Babes in the Bush

In all turf contests, bitter disappointments, deep and lasting mortifications, sharpened by loss and inconvenience, occur. But when there comes a real triumph, the sweets of success are rich of flavour.

Wilfred was the hero of the occasion, Fortune’s latest favourite, impossible to be deposed until next year. No newer victor could therefore take away the savour and memorial of his triumph, as, to a certain extent, he had now done from Bob Clarke.

Such is the inconsistency of human nature that, although the steeplechase required about ten times the amount of horsemanship, besides nerve, experience, and a host of qualities unneeded in a flat race, Wilfred found himself the observed of all observers, and could not but discern that his rivals were temporarily in the shade.

He lost no time in bestowing himself into his ordinary raiment and joining the homeward-bound crowd, secure of the smiles which ladye fair never refuses to bestow upon the knight who has worthily done his devoir.

Christabel Rockley congratulated him warmly upon his good fortune, and then turned to console Bob Clarke, a process which apparently involved more time and explanation, so much so that Wilfred changed his locale, under pretence of looking after his mother and sisters, and soon found himself in more sympathetic company.

He saw that Miss Fane had become a great friend and associate of his sister Rosamond, so quickly are lifelong alliances cemented among young ladies. Mrs. Snowden was also in the neighbourhood, and among them he was flattered to his heart’s content.

‘I was sure you were going to win it from the first,’ said Mrs. Snowden, as if stating an incontestable fact. ‘I said to Mrs. Rockley, “How cool Mr. Effingham looks! Depend upon it, he has ridden in good company before.”’

‘I never bet anything more substantial than gloves,’ said Miss Fane, with a gleam of mischief in her eyes; ‘but I can quite understand the gambling spirit now. I longed to put a five-pound note papa gave me at parting on Mendicant. Dreadfully wicked, wasn’t it? But I should have won fifty or sixty pounds, perhaps a hundred. I have made a small fortune, however, in gloves.’

‘I shall always think that you were the cause of my winning, Miss Fane,’ said Wilfred, looking most grateful. ‘No one else believed in me, except these girls here,’ looking at his sisters.

‘We are prejudiced,’ said Rosamond, ‘and will remain so to the end of the chapter. But I thought you were fighting against odds, with such champions as Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Clarke. Now you have won the tilt and are the favoured knight. Is the queen of beauty to give you the victor’s wreath? – and who is she?’

‘Oh, Christabel the peerless, of course,’ said Miss Fane. ‘And I think her the prettiest creature in the world – that is, for a dark beauty, of course,’ looking at Annabel, who now came up. ‘It’s a case of honours divided, all the men say.’

‘I wonder how we shall settle down in our peaceful homes again,’ said Beatrice, ‘after all these wild excitements and thrilling incidents. I feel as if we were leaving the first or second volume of a novel.’

‘Why the first or second,’ said Miss Fane, ‘and not the third?’

‘Because there’s no possibility of our story being complete in one volume. There are materials for romances here, but the dénouement is wanting. Every one will go home again on Monday; the actors and actresses will throw on their wrappers, the lights will be put out, the theatre shut up, and no piece announced until next year. There is something theatrical about all pleasure. This indeed is real melodrama, with plenty of scene-shifting, comedy in proper proportion, leading actors, and a hint of tragedy in the last act.’

For the Effinghams this had been a completely new experience. Without complications of the affections, except in Wilfred’s case, a wider estimate of Australian country life had been afforded to them. Besides the squirearchy of the land, they had met specimens of the best of the younger sons whom England’s ancient houses still send, year by year, to carry her laws, her arts, her ambition, and her energy to the most distant of her possessions. These include, literally, the ends of the earth, where they may aid in the heroic work of colonisation, planting the germs of nations, and raising the foundations of empires. Such men they had among their immediate neighbours. Still it was pleasant to know that others of the same high nature and standard of culture, the Conquistadors of the South, were distributed over the entire continent.

