CHAPTER XXX.

There are many days of an Australian spring on which to remain within doors is an impossible heresy. This Sunday was one of them. The two who afforded Miss Julia Morton so irritating a theme for conjecture and comment were wandering in the Home Field in common with the rest of the Lullaboolagana household. Dr. Langdale had a little old-fashioned-looking book in his hand, and was engaged in the congenial task of supporting a theory Stella had started some days previously. She had found Virgil's 'Eclogues' full of notes in her deceased kinsman's handwriting, and it suddenly occurred to her that the Home Field was full of hints from those stately pastoral poems.

'Suppose we trace the resemblances one day?' said Langdale.

'May I say it?' asked Stella, smiling.

'You will say it, whether you may or not, when you look so mischievous, St. Charity.'

'Well, don't you think it is the German in you who suggests that heartless form of crushing my poor little fancy?'

'Now, as a penalty for that speech, I shall pelt you with proofs,' said Langdale, laughing.

And now he was going to make good the threat, armed with the little book in tarnished gold that bore traces of having been a treasured companion.

'I am waiting to be pelted,' said Stella.

'Well, there is Amaryllis, to begin with; swift as a fawn, lithe as a young pine, flitting by, pretending she does not hear the lay that Tityrus pipes on his lute——'

'But where is she?'

'Oh, a commentator is always allowed to see a little more than his readers or hearers. I see her. And then there is the spreading beech under which the swain reclines. Look, there are three beeches hard by—all spreading as far as their age permits. Could the beech-tree under which Tityrus reclines do more?'

'Oh, I see that in the matter of proving a theory you were born to destroy Afreets,' said Stella, her face sparkling with fun at the extreme gravity which her companion had assumed.

'But there is much more to follow. A little further on Melib[oe]us says—— May one read a little Latin to you without scandal?'

'Surely that is an anachronism! What else would he read?' said Stella, pretending to misunderstand.

They both laughed at this; and then Stella said: 'Yes, one may.'

'Then, "Hic inter densas corylos." The Oolloolloo is haunted with dense hazel-bushes. Tityrus, in his reply, says that Rome lifts up her head among other cities as high as cypress among bending osiers. I am not sure about more than one patch of osiers, but cypresses you have in abundance.'

'Yes, and of all the trees that grow, none look lovelier in the rose twilight of sunset. See those clumps of them between the house and the orchard, mingled with tamarisk-trees. At mid-day the cypress looks dark and stern compared with the silky tamarisk locks. But when the sunlight is dying, the cypress seems to disentangle its feathery foliage, till it looks like an airy vision of a tree rather than one that has roots underground.'

When Stella spoke of trees, or animals, or flowers, one could see that they were like living humanized creatures to her.

'Now, I have often wondered why I like cypress-trees better at sunset. Tell me some more about trees.'

'Oh, you haven't finished your proofs yet.'

'Well, Melib[oe]us speaks further of pine-trees, fountains, and vineyards. Pines you have in hundreds; you have two fountains, and over an acre of vines.'

'Really, the resemblance becomes quite startling!' laughed Stella.

'Yes; and then there is mention of willow-bloom on which the bees feast. Then you have flocks of pigeons, and elms and turtle-doves without number. In view of this, you must perceive that the lines concerning the hoarse note of the wood-pigeon, the turtle-dove's complaint, and the towering elm serve—first, either as a prophecy regarding Lull, or second, that the place has been moulded upon these lines. I incline to the latter view. The emphasis is my own.'

'But seriously, it is an interesting coincidence that all the natural objects named in the "Eclogues" seem to abound in the Home Field.'

'As you are convinced, even beforehand, my labours are at an end,' said Langdale, closing the book. 'Now tell me, have you any funny little stories of Mick or Dunstan?'

'Oh, Mick was better than a comedy yesterday. He hardly opened his mouth without making a bull. He told me about one of his girls who is at service and very much overworked. The mistress, it seems, gives music-lessons. "But she's no great hand at the music," said Mick, lowering his voice mysteriously; "indade, Miss Stella, they say she niver saw a pianny till she came to Minjah four years ago, and thin 'twas an harmonium."'

