A COLONIAL REFORMER

A
COLONIAL REFORMER

BY
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
AUTHOR OF ‘ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,’ ‘THE SQUATTER’S DREAM,’
‘THE MINER’S RIGHT,’ ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1890

[CHAPTER XV]
[CHAPTER XVI]
[CHAPTER XVII]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XIX]
[CHAPTER XX]
[CHAPTER XXI]
[CHAPTER XXII]
[CHAPTER XXIII]

[CHAPTER XV]

Mr. Neuchamp was disposed to be wroth with himself when he discovered that he was looking forward with considerable interest to a much-talked-of ball, by which the Count von Schätterheims had resolved to mark his appreciation of the kindness which he had received at the hands of the Sydney ‘upper ten.’ Why should he feel gratified, Ernest asked himself, at the prospect of joining in an entertainment at best but a réchauffé of numberless affairs of the class which he had assisted at and despised in England? A ball—a mere ball—a stale repetition of the meaningless crust—the saltatory, amatory, and gustatory simulacra of pleasure, which he had long since renounced and abandoned. An entertainment chiefly composed of people he didn’t know, and given by a man whom he did not like.

He finally disposed of the affair in his own mind by the summary, if illogical, decision, that he must regard himself, in respect of his late banishment from the world, in the light of a sailor after a protracted cruise, gifted with abnormal powers of assimilation and digestion, mental and physical.

Even in moments of sternest self-analysis men are not infrequently insincere and evasive. Perchance not consciously. Were the moral processes incapable of such inflections, Ernest Neuchamp could never have concealed the fact from himself that he chiefly wished to attend this much-abused festivity, to which he had received a formal and ornate card, inclusive of the arms and crest of the noble family of Von Schätterheims, because it would be graced by the presence of Antonia Frankston.

Ernest did not find the very excellent dinner of which he partook at the club on the evening of the ball in any degree less palatable because of this mental conflict. He arrayed himself in the wampum and warpaint proper for such engagements as manufactured by Mr. Poole, of Saville Row, which decorations indeed had narrowly escaped being left behind as a superfluous part of his outfit at Neuchampstead. After a careful toilet he awaited in a slightly unphilosophical state of mind the arrival of the Frankston carriage, which was to call for him.

Punctually at ten the highly effective bays contributed their particular quota of gravel-scratching to the enormous aggregate of road friction which pervaded Sydney on that night, and Mr. Neuchamp, placed opposite to a wrapped and draped cloud of diaphanous material, which he conjectured to be a young lady, and most probably Antonia, from the similarity of voice, was whirled off towards the gate of happiness. Before they could approach that enchanted portal they became sensible of a line of lamp lit vehicles apparently several miles long, at the remote end of which they were compelled to await the gradual debouching of the leading files. The opportunity was favourable for conversation, and Miss Frankston having disengaged apparently so much of her envelope as permitted free egress to her words, they commenced—

‘What a lovely night! I was so afraid it would rain. I am sure it will be the most delightful ball we have ever had. I feel certain I shall enjoy myself immensely. It is ages since I have been to a dance.’

‘I hope your anticipations may be realised,’ quoth Ernest. ‘Captain Cook was here, I think, when I last went to one. I had ceased to think them rational amusements long before I left home.’

‘Oh! but then you are really dissipated in England, if what we hear of a London season be correct,’ said Antonia. ‘Two or three balls a night, and some engagement at least once every night. What girl could stand that? Now we poor colonists have perhaps two or three a month in our gayest time, and now and then, as now, one in half a year.’

‘Well, doubtless the degree of dissipation makes some difference,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, ‘and I do not mind owning that I feel as I used to feel; as Hood’s seamstress says, before I knew the words of “drums and matinées, crushes and staircase charges, with all the melancholy melée of supper, when nobody could eat if they had any appetite, or could have appetite if they would eat.”’

‘You are not in a very promising state of mind,’ said Antonia, ‘so I think I can provide you with plenty of real dancing, if you wish, plenty of nice partners, not anything dangerous in the way of crush; and if you take me in to supper, I will guarantee you something to eat.’

‘Well done,’ said Paul; ‘I’ll back you up in all you have said. Ernest will see no end of nice girls, who will dance him off his legs, unless he’s very fit indeed; I think the music isn’t bad, and Dettmann generally gives you something worth eating, and, more particularly, drinking. I’m the man to be pitied.’

‘Why, you naughty papa?’ said the veiled figure.

‘Because just about this time I ought to be smoking my third cigar, and going peacefully to bed, whereby I should wake up with a clear head, a good appetite, and a strong idea that I was going to make some money before noon; instead of which, to-morrow morning, most probably, I shall be slightly feverish, eat no breakfast, and have a general conviction that stocks are going down, discounts rising, and the country going to the bad generally.’

‘Not if you play whist steadily with old Mr. Howler, the Colonel, and Dr. Whyte; get the Colonel for a partner, and you’ll be sure to win.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said the sacrificial parent, ‘but five or six hours are not so easy to dispose of at sixty odd. I foresee that I shall eat and drink imprudently, catch cold, have a highly unpleasant next morning, with a hint of indigestion, bile, and lumbago.’

‘How differently pleasure affects us, at sixteen and sixty,’ observed Ernest with an air of solemn conviction.

‘I call that very cruel,’ said Antonia. ‘I always want papa to let me go with Mrs. Evergreen, but he prefers to martyrise himself, like a dear old papa as he is.’

‘Well, perhaps he likes to look at his little girl enjoying herself,’ said old Paul. ‘I can weather it out yet, perhaps better than I say. I was fond enough of fun myself, and have had some strange dances in strange places, with strange company. I remember once——’

‘Come, papa!’ said the veiled prophetess warningly.

‘Well, only this one; we shall soon be out. I was once down in New Zealand, in the old times, long enough ago, before the gold and the Government, and just as we went ashore at Motiki we heard that the principal Pakeha-Maori, an old sea-captain of course, was going to give a dance and a grand spread. We were wild for fun of course; been out thirteen months. Well, the old boy, a grizzled, hard-weather-looking old sea-dog, asked us all, captain, supercargo, and officers.’

‘I daresay it was very characteristic,’ said Ernest; ‘what were the ladies like?’

‘Well, a majority of the wives and daughters of the British settlers were Maoris. It was very rich land, and old Blackbeard had secured a considerable slice. He had a Maori wife, and ever so many daughters. The youngest was a great beauty, splendid eyes, such a figure, and so on; I was quite a youngster, and bashful, so I said to the old skipper, “Please introduce me to your youngest daughter, Captain Blackbeard.” The old pirate looked at me for a minute from under his grizzled eyebrows, and then growled out—“How do you suppose I introduced myself to her mother? go and hail the craft yourself”—which I did, and I never wish——’

‘Papa!’ said Antonia, with great distinctness of intonation. ‘Here we are at the step. Please go first, and you will give me room to extricate myself.’

Mr. Frankston delivered himself upon the carpet spread from hall to staircase with an adroitness which seemed a reminiscence of old seamanship, and following Miss Frankston and her father, Mr. Neuchamp entered the first ballroom in Australia which had been honoured by his presence.

Close to the door of a nobly proportioned, brilliantly lighted, profusely decorated, and extremely well-filled apartment, stood their noble friend and host, gorgeously attired in the uniform of a colonel of Landwehr, and shining like a constellation of the first magnitude among the more unpretending naval and regimental officers then quartered and stationed at Sydney.

As he took the hand of Miss Frankston, and bowed low over it, with an assumption of chivalrous deference, only permitted to a foreigner, Ernest felt a mad desire to then and there kick him down the stairs of his own ballroom. Controlling this perhaps not strictly defensible impulse, he drew back, as the Count shook Paul’s hand with a delicate yet cordial deference appropriate to an honoured father in prospect, and evidently, to that nobleman’s astonishment, bowed very stiffly and followed his friends. A large family party, including half a dozen smiling and whispering girls, evidently delighted by the cordial welcome they experienced from their distinguished entertainer, covered his retreat. The night was superbly beautiful. At no great distance lay the slumbering sea-lake; while over the silver plain clusters of glancing lights gleamed, beneath the broad illuminated balcony of the ballroom. Unless Ernest’s heart had been much more ill at ease than circumstances rendered possible, it would have been hard at his time of life for aught but pleasure, for a little space, to bear sway.

The floor was perfection; the music, that of a military band, which had but the year before played in the great square at Pera, which had been at the front during the terrible northern campaign, yet fresh in men’s minds, well coached by a music-loving, fastidious colonel, was pealing out the ‘Schöner blauer Donau’ with wondrous time and spirit.

Mr. Neuchamp had been sufficiently awake to his opportunities to engage Antonia for the first deux-temps valse after they entered the room, and the after-supper galop, taking his chance of anything intermediate. ‘That is good music,’ said he; ‘I heard it in Vienna last. Suppose we join these very sincere performers.’

