“There is,” he continued accordingly, in an altered tone, “another thing to consider — the Professor’s curiosity. He means getting a sight of the vase, and, like the indelicate little boy, he won’t be happy, you know, till he does get it. If you went away, he’d apply to Mr. M’Ilwraith straight. Then the cat would be out of the bag — and the Professor out of your visiting list!”
With a sudden sob Mrs. M’Ilwraith raised her hands to her face. “Then what am I to do?” she wailed.
Nettleship bounded from his chair, knelt before her, took her hands in his, and looked earnestly in the wretched lady’s face.
“Give me Elaine — for my Indian vase!”
Oh, beyond all doubt it was the most infamous, impudent price ever quoted in even our marriage market... And yet — Mrs. M’Ilwraith bowed her head.
The game was won.
“You rule Mr. M’Ilwraith in such matters with an absolute rule, do you not?” said Ned, a few minutes later.
Mrs. M’Ilwraith confessed to that.
“Then we must approach him together. I have not time to go to the Temple and dress and come back. May I stop as I am? Thank you. Then we’ll back each other up after dinner, and together we’ll carry our point in five minutes; and then I’ll bring the what’s-its-name in the morning. Is it agreed?” —
Again Mrs. M’Ilwraith bowed her head.
“I have scored,” said Ned to Elaine, in the private moment that was granted them before he left the house. “I was a brute about it, I know; but I scored.”
“You generally do,” Elaine returned, with liquid eyes.
“Ah! But it was a better score than that the other day, if that’s what you’re driving at. Better bowling, I assure you.”
He paused, surveyed the lovely girl before him, inwardly congratulated himself for a lucky rascal, and added with the utmost candour —
“And a better match, too!”
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE COLONY.
THAT is never a nice moment when your horse knocks up under you, and you know quite well that he has done so, and that to ride him another inch would be a cruelty — another mile a sheer impossibility. But when it happens in the bush, the moment becomes more that negatively disagreeable; for you may be miles from the nearest habitation, and an unpremeditated bivouac, with neither food nor blankets, demands a philosophic temperament as well as the quality of endurance. This once befell the manager of Dandong, in the back-blocks of New South Wales, just on the right side of the Dandong boundary fence, which is fourteen miles from the homestead. Fortunately Deverell, of Dandong, was a young man, well used, from his boyhood, to the casual hardships of station life, and well fitted by physique to endure them. Also he had the personal advantage of possessing the philosophic temperament large-sized. He dismounted the moment he knew for certain what was the matter. A ridge of pines — a sandy ridge, where camping properly equipped would have been perfect luxury — rose against the stars a few hundred yards ahead. But Deverell took off the saddle on the spot, and carried it himself as far as that ridge, where he took off the bridle also, hobbled the done-up beast with a stirrup-leather, and turned him adrift.
Deverell, of Dandong, was a good master to his horses and his dogs, and not a bad one to his men. Always the master first, and the man afterwards, he was a little selfish, as becomes your masterful man. On the other hand, he was a singularly frank young fellow. He would freely own, for instance, that he was the luckiest man in the back-blocks. This, to be sure, was no more than the truth. But Deverell never lost sight of his luck, nor was he ever ashamed to recognise it: wherein he differed from the average lucky man, who says that luck had nothing to do with it. Deverell could gloat over his luck, and do nothing else — when he had nothing else to do. And in this way he faced contentedly even this lonely, hungry night, his back to a pine at the north side of the ridge, and a short briar pipe in full blast.