'Well done, Mick!' said Langdale, laughing.

'Then I asked after the eldest boy, who has got a situation lately in a little store. He doesn't get on with the mother—no one can long—so last week he went to board at an aunt's. Poor Mick was much scandalized. "'Why, Patrick,' says I to him, 'what do people's children do who have no parents but lodge wid their father's sister? And thin the house is near the swampy end of the town, and people die there that niver died anywhere else.'" Well, you may laugh, but there is sound sense under it all. I shall miss Mick's little anecdotes sadly when I go away.'

'When you go!' repeated Langdale, and his face fell visibly. On meeting his eyes a deeper tinge stole into the girl's cheeks. Then he added in a lighter tone: 'There are days in August when people who speak of going away should be fined, or at any rate set to counting the vine-buds and gadding tendrils.'

'And yet how very human it is to go away, even as human as it is to come. You see, I am catching a little of your reasonableness,' said Stella.

'That may be; but on a day like this, when the veriest little locust chirps in the sun as "though he never should be old," I maintain it is little short of felony to speak of the accidents that mar life.... You see, I am catching a little of your unreason,' he added.

They had crossed the stone bridge, and stood on a hillock clothed with elms, she-oaks, and scrub cypresses, where the breath of hidden violets came and went on the air like tremulous music. From this slight eminence they had a far-reaching view of the country round—the Messmate Ranges, with their dim gullies; the Wicked Wood, spectral in its bareness; the break in the far distance, where one became sensible of the Peeloo Plain; the flat, well-wooded country, and the contour of ridgy hills that stretched beyond Minjah Millowie. On every side lay the still wide woods, motionless as a great picture framed between heaven and earth, all clothed with the overflowing sunshine as with a garment.

And yet these two, as they stood there and looked afar and listened to the songs of birds and all the woodland sounds which filled the air—what influence was it that stirred both so deeply in the midst of this peaceful idyllic scene? Who can tell what vague outward gropings of the spirit make the heart turn on itself in some rare soft-footed hour as with a quickened sense of the sweet calm of the present, a shrinking fear of the uncertain days to come which may be clouded with futile agony, drenched with the storm-spray of life's keenest sorrows? For some moments neither spoke.

'You will never know how good it is of me not to talk like your friend Ivan Michalowicz just now,' said Stella, breaking the silence. 'I could believe the air is full of unseen presences——'

'That is a plagiarism from Mick. Go on—and unheard wails,' Langdale said, laughing.

'Yes; and souls that can find no home. But I forbear.'

'Well, I must admit that on a perfect day like this—and the only fault it has is that it keeps time to a clock—a kind of sadness creeps over me. It is the penalty for looking before and after.'

'Yes; neither a cat nor a marigold uses the sunlight as an invocation to call ghosts into a circle.'

'Ghosts? You know nothing of them!'

'At this very moment the air is drenched with ghosts. Ghosts of days to come—lean and gray, when youth is left far behind—when those that look out at the window are darkened, and the daughters of music are laid low.'

'It is good of you not to speak like Ivan,' said Langdale gravely. 'He said once that the great melancholy steppes of his native land had got into his disposition. I think the vast solitudes of your Australia have got into yours.'

'But do you never think how dreadful it is to grow old? And it goes on all the time. Why, since we have been here, if your eyes were keen enough, you would see wrinkles deepening on my face.'

'Thank Heaven my eyes are not so precocious!'

'Ah, now you have betrayed yourself. You are not so hopelessly reasonable after all. I may yet hear you rail at life in good set terms.'

'But don't you think it is time enough to speak of wrinkles when they come?'

'Ah, but they have come. I discovered a little sly wretch of a crow's-foot at the corner of my eye the other day. Look there when I stand sideways in the light,' and Stella stood so that her crow's-foot might be more clearly seen.

Langdale could not resist laughing. 'My eyesight is not sharp enough, or else your crow's-foot does not exist,' he said.

'Spoken like a courtier. But it would be more friendly to see it, and then to say something out of Seneca to comfort me. When will your profession make some real advance?'