Antonia replied by a frank smile of assent, and as he took one comprehensive glance over face and figure ere he clasped the slight yielding waist, he thought he had consistently underrated her beauty.

The light was of course eminently favourable to her clear though colourless complexion; her eyes, sparkling with frank unstudied enjoyment of the entertainment, shone with unwonted lustre, while the perfection of her slight but rounded figure was clearly apparent; and as they swept adown the crowded hall Mr. Neuchamp, though he had not been numbered among the lavender-kid-wearing tribe of modern youth of late years, danced very well, and we may add looked very well, in that much-abused, but as yet unsuperseded garb, than which no other befits so well a gentleman on evening pleasure bent. Perhaps we have not devoted sufficient space heretofore to the limning of the hero’s personal charms and graces. These were perhaps sufficient though not remarkable.

Ernest Neuchamp, somewhat above the middle height, had, without any particular athletic ostentation, the square form and well-knit figure of an ordinary English aristocrat. Though possessing more endurance than strength, he by no means fell short of that necessary endowment. One saw fairly regular features, comprising a pair of searching grayish blue eyes, very multiform as to expression, a clear-cut firm mouth, and light-brown hair inclining to curl, which I need not say was very closely cut on the present occasion. Brown-bearded, and rather sunburned, as to his original delicate complexion, he was by no means a bad representation, had he donned armour, of one of his crusading ancestors just returned from Ascalon or Engadi with all the prestige of a good knight and a whole heart for the ladye-fayre, who awaited his coming amid her bower-maidens.

As it was he was restricted to the simple dress, the simple speech, of a modern English gentleman, yet was there about him a freshness, sincerity, and unassumed refinement of manner not unlike that of the best class of naval men, which made him extremely acceptable to women, and which Antonia Frankston in her heart of hearts had always recognised.

The dance was not a particularly short one. Ernest was in reasonably good training after his up-country experience, and Antonia was one of those rare—too rare danseuses that unite in perfection time, pace, grace, and staying power. She could fly down the crowded ballroom properly supported by a partner de la première force, halt, turn, glide in and amid the labyrinth of dancers, without thought or question of collision. Instinctively true to every note of the music, to every movement of her partner, she seemed as if she possessed the latent power and tireless speed of Atalanta of old, did she but deign to exert them.

The music ceased, annotated by a very audible sigh on the part of Ernest, who was impelled to say that he never expected to enjoy a dance again so much as long as he lived.

‘There is nothing like dancing,’ said Antonia, apparently as cool as a statuette. ‘But I think the balcony will be pleasanter. I must show you all the people.’

In their path was a portly white-waistcoated personage of placid and smiling aspect, who, bestowing upon Antonia a most respectful bow, shook Ernest’s hand warmly.

‘Ah, Neuchamp, my dear fellow, delighted to see you. Not bought a run yet? You’re losing splendid opportunities. Let Gammon Downs slip through your fingers—eh? Sold it to Rawson and Rowdy since. Great bargain.’

‘Indeed!’ said Ernest, smiling. ‘Well, they are the best judges of their own line of action. How are they doing? Making lots of money?’

‘Well, they ought to—ought to—but I’m afraid they’re not very good managers. Rawson’s rather slow—Rowdy’s too fast. However, I can’t help that. Do you happen to want a crack run, my dear Neuchamp? I’ve got Brigalow Park and Mallee Meadows for sale, a real bargain; quite a——’

‘Not just at present,’ said Ernest, preparing to move past. ‘See you at the club. The Count seems to be enjoying himself—who is the lady?’ This last observation was elicited by the appearance of the noble host, who passed at a little distance with a very handsome and magnificently dressed girl upon his arm, talking in the most empressé manner; while she, conscious of being at that moment an object of envy to the great majority of her sex, there and then present, listened with apparent pleasure.

‘Oh, that’s Miss Folleton, of Fairmount. Fine girl, isn’t she? Will have forty thousand on her wedding-day,’ said Selmore, who knew everybody and everything; or said he did, which was much the same. ‘Not that Von Schätterheims cares for that. Immense property of his own, vast estates in Silesia, nearly as many sheep as Esterhazy—- that’s why he comes out here. Thinks of investing—met him abroad myself.’

‘Indeed,’ said Ernest; ‘haven’t you anything that will suit him?’

‘Well,’ said Selmore, looking, for him, slightly confused and glancing at Antonia, who was regarding him critically, ‘I told him that Mallee Meadows and the other place might suit him, but he wants a resident partner. How would you like to go in with him? You’re just the man that would suit him.’

‘Can’t bear partners,’ replied Ernest shortly; ‘I am afraid his highness and I wouldn’t agree. I think I see a seat, Miss Frankston.’

‘I dislike that man intensely,’ said Antonia, as they moved on. ‘I think him so selfish and unprincipled. I wonder if he has inveigled the Count into one of his bargains, as he calls them?’

‘From a cursory examination of your high-born friend’s conversation,’ said Ernest, ‘I think he may be trusted to take care of himself in matters of finance, as indeed is the case with most foreigners.’

‘Now, is not that a very prejudiced though English speech? You cannot really believe that because a man is born on the continent of Europe he must be less trustworthy than any one from that wonderful little island of yours?’

‘I didn’t say so; I ought to qualify such a wholesale sentiment. Whether the right sort of foreigner does not emigrate I cannot tell. But the idea has struck others besides myself, and I must confess to a “Dr. Fell” sort of instinctive feeling about our distinguished friend.’

‘Sheer prejudice and perhaps the least bit of jealousy, shall I say, on your part,’ continued Antonia.

‘But why jealousy?’

‘Well, I mean it to apply to all of you men who run down the poor Count so. We are all great admirers of him, and that, I am afraid, does not make him popular with your sex. Here’s Mr. Croker coming to claim me for the next dance. There now, he’ll abuse him—but he does that about everybody. Are you sure that this is our dance?’ mischievously commenced the young lady, as that gentleman arrived.

‘I think so,’ said Croker superciliously, ‘unless you have a chance of the Count, in which case of course you’ll throw me and Neuchamp over—I expect nothing else.’

‘Not surely if I were engaged to Mr. Jermyn Croker!’ said she; and looking at her programme, ‘I really am engaged to you for the quadrille, but why am I accused of pursuing the Count von Schätterheims?’

‘Because every one runs after him—men, women, and children,’ said Croker. ‘The whole city seems transformed into a sort of Bedlam.’

‘But why do they run after him?’ inquired Miss Frankston.

‘Why?’ repeated Mr. Croker, with an air of ineffable disdain, ‘because they’re all fools, I suppose; except a few, a very few.’

‘And why are they excepted?’ said Ernest, who commenced to be amused at his daring unsparing cynicism.

‘Because they’re mad—stark, staring mad.’

‘Now really, Mr. Croker, don’t you believe about the Count’s great wealth and estates? his charming manner at any rate can’t be put on.’

‘I believe in him. I?’ demanded Croker, with an air of intense and reproachful amazement ludicrous to witness. ‘Do you know what my opinion of the fellow is?’

‘Can’t say, really; something very complimentary to him and diffident on your part, judging from Mr. Croker’s well-known character,’ said Antonia coolly.

‘Well, then, if you will have it,’ said that satirist wrathfully, and as if all necessity for social dissimulation had been obviated, ‘I believe the fellow is an impostor and a swindler; very likely a valet, or a courier, who has bolted with his master’s cash, clothes, and papers. As for his manners, everybody in the country he comes from has the same manner, from the kellner to the kaiser. His accent ought to betray him; but no one here knows German well enough to find it out.’

‘Really, Mr. Croker, you can take away a man’s, a horse’s, or a country’s reputation more completely in less time than any one I ever met. You’re so delightfully bitter that I must dance with you. Come along!’

Left to himself for a while, Mr. Neuchamp devoted his leisure to a survey of the room and the company. He was astonished at the beauty and grace of the lady portion of the guests, and he thought he had never seen anything more graceful than the ease and celerity with which the greater part of the crowd glided in the dance over the polished floor.

The occasional squatter, lounging, but stalwart and dignified, together with the gay uniforms of the soldiers and blue-jackets, gave novelty and contrast to the scene; but the majority of the younger men who belonged to Sydney proper were pale, slight, and rather undignified youngsters, by no means worthy the handsome, stately girls who were fain to accept them as partners. For the rest, the ordinary ballroom routine was not departed from; and Ernest, after another dance or two, was not sorry when the move to supper reminded him to possess himself of Antonia, who had promised him the first following dance.

Nothing in its way could have been more complete than the dangerous and superfluous but fascinating meal. The wines were chosen with a studious care, which reflected the greatest honour upon the Count’s taste and foresight.

