Bush Life in Australia and New Zealand. [Chapters 28-46].

Dugald Fergusson

First published by Swan, Sonnenschein. in 1893

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927289-43-3

[TITLE PAGES]

BUSH LIFE

IN

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION.

"Mr. Fergusson takes eminently correct views of men and things. A capital book for any one not too old to learn is this medley of farming and fighting, and courtship and self-help. Healthiness of thought and enjoyment of life run all through it." – Anti-Jacobin.

"A bright, clever, and exceedingly readable book, which is not only highly humorous, but which contains a great deal of useful information." – Newcastle Chronicle.

"A fascinating mixture of reality and romance." – Echo.

"The book gives in a very pleasant manner all the knowledge which the inquirer into the ordinary conditions of colonial life is likely to need." – Manchester Examiner.

"Brightly written, and abounds with adventures." – Journal of R. Col. Inst.

"An unvarnished tale of the ordinary daily occurrences of bush life." – Athenaeum.

"Mr. Fergusson is to be congratulated on telling a capital story which is brimful of adventures, and of a wholesome, manly, open-air tone which is very refreshing." – Melbourne Argus.

"Full of interest to the traveller or the novel reader." – Vanity Fair.

BUSH LIFE
IN
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

BY
DUGALD FERGUSSON
(AN OLD COLONIST)

CHEAP EDITION

London
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.
1893

BUTLER & TANNER,

THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,

FROME, AND LONDON.

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS.

I. ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA...... 1

II. WILD HORSE HUNT....... 7

III. ENGAGEMENT AS STATION MANAGER.... 18

IV. MEETING WITH THE LADIES..... 25

V. BENJAMIN LILLY........ 32

VI. WILD DOG CHASE....... 42

VII. LILLY AND BILL LAMPIERE..... 49

VIII. LILLY DISCOVERS LAMPIERE TO BE A POET..... 61

IX. WITH THE LADIES....... 65

X. A CANOE ACCIDENT....... 73

XI. A NEW CHARACTER INTRODUCED TO THE READER........ 80

XII. DISCOVERY OF A MURDERED BLACK FELLOW IN THE SCRUB......... 88

XIII. THE FREE FIGHT........ 99

XIV. LILLY'S FEAT IN BULLOCK DRIVING.... 107

XV. THE FESTIVE PARTY AND LILLY'S DAMPER....... 115

XVI. PICNIC AT THE LAKE, AND CATTLE MUSTER...... 120

XVII. A CORROBOREE AT THE BLACKS' CAMP....... 129

XVIII. DEPARTURE OF MY CHRISTMAS VISITORS......... 136

XIX. "BAIL UP." IDENTIFICATION OF A BUSHRANGER.......... 140

XX. A MORAL DISCOURSE WITH A BUSHRANGER........ 147

XXI. A STARTLING DISCOVERY....... 155

XXII. A POETICAL HUTKEEPER........ 159

XXIII. THE BACK COUNTRY AND TOM CRAWFORD'S STORY.......... 176

XXIV. LAMBING OPERATIONS......... 188

XXV. TROUBLE WITH THE BLACKS.......... 194

XXVI. CONFLICT WITH THE BLACKS........ 207

XXVII. LAMPIERE RECOVERS FROM HIS WOUND....... 220

XXVIII. A SUDDEN CHANGE OF PROSPECTS........ 226

XXIX. ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND........ 230

XXX. TWO NEW CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED TO THE READERS....... 241

XXXI. A CHRISTMAS PARTY AT THE LAKE...... 244

XXXII. AN ATTEMPTED MURDER FRUSTRATED...... 250

XXXIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING....... 256

XXXIV. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE...... 267

XXXV. THE DRUNKEN FIGHT........ 273

XXXVI. A STARTLING DISCOVERY....... 284

XXXVII. A BUSHRANGER'S PLOT....... 290

XXXVIII. CONFLICT WITH BUSHRANGERS...... 297

XXXIX. DEATH OF THE BUSHRANGERS...... 309

XL. A RETROSPECTIVE LIFE SKETCH..... 319

XLI. MEETING WITH RACHEL....... 321

XLII. DUNEDIN.......... 334

XLIII. A GENEROUS OFFER....... 338

XLIV. HAPPY MEETINGS....... 341

XLV. FORTUNE AT LAST....... 352

XLVI. CONCLUDING REMARKS...... 359

[DEDICATION]

To

DAVID MCKELLAR, Esq.,

This Book

IS FITTINGLY INSCRIBED

BY HIS GRATEFUL KINSMAN,

THE AUTHOR.

"We seek a wild and distant shore?
Beyond the Atlantic main;
We leave thee to return no more,
Nor view thy cliffs again."

CHAPTER XXVIII. A SUDDEN CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A SUDDEN CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.

ON my final return to the station and the monotony of station life, there followed a natural reaction from the excitement I had lately passed through, and though I had the shearing operations to look forward to, I began to experience a recurrence of the morbid thoughts due to the total eclipse of my love hopes, as well as anxiety as to the fate of

her whom I loved. The utter aimlessness of my life, should it be passed year after year in the present routine and solitude, seemed to impress itself deeply on my mind, and I began to ask myself was it to be always thus? to what purpose did I imagine I ought to live? I could almost hear a voice within me whispering, "Go forth and see the world; why waste your life amid these solitudes?"

Such was my mental state, when one day I received two letters by the mail, whose tidings at once gave a fresh impetus to my feelings, and immediately afterwards a new shape to my destiny.

