Babes in the Bush

‘“You can fight or not, as you like, Tom,” he said, “if we meet any of the boys; but if you show cur, back you go to the barracks.”

‘“Sooner to hell,” says I. I felt that I would go through fire and water for him. He trated me liked a man!’

‘And did you meet any bushrangers?’ said Wilfred.

‘We did then – the Tinker’s gang – three of them, and a boy. They bailed us up in a narrow place. I took steady aim and shot the Tinker dead. As well him as me – not that I cared a traneen for my life. My master dropped a second man; the other one and the boy bolted for their lives.

‘“Well done, Tom!” says my master, when it was all over. “You were a good cavalry man lost” – he was in the Hussars, no less, at home. “We don’t part asy, I can tell you. You deserve your freedom, and you’ll get it.”

‘He was betther than his word. I got a conditional pardon, not to go beyond the colonies. Sure I had little taste for lavin’ them. I stayed with him till he died; the next place I went to was Warbrok, as I tould ye the first day I seen you.’

‘Did you ever hear what became of your child?’

‘Ne’er a one of me knows, nor cares. If he’s turned out well, the less he knows of me the better. If he’s gone to the dogs, there’s scoundrels enough in the country already. But I nigh forget tellin’ ye, I made money once by dalin’ in cattle, and every year I sent home £50, thinkin’ it might do good to the child.’

‘And do you know if it went safe?’

‘Sure I got a resate for every pound of it, just as if a lawyer had written it, thankin’ me, but never sayin’ a word about the boy, but that it would be used for his larning.’

‘And what made you leave it off?’

‘I didn’t lave it off. They sent back the last of it without a word or message. That made me wild, and I started drinkin’, and never cried crack till it was gone. I began to wander about and take billets as a stock-rider. ’Tis the way I’ve lived iver since. If it wasn’t for the change and wild life now and thin – fightin’ them divils of blacks, gallopin’ after wild cattle, and campin’ out where no white man had been before – I’d been dead with the drink long ago. But something keeps me; something tells me I can’t die till I’ve seen one from the ould country. Who it is, I can’t tell. Sometimes I see Mary in my drames, holdin’ up the child like the last day I seen her. I’d have put a bullet through me, when I was in “the horrors,” only for thim drames. I shall go when my time comes. It’s little I’d care if it was in the night that’s drawin’ on.’

Here he rode on for some minutes without speaking, then continued in an altered voice:

‘See here now, Mr. Wilfred, it’s little I thought to say to mortial man the things I’ve let out of my heart this blessed day. But my feeling to you and your father is the same as I had to my first master – the heavens be his bed! If he’d always been among such people here – rale gintry – that cared for him and thought to help him, Tom Glendinning would maybe have been a different man. But the time’s past. I’m like a beaten fox, nigh run down; and I’ll never die in my bed, that much I know. You won’t spake to me agen about this. My heart’s burstin’ as it is; and – I’ll maybe drop – if it comes on me again – like it – does – now – ’

He pressed his hand closely, fiercely, upon the region of the heart. He grew deadly pale, and shook as if in mortal agony; his face was convulsed as he bowed himself upon the saddle-bow, and Wilfred feared he was about to fall from his horse. But he slowly regained his position, and quivering like one who had been stretched upon the rack, guided his horse along the homeward path.

‘’Tis spasms of the heart, the doctor tould me it was,’ he gasped at length. ‘They’d take me off some day, before you could light a match, “if I didn’t keep aisy and free from trouble,”’ he said. ‘Maybe they will, some day; maybe something else will be too quick for them. It’s little I care. Close up, Mr. Wilfred, we’re late for home, and I’d like to regulate thim calves before it’s dark.’

Much Wilfred mused over the history of the strange old man who had now become associated with their fortunes.

‘What a life!’ thought he. ‘What a tragedy!’ How changed from the days when he followed the Mayo hounds; reckless then, perhaps, and impatient of control, but an unweaned child in innocence compared to his present condition. And yet he possessed qualities which, under different treatment might have led to honour and distinction.

As far as personal claims to distinction were concerned, few districts in which the Effinghams could have been located, would have borne comparison with the vicinity of Lake William. It abounded, as we have told, in younger sons of good family, whom providence would appear to have thus guided but a few years before their own migration. This fortunate concurrence they had themselves often noted, and fully did they appreciate the congenial companionship.