The champagne and chicken had been succeeded by fruit and flirtation. The ladies were in expectation of the accustomed signal, when Mr. Hartley Selmore rose, ‘with the permission of his friends, to make a few observations and to propose a toast. Would gentlemen—ay, and ladies too—fill their glasses, and prepare themselves for a toast to which his poor powers were miserably inadequate?’

These preliminary suggestions were cheerfully complied with, as indeed is invariably the case, the cheapest of all compliments being, surely, to drink another glass of wine at the expense of your entertainer. Then, with one hand in the breast of his ample waistcoat, Mr. Selmore smilingly confronted the expectant throng, and with the readiness of a born talker and something of the ease of a trained orator, thus delivered himself:—

Ladies and Gentlemen—One of the first observations that we shall make when we leave this hall will assuredly be that we never spent a pleasanter night in our lives, never saw any festivity more perfect in the arrangement of every detail, never had the good fortune to accept more lavish and splendid yet delicate and graceful hospitality. Then why not say it now? (Cheers and approbation.) Frankly, then, even in the presence of the noble and distinguished personage who has honoured this colony, this city, this society, with his presence, I venture to avow the sentiment of my heart, of every heart, let me say, now beating responsively to these humble expressions of the general feeling. (Loud cheering.) Some of us may have been struck with the wonderful perfection which has accompanied every detail, however small, even to the novel arrangement of the matchless feast we have just arisen from; but who does not know that the master mind, which is capable of conceptions the most vast and varied with regard to the welfare of nations or the march of armies, disdains not to stoop to the peasant’s farm, to the soldier’s shoe-buckle.

When I lead your minds, ladies and gentlemen, to the idea of the characteristics of great generals, of reigning princes, of the blood-royal of one of the most ancient sovereignties of the universe, am I violating any confidence when I state, in corroboration of that half involuntary disclosure, that no one who, like myself, has had the privilege of beholding those royal personages, of marking their prevailing type of feature, can doubt, by comparison with the countenance of our noble entertainer, the Count von Schätterheims, of his near and intimate relationship with that royal house. (Tremendous and enthusiastic cheering, with direction of all eyes upon the Count, whose presumably princely lineaments were as immovably unconscious as if he had been a statue of Kaiser Fritz.)

I may be indiscreet, ladies and gentlemen; I may, carried away by my natural feelings of friendship and by the contagion of your enthusiastic assent to my simple and straightforward statements, have spoken with more frankness than prudence, but my heart forgives me; my noble friend, I feel assured, forgives me; and you, ladies and gentlemen, will, under the circumstances, forgive me also. I have the liveliest pleasure in proposing the health of the Count von Schätterheims.

When the storm of cheering, the volleys of applause, the waving of handkerchiefs, had subsided, the noble Count himself, rather pale, but collected and calm as of custom, rose in his place to return thanks, which feat he performed as follows:—

Latees and Gendlemens—Many very danks.

The return speech had the merit of brevity—perhaps in excess; but as the Count placed his hand on his heart and bowed low thrice, throwing all the expression (and that was a considerable allowance) that he could manage into his eyes, so directed that not only Miss Folleton, but at least six other young ladies, imagined that she alone was the object of those tender and pleading glances, it suddenly struck the assembled crowd that it was an intentional and masterly stroke of mingled humour and consideration. As the band, by preconcerted signal, struck up the glorious and entrancing galop which had been kept in reserve for the after-supper dance, the ladies and the younger men saw another instance of the Count’s marvellous foresight—for them in particular—and once more they joined in general and unmeasured applause.

The Count, who had by this time secured the radiant Miss Folleton, bowed low and led the way to the freshly decorated ballroom, all the approaches to which were filled with the choicest exotics.

Was not it an utterly perfect galop, such as that entrancing after-supper dream-dance with the ‘dear new angel,’ or our favourite friend that used to be, ‘Consule Planco’? Oh, the dances of our lost youth, realising in every gliding sweep and trancing whirl the most exalted conceptions of music, poetry, choregraphic grace, and intoxicating proximity to female loveliness, when, if at any time possible, a fold or two of the jealous marble of reserve is thrown back. Within a fast fleeting hour from this dance of dances did Mr. Neuchamp put Miss Frankston into the carriage attended by her grateful parent, who was truly tired of his life under circumstances of festivity, and dying to get to bed.

‘Ha! Neuchamp,’ said Croker, as he returned to the disenchanted ballroom, ‘you look exhausted. Come and have a parting glass of the Count’s Roederer. I stick to that; we shall never see any more of it, I feel sure.’

‘Why?’ demanded Ernest; ‘you’re rather hard upon our noble entertainer. You allow that his wine is very good.’

‘Good wine costs no more than bad under certain circumstances,’ replied Croker sardonically.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Ernest.

‘Mean! Why, that Yorick and Co. will never see a farthing of their money. I really feel uneasy about our share in the swindle,’ continued Croker, filling a large glass with iced hock, then drinking it slowly and with great apparent relish.

‘Great heavens!’ ejaculated Ernest, ‘I can’t believe it. I won’t taste a drop. And what do you suppose will happen to Von Schätterheims?’

‘The devil only knows, who will probably stick to him for a season staunchly enough. He will make a bolt, or a warrant of extradition, including an assassination and two stupendous jewel robberies, will fetch him.’

‘You are strongly prejudiced,’ said Ernest, deeply shocked and ashamed of his own mild suspicions.

‘Slightly so, perhaps; it runs in my family. I detest all foreigners, and believe them to be capable of anything.’

‘That’s rather hard measure, don’t you think?’

‘Not at all,’ said Croker, finishing the wine. ‘Foreigners are not so madly given to travel as we fools of English people; take my word for it, no foreigner of character and position would come out to an infernal hole of a place like this colony. Your friend Paul seems shaky, slightly apoplectic, or perhaps complaint in the chest; half those mercantile beggars are shams. Daughter gone off very much, looks quite passée. Good-night; I’m off.’

With these few consoling remarks, which Ernest felt much inclined to resent by personal protest, Mr. Jermyn Croker betook himself to the smoking-room of the New Holland, whence, having abused the ball, the guests, the giver, the lights, the decorations, everything, in fact, but the wine, of which he certainly had secured his share, he departed to bed in a consistently uncharitable state of mind with all men.

Paul did not show up at the office next day, and as the afternoon had been fixed for boat-sailing, as a refreshing and suitable recreation to neutralise the somewhat reactionary season which succeeds a ball, Ernest made his way to Morahmee soon after lunch.

There he found Antonia very becomingly dressed in yachting costume, which from its simplicity afforded a telling contrast to the grande tenue of the previous night. Paul, with a couple of sailor-looking men, was down at the jetty, and after a little preliminary trimming and delay in sending for extra ballast, they were all seated and skimming over the bright waters of the harbour, with a light but favourable breeze. Mr. Windsor, invited by particular request of Mr. Frankston, sat forward in company with the crew, and assumed an air of ease and satisfaction which that roamer of the waste was as far from feeling as a pilgrim Bedouin on board a Red Sea steamer.

But no thoughts, save of the most childishly unalloyed happiness, possessed the hearts of Paul Frankston and his daughter. The old man was a born and bred sea-dog, and it was wondrous to mark how his nature rose and became exalted as he found himself upon the familiar element on which the joyous time of youth, the sturm und drang period of his strong manhood, had been passed. Again his eye lightened, and the old gleam of pride and daring spoke from it of the days when he had volunteered for more than one maritime forlorn hope; had consorted gaily with danger; had dared the clubs, the poisoned arrows of cannibal savages; or had cowed a mutinous, scowling crew by the magic of a stern front and a steady pistol. Even his voice was altered, and he gave the slight but necessary orders in a clear peremptory tone of command which Ernest had never heard from his lips before.

For Antonia, she revelled in the free breeze, the brilliant sea and sky, like a happy child, and as a glancing spray fell lightly over them, she carolled forth the refrain of a sea song with a nerve and animation by no means usual.

‘Is not this lovely fresh life a renewal of all one’s senses?’ she cried. ‘I feel as if an additional one, indescribable and amazing, was given to me whenever I am on blue water. You know we are all great sailors and boatmen in this Sydney harbour of ours. Look at the numbers of skiffs, pleasure boats, and yachts that are now skimming about like seamews in all directions.’

‘Rather too many for my fancy. Every now and then accidents occur, plain sailing as everything looks just now. The gusts which come down across these points are like small white squalls.’

‘Ah! but the present, my darling old pappy,’ sighed Antonia, ‘what can possibly be more glorious for mere mortals? Why should we grieve ourselves with the past or possible sorrows? Can anything be more dreamily lovely than that pale amber sky over which the dark blue shadow is creeping from the headland? What can surpass the softly-gliding magical motion with so much swiftness and so little effort? I don’t wonder that a sea life has always gathered to it so much poetry and romance. I fell in love with a pirate once.’

‘With a pirate? Where?’ exclaimed Ernest, surprised out of the placid enjoyment which pervaded the whole party.