'And invent an elixir for renewing youth—or perhaps you are thinking more of the happy despatch of superfluous beings?'

'But as it is, you are chiefly concerned with screening fools from their folly——'

'And thwarting the beneficent severity of Nature? Yes, it is painfully humdrum. Have you ever thought what calling in life might put one in the way of doing least mischief?'

'Well, good dressmaking, for my own sex. Do you remember what Frenchman said that women take the outward polish of civilization more quickly than men, but that inwardly they remain more truly savage?'

'Ah, that is the sort of paradox which even a luminous-minded Frenchman cannot resist. It is so glaringly untrue—there must be something in it—so it is wrapped up in a neat little epigram. But about the dressmaking?'

'Well, I think a woman who makes dresses that fit perfectly, adds more to the practical Christianity of the world than most people are aware of. If you could peep into the mind of a woman when a costly dress comes home that makes her waist what it shouldn't be, you would believe the Frenchman a little more. She may have sat at the feet of sages and be in touch with much of the wisest and the best, but in that moment she has taken a great leap back to the anthropoidal era.'

'But when her waist is what—no, I am afraid—but when the dressmaker has done her work nobly?'

'Why, then a sort of flow of philanthropy suffuses one's whole being. Yes, to make a dress well—without a pinch or a wrinkle in it—that is one of the least mischievous things a woman can do. As for your sex—— Well, what do you say to a shoemaker—one who does not cripple the foot, and makes good shoes with honest workmanship? With such shoes, one feels impelled to walk more; and to walk more is to be in the open air; and to be in the open air is to be—dare I say happy?'

'Oh, why not! "On the whole, stick close to words."'

'Where is that?'

'"On the whole, stick close to words, then shall you go through the sure portal into the temple of certainty." That is Mephistopheles speaking to the student. Don't you think it is time you spoke German to me?'

'Yes, I have two anecdotes to tell you in German. But for the summit of well-being in the open air, don't you think we are more indebted to the horse than the shoemaker? You see where the Messmate Ranges fall off into flat country? That is the beginning of one of our unoccupied spaces; and the scenery—-but perhaps you know it?'

'No, I don't think I do.'

'Claude and I rode there the other morning early. I had Duke, a delightful horse who skims the ground like a bird.'

'How far did you go then?'

'Thirteen miles. We reached No Man's Land, which stretches away close up to the New South Wales boundary. Nothing but sand and slender stringy bark trees, that grow so thick the sun can hardly pass between them. It was a most glorious ride, in the keen morning air loaded with the fragrance of gum-leaves.'

'I wonder if you would let me come with you some morning?'

'Oh, we shall be delighted; but then it is in the mornings you write your novel. Tell me how are your people going on? Do the wrong ones still make love to each other?'

Stella went on to sketch imaginary plots, ending in the most fabulous forms of happiness and good-luck, and introducing such extraordinary dialogues that, by the time the sound of a gong summoned them to afternoon tea on the western veranda, the two were laughing continuously, like a pair of school-children.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Two days later, Stella had again ridden in the direction of No Man's Land; but this time she was alone, except for Dustiefoot and her horse, and she had an 'adventure.' Shearing was soon to begin, and all hands were busily occupied on the station. Under these circumstances, Stella insisted on her birthright, as an Australian born, to ride through her native woods without any companionship beyond a swift well-bred horse and her beloved dog. There was some talk of getting Maisie to practise riding on a not very young pony, whose wildest pace had long been a gentle canter, so that during the time there was a premium on all male workers she might accompany her mistress. But Stella rejected the proposal with comic horror. Maisie by herself, or Andy by himself, might be borne; but the united caution of the two would mar the most delectable ride that could be offered by spring and Duke. If they really objected to her riding alone—'Look at the hypocritical Baby pretending to give in!' cried Claude, 'as if she ever failed to get her own way in anything!' 'I wish I could go,' said Mrs. Claude, making a rueful little face; but her husband did not echo the wish. 'I shall ask Dr. Langdale to come with me,' thought Stella; but somehow she did not, which could hardly be deemed the action of unbiased friendship.