One was from Mr. Rolleston, briefly announcing his intention of at once disposing of his Darling runs, and requesting me to have everything in readiness for handing them over on the conclusion of the shearing; th other was from Mr. M'Elwain, with whom I had occasionally corresponded since my arrival on the Darling. His letter was dated from Melbourne, and ran as follows: –

"DEAR FARQUHARSON, – -I have just met Mr. Rolleston, who has informed me of his intention of immediately disposing of his stations on the Darling. It seems that he has never recovered from the shock occasioned by his daughter's elopement with that villain Marsden. Marsden is now supposed to be harbouring about the Upper Murray, where I believe that the police are on his track. If so, it is to be hoped that the scoundrel will soon be brought to justice. As for the girl, she is supposed to be still with him.

"But it was not of this matter that I meant to write to you. As the stations, then, are to be sold, I have been thinking of something that I think should suit you better than attempting to retain your situation under a fresh master, which I doubt not you could do if you so elected. I have just arrived from New Zealand, where I own some property, and in Invercargill I was talking to a Mr. Roscoe, a merchant of that town, who has just taken up some country near – – - Lake, in Southland.

"He has no inclination to manage this business himself, and he is also averse to a merely paid substitute, desiring rather to get some one as manager who would be able to go in as a part shareholder in the business. As I have heard Mr. Rolleston speak very warmly in your favour, I instantly thought of you as being very fitted for this opening.

"If you should think so, too, I should recommend you to at once avail yourself of this advantageous offer. As to the money required, I shall have no hesitation in endorsing bills to the extent of Mr. Roscoe's minimum terms for such an engagement.

"The station will carry about 15,000 sheep, but 5000 will be sufficient in the meanwhile for you both to start with.

"Yours sincerely,
"Daniel M'Elwain."

It would be difficult for me to adequately express the satisfaction that this letter of my truly generous kinsman inspired me with. Not only for the agreeable and advantageous prospect of change that it offered was this so, but also because this change would bring me nearer to my kind friends the Campbells. As I knew that it was at some lake in Southland that they had settled, might not this be the same lake where my future home was to be established?

The pleasant excitement consequent on this prospective change in my circumstances, together with the activity that the preparations for the most important operation on a station – the shearing – imposed upon me, again succeeded in diverting my thoughts from the melancholy channel that they had been inclined to move in lately.

Over the particulars of this work I will, however, pass. Suffice it to say, that Crawford was now in his element, and "ringer" of the board, save on such days as Lilly found time to go there, when Crawford had to content himself with playing second fiddle.

Lilly's duties did not indeed admit of his taking the part that he usually did in these operations, and, indeed, I question if but for a mischievous desire of taking the "shine out of Tom Crawford," as he phrased it, he would have found time for being there at all, as in preparing for the coming transfer of both stations he could have been sufficiently occupied among his own stock. But as these were usually, by his excellent management, so well in hand, he was enabled to spare an occasional day from them.

The final transfer of the station into the hands of its purchaser, Mr. Jamieson, was at length accomplished, and I prepared to hand over my charge to my successor, who was likewise to be a manager as I had been. Mr. Jamieson, like Mr.

Rolleston, resided on another station situated on the river Murray, and not very many miles from Mr. Rolleston's station on that river.

Ere leaving, I thought it but right to direct the attention of the new manager, Mr. Myers, to the claims of the black fellow Charlie; for I considered him entitled to the protection of the station in return for his signal services in preserving the life of one of the station hands. This claim Mr. Myers, who seemed to be very pleasant, readily admitted, and promised that so long as Charlie behaved himself in a reasonable manner, he should always have his protection and encouragement to remain about the home station. I also particularly impressed upon his mind the merits of both Burrell and Lampiere as shepherds, and mentioned the literary tastes of both. In this, however, I was afraid I had said very little to their advantage in Mr. Myers' eyes, who, a practical man himself, had little relish for poetry at any time, and particularly not in a shepherd, his former experience having led him to believe that sheep had been lost by shepherds with poetic and dreamy proclivities, who he said had been musing or reading when they should have been attending to their flocks.

Of Lilly I spoke frankly and warmly, and pointed out his rough independence of spirit and invincible repugnance to any intermeddling in his own domain, and whose prejudices I recommended Mr. Myers to respect, and to endeavour to avoid coming into collision with.

This advice he also civilly promised to observe, but with no very great ardour, for although of affable manners, he seemed to be a person who was more than sufficiently conscious of what he considered to be the duties and requirements of his own position. I therefore scarcely in my own mind anticipated a continuation of the same harmonious relations between Mr. Myers and Lilly as he and I had enjoyed.

Lampiere was still an invalid, though getting rapidly better, when I left, and with the new manager's consent was still staying at Lilly's hut, with the promise of employment either as shepherd or in whatever berth might be open when he was ready for work. His weekly wages, that had been allowed to run on by me, were indeed disallowed under the new management, but as he expected to be at work again in a few weeks' time, this did not matter so very much.

At length I bad good-bye to all the men, and with a cor-

dial invitation to each of them should they chance to come to the neighbourhood of my new home, and a particularly cordial farewell to Lilly, whose few rough and ready words on the occasion I knew came from the brave fellow's heart, I left a place so full of memories of both happiness and sorrow to me.

CHAPTER XXIX. ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

I CAN hardly explain how it was that I had always associated an idea of dreariness with New Zealand. Whether its unpromising name had anything to do with this or not, I cannot say, though probably it had, but on sighting land, on my voyage thither, and gazing at its wild, precipitous mountains and bare hills, my old prejudices returned in full force.

But had this prejudice been tenfold greater, the prospect of meeting the kind friends whom I had not seen for so long would have made the country still delightful to me.

