I see you're marked,' she continued, looking with curiously blended sympathy and shyness at his discoloured face, 'but you're nothing like as bad hurt as _he_ was, or you couldn't move about or stoop to blow up that fire. He was close upon dead for a week after he got back. He didn't tell me who done it till one day we quarrelled when he was better. Then he half killed me,--kicked and trampled on me, as he's done many a time. If it wasn't for--for the child,'--here she hesitated and looked down,--'I'd have left him long ago.'
'Cowardly brute, ruffianly dog!' groaned Lance, grinding his teeth, 'why didn't I kill him when we met at Gibbo? I had two minds to finish him there and then. Things could hardly be worse than they are. But the next time we meet one of us dies; I swear it, as God hears me.'
'Oh! don't talk like that,' she cried, and even in his wrath Lance recognised with amazement the new element of pitying tenderness which anxiety for his safety evoked (oh! wondrous-fashioned instrument, the woman's heart! soaring to seraphic melody, yet at times clanging with frenzied discords, echoes from the Inferno); 'if there's anything of that sort you'll be sure to be taken, then it will be "life" or worse.
But,' changing her tone to one of grave entreaty, 'what I came for to-day was this,--I knew you were here, no matter how; where I live we know a lot, all the worse for us and other people.'
'And what was it, Kate?'
'_I came to warn you_,' she said, as she fixed her eyes imploringly upon his countenance, 'and you believe me, just as if Tessie was talking to you this minute.'
'To take care of my horse, Kate?' he said, half jestingly; 'I haven't any to lose.'
'To take care of your LIFE!' she cried, almost with a scream. 'You have that to lose, haven't you? and unless you are carefuller than I ever knew you to be, you'll find it out too late. I overheard him and that old wretch Caleb Coke (and of all the murdering dogs I ever heard of I think he's the worst) talking over some plan they've put up, and from words I caught I made out it was about you. There was a deal about gold-buying and some hut, and a box with nuggets and things locked up in it--money as well. You'll know if that fits. The man, whoever it was, was to be "put away," as Coke said. So you take my tip! _Trust nobody about this field_, Caleb Coke above all, and get shut of Omeo the first minute you can.'
'When did you hear this?'
'The day before yesterday. They sat up late drinking, and Coke took more than he does in general; he's that full of villainy of all sorts,--robberies and murders too, people say,--that he's afraid of grog for fear of giving himself away. Anyhow, they both went off early this morning, and Trevenna's to be back to-night. So I ran up this little mare--she's the only one I've got now to my name--as soon as they were well off the place, and rode here on the chance of finding you at this reef.'
'Well, Kate, my poor girl, you've done me a good turn, if you never do another. You may have saved my life, you see. Not that it's worth much.
But I've a notion of getting away to California or the Islands next month, and if I carry that out what you want me to be careful about may rise in value, do you see?'
'Oh, don't joke in that horrid way; you never used to,' said the woman, rising and gathering up her skirt, as if in preparation to depart. 'It makes my heart ache'--here she pressed her hand to her breast; 'I have one, though you mightn't think it. But oh, for my sake, for every one's sake, for the sake of that girl in England, if you want to see her again, be careful! Don't go out of sight of Omeo--if you value your life--till you start for Melbourne, and then travel in company. Coke thinks no more of a man's life than a wild dingo's, and Trevenna's as bad. The things I've heard, I wonder God lets them live. I must go now.
I've stayed too long. Remember my words; they're as true as if I was on my dying-bed.'
Then she walked rapidly to where her horse stood patiently--a small roan mare, the fineness of whose limbs, together with the character of head and eye, denoted Arab blood, crossed probably with the wild 'mustang' of the hills. Trevanion kept by her side, wondering when the strange scene would end.
She made again as if to depart, for an instant touching the mare's bridle. Then, turning towards him, held out her hand--'Good-bye, Lance, and God bless you, wherever you are. You are sure you forgive me, don't you?'
'As I hope to be forgiven,' he said solemnly, unconsciously using a half-forgotten form of words, the true meaning of which had long been alien to his heart. 'That is, you poor ill-treated Kate, I forgive you freely, and with all my heart.'
