It chanced at last, as June gave place to July and July to August, that I could bear it no longer. I would go away even if I had to walk, and what I would do I did not know or care, my one idea being to leave Barney’s Gap far and far behind. One evening I got a lot of letters from my little brothers and sisters at home. I fretted over them a good deal, and put them under my pillow; and as I had not slept for nights, and was feeling weak and queer, I laid my head upon them to rest a little before going out to get the tea ready. The next thing I knew was that Mrs. M’Swat was shaking me vigorously with one hand, holding a flaring candle in the other, and saying:

“Lizer, shut the winder quick. She’s been lyin’ here in the draught till she’s froze, and must have the nightmare, the way she’s been singin’ out that queer, an’ I can’t git her woke up. What ails ye, child? Are ye sick?”

I did not know what ailed me, but learnt subsequently that I laughed and cried very much, and pleaded hard with grannie and some Harold to save me, and kept reiterating, “I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it,” and altogether behaved so strangely that Mr. M’Swat became so alarmed that he sent seventeen miles for the nearest doctor. He came next morning, felt my pulse, asked a few questions, and stated that I was suffering from nervous prostration.

“Why, the child is completely run down, and in a fair way to contract brain fever!” he exclaimed. “What has she been doing? It seems as though she had been under some great mental strain. She must have complete rest and change, plenty of diversion and nourishing food, or her mind will become impaired.”

He left me a bottle of tonic and Mr. and Mrs. M’Swat many fears. Poor kindhearted souls, they got in a great state, and understood about as much of the cause of my breakdown as I do of the inside of the moon. They ascribed it to the paltry amount of teaching and work I had done.

Mrs. M’Swat killed a fowl and stewed it for my delectation. There was part of the inside with many feathers to flavour the dish, and having no appetite, I did not enjoy it, but made a feint of so doing to please the good-natured cook.

They intended writing at once to give my parents notice when I would be put on the train. I was pronounced too ill to act as scribe; Lizer was suggested, and then Jimmy, but M’Swat settled the matter thus:

“Sure, damn it! I’m the proper one to write on an important business matther like this here.”

So pens, ink, and paper were laid on the dining-room table, and the great proclamation went forth among the youngsters, “Pa is goin’ to write a whole letter all by hisself.”

My door opened with the dining-room, and from my bed I could see the proceeding. Mr. M’Swat hitched his trousers well through the saddle-strap which he always wore as a belt, took off his coat and folded it on the back of a chair, rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, pulled his hat well over his eyes, and “shaped up” to the writing material, none of which met with his approval. The ink was “warter,” the pens had not enough “pint,” and the paper was “trash;” but on being assured it was the good stuff he had purchased especially for himself, he buckled to the fray, producing in three hours a half-sheet epistle, which in grammar, composition, and spelling quite eclipsed the entries in his diary. However, it served its purpose, and my parents wrote back that, did I reach Goulburn on a certain day, a neighbour who would be in town then would bring me home.

Now that it was settled that I had no more to teach the dirty children, out of dirty books, lessons for which they had great disinclination, and no more to direct Lizer’s greasy fingers over the yellow keys of that demented piano in a vain endeavour to teach her “choones,” of which her mother expected her to learn on an average two daily, it seemed as though I had a mountain lifted off me, and I revived magically, got out of bed and packed my things.

I was delighted at the prospect of throwing off the leaden shackles of Barney’s Gap, but there was a little regret mingled with my relief. The little boys had not been always bold. Did I express a wish for a parrot-wing or water-worn stone, or suchlike, after a time I would be certain, on issuing from my bedroom, to find that it had been surreptitiously laid there, and the little soft-eyed fellows would squabble for the privilege of bringing me my post, simply to give me pleasure. Poor little Lizer, and Rose Jane too, copied me in style of dress and manners in a way that was somewhat ludicrous but more pathetic.

They clustered round to say goodbye. I would be sure to write. Oh yes, of course, and they would write in return and tell me if the bay mare got well, and where they would find the yellow turkey-hen’s nest. When I got well I must come back, and I wouldn’t have as much work to do, but go for more rides to keep well, and so on. Mrs. M’Swat very anxiously impressed it upon me that I was to explain to my mother that it was not her (Mrs. M’Swat’s) fault that I “ailed” from overwork, as I had never complained and always seemed well.

