The Crooked Stick; Or, Pollie's Probation

'He was shot by a highway robber?' inquired Devereux; 'what you call a bushranger in Australia, don't you?'

'Well, there are bushrangers and bushrangers,' said the overseer. 'This chap, the Doctor, hadn't regularly took to the bush, as one might say, though he was worse than many as did. He belonged to a mob of cattle-stealers that used to duff cattle in the back country, and pass them over to Queensland. Well, Mr. Tracknell, one of the squatters in the back blocks, began to run 'em pretty close, and put the police on 'em. They heard he was to be in the coach from Orange on a certain day, and made it right to stick it up and give him a lesson.'

'What's sticking up?'

'Well, sir, by what one hears and reads, it is what used to be called "stopping" on the Queen's highway in England.'

'Then they had no grudge against Brian Devereux?'

'Not a bit in the world. He was known far and wide as a free-handed gentleman. Any one was welcome to stop at Corindah in his time, and no poor man ever went away hungry. The man the Doctor and Bill Bond wanted wasn't in the coach as it happened. He'd got wind of it and cleared. But they heard there was a gentleman with a big beard going down the country, and made sure it was him. When they came up and saw their mistake, they'd have rode off again, only the Captain was that hot-tempered and angry at their stopping him, that he fired on them, and nearly collared the lot. They returned it, and rode off as well as they could, and never knew till days after that they had hit him. Them as told me said the Doctor was devilish sorry for it, and that he was the last man in the district they'd have hurt.'

'What became of the Doctor, as you call him?'

'Well, sir, he's in the back country somewhere in Queensland yet, I believe. He served a sentence for horse-stealing of seven years; but he's wanted again, and there's a warrant out for him. He's a desperate man now, and I wouldn't be sure he won't do something that'll be talked about yet before his end comes.'

'It's to be hoped there'll be a rope round his neck on that day,' said Bertram; 'scoundrels of that kind should be trapped or poisoned like vermin.'

'Well, sir, the Doctor's no chop, but there's worse than Bill Bond, if you'll believe me. The only thing is, now he's hunted from pillar to post so, and he ain't got half a chance to repent if he wanted ever so much, I'm afraid he'll do something out of the way bad yet.'

The autumnal season, with calm sun-gilded days, cool starlight, unclouded nights, and mornings fresh and exhilarating, as if newly ordered from Paradise, came gradually to an end. Lovely, passing fair, as weather in the abstract; but dry, dry, always dry, and as such lamentable and injurious. Then winter made believe to arrive with the first week in June. But how could it be winter, Bertram thought, when the skies were still cloudless and untroubled, the mid-day warm, the plains dusty, the air soft, the river low; when the flowers in the garden bloomed and budded as usual; when no leaf fell from the forest; when, save the great acacias in the backyard and the white cedars in the garden, all the trees at Corindah were green and full-foliaged? The chief difference was that the nights were longer, cooler. There were sharp frosts from time to time; and when Bertram arose early in the morning, according to his wont, all things were covered with an icy mantle. On one occasion, when he met Mr. Gateward coming in from a long night ride, his abundant beard was frozen stiff as a stalactite.

The sheep died faster than ever, at which Bertram wondered much, but did not ask questions. 'Everything comes to him who waits,' was one of his favourite proverbs.

'If it had been always thus,' he told himself, 'so many evidences of capital and prosperity would not be here. A change will come sometime, but I cannot hasten it by ignorant questions. I shall learn all about this extraordinary country in the course of time.'

His theory was sound. But Mrs. Devereux was neither so self-contained nor philosophical. She complained and bemoaned herself from time to time, as is the way of women. At the evening meal, when after the day's duties the two young people and herself met with an affectation of social enjoyment, she made many things plain to the inquiring mind of Bertram Devereux, silent and incurious as he seemed to be.

'It had not always been thus. In the old, happy days droughts had certainly occurred, but with intervals of years between. Now the seasons seemed to have changed. The year before last was a drought, and now – this was the most sore and terrible grass famine she had ever remembered. Their losses would be frightful, disastrous, ruinous.'