It was her second ride alone, one breezy sunshiny forenoon, when four miles from the head-station on the road that led to No Man's Land, Stella came upon the strangest spectacle she had ever seen. It was a very old-looking waggon, with a tilt-cover, drawn by two horses, followed by another, tied to the vehicle behind, and all three lean to the last degree of emaciation, while the pace at which they went was that of animals worn out with famine and fatigue; and everything else was in keeping with the worn, famished look of the horses. At each slow revolution of the wheels, the waggon creaked and groaned as though it would fall to pieces. The woodwork was warped and splintered, with here and there dim greenish streaks—faint reminiscences of having, at some remote period, been painted. The canvas cover was draggled and patched, saturated with reddish sand and long-accumulated dust, frayed into tatters at one side and flapping dismally in the wind. The harness was entirely composed of untanned lengths of kangaroo skin; the horses had no bits in their mouths, but there was a ragged remnant of a bridle on each, to which knotted ropes were attached, that hung loosely on the poor lean necks. Every rib might be counted at a distance. They crawled on with drooping heads, the sound of their worn unshod hoofs completely drowned by the perpetual rumbling and groaning of the disjointed waggon. No hand guided them; no voice urged them on.

It was all so unspeakably forlorn and dreary, that the sight filled Stella with dismay. Dustiefoot, who was trotting on gaily in front, paused as he drew near this battered vehicle, drawn by horses that looked only fit to be the food of carrion crows, and he, too, was plainly smitten with something akin to fear. Whether this was occasioned by the strange rumbling and groaning or the weird appearance of the whole, it would be hard to say. But he suddenly stopped short, and, with the hair round his neck bristling angrily, began to bark in a loud defiant way. 'Quiet, good dog; quiet,' said Stella coaxingly. She had reined in her horse, and it suddenly flashed across her mind that this extreme misery must be rooted in some catastrophe. At the sound of the dog's barking the horses came to a standstill. It seemed as though they were glad of an excuse to give up even the snail's pace at which they crawled. Still no sign of life in the waggon. Women of well-descended natures, who have been protected from every form of harm all their lives, are usually not lacking in courage. Stella was certainly no coward. But she had a powerful imagination of an essentially picture-forming kind.

Was there anyone in this spectral-looking conveyance alive?—or was its occupant worn with fatigue and asleep? She had heard strange stories of people who had been overtaken by drought or illness, and had been imprisoned sometimes for months, sometimes for a year, in a far-away corner beside a permanent water-hole, unvisited by any human being. She advanced slowly to the side of the waggon, and using the well-known Bush salutation, she said 'Good-day,' in a loud, clear voice. But there was no reply. Her own words came back to her with mocking emphasis. She shrank from dismounting to look into the waggon, shrank still more from the sight that might meet her there. Should she return home and get Hector or Claude or one of the station-hands to come to the rescue? Whether there was a human being in distress or beyond it, the famished horses needed help sorely. To Stella, an animal in want or pain was very little, if at all, less important than a human being. The sight of these three poor creatures, with their bones almost projecting through the skin, with drooping heads and dim eyes, standing in their patient dumbness, went straight to her heart. No; she could not bear the thought of leaving them. She would start them on and take them home, where they would be fed and rested; and if there was anyone in there——'Oh, I must not be such a coward,' she said to herself impatiently; and then, with a fast-beating heart, she rode close to the side of the waggon, on which the cover was tattered and fluttering in the soft spring wind that blew from the west. She reined in Duke, the proud, graceful young horse she rode, who had come off victor in many well-contested local races, and who was gentle and tractable as only a well-bred horse can be when ridden by an affectionate well-trained rider.

