niece, it had been definitely agreed that Estelle
should proceed to Australia and there seek out the errant heir--should
bring him back if possible by force of entreaty or persuasion to the
land of his forefathers, to the rank and position handed down from the
fierce warriors and splendid courtiers whose presentments frowned or
smiled down upon their descendants in the old hall.
'I have such faith in you, my darling Estelle,' said the Squire, in one
of his later confidences, 'that I shall die more peacefully knowing that
you will search this far country for my lost unhappy boy. You have sense
and courage in a degree rarely bestowed upon women. Your heart has been
true to him during his long absence--this more than anxious period of
doubt and dread. If he be in the neighbourhood of the place from which
we last heard from him, you will be sure to gain some tidings of him. If
you see him, your influence over him, powerful for good, always for
good, as in the past, will save him, and once more the old ancient race,
which has never yet failed of a male heir in the direct line, will be
fittingly represented. If Lance, the son of whom I was so proud, returns
no more from that far country, the estate will of course pass into the
hands of his brother. But you are in any case _well_ provided for. May
God bless and reward you, my darling Estelle, for your forbearing
kindness to a broken-spirited man. And now, kiss me, darling; I think I
could sleep.'
He slept the sleep which knows no awakening on earth.
The parting words of her uncle had for Estelle almost the sacredness of
a dying command. She had vowed, kneeling by his bedside, to leave no
region unexplored, to carry through the search with the completeness
which characterised all her proceedings. The high courage and resolute
will which were hers by inheritance from the Trevanions stood her now in
good stead. With an air of quiet resolve she arranged all her personal
affairs without parade or hesitation; within a fortnight her passage had
been taken, a few letters of introduction procured, also a very moderate
outfit suitable for a young lady travelling, if not incognito, in a very
unobtrusive way. And at the appointed day and hour Estelle found herself
speeding away over the waters blue in company with a stranger crowd of
enforced acquaintances, borne over an unknown sea on a wild and
desperate quest. Before her, in imagination, she pictured the rude
solitudes of an unknown land--even the fancied perils of a lawless
goldfield.
* * * * *
The low coast of the island-continent line, irregular and faint,
appearing from out the southern sky, so long unbroken. A new land--a new
city. Melbourne at last! The land how strange! The city how new! The
people how foreign-appearing and _bizarre_ to the voyager from the
region of tradition and settled form. Estelle looked and moved like a
strayed princess amid a horde of nomads. She had schooled herself into
the belief that in her quest she would be called upon to suffer all
kinds of privations, and to mingle with every variety of 'rough
colonists.' She resolved to make a trial essay. In pursuance of this
heroic resolution she preferred to go to an hotel upon her own
responsibility, before delivering the letters of introduction with which
she had armed herself. She was not exactly fortunate in her choice, as
indeed was to be expected. However, she was agreeably surprised at the
civility with which she was treated, as well as by the absence of
'roughness,' as displayed by the _habitués_, many of whom were patently
uneducated. Still Estelle made the discovery shortly, that even so
recently constructed a city as Melbourne, in the fret of a gold-fever,
was not essentially unlike an English town--that a handsome young woman
was more or less an object of attraction and curiosity. Tolerably well
veiled, doubtless; nevertheless an inquiring tone displayed itself
unmistakably. And, in spite of her resolve to brave all the social
inclemencies of her novel surroundings, Estelle Chaloner shrank from the
implied doubtfulness to which her unprotected condition led up. Escape
was easy. She smiled as she thought of her boasted independence; how
soon it had failed her! Being a sensible girl, however, in the least
restricted sense of the word, she capitulated forthwith, resolving to
present one of the letters of introduction without delay.
Having packed up her belongings,--not too extensive,--paid her bill, and
arranged all things ready for departure, Estelle picked out a 'nice'
looking letter, and resolved to abide the hazard of the die. The address
was, 'Mrs. Vernon, Toorak, South Yarra, near Melbourne.' The aboriginal
sounding names gave no information as to distance. 'Near' might mean two
miles or twenty. A man's next-door neighbour in Australia was sometimes
fifty miles distant, she had heard. Happily she bethought herself of
asking information of the landlady of her hotel.
'Toorak, Toorak!' said that important personage. 'Oh yes; I know it well
enough, and a nice place it is--all the swell people live there! Mrs.
