In the Roaring Fifties by Edward Dyson (best classic books TXT) 📖

horseman who pushed a spirited animal through timber at a speed that an ordinary rider rarely indulged in on an open road.

The Honourable Walter was at some little trouble to win the good graces of his host; he admired his horses with unaffected enthusiasm, particularly Wallaroo, the beautiful bay entire that had excited Mike's admiration, reputedly the fastest animal in the colony, and Macdougal's pride and joy. He even consented to be educated on the points of cattle, and to absorb useful information in homeopathic doses about the various breeds of sheep; but Mack never at any time seemed grateful to Ryder for his kindly condescension, and the affliction under the influence of which Mack indulged in strange and disconcerting gymnastics with his tongue rendered conversation with him something of an ordeal, even to a man of Ryder's insensitive character. Mack's tongue seemed to become too large for his mouth at times, and then he obtruded it, rolled it first in one cheek and then in the other, chewed it, and finished with an amazing gulp, implying that the troublesome organ was at length effectually disposed of.

'He's been like that as long as I've known him, and I met him first on the Liverpool Plains in New South twenty years ago,' said Martin Cargill of Longabeena to Ryder. 'He seems exactly the same man now as then.'

'Yet these little peculiarities did not make him impossible in the eyes of the fair,' answered Ryder. 'He has a charming wife.'

'Oh yes but he had heaps of gold.'

'Enough to gild that dome on his back!'

'And a girl had not many opportunities of picking and choosing in the Bush here ten years ago.'

'Besides, the sex is so compassionate, Mr. Cargill; the ladies love us for our imperfections.'

'Have you been dearly loved, Mr. Ryder?' asked an impudent Sydneyside girl of nineteen.

'No, no!' laughed Ryder; 'my opportunities have neglected me terribly!'

Conversation sometimes ran in this vein even at Boobyalla, and when it did Ryder was responsible for much confusion of thought. Conversation in the main dealt with riding-trips, dancing-parties, the stirring incidents of the goldfields, and that prolific subject in all societies and at all times--scandal. Mrs. Macdougal would have been thunderstruck to know that she and her British lion provided the choicest morsels for discussion for some days prior to the breaking up of the party.

The Honourable Walter Ryder had been a great social success; he had introduced an absolutely foreign element into the Bush party. His pose of the cynical, dashing, amiable aristocrat, with a cheerful contempt for all aristocratic pretensions, was admirably sustained. His ready good-fellowship pleased the men; his good looks, his facility in adopting a deep interest in his companion for the moment, and his flow of spirits, delighted the women; and yet it not infrequently happened that his conversation was designed more for his own edification than for the entertainment of his hearers. It seemed to Lucy Woodrow that the man only half concealed a sort of mephistophelian contempt for the people towards whom he still contrived to maintain a semblance of cordiality.

The interesting Englishman was certainly very attentive to Mrs. Macdougal, and Mrs. Macdougal was certainly very much flattered and disturbed by his attentions. The gossip that had sprung up, from which the principals, and Lucy, Mr. and Mrs. Cargill, and Macdougal alone were excluded, was, to some extent, founded on fact, and the guests left the house reluctantly, confident that interesting mischief was brewing at Boobyalla.

For all this, Ryder's attitude towards Marcia in the presence of her guests had been merely a piquant travesty of that of an adorer. He had offered her gallant homage with a humorous reservation. Perhaps he had reckoned on a keener sense of humour than the guests were possessed of. At any rate, they preferred to put a rather serious construction on all they saw. But Mrs. Macdougal alone had good reason for regarding her lion in a serious light; she alone saw him in his other guise, that of the passionate man whose passions burnt behind a cold face--pale as if with the pallor of a prison that could never leave it, handsome with a quality of suggestive beauty most certain to appeal to a simple, romantic woman. Already Walter Ryder had infused a new strain into Marcia Macdougal's character--terror, the terror that is akin to love, had endowed her with a womanly gravity. Though the other guests had been gone a fortnight or more, Ryder still remained at Boobyalla.

Lucy Woodrow was deeply interested in Ryder. He treated her as a comrade, an equal, and she could not help noticing the difference in his tone toward her and that he had adopted towards the others, nor could she help being flattered by the implied compliment. She was exempt from his raillery. All along he inferred that she understood him, and accepted his veneer of jocosity and insincerity at its true value.

'What a hypocrite you are!' she said one afternoon, as they rode in the shadow of the range. The children on their ponies were cantering ahead.

'I a hypocrite!' he exclaimed. 'Why, I have not pretended to a single virtue.'

'No,' she continued laughingly, 'you are a hypocrite of the other sort. You pretend to be cruel, and callous, and careless of all that's good--a cynic and a mocker. But I have found you out: you are really gentle and kind--an amiable hypocrite.'

'Miss Woodrow, you are taking my character away.'