‘In a book, of course,’ answered she; ‘you didn’t think we entertained such gallant rovers at Morahmee, except, like angels, unawares? But he was such a delightful creature. I remember the lines still.’

‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind repeating them.’

‘Oh yes. I shall never forget them, I am sure,’ the girl answered, looking seawards. ‘I found them in an old—old—annual. You shall judge:—

‘Our Captain, he is young and fair,

How can he look so young?

His locks of youth, his golden hair,

Are o’er his shoulders flung.

‘Of all the deeds that he has done

Not one has left a trace,

The midnight cup, the noontide sun

Has darken’d not his face.

‘His voice is low, his smile is sweet,

He has a girl’s blue eyes,

And yet far rather would I meet

The storm in yonder skies.

‘The fiercest of our pirate band

Holds, at his name, the breath;

For there is blood on his right hand,

And in his heart is death.

‘He knows he rides upon his grave,

Yet careless is his eye;

He looks with scorn upon the wave,

With scorn upon the sky.’

‘Not a bad conception, I admit,’ said Ernest, ‘though, doubtless, violently untrue to nature. In all ages poets and romance writers, who are humbugs to a man, have laboured to unite personal beauty and winning gentleness of manner with the capacity for remorseless crime. I think, perhaps, that the young Spaniard in Tom Cringle’s Log is as good a specimen of the thoroughbred upstanding pirate as any of those gentry whose acquaintance I have made, like you, in print.’

‘I saw eight-and-thirty of the ruffians strung up in one day, at a Spanish West Indian port, once,’ said Paul. ‘They said their prayers, kissed their crucifixes, and died in the coolest and most edifying way.’

‘And were they very bad men, papa?’

‘Awful scoundrels,’ said her father, with a certain relish, as he recalled the reminiscence. ‘We only escaped them by a miracle; so I felt no compunction in seeing them elevated.’

‘And what became of the ship they did capture?’ inquired Antonia.

‘They took everything of value from the vessel, including a few prisoners they meant to ransom, and then scuttled her, leaving the crew and passengers to perish.’

‘How fiendish! and they were nearly catching my darling old father,’ exclaimed the girl. ‘I must reconsider the question of pirates. But were they all as bad as that, papa?’

‘Worse, if possible,’ said Mr. Frankston uncompromisingly. ‘They knew that there was a rope ready for each man’s neck when he was caught, and this knowledge did not incline them to mercy, you may be sure. Chinamen are perhaps as dangerous rascals, in that line, as you can meet. They are no great sailors; but if you get becalmed in their waters, and a few crowded prahus come round you, your chance is a bad one.’

‘And will they fight?’ inquired Ernest. ‘I thought one jack-tar was worth a dozen of them.’

‘So they are in one way—in a fair fight, or in a case of boarding, or in bad weather. But these vagabonds are very careless of life. They never give quarter and don’t care much about taking it, not being used to it, so you may imagine how they fight. I have seen a fellow fairly cut to pieces before he left off fighting, and I really believed—I was a boy then—that the kriss moved in his clenched hand after the arm was cut off.’

‘In that case they may trouble the world yet,’ affirmed Ernest. ‘A nation of three hundred millions, with sufficient ingenuity to comprehend Whitworth and Snider, and animal courage to fight to the death, might execute another avalanche movement such as when Attila (of kindred blood, we must remember) swept over Europe.’

‘Not in our time, at any rate,’ quoth Paul, with epicurean indifference. ‘Ah Tin will require a deal of drill before that march takes place. Now, then, here we are off Red Point. Suppose we get the lines out and have some fishing.’

The deep-sea lines were produced by the two ‘waterside characters’ who composed the crew, and suitable bait being forthcoming from some mysterious receptacle, the somewhat serious recreation of schnapper-fishing commenced. Perhaps the poetry of the piscatory art cannot be dissociated from the mimic ephemera with which the fisherman of Europe deceives the leaping trout and the king of all river fish, the mighty salmon, as the angler standing under the ruined wall of a Norman stronghold, patiently whips the purling stream which has furnished relays of delicate fare for a thousand years. Nor is his sport heightened by historic association. The captor of Salmo salar passes from stage to stage of doubt, hope, fear, agony, despair, to unspeakable triumph, as after endless patient playing, he draws within reach of the deadly gaff the captive monarch. But, Izaak Walton notwithstanding, a good afternoon’s fishing in or off Sydney harbour, when the deep-sea denizens are fain and fearless, is not to be despised.

Mr. John Windsor was considerably surprised, though he was careful not to show it, as the first fish, a twelve-pound schnapper, came up glancing and glimmering through the clear water at the end of Mr. Frankston’s line. A rock-cod or two, with their brilliant colouring, added to his wondering observation. But he was, perhaps, more nearly driven from his habitual coolness when a yard-long dogfish was dropped into the bottom of the boat, sufficiently near his legs to cause the lower portions of those limbs to shrink and stiffen, as the ocean-Ishmaelite snapped its sharp teeth within an inch of his ankles.

‘I think we must have got about half a boat load,’ said Paul at length, after a continuous course of baiting, lowering, and hauling up. ‘As the day is so fine, we may go through the Heads for a run out, and then turn back and beat home.’

They glided through the comparatively narrow entrance, on either side of which frowns sullenly the vast sandstone promontory, seamed, channelled, and scarped by winter wind and ocean wave, that for ages have raved and dashed against its sentinel form. Southward a mile or two, and still the deep sea rolls on with slow but resistless force against the base of the tremendous, all inaccessible cliffs which frown a hundred fathoms above.

‘I never pass this place,’ said Antonia musingly, ‘without thinking of that heartrending wreck of the Dunbar. A wreck, at best, is a dreadful thing; but think of these poor creatures, as near to their journey’s end as we are now, only to find a death in the midst of angry breakers and rocks and the dread midnight. How many deaths must they have died! God save us all from a fate like this—

‘On the reef of Norman’s woe.’

‘I did hear something about a vessel going on shore with all hands, near the Heads,’ said Ernest. ‘And was this the very place? Was there any carelessness?’

‘Poor Grant was as good a seaman as ever trod plank. I knew him well,’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘He had been first mate of her for years, under old Fleetby, and this was his second voyage in command. He was as smart a man as Charley Carryall, and that is saying a good deal.’

‘What was the cause, then, of the disaster? It seems so near the port of entrance.’

‘It wasn’t weather like this, you may be sure,’ said Paul. ‘Unluckily, after a first-class run, poor Grant made the light, sometime after nightfall, on as misty, driving, dirty a night as ever these old rocks saw. He stood off and on until an hour or so past midnight, when, finding the gale increasing and the wind setting in dead inshore, he determined to run for the Heads, trusting to his own seamanship and his close knowledge of the channel, that he had passed through a score of times in all weathers, at all hours of day and night.’

‘But how could he miss the proper opening?’ asked Ernest.

‘God knows! The weather was awful. The coast just here does change shape a little, as if there was an opening. The ship had been driven in too close ashore; if they saw the lighthouse, her course would bring her stem on to these awful rocks. It seems that they never knew their mistake till they were among the breakers.’

‘And how could that be known?’

‘One man was saved,’ answered Paul. ‘The last thing he saw of poor Grant was forward, in the chains. That was just before she struck. When she did strike she must have gone to pieces in ten minutes, and two hundred passengers, who were dreaming of home and friends, or the sweet sight of shore with the morning sun, ere that sun rose were drifting or mangled corpses.’

‘What a day of mourning it was in Sydney!’ said Antonia; ‘hardly a family in the city but had friends or relations on board. A favourite ship, with a favourite captain, numbers of returning colonists had waited or hurried in order to sail by her.’

‘We must all take our chances, my dear, more particularly those people who are foolish enough to be sailors. Hector Grant met a sailor’s death, and I’ll swear he took his lot coolly when it came, caring more for the poor passengers than himself. For them it was different. I always pitied the landsmen and their families, when I stood a fair chance of going to Davy Jones myself. Hallo! the wind’s shifted two points. There’s an ugly bank, too. It will give us enough to do to get home before the southerly breeze comes up.’

As they commenced to beat back against the breeze, which, appearing to gain strength rapidly, necessitated rather more promptness and seamanship than their outward-bound voyaging had required, Ernest was constrained to admire the coolness and total absence of timidity which Miss Frankston displayed.

Doubtless she was accustomed to boat-sailing and yachting in all its various forms, and was familiar with the eccentricities of the harbour navigation. Still, as the breeze freshened, the sky darkened, and from time to time the spray broke over the tiny cutter, now leaning over till the gunwale dipped, in a manner that did not suit Jack Windsor at all, as the thought obtruded itself that if the southerly gale, which Paul Frankston’s experienced eye looked for, broke over them before they reached the shelter of the solid Morahmee pier they might possibly founder. Ernest wondered if his fair companion fully realised her position, or whether her calm indifference was merely ignorance of the danger.