I had an interview with Mr. Roscoe, a portly, bald-headed, keen-looking man of business. Our arrangements were soon completed. I was to have a third share in the station, with Mr. Roscoe's proportion of the amount requisite for a manager's salary also allowed me for the trouble of working the station.

The picture, as I started on this new venture in my chequered career, was not a very bright one. It was drawing towards the close of what had been a miserably cold drizzling day, one of many during which I had been on the road in company with a shepherd and several other men who were driving a flock of about 5000 sheep in all, almost all of them ewes, and with them a few head of cattle. We were going towards my new run. Along with us too there was a bullock dray, laden with provisions and necessaries for our first encampment and subsequent work in the construction of more substantial station buildings.

My shepherd was a Highlander, with the shrewd, strongly marked features so peculiar to his race, and was of strong build with bushy red brown beard, whiskers, and moustache. Besides his accredited qualifications as a thorough shepherd,

I was further prepossessed in his favour by his reputation as a skilful performer on the bagpipes, an instrument to whose wild thrilling notes I am passionately attached, as indeed are most Highlanders deserving of the name. And often have I amused my English friends since my arrival at Invercargill (for I had scarcely ever heard the sound of this instrument in Australia), by my sudden movement in the direction of the music when the wild wailing measure of the bagpipes fell upon my ear.

As I have said, the day was drawing to a close, and we were cold and wet and anxiously looking out for Mr. Campbell's station, to which we were then bound. I had soon ascertained, to my intense satisfaction, that my old friends were actually located on the lower extremity of the same lake, and only about twenty miles distant from my new run. so that I now actually had the delightful anticipation of having as my next neighbours friends whom I at one time thought I might never meet again.

"There is Campbell's place at last," exclaimed Munro, the shepherd, as our party at length debouched from the hills, among which we had been travelling the whole day, and that here terminated in a large plain on the other side of which, at a distance of two miles, the blue smoke was seen curling upward from some station buildings that were snugly sheltered by a dense bush, that could be seen stretching as far as the eye could reach along that side of the plain. As we at length reached the paddock in which the buildings were situated, Mr. Campbell came out to meet us, having been told in advance of our coming, and intended occupation of the neighbouring run, but not of my partnership in the concern.

I could not refrain from smiling as I observed first the puzzled then astonished expression that overspread Mr. Campbell's quiet, genial countenance, on his first beginning to recognise my identity, as I rode towards him. "Bless my soul, Mr. Farquharson!" he cried, as I reined in my horse, and he reached, out his hand to me. "Who would have ever thought of meeting you here? When did you come over to New Zealand? How are you, my boy?" I sprang from Selim's back, and warmly shook his hand, and in the fewest possible words informed him of the circumstances that had caused me to leave the Darling Station and enter upon my present situation.

"Come away in! Come away in!" cried the hearty old fellow. "Give your horse – is it Selim? and so it is, man! but he is looking grand – give him to the man, he will put him to rights in the stable for you; never you mind about the sheep and cattle, the men here know where they are to be put, and they'll be all sorted properly. Come you away in! the wife and the girls will be right glad to see you. Mary is always talking about you."

"Well, girls," he exclaimed, in opening the door, "here's a friend of yours come to see you." I followed close behind him as he entered, the better to enjoy their expressions of surprise on seeing me.

"Why, mother! it is Mr. Farquharson! Well, I declare, who would have thought of seeing you here, of all people in the world!" It was Miss Campbell who uttered these words of unqualified pleasure on seeing me, words that she followed up by impetuously bounding forward and shaking me warmly by the hand.

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Mary, following with scarcely less haste and not a whit less warmth; "I have been thinking about you so much ever since we left Australia. I am so glad that you have come to see us at last;" and she kept on shaking my hand as if she would never leave off. Next came Mrs. Campbell, whose genuine welcome I felt in the firm, cordial grasp of her hand as she laid it in mine, and that was a more convincing proof of her regard than fifty words could have been.

Their pleasure was even greater, when Mr. Campbell announced the nature of my present business, and that henceforth I was to be their own closest neighbour.

"Oh won't that be nice!" cried Mary, fairly clapping her hands in glee; "but what did you do with Selim? did you bring him over with you? Oh, I hope you did!"

"Selim," I answered, with a smile, "is in the stable here now."

"Oh, that's grand; but, of course, you would never think of leaving him behind. Dear old Selim, how often I have thought about him since I came to New Zealand!"

We soon after this sat down to supper; the men at the same time being as hospitably accommodated in the kitchen as I was in the parlour, and by the sound of their boisterous laughter, I could tell that they were pretty well satisfied with their entertainment.

Our conversation naturally turned upon the scenes amongst which we had met before, but the pleasure of our memories was sadly dashed by the recollections they brought with them of Rachel Rolleston's rash flight with Marsden; and the girls and their mother wept as they spoke of her, and their sorrow was increased on my repeating to them the information contained in Mr. M'Elwain's letter, about Marsden's supposed neighbourhood and harassment by the police.

Leaving this sad theme after a while, Mrs. Campbell said: " You must have had a dull time of it at the station after we all left. We are quiet enough here, I knowr, but somehow I can never associate the same dreariness and solitude with this place that seems to be natural to that desolate country, where everything looks so dry and parched up, as though Nature herself were ready to faint of sheer inanition. It is solitary here too, as far as distance from neighbours can constitute solitude; but to me the constant companionship of the hills, with their ever-varying tints, overtopped by the mountains in the background, is such a source of pleasure and interest, that it almost compensates me for the absence of neighbours; but in that totally uninteresting Darling country, coupled with the routine of station life, where no interest or excitement occurred to break each day's monotony, I know not how you could keep your blood from stagnating altogether."