She bent down and looked in. The first thing she saw was a woman's long, fair hair—unkempt and matted. The next was a dingy white cockatoo that had been fast asleep, and now woke up and began to mumble, 'Confound your eyes, confound your eyes,' in a faint, rapid way that was infinitely eerie. The woman's face was partly hidden by one hand, which covered her eyes and the upper part of her face—a brown, sunburnt, grimy hand, very lean and unwashed, and unwomanly-looking. No, she was not dead, as Stella at first feared. She moved and moaned, and as the bird went on mumbling, descending to a still lower depth of imprecation, the sound, and then Stella's sympathetic voice saying, 'I am afraid you are very ill,' seemed partly to rouse her. She half sat up, but her eyes remained glazed and unresponsive. 'Gee up, Jerry; Jill, Jill!' Her tones were shrill, though quavering, and at the words the horses pulled and strained, and once more resumed their weary, incredibly slow walk. They kept in the middle of the road, and Stella could but try to make Duke fall into the same pace. But this was impossible. He could stand stock still, or he could walk his slowest. But being neither lame on four legs, nor starved, nor born to drudgery, he could not absolutely crawl. It took this strange little procession the best part of two hours to get within sight of Lullaboolagana home-station. No words can express the air of mingled pride and responsibility with which Dustiefoot marshalled them all. He made circles round them, he trotted on in front, he walked behind, he panted; his scarlet young tongue hung out with joy and anxiety, his handsome bushy tail was arched upwards more airily than ever. He had the same insuperable difficulty that beset Duke of being unable to regulate his pace by that of animals so famished, so overborne and jaded, that even their hides would have been worthless. As Stella examined them more closely she saw that they had sores all over them—under the jagged collars that were held together with half-untwisted strands of rope, on their shoulders, sides, and thighs. So utterly maimed and defeated did they look as they dragged one quivering, shrunken leg after another, the only wonder was that they had not long since lain down to die.

When Dustiefoot found himself getting too far ahead—and if a young dog walked at all, that was inevitable—he turned round and waited, gazing at his mistress, and then at the horses and their load, till he was forced to give expression to his feelings in one or two barks, which might be classified as of the glad-excitement order. Those who have the privilege of being intimate with dogs are aware that no living creature is so pleased all over at an unusual event as a collie in the second year of his age.

Before the strange little cavalcade had reached the house, it was seen and met first by some of the children, then the maids, and finally by Mrs. Courtland and Mrs. Claude. Dunstan was at once despatched for Dr. Morrison. But before he came the poor woman was refreshed with wine, washed, arrayed in fine linen, and comfortably in bed. It was a case of collapse through long privation and exposure. There was nothing to eat or drink in the waggon beyond the stony remains of a damper, and a little muddy water in a brown earthen jar. She partly recovered consciousness after she had been in bed for a couple of hours. Dr. Morrison, on seeing her, came to the conclusion that careful nursing and dieting would bring her round in a few days. There was some dispute as to who should be chief nurse, but finally Stella convinced her sisters-in-law that, as she had discovered the patient, she must be primarily held responsible.

'You have a name for finding many ailing sorts of creatures, Miss Stella; but I think this is the biggest cargo of any,' said the doctor, with an amused twinkle in his eyes. And then he gave his instructions with due emphasis. 'I shall be away to-morrow, and perhaps the next day, but Dr. Langdale will look after her. By-the-way, how is your last patient, the crow? Langdale had grave fears as to his recovery at one time.'

Soon after the doctor left the patient fell into a deep sleep, and leaving Maisie in charge of the sick-room, Stella went to see after the horses. She found Dunstan giving them small measures of bran and oats, and looking at them with a mingled pity, amazement, and scorn that was irresistibly funny.

'You have unharnessed them, Dunstan? That is right. Oh, you poor, poor, dear things!'—and Stella stroked each in turn.

'Unharnessed them, Miss Stelly? Well, yes, if you calls them bits o' broken rope and rawr hide harness. I'm jiggered, but it's the very rummiest turn-out ever I seed. And what can have come to her husband?'

'Oh, she may not have one, Dunstan.'

But Dunstan shook his head. 'Ah, Miss Stelly, you don't never find a female get into such a hole without she's a married 'oman. That's the way along o' some women. If they want to enjy themselves at all, and are proper-like, they gets married, and then mostly they has a very bad time. They're like these yaller little birds; you sticks 'em in a cage, and they buzz agin the wires; and yet, if you let them go out into the wilds, they get knocked about, and can't get proper tucker.'