His mind was set at rest upon the point presently.

‘Papa!’ she said, looking first at the sky and then at the merchant, who, with all the skipper in his stern set face and steady eye, was looking to windward not altogether cheerfully, ‘don’t you think we shall be hard set to get home before the “brickfielder” fall upon us?’

‘I do indeed, darling,’ said the old man. ‘I wish I had been keeping my weather eye open, instead of gossiping about the Dunbar people, poor souls. For all we know, we may make another business of the same sort, in a small way.’

‘Then don’t you think we might carry more sail? You know poor little Haidée here will let you drive her under almost when she’s on a wind, and a knot an hour more may make all the difference.’

‘I think Miss is right, sir,’ said the oldest of the crew, ‘we’ve not a minute to throw away; and if it ain’t coming up heavier and thicker from the south, my name ain’t Johnny Jones.’

As the necessary dispositions were made, Antonia watched keenly and critically the altered motion of the boat, which lay down to the now angry sea, as if every fresh gust would bury her beneath the heaving billow; and having apparently satisfied herself that the maximum of speed, combined with the smallest possible margin of safety, had been attained, lay back and quietly awaited the progress of events.

‘Hers is no soulless insensibility to danger,’ thought Mr. Neuchamp to himself. ‘Rather a full comprehension of risk, and even not improbable loss, dominated by the calm courage which wills and reasons in the face of death.

‘A perfect woman nobly planned

To——’

Mr. Neuchamp was prevented from continuing his quotation by a sudden ejaculation of Mr. Windsor, across whose person, as the boat dipped deeply, a wave of greater magnitude than usual broke and foamed.

‘By the powers!’ exclaimed he, ‘this was never put down in the agreement, or John Windsor wouldn’t have been here. Are you quite sure, sir, we ain’t taking a short cut, and getting away from our regular track? I should like to get out of this trap and walk. I can swim though above a bit, so if we are regularly spilt I may, perhaps, help the young lady.’

‘Do you know what that is?’ asked Mr. Frankston, pointing to a black curved substance out of the water, and apparently belonging to some submarine monster which was proceeding in a parallel direction, and at no great distance.

‘Not a know do I know,’ replied the bushman.

‘It’s the back fin of a shark, and he’s no small one either. He’d pick us up at his leisure, if anything happened to the boat, like a turkey among grasshoppers.’

‘By George!’ said the man of the forest, ‘I wish I was on Ben Bolt now, without saddle or bridle, and him bucking his best, this minute! There is some get away, if anything broke, short of your neck. But here it seems to be the Never-Never country, and no mistake.’

They had made what is nautically called ‘a long board,’ in tacking at immense angles, so as to take fullest advantage of the wind, which seemed to increase rapidly, until something like the foretaste of the fury of a gale was upon them. The sky had darkened; night was not far distant. The sea had risen, and the long-backed rollers made it increasingly difficult for so small a craft to avoid an upset. Nothing but the splendid steering of their skipper, the perfect handling of the crew, combined with the weatherly qualities of the Haidée, gave them the chance of riding it out.

‘Steady all, and look out for your heads while she jibes,’ sung out old Paul. ‘I think we shall fetch smooth water with this tack; if so we’re safe for dinner, with better appetites than usual.’

‘And if not?’ inquired Ernest, with an anxious gaze at Antonia, who sat drenched with spray and pale, but with the most perfect composure visible upon her unmoved features.

‘Did you ever hear tell of one Davy Jones?’ made answer Mr. Frankston, whose furrowed face, torn with anxiety for the fate of his soul’s darling, contradicted the lightness of his tone, ‘for if we are sent back into the gale, we are very like to mess with him this evening.’

And now, as the tiny bark swung round to her altered course, and, lying close up to the wind, flew down with hazardous swiftness towards the entrance to the little bay, which to them was a haven of safety, Ernest, true to his lifelong habit of observation, scanned the faces of his companions with half-unconscious curiosity.

Calm and strong sat the old man, with the tiller in his sinewy hand; his eye was steady, his hand was true, and none could have told by reading his countenance that the life of one he held a thousandfold dearer than his own hung on the balance of a frail boat and a stormy sea.

The two sailors had the ordinary non-committal expression always observable in trained seamen, unvarying apparently, whether a sail be split, a leak be sprung, or a hopeless fire be discovered in the hold.

Mr. Windsor, unconsciously holding on tightly to the thwart upon which he sat, as though looseness of seat might operate prejudicially, as in the countless equine dangers which he had braved, was evidently of opinion, with Panurge, that a cabbage planter was a man to be envied.

On the pale clear-cut features of the Australian maiden sat a wondrous calm, not wholly unmingled with mental exaltation, as of a Greek heroine devoted to death yet favoured of the gods. The wild night breeze had blown back her hair, yet, as she leaned forward and gazed fearlessly at the course, nothing could have improved the statuesque ease and grace of her pose. One of the rare personages who, either from instinctive adaptation or finished training, seem identified with all sea life and adventure from the moment they touch the plank of boat or vessel, she appeared born to rule and glory amid the perils of old Ocean.

As she looked forward into the driving gale, a steady lambent light shining out of her clear dark eyes, Ernest Neuchamp thought he could trace more of the enjoyment that fearless natures extract from danger than of even reasonable apprehension in the girl’s whole mien and bearing.

‘Well, if we are to go down to the shades below,’ thought he, ‘no one appears to have more than a very slight objection to the cruise; Jack and myself, as being mere landsmen, alone excepted. Well, perhaps our luck will pull us through this time.’

As if in response to his unspoken half-thought, half-prayer, Paul Frankston broke the silence by saying with a different tone in his voice from its last intonation, ‘By George! I believe poor little Haidée will do it yet. Yonder’s the point, and I think we shall just be able to slip into the inner cove. Antonia darling, what are you thinking about?’

‘I was thinking of my mother,’ said the girl dreamily, as with an effort she changed her position, and reverted to an everyday expression of face and manner. ‘I wonder if people know one another at once in the spirit world. Papa! I think I must begin to put a check upon your boat-sailing tastes, or you must get a Kanaka crew that can’t be drowned. You are a little too venturous even for me.’

As the boat glided in towards the Morahmee pier, and one by one thankfully exchanged the wet and slippery planks for the solid stonework, the sky darkened yet again, and the storm in its might swept over the angry waste of waters outside of the sheltered nook as if a fresh blast had been unchained among the far south ice fieldss, and had hasted to the gathering where wind and sea revel in their mirth, and where many a tress of mermaiden hair mingles with the trailing ocean sea-flowers.

Mr. Windsor spoke no word until they had nearly reached the garden gate. Then he said respectfully, but firmly, ‘I think I’ve seen all I mean to see of Sydney harbour, sir. I don’t care if I never go fishing again, except off a river bank. If any one says there’s three heads and not two, I shan’t say whether they’re right or wrong. The next time I’m a little tired of being John Windsor I shall stumble against Ben Bolt’s hind-legs; but no more salt-water pleasure parties. I ain’t on. Good-night, sir.’

Miss Frankston did not appear at the dinner-table, but her father and Ernest recompensed themselves for their exertions and anxieties by a comparative liberal use of the wine-cup.

‘Stick to that port, my boy,’ said the old gentleman; ‘one needs a generous wine after our little adventure—and a glass of “hot stopping” won’t do any harm afterwards. It was rather a near thing; fact is, I am not quite cautious enough, and fancy it like old times, when, with a Maori boat’s crew, or these Kanaka fellows, it was next to impossible to be drowned. Drowned! If I’d gone down in my old whaling cruises every time I’ve been in a stove boat, out of sight of the ship, too, I should have been drowned a dozen times.’

‘Are accidents frequent in this port?’ said Ernest.

‘Well, there are not so many as you might expect, considering the number of yachts and sailing boats; but still they occur from time to time. You saw the way the southerly gale came on to-night. Well, with an awkward crew such a boat as ours would have been bottom up now as sure as we sit here. There was Colonel Bigges, who used to live at Point Piper; he was always boating, not a bad hand, but of course, no sailor. “Colonel,” I said, one day, “you will have a trip too many if you don’t mind.”

‘“What makes you think so?” says he; “I’ll sail you for anything you like. I’m going out next Saturday.”

‘Something made me say, “Then don’t take the young ladies out, to oblige me.” He had two daughters, nice pretty girls they were, too. Well, for a wonder, he minded what I said. What was the consequence? His boat was upset a mile from shore; he had two men-servants in the boat; they were drowned. The Colonel only reached land by the help of his sons, who were splendid swimmers. If the girls had been of the party nothing earthly could have saved them.’

CHAPTER XVI

The pleasant days wore on until the less pleasant idea began to take shape in Mr. Neuchamp’s mind that it had become necessary to consider the route once more. This sojourn in Capua could not be indefinitely prolonged. Either he must go back to Garrandilla or he must make purchase of a station on his own account.