"I fear, Mrs. Campbell," I answered with a smile, "that you have conceived a rather unfavourable idea of the Darling scenery, though indeed it is tame enough, we know, compared to these magnificent hills, that meet the view on every side. As for interest and excitement, however, to keep my blood from stagnating, I assure you, I have had no lack of that lately, but rather too much if anything."

"Indeed! and what might have been the nature of the incidents that have been exciting you so much?" asked Mrs. Campbell, with a smile. But the smile soon altered to an expression of alarm, when I began to give an account of my experiences with the blacks in the back country.

My story – that included the narrative of the murder of the white men on the Warego – as may be imagined, excited no small interest among my listeners; and many were the expressions of sympathy, of horror, or of admiration, according as the various phases of my narrative moved them, that

escaped from Mrs. Campbell and her daughters, as I told my tale.

Mrs. Campbell, who always traced the over-ruling of Providence in all the occurrences of life, as I concluded my narrative gave utterance to a devout sense of God's goodness in the mercy He had thus so signally vouchsafed to us all in our difficulties; an expression of reverent gratitude, indeed, in which I silently joined.

After a slight discussion of the matter I, by way of changing the subject, enquired after Miss Brydone, whose quiet, lady-like manners had prepossessed me much in her favour during her Christmas visit to the Darling.

"She is in Invercargill, Mr. Farquharson," Miss Campbell replied, in answer to my enquiry. "On hearing of our intention of coming to New Zealand she instantly elected to come over with us; as she had no friends, – that is, no relations in Adelaide, and looked upon us as her chief friends, – she thought she should like to live in the same colony as we did so as to have an opportunity of occasionally meeting us."

"Indeed? and whereabouts in Invercargill is she?" I demanded, with an air of such sudden though unconscious interest that Miss Campbell smiled mischievously as she answered, –

"Ah, you are too late, Mr. Farquharson; Miss Brydone has been engaged some time to a Mr, Ayson, a nice, gentlemanly man who is a teacher, and to whom she was introduced a few days after our arrival at Invercargill, and I believe their marriage is fixed to come off shortly, so you see you have lost your chance!"

"Not altogether, perhaps," I answered in the same jesting tone; "has Miss Campbell forgotten poor Miss Rolleston's very dramatic prophecy that happy Christmas night on the Darling with reference to the probability of my second love?"

Whether from the audacity of my remark, or rather from its very unexpectedness, I know not, but Miss Campbell's eyes fell and her colour slightly rose, a rather unwonted thing with her, whose vivacity was not easily subdued.

But here a more prosaic remark from Mr. Campbell instantly spoiled the effect of this by-play with his daughter.

"Well, Mr. Farquharson," he asked, "what is your opinion of New Zealand?"

"To say the truth, Mr. Campbell," I replied, "when I look

at these bare, rugged peaks, where there seems to be scarcely enough soil to admit of a covering of the scantiest vegetation save in the hollows; where everything looks sharp, and angular, and crude, I cannot help thinking that civilisation has taken Nature by surprise 1,000 years before she was ready or expecting to receive it. This idea, I think, is confirmed by the appearance of your native coal – or lignite as they call it here, which I understand will require something like another 1000 years to bring it to maturity."

"That may be," responded Mr. Campbell laughingly, "but I think mother Nature has plenty finished all ready for people to be going on with in the meanwhile. I am told that in the neighbouring province of Otago, on the Taieri Plain, and other places besides, farmers have reaped crops of both oats and wheat, yielding as many as 70, 80, and 90, yes, and over 100 bushels an acre; that's more than Australia could ever do."

"Yes," I replied, "I believe that for the production of cereals New Zealand is a noble land; and no doubt after I have been here for a short time I shall like it better, especially when I get accustomed to these piercing winds, that seem to cut right through me."

Mrs. Campbell here asserted her decided opinion as to the advantages of the bracing climate of New Zealand over that of Australia, remarking, "I never feel that languor here with which in the summer I used to be so oppressed in Australia, and as for the headaches to which I used to be such a martyr there, why, since I came to this country I have scarcely known what such a thing as a headache is, which is a matter of no small blessing in itself."

"I like the country much better than I do the town," here chimed in her eldest daughter, Jessie. "I think Invercargill with its wide streets is such a dreary looking town,"

"Yes," I returned with a smile. "A sense of dreariness in connection with the extraordinary breadth of the streets struck me also. To use an Australian phrase, the opposite rows of houses are scarcely within coo-ee of each other, and the 'stand off' aspect occasioned by this, combined with the cold, bleak wind that came sweeping along them and blowing the dust all over the place, gave me a rather unfriendly impression of this rising town of yours."

"Invercargill certainly has a cold look at present from the width of the streets," replied Mrs. Campbell, "yet I

think when the councillors find time to plant the sides of the thoroughfares with trees, as I doubt not they will some day do, what now seems a cause of dreariness will then be found to be the chiefest source of attraction, and a proof of enlightenment in the founders of the city."

"I see you still have Tiny with you," I remarked, as that rosy-cheeked damsel, with her tall and graceful figure, was clearing away the supper things.

"Oh, yes. We could not do without Tiny, nor would Tiny have cared to have stayed behind in Australia when she understood we were coming over here, as her parents are settled in one of the farming districts near Invercargill."

"And how did you leave Mr. Lilly?" asked Mary, who, during the previous conversation had, as was her habit, sat quietly and attentively, without taking much active part in it. "I thought so much of that kind man; he was always so obliging and so ready with a joke. And Tiny says when he was down at the Murray he would never allow her to break a piece of wood or carry a bucket of water. He used to do it all for her."