As he spoke, the woman turned upon him a countenance so transfigured by gratitude and tenderness that Lance Trevanion, for the moment, hardly recognised her, so wonderfully softened, so refined and ennobled, was every lineament by the unwonted emotions. Deep and bright in her lifted eyes shone the fires of a buried passion as she gazed for a moment into those of her companion. Then, as if inspired with sudden frenzy, she threw her arms around him, and, pressing his head to her bosom, kissed him passionately on the lips and forehead.
Disengaging herself as suddenly, she waved him back from approaching her, and, springing into the saddle, drove the astonished mare wild, plunging over the crown of the ridge and adown the rocky side of the ravine, which the roused and sure-footed animal cleared with leaps like the 'flying doe' of her native woods.
'Poor Kate!' he exclaimed, as he slowly retraced his steps, and, gathering up his mining tools mechanically, proceeded to complete his day's work; 'there is good about her after all. How queerly men and women are compounded in this mad world--as I begin to think it is. What a life hers must be, tied to a scoundrel like Trevenna! and yet _he_ is a free man--whose whole life, since he came to the colony, has been criminal--while I, who, God knows, never had a thought of wrong-doing, have worn the felon's chain, and may again, who can tell? "A mad world, my masters!" in truth and saddest earnest.'
No doubt remained in Trevanion's mind, as in the seclusion of his hut that evening he pondered this singular interview, but that the woman had warned him in all good faith. If her words were not true, she was indeed the falsest of her sex. But there are looks, tones, gestures which neither man nor woman can feign; moments in which all the truth of the being comes to the surface; portions of our lives when a clearer insight is gained in the passing of seconds than can be derived from years of ordinary experience.
Such a flash of enlightenment was this, as when the lightning gleam pierces the gloom of midnight, showing the perils of the road, disclosing pitfalls and precipices previously shrouded in darkness. His course had been thus illumined. How heedless was he, pursuing what appeared to be a fairly open pathway; and yet, what unsuspected dangers lurked on every side. These two remorseless villains, attracted by the report of his comparative opulence,--of course the gold-buying would reach all ears,--were evidently planning his robbery and murder. If not his own, whose then could it be?
There was another man whom it possibly concerned--Con Gray, well known as a gold-buyer in Omeo. He had lately made heavy purchases--had even stated that this was his last trip to Melbourne. This man was perhaps the fated victim. Under any circumstances Omeo was no longer safe harbour. He would sell his claim on the reef. He would invest his cash in gold, and, making some excuse, join the escort, and so get to Melbourne unsuspected, and safe from being robbed on the road--if a man could be said to be safe at any point of the journey between these savage solitudes and the metropolis.
Thus having fully resolved to quit Omeo, taking whatever risks might be involved in that step rather than await the perils which seemed to be thickening around him, a feeling of impatience now took possession of Lance Trevanion. On the very day on which he had met Kate, he had 'broken down' some stone of extraordinary richness, which, though it might prove to be only a 'shoot,' in mining parlance, served to cause the value of the claim to rise measurably. He had therefore no difficulty in disposing of it to very great advantage, giving as his reason for quitting so promising a 'show' that he had decided on devoting himself to gold-buying for the future.
Meanwhile, the vision of final escape from a life of dread and suspicion, from the rude surroundings and mean shifts by which alone he could hope to secure safety under present circumstances, commenced to arise clear and inspiriting before him. It seemed comparatively easy to slip down to town under cover of having gold to dispose of--as did many a miner of the period. And then--and then, once on blue water with a draft for five thousand pounds in his pocket, and more to follow at regular intervals as long as Number Six continued 'payable,' what a vista of change, affluence, almost happiness, opened out before him!
This was Saturday; on this day week the monthly gold escort would leave Omeo for Melbourne. It gave him ample time to make needful preparations.
It was the last day of the month. It might be the last day of his exile.