Moreover, they had fallen across several perfect feminine treasures, as Annabel declared them to be – friends and acquaintances, most rare and valuable. Nothing could have exceeded the hospitality and thoughtful kindness of the ladies of the Rockley family. Mrs. Rockley had been unwearied in providing for the comfort of her guests, and in that congenial employment partaking as well in her own person of a reasonable share of the pleasures of the continuous festa, underwent such fatigue, that nothing but an unruffled temper, with great natural advantages of constitution, prevented her from breaking down hopelessly before the week was over. As it was, though there was a slight look of weariness, an air of responsibility, in the morning, the least occasion sufficed to bring the ever-cordial smile to the kind face, when all gravity of mien instantly disappeared.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DUEL

In Ireland’s good old days, before the decline of unlimited hospitality and claret, debt, duelling, and devilment generally, when the Court of Encumbered Estates was not, the whole duty of man apparently being transacted with an enviable scorn of ready-money payments, no doubt exists, that after such a race week as we have essayed to recall, more than one gentleman’s hackney would have gone home without him, unless the pistol practice was worse than usual.

As it was, a contretemps did occur, which could not be settled without the intervention of seconds. These gentlemen decided that a meeting must take place. It chanced after this wise. As will happen in all lands, there had arisen a veiled but distinct antagonism between two men who aspired to social leadership. These were William Argyll and John Hampden.

The former, haughtily impatient of opposition, was prone to follow out likes and dislikes, with the enthusiasm of his Highland blood. Culture, travel, and the drill of society had but modified his natural temperament. Under provocation it was as untamed as that of any son of MacCallum Mohr who had never quitted the paternal glen. He undervalued the opinions of his Australian-born neighbours who had not, like himself, enjoyed the advantages of travel. Hasty in word or deed, habituated to high consideration from the dwellers near his paternal estate, he was careless to a fault about giving offence.

Hampden, though a proud and self-respecting man, was singularly imperturbable of demeanour. Open-minded, generous, interested in every idea calculated to advance the welfare of his native land, his position was high and unquestioned. In his own part of the country he was respected by his equals and reverenced by his inferiors to a degree uncommon, but by no means unknown in Australia. The people were much in the habit of resorting to him for aid or counsel in their difficulties. And whatever Mr. Hampden said in such cases carried with it the weight and authority of law. His decisions, indeed, were more often quoted, more rarely disputed, than those of any bench of magistrates in the land.

Although cautious in forming his opinions and chary of expressing them, John Hampden was noted as one who never gave back an inch from any position which he assumed. This trait chafed the choleric Argyll, who had also a considerable ‘following’ – admirers of his attainments, and dominated by his unrelaxing though generous despotism. It therefore happened that, in public matters, Argyll and Hampden were mostly observed to take different sides.

Before the race meeting there arose a dispute, common enough in those days, between the stock-riders of the two establishments as to the ownership of certain calves at the annual muster of Mount Wangarua. Some ill-considered remarks of Argyll’s, reflecting on Hampden’s management, were repeated with additions. Allusion had been made to ‘indiscriminate branding,’ than which nothing could have been more uncalled for. A scrupulously exact man in such matters, many a poor man had reason to bless the day when his few head of strayed cattle found their way into the herds which bore the J.H. brand. Rarely was it placed on an animal without satisfactory proof of ownership. However, ‘accidents will occur in the best regulated (cattle) families,’ and so had come to pass the mistake, fully explained afterwards, upon which Argyll had commented unfavourably.

The opportunity afforded for withdrawing his hasty expressions was not availed of. So after a formal interview, the alternative was reached which, by the laws of society in that early day, compelled a resort to the pistol.

Of course, this ultimatum, though known to a few intimate friends, was carefully concealed from the general public. The rivals met without suspicious coldness, were seen at the ordinary gatherings, and bore themselves as became the average pleasure-seekers of the hour. But the meeting had been fixed for the Monday following the race week, and it was agreed that the principals, with their seconds, should visit a certain secluded spot on the homeward route of Hampden’s party, and there arrange their difficulty.

