The Last Gleam Before the Storm.
But with us, who were staying down at Major Buckley’s, a fortnight passed on so pleasantly that the horror of poor Lee’s murder had begun to wear off, and we were getting once more as merry and careless as though we were living in the old times of profound peace. Sometimes we would think of poor Mary Hawker, at her lonely watch up at the forest station; but that or any other unpleasant subject was soon driven out of our heads by Captain Desborough, who had come back with six troopers, declared the country in a state of siege, proclaimed martial law, and kept us all laughing and amused from daylight to dark.
Captain Brentwood and his daughter Alice (the transcendently beautiful!) had come up, and were staying there. Jim and his friend Halbert were still away, but were daily expected. I never passed a pleasanter time in my life than during that fortnight’s lull between the storms.
“Begorra (that’s a Scotch expression, Miss Brentwood, but very forcible),” said Captain Desborough. “I owe you more than I can ever repay for buying out the Donovans. That girl Lesbia Burke would have forcibly abducted me, and married me against my will, if she hadn’t had to follow the rest of the family to Port Phillip.”
“A fine woman, too,” said Captain Brentwood.
“I’d have called her a little coarse, myself,” said Desborough.
“One of the finest, strangest sights I ever saw in my life,” resumed Captain Brentwood, “was on the morning I came to take possession. None of the family were left but Murtagh Donovan and Miss Burke. I rode over from Buckley’s, and when I came to the door Donovan took me by the arm, and saying ‘whist,’ led me into the sitting-room. There, in front of the empty fireplace, crouched down on the floor, bareheaded, with her beautiful hair hanging about her shoulders, sat Miss Burke. Every now and then she would utter the strangest low wailing cry you ever heard: a cry, by Jove, sir, that went straight to your heart. I turned to Donovan, and whispered, ‘Is she ill?’ and he whispered again, ‘Her heart’s broke at leaving the old place where she’s lived so long. She’s raising the keen over the cold hearthstone. It’s the way of the Burkes.’ I don’t know when I was so affected in my life. Somehow, that exquisite line came to my remembrance —
“‘And the hare shall kindle on the cold hearth-stone,’
“and I went back quietly with Donovan; and, by Jove, sir, when we came out the great ass had the tears running down his cheeks. I have always felt kindly to that man since.”
“Ah, Captain,” said Desborough, “with all our vanity and absurdity, we Irish have got good warm hearts under our waistcoats. We are the first nation in the world, sir, saving the Jews.”
This was late in the afternoon of a temperate spring day. We were watching Desborough as he was giving the finishing touches to a beautiful watercolour drawing.
“Doctor,” he said, “come and pass your opinion.”
“I think you have done admirably, Captain,” said the Doctor; “you have given one a splendid idea of distance in the way you have toned down the plain, from the grey appearance it has ten miles off to the rich, delicate green it shows close to us. And your mountain, too, is most aerial. You would make an artist.”
“I am not altogether displeased with my work, Doctor, if you, who never flatter, can praise it with the original before you. How exceedingly beautiful the evening tones are becoming!”
We looked across the plain; the stretch of grass I have described was lying before one like a waveless sea, from the horizon of which rose the square abruptsided mass of basalt which years ago we had named the Organ-hill, from the regular fluted columns of which it was composed. On most occasions, as seen from Major Buckley’s, it appeared a dim mass of pearly grey, but to-night, in the clear frosty air, it was of a rich purple, shining on the most prominent angles with a dull golden light.
“The more I look at that noble fire-temple, the more I admire it,” said the Doctor. “It is one of the most majestic objects I ever beheld.”
“It is not unlike Staffa,” said Desborough. “There come two travellers.”
Two dots appeared crawling over the plain, and making for the river. For a few minutes Alice could not be brought to see them, but when she did, she declared that it was Jim and Halbert.
“You have good eyes, my love,” said her father, “to see what does not exist. Jim’s horse is black, and Halbert’s roan, and those two men are both on grey horses.”
“The wish was parent to the thought, father,” she replied, laughing. “I wonder what is keeping him away from us so long? If he is to go to India, I should like to see him as much as possible.”