Dunstan spoke in a leisurely, high-pitched voice, which had a very odd effect. He was given to moralizing, and had those quaint reaches of fancy that are often found with men whose lives are passed out-of-doors in gardening, or shepherding, or other undrudging avocations.

Stella with difficulty refrained from laughter at this summing-up of the disabilities of her sex.

'I don't think you would like to be a woman, Dunstan?'

'Well, no, Miss Stelly. If so be that such a thing could happen, and God A'mighty give me the pick to be a female or a worm, I'd say a worm, if you please; meaning no disrespect to the A'mighty or to you, Miss Stelly. A worm, to be sure, has a lowly life, and unless it's cut in two or swallered alive, not much happens in the span of its days. But what's that to having things allays happening, and each one worse than t'other? I ought to know. I'm married to my third wife, and not one of the three ever had six months proper health on end.'

Dunstan was portioning out further doles of oats and giving them to the horses as he spoke, so that Stella could enjoy these reflections without checking the flow of his thoughts. Dunstan himself seldom laughed, and when others did so at his serio-comic sayings, it disconcerted and, in the end, silenced him.

'I b'lieve they have had enough; but the poor old karkisses look so starved,' he said, as the horses set to once more.

'And they are so galled. Dunstan, don't you think if I bathed their sores with a little warm water—oh yes, I am sure of it.' Stella hastened away, and soon returned with a china bowl of tepid water and a soft sponge, with which she deftly bathed one sore after another.

'They seem to enjoy it just as if they was Christians,' said Dunstan, and then he went to the kitchen and brought out a pailful of warm water, as that in the basin soon got discoloured with the dust and sand. Then he stood by as Stella went from one poor skinny creature to another, caressing and speaking to them in a low, fond voice.

Both were so much absorbed that they did not notice the approach of Hector Courtland and Dr. Langdale, who stood at a little distance looking on at the scene with faces full of an amused interest, and some deeper feeling withal, as they watched the girl's tender ministration on the poor galled scarecrow horses.

'Why, here's Dr. Langdale with the master,' said Dunstan, suddenly perceiving them. 'It must be serious for the poor female if she must have two doctors.' Though Langdale was so frequent a visitor, Dunstan somehow connected his appearance at that juncture with the event of the day.

'Well, Stella, this little performance of yours caps all your previous finds,' said Hector, looking at the three horses with beaming eyes.

'St. Charity, I would give much to have your picture painted as you stood here bathing the sores of these horses,' said Langdale, and as she returned his greeting there was an expression in his face which made her look quickly away.

'And this is only part of the caravan, sir,' said Dunstan, addressing his master. 'Besides these horses that the crows would hardly get a mouthful on, there's the waggon, fit only for firewood, a cockatoo that would set your hair on end with blasphemy, and a onfortinate female as can't say a word, good or bad.'

'We cannot permit you to keep the cockatoo, St. Charity,' said Langdale. 'I understand he is worse than any of the orthodoxies, consigning people to eternal and entire perdition irrespective of their opinions.'

'Well, he does swear very badly,' said Stella, smiling. 'We fed him and put him in exile. He is on a perch in the stable.'

'But who ever heard of a backslider being reformed in a stable? Look here, Courtland, cannot you suggest a better asylum for a foundling whose moral nature has been perverted?'

'His native woods, I should think; unless you take him in hand yourself, Langdale, as well as the "onfortinate female" as Dunstan calls her.'

'Are you going to look after my patient, Dr. Langdale?' asked Stella, who stood sponging the roan horse's neck for the second time.

'Yes—free, gratis, for nothing, unless you are a refractory nurse; in which case I shall charge you a guinea a visit. Now, if you let me put a little vaseline on these sore places, your new pets will recover all the sooner.'

Stella went immediately to beg a pot of vaseline from Louise.

'There must be a semi-tragic story behind this curious little adventure,' said Langdale, examining the waggon. And then Courtland recalled some curious stories that had come to his knowledge in past years of people who had attempted to make long journeys with horses or teams of bullocks through unknown country and came to signal grief. 'But this is the first time I ever heard of a woman and a blaspheming cockatoo journeying through the Bush, evidently for months.'