The Book of the Bush - George Dunderdale (life books to read txt) 📗

and that was the reason Frank was so sulky on that harvest morning.

He was meditating vengeance. Love and hate, matrimony and murder, are sometimes not far asunder, but Frank was not by nature vengeful; he had that "foolish hanging of the nether lip which shows a lack of decision."

I would not advise any man to seek in a law court a sovereign remedy for the wounds inflicted by the shafts of Cupid; but Frank tried it. During his examination in chief his mien was gloomy and his answers brief.

Then Mr. Aspinall rose and said: "I appear for the defendant, your Honour, but from press of other engagements I have been unable to give that attention to the legal aspects of this case which its importance demands, and I have to request that your Honour will be good enough to adjourn the court for a quarter of an hour."

The court was adjourned for half an hour, and Mr. Aspinall and his solicitor retired to a room for a legal consultation. It began thus:

"I say, Lane, fetch me a nobbler of brandy; a stiffener, mind."

Lane fetched the stiffener in a soda-water bottle, and it cleared the legal atmosphere.

When the court resumed business, Frank took his stand in the witness box, and a voice said: "Now, Mr. Barlow, look at me."

Frank had been called many names in his time, but never "Mr. Barlow" before now. He looked and saw the figure of a little man with a large head, whose voice came through a full-grown nose like the blast of a trumpet.

"You say you gave Cecily some money, a horse, saddle, and bridle?"

"I did."

"And you bought a wedding ring?"

"I've got it in my pocket."

"I see. Your Honour will be glad to hear that the ring, at any rate, is not lost. It will be ready for another Cecily, won't it, Mr. Barlow?"

Barlow, looking down on the floor of the court and shaking his head slowly from side to side, said:

"No, it won't No fear. There 'ull be no more Cecilies for me."

There was laughter in the court, and when Frank raised his eyes, and saw a broad grin on every face, he, too, burst into a fit of laughter.

I saw Mr. Aspinall and Dr. Macadam walking together arm-in-arm from the court. The long doctor and the little lawyer were a strange pair. Everybody knew that they were sliding down the easy slope to their tragic end, but they seemed never to think of it.

Frank returned to Nyalong, happier than either. He related the particulars of the trial to his friends with the utmost cheerfulness. Whether he recovered all the worldly goods with which he had endowed Cecily is doubtful, but he faithfully kept his promise that "There 'ull be no more Cecilies for me."

There was a demon of mischief at work on Philip's hill at both sides of the dividing fence. Sam was poisoned by a villainous butcher; Bruin had been killed by Hugh Boyle; Maggie had eloped with a wild native to a gum-tree; Joey had been eaten by Pussy; Barlow had been crossed in love, and then the crowning misfortune befell the hermit.

Mrs. Chisholm was a lady who gave early tokens of her vocation. At the age of seven she began to form benevolent plans for the colonies of Great Britain. She built ships of broad beans, filled them with poor families of Couchwood, sent them to sea in a wash-basin, landed them in a bed-quilt, and started them growing wheat. Then she loaded her fleet with a return cargo for the British pauper, one grain of wheat in each ship, and navigated it safely to Old England. She made many prosperous voyages, but once a storm arose which sent all her ships to the bottom of the sea. She sent a Wesleyan minister and a Catholic priest to Botany Bay in the same cabin, strictly enjoining them not to quarrel during the voyage. At the age of twenty she married Captain Chisholm, and went with him to Madras. There she established a School of Industry for Girls, and her husband seconded her in all her good works.

Mr. Chamier, the secretary, took a great interest in her school; Sir Frederick Adams subscribed 20 pounds, and officers and gentlemen in Madras contributed in five days 2,000 rupees. The school became an extensive orphanage.

Mrs. and Captain Chisholm came to Australia in 1838 for the benefit of his health, and they landed at Sydney. They saw Highland immigrants who could not speak English, and they gave them tools and wheelbarrows wherewith to cut and sell firewood.

Captain Chisholm returned to India in 1840, but the health of her young family required Mrs. Chisholm to remain in Sydney.

Female immigrants arriving in Sydney were regularly hired on board ship, and lured into a vicious course of life. Mrs. Chisholm went on board each ship, and made it her business to protect and advise them, and begged the captain and agent to act with humanity. Some place of residence was required in which the new arrivals could be sheltered, until respectable situations could be found for them, and in January, 1841, she applied to Lady Gipps for help. A committee of ladies was formed, and Mrs. Chisholm at length obtained a personal audience from the Governor, Sir George Gipps. He believed she was labouring under an amiable delusion. He wrote to a friend:

"I expected to have seen an old lady in a white cap and spectacles, who would have talked to me about my soul. I was amazed when my aide introduced a handsome, stately young woman, who proceeded to reason the question as if she thought her reason, and experience too, worth as much as mine."