With a kindly light on his homely sunburnt face, M’Swat said, as he put me on the train:

“Sure, tell yer father he needn’t worry over the money. I’ll never be hard on him, an’ if ever I could help ye, I’d be glad.”

“Thank you; you are very good, and have done too much already.”

“Too much! Sure, damn it, wot’s the good er bein’ alive if we can’t help each other sometimes. I don’t mind how much I help a person if they have a little gratitood, but, damn it, I can’t abear ingratitood.”

“Goodbye, Mr. M’Swat, and thank you.”

“Goodbye, me gu-r-r-r-l, and never marry that bloke of yours if he don’t git a bit er prawperty, for the divil’s in a poor match.”

They were expecting me on the frosty evening in September, and the children came bounding and shouting to meet me, when myself and luggage were deposited at Possum Gully by a neighbour, as he passed in a great hurry to reach his own home ere it got too dark. They bustled me to a glowing fire in no time.

My father sat reading, and, greeting me in a very quiet fashion, continued the perusal of his paper. My mother shut her lips tightly, saying exultingly, “It seems it was possible for you to find a worse place than home;” and that little speech was the thorn on the rose of my welcome home. But there was no sting in Gertie’s greeting, and how beautiful she was growing, and so tall! It touched me to see she had made an especial dainty for my tea, and had put things on the table which were only used for visitors. The boys and little Aurora chattered and danced around me all the while. One brought for my inspection some soup-plates which had been procured during my absence; another came with a picture-book; and nothing would do them but that I must, despite the darkness, straightaway go out and admire a new fowl-house which “Horace and Stanley built all by theirselves, and no one helped them one single bit.”

After Mrs. M’Swat it was a rest, a relief, a treat, to hear my mother’s cultivated voice, and observe her ladylike and refined figure as she moved about; and, what a palace the place seemed in comparison to Barney’s Gap! simply because it was clean, orderly, and bore traces of refinement; for the stamp of indigent circumstances was legibly imprinted upon it, and many things which had been considered “done for” when thirteen months before I had left home, were still in use.

I carefully studied my brothers and sisters. They had grown during my absence, and were all big for their age, and though some of them not exactly handsome, yet all pleasant to look upon⁠—I was the only wanting in physical charms⁠—also they were often discontented, and wished, as children will, for things they could not have; but they were natural, understandable children, not like myself, cursed with a fevered ambition for the utterly unattainable.

“Oh, were I seated high as my ambition,
I’d place this loot on naked necks of monarchs!”

At the time of my departure for Caddagat my father had been negotiating with beer regarding the sale of his manhood; on returning I found that he had completed the bargain, and held a stamped receipt in his miserable appearance and demeanour. In the broken-down man, regardless of manners, one would have failed to recognize Dick Melvyn, “Smart Dick Melvyn,” “Jolly-good-fellow Melvyn” “Thorough Gentleman” and “Manly Melvyn” of the handsome face and ingratiating manners, onetime holder of Bruggabrong, Bin Bin East, and Bin Bin West. He never corrected his family nowadays, and his example was most deleterious to them.

Mother gave me a list of her worries in private after tea that night. She wished she had never married: not only was her husband a failure, but to all appearances her children would be the same. I wasn’t worth my salt or I would have remained at Barney’s Gap; and there was Horace⁠—heaven only knew where he would end. God would surely punish him for his disrespect to his father. It was impossible to keep things together much longer, etc., etc.

When we went to bed that night Gertie poured all her troubles into my ear in a jumbled string. It was terrible to have such a father. She was ashamed of him. He was always going into town, and stayed there till mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbours were so good as to bring him home. It took all the money to pay the publican’s bills, and Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which grannie sent, as the neighbours said the Melvyns ought to pay up the old man’s bills instead of dressing like swells; and she couldn’t help it, and she was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of such odds.

I comforted her with the assurance that the only thing was to feel right within ourselves, and let people say whatsoever entertained their poor little minds. And I fell asleep thinking that parents have a duty to children greater than children to parents, and they who do not fulfil their responsibility in this respect are as bad in their morals as a debauchee, corrupt the community as much as a thief, and are among the ablest underminers of their nation.

On the morrow, the first time we were alone, Horace seized the opportunity of holding forth on his woes. It was no use, he was choke full of Possum Gully: he would stick to it for another year, and then he would chuck it, even if he had to go on the wallaby. He wasn’t going to be slaving forever for the boss to swallow the proceeds, and there was nothing to be made out of dairying. When it wasn’t drought it was floods and caterpillars and grasshoppers.