After due consideration of the Garrandilla scheme it became apparent that another year of the routine life which he recalled would be unendurably dull, whereas a new station, his own property, a cattle run—for he was resolved to have no other—would abound in novelties, and above all, in opportunities for carrying out his long-cherished plans of reform.

The only difficulty in his path would be Paul’s uncompromising desire to benefit him after his own fashion. For mysterious reasons he had apparently decided that he, Ernest, was not fit to run alone, in a pastoral sense, for another year at least. Mr. Neuchamp steeled himself to attack his provisional guardian on this point on the very next opportunity. He would enlist Antonia upon his side. He would recapitulate the reasons which caused him to consider himself the equal in experience of some pastoralists who had been all their lives in the country. Surely a man did not come ten thousand miles across the sea to a new, not to say unexplored country, to spend his life in looking on! He would press Paul hard. He would convert him, and then, hey for Eldorado, for Arcadia, for Utopia, with laws and ordinances framed by Dictator Ernest Neuchamp.

While at the club, an institution which became more pleasant in his eyes daily, and where he steadily enlarged the number of his acquaintances, he kept his ears open as to opportunities for buying station property advantageously. He had at one time been fixed in the idea of purchasing the cattle station of Mr. Jermyn Croker, about which that sceptical philosopher and Mr. Frankston had interchanged various pleasantries more or less acidulated. But it so chanced that among the honorary members who made their appearance from time to time at the club, and enlivened or impressed its ordinary society, came a squatter from another colony named Parklands.

With this young gentleman Ernest was much taken, and they soon struck up a strong intimacy. Mr. Parklands was Australian-born, but not on that account to be credited with any deficiency of energy; on the contrary, he possessed so much vigour of body and of mind that if he had degenerated in any way (as is a received theory with certain writers), his progenitors must have been perfect steam-engines. He was well known to have explored a very large proportion of the Australian continent, to have formed, managed, bought, or sold at least a score of cattle and sheep stations. His transactions comprised incidentally thousands of cattle and tens of thousands of sheep. He had recently returned from another colony where he had acquired an immense area of newly-discovered country. He was on that account, he stated, ready to sell the remnant of his property in New South Wales on favourable terms.

Lal. Parklands was popular. A good-looking, pleasant fellow, went in for everything—billiards, loo, racquets, dinners, theatres, and balls, with the same zest, energy, and enjoyment which he threw into all his business operations. He strongly advised Ernest to ‘tackle old Frankston,’ as he expressed it, upon the subject of his independence, and to go in for a station on his own hook without delay.

‘It isn’t because I’m selling out myself that I say it,’ he added, ‘but the fact is, cattle are as low as they can possibly be, and the next change must be a rise. What do you say, Croker?’ he asked of that gentleman, who now lounged up. ‘You have had something to do with lowering the people’s spirits about their stock. If you’ll come to Queensland with me next time I want to buy there, I’ll pay your expenses.’

‘It is apparent,’ replied that gentleman, ‘that somebody is sure to swindle Neuchamp, and you may as well do it as any one else. I thought I was to have the honour, from what old Frankston said, but I suppose you have made highly-coloured representations after the manner of cornstalks.’

‘You are fatally wrong, as usual, Jermyn. I’ve made a pot of money out of Rainbar, and if Neuchamp buys it and does as well, he’ll be able to go back to Europe as a successful colonist in no time.’

‘If he takes Mr. Parklands as his model in speculation, management, and conversation, he must succeed in everything he undertakes,’ said Mr. Croker with ironical approbation.

‘Come and have some sherry, old Bitters,’ said Mr. Parklands cheerfully, ‘and then I’ll thrash you at billiards. Never saw an Englishman I couldn’t give points to yet. Can’t lick us.’

Roused by this national reflection, Mr. Croker offered to play for anything he chose to name, and Ernest betook himself to Morahmee. He had determined to open the parallels without delay.

Full of this noble resolution, Mr. Neuchamp only waited until Antonia had departed from the dining-room to commence the momentous project.

‘I begin to feel,’ said he artfully, ‘that my holiday is drawing to a close. I don’t think I ever enjoyed town life thoroughly before. But one can’t always be on furlough. I must join my regiment—must be off to the bush again.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘Nothing much ever goes on at a station until the cold weather sets in. You will find Garrandilla wretchedly dull after club-dinners, ball-going, boat-sailing, and all the rest of it. Even the verandah here is considerably better of a hot evening than those rascally slab huts.’

‘You have been a sailor, Mr. Frankston,’ said Ernest, ‘and you know that when the sailing day comes, and the wind is fair, Jack must get on board. I don’t suppose you find Captain Carryall would make much allowance for lagging.’

‘No, faith. He would need to be a smart fellow to stand before Charley if he kept him humbugging about when the bark was empty and the whaling gear in trim. But you are not shipped as an A.B. anywhere as yet. Make the most of your young life, Ernest, my boy—it won’t come twice.’

‘There is a time for all things,’ rejoined Mr. Neuchamp, who had small reverence for play in the abstract; ‘I came to Australia principally for work, and I shall be uneasy until I am fairly in harness. But without beating about the bush, I am impatient to purchase a place of my own, and unless you are inexorably averse to the step, in which case I should give in, I feel the strongest desire to make a start on my own account.’

‘Why won’t you be content to sail by my orders for a while?’ said Paul, much disturbed. ‘If you knew how many young fellows I have seen ruined all for the want of a little delay, for want of following the caution I have given you, you would not be in such a hurry to risk your fortune on a throw.’

‘But consider,’ said Ernest, perceiving, as he thought, a slight sign of compromise in Paul’s candid face, ‘I am not exactly like other young fellows, with the same intentions. I have had in reality more experience in the time of my novitiate than they have had in double the period. I have had road work, station work, sheep and cattle management. I have had, from peculiar circumstances, more than ordinary advantages of practical teaching, and I do myself consider that unless I am duller than ordinary, I may be trusted to manage a moderate-sized cattle station, if you will help me with your advice in the purchase.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Paul, passing through into the verandah, and lighting the cigar of reflection, ‘I don’t know but that, as you say, you have had rather more luck than common in your apprenticeship. You have been before the mast, too, as we say on board ship, and that is a great help. You are as steady as a church. That’s all to the good, no doubt. But what I am afraid of is a sudden turn in prices—stock can hardly be lower, to be sure. Well, well—you can only risk it. But I don’t want to see you, as I have seen many a good fellow, lose his money and the best years of his life, and either die, go to the devil, or settle down to the banishment of an overseer’s berth.’

‘Like poor old Geoffrey Hasbene,’ said Ernest; ‘I don’t think I could quite endure that, though the old fellow is resigned enough.’

‘I remember him well enough,’ said Paul; ‘it’s a good while since I heard his name. I have seen him ruffling it with the best, and the owner of a good station. He was not very fast either.’

‘And what ruined him?’

‘Partly bad luck, partly a careless, easy-going disposition. He thought more of his house, his stables, and his garden than he did of his stock, and that was the end of it. Mind you take warning by him.’

‘I hope I shall—but now that you think I may really make an attempt to fly off the nest, might we not settle something about the probability of a purchase to-night?’

‘Yes—perhaps—yes,’ answered Paul, seating himself with a resigned and gloomy air. ‘I suppose you have heard of a place or two at the club. There’s a good deal of business done there. Has Jermyn Croker said anything to you further?’

‘Scarcely, but a young squatter named Parklands has a place that seems suitable; he appears a nice fellow enough.’

‘Oh! young Parklands—humph! Very nice boy—quite sharp enough, but I don’t suppose could let you in very extensively. Well, I’ll inquire to-morrow; better leave that part of it to me. I’ll see about Croker’s place also. Plenty of time. Market full of sellers, and very few buyers. Cash very scarce. But that’s all in your favour. Antonia!’

‘Here, papa,’ said that young lady, joining them. ‘What is the matter? has anything happened, that you look so serious?’

‘Well, that’s as it may be; Ernest here is bent upon buying a station at once, and I have been trying to show him the prudence of waiting.’

‘But he can’t wait years and years,’ said Antonia, taking, to Mr. Neuchamp’s great joy, her powerful aid to his side of the suit. ‘I don’t think you would have done it either, you impetuous old dear; didn’t some one run away to sea like a naughty boy, and come back in a ship of his own—eh?’

‘And suppose I did, you saucy puss, didn’t I run the risk of being drowned, starved, burned, roasted alive, and all sorts of deaths; and if I had a son, I should think it my duty to warn him against the sea, as the worst profession in the world.’

‘And he would think it his duty to go in spite of you. Not that Mr. Neuchamp would do anything contrary to your advice, I am sure,’ said Antonia with a becoming blush, ‘but I think he is wise in wishing to have a place of his own, and begin life in earnest. Besides, everybody says a cattle station is so pleasant, I almost think I could manage one myself.’

