CHAPTER I.—THE GIRL FROM HOME.
CHAPTER II.—A BAD BEGINNING.
CHAPTER III.—AU REVOIR.
CHAPTER IV.—A MATTER OF TWENTY POUNDS.
CHAPTER V.—A WATCH AND A PIPE.
CHAPTER VI.—THE WAYS OF SOCIETY.
CHAPTER VII.—MOONLIGHT SPORT.
CHAPTER VIII.—THE SAVING OF ARABELLA.
CHAPTER IX.—FACE TO FACE.
CHAPTER X.—THE THINNING OF THE ICE.
CHAPTER XI.—A CHRISTMAS OFFERING.
CHAPTER XIII.—ON THE VERANDAH.
CHAPTER XIV.—A BOLT FROM THE BLUE.
CHAPTER XV.—A DAY OF RECKONING.
CHAPTER XVI.—A MAN'S RESOLVE.
CHAPTER XVII.—THE TWO MIRIAMS.
CHAPTER XVIII.—THE WAY OF ALL FLESH.
CHAPTER XIX.—TO THE TUNE OF RAIN.
CHAPTER XX.—THE LAST ENCOUNTER.
CHAPTER I.—THE GIRL FROM HOME.
Arabella
was the first at the farm to become aware of Mr. Teesdale's return
from Melbourne. She was reading in the parlour, with her plump elbows
planted upon the faded green table-cloth, and an untidy head of
light-coloured hair between her hands; looking up from her book by
chance, she saw through the closed window her father and the buggy
climbing the hill at the old mare's own pace. Arabella went on
reading until the buggy had drawn up within a few feet of the
verandah posts and a few more of the parlour window. Then she sat in
doubt, with her finger on the place; but before it appeared
absolutely necessary to jump up and run out, one of the men had come
up to take charge of the mare, and Arabella was enabled to remove her
finger and read on.The
parlour was neither very large nor at all lofty, and the shut window
and fire-place closely covered by a green gauze screen, to keep the
flies out, made it disagreeably stuffy. There were two doors, but
both of these were shut also, though the one at the far end of the
room, facing the hearth, nearly always stood wide open. It led down a
step into a very little room where the guns were kept and old
newspapers thrown, and where somebody was whistling rather sweetly as
the other door opened and Mr. Teesdale entered, buggy-whip in hand.He
was a frail, tallish old gentleman, with a venerable forehead, a thin
white beard, very little hair to his pate, and clear brown eyes that
shone kindly upon all the world. He had on the old tall hat he always
wore when driving into Melbourne, and the yellow silk dust-coat which
had served him for many a red-hot summer, and was still not
unpresentable. Arabella was racing to the end of a paragraph when he
entered, and her father had stolen forward and kissed her untidy head
before she looked up."Bad
girl," said he, playfully, "to let your old father get home
without ever coming out to meet him!""I
was trying to finish this chapter," said Arabella. She went on
trying."I
know, I know! I know you of old, my dear. Yet I can't talk, because I
am as bad as you are; only I should like to see you reading something
better than the
Family Cherub."
There were better things in the little room adjoining, where behind
the shooting lumber was some motley reading, on two long sagging
shelves; but that room was known as the gun-room, and half those
books were hidden away behind powder-canisters, cartridge-cases, and
the like, while all were deep in dust."You
read it yourself, father," said Arabella as she turned over a
leaf of her Family
Cherub."I
read it myself. More shame for me! But then I've read all them books
in the little gun-room, and that's what I should like to see you
reading now and then. Now why have you got yon door shut, Arabella,
and who's that whistling in there?""It's
our John William," Miss Teesdale said; and even as she spoke the
door in question was thrown open by a stalwart fellow in a Crimean
shirt, with the sleeves rolled up from arms as brown and hard-looking
as mellow oak. He had a breech-loader in one hand and a greasy rag in
the other."Holloa,
father!" cried he, boisterously."Well,
John William, what are you doing?""Cleaning
my gun. What have you been doing, that's more like it? What took you
trapesing into Melbourne the moment I got my back turned this
morning?""Why,
hasn't your mother told you?""Haven't
seen her since I came in.""Well,
but Arabella——""Arabella!
I'm full up of Arabella," said John William contemptuously; but
the girl was still too deep in the
Family Cherub to
heed him. "There's no getting a word out of Arabella when she's
on the read; so what's it all about, father?""I'll
tell you; but you'd better shut yon window, John William, or I don't
know what your mother 'll say when she comes in and finds the place
full o' flies."It
was the gun-room window that broke the law of no fresh air, causing
Mr. Teesdale uneasiness until John William shut it with a grumble;
for in this homestead the mistress was law-maker, and indeed master,
with man-servant and maid-servant, husband and daughter, and a
particularly headstrong son, after her own heart, all under her thumb
together."Now
then, father, what was it took you into Melbourne all of a sudden
like that?""A
letter by the English mail, from my old friend Mr. Oliver.""Never
heard tell of him," said John William, making spectacles of his
burnished bores, and looking through them into the sunlight. Already
he had lost interest.Mr.