Among my brothers and sisters I quickly revived to a certain extent, and mother asserted her opinion that I had not been ill at all, but had made up my mind to torment her; had not taken sufficient exercise, and might have had a little derangement of the system but nothing more. It was proposed that I should return to Barney’s Gap. I demurred, and was anathematized as ungrateful and altogether corrupt, that I would not go back to M’Swat, who was so good as to lend my father money out of pure friendship; but for once in my life I could not be made submit by either coercion or persuasion. Grannie offered to take one of us to Caddagat; mother preferred that Gertie should go. So we sent the pretty girl to dwell among her kindred in a land of comfort and pleasure.

I remained at Possum Gully to tread the same old life in its tame narrow path, with its never-ending dawn-till-daylight round of tasks; with, as its entertainments, an occasional picnic or funeral or a day in town, when, should it happen to be Sunday, I never fail to patronize one of the cathedrals. I love the organ music, and the hush which pervades the building; and there is much entertainment in various ways if one goes early and watches the well-dressed congregation filing in. The costumes and the women are pretty, and, in his own particular line, the ability of the verger is something at which to marvel. Regular attendants, of course, pay for and have reserved their seats, but it is in classing the visitors that the verger displays his talent. He can cull the commoners from the parvenu aristocrats, and put them in their respective places as skilfully as an expert horse-dealer can draft his stock at a sale. Then, when the audience is complete, in the middle and front of the edifice are to be found they of the white hands and fine jewels; and in the topmost seat of the synagogue, praying audibly, is one who has made all his wealth by devouring widows’ houses; while pushed away to the corners and wings are they who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow; and those who cannot afford good linen are too proud to be seen here at all.

“The choir sings and the organ rings,” the uninteresting prayers are rattled off (“O come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord, our Maker”); a sermon, mostly of the debts of the concern, of the customs of the ancients, or of the rites and ceremonies of up-to-date churchism, is delivered, and the play is done, and as I leave the building a great hunger for a little Christianity fills my heart.

Oh that a preacher might arise and expound from the Book of books a religion with a God, a religion with a heart in it⁠—a Christian religion, which would abolish the cold legend whose centre is respectability, and which rears great buildings in which the rich recline on silken hassocks while the poor perish in the shadow thereof.

Through the hot dry summer, then the heartless winter and the scorching summer again which have spent themselves since Gertie’s departure, I have struggled hard to do my duty in that state of life unto which it had pleased God to call me, and sometimes I have partially succeeded. I have had no books or papers, nothing but peasant surroundings and peasant tasks, and have encouraged peasant ignorance⁠—ignorance being the mainspring of contentment, and contentment the bedrock of happiness; but it is all to no purpose. A note from the other world will strike upon the chord of my being, and the spirit which has been dozing within me awakens and fiercely beats at its bars, demanding some nobler thought, some higher aspiration, some wider action, a more saturnalian pleasure, something more than the peasant life can ever yield. Then I hold my spirit tight till wild passionate longing sinks down, down to sickening dumb despair, and had I the privilege extended to Job of old⁠—to curse God and die⁠—I would leap at it eagerly.

We received a great many letters from Gertie for a little while after she went up the country, but they grew shorter and farther between as time went on.

In one of grannie’s letters there was concerning my sister: “I find Gertie is a much younger girl for her age than Sybylla was, and not nearly so wild and hard to manage. She is a great comfort to me. Everyone remarks upon her good looks.”

From one of Gertie’s letters:

Uncle Julius came home from Hong Kong and America last week, and brought such a lot of funny presents for everyone. He had a lot for you, but he has given them to me instead as you are not here. He calls me his pretty little sunbeam, and says I must always live with him.

I sighed to myself as I read this. Uncle Jay-Jay had said much the same to me, and where was I now? My thoughts were ever turning to the people and old place I love so well, but Gertie’s letters showed me that I was utterly forgotten and unmissed.

Gertie left us in October 1897, and it was somewhere about January 1898 that all the letters from Caddagat were full to overflowing with the wonderful news of Harold Beecham’s reinstatement at Five-Bob Downs, under the same conditions as he had held sway there in my day.

From grannie’s letters I learnt that some old sweetheart of Harold’s father had bequeathed untold wealth to this her lost love’s son. The wealth was in bonds and stocks principally, and though it would be some time ere Harold was actually in possession of it, yet he had no difficulty in getting advancements to any amount, and had immediately repurchased Five-Bob.