Vernon's place is one of the best there. A grand house, and everything
in style. You'd better have a cab called; they'll take you there for ten
shillings, luggage and all.'
'I may not be asked to stay,' replied Estelle diffidently, 'and if I am,
I am not sure that I----'
'Oh yes you will,' interposed the hostess. 'Don't talk that way. Wait
till you see what sort of a place it is. And Mrs. Vernon's a lady that
won't let you go, I'll answer for it.'
A short half-hour's drive across Princes' Bridge, through or around the
maze of Canvastown, past the Botanic Gardens, and along a newly made and
recently metalled road, brought Estelle to a pair of massive ornate iron
gates, on the northern side of the road leading along an avenue of some
length.
'This is Charlton Lodge,' said the driver. 'Shall I drive to the front?'
'Certainly,' she replied, as she smiled at the question. The winding
avenue was well gravelled, with a border of shaven grass, beyond which
were beds filled with flowering shrubs, planted amid and underneath tall
pines, with an admixture of elms, oaks, and Australian cedars.
Everything exhibited careful tendance, demonstrating that although many
of the best labourers had levanted to the goldfields there were still
some few servitors who preferred comfort to independence. Estelle was
beginning to wonder how long the preliminary approach was to last, when
a velvet-piled lawn came into view, around which the carriage-drive took
a sweep, her charioteer halting underneath a spacious portico of
classical proportion and finish.
The cabman rang the bell, and receiving assurance from a neatly dressed
parlour-maid that her mistress was at home, returned to his seat and
awaited events, while Estelle was duly ushered into a handsomely
furnished drawing-room of unquestionable modernity of tone.
After a reasonably short interval, employed by Estelle in a
comprehensive survey of the apartment, which, indeed, bore tokens of
intelligent and appreciative taste, a well-dressed elderly lady
appeared.
'Miss Chaloner!' she exclaimed. 'I am truly glad to see you at last. I
have been wondering what had become of you. My dear friend, Mary Dacre,
wrote to me to say that you were coming out by the mail, and that you
had kindly brought a letter to me. I heard of the vessel's arrival, and
that you had left the vessel and gone to an hotel. I called at Scott's
and Menzies's, but they had not heard of you.'
'I went to the Criterion,' said Estelle smilingly. 'I rather regretted
it afterwards.'
'Of course you did, my dear, and permit me to say that it partly served
you right. Why did you not come to me _at once_? Melbourne is such a
queer place now since the diggings have broken out. There are all sorts
of strange characters and curious people about. It is hardly a place for
a young lady just now, unless under efficient chaperonage.'
Estelle gazed at the kindly old lady, whose eyes at that moment shone
with maternal tenderness for an instant before she answered. Her voice
softened as she said--
'You must remember, as no doubt Miss Dacre told you, that I came to
Australia for a special purpose; and that if I expect to be successful
in my search I cannot afford to let small obstacles stand in my way.'
'Small obstacles! That is very well, but surely you don't intend to go
up to the diggings and to horrid places in the bush all by yourself?'
'That is just what I _do_ intend, my dear Mrs. Vernon,--neither more nor
less. I have thought over the matter scores--yes, hundreds of times--and
I can see no other way. If I merely wished to see the country I might
arrange things differently. But I have one important, principal,
all-absorbing purpose in view. It is my star. I fix my eye on that, and
all other things, even those which appear to be insuperable
difficulties, must give way.'
'Dangers and difficulties, traps and pitfalls, do all those count for
nothing in your list of drawbacks?'
'I must use a man's argument. I see other women have done--are doing the
same--why not I? Suppose I were a sempstress or a poor governess on her
way to an engagement, should I not have to do the same?--to travel
unattended; to take my chance of rough or uncongenial companionship? Why
am I so much more precious than other girls of my age, that I have to be
fenced round with so many precautions?'
'All this is fine talking, my dear Miss Chaloner, and it's very nice of
you to say so; but a young lady of position and fortune cannot--_must
not_--travel about by herself as if she were a barmaid or a music-hall
singer. There _is_ a difference beside that of age and sex--and the
disagreeables--you have no idea of the nature of them.'
'I don't know much about them, though I may partly guess, my dear Mrs.
Vernon, but we Chaloners and Trevanions are said in Cornwall to be an
obstinate race. My mind is made up. I must take a seat in the Ballarat
coach for next Monday.'