'Was it on the cards that she would be actually ruined – lose all her property, that is – if the season remained unchanged?'

'Well, not absolutely. She could not truthfully say that. Even if all the sheep on Corindah died, the whole fifty thousand, the land and fences would remain. But twenty or thirty thousand pounds would be an immense sum to make up. The very thought made her shudder. To think of the years it had taken to make and save it! No doubt she could get more sheep. Her credit, she was thankful to say, was good enough for that.'

'I believe it's all Mr. Gateward's fault, said Pollie impetuously. 'Why did he persuade you not to buy a station in the mountains last year, where there's beautiful green grass and running water in the driest summer. That's what is needed for the poor sheep now. And all for a thousand pounds.'

'A thousand pounds is a great deal of money,' said Mrs. Devereux. 'He thought he could get some country cheaper, and in the meantime it was snapped up. I have been sorry for it ever since. But he meant well, as he always does.'

'I know that. He's as good an old creature as ever lived, and devoted to you and me, mother. I wouldn't say a word against him for the world. But he's too slow and cautious in matters like this, which need decision. Think of all the poor weak sheep, with their imploring eyes, that would have been kept alive if we had sent twenty or thirty thousand up to those lovely mountains.'

'I suppose it's too late now,' said Bertram. 'Of course I know nothing as yet, but could not some of them – ten thousand or so – be taken away now?'

'That's where the misery is,' said Pollie. 'The snow has fallen on the mountains. Indeed, nearly all the sheep have come away. Those thirty thousand of Mr. Haller's that passed here last week, and gave you so much trouble, had just come from there. And how nice and strong they were, do you remember? Our poor things are so weak that they couldn't travel if we had ever so much green grass to send them to.'

'It's Napoleon's Russian campaign over again – only, that our country's too dry to hold us, and his was too cold. And is there no return from Elba?'

'When the rain comes, not before. It may come soon, in a few months, this year, next year, not at all. So we're in a pleasing state of uncertainty, don't you think?'

'And you are not all sitting in sackcloth and ashes, or fasting, or making vows to the saints, and what not! This is a wonderful country, and you are wonderful people, I must say, to take matters so calmly.'

'We know our country and the general course of the seasons,' said Mrs. Devereux. 'In the long-run they prove favourable, though the exceptional years are hard. And we strive to have faith in God's providence, believing that whoso trusts in Him will not be left desolate.'

Letter from Miss M. A. Devereux to Miss Clara Thornton, Fairoaks, Edgecliffe, Sydney: —

My darling Clara – I hope you think of me daily, nightly, at breakfast and lunch time; also at midnight, when you can look out of your bedroom window, and see that lovely South Head beacon-light and the star-showers gleaming on the wavelets of the bay; when you can inhale the strong sweet ocean breath, and dream of far-away tropic isles and palm groves, coral reefs, pirates too, and all the delightful denizens of the world of romance. How you ought to pity me, shut up in poor, dry, dusty Corindah! – the weather going from bad to worse; Mother and Mr. Gateward looking more woebegone every day; and the poor sheep dying at such a rate that even as we sit in the house odours are wafted towards us not exactly of Araby the Blest. Bertie calls it 'bouquet de merino.'

Who is Bertie? Did I not tell you before? He is the English cousin that has come to live with us and learn how to make a fortune by keeping sheep in Australia. 'What is he like?' of course you ask. Well, he is not a great many things. So he is not a hero of romance, ready made for the consolation of your poor friend in this famine year. He is not handsome, nor tall, nor clever – that is, brilliantly so. Not a particular admirer of his poor Australian cousin either. He is very cool and undemonstrative; lets you find out his talents and strong points by degrees, accidentally, as it were. If I were to describe him more accurately than in any other way that occurs to me, I should say he is different from everybody else I have ever seen in this colony – extremely well able to take care of himself under all circumstances, and quite careless as to the effect he produces.