Sir George at last consented to allow her the use of a Government building, a low wooden one. Her room was seven feet by seven feet. Rats ran about in it in all directions, and then alighted on her shoulders. But she outgeneraled the rats. She gave them bread and water the first night, lit two candles, and sat up in bed reading "Abercrombie." There came never less than seven nor more than thirteen rats eating at the same time. The next night she gave them another feast seasoned with arsenic.

The home for the immigrants given her by Sir George had four rooms, and in it at one time she kept ninety girls who had no other shelter. About six hundred females were then wandering about Sydney unprovided for. Some slept in the recesses of the rocks on the Government domain. She received from the ships in the harbour sixty-four girls, and all the money they had was fourteen shillings and three half-pence.

She took them to the country, travelling with a covered cart to sleep in. She left married families at different stations, and then sent out decent lasses who should be married.

In those days the dead bodies of the poor were taken to the cemetery in a common rubbish-cart.

By speeches and letters both public and private, and by interviews with influential men, Mrs. Chisholm sought help for the emigrants both in Sydney and England, where she opened an office in 1846.

In the year 1856 Major Chisholm took a house at Nyalong, near Philip's school. Two of the best scholars were John and David. When David lost his place in the class he burst into tears, and the Blakes and the Boyles laughed. The Major spoke to the boys and girls whenever he met them. He asked John to tell him how many weatherboards he would have to buy to cover the walls of his house, which contained six rooms and a lean-to, and was built of slabs. John measured the walls and solved the problem promptly. The Major then sent his three young children to the school, and made the acquaintance of the master.

Mrs. Chisholm never went to Nyalong, but the Major must have given her much information about it, for one day he read a portion of one of her letters which completely destroyed Philip's peace of mind. It was to the effect that he was to open a school for boarders at Nyalong, and, as a preliminary, marry a wife. The Major said that if Philip had no suitable young lady in view, Mrs. Chisholm, he was sure, would undertake to produce one at a very short notice. She had the whole matter already planned, and was actually canvassing for
pupils among the wealthiest families in the colony. The Major smiled benevolently, and said it was of no use for Philip to think of resisting Mrs. Chisholm; when she had once made up her mind, everybody had to give way, and the thing was settled. Philip, too, smiled faintly, and tried to look pleased, dissembling his outraged feelings, but he went away in a state of indignation. He actually made an attack on the twelve virtues, which seemed all at once to have conspired against his happiness. He said: "If I had not kept school so conscientiously, this thing would never have happened. I don't want boarders, and I don't want anybody to send me a wife to Nyalong. I am not, thank God, one of the royal family, and not even Queen Victoria shall order me a wife."

In that way the lonely hermit put his foot down and began a countermine, working as silently as possible.

During the Christmas holidays, after his neighbour Frank had been jilted by Cecily, he rode away, and returned after a week's absence. The Major informed him that Mrs. Chisholm had met with an accident and would be unable to visit Nyalong for some time. Philip was secretly pleased to hear the news, outwardly he expressed sorrow and sympathy, and nobody but himself suspected how mean and deceitful he was.

At Easter he rode away again and returned in less than a week. Next day he called at McCarthy's farm and dined with the family. He said he had been married the previous morning before he had started for Nyalong, and had left his wife at the Waterholes. McCarthy began to suspect that Philip was a little wrong in his head; it was a kind of action that contradicted all previous experience. He could remember various lovers running away together before marriage, but he could not call to mind a single instance in which they ran away from one another immediately after marriage. But he said to himself, "It will all be explained by-and-by," and he refrained from asking any impertinent questions merely to gratify curiosity.

After dinner Gleeson, Philip, and McCarthy rode into the bush with the hounds. A large and heavy "old man" was sighted; and the dogs stuck him up with his back to a tree. While they were growling and barking around the tree Gleeson dismounted, and, going behind the tree, seized the "old man" by the tail. The kangaroo kept springing upwards and at the dogs, dragging Gleeson after him, who was jerking the tail this way and that to bring his game to the ground, for the "old man" was so tall that the dogs could not reach his throat while he stood upright. Philip gave his horse to McCarthy