He was the new manager of Dandong, to begin with. That was one of the best managerships in the colony, and Deverell had got it young — in his twenties, at all events, if not by much. The salary was seven hundred a year, and the homestead was charming. Furthermore, Deverell was within a month of his marriage; and the coming Mrs. Deverell was a girl of some social distinction down in Melbourne, and a belle into the bargain, to say nothing of another element, which was entirely satisfactory, without being so ample as to imperil a man’s independence. The homestead would be charming indeed in a few weeks, in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, the “clip” had been a capital one, and the rains abundant; the paddocks were in a prosperous state, the tanks overflowing, everything going smoothly in its right groove (as things do not always go on a big station), and the proprietors perfectly delighted with their new manager. Well, the new manager was somewhat delighted with himself. He was lucky in his work and lucky in his love — and what can the gods do more for you? Considering that he had rather worse than no antecedents at all — antecedents with so dark a stain upon them that, anywhere but in a colony, the man would have been a ruined man from his infancy — he was really incredibly lucky in his love affair. But whatever his parents had been or had done, he had now no relatives at all of his own: and this is a great thing when you are about to make new ones in an inner circle: so that here, once more, Deverell was in his usual luck.
It does one good to see a man thoroughly appreciating his good luck. The thing is so seldom done. Deverell not only did this, but did it with complete sincerity. Even to-night, though personally most uncomfortable, and tightening his belt after every pipe, he could gaze at the stars with grateful eyes, obscure them with clouds of smoke, watch the clouds disperse and the stars shine bright again, and call himself again and again, and yet again, the very luckiest man in the Colony.
While Deverell sat thus, returning thanks on an empty stomach, at the northern edge of the ridge, a man tramped into the pines from the south. The heavy sand muffled his steps; but he stopped long before he came near Deverell, and threw down his swag with an emancipated air. The man was old, but he held himself more erect than does the inveterate swagman. The march through life with a cylinder of blankets on one’s shoulders, with all one’s worldly goods packed in that cylinder, causes a certain stoop of a very palpable kind; and this the old man, apparently, had never contracted. Other points slightly distinguished him from the ordinary run of swagmen. His garments were orthodox, but the felt wideawake was stiff and new, and so were the moleskins, which, indeed, would have stood upright without any legs in them at all. The old man’s cheeks, chin, and upper lip were covered with short gray bristles, like spikes of steel; his face was lean, eager and deeply lined.
He rested a little on his swag. “So this is Dandong,” he muttered, with his eyes upon the Dandong sand between his feet. “Well, now that I am within his boundary-fence at last, I am content to rest. Here I camp. To-morrow I shall see him!”
Deverell, at the other side of the ridge, dimming the stars with his smoke, for the pleasure of seeing them shine bright again, heard presently a sound which was sudden music to his ears. The sound was a crackle. Deverell stopped smoking, but did not move; it was difficult to believe his ears. But the crackle grew louder; Deverell jumped up and saw the swag-man’s fire within a hundred yards of him; and the difficult thing to believe in then was his own unparalleled good luck.
“There is no end to it,” he chuckled, taking his saddle over one arm and snatching up the waterbag and bridle. “Here’s a swaggie stopped to camp, with flour for a damper and a handful of tea for the quart-pot, as safe as the bank! Perhaps a bit of blanket for me too! But I am the luckiest beggar alive; this wouldn’t have happened to any one else!”
He went over to the fire, and the swagman, who was crouching at the other side of it, peered at him from under a floury palm. He was making the damper already. His welcome to Deverell took a substantial shape; he doubled the flour for the damper. Otherwise the old tramp did not gush.
Deverell did the talking. Lying at full length on t
he blankets, which had been unrolled, his face to the flames, and his strong jaws cupped in his hands, he discoursed very freely of his luck.
“You’re saving my life,” said he gaily. “I should have starved. I didn’t think it at the time, but now I know I should. I thought I could hold out, between belt and ‘baccy; but I couldn’t now, anyhow. If I hold out till the damper’s baked, it’s all I can do now. It’s like my luck! I never saw anything look quite so good before. There now, bake up. Got any tea?”
“Yes.”
“Meat?”
“No.”