He is very well educated – cultured, I might say; reads and speaks French and German. So, as we have absolutely nothing to do in the evenings, he reads with me, and I get on a great deal faster than any of us did at Miss Watchtower's. You know I have always had a passion for what is called 'seeing the world'; it seems to be born in me, and I can recollect when I was quite a little thing being far more interested in books of travel than any other reading. I really believe that if anything led to the station being sold, and we have any money left after these frightful droughts, that I should persuade mother to take me 'home,' as we Australians always say, and then have a good, satisfactory, leisurely prowl over Europe. Now, do you see what I am coming to? What is the use of seeing everything in dumb show? I intend to work hard, very hard, at languages now I have the chance. Then I shall be able to enjoy life and instruct my mind fully when I do go abroad. Abroad! Rome, Paris, Florence! The idea is too ecstatic altogether. I shall die if it is not realised. I feel as if I should die of joy if it is.

I am writing at my little table in my bedroom. As I look out the moonlight makes everything as clear as day. There is a slight breeze, and I can actually see the dust as it rises on the plain, midwinter though it is supposed to be. I couldn't live here all my life, now could I? Not for all the cattle and sheep in Australia! I don't feel inclined to go to bed. But I suppose I must say good-night to my dearest Clara, and remain your too lonely friend,

Pollie.

After the first month or two of the excitement caused by the arrival of a 'new chum' at Corindah on the experience ticket, as the vernacular of the West Logan had it, much of the mingled curiosity, doubt, or disapproval with which the emigrant gentleman is usually regarded in a distant provincial circle died away. Of this last attribute of the neophyte Mr. Devereux had incurred but little. Studiously careful of speech, habitually courteous in bearing, and wholly indifferent to general opinion, but few men of those with whom he was brought into contact could find anything upon which to found depreciatory opinion. The utmost that professional carpers and cynics could aver amounted merely to an inability to 'make him out,' as they phrased it, coupled with a lurking suspicion that he 'thought himself a deuced deal too good for the district of West Logan and the people that belonged to it.'

'Confound him!' said Bob Barker, who posed as a leading society man and arbiter elegantiarum, 'what right has he to come here and look down on the lot of us as if we were small farmers or country bumpkins? Suppose he was in the Guards, there's nothing so wonderful about that. I know his mother was a lady in her own right, but a gentleman is only a gentleman, and other people have relatives in the aristocracy as well as him.'

Here Bob twisted his moustache and looked proudly around the company – squatters, magistrates, and others, a select party of whom, this being Court-day at Wannonbah, had assembled in the parlour of the principal hotel.

'Are you quite sure that he does look down, as you call it, upon all of us fellows, Barker, or did you only think it was ten to one he would?' said one of the assembled magistrates, a native-born Australian, with a slow, monotonous intonation which did injustice to a shrewd intellect and keen sense of humour. 'You know we are rather rusty, some of us. We've been so long away from England.' Here the speaker bestowed a wink of preternatural subtlety upon a good-humoured looking, middle-aged man who occupied the chair at the head of the table.

'Rusty be hanged!' said Mr. Barker. 'I could go home and take my position in society to-morrow as if I had never left. I don't want any young military puppy to teach me manners.'

'But what – did – he – do, Barker?' inquired the other squatter; 'or – what – did – he – say – that – put – your – monkey – up?'

'Well, of course he didn't do anything, and as for saying, he was infernally polite; but somehow I knew by the quiet, simple way he spoke what he was thinking of. And then, when we were playing whist, Atherstone and I with Miss Devereux and the old lady, he looked on until I asked if he was approved of our play. He smiled faintly, and then begged to know whether "out here" we were always in the habit of leading from our longest suits? I could have kicked him on the spot.'

'But – perhaps – he – only – wanted – to – know,' pursued his tormentor, who now appeared honestly desirous of extracting information. 'You're – so – very – smart – Barker, yourself – you – know.'

'Oh, I dropped down to him,' said Barker. 'They've got some confounded new-fangled way of calling for trumps in these London clubs, and of course, like all English people, he thinks we never hear anything or read anything, and have never seen any society men for a century but himself. Why, wasn't General Burstall here the other day on leave from India? Saw my brother at Simla just the week he left. However, wait till this season's over. That'll take some of the starch out of him.'