'Pish! the disguise was too thin. Why, the children have penetrated it. So has poor Yarra. They love you! You are brave--you rescued Mr. Macdougal from the Bushrangers. You are generous--you do not try to make him appear contemptible because of his afflictions, as some of the others have done. You are gentle--I see it in your bearing towards the little ones. You are kind, and Yarra is devoted to you.'

'And yet I swear there are no wings under my coat.'

'Often, when looking at you, I wonder at your resemblance to Mr Done; and I wonder most when I find you expressing a vein of thought I believed to be peculiar to him. It makes me think that there is something in common between you, aside from your physical likeness, if only a common wrong, or a common sorrow, that has coloured your characters.'

'It is hard to hide anything from those divine eyes,' he said gravely.

'I have guessed rightly?'

'Believe me, if I ever make confession, it shall be to one quick in sympathy and merciful in judgment as you are.' There was a strain of deep emotion in his voice, and as he reached towards her she gave him her hand, and he pressed her slender fingers gently and gratefully, continuing with feeling, and in the manner of one whose superior years gave him the privilege: 'Lucy, you are as good as you are beautiful, and in all sincerity I say I have never seen a woman one half as beautiful as you appear in my eyes at this moment.'

He had given the girl an impression that she was helping him, that her sympathy was precious. In her innocence she was deeply stirred, and yet glad at heart. She was silent for some minutes, and then said:

'Do you know, I think you sometimes underestimate Mrs. Macdougal's sensibilities.'

'In what manner?'

'I think you hurt her without being conscious of it. Her sense of humour is not keen, and I know she is pained when you least suspect it.'

A ghost of a smile stirred about Ryder's mouth. 'I would not pain her for the world,' he said. 'She is a kindly little woman, and her hospitality is charming; but you must admit she is droll. What are my faults?'

'Forgive me if I seem to be treating you as a pupil.'

'There is no one on earth to whom I would rather go to school.

'Well, then, you must not laugh at Mrs. Macdougal.

'But, really, is one expected to take those extravagantly romantic poses seriously?'

'They are meant seriously.'

'The eyes and sighs, the pensive melancholy, the little maladies, the mysterious missing family? You must not tell me this is not burlesque.'

'I am sure you know it is not. Mrs. Macdougal has dreamed so much rubbish, and read so much more, that all this humbug has become part of her nature, and one has to be a bit of a humbug one's self and humour her out of kindness In her girlhood there was no escape from the loneliness and stupidity of the Bush but in dreams.

'My manners have been abominable. I shall mind them now.'

The evening of that day was spent in the garden before the homestead. The day had been hot--there had been Bush-fires. The smoke hung about, and the big moon floated like a great round blood-red kite above the range. Ryder was sitting by Mrs. Macdougal on the garden-seat; Lucy played with the children on the grass till it was their bed time, when the three romped indoors together. Mrs. Macdougal turned her eyes upon Ryder timidly, expecting the usual change in his demeanour. She had used all her little arts on this man--the foolish, simple devices with which she had bewitched the captain of the Francis Cadman, and with no more guile in her soul. Suddenly she discovered the danger, but not before he had turned her comedy into a tragedy. He overawed her, dominated her; she dreaded him, and yet adored him as a splendid hero of romance.

He moved nearer into the shadow of the honey suckle and seized her hand.

'Marcia,' he said in a low voice, 'I can pretend no longer. I am sick of the farce of treating you as a child before these people, while all the time my heart hungers for you. I love you, Marcia!'

'For pity's sake--for pity's sake!' she said, struggling weakly.

'You know I love you. You have known it all along. Oh, my queen, how could I help loving you--a rose in this wilderness? Marcia, Marcia, love me! By God, you shall!' He kissed her again and again.

She ceased struggling. 'I do love you,' she said. 'I don't care--I don't care; I love you! Oh, how can I help myself? I have been mad, but I love you! I don't care; I love you!'


XXI

IT was February, and the Honourable Walter Ryder lingered at the homestead. He had broached to Macdougal an intention of buying the whole of the next season's wool-clip at Boobyalla, and carrying it back to England with him. He thought it might be a profitable investment. He had talked of going, but was pressed to stay; and meanwhile the change in Mrs. Macdougal was so marked that Lucy had often commented on it to Ryder. A real romance had come into Marcia's life--a terrible one, she thought it--and her poor little foolish dreams were swept away. They had been innocent enough, those fanciful imaginings of hers, and had given her some joy. This reality filled her with agonies of apprehension. She was never free of terror, and found herself studying her husband's impassive face, wondering what was behind those dull eyes, fearing the worst always.

Ryder had been most attentive to Lucy Woodrow during the last two or three weeks. He accompanied her and the children on their daily ride, and he had taught Lucy to shoot with both fowling-piece and revolver. She was a good pupil, and enjoyed the sport. Her facility gave her a peculiar pleasure that was sweetened by his praise. He