Besides the local celebrities, few tourists of note passed along the southern road without being intercepted by the hospitality of one or other household. These captives of their bow and spear were shared honourably. When the Honourable Cedric Rotherwood, who had letters to Mr. Effingham, was quartered for a month at The Chase, fishing, shooting, and kangaroo-hunting, the Benmohr men and their allies were entreated to imagine there was a muster at The Chase every Saturday, and to rendezvous in force accordingly. A strong friendship accordingly was struck up between the young men. The Honourable Cedric was only five-and-twenty, and years afterwards, when Charlie Hamilton went home with one station in his pocket, and two more paying twenty per cent per annum upon the original outlay, his Lordship, having then come into his kingdom, had him down at Rotherwood Hall, and gave him such mounts in the hunting field, and such corners in the battues, not to mention a run over to his Lordship’s deer forest in the Highlands, that Charlie, on befitting occasions, refers to that memorable visit with enthusiasm (and at considerable length, say his friends) even unto this day.

Against this court card, socially marked for the Effinghams’ fortune, one day turned up a couple of trumps, which might be thought to have made a certainty of the odd trick in favour of Benmohr. Charles Hamilton, coming home after a day’s ploughing, found two strangers in the sitting-room, one of whom, a quiet plainly dressed personage, shut up a book at his entrance, and begged to introduce his friend and travelling companion, Major Glendinning, ‘who (his own name Kinghart) had brought a letter from a mutual friend, he believed, Mr. Machell of Langamilli. The Major had been good enough to accompany him, being anxious to see the country.’

‘Delighted to see you, I’m sure,’ said Hamilton, pocketing the letter unread. ‘I hope Mrs. Teviot gave you some refreshment. I seldom come home before dark, now the days are getting short.’

‘The old lady did the honours, I assure you,’ said the Major, ‘but we preferred awaiting dinner, as we had tiffin on the road. As for Kinghart, he found an old edition in your book-case which was meat and drink to him.’

‘In that case, if you will allow me, I will ask you to excuse me till the bell rings, as dressing is a serious business after my clay furrows.’

Hamilton had time to look at Willie Machell’s letter, in which he found Mr. Kinghart described as an out-and-out brick, though reserved at first, and unreasonably fond of books. Played a goodish game of whist, too. Henry Kinghart was brother to the famous clergyman and writer of that name, and was so deuced clever that, if there had been any material for fiction in this confounded country, which there was not, he shouldn’t be surprised if he wrote a book himself some day. As for the Major, he was invaluable. He (Machell) had met him at the Australian Club, and brought him up forcibly from Sydney. He was the best shot and horseman he ever saw, and fought no end with his regiment of Irregular Horse in India. Siffter, N.I., who denied everybody’s deeds but his own, admitted as much. Relative in Australia – cattle-station manager or something – that he wanted to look up. He (Hamilton) was not to keep them all the winter at Benmohr, as he (Machell) was deucedly dull without them.

Mr. Kinghart fully answered his warranty, inasmuch as he volunteered little in the way of remark, and fastening upon one or two rare books in the Benmohr collection, hardly looked up till Mrs. Teviot came in with the bedroom candles. The Major seemed indisposed to literature, but had seen so much, and indeed had transacted personally so large a share of modern history in Indian military service, that Hamilton, who, like most Scottish gentlemen, had a brother in the line there and several cousins in the Civil Service, was deeply interested. He had been in every battle of note since the commencement of the Mahratta war, and

A scar on his brown cheek revealedA token true of ‘Moodkee’ field.

Without a shade of self-consciousness he replied to Hamilton’s eager questionings, whom he found to be (from his brother’s letters) accurately informed about the affairs of Northern India.

Unfortunately for Mr. Kinghart’s studies, Neil Barrington and Bob Ardmillan turned up next morning – two men who would neither be quiet themselves, nor suffer other mortals to enjoy repose. Part of the day was spent in shooting round the borders of the dam, when the Major topped Ardmillan’s bag, who was considered the crack shot of the neighbourhood. In the afternoon, there being many horses, colts and others, in the stables, Neil proposed an adjournment to the leaping-bar, an institution peculiar to Benmohr, for educating the inexperienced steeds to jump cleverly with the aid of a shifting bar enwrapped in brambles.