Teesdale was also occupied, having taken from his pocket a very large
red cotton handkerchief, with which he was wiping alternately the
dust from his tall hat and the perspiration from the forehead whereon
the hat had left a fiery rim. Now, however, he nodded his bald head
and clicked his lips, as one who gives another up."Well,
well! Never heard tell of him—you who've heard me tell of him time
out o' mind! Nay, come; why, you're called after him yourself! Ay, we
called you after John William Oliver because he was the best friend
that ever we had in old Yorkshire or anywhere else; the very best;
and you pretend you've never heard tell of him.""What
had he got to say for himself?" said Mr. Oliver's namesake, with
a final examination of the outside of his barrels."Plenty;
he's sent one of his daughters out in the
Parramatta, that
got in with the mail yesterday afternoon; and of course he had given
her an introduction to me.""What's
that?" exclaimed John William, looking up sharply, as he ran
over the words in his ear. "I say, father, we don't want her
here," he added earnestly."Oh,
did you find out where she was? Have you seen her? What is she like?"
cried Arabella, jumping up from the table and joining the others with
a face full of questions. She had that instant finished her chapter."I
don't know what she's like; I didn't see her; I couldn't even find
out where she was, though I tried at half a dozen hotels and both
coffee-palaces," said the farmer with a crestfallen air."All
the better!" cried John William, grounding his gun with a bang.
"We don't want none of your stuck-up new chums or chumesses
here, father.""I
don't know that; for my part, I should love to have a chance of
talking to an English young lady," Arabella said, with a
backward glance at her
Family Cherub.
"They're very rich, the Olivers," she added for her
brother's benefit; "that's their house in the gilt frame in the
best parlour, the house with the tower; and the group in the frame to
match, that is
the Olivers, isn't it, father?""It
is, my dear; that's to say, it was, some sixteen years ago. We must
get yon group and see which one it is that has come out, and then
I'll read you Mr. Oliver's letter, John William. If only he'd written
a mail or two before the child started! However, if we've everything
made snug for her to-night, I'll lay hands on her to-morrow if she's
in Melbourne; and then she shall come out here for a month or two to
start with, just to see how she likes it.""How
d'ye know she'll want to come out here at all?" asked John
William. "Don't you believe it, father; she wouldn't care for it
a little bit.""Not
care for it? Not want to come out and make her home with her parents'
old friends? Then she's not her father's daughter," cried Mr.
Teesdale indignantly; "she's no child of our good old friends.
Why, it was Mr. Oliver who gave me the watch I——hush! Was that
your mother calling?"It
was. "David! David! Have you got back, David?" the harsh
voice came crying through the lath-and-plaster walls.Mr.
Teesdale scuttled to the door. "Yes, my dear, I've just got in.
No, I'm not smoking. Where are you, then? In the spare room? All
right, I'm coming, I'm coming." And he was gone."Mother's
putting the spare room to rights already," Arabella explained."I'm
sorry to hear it; let's hope it won't be wanted.""Why,
John William? It would be such fun to have a young lady from Home to
stay with us!""I'm
full up o' young ladies, and I'm just sick of the sound of Home.