"Tiny is perhaps more indebted for such attentions to some spell of her own than to any particular spirit of courtesy inherent in Lilly. I can assure Miss Tiny that it is not every young damsel who could have made that boast of her experience with Lilly. On the contrary he is rather inclined to take exceptional views about girls as a rule, probably from the many unlovely specimens of the sex that he has so frequently met in his rough bush life. Tiny has some reason to plume herself on having overcome Lilly's prejudices in that respect, I can assure her. See that she has not made a conquest of my old sarcastic friend's heart as well as his prejudices."

"Oh, no," replied Mary, smiling in her turn, as ladies will smile at such allusions, and bluff them too, "but how did you leave Mr. Lilly? Was he not very sorry at you going away?"

"Well, yes, the brave fellow made no secret of that. You know that Lilly has a rather expressive style of his own, so I will tell you the exact words that he used if you will excuse my doing so. He simply remarked on my shaking hands with him: "Well, Mr. Farquharson, blast me if I ain't jolly sorry that you are leaving here. I never yet was

with a boss that I could pull so pleasantly with as I have done with you."

"It is a great pity that Lilly has such a rough way of speaking," remarked Mrs. Campbell, "and I am sure that I often seriously talked to him about the habit, but he would always maintain that there was no harm in people expressing themselves just as they felt, until I on one occasion completely silenced his arguments by asking him if he would have considered it right in me to use the same coarse expressions as he did. However, he got out of that difficulty by the rather ingenious argument that as we women wore different clothes to men, so there was also a quiet style of language to which women ought always to confine themselves, and which he considered it was as unsightly for us to depart from as it would have been to part with our feminine style of clothes."

"And yet, Mrs. Campbell, you partly wrong him, for although when excited by fierce anger, he will give way to profane expressions, yet apart from such occasions, Lilly's own natural sense induces him usually to eschew the habitual use of wicked and disgusting expressions so common among people of his class, and indeed I might say of a good many other classes in the Colonies. I have even known him to silence others who made themselves conspicuous by the habit of such offensive language.

"I have closely observed Lilly," I continued, "and I believe that what is obnoxious in his habits should be wholly attributed to the circumstances of his early experiences and surroundings. Constitutionally, I believe the man to be as true as steel, and as precious as gold. That his expletives are occasionally coarse I admit, but this coarseness in him merely results from the force of habit and training, and not from the spirit of blackguardism."

"Yes," remarked Mr. Campbell, sententiously, when I concluded my rather warm defence of my old friend, "Lilly is not a bad man at heart, and he was worth something to Mr. Rolleston."

"I am to write to him as soon as I have settled down, and give him my opinion of this country."

"Be sure and give him my very best regards when you do write," said Mary.

At this juncture a sound hideous to English ears, more especially in its premonitory utterances, though even then,

from associations, dear to the ears of a Celt, was heard suddenly ringing shrilly from the direction of the kitchen, and caused Mr. Campbell to jump to his feet with unwonted alacrity, while he earnestly ejaculated, –

"Bless my soul! is that the pipes? Have you a piper with you, Mr. Farquharson?"

It was the pipes sure enough, that Munro, in sign of his exceeding satisfaction at his entertainment, had now, for his own delectation, and with the warm approval of his companions in the kitchen, began to inflate and to

"Gar them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl."

We all hastily adjourned to the kitchen to be nearer the performer, though by so doing we rather lessened our pleasure, as the strains from the pipes reached our ears considerably softened of their natural harshness, through the intervening barriers of door and wall partitions. But with a true Highlander the enjoyment of the bagpipes is nothing unless he is alongside, or at least in the same room with the piper.

We remained for about half an hour listening, with spirits in thorough accord, to the animating strains, as rendered by Munro's skilful fingering. Whilst myself always an enthusiastic participator in the pleasure that pipe music gives to a genuine Celt, I was yet amused in observing the extraordinary effect it appeared to exercise upon the spirits of the usually staid and apathetic Mr. Campbell. Beating time vigorously with his feet, I could see by the expression in his face a half-formed purpose of being ou the floor to give the exuberance of spirits that he now experienced a freer outlet by the lusty performance of a strathspey or reel of Tulloch. Fortunately his spirit was not moved to give the burning desire within him the effect of a formal proposal for a general reel, or else he was restrained by a warning glance from his good dame who had some feeling for the wearied limbs of her guests, after their toilsome journey. Accordingly we shortly afterwards retired to the sitting-room, and presently, after the performance of family worship, I was shown to my room, where a warm soft bed, with snowy sheets, were a welcome change after the fatigues and discomforts of a long, chilly day in the saddle.

Whether owing to my fatigue or to the novelty of my

situation, but probably to both, I tossed for hours in bed without closing my eyes; ruminating chiefly on my present undertaking and surroundings, and in my thoughts the graceful and sprightly form of Jessie Campbell occupied a central position. Again and again did the strange random speech of Rachel Rolleston flash across my mind, till I began to wonder if, after all, they might not have been fraught with a prophetic meaning. At last I fell asleep.

Next morning I was again in the saddle and on the move at an early hour. Mr. Campbell now accompanied us, to show the way through the bush that, at about twelve miles distant from his place, crossed our path at a point where it narrowed until only about three miles in width, and through which our track was as yet merely indicated by blazed trees. On penetrating this, we found ourselves in a finely grassed country, open, but still undulating. The blue waters of the lake could also be seen in the distance shimmering in the rays of a cloudless sun. Above its waters, on the farther side, the land could be seen towering up in abrupt bluffs and jagged mountains.

Mr. Campbell and I rode on to the place, that by his advice I selected for my future homestead; a spot where the lake lipping into the land formed a calm and sequestered bay.