'I am afraid you _are_ an obstinate girl,' said Mrs. Vernon
good-naturedly. 'Well, a wilful woman must, I suppose, have her own way.
I have relieved my mind, at any rate. Now the next thing is to see how
we can help you in your perilous adventure. Let me think. Do I know any
Ballarat people? No, but Mr. Vernon does; if not, his friends do, which
comes to the same thing.'
'I hope that you won't take all this trouble about me,' said Estelle
earnestly. 'I know how to get there, with my own unaided intelligence.
You would be surprised how much I know about Port Phillip from books and
newspapers.'
'And you are bent upon acquiring your own colonial experience? Well, my
dear, it may be all for the best in the end; but if you were a daughter
of mine I should not have one happy moment from the time I lost sight of
you till you returned. Do you know any one at Ballarat, or have you
letters to people there?'
'There is one gentleman there whom I seem to know quite well through my
cousin's letters. He was never tired of praising him. He spoke of him as
his best friend. His name was Charles Stirling. He was a banker. Then
there was a Mr. Hastings, and John Polwarth, Lance's partner,--both
miners.'
'A banker and two miners! Chiefly young and unmarried, I suppose. And
are these all your introductions in a strange town, and that town
Ballarat, you dear innocent lamb that you are? Well, well; we have five
days before us. Mr. Vernon will be home to dinner at seven, and we can
have a council of war. Here comes afternoon tea, after which we go for a
drive if you are not tired.'
'I am not in the least tired,' replied Estelle. 'And now that my
departure is decided upon I am ready for anything.'
So the carriage was ordered out--a costly enough equipage in those days
of unexampled enhancement of prices--the three-hundred-guinea pair of
horses that consumed oats at twelve shillings a bushel and hay at
seventy pounds a ton, driven by a coachman at three pounds a week. But
Mr. Vernon was a merchant who had made one fortune by the lucky cargoes
of mining necessaries, and was fast making another by gold-buying. Such
an additional item of expense as a carriage for his wife was the merest
bagatelle.
So the ladies drove to St. Kilda for a breath of sea air, taking the
Botanic Gardens on their way back, where there was a flower-show
patronised by His Excellency, Mr. Latrobe, and all the rank and fashion
of the metropolis, chiefly represented by a few squatters and club men,
with a sprinkling of gold commissioners on leave.
Mrs. Vernon was not averse to the company of so distinctly
aristocratic-looking a damsel as Estelle Chaloner, whose appearance,
quietly dressed as she was, elicited, in that day of matrimonial
competition and proportional scarcity of young ladies, endless admiring
comment.
At dinner, for which they had barely time to dress, they were enlivened
by the society of Mr. Vernon--a shrewd, good-humoured mercantile
personage--and a gentleman whom he introduced as Mr. Annesley and
described as a Goldfields Commissioner. This last was a very
good-looking and correctly dressed young man, not long from England. He
was in Melbourne, on leave after twelve months' hard work on the
diggings, according to his own account, and had some flavour of the high
spirits and abounding cheerfulness of the naval officer on shore about
him. His host 'drew' him judiciously about mining life and adventure, on
which he was by no means loath to enlarge. He was evidently gratified by
the intense interest with which Estelle listened to his amusing and
justifiably egotistic rattle, and in the innocence of his heart essayed
to complete her subjugation. But, to Estelle's intense regret, he did
not come from Ballarat--'had been quartered in quite a different
district.' She was deeply interested in him, however, as marking a type
with which Lance must necessarily have often come into contact, and she
concluded an agreeable evening, widely different from her expectation of
things Australian, with an assurance from Mr. Vernon that he would bring
her a budget of definite information about Ballarat and its social
condition on the morrow.
Had she been in a position to listen to the conversation of her host and
his guest when she and Mrs. Vernon had retired for the night, and the
gentlemen had adjourned to the smoking-room, she would have scarce slept
so soundly.
'Lance Trevanion? of course I _had_ heard of the beggar,' said the
Commissioner, as he threw himself back in a settee and lighted one of
Mr. Vernon's choice cigars. 'We had a fellow from Ballarat staying at
the camp at Morrison's who had been at the trial and knew all about him.
But how could I tell the poor thing? What a sweet girl she is, by the
way! why, she'll have half Melbourne pursuing her with proposals if she
only lets them see her. Don't know when I've seen such a girl since I
left England. Why she should bother her head about Trevanion now, I
can't imagine.'