At this entertainment the Major showed himself to be no novice, riding with an ease of seat and perfection of hand, to which, doubtless, years of pig-sticking and tent-pegging had contributed.

In the evening whist was suggested, when Mr. Kinghart showed that his studies had by no means prevented his paying due attention to an exacting and jealous mistress. The exigencies of the game thawed his reserve, and in his new character he was pronounced by the volatile Neil and the shrewd satirist Bob Ardmillan to be a first-rate fellow. He displayed with some dry humour the results of a habit of close observation; in addition, a chance allusion served to reveal such stores of classical lore, that Argyll’s absence was deplored by Neil Barrington, who believed that his friend, who was always scolding him for not keeping up his classics, would have been for once out-quoted.

Of course such treasures of visitors could not be allowed to lie hid, and after a few allusions to the family at The Chase had paved the way, Mr. Kinghart and the Major were invited to accompany Hamilton on a visit (which he unblushingly asserted to be chiefly on business) to that popular homestead on the next ensuing Saturday.

The Effingham family were devoted admirers of the elder and Kinghart, had but recently read and discussed Eastward Ho, Dalton, Rocke and other products of the large, loving mind which was then stirring the hearts of the most generous portion of English society. It may be conjectured with what secret triumph, veiled under an assumption of formal politeness, Hamilton introduced Major Glendinning and Mr. Henry Kinghart.

‘Will you think me curious if I ask whether you are related to the Rector of Beverly?’ inquired Rosamond soon after preliminaries had come to an end. ‘You must pardon our enthusiasm, but life in the provinces seems as closely concerned with authors as with acquaintances or friends, almost more so.’

‘My brother Charles would feel honoured, I assure you, Miss Effingham, if he knew the interest he has aroused in this far-off garrison of the Norseman he so loves to celebrate,’ said the stranger, with a pleasant smile. ‘I wish, for a hundred reasons, that he could be here to tell you so. How he would enjoy roaming over this land of wonders!’

Rosamond’s eyes sparkled with an infrequent lustre. Here was truly a miraculous occurrence. A brother – actually a brother – of the great, the noble, the world-renowned Charles Kinghart, with whose works they had been familiar ever since they could read; most of whose characters were to them household words!

Certainly there was nothing heroic about the personnel of their literary visitor – an unobtrusive-looking personage. But now that he was decorated with the name of Kinghart, glorified with the reflected halo of genius, there was visible to the book-loving maiden a world of distinction in his every gesture and fragment of speech.

Then Major Glendinning, too, a man whom few would pass without a second glance. Slightly over middle height, his symmetrical figure and complete harmony of motion stamped him as one perfected by the widest experiences of training and action. ‘Soldier’ was written emphatically by years of imprint upon the fearless gaze, the imperturbable manner, the bronzed cheek, and accurate but unostentatious dress. A man who had shouldered death and had mocked danger; who had actually shed blood in action – ‘in single fight and mixed array’ (like Marmion, as Annabel said). Not in old, half-forgotten days, like their father, but in last year’s, well-nigh last month’s, deadly picturesque strife, of which the echoes were as yet scarcely silent. Annabel and Beatrice gazed at him as at a denizen of another planet, and left to Rosamond the more rare adoration which exalts the image of the scholar to a higher pedestal than that of the warrior.

There was, however, a sufficing audience and ample appreciation for both the recent lions, who were by no means suffered by their original captors to roar softly or feed undisturbed. Before sitting down to the unceremonious evening meal, Charles Hamilton begged Mrs. Effingham to defer leaving the drawing-room for a few moments while he made a needful explanation.

‘You will not be surprised to hear, Mrs. Effingham,’ he commenced, with an air of great deference, ‘that Mr. Kinghart shares his distinguished brother’s views as to our duties to the (temporarily) lower orders, and the compulsion under which the nobler minds of the century lie, to advance by personal sacrifice the social culture of their dependents, more particularly in the colonies, where (necessarily) the feelings are less sensitive. Mr. Kinghart, therefore, declines to partake of a meal in any house, unless the servants are invited to share the repast.’

‘What nonsense!’ said the gentleman referred to, rather hastily; ‘but I daresay you recognise our friend’s vein of humour, Mrs. Effingham.’