After seeing the tent for the present convenience of the men duly pitched, I rode back with Mr. Campbell to his house, it having been settled by the family that I was to pass as much of my time there as I could spare from the necessary inspection of my building arrangements, until they were in readiness for my permanent reception. However, after the first day, I availed myself of their invitation only once a week; merely riding over on Saturday afternoons, and spending Sunday with them, which to me was a great boon, for, from my youth up, I had had instilled into me a veneration for the Sabbath, and not all my experience amid Australian back blocks since, could ever wean me from a sense of inward horror in being forced to spend that sacred day among a lot of unruly, godless, and swearing men.

And thus with this kind family I came at last to be on such terms of close intimacy that I began to be regarded by them as one of themselves.

But meanwhile I was not neglectful of my own affairs. At length, my own house being satisfactorily completed, and

Mrs. Munro installed as housekeeper therein, a duty that she discharged in a very orderly manner, I ceased my weekly visits to my friends the Campbells, spending my Sundays in my own house. Here I had often cause to felicitate myself in my fortunate acquisition of a shepherd who could play the pipes; of an evening Munro would make the primeval woods ring again with the wild notes of his pipes, and often as I sat listening to some stirring march or wailing pibroch, has my spirit swelled with patriotic ardour, and my mind been stirred by visions of the stern, kilted clansmen of old, whose brave deeds these strains did honour to.

According to promise I took an early opportunity of writing to Lilly, and described to him the particulars of my present situation, as also my opinion of the qualities of the country in general.

At this time (1861) the excitement over the New Zealand diggings was about at its highest pitch, and therefore such flourishing accounts of such matters as Lilly might have seen in the Australian papers, I was now fully able to corroborate; and I gave it as my candid opinion, that he should endeavour to come over, as there was, for a man of his energy and steadiness, a grand chance of his quickly securing a fair competence for the remainder of his life.

About three months after sending this letter, I received one in return, rather illegibly scrawled indeed, but informing me that Lilly had quickly decided on taking my advice, and was coming over – will the reader believe it? – with Coleena, dray, bullocks, and all in the same boat; for this team Mr. Rolleston, on disposing of his station, had, by way of acknowledgment to Lilly of his valuable services, made him a present of. After receiving my letter he had become exceedingly restless in mind, and, not caring very much for his new overseer, whilst at the same time, with his natural shrewdness, seeing from my accounts that there was a good prospect of making a "rise," as he termed it, by starting as a wagoner to the diggings, where the prices paid for carriage were in those days something enormous, he, after some careful cogitation, determined to take my advice, and take passage for New Zealand forthwith; and that was not all, for considering rightly that the price of freight for a good team of bullocks to New Zealand would be considerably less than that demanded for an inferior team when there, he determined to take his noble team of bullocks with him, and

with them a dray, and also his mare. After this I heard from him occasionally and understood that after losing two of his bullocks, "Bauldy" and "Dainty," by the tutu, he became more vigilant in preventing a like fate from overtaking the rest, and was now doing well. In my replies I kept urging upon him the importance of keeping his money together, and to prevent what he earned being heedlessly squandered, advised him to deposit it in the bank: an advice that I afterwards had the satisfaction of knowing he had followed.

CHAPTER XXX. TWO NEW CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED TO THE READERS.

CHAPTER XXX.

TWO NEW CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED TO THE READERS.

TWO years had now nearly passed away without the occurrence of any incident worth recording here. My intimacy with the Campbells meanwhile continued, and by this intimacy my feelings for Jessie gradually strengthened in character. On her side, however, there seemed to be nothing beyond what might be termed a feeling of frank confidence, or kind friendliness, and I could not feel that her impressions in my favour were so pronounced as to warrant the hope that my attachment was returned.

Lilly, in the meanwhile, had found time to pay us a visit, and glad we all were to see him; yet I very much question if this pleasure on our part was equal to that experienced by him at meeting Tiny again, or perhaps to that of the shyly blushing girl, at seeing him. Lilly was rough and unpolished, but he was none the less a diamond for all that; and, although Tiny was shy, she had still discernment enough to appreciate a genuine article when she saw it – though what she thought on this subject, she kept quietly to herself, and beyond the confidential pleasantry of her manner, that now seemed to predominate over her wonted reserve, there was nothing to indicate in her a partiality for Lilly above any other man. And this confidence might, after all, be merely the result of the long standing acquaintance between them.

In the meantime, too, another acquaintance had been added to the list of our friends, who made periodical visits to the Campbells. This was a young man named M'Gilvray – the son of a neighbouring squatter, whose station had hitherto

been solely worked by a manager. Mr. M'Gilvray, senior, was a merchant in Invercargill, but his son, being naturally fond of a country life, and having therefore relinquished a share in his father's town business, had now taken over the control of this station.

John M'Gilvray was an active young man, rather slim in figure, but wiry and agile. His features, that glowed with health, were well formed, his hair and whiskers black, and his eyes of a dark brown. His manners were easy and agreeable, and were made more attractive by a constant flow of humour, and it was with a feeling of anxious jealousy that I observed the perfect harmony between his qualities and Jessie's tastes, and she soon grew to be on a footing of the most confidential intimacy with him. Indeed, had it not been for my own too great personal interest in the matter I should certainly have admitted that they seemed well suited to one another. So patent did their partiality for one another appear to me, that I resolved to at once smother the flame of passion within my own breast, ere it could master my power to control it. But as my conduct towards Jessie became more guarded, hers increased in friendly demonstrations to me, and this was especially the case when Mr. M'Gilvray was present. Whether this arose from the natural kindness of her disposition, that was distressed in witnessing the tokens of my discomfiture in the presence of my rival, or whether from a wish to make use of me as a foil gainst M'Gilvray, or from a spirit of feminine vanity, that was gratified by my attention, even whilst compelled to discourage an unsuitable lover, I could not tell; I only knew that so it was.