Both men were known to be good shots; with rifle and pistol (not yet had Colonel Colt impressed his revolving signet on the age) Hampden was known to have few equals. But no surprise was manifested when it was announced on the eventful Monday that Hampden and his friend Neville, together with Forbes, Argyll, and Churbett, had departed at daylight and taken the same road. Every one was in the confused state of mind which is prone to succeed a season of indulgence. There were bills to pay, clothes to pack, resolutions as to improvement to be made by those who had exceeded their usual limit in love, loo, or liquor. So that, except an expression of astonishment that any reason whatever should have had power to take Fred Churbett out of his bed at such an abnormal hour, little was said.

As they rode through the silent streets of the sleepy town, a moaning breeze betokened that the exceptionally fine weather they had enjoyed was about to change for the worse.

To Fred Churbett, as he rode along with a young surgeon impressed in case of accident, the day seemed chilly, the fitful wind boding, the darkening sky gloomy and drear. ‘What if one of these men, in all the pride of manhood, so lately rejoicing in the sport in which they had been jointly engaged, should never leave the Granite Glen alive? What a mockery was this life of ours! And for what? for a careless word – a hasty jest – for this might a man go down to the dark unknown, with all his sins upon his head. A melancholy ending to their pleasant days and joyous nights!’

These cheerless meditations were probably compounded in equal proportions of bilious indigestion and natural regret. Fred’s inner man had come off indifferently under a regimen of late hours and mixed refreshments; so much so, that he had professed his intention, when he returned to the peaceful shades of The She-oaks, ‘to lie on his back for a month and live on blue-pill.’ Such thoughts would not have occurred to him had he been engaged as principal. But as a mere spectator of a mortal combat they were impressively urgent.

Besides all this, Hampden was a married man – had a wife and half-a-dozen boys and girls at Mount Wangarua. When he thought that a messenger might ride up through the far-famed meadows, where the white-faced Herefords lay thick on the clover sward the summer through, to tell the expectant wife that the husband – the father, the pattern country gentleman – would return no more! Fred felt as if he must strike up everybody’s sword, as in old melodramas, and call upon them in the name of God and man to desist from a deed at once puerile and immoral.

But like a dream when morning breaks, and princess and noble, castle and dragon flee into the shadow-land, whence they came, so his purpose vanished into thin air, as they suddenly debouched upon the Granite Glen, and he saw by the set faces of the men, as they dismounted, how unavailing would be all interference.

With sudden revulsion of feeling, he prepared to act his part. Motioning the young surgeon to follow him to the little creek which rippled plaintively over the grey blocks, shaded by the funereal, sighing casuarina, they took charge of the horses of the combatants. Forbes and Neville each produced one of the oblong cases ‘which no gentleman could be without’ in those days. Twelve paces were stepped by Forbes, in deference to his similar experiences. The principals took their ground.

Fred Churbett scanned narrowly, at the moment, the faces he knew so well. On Argyll’s he saw the look of vehement resolve which he had seen a hundred times before, while his eyes glowed with angry light. Fred knew that whenever any one alluded to Hampden’s alleged expression, ‘that he was a hot-blooded Highlander, accustomed to rule semi-savages, and who did not know how to conduct himself among gentlemen,’ or words to that effect, Argyll could not be held accountable for his actions. When the passion fit was over, a more accomplished, courteous gentleman did not live – generous to a fault, winning, nay, fascinating, of manner to all with whom he came into contact.

Hampden’s face, on the other hand, bore its usual serious expression, with no shadow of change o’er the mild, contemplative gaze. He looked, as he always appeared to those who knew him, as if he were thinking out the subject on hand with painstaking earnestness in the interests of truth.

Duels were always rare in Australia. Now they are unknown. Society appears to manage without them in disputes affecting the honour of individuals. Whether manners have suffered in consequence, is a point upon which opinions have differed. It had so chanced that Hampden had never stood ‘on the ground’ before, although in skirmishes with the wild tribes of his native land it was well known that his cool intrepidity and unerring aim had more than once saved life.

On this occasion an observer of character might have believed that he was more closely occupied in analysing his own and his adversary’s sensations than in attending to his personal interest.

That opinion would have been modified, when the critic observed him raise his hand with quiet precision at the signal. He fired with instinctive rapidity, and at the falling handkerchief two reports rang out.

