Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

name is ‘The Eton Boy,’ ” replied the wretch wretchedly. And neither of us could see anything in the other’s remark.

But the tension was relaxed; and, leaving the stable together, we gravely agreed that a thunderstorm seemed to be hanging about. Still a new embarrassment was growing in the girl’s face and voice, even in the uneasy movement of her hands. At last it broke out⁠—

“I s’pose you haven’t had any dinner?”

“Don’t let that trouble you, Miss Q⁠⸺.”

“Father’s not himself today,” she continued hastily. “He blames us for burning an old straw-stack; and I’m sure we never done it. Mother’s been at him to burn it out of the way this years back, for it was right between the house and the road; and it was ’78 straw, rotten with rust. But I’m glad we didn’t take on us to burn it, for father’s vowing vengeance on whoever done it; and he’s awful at finding out things.”

“Mr. Q⁠⸺ mentioned it to me,” I replied, with polite interest. “But don’t you think it seems a most unlikely thing for a stranger to do? Perhaps some of your own horses or cattle trod on a match that Mr. Q⁠⸺ had accidentally dropped there himself?”

“That couldn’t be; for father never allows any matches about the place, only them safety ones that strikes on the box. And he hates smoking. My brothers has to smoke on the sly.”

“Have you many Irish people about here, Miss Q⁠⸺?”

“None only the Fogartys; and they’re the best neighbours we got.”

“And was nobody seen near the stack before the fire broke out?”

“Not a soul. I was past there myself, not twenty minutes before we seen the fire; but I was going middling smart, and I didn’t see anybody⁠—nothing only Morgan’s big white pig, curled under the edge of the stack, that always jumps out of the sty, and comes over here, and breaks into our garden. Well, father’s always threatening to shoot that pig; and me, never thinking, I told him it was there; and he got his gun and went after it; and us in a fright for fear he would find it, but he didn’t. Then when we seen him well out of sight, I went over to the stack quietly, to shoo the pig home, but it was gone; and there was no sign of fire then, and nobody in sight. Then my sisters and me was just starting out to the milking-yard, and mother had begun to take the things off the line, when little Enoch seen the fire. We couldn’t make it out at all; and I examined up and down the drain for boot-marks, but there was none. And just before you come, I picked up the track of the horse I was riding, to see if his feet had struck fire on anything; but I was as wise as ever.”

“Ah! the horse was shod, Miss Q⁠⸺?”

“No; he’s barefooted all round. Well, he trod on a piece of a brick, near the corner of the garden; but the fire never travelled from there. It’s very unaccountable.”

“Very. I wonder would there have been such a thing as a broken bottle anywhere about the stack, Miss Q⁠⸺? The sun came out unusually strong this morning, I noticed; and it’s a well-known scientific fact that the action of the solar rays, focused by such a medium as I have suggested, will produce ignition⁠—provided, of course, that the inflammable material is in the angle of refraction.”

“I don’t know, sir,” she replied reverently.

“Why, gold has been melted in four seconds, silver in three, and steel in ten, under the mere influence of the sun’s heat-rays, concentrated by a lens”⁠—she shivered, and I magnanimously withheld my hand. “If this hypothesis should prove untenable,” I continued gently, “we may assume spontaneous ignition, produced by chemical combination. Nor are we confined to this supposition. Silex is an element which enters largely into the composition of wheaten straw; and it is worthy of remark that, in most cases where fire is purposely generated by the agency of thermodynamics, some form of silex is enlisted⁠—flint, for instance, or the silicious covering of endogenous plants, such as bamboo, and so forth. A theory might be built on this.”

“It seems very reasonable, sir,” she murmured. “Anyway, I’m glad the old stack’s out of the road. The place looks a lot cleaner.”

“Well, I won’t keep you out in the sun,” said I reluctantly. “Goodbye, Miss Q⁠⸺. And I’m very much obliged to you.”

“Oh, don’t mention it! I’m sure we’re very happy to⁠—” she hesitated, blushing desperately.

“Well, goodbye, Miss Jemima.”

“Goodbye,” she murmured, half-extending her hand.

“I might see you again, some time,” I remarked, almost unconsciously, as our fingers met.

“I hope so,” she faltered.

“Goodbye, Jim,” said I, slowly releasing her hand.

“Goodbye.” The word sounded like a breath of evening air, kissing the she-oak foliage.

Then the maiden with the meek brown eyes, and the pathetic evidence of Australian nationality on her upper lip, returned to her simple duties. And the remembrance of Mrs. Beaudesart came down on me like a thousand of bricks. Such is life.

But my difficulties were over for the time being. My loco. had jolted its way over the rough section, carrying away an obstruction labelled V.R., and had reached the next points. I was still two or three days ahead of my official work; and there had happened to be a stray half-crown in the pocket of the spare oriflamme I had unfurled at my camp. Should I push on to Hay on the strength of that half-crown, draw my £8 6s. 8d., and send my clothier a guileful letter, containing a money-order for, say, thirty shillings? This would test his awfulness at finding out things, besides giving myself, morally, a clean bill of health. Or should I first walk across to B⁠⸺’s and get Dick L⁠⸺ to shift some of my inborn ignorance re Palestine?

I decided on the latter line of action, and followed it with⁠—Well, at all events, I have the compensating consciousness of a dignity