'It'll – take – the – starch – out – of – some – of – us – too,' replied the first speaker, 'if – it – doesn't – break – up – soon. I've – lost – six – thousand – pounds – worth – of – cattle – already. Everybody – says – your – frontage – looks – frightful – Bar – ker – eh?'

The intense gravity and slow solemnity with which this sudden assault was performed upon Mr. Barker, impugning the character of his run, and by implication his probable solvency, appeared so overpoweringly ludicrous to the company, that a diversion was effected in favour of Mr. Barker's pasturage, who therefore permitted the personal questions to lapse.

Letter from Bertram Devereux to Captain Goodwood, 6th Dragoon Guards: —

Corindah, New South Wales, Australia, June 1877.

My dear Charlie– Partly on account of a weak promise to let you and one or two more of the old set into the secrets of my other-world life when I said good-bye after that fatal Derby that proved such a smasher, partly because one has such enormous quantities of spare time in the desert here, I am going to produce a respectable despatch – may even go the length of becoming a regular correspondent – while quartered here.

My jottings down, apart from any personal interest which may yet survive the writer's departure, ought to possess a certain value as tidings from a far country – descriptions of a mode of life and state of society of which no one I ever met in England had the faintest idea. It is odd, too, for how many youngsters from good families that we know have emigrated within the last ten years! And with one or two exceptions there was no gleaning any information from their friends. Either the fellows didn't write or had done indifferently, and so the less said the better, or else the friends hardly could tell whether they lived in Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales, or Tasmania, which is much as if the whereabouts of a continental traveller should be described as indifferently as in Belgium, Berlin, Switzerland, or Sicily. There is a want of exactitude about our countrymen, I must say, in all matters that do not concern their own immediate interests, most painful to persons gifted with a love of method – like you and me, for instance. No wonder we English are always caught unprepared when we go to war, and get laughed at all over Europe – till we begin to fight, that is. The reaction sets in then.

However, revenons à nos moutons– a strictly appropriate tag, inasmuch as this lodge in the wilderness is surrounded by enormous estates, leasehold, not freehold, by the way, all devoted to the production of the merino variety of the ovine family. Millions of them are bred in these great solitudes. In favourable years I gather that one is enabled to export about one-half to a fourth of their value, in the shape of wool. This brings a good price, is as negotiable as gold, and the fortunes of the returned colonists that we used to see in London society are thus compiled. Of course there are details, the which I am setting my mind to master. But they would hardly interest you. One trifling fact I may mention, lest you may imagine the progress of fortune-constructing too ridiculously easy. It is, that there has been next to no rain for more than a year, strange, almost incredible, as it may seem to you of the rainy isles. In consequence, the country looks like a desert, and tens of thousands of sheep are dying here, and for hundreds of miles in every direction. Occurrences of this kind, you will understand, delay indefinitely and perhaps wholly frustrate one's too obvious purpose of gathering a competency and hurrying out of the strange country as fast as may be.

'All this is very well,' I hear you say; 'but what about the social system? Why doesn't he tell me about her? – for of course there is a woman somewhere within the orbit of his existence. Wonder what they're like out there. Must be some, I suppose.'

With your usual acuteness, which I have rarely known at fault, unless confronted by a plain unvarnished robbery like the doing to death of the favourite (and very nearly the backers) in our fatal year, you have hit the gold.

Well, somehow or other, there is a she. How strange it seems that one's life, whether or in the midst of cities, or even in the comparatively assured and fortified privacy of a messroom, should never be wholly free from the invasion of womankind. A book, a photograph, a souvenir of the slightest kind, is sufficient to arouse the tempestuous motives of those who are doomed to be 'the prey of the gods' in this peculiar fashion. How much more so the perfect human form, 'ripe and real,' when it comes before your eyes in all the unconscious temptation of virgin youth and beauty scarce unfolded morning, noon, and night. Add to this that I'm at present habitans in sicco, and you will conclude, with the swift logical subtlety so proverbially yours, that as a latter-day hermit I may compare favourably with St. Anthony.