As each man preserved his position unaltered, a sigh of relief broke from Fred Churbett. The features of Hampden had not in the slightest degree altered their expression. The eager observer even thought he detected a tendency to the slow, humorous smile which was wont to be his substitute for laughter, as Argyll threw down his weapon with a hasty exclamation, while a red line on his pistol arm showed that the accuracy of Hampden’s aim had not been altered by the nature of his target.

‘You are hit, Argyll?’ said Churbett, starting forward. ‘For God’s sake, stop this mummery! I know Hampden regrets anything inconsiderate he may have said.’

The brow of Argyll was black with suppressed fury.

‘A d – d graze, can’t you see, sir?’ he said, as he reluctantly pulled up his coat-sleeve for the inspection of the surgeon. ‘The matter cannot stop here. An apology at this stage would be absurd. I am in Mr. Forbes’s hands, I believe.’

That gentleman had already walked gravely forward to meet Mr. Neville, who, with equal seriousness of demeanour, conferred with his antagonistic diplomate. Words were exchanged, ending with an ominous shaking of the head on Forbes’s part. The seconds, having courteously bowed, departed to their former positions. There they placed pistols in the hands of the opponents, and took their stations. Even at this stage the manner of the two men remained as essentially apart as their constitutions. Argyll stood chafing with impatience, while Hampden’s eyes wandered calmly over the whole scene – the valley, the little stream, the threatening sky – as if considering the chances of the season.

As the pistols were handed to them, Argyll took his weapon with a quick gleam of the eye, which spoke of inward strife, while Hampden accepted his mechanically and proceeded to gaze fixedly at Argyll, as if prepared to give the matter his serious attention.

At the signal he raised his hand as before, but one report only startled the birds on the adjacent tree-tops. Hampden held his pistol in the steady hand which so few had ever known to swerve from a deadly aim, and then, elevating the muzzle, fired carelessly into space.

‘We should have improved in our shooting,’ he said, ‘as we went on; Argyll’s second shot was not so wide as the first. He has spoiled my coat collar.’

‘By Jove!’ ejaculated Neville, ‘rather a near thing. This must end the matter; I’ll be no party to another shot.’

‘I have no objection to state now,’ said Hampden, ‘that I regret the expressions used by me. I beg unreservedly to withdraw them.’

After a short colloquy between Argyll and Forbes, the latter came forward, and with great precision of intonation thus delivered himself.

‘I have much pleasure in stating, on the part of my principal, that while accepting Mr. Hampden’s handsome apology and retractation, he desires to recognise cordially his generous behaviour.’

Only the Spartan laws of the duello, inexorably binding upon all men soever of a certain rank in society, prevented Fred Churbett from throwing his hat into the air at this termination of the affair.

As each party moved off in opposite directions, after Argyll had, rather against his will, submitted to having his arm bandaged, secundum artem, Hampden said to Neville:

‘What mockeries these affairs are! I could have shot Argyll “as dead as a herring.” It’s better as it is, though.’

‘It’s a good thing his last shot wasn’t an inch or two inside your collar instead of out,’ said Neville gravely. ‘After all, as you say, these things are mockeries, and worse. Suppose he had drilled you, and I was on my way to tell Mrs. Hampden that her husband would never return to her?’

‘But you wouldn’t be able to have given the sad intelligence, old fellow,’ said Hampden; ‘you would have been fleeing from justice, or surrendering yourself. Deuced troublesome affair to all concerned, except the departed. But a man must live or die, in accordance with the rules of society. After all, there’s nearly as much chance of breaking one’s neck mustering over that lava country of ours as being snuffed out in this way. Life’s a queer lottery at best.’

‘H – m, ha!’ said Neville, ‘great deal to be got out of the subject; don’t feel in the humour for enlarging on it just now. What a good fellow that Churbett is! He had a mind to read the Riot Act himself.’

An angry man ye may opine,Was he, the proud Count Palatine!

And dire would have been the wrath of our provincial potentate, William Rockley, had he but known on Sunday morning what deeds were about to be enacted within his social and magisterial jurisdiction.