Shortly after my arrival at the lake, I discovered that I had a still nearer neighbour than even the Campbells. This was a solitary digger, named Howden.

On the completion of my buildings, my next care was to provide myself with a boat for the convenience and pleasure of being able to indulge myself occasionally with a row on the lake. When enjoying this pleasure one summer's day, I had rowed right across the lake, that here was not more than two miles broad. On getting up on the bank on the farther side to look about me, I discovered by the smoke the proximity of a digger's hut.

This digger, who happened at the time to be inside, was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, but of a rather spare

figure, and with an air of superior intelligence. He had, it seems, prospected to where he then was, all the way through from the west coast. He did not inform me as to how he was prospering – or if he were prospering at all – but as he told me that he had been working where he was for about two years, I drew my own conclusions from the circumstance, and decided that he must have found something there that made it worth his while to stay in such utter solitude for so long.

His hut – that was constructed of sods, and well plastered within and without – was lined inside with prints from Punch and the Illustrated London News, which gave a most cheerful aspect to the interior, while on a shelf beside the window, several volumes – some of a scientific character, and others the works in prose and poetry of the best English and American authors – betrayed in their possessor a mind of no ordinary taste and elevation. Ere this, his only mode of supplying himself with provisions had been by means of two stout pack-horses, that were feeding not far off, with which he took, when occasion required, long journeys through the bush to the nearest settlement on the west coast.

But now, on being acquainted with my settlement on the other side of the lake, together with my means of transit across, these tedious land journeys were discontinued, as all he required in the way of rations I could supply him with.

Yet, though by this means I had a frequent opportunity of conversing with him, I never seemed to get on a familiar footing with him, so that to me there seemed to be a sort of mystery about this man, and his solitary manner of life. On all points relating to the manner of his education, or his original status in society, he seemed singularly reticent. Yet it was plain that his position in life, judging by his educated manner, must have been at one time a respectable one.

The Christmas of my second year's occupancy of my station was now approaching. Already I had commenced my shearing, and among the men who came to me for this employment were two ill-looking dogs. One of these was a burly, pockmarked man, with a most brutal cast of countenance, whom I instantly recognised as the same that Lilly had handled so roughly some years before at the free fight at Wentworth.

Whether the fellow had noticed me sufficiently then, to be

able to identify me now, of course I could not tell; and, as a matter of course, I treated him as if I had never set eyes upon him before, though, in fact, had it not been that shearers were scarce, I should have hunted him at once off the place. I, however, made the best of the matter as things were, and engaged him for the shearing.

His companion was also an ill-looking customer, though of scarcely such a pronounced type of rascality as the other. My original prejudices against the latter, who called himself Michael Hennesy (his companion's name being Elias Jones), was considerably augmented on seeing him at his work, which he performed in a most slovenly manner, cutting and maltreating the sheep so much, that I threatened to turn him out of the shed. His conversation, too, betrayed the presence of a mind of the most loathsome cast, his language being of a peculiarly revolting nature. Over his companion, who appeared to be a man of weak character, he seemed to have complete control.

Christmas Eve had arrived, when the digger, Howden, in answer to his signal, had been brought across the lake, for he was in want of mutton. While standing beside me, and talking quietly, I noticed Hennesy, who was passing by, suddenly thrust forward his ill-looking countenance with an eager glance into Howden's face, then, hanging his head in his usual fashion, he went carelessly slouching past. Howden was shortly afterwards rowed across the lake. I should mention here, that besides my own boat, that was constantly chained to the bank, and padlocked there – the key of which I kept in my own possession – I had another of stouter build, that was kept entirely for the station use, and that could be also used by any of the hands, who, in their spare hours, had a fancy for a row on the lake. By this means, the nuisance was avoided of my boat being used by them at their own pleasure.

CHAPTER XXXI. A CHRISTMAS PARTY AT THE LAKE.

CHAPTER XXXI

A CHRISTMAS PARTY AT THE LAKE.

ON Christmas morning the sun rose clear and cloudless, revealing a landscape of glorious beauty. The water of the lake glistened and shone like polished steel, at the foot of the hills covered with deep woods, and vocal with the cry

of the parroquets, the clear ringing notes of the tuis, and the metallic echoes of the bell birds close by my house, and on the farther side, the mountains, descending into the water in steep, precipitous bluffs, revealed a prospect such as a landscape painter would have delighted to depict.

The shearers having resolved to keep Christmas after the good old English fashion, the day was observed as a holiday.

As it was but dull work loitering about the place, and I could not lie and read all day long, after breakfast I solaced myself with a row out upon the lake, and I amused myself thus for several hours, until it was time, I thought, to return for dinner. A slight breeze had by this time begun to ruffle the surface of the lake, and just as I had entered the bay, at the head of which my homestead was situated, happening to glance towards the lower end of the lake, my astonishment was great when I beheld Mr. Campbell's cutter coming rapidly towards me, with sails bellying out in the rising breeze. Instantly divining that the family had resolved to pay me a visit in honour of Christmas, I hurried towards the shore and hastened up to the house, to give Mrs. Munro notice of the company she might expect, so that she might set to work to provide suitable entertainment for them when they arrived.

In view of the coming of the ladies, I involuntarily cast an anxious glance round the room, but I might have saved myself the trouble, for, as far as mere housewifery was concerned, Mrs. Munro was method and orderliness personified.