‘It’s all very well, Kinghart,’ replied Hamilton gravely; ‘but I feel pained to find a man of your intellect deserting his convictions when they clash with conventionalities. You know the Rector’s opinions as to our dependents, and here you stand, ashamed to act up to the family principles.’

‘My dear fellow, of course I support Charles’s gallant testimony to the creed of his Master, but he had no “colonial experience,” whereas I have had a great deal, which may have led me to believe that I am the deeper student of human nature. I don’t know whether I need assure Mrs. Effingham that she will find me outwardly much like other people.’

‘How few beliefs shall I retain henceforth,’ said Hamilton sorrowfully.

‘Putting socialism out of the question,’ said Mr. Kinghart, ‘I shall always regret that Charles did not avail himself of an opportunity he once had to visit Australia. He would have been charmed beyond description.’

‘I’m sure we should have been, only to see him,’ said Beatrice; ‘but I don’t know what we should have had to offer in exchange for what he would have to forgo.’

‘You are leaving out of the question the fact of my brother’s passionate love of geology, botany, and adventure. The facts in natural history to which even my small researches have led are so wonderful that I hesitate to assert them.’

‘How fascinating it must be,’ said Rosamond, ‘to be able to walk about the earth and read the book of Nature like a scroll. You and our dear old Harley seem alike in that respect. I look upon you as magicians. You have the “open sesame,” and may find the way to Ali Baba caverns full of jewels.’

‘This last is not so wildly improbable, though you over-rate my attainments,’ said their visitor, with a quiet smile. ‘I have certainly found in this neighbourhood indications of valuable minerals, not even excluding that Chief Deputy of the Prince of the Air – Gold.’

‘Why, Kinghart, you are as mad as Mr. Sternworth,’ said Hamilton. ‘All savants have a craze for impossible discoveries. How can there be gold here?’

‘I took Mr. Hamilton to be a gentleman of logical mind,’ said the Englishman quietly. ‘Why should not the sequences from geological premisses be as invariable in Australia as in any other part of the globe. The South Pole does not invert the principle of cause and effect, I presume.’

‘I did not mean that,’ explained Hamilton, with something less than his ordinary decisiveness, ‘but there seems something so preposterous in a gold-field in a new country like this.’

‘It is not a new country, it is a very old one; there was probably gold here long before it was extracted from Ophir. But your men, in digging holes yesterday for the posts of that new hut, dislodged fragments of hornblendic granite slightly decomposed and showing minute particles of gold. I had not time to examine them, but I noted the formation accurately.’

‘What then?’ said his male hearers in a kind of chorus.

‘What then? Why, it follows inexorably that we are standing above one of the richest goldfields in the known world!’

‘But assuming for a moment, which God forbid,’ said Hamilton, ‘that gold —real gold – in minute quantities could be extracted from the stone you picked up, does it follow that rich and extensive deposits should be contiguous?’

‘My dear Hamilton, you surely missed the geological course in your college studies! Gold once found amid decomposed hornblendic granite, in alluvial drifts in company with water-worn quartz, has never failed to demonstrate itself in wondrous wealth. In the Ural Mountains, in Mexico, and most likely in King Solomon’s time, there were no little mines where once this precise formation was verified.’

‘I devoutly trust that it may not be in our time,’ said Argyll. ‘What a complete overturn of society would take place; in Australia, of all places! I should lose interest in the country at once.’

‘There might be inconvenience,’ said Mr. Kinghart reflectively, ‘but the Anglo-Saxon would be found capable of organising order. We need not look so far ahead. But of the day to come, when the furnace-chimney shall smoke on these hillsides, and miles of alluvial be torn up and riddled with excavations, I am as certain as that Glossopteris, of which I have seen at least three perfect specimens in shale, denotes coal deposits.’

‘We must buy you out, Kinghart, that is the whole of it,’ said Ardmillan, ‘and direct your energies into some other channel. If you go on proving the existence of gold and black diamonds under these heedless feet of ours the social edifice will totter. Hamilton will abandon his agriculture, Argyll his stock-keeping, Churbett his reading and early rising, Mrs. Teviot will leave off cheese-making, Forbes will cease to contradict – in short, the whole Warbrok and Benmohr world will come to an end.’