The week passed in an uneventful fashion. It seemed to Lance Trevanion as if all things were working harmoniously for his release from the thraldom he had so long endured. The claim had been well sold. He had received the proceeds in cash, as indeed is the custom of goldfields. He had made several advantageous purchases of gold, and had received advices from the mercantile house in Melbourne with whom, through Barker and Co., the storekeepers, he had established business relations, that they would be prepared to honour his drafts or furnish him with bills of exchange in Britain or America. All things seemed prosperously working together for a noiseless and unsuspected exit from Omeo--from Melbourne--from Australia. He had reduced his worldly possessions to the smallest portable quantity, while leaving his hut and belongings in apparently the state which they would present during his absence, presuming merely a temporary absence.
So steadily had he laboured, so assiduously had he devoted himself to the arrangement of every detail which by any chance could be needed, that on the Thursday evening he was in the somewhat nervous position of a man who had nothing to do but to await the signal for departure. At the same time, he had neglected no precautions which could tend to throw his comrades of Omeo and the public generally off their guard. He had not signified his intention of starting with the escort. He had made the same arrangements which would have been necessary for the consignment of his gold if he himself was absent.
He had said casually to his friend Barker, the storekeeper, that 'he might go, or he might not; he was not sure; just as the fit might take him. Anyhow, he would only be away a fortnight. It depended upon any fresh "show" turning up. There was a talk of something towards the Snowy River.'
He had purposely, from the day of his arrival at Omeo, adopted a rough, laconic manner, in keeping with his assumed character of 'Ballarat Harry'; had been, indeed, at some pains to efface tokens of gentle blood, of culture, of refinement, of that chiefly indefinable personal accompaniment which is usually described as 'the manners of a gentleman.'
This curious possession, sometimes laboriously acquired, and yet only perfect when merely derived from the accident of birth and inheritance, is, by some shrewd observers of human nature, believed to be wholly inseparable from the individual who has once possessed it. Others believe--granting a careless habit of association, a looseness of fibre, recklessness of mood, sordid surroundings, not to mention a fixed intention of cutting loose from all the influences of early training--that wondrous, almost incredible declension may take place.
One likes to fancy that the refinement produced by years of early training, joined with hereditary tendency, can never be obliterated. But
'Want can quench the eyes' bright grace, Hard toil can roughen form and face.'
Although in the case of Lance Trevanion it would have been an exaggeration to have said with the poet--
'Poor wretch! The mother that him bare, In his wan cheek and sunburnt hair She had not known her child.'
But (and I who write have many a time witnessed the transformation) it is by no means so easy to recognise the 'lapsed gentleman' after he has, for whim, indolence, or necessity, played the bush labourer for a year or two. The roughened hands, the altered expression of face, the gradual disappearance of _les nuances_, the minor society tricks of expression and manner, the rough habiliments, the changed step--all these and more--the inevitable concomitants of the comparatively rude life of the miner, the 'sundowner,' the shepherd or boundary-rider--denote the disrated aristocrat. Any one of the subdivisions of Australian manual labour _does_ inevitably, indisputably, change and disguise the individual, of whatever previous history. There are exceptions, doubtless; but such are rare.
In addition to the safeguards which a miner's garb, daily labour, and rude association provided against recognition, Lance had practised of set purpose the slang phrases and ungrammatical idioms common among men of his adopted occupation. This kind of verbal deterioration is more easy to acquire by careless habit than to relinquish when an upper stratum of society is again reached, as relatives of young men returning from 'back block' sojourns or 'northern territory' explorations have discovered to their regret. Taking his privations into consideration, it must not be considered very wonderful that the 'Ballarat Harry' of Omeo was a different-appearing personage from the Lance Trevanion of No. 6, Growlers', much more the haughty, rebellious heir of Wychwood.
The expected morning broke--a transcendent day of early spring, known even to this mountain land, mist-shrouded and storm-swept though it be in its winter garb. The sky was cloudless, the air breezeless, as the sun uplifted his golden shield over the forest-clothed shoulders of the Bogong and the Buffalo.