She'll be a deal too grand for us, and there won't be much fun in
that. What's the use o' talking? If it was a son of this here old
Oliver's it'd be a different thing; we'd precious soon knock the
nonsense out of him; I'd undertake to do it myself; but a girl's
different, and I jolly well hope she'll stop away. We don't want her
here, I tell you. We haven't even invited her. It's a piece of cheek,
is the whole thing!"John
William was in the parlour now, sitting on the horse-hair sofa, and
laying down the law with freckled fist and blusterous voice, as his
habit was. It was a good-humoured sort of bluster, however, and
indeed John William seldom opened his mouth without displaying his
excellent downright nature in one good light or another. He had
inherited his mother's qualities along with her sharp, decided
features, which in the son were set off by a strong black beard and
bristling moustache. He managed the farm, the men, Arabella, and his
father; but all under Mrs. Teesdale, who managed him. Not that this
masterful young man was so young in years as you might well suppose;
neither John William nor Arabella was under thirty; but their lives
had been so simple and so hard-working that, going by their
conversation merely, you would have placed the two of them in their
teens. For her part, too, Arabella looked much younger than she was,
with her wholesome, attractive face and dreamy, inquisitive eyes; and
as for the brother, he was but a boy with a beard, still primed with
rude health and strength, and still loaded with all the assorted
possibilities of budding manhood."I've
taken down the group," said Mr. Teesdale, returning with a large
photograph in a gilt frame; "and here is the letter on the
chimney-piece. We'll have a look at them both again."On
the chimney-piece also were the old man's spectacles, which he
proceeded to put on, and a tobacco jar and long clay pipe, at which
he merely looked lovingly; for Mrs. Teesdale would have no smoking in
the house. His own chair stood in the cosy corner between the window
and the hearth; and he now proceeded to pull it up to his own place
at the head of the table as though it were a meal-time, and that
gilt-framed photograph the only dish. Certainly he sat down to it
with an appetite never felt during the years it had hung in the
unused, ornamental next room, without the least prospect of the
Teesdales ever more seeing any member of that group in the flesh. But
now that such a prospect was directly at hand, there was some sense
in studying the old photograph. It was of eight persons: the parents,
a grandparent, and five children. Three of the latter were little
girls, in white stockings and hideous boots with low heels and
elastic sides; and to the youngest of these three, a fair-haired
child whose features, like those of the whole family, were screwed up
by a strong light and an exposure of the ancient length, Mr. Teesdale
pointed with his finger-nail."That's
the one," said he. "She now is a young lady of five or six
and twenty.""Don't
think much of her looks," observed John William."Oh,
you can't tell what she may be like from this," Arabella said,
justly. "She may be beautiful now; besides, look how the sun
must have been in her eyes, poor little thing! What's her name again,
father?""Miriam,
my dear.""Miriam!
I call it a jolly name, don't you, Jack?""It's
a beast of a name," said John William."Stop
while I read you a bit of the letter," cried the old man,
smiling indulgently. "I won't give you all of it, but just this
little bit at the end. He's been telling me that Miriam has her own
ideas about things, has already seen something of the world, and
isn't perhaps quite like the girls I may remember when we were both
young men——""Didn't
I tell you?" interrupted John William, banging the table with
his big fist. "She's stuck-up! We don't want her here.""But
just hark how he ends up. I want you both to listen to these few
lines:—'It may even be that she has formed habits and ways which
were not the habits and ways of young girls in our day, and that you
may like some of these no better than I do. Yet her heart, my dear
Teesdale, is as pure and as innocent as her mother's was before her,
and I know that my old friend will let no mere modern mannerisms
prejudice him against my darling child, who is going so far from us
all. It has been a rather sudden arrangement, and though the doctors
ordered it, and Miriam can take care of herself as only the girls
nowadays can, still I would never have parted with her had I not
known of one tried friend to meet and welcome her at the other end.
Keep her at your station, my dear Teesdale, as long as you can, for
an open-air life is, I am convinced, what she wants above all things.
If she should need money, an accident which may always happen, let
her have whatever she wants, advising me of the amount immediately. I
have told her to apply to you in such an extremity, which, however, I
regard as very unlikely to occur. I have also provided her with a
little note of introduction, with which she will find her way to you
as soon as possible after landing. And into your kind old hands, and
those of your warm-hearted wife, I cheerfully commend my girl, with
the most affectionate remembrances to you both, and only regretting
that business will not allow me to come out with her and see you both
once more.' Then he finishes—calls himself my affectionate friend,
same as when we were boys together. And it's two-and-thirty years
since we said good-bye!" added Mr. Teesdale as he folded up the
letter and put it away.He
pushed his spectacles on to his forehead, for they were dim, and sat
gazing straight ahead, through the inner door that stood now wide
open, and out of the gun-room window. This overlooked a sunburnt
decline, finishing, perhaps a furlong from the house, at the crests
of the river timber, that stood out of it like a hedge, by reason of
the very deep cut made by the Yarra, where it formed the farm
boundary on that side. And across the top of the window (to one
sitting in Mr. Teesdale's place) was stretched, like a faded mauve
ribbon, a strip of the distant Dandenong Ranges; and this and the
timber were the favourite haunts of the old man's eyes, for thither
they strayed of their own accord whenever his mind got absent
elsewhere, as was continually happening, and had happened now."It's
a beautiful letter!" exclaimed Arabella warmly."I
like it, too," John William admitted; "but I shan't like
the girl. That kind don't suit me at all; but I'll try to be civil to
her on account of the old man, for his letter is right enough."Mr.