'Pone me pigris ubi nulla campisArbor æstiva recreatur aura,' etc.,

Heaven knows I did not rush into danger. Languid and prostrated as I was after the overthrow of all my worldly hopes; worn and despairing when the one devouring, passionate love of my life had disappeared, and it was like the last scene of a tragedy, when nothing is left for the spectators but to wrap their cloaks around them and go home – I deemed that I was coming to a land where there were no women, except black ones or those required for culinary purposes.

How little we know of these new lands and their inhabitants, all English as they are, as if in the Midland Counties, yet of manner strangely fresh! All is high development and new material. How I am shut up with a magnificent young creature, with a face like Egeria, and a figure like the huntress maid, burning with enthusiasm, talented, cultured, full of all noble feminine attributes; dangerous with the fascinations of fresh, innocent womanhood, yet ignorant of the ways of the world, and childlike in her unsuspicious confidence!

How I wish I was young again! I do really, Charlie. Could I but blot out the years that have intervened – not so many – but what Dead-Sea fruits have I not tasted during their stormy course? What a burnt-out volcano is this heart of mine! Could I but recall the past and be like one of our schoolboy heroes!

'The happy page who was the lordOf one soft heart and his own sword.'

What empires and kingdoms would I give – supposing them to be mine – to revert to that position, and so prove myself worthy of the fresh heart, the petals of which are about to open before my graduated advance, like a rose in June! That I shall be the favoured suitor, despite of the opposition of a good-looking, stalwart, provincial rival, my experience assures me. With women l'inconnu is always the interesting, the romantic, the irresistible. In despite of myself, I can see clearly my future position of jeune premier in this opera of the wilderness. It might be worse, you will say. That I grant. But you know that Helen of Troy would never control this restless, wayward heart of mine in perpetuity.

For the rest, the life is bearable enough, free, untrammelled, novel, with a tinge of adventure. My days are spent in the saddle. There's just a hint of shooting, no hunting, no fishing. We dress for dinner, and live much as at a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, with stock-riders for gillies. So we are not altogether barbarous, as you others imagine. This letter is far too long, and imprudently confiding, so I hasten to subscribe myself yours, as of old,

Bertram Devereux.

So much for the impression Pollie was capable of producing on a worn, world-weary heart.

It was a strange fate which had thus imprisoned this beautiful creature, so richly endowed with all the attributes which combine to form the restless, tameless, unsatisfied man, amid surroundings so uninteresting and changeless. Eager for adventure, even for danger, she was curious with a child's hungering, insatiable appetite for the knowledge of wondrous lands, cities, peoples; hating the daily monotone to which the woman's household duties are necessarily attuned. Capable of the strongest, the most passionate attachments, yet all-ignorant as yet of the subtle, sweet, o'ermastering tone of the world-conquering harmony of love. In the position to which she appeared immovably attached by circumstance, she seemed like a strayed bright-plumaged bird, a foreign captive, taken in infancy and reared in an alien land.

A chamois in a sheepfold, a leopardess in a drawing-room, a red deer in a trim and close-paled enclosure, could not have been more hopelessly at war with surroundings, more incongruously provided with food and shelter. Day after day a growing discontent, a hopeless despair of life, seemed to weigh her down, to take the savour from existence, to restrain the instinctive sportiveness of youth, to hush the spirit-song of praise with which, like the awakening bird, she should have welcomed each dawning morn.

'Why must it be thus?' she often asked herself when, restless at midnight as at noon-day, she gazed from her window across the wide star-lit plain, in which groups of melancholy, swaying, pale-hued trees seemed to be whispering secrets of past famine years or sighing weirdly over sorrows to come.

'Will it always be thus?' thought she, 'and is my life to trickle slowly along like the course of our enfeebled stream, until after long assimilation to this desert dreariness I become like one of the house-mothers I see around me? Ignorant, incurious, narrow, with an intelligence gradually shrivelling up to the dimensions of a childhood with which they have nothing else in common! What a hateful prospect! What a death in life to look forward to! Were it not for my darling mother and the few friends I may call my own, I feel as if I could put an end to an existence which has so little to recommend it, so pitiably small an outlook.'

In all this outburst of capricious discontent the experienced reader of the world's page will perceive nothing more than the instinctive, unwarranted impatience of youth, which in man or woman is so utterly devoid of reason or gratitude.