“Well, we could have done with meat, but it can’t be helped. I’m lucky enough to get anything. It’s my luck all over. I’m the luckiest man in this Colony, let me tell you. But we could have done with chops. Gad, but I’d have some yet, if I saw a sheep! They’re all wethers in this paddock, but they don’t draw down towards the gate much.”
He turned his head, and knitted his brows, but it was difficult to distinguish things beyond the immediate circle of firelit sand, and he saw no sheep. To be sure, he would not have touched one; he had said what he did not mean; but something in his way of saying it made the old man stare at him hard.
“Then you’re one of the gentlemen from Dandong Station, sir?”
“I am,” said Deverell. “My horse is fresh off the grass, and a bit green. He’s knocked up, but he’ll be all right in the morning; the crab-holes are full of water, and there’s plenty of feed about. Indeed, it’s the best season we’ve had for years — my luck again, you see!”
The tramp did not seem to hear all he said. He had turned his back, and was kneeling over the fire, deeply engrossed with the water-bag and the quart-pot, which he was filling. It was with much apparent preoccupation that he asked:
“Is Mr. Deverell the boss there now?”
“He is.” Deverell spoke drily, and thought a minute. After all, there was no object in talking about himself in the third person to a man who would come applying to him for work the next day. Realising this, he added, with a touch of dignity, “I’m he.”
The tramp’s arm jerked, a small fountain played out of the bottle neck of the water-bag and fell with a hiss upon the fire. The tramp still knelt with his back to Deverell. The blood had left his face, his eyes were raised to the pale, bright stars, his lips moved. By a great effort he knelt as he had been kneeling before Deverell spoke; until Deverell spoke again.
“You were on your way to see me, eh?”
“I was on my way to Dandong.”
“Wanting work? Well, you shall have it,” said Deverell, with decision. “I don’t want hands, but I’ll take you on; you’ve saved my life, my good fellow; or you’re going to, in a brace of shakes! How goes the damper?”
“Well,” said the old man, answering Deverell’s last question shortly, but ignoring his first altogether. “Shall I sweeten the tea or not?”
“Sweeten it.”
The old man got ready a handful of tea and another of sugar to throw into the quart-pot the moment the water boiled. He had not yet turned round. Still kneeling, with the soles of his boots under Deverell’s nose, he moved the damper from time to time, and made the tea. His hands shook.
Deverell made himself remarkably happy during the next half-hour. He ate the hot damper, he drank the strong tea, in a way that indicated unbounded confidence in his digestive powers. A dyspeptic must have wept for envy. Towards the end of the meal Deverell discovered that the swagman, who sat remote from the fire, and seemed to be regarding him with extreme interest, had scarcely broken his bread.
“Aren’t you hungry?” asked Deverell, with his mouth full.
“No.”
But Deverell was, and that, after all, was the main thing. If the old man had no appetite, there was no earthly reason for him to eat; his abstinence could not hurt him under the circumstances, and naturally it did not worry Deverell. If, on the other hand, the old man preferred to feed off Deverell — with his eyes — why, there was no accounting for preferences, and that did not worry Deverell either. Indeed, by the time his pipe was once more in blast, he felt most kindly disposed towards this taciturn tramp. He would give him a billet. He would take him on as a rabbiter, and rig him out with a tent, camp fixings, traps, and perhaps even a dog or two. He would thus repay in princely fashion to-night’s good turn — but now, confound the thing! He had been sitting the whole evening on the old fool’s blankets, and the old fool had been sitting on the ground!
“I say! Why on earth don’t you come and sit on your own blankets?” The young man spoke a little roughly; for to catch oneself in a grossly thoughtless act is always irritating.
“I am all right here, thank you,” returned the swagman mildly. “The sand is as soft as the blankets.”
“Well, I don’t want to monopolise your blankets, you know,” said Deverell, without moving. “Take a fill from my pouch, will you?”
He tossed over his pouch of tobacco. The swag-man handed it back; he did not smoke; had got out of the way of it, he said. Deverell was disappointed. He had a genuine desire at all times to repay in kind anything resembling a good turn. He could not help being a little selfish; it was constitutional.