About half an hour later, the vessel arrived, and was laid alongside the mooring place, where some stakes had been driven in as an apology for a wharf.

On board the vessel there was, indeed, a party, one of whom, at least, I did not expect to meet. Besides the Campbells and Mr. M'Gilvray, whose presence, despite the claims of hospitality, I could have spared, there was another lady with a child in her arms.

"Ah ha!" laughed Mary, clapping her hands gleefully, "Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Farquharson! You did not expect to have such a grand Christmas party as this – now, did you?"

"None the less welcome for being unexpected," I answered, as I walked out along the planks that were laid on the stakes, and stood by the side of the yacht." Merry Christmas to

you all, ladies and gentlemen; you really have given me great pleasure by this unexpected visit."

I then took Mary, who in her eagerness to greet me stood nearest, and lifted her bodily out of the vessel, no other gangway being available, and on to the platform. "Good-day to you, Mrs. Campbell, and what is your opinion of the appearance of my habitation now?" I remarked, as that good lady followed suit, by the same primitive mode of conveyance.

"Really," she replied, "it does look pleasant. I had no idea that you had such a nice place as this; the prospect is truly lovely." I then shook hands with both gentlemen, but Mr. M'Gilvray, however, by springing lightly to the platform, obviated the necessity for my landing Jessie in the same mode as I had landed her mother and sister.

It was then for the first time that, in the lady with the child, who now awaited my assistance to reach the platform, I, to my no small surprise and pleasure, recognised my former Christmas guest on the Darling, i.e., the quiet, ladylike Miss Brydone, or rather matron, Mrs. Ayson.

"Truly," I said, while laughing and cordially shaking her by the hand, "we shall soon have our old Christmas party back again. But why, Mrs. Ayson, did you not bring up Mr. Ayson with you? Surely I should be delighted to make his acquaintance."

"Thank you, Mr. Farquharson. I am indeed sorry that Mr. Ayson is not here, but he was detained upon business, and could not come along with me this time. Some other time, however, he may be able to pay you a visit. He would very much like to do so, for I have often talked to him about you, and the happy Christmas that I spent with you on the Darling."

Lifting her off, I next approached Tiny. "Well, Tiny," I remarked, "and how are you? What a pity that Mr. Lilly is not here to meet you now, eh!"

"Mr. Lilly cares nothing for seeing me," replied Tiny, smiling shyly. She was a stout, plump girl, and perhaps that might have accounted for the fact that as I lifted her off the boat I found her face very close to my own, her weight pressing heavily upon me, although I was not a weakling either. Be that as it may, her ripe lips so close to mine were rather too great a temptation for one who was by nature no stoic in the matter of woman's charms,

and a sly pressure of her lips by mine was the natural result.

Tiny, as if shocked at the liberty she had been unable to prevent, very properly to preclude its repetition, put up her hands, and turning her head aside, laughed blushingly, and ran away.

After seeing the yacht safely moored, I invited the two men who had navigated her to come up to the house with me, where I offered them a cordial, which, by the way they smacked their lips over it, was evidently to their taste.

On entering the house, laughter and good humour prevailed on all sides. Everything was examined with pleasure, and the rude furniture admired by the ladies with laughing good nature, though Mrs. Campbell, with her usual foresight in such matters, had brought an ample supply with her, in the matter of sheets and blankets for all the party.

For, be it known, that so primitive was my mode of living, and so little in my sequestered situation did I look forward to such a contingency as the present, that my domicile consisted of but three apartments. Of these one was reserved as a sitting and dining-room, and another was my sleeping apartment, whilst the third was the kitchen, in which the Monroes also slept.

My furniture, too, with the exception of three bought chairs and one table, was all bush made, so that to furnish my present party with sitting accommodation, several four-legged stools of very primitive construction had to be requisitioned from the kitchen.

But in spite of these drawbacks, I question if the hilarity and good humour of the party could have been increased had the apartment been luxuriantly furnished with a carpeted floor, spring-bottom chairs, and mahogany surroundings.

But if furniture was scarce, provisions were ample. Plain they were, but still tempting, for Mrs. Munro was an excellent cook, and we were preparing to sit down to a table furnished with a substantial joint, with fitting adjuncts, and an ample plum-pudding was looming in the distance, when the crack of a bullock whip sounded in my ear.

Not expecting such a sound as that, as my wool was to be taken away in Mr. Campbell's boat, and thence loaded on drays from his wharf on the lake, some few miles from his home-station, I went out to see what it could mean.

On gazing intently at an advancing bullock team, the tall

figure of the driver, the everlasting cabbage-tree hat, the blue shirt and the leggings, and above all the sonorous shout of "Gee, Dauntless," were not to be mistaken.

"In the name of wonder," I ejaculated, "whatever has brought Lilly up this way!"

"Hilloa, Lilly! what wind has blown you in this outlandish direction?" I exclaimed, as he halted his team with a loud "woa," near to where I was standing, shaking him heartily by the hand.

"Ha, ha!" he answered, laughing, "I reckon you didn't expect to see me hereaway; but as carriage to the diggings was getting low, I thought I would take a trial at wool driving, and so thinking that Mr. Campbell would give an old acquaintance a show, I came up to see him about what wooI he could let me have to drive down for him. But when I was within five miles of the station yesterday, I met the shepherd on the road, and getting into a yarn with him, he happened to mention that all the Campbells were going away in their boat to spend the next day with you. As I wished very much to spend Christmas with them, I thought that was unfortunate; but on inquiring the way to your place, the shepherd pointed out a way by which I could reach the end of the plain from where I then was, as soon as I