‘Pity they should be so far from Sydney, or you might come and try,’ said Ernest, with a grateful inflection in his voice. ‘Waratah would distinguish herself in a camp, I feel sure.’

‘I daresay we should do nearly as well as certain—hem—English people,’ said she mischievously. ‘I have always thought from what I have heard that life on a cattle station must be quite the romance of the bush. There is a sort of Bedouin flavour about it, with a necessity for good horsemanship that would fascinate me if I were a man.’

‘Go and play something, like a darling,’ said the old man. ‘I feel a little like my namesake in the Bible—Saul, I mean—as if music could conjure the evil spirit out of me.’

It was finally settled, therefore, on that fateful evening, that Mr. Frankston should inquire about the station which Mr. Parklands had for sale, and decide whether it or that of Mr. Jermyn Croker would be the better investment.

The preliminary was carried out with business-like precision. Mr. Frankston called upon the cheerful Parklands and the desponding Croker and extracted from each, their separate temperaments notwithstanding, the area of the runs, the number, age and sexes, and condition of the cattle, and many other particulars, including the lowest price, necessary to a true and just knowledge of the bargain. He, besides this, set on foot inquiries among those of his numerous constituents who happened to be neighbours, and finally, after all these precautions, told Ernest that he thought Parklands’ place seemed the cheaper, and that when it was formally placed under offer he had better go and inspect it.

The negotiations having proceeded to this desirable length, Mr. Neuchamp’s satisfaction was unbounded. He saw himself placed in the position which he had long coveted, and pictured day-dreams. He would be a territorial magnate, having the right to rule over a region larger than the whole county wherein his paternal estate was situated. If he could not impose new laws he could justly administer the old ones. Visions of improved breeds of cattle, of a different method of treating the station hands, of developing the capabilities of the run, of making a fortune in a few years, and revisiting England. All these achievements rendered possible by that first bold step in actual colonisation, the purchase of a run, passed through his brain, with the lightning-like rapidity that was wont to characterise such mental evolutions, but which had of late been more infrequent. He did not confide these plottings against the peace of the district which he was to invade to Antonia. It was not from any decline of sympathetic friendship, but chiefly because of late that young lady, now ever ready to approve of his wish to begin upon his own responsibility, seldom approved of his projects in advance of the age or of Australian ordinary bush customs, which she maintained had been formed by very shrewd and successful men.

It was necessary that Mr. Parklands and Mr. Neuchamp should meet at the station, so that he himself should be able to exhibit its special advantage. But that gentleman had far too many engagements to permit of his starting off at once upon this particular errand.

It was therefore arranged that, on a certain date, Ernest should make his appearance at a far inland township named Bilwillia, where he would meet Mr. Parklands, who by that time would have ‘come across’ from the Burra-warra-nonga, or some such easily pronounced locality, which he was compelled to visit regarding the approval of a small lot of ten thousand store cattle and fifty thousand wethers, under offer to him for the Melbourne market.

As nothing was to be gained by immediate departure, Mr. Neuchamp availed himself of this unexpected holiday with unrestrained satisfaction and enjoyment. He feasted upon his favourite authors and upon the newer publications which he was enabled to procure in Sydney, thanks to the excellent public and private libraries. Antonia and he renewed their literary labours and criticisms; and that young lady immortalised herself and completely subjugated Jack Windsor, by making a water-colour sketch of Ben Bolt in an attitude of mingled fear, wrath, and desperation, when unexpectedly confronted with a German band. It was Mr. Windsor’s deliberate conviction, emphatically expressed, that ‘a young lady who could take off a horse like that—the dead image of him—could do anything.’ In truth, horse and man formed, at the moment, a study for an artist. The former with glaring eye, open nostril, sudden arrest of action, and capacity for the wildest outbreak; the latter sitting watchful, statuesque, centaur-like, a personification of equestrian strength and grace.

As the distance to Bilwillia was great, and its reputation unfavourable in the matter of horse-flesh, Ernest determined not to risk the safety of Osmund, whom he left in snug quarters near Sydney.

Mr. Windsor, much to his disappointment, received news of the illness of his mother, the only relative in the world, as he had often stated to Ernest, for whom he possessed a grain of affection. He was more strongly moved by the sudden announcement of her being sick unto death than Mr. Neuchamp thought possible.

‘I don’t half fancy,’ he said, ‘sloping and leaving you to go and take delivery of the place all alone by yourself, sir; and they say Mr. Parklands knows a thing or two. However, he’s an off-handed chap, and the best thing you can do is to leave the whole jimbang in his hands altogether. If you go barneying about calves, or counting horses that’s give in, he’ll best ye, as sure as you’re born. So your dart is to say you don’t know nothin’ about cattle, and drop him in for the drafting out calves under age, and all them sorts of things. Then, as he’s a gentleman, he’s bound to give you a show. I ought to be along with you, I know. But I haven’t seen my poor old mother for five years good, and I must go, if I was never to make a rise again.’

Jack departed, but he somehow found time to call at Walton’s inn on his way to Appin, where his old mother lived and where he had spent his childhood. Ben Bolt had but little breathing time once clear of Sydney streets, and that wild steed of the desert was sensible of a decidedly quickened circulation as he was pulled up in the inn yard, and turned into a stall after a hurried and headlong manner.

As Mr. Windsor passed the door of the inn, he observed an immense quadruped hung up at the posts, which, but for the saddle and bridle, might have been taken for a strayed waggon-horse. The length of the stirrup-leathers conveyed to a bushman’s intelligence the fact that the rider of this Gargantuan steed was an individual of unusual length of limb.

Passing quietly into the bar, and thence into a small parlour devoted to the family and particular friends of the host, he discovered the old couple, Miss Carry, and a stranger, whom he immediately associated with the charger aforesaid and with the district of the Hawkesbury.

‘Well, Mr. Windsor, and who’d have thought of seeing you?’ said Mrs. Walton. ‘Have you and Mr. Neuchum—and a nice gentleman he be, surely—been in Sydney all this time? And where are you leaving for now?’

‘We’ve been in Sydney all the time, and a very jolly place it is, Mrs. Walton,’ said Jack, answering the old woman with his tongue and Carry’s quick glance with his eyes. ‘Mr. Neuchamp’s just going up the country to look at a cattle run, and I’m going home to Appin for a short spell.’

‘What are you going to do there?’ said Carry; ‘I thought you went everywhere with the young gentleman?’

‘My poor old mother’s very bad,’ said Jack, looking rueful, ‘and I must be home to-night, some time or other; but I don’t think anything else would have kept me from going up with the master, to see him all right with this new station as he’s going to buy.’

‘Do you—live—at—Appin?’ said the stranger young man, taking about a minute for the enunciation of each word, and speaking in a drawling, though not nasal, monotone.

‘When I’m at home, which is about once in five years, I do,’ answered Jack. ‘You live on the Hawkesbury, and haven’t ever been far from the river, I’ll swear.’

‘So I do, at Rooty Hill Farm, Nepean Point,’ said the New Hollander with a smile, which broke first upon the edge of the round plump face and gradually spread over it like the eddy in a pond. ‘How—did—you—come—to—know?’

‘By the look,’ said Jack coolly; ‘they don’t grow such men anywhere else in the colony, except on the Hawkesbury flats. My name’s Jack Windsor. What’s yours, old nineteen stun?’

‘I ain’t nineteen stun, I’m only seventeen,’ said the youthful giant, whose voice, however, did by no means correspond with his stature, being mild and small of timbre. ‘My name’s Harry Homminey, and I’ll back our land to grow more corn to the acre, let alone pumpkins, than any farm this side of the Blue Mountains.’

‘Like enough,’ answered Jack indifferently. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if you took to pumpkins very kind when you was young. They’re great feeding stuff. But your Windsor and Richmond farms is only handfuls after all. How many acres have you got?’

‘A hundred and thirty-two,’ said the Netherlander, with just pride, ‘and never a tree or a stump on it.’

‘Well, what’s that?’ demanded the denizen of the waste. ‘Why, a child can take up three hundred and twenty acres in the bush anywhere. I wouldn’t be bothered with land unless I had a whole section to begin with.’

‘It’s a deal better than no land at all; and that’s about what you have, I expect,’ said the agriculturist, gradually coming to the opinion and belief that Mr. Windsor was disposed to disparage him and his fat acres before Carry Walton.

‘Never mind what I have, and keep a civil tongue in your head,’ said Jack wrathfully; ‘I’ll give that round face of yours such a pasting that they will not know you from a Lower Narran man, only by your weight, when you go home. But I won’t be cross to-night, and the poor old mother dying for all I know. Good-bye, Mrs. Walton; good-bye, Carry. I must be off.’