“I’ll tell you what,” said he, leaning backward on one elbow, and again clouding the stars with wreaths of blue smoke, “I’ve got a little berth that ought to suit you down to the ground. It’s rabbiting. Done any rabbiting before? No. Well, it’s easy enough; what’s more, you’re your own boss. Catch as many as you can or care to, bring in the skins, and get sixpence each for ‘em. Now the berth I mean is a box-clump, close to a tank, where there’s been a camp before, and the last man did very well there; still you’ll find he has left plenty of rabbits behind him. It’s the very spot for you; and look here, I’ll start you with rations, tent, camp-oven, traps, and all the rest of it!” wound up Deverell generously. He had spoken out of the fulness of his soul and body. He had seldom spoken so decently to a pound-a-week hand — never to a swagman. Yet the swagman did not jump at the offer.
“Mr. Deverell,” said he, rolling the name on his tongue in a curious way, “I was not coming exactly for work. I was coming to see you. I knew your father!”
“The deuce you did!” said Deverell.
The old man was watching him keenly. In an instant Deverell had flushed up from his collar to his wideawake. He was manifestly uncomfortable. “Where did you know him?” he asked doggedly.
The tramp bared his head; the short gray hair stood crisply on end all over it. He tapped his head significantly, and ran the palm of his hand over the strong bristles of his beard.
“So,” said Deverell, drawing his breath hard. “Now I see; you are a brother convict!”
The tramp nodded.
“And you know all about him — the whole story?”
The tramp nodded again.
“By God!” cried Deverell, “if you’ve come here to trade on what you know, you’ve chosen the wrong place and the wrong man!”
The tramp smiled. “I have not come to trade upon what I know,” said he quietly, repeating the other’s expression with simple sarcasm. “Now that I’ve seen you, I can go back the way I came; no need to go on to Dandong now. I came because my old mate asked me to find you out and wish you well from him: that was all.”
“He went in for life,” said Deverell, reflecting bitterly. “I have the vaguest memories of him; it happened when I was so very young. Is he well?”
“He was.”
“And you have been in gaol together! And you know what brought him there, the whole story!” Curiosity crept into the young man’s tone, and made it less bitter. He filled a pipe. “For my part,” he said sadly, “I never had the rights of that story.”
“There were no rights,” said the convict. “It was all wrong together. Your father robbed the bank of which he himself was manager. He had lost money in mining speculations. He took to the bush, and fought desperately for his life.”
“I’m glad he did that!”
exclaimed Deverell.
The other’s eyes kindled, but he only said, “It was what any one would have done in his place.”
“Is it?” answered Deverell scornfully. “Did you, for instance?”
The old man shrugged his shoulders. Deverell laughed aloud. His father might have been a villain, but he had not been a coward. That was one consolation.
A silence fell between the two men. There were no more flames from the fire, but only the glow of red-hot embers. This reddened the face of Deverell, but it did not reach that of the old man. He was thus free to stare at Deverell as hard and as long as he liked, and his eyes never left the young man’s face. It was a sufficiently handsome face, with eyes as dark as those of the old man, only lightened and brightened by an expression altogether different. Deverell’s pipe had soothed him. He seemed as serene now as he had been before he knew that his companion had been also the companion of his father — in prison. After all, he had grown up with the knowledge that his father was a convicted felon; to be reminded of it casually, but also privately, was not to receive a new wound; and the old one was too old to smart severely at a touch. The tramp, staring at him with a fierce yearning in his eyes, which the young man could not see, seemed to divine this, but said:
“It cannot be pleasant for you to see me. I wouldn’t have come, only I promised to see you; I promised to let him hear about you. It would have been worse, you know, had he got out on ticket-of-leave, and come himself!”
“It would so!” cried Deverell sincerely.
In the dark, the old man grinned like one in torment.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 401