'Well, he's her cousin, my wife tells me, for one thing. They were
engaged, it seems, too, before he left home. Sad pity that such a girl
should spoil her chances here and throw herself away. But that's their
nature, we all know. Tell us the tale, Annesley; I never heard.'
'As it was told to me, this was about it. This fellow Trevanion, a
good-looking, well-set-up youngster, seems to have been a bad lot or a
d--d fool, one can hardly say which. Anyhow, he was fond of play, and
got mixed up with a crooked Sydney-side crowd. There was a girl in it,
of course. They won from him, it was said. He, like a young fool,
thought he might choose his own company at an Australian diggings, "all
people out here being alike," or some such rot. The end of it was that
he was run in for horse-stealing, or having a stolen horse in his
possession. Got two years. I've heard since that he was the wrong man,
but the Sergeant--queer card and deuced dangerous, that Dayrell--wanted
a case--the diggers had lost so many horses that they wanted a
conviction. So poor Trevanion had to pay for all.'
'What an infernal shame!' said Mr. Vernon. 'Couldn't anything be done
for him?'
'Well (by Jove, this is a cigar, I must have another by and by), looks
so, doesn't it? But it's necessary to be hard and sharp at the diggings
or the country would go to the devil. Wrong man shopped now and then,
like Tom Rattleton in California, but can't be helped. Ever hear that
yarn? No! Well, I'll just light number two, and here goes: Tom, you must
know, was a bit fastish before he left the paternal halls in another
colony. After one of his escapades, a friend of the family, good fellow,
observes one day, "Tom, it's no use talking, you'll come to be hanged."
"Thank you," says Tom, "I think I'll try San Francisco; this place is
too confined for a man of my talents." Gold at Suttor's Mill had just
been reported.'
'And did he go?'
'Like a bird, with lots of Australian "bloods," as they used to call
them. Had to work their way back before the mast, most of them. Tom had,
anyhow. After the fatted calf had been duly potted, friend of the family
arrives.
'"Hulloa, Tom! home again? Proud to see you, my boy. Safe back to the
old place, hey?"
'"That is so," answered Tom, putting on a little Yankee touch, "do you
remember what you said to me as I was leaving?"
'"No, my boy, what was it?" Friend didn't like to own up, you see.
'"Well, you said I'd come to be hanged, and, by Jove! _I nearly was_ in
'Frisco. _The rope was round my neck_, sure as you're there. Took me for
a gambler who'd shot a man the night before. He turned up in time to be
turned off, or I should have been--well, I _shouldn't_ have been here
to-day."
'Friend turned quite pale, grasped his hand, and sloped. Affecting,
wasn't it?'
'Good story, very,' quoth the host. 'Like Tom Rattleton. Reckless young
beggar he always was--but turned out well afterwards. _Experientia
docet._ Near thing, though. Now, touching this poor girl's cousin.
Nothing earthly will prevent her going to look for him.'
'H--m! Does she know any one in Ballarat?'
'Mr. Charles Stirling, a banker; Hastings and Polwarth, Trevanion's
mates.'
'Charlie Stirling! I've heard of him. Awfully good sort, people say.
Well, he'll do all he can. If she goes up he's the man to break it to
her. Dalton's Sub-Commissioner there. I'll leave a line for him. Between
them both they'll see no harm come to her. Well, Number Two rivals his
predecessor. It's a fair thing, I suppose. Good-night.'
A couple of days were spent pleasantly enough in Melbourne. A few of the
South Yarra notables dropped in, not quite accidentally, to Mrs.
Vernon's afternoon tea, whose manner and appearance rather altered
Estelle's preconceived notion of colonial society. They expressed the
wildest astonishment at hearing that she was about to explore Ballarat,
much as in London might a South Kensington coterie at hearing that a
cherished classmate thought it necessary thus to satisfy her doubts
about the Patagonians or the Modoc Indians, always ending their politest
commiseration with an invitation.
Finally, all entreaties proving unavailing, Estelle was driven in before
sunrise, and at 6 A.M. found herself on the box-seat of the Ballarat
coach, specially commended to the care of Mr. Levi, the driver, who was
waiting for the clock of the Melbourne post-office to strike,
preparatory to the customary sensational start of Cobb and Co.'s team of
well-groomed, high-conditioned grays.