Mr. Windsor departed into the night and they saw him no more, but I am strongly of opinion that he managed to telegraph something to Carry before he gained his saddle, and if it meant unalterable affection as she understood it, whether it was the automatic process, or Morse’s, who shall say?

Certain it is that she returned to the room with a serene countenance, and listened apparently with intentness to the somewhat uninteresting conversation of the man of maize and pumpkins, who eventually mounted his massive charger and trampled along the highway towards the rich levels of Nepean Point.

Mr. Neuchamp was so extremely anxious to make a commencement upon the foundations of his own experience and management that he left Sydney a week or two before the actual time necessary to reach the township of Bilwillia, where he was to make rendezvous with Mr. Parklands. He purchased for himself a befitting hackney, and, not having Jack Windsor’s aid, was beguiled into the possession of a stiff, short-legged cob, which his English tradition led him to believe would be the exact animal for a long journey and indifferent keep. Having gone part of the way by rail, he managed to reach the unromantic and extremely hot township of Bilwillia more than three days before Parklands could by possibility arrive, unless under the highly improbable supposition that he had more time than he knew what to do with.

Mr. Neuchamp was, as we have had before occasion to explain, by no means destitute of resources. If there was any interest whatever to be extracted from a locality, he was a likely man to discover and avail himself of it. But he afterwards confessed that he then and there felt more nearly reduced to the unphilosophical and indefeasible position of utter dulness than he could have believed possible.

For if any place could possibly combine extremest degrees of isolation, monotony, dreariness, and depressing discomfort, that place was Bilwillia. It straggled around the edge of a sombre watercourse, the ditchlike banks of which dropped perpendicularly through the clay, as if dug by some savage engineer centuries since. Around, anear, afar, all was plain and sky. The arid landscape was as boundless, monotonous, as the sea. The salsolaceous plants, within ten feet of the unbarked pine-posts of the rude verandah, were identical in appearance with every plant for a hundred leagues. Hill nor tree nor stone was there within a square of a thousand miles.

There were no books; no newspaper, save the Bourke Banner, a fortnight old, containing sundry local incidents, a short leading article, and a lengthy advertisement of Holloway’s Pills.

On the fourth day, about the exasperating period of noon, when the ‘blue fly sung in the pane,’ and all the slow torture of Mariana in the moated grange transposed to southern latitudes seemed to be in process of representation, Mr. Neuchamp, to his excessive delight, made out two separate cortèges arriving from different directions. Both comprised mounted men and spare horses, and either of them might well be the long-expected Parklands. They were plainly steering across the wide plain for the Bilwillia Inn.

The first cavalcade was headed by an unusually tall athletic-looking personage riding a well-bred powerful horse, which evidently made little of his somewhat unfair weight. A sharp-looking elfish black boy and a stockman, at some distance behind, drove several spare animals, including a packhorse, upon the tracks of their leader. As they arrived at the inn, the gentleman in advance hung up his horse and walked into the house, while his attendants proceeded to unsaddle the whole troop.

Almost immediately after the full and careful observation of this party had been concluded by Mr. Neuchamp, rendered desperate by long abstinence from decent society, the second group gradually ‘came up from the under world,’ like a strange sail, and disclosed the form of a charioteer, with an attendant and spare horses. The driving was like unto that of the son of Nimshi, whom, in the matter of pace, Mr. Parklands resembled. And that energetic and punctual personage it proved to be.

‘How are you, Neuchamp?’ he called out cheerily, jumping down from an express waggon with a driving seat. ‘Splendidly punctual, are we not? Had to come sixty miles yesterday, and five-and-thirty this morning. Can’t lick us!’

‘It was very good of you,’ said Ernest most sincerely, ‘to make a push. I do not know what I should have done if I had had to wait another day here.’

‘You don’t mean to say you came here before yesterday?’ cried Mr. Parklands in tones of horror and amazement.

‘I came three days ago, I am sorry to say.’

‘Three days!’ groaned Parklands, ‘in this cursed hole. I wonder you didn’t hang yourself, or go on the spree. But Englishmen never do that till they have been three years out from home.’

‘Three years!’ said Ernest, rather amused. ‘Then there is a possibility of my taking to inebriety in course of time. It is rather alarming!’

‘I have known many a good fellow take to it. All the same, I shouldn’t say it was much in your line though, in three years or thirty. But didn’t I see a tremendous long fellow go into the house, just as those other horses came up?’

‘There was a very tall man at the head of yonder party,’ said Ernest, looking over at the black boy and his companion, who was lighting a fire and preparing to cook. ‘He is now in the hotel.’

‘Aymer Brandon for a thousand!’ said Mr. Parklands excitedly. ‘A very old friend of mine, and the best fellow going. I suspect he has been over to his runs, on the Warrego. I’ll soon lug him out.’

With this he dashed into the inn, and shortly reappeared in company with the tall gentleman, who, indeed, only required to be seen once to be easily recognised in future.

Mr. Aymer Brandon was presently introduced with great and joyous empressement by Mr. Parklands, who hung about him with schoolboy abandon. He was so considerably above six feet in height that Mr. Neuchamp and his friend, both well-built, middle-sized men, looked abnormally short beside him. Broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed, his vast symmetrical frame seemed equally adapted to feats of strength or of activity.

‘We are in luck, Neuchamp; Brandon happens to be going down to one of his stations below Rainbar, and we can join forces—that is horses—and tool down luxuriously, four-in-hand. Can’t lick us! I had a presentiment we should come out double sixes when I started.’

Mr. Neuchamp thought it would be most pleasant travelling.

‘You see, your cob can go with the spare horses, which the boys will drive after us. Couldn’t improve on the caravan if we’d planned for a month.’

Ernest would have modified his anticipation of comfort had he been aware that the larger proportion of the horses depended upon for this rapid and efficient journeying were, at that very moment, wholly unbroken to harness, having, so to speak, never seen a collar.

But this uncertainty of the future was as yet hidden from him, and the whole party proceeded to lunch, which, in consequence of much exhortation, with promises, and even threats, from Mr. Brandon and his friend, was, with the help of the omnipotent bitter beer of Tennant, by no means to be scorned in the wilderness.

‘What’s your waggon like, Sparks?’ queried Mr. Brandon privately.

‘Slap-up!’ answered he with confidence. ‘There’s no brake; but that won’t matter, as two of the horses have been in harness before, somewhere. We’ll do the hundred miles to Rainbar in two days comfortably.’

‘Nothing more complete could be hoped for on the Darling,’ pronounced his friend calmly, ‘so that’s settled. I subscribe the black boy and five horses, which we can break in on the road. I hope the I. P. (intending purchaser) is a good plucked one, or he is like to turn back before reaching Rainbar, if he journeys with us in the waggon.’

An early start was arranged for next morning. Accordingly the half uplifted disc of the red sun of the desert irradiated the whole party on the farther bank of the river fully equipped for the road.

Aymer Brandon held the ribbons, while Parklands took the box-seat, in order to be ready in case of a complication with the scratch team. Mr. Neuchamp sat behind in company with Tom Fuller, a Rainbar stockman and past-master in smashes of every kind, sort, and description on wheel or in saddle, on land or water, mountain or plain. The black boy, Eachin, rode in charge of the spare horses, amongst which was turned Mr. Neuchamp’s Sydney cob. One of the unbroken horses was considerately placed in the near wheel, the other in the off lead. It being evident that all precautions had now been taken, Mr. Brandon sang out ‘Let go!’ to the volunteers who had assisted at the ticklish business of putting to, and with a shout, a double-thonger, half a dozen wild plunges, and an innocuous kick, the team settled down on the utterly perfect, firm, sandy road to something like racing speed.

There was little conversation for the first mile. Without a brake, all that could be done was to hold the team straight, shooting the gullies fairly as they came. Ever and anon, as a bar touched his hocks, the off leader kicked gaily over the traces, but finding the outer side yet more uncomfortable, kicked back again with discretion beyond his years.

Three miles had been swallowed up ere the team steadied ever so slightly. Then Brandon got his pull at them.

‘Good travelling, Neuchamp?’ said Mr. Parklands. ‘Do the journey easy by to-morrow night. The day after I’ll show you the finest lot of cattle in Australia—all reds, whites, and roans. Can’t lick ’em!’

‘Are they quiet?’ asks Mr. Neuchamp, as a vision of back country cattle blacks and brindles, which he mentally vows to improve off the face of the earth, crosses his brain.

‘Quiet?’ queries Parklands derisively, ‘why, you can’t kick’ em out of your way.’

‘I am truly glad to hear that,’ says Mr. Neuchamp heartily; ‘quiet cattle are so much pleasanter to draft.’

A ten-mile stage, at the highly meritorious pace alluded to, having been slipped over, the monotony of Australian steppe-travelling was varied by the introduction of two of Brandon’s troop. They were, comparatively,

Wild as the wild deer, and untamed,

By ‘trace and collar’ undefiled.