I had never dreamed of such a possibility. True, I had often said were Harold a character in fiction instead of real life, some relative would die opportunely and set him up in his former position, but, here, this utterly unanticipated contingency had arisen in a manner which would affect my own life, and what were my feelings regarding the matter?

I think I was not fully aware of the extent of my lack of wifely love for Harold Beecham, until experiencing the sense of relief which stole over me on holding in my hand the announcement of his return to the smile of fortune.

He was rich; he would not need me now; my obligation to him ceased to exist; I was free. He would no longer wish to be hampered with me. He could take his choice of beauty and worth; he might even purchase a princess did his ambition point that way.

One of Gertie’s letters ran:

That Mr. Beecham you used to tell me so much about has come back to live at Five-Bob. He has brought his aunts back. Everyone went to welcome them, and there was a great fuss. Aunt Helen says he (Mr. B.) is very conservative; he has everything just as it used to be. I believe he is richer than ever. Everyone is laughing about his luck. He was here twice last week, and has just left this evening. He is very quiet. I don’t know how you thought him so wonderful. I think he is too slow, I have great work to talk to him, but he is very kind, and I like him. He seems to remember you well, and often says you were a game youngster, and could ride like old Nick himself.

I wrote to the owner of Five-Bob desiring to know if what I heard concerning his good fortune was correct, and he replied by return post:

My dear little Syb,

Yes, thank goodness it is all true. The old lady left me nearly a million. It seems like a fairy yarn, and I will know how to value it more now. I would have written sooner, only you remember our bargain, and I was just waiting to get things fixed up a little, when I’m off at great tracks to claim you in the flesh, as there is no need for us to wait above a month or two now if you are agreeable. I am just run to death. It takes a bit of jigging to get things straight again, but it’s simply too good to believe to be back in the same old beat. I’ve seen Gertie a good many times, and find your descriptions of her were not at all overdrawn. I won’t send any love in this, or there would be a “bust up” in the post-office, because I’d be sure to overdo the thing, and I’d have all the officials on to me for damages. Gather up your goods and chattels, because I’ll be along in a week or two to take possession of you.

I screwed the letter in two and dropped it into the kitchen-fire.

I knew Harold meant what he had said. He was a strong-natured man of firm determinations, and having made up his mind to marry me would never for an instant think of anything else; but I could see what he could not see himself⁠—that he had probably tired of me, and was becoming enamoured of Gertie’s beauty.

The discordance of life smote hard upon me, and the letter I wrote was not pleasant. It ran:

To H. A. Beecham, Esq.,
Five-Bob Downs Station,
Gool-Gool, NSW

Sir,

Your favour duly to hand. I heartily rejoice at your good fortune, and trust you may live long and have health to enjoy it. Do not for an instant consider yourself under any obligations to me, for you are perfectly free. Choose someone who will reflect more credit on your taste and sense.

As I closed and directed this how far away Harold Beecham seemed! Less than two years ago I had been familiar with every curve and expression of his face, every outline of his great figure, every intonation of his strong cultivated voice; but now he seemed as the shadow of a former age.

He wrote in reply: What did I mean? Was it a joke⁠—just a little of my old tormenting spirit? Would I explain immediately? He couldn’t get down to see me for a fortnight at the least.

I explained, and very tersely, that I had meant what I said, and in return received a letter as short as my own:

Dear Miss Melvyn,

I regret your decision, but trust I have sufficient manhood to prevent me from thrusting myself upon any lady, much less you.

He did not demand a reason for my decision, but accepted it unquestionably. As I read his words he grew near to me, as in the days gone by.

I closed my eyes, and before my mental vision there arose an overgrown old orchard, skirting one of the great stock-routes from Riverina to Monaro. A glorious day was languidly smiling good night on abundance of ripe and ripening fruit and flowers. The scent of stock and the merry cry of the tennis-players filled the air. I could feel Harold’s wild jolting heartbeats, his burning breath on my brow, and his voice husky with rage in my ear. As he wrote that letter I could fancy the well-cut mouth settling into a sullen line, as it had done on my birthday when, by caressing, I had won it back to its habitual pleasant expression; but on this occasion I would not be there. He would be angry just a little while⁠—a man of his strength and importance could not long hold ill-will towards a woman, a girl, a child! as weak and insignificant as I. Then when I should meet him in the years to come, when he would be the faithful and loving husband of another woman, he would be a little embarrassed perhaps; but I would set him at his ease, and we would laugh together re what he would term our foolish young days, and he would like me in a brotherly way. Yes, that was how it would be. The tiny note blackened in the flames.