‘It is a very pleasant world, and I am sorry to have hinted at the flood which will some day sweep over it,’ said Mr. Kinghart; ‘but what is written is written, and indelibly, when the pages are tables of stones, set up from the foundation of the world.’

Most enjoyable and still well remembered were the days which followed this memorable discussion. A succession of rides, drives, and excursions followed, in which Mr. Kinghart pointed out wonders in the world of botany, which caused Rosamond to look upon him as a sage of stupendous experiences.

To Howard Effingham the presence of Major Glendinning was an unalloyed pleasure. Familiar chiefly with service in other parts of the world, he was never tired of listening or questioning. Varied necessarily were incidents of warfare conducted against the wild border tribes of Hindostan with her hordes of savage horsemen. Such campaigns necessarily partook of the irregular modes of combat of the foe. Without attaching importance to his own share of distinction, their guest permitted his hearers to learn much of the picturesque and splendid successes of the British arms in the historic land of Ind.

For himself, his manner had a strange tinge of softness and melancholy. At one time his mien was that of the stern soldier, proud of the thoroughness with which a band of marauders had been extirpated, or the spirit of a dissolute native ruler broken. Scarcely had the tale been told when a settled sadness would overspread his face, as if in pity for the heathens’ spoil and sorrow. To his hearers, far from war’s alarms, there was a strong, half-painful fascination in these tales of daring, heightened by the frequent presence of death in every shape of hot-blooded carnage or military execution.

‘How difficult it is to imagine,’ said Beatrice one day, suddenly arousing herself, after staring with dilated eyeballs at the Major, who had been recounting a realistic incident for Guy’s special edification (how the Ranee of Jeypore had hanged a dozen of his best troopers, and of the stern reprisal which he was called upon to make), ‘that you, actually sitting here quietly with us, are one and the same person who was chief actor in these fearful doings. What a wonderful change it must be for you.’

‘Let me assure you,’ said the Major, ‘that it is a most pleasant change. I am tired of soldiering, and my health is indifferent. I almost think that if I could fish out this old uncle of mine, I should be content to settle in the bush, and take to rural life for the rest of my days.’

‘Don’t you think you would find it awfully dull?’ said Annabel; ‘you would despise all our life so much. Unless there happened to be an outbreak of bushrangers, you might never have a chance of killing any one again, as long as you lived.’

‘I could manage without that excitement. I have had enough, in all conscience, to last a lifetime. The climate of your country suits us old Indians so well. If I were once fairly established, I think I could rear horses and cattle, especially the former, with great contentment.’

‘There is no one of your name in this part of the country,’ said Guy, ‘except our old stock-rider, Tom. He’s such a queer old fellow. I remember asking him what his surname was one day, and he told me it was Glendinning. He’s away now, mustering at Wangarua.’

‘It is not an uncommon name where my family lived,’ said the Major. ‘I should like to see him if he is a namesake. He may have heard of the person I am in search of.’

The whole party was extremely sorry to permit their guests to depart; but after a few days spent in luxurious intercourse, during which sight-seeing and sport were organised day by day, and every imaginable book and author reviewed with Mr. Kinghart in the evening, while Guy had fully made up his mind to go to India, and had got up Indian history from the Mogul dynasty to the execution of Omichund, a parting had to be made. It was only temporary, however, as Mr. Kinghart had promised to visit an old schoolfellow long settled at Monaro, and after a fortnight’s stay had promised to return this way with the Major before they said farewell finally. At Warbrok Chase there was great dismay at the inevitable separation.

‘I declare,’ said Annabel, ‘that I begin to doubt whether it is prudent to make such delightful acquaintances. One is so dreadfully grieved when they depart. It is much better to have everyday friends, who can’t run away, isn’t it?’

‘And who mightn’t be much missed if they did; quite so, Miss Annabel,’ said Forbes, to whom this lament was made.

‘Oh, of course you are different at Benmohr and just about here. We are all one family, and should be a very united one if Mr. Churbett would leave off teasing me about what silly people say, and Mr. Forbes would give up his sarcasms, Mr. Hamilton his logic, Mr. Argyll his tempers, and so on. How I could improve you all, to be sure! But I mean friends – that is, strangers – like Mr. Kinghart and Major Glendinning, that are birds of passage. I can’t explain myself; but I’m sure there’s something true and new about the idea.’