As the pearl-gray tints of the dawn-light insensibly dissolved,--losing themselves, even as had the darker hues of the earlier morning, in a bath of delicatest pink, enriched ere the eye could trace the translucence with hues prodigal of crimson and burnished gold,--the austere marble-white snow-peaks appeared to stand forth in yet more awful and supernal splendour. Contrasted with colouring of indescribable brilliancy, they appeared a company of phantasmal apparitions in the silence of that wondrous dawn pageant.
Lance Trevanion was but a man as other men. How many times had he looked upon these and kindred wonder-signs of Nature with incurious eyes, holding them to be but ordinary phenomena with which, in the grip and peril of Circumstance, he had nought to do. But now, his nervous system being more tense, and his mental tone exalted in view of an imminent deliverance, a stir took place among faculties long disused. In curious unexplained fashion the beatific vision connected itself with his cousin Estelle, whom he had ceased to regard as a terrestrial entity. Severed from her, not less by seas and oceans than by inexorable fate, her image, bright and celestial as it had formerly appeared, was now fading rapidly; becoming fainter and yet more ethereal with each succeeding recollection.
But on this, the last morn which he hoped to spend in this wilderness, her image seemed to present itself with strangely persistent clearness before him. How she would have joyed,--she that was so passionately fond of landscape scenery, who discovered fresh beauties in every humble hillock and lowly streamlet,--could but she have stood here with him; together could they have beheld this entrancing vision. With quickened tide, the back-borne stream of memory brought to his recollection the many times they had stood hand in hand and gazed at sunset, stream, or woodland, glorified by Nature's alchemy. He could almost fancy that he heard her voice, soft and low, rich, yet so clear and distinct, as she dwelt upon each feature of the landscape with instructed enthusiasm. He recalled her dainty ways--her unvarying softness and sweetness, her unfailing tact and temper, which had so often turned the tide of the Squire's wrath, the discreet counsel that had so often been displayed in times of perplexity.
And now, what torture to think of her! of all the sweetness and beauty, divine as it now appeared to him, lost for ever, as much alien to him, henceforth and for evermore, as though she had been born on another planet!
The sudden change from the currents of his thoughts led the lonely, half-despairing man to an almost complete temporary detachment from his surroundings. He forgot much of the misery, the despair, the evil hap of this past year--that year which had been so much more eventful than the whole of his previous life. A new hope appeared to arise within his outworn, wearied heart. Might he not, if he regained the old land--might he not yet recover his position? Great heavens! was it then possible that such an elysium should be in store for him? He knew Estelle's steadfast fearless nature; he knew the sweet and loving pardon that would shine in her eyes when they met, if ever permitted by a merciful God. Was there a God? and could He be thus merciful even to a forlorn, degraded outcast like himself?
As he stood leaning, with folded arms and meditative air, against the doorpost of his humble dwelling, the clatter of hoofs along the track which led near the hillock upon which the hut stood gave a fresh current to his thoughts, and recalled him to a sense of the present. 'One day more,' he said, half aloud. 'Shall I ever see these hills and valleys again? I owe them much. They have proved good harbour for the stricken deer.'
'Who the deuce is this?' His thought shaped itself into speech as a wild-looking rider forced his horse, a half-broken colt, as near to the hut door as he could get him. The colt snorted and trembled, after the manner of his kind, but refused to budge a foot nearer. The horseman,--a long-haired, long-legged native lad,--exercising his spurs vigorously, besides devoting the colt and all his relatives to the infernal deities, was fain to hold out a scrap of paper in his hand and await Lance's approach.
'It was you as sold Number One South, on the Tinpot Reef, to Yorkey Dickson, wasn't it?' inquired the ingenuous youth, staring at Lance.
'Yes; what then?'
'Well, there's been a bloomin' row between him and his mates and Mick Doolan's crowd. They're measuring him off, and makes out as you'd took up too much ground. He wants you to come. He give me this for ye; blank ye, I'll knock the blank head off ye, if ye don't stand quiet.'
This last communication, though in strict continuation with his previous address, was apparently intended for the colt's progressive education, that vivacious animal having taken fright at Lance's approach, and swerved backward with rear and plunge directly Lance reached out his hand for the missive. He, however, retained hold of the paper, which, after some difficulty, he deciphered--
MR. HARRY JOHNSON.