So much for my romance of love! It had ended in a bottle of smoke, as all my other dreams of life bid fair to do.

I think I was not fully aware how near I had been to loving Harold Beecham until experiencing the sense of loss which stole over me on holding in my hand the acceptance of his dismissal. It was a something gone out of my life, which contained so few somethings, that I crushingly felt the loss of anyone.

Our greatest heart-treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary⁠—someone who is part of our life as we are part of theirs, someone in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two. And who can be this but a husband or wife? Our parents have other children and themselves, our brothers and sisters marry and have lives apart, so with our friends; but one’s husband would be different. And I had thrown behind me this chance; but in the days that followed I knew that I had acted wisely.

Gertie’s letters would contain: “Harold Beecham, he makes me call him Harry, took me to Five-Bob last week, and it was lovely fun.”

Again it would be: “Harry says I am the prettiest little girl ever was, Caddagat or anywhere else, and he gave me such a lovely bracelet. I wish you could see it.”

Or this:

We all went to church yesterday. Harry rode with me. There is to be a very swell ball at Wyambeet next month, and Harry says I am to keep nearly all my dances for him. Frank Hawden sailed for England last week. We have a new jackeroo. He is better-looking than Frank, but I don’t like him as well.

Grannie’s and aunt Helen’s letters to my mother corroborated these admissions. Grannie wrote:

Harry Beecham seems to be very much struck with Gertie. I think it would be a good thing, as he is immensely rich, and a very steady young fellow into the bargain. They say no woman could live with him on account of his temper; but he has always been a favourite of mine, and we cannot expect a man without some faults.

Aunt Helen remarked:

Don’t be surprised if you have young Beecham down there presently on an “asking papa” excursion. He spends a great deal of time here, and has been inquiring the best route to Possum Gully. Do you remember him? I don’t think he was here in your day. He is an estimable and likeable young fellow, and I think will make a good husband apart from his wealth. He and Gertie present a marked contrast.

Sometimes on reading this kind of thing I would wax rather bitter. Love, I said, was not a lasting thing; but knowledge told me that it was for those of beauty and winsome ways, and not for me. I was ever to be a lonely-hearted waif from end to end of the world of love⁠—an alien among my own kin.

But there were other things to worry me. Horace had left the family roof. He averred he was “full up of life under the old man’s rule. It was too slow and messed up.” His uncle, George Melvyn, his father’s eldest brother, who had so often and so kindly set us up with cows, had offered to take him, and his father had consented to let him go. George Melvyn had a large station outback, a large sheepshearing machine, and other improvements. Thence, strong in the hope of sixteen years, Horace set out on horseback one springless spring morning ere the sun had risen, with all his earthly possessions strapped before him. Bravely the horse stepped out for its week’s journey, and bravely its rider sat, leaving me and the shadeless, wooden sunbaked house on the side of the hill, with the regretlessness of teens⁠—especially masculine teens. I watched him depart until the clacking of his horse’s hoofs grew faint on the stony hillside and his form disappeared amid the she-oak scrub which crowned the ridge to the westward. He was gone. Such is life. I sat down and buried my face in my apron, too miserable even for tears. Here was another article I ill could spare wrenched from my poorly and sparsely furnished existence.

True, our intercourse had not always been carpeted with rose-leaves. His pitiless scorn of my want of size and beauty had often given me a sleepless night; but I felt no bitterness against him for this, but merely cursed the Potter who had fashioned the clay that was thus described.

On the other hand, he was the only one who had ever stood up and said a word of extenuation for me in the teeth of a family squall. Father did not count; my mother thought me bad from end to end; Gertie, in addition to the gifts of beauty and lovableness, possessed that of holding with the hare and running with the hound; but Horace once had put in a word for me that I would never forget. I missed his presence in the house, his pounding of the old piano with four dumb notes in the middle, as he bawled thereto rollicking sea and comic songs; I missed his energetic dissertations on spurs, whips, and blood-horses, and his spirited rendering of snatches of Paterson and Gordon, as he came in and out, banging doors and gates, teasing the cats and dogs and tormenting the children.