No sympathy had he, a man of strictly modern ideas, with what he called the mediæval humbug of duelling. He looked upon the policeman as the proper exponent of such proceedings. Could he have but guessed where this discreditable anachronism, according to his principles, was being perpetrated, all concerned would have found themselves in the body of Yass gaol, in default of sufficient sureties to keep the peace. The news, however, did not leak out until afterwards, owing to the discretion of the persons concerned, and the fortunate absence of serious results. When it did become matter of public comment, his imperial majesty was furious. He abused every one concerned in unmeasured terms; swore he would never speak to Argyll or Forbes again, and would have Hampden struck off the Commission of the Peace. As for Fred Churbett, he considered him the worst of the lot, because of his deceitful, diabolical amiability, which permitted him to assist in such infamous bloodthirsty designs unsuspectedly. Not one of them should ever darken his doors again. He would never subscribe another shilling to the Yass Races; indeed, he believed he would sell out, wind up his business, and leave that part of the colony altogether.

However, not receiving intimation of this infraction of the law until matters were somewhat stale, the status in quo was undisturbed. The whole of the company, with the exception of the few who were in the secret, were similarly innocent; so the air remained unclouded. An afternoon walk to Fern-tree Hollow, a shady defile which lay a couple of miles from the town, was the accepted Sunday stroll.

Every one turned up to say farewell, thinking it a more suitable time than on the hurried, packing, saddling, harnessing-up, bill-paying morrow. Then once more the work of the hard world would recommence. The idyll had been sung to the last stanza. The nymphs would seek their forest retreats, the listening fauns would disappear amid the leaves. The rites of that old world deity ‘Leisure,’ now sadly circumscribed, had been honoured and ended. This was the last day, almost the last hour, when Phyllis could be expected to listen to soft sighings, or Neæra to be seen in proximity to the favouring shade.

As they strolled homewards, in the evening, with a troubled sunset and a cooler breeze, as if in sympathy with the imminent farewell, the scraps of conversation which might have been gathered were characteristic. Something more than half-confidences were occasionally interchanged, and semi-sentimental speculations not wholly wanting.

At the close of the evening, and the end of the stroll, every one, of course, went to the Maison Rockley, and comforted their souls with supper, Sunday being an early dinner day, as in all well-regulated British families. Conversations which had not been satisfactorily concluded had here a chance of definite ending, as the guests somehow seemed unwilling to separate when the probability of meeting again was uncertain or remote.

With the exception of a little music, there was no attempt at other than conversational occupation, which indeed appeared to suffice fully for the majority of the guests. And though ordinary topics gradually introduced themselves, and Rockley, in the freedom of the verandah, reiterated his opinions to Mr. Effingham upon the iniquities of the land law, a subdued tone pervaded, half unconsciously, the various groups, as of members of one family about to separate for a hazardous expedition.

‘I feel terribly demoralised,’ said Mrs. Snowden, ‘after all this dissipation; it is like a visit to Paris must have been to Madame Sevigné, after a summer in the provinces. Like her, we shall have to take to letter-writing when we go home to keep ourselves alive. The poultry are my great stand-by for virtuous occupation. They suffer, I admit, from these fascinating trips to Yass; for the last time I returned I found two hens sitting upon forty-five eggs. Now what philosophy could support that?’

‘Whose philosophy, that of the hens?’ inquired Hamilton, who, with his observant companion, had been mildly reviewing the confidentially occupied couples. ‘It looks to me like a case of overweening feminine ambition on their part.’

‘It was all the fault of that careless Charlotte Lodore who was staying with me – a cousin of mine, and a dreadful girl to read. She was so deeply interested in some new book that she left the poor fowls to their own devices, and never thought about adjusting their “clutches” – that’s the expression – until I returned. If you could have seen our two faces as we gazed at the pile of addled eggs you would have been awed. I was so angry.’

As for Wilfred, he concluded an æsthetic conversation with Miss Fane by trusting that she would be enabled to accept his mother’s invitation, and pay them a visit at Warbrok Chase before the winter set in.

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, really,’ said she, ‘but I seldom manage to leave home, except to see a relation in Sydney, or when our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Rockley insist on my coming here. But for them, papa would hardly consent to my visiting in the country at all.’