“My dear,” said her father, “when he went off with Halbert to see the Markhams, I told him that if he liked to go on to Sydney, he could go if Halbert went with him, and draw on the agent for what money he wanted. By his being so long away, I conclude he has done so, and that he is probably at this moment getting a lesson at billiards from Halbert before going to dinner. I shall have a nice little account from the agent just now, of ‘Cash advanced to J. Brentwood, Esq.’”
“I don’t think Jim’s extravagant, papa,” said Alice.
“My dear,” said Captain Brentwood, “you do him injustice. He hasn’t had the chance. I must say, considering his limited opportunities, he has spent as much money on horses, saddlery, &c., as any young gentleman on this country side. Eh, Sam?”
“Well sir,” said Sam, “Jim spends his money, but he generally makes pretty good investments in the horse line.”
“Such as that sweet-tempered useful animal Stampedo,” replied the Captain, laughing, “who nearly killed a groom, and staked himself trying to leap out of the stockyard the second day he had him. Well, never mind; Jim’s a good boy, and I am proud of him. I am in some hopes that this Sydney journey will satisfy his wandering propensities for the present, and that we may keep him at home. I wish he would fall in love with somebody, providing she wasn’t old enough to be his grandmother. — Couldn’t you send him a letter of introduction to some of your old schoolfellows, Miss Puss? There was one of them, I remember, I fell in love with myself one time when I came to see you; Miss Green, I think it was. She was very nearly being your mamma-in-law, my dear.”
“Why, she is a year younger than me,” said Alice, “and, oh goodness, such a temper! She threw the selections from Beethoven at Signor Smitherini, and had bread and water-melon for two days for it. Serve her right!”
“I have had a narrow escape, then,” replied the father. “But we shall see who these two people are immediately, for they are crossing the river.”
When the two travellers rose again into sight on the near bank of the river, one of them was seen galloping forward, waving his hat.
“I KNEW it was Jim,” said Alice, “and on a new grey horse. I thought he would not go to Sydney.” And in a minute more she had run to meet him, and Jim was off his horse, kissing his sister, laughing, shouting, and dancing around her.
“Well, father,” he said, “here I am back again. Went to Sydney and stayed a week, when we met the two Marstons, and went right up to the Clarence with them. That was a pretty journey, eh? Sold the old horse, and bought this one. I’ve got heaps to tell you, sister, about what I’ve seen. I went home, and only stayed ten minutes; when I heard you were here, I came right on.”
“I am glad to see you back, Mr. Halbert,” said Major Buckley; “I hope you have had a pleasant journey. You have met Captain Desborough?”
“Captain Desborough, how are you?” says Jim. “I am very glad to see you. But, between you and I, you’re always a bird of ill omen. Whose pig’s dead now? What brings YOU back? I thought we should be rid of you by this time.”
“But you are not rid of me, Jackanapes,” said Desborough, laughing. “But I’ll tell you what, Jim; there is really something wrong, my boy, and I’m glad to see you back.” And he told him all the news.
Jim grew very serious. “Well,” said he, “I’m glad to be home again; and I’m glad, too, to see you here. One feels safer when you’re in the way. We must put a cheerful face on the matter, and not frighten the women. I have bought such a beautiful brace of pistols in Sydney. I hope I may never have the chance to use them in this country. Why, there’s Cecil Mayford and Mrs. Buckley coming down the garden, and Charley Hawker, too. Why, Major, you’ve got all the world here to welcome us.”
The young men were soon busy discussing the merits of Jim’s new horse, and examining with great admiration his splendid new pistols. Charley Hawker, poor boy! made a mental resolution to go to Sydney, and also come back with a new grey horse, and a pair of pistols more resplendent than Jim’s. And then they went in to get ready for dinner.
When Jim unpacked his valise, he produced a pretty bracelet for his sister, and a stockwhip for Sam. On the latter article he was very eloquent.