Teesdale looked pleased, though he left his eyes where they were."Ay,
ay, my dears, I thought you would like it. Ah, but all his letters
are the same! Two-and-thirty years, and never a year without at least
three letters from Mr. Oliver. He's a business man, and he always
answers promptly. He's a rich man now, my dears, but he doesn't
forget the early friends, not he, though they're at the other end of
the earth, and as poor as he's rich.""Yet
he doesn't seem to know how we're situated, for all that,"
remarked John William thoughtfully. "Look how he talks about our
'station,' and of your advancing money to the girl, as though we were
rolling in it like him! Have you never told him our circumstances,
father?"At
the question, Mr. Teesdale's eyes fell twenty miles, and rested
guiltily upon the old green tablecloth."I
doubt a station and a farm convey much the same thing in the old
country," he answered crookedly."That
you may bet they do!" cried the son, with a laugh; but he went
on delivering himself of the most discouraging prophecies touching
the case in point. The girl would come out with false ideas; would
prove too fine by half for plain people like themselves; and at the
best was certain to expect much more than they could possibly give
her."Well,
as to that," said the farmer, who thought himself lucky to have
escaped a scolding for never having told an old friend how poor he
was—"as to that, we can but give her the best we've got, with
mebbe a little extra here and there, such as we wouldn't have if we
were by ourselves. The eggs 'll be fresh, at any rate, and I think
that she'll like her sheets, for your mother is getting out them 'at
we brought with us from Home in '51. There was just two pairs, and
she's had 'em laid by in lavender ever since. We can give her a good
cup o' tea, an' all; and you can take her out 'possum-shooting, John
William, and teach her how to ride. Yes, we'll make a regular
bush-girl of her in a month, and send her back to Yorkshire the
picture of health; though as yet I'm not very clear what's been the
matter with her. But if she takes after her parents ever so little
she'll see that we're doing our best, and that'll be good enough for
any child of theirs."From
such a shabby waistcoat pocket Mr. Tees-dale took so handsome a gold
watch, it was like a ring on a beggar's finger; and he fondled it
between his worn hands, but without a word."Mr.
Oliver gave you that watch, didn't he, father?" Arabella said,
watching him."He
did, my dear," said the old man proudly. "He came and saw
us off at the Docks, and he gave me the watch on board, just as we
were saying good-bye; and he gave your mother a gold brooch which
neither of you have ever seen, for I've never known her wear it
myself."Arabella
said she had seen it."Now
his watch," continued Mr. Teesdale, "has hardly ever left
my pocket—save to go under my pillow—since he put it in my hands
on July 3, 1851. Here's the date and our initials inside the case;
but you've seen them before. Ay, but there are few who came out in
'51—and stopped out—who have done as poorly as me. The day after
we dropped anchor in Hobson's Bay there wasn't a living soul aboard
our ship; captain, mates, passengers and crew, all gone to the
diggings. Every man Jack but me! It was just before you were born,
John William, and I wasn't going. It may have been a mistake, but the
Lord knows best. To be sure, we had our hard times when the diggers
were coming into Melbourne and shoeing their horses with gold, and
filling buckets with champagne, and standing by with a pannikin to
make everybody drink that passed; if you wouldn't, you'd got to take
off your coat and show why. I remember one of them offering me a
hundred pounds for this very watch, and precious hard up I was, but I
wouldn't take it, not I, though I didn't refuse a sovereign for
telling him the time. Ay, sovereigns were the pennies of them days;
not that I fingered many; but I never got so poor as to part with Mr.
Oliver's watch, and you never must either, John William, when it's
yours. Ay, ay," chuckled Mr. Teesdale, as he snapped-to the case
and replaced the watch in his pocket, "and it's gone like a book
for over thirty years, with nothing worse than a cleaning the whole
time.""You
must mind and tell that to Miriam, father," said Arabella,
smiling."I
must so. Ah, my dear, I shall have two daughters, not one, and you'll
have a sister while Miriam is here.""That
depends what Miriam is like," said John William, getting up from
the sofa with a Hugh and going back idly to the little room and his
cleaned gun."I
know what she will be like," said Arabella, placing the group in
front of her on the table. "She will be delicate and fair, and
rather small; and I shall have to show her everything, and take
tremendous care of her.""I
wonder if she'll have her mother's hazel eyes and gentle voice?"
mused the farmer aloud, with his eyes on their way back to the
Dandenong Ranges."I
should like her to take after her mother; she was one of the gentlest
little women that ever I knew, was Mrs. Oliver, and I never clapped
eyes——"The
speaker suddenly turned his head; there had been a step in the
verandah, and some person had passed the window too quick for
recognition."Who
was that?" said Mr. Teesdale."I
hardly saw," said Arabella, pushing back her chair. "It was
a woman.""And
now she's knocking! Run and see who it is, my dear."Arabella
rose and ran. Then followed such an outcry in the passage that Mr.
Teesdale rose also. He was on his legs in time to see the door flung
wide open, and the excited eyes of Arabella reaching over the
shoulder of the tall young woman whom she was pushing into the room."Here
is Miriam,"
she cried. "Here's Miriam found her way out all by herself!"