“Sam, my boy,” said he, “there is not such another in the country. It was made by the celebrated Bill Mossman of the Upper Hunter, the greatest swearer at bullocks, and the most accomplished whipmaker on the Sydney side. He makes only one in six months, and he makes it a favour to let you have it for five pounds. You can take a piece of bark off a blue gum, big enough for a canoe, with one cut of it. There’s a fine of two pounds for cracking one within a mile of Government House, they make such a row. A man the other day cracked one of them on the South Head, and broke the windows in Pitt Street.”
“You’re improving, master Jim,” said Charles Hawker. “You’ll soon be as good a hand at a yarn as Hamlyn’s Dick.” At the same time he wrote down a stockwhip, similar to this one, on the tablets of his memory, to be procured on his projected visit to Sydney.
That evening we all sat listening to Jim’s adventures; and pleasantly enough he told them, with not a little humorous exaggeration. It is always pleasant to hear a young fellow telling his first impressions of new things and scenes, which have been so long familiar to ourselves; but Jim had really a very good power of narration, and he kept us laughing and amused till long after the usual hour for going to bed.
Next day we had a pleasant ride, all of us, down the banks of the river. The weather was slightly frosty, and the air clear and elastic. As we followed the windings of the noble rushing stream, at a height of seldom less than three hundred feet above his bed, the Doctor was busy pointing out the alternations of primitive sandstone and slate, and the great streams of volcanic bluestone which had poured from various points towards the deep glen in which the river flowed. Here, he would tell us, was formerly a lofty cascade, and a lake above it, but the river had worn through the sandstone bar, drained the lake, leaving nothing of the waterfall but two lofty cliffs, and a rapid. There again had come down a lava-stream from Mirngish, which, cooled by the waters of the river, had stopped, and, accumulating, formed the lofty overhanging cliff on which we stood. He showed us how the fern-trees grew only in the still sheltered elbows facing northward, where the sun raised a warm steam from the river, and the cold south wind could not penetrate. He gathered for Mrs. Buckley a bouquet of the tender sweetscented yellow oxalis, the winter flower of Australia, and showed us the copper-lizard basking on the red rocks, so like the stone on which he lay, that one could scarce see him till a metallic gleam betrayed him, as he slipped to his lair. And we, the elder of the party, who followed the Doctor’s handsome little brown mare, kept our ears open, and spoke little — but gave ourselves fully up to the enjoyment of his learning and eloquence.
But the Doctor did not absorb the whole party; far from it. He had a rival. All the young men, and Miss Alice besides, were grouped round Captain Desborough. Frequently we elders, deep in some Old World history of the Doctor’s, would be disturbed by a ringing peal of laughter from the other party, and then the Doctor would laugh, and we would all join; not that we had heard the joke, but from sheer sympathy with the hilarity of the young folks. Desborough was making himself agreeable, and who could do it better? He was telling the most outrageous of Irish stories, and making, on purpose, the most outrageous of Irish bulls. After a shout of laughter louder than the rest, the Doctor remarked —
“That’s better for them than geology — eh, Mrs. Buckley?”
“And so my grandmother,” we heard Desborough say, “waxed mighty wrath, and she up with her goldheaded walking stick in the middle of Sackville Street, and says she, ‘Ye villain, do ye think I don’t know my own Blenheim spannel when I see him?’ ‘Indeed, my lady,’ says Mike, ”twas himself tould me he belanged to Barney.’ ‘Who tould you?’ says she. ‘The dog himself tould me, my lady.’ ‘Ye thief of the world,’ says my aunt, ‘and ye’d believe a dog before a dowager countess? Give him up, ye villain, this minute, or I’ll hit ye!’”
These were the sort of stories Desborough delighted in, making them up, he often confessed, as he went on. On this occasion, when he had done his story, they all rode up and joined us, and we stood admiring the river, stretching westward in pools of gold between black cliffs, toward the setting sun; then we turned homeward.
That evening Alice said, “Now do tell me, Captain Desborough, was that a true story about Lady Covetown’s dog?”
“True!” said he. “What story worth hearing ever was true? The old lady lost her dog certainly, and claimed him of a dogstealer in Sackville Street; but all the rest, my dear young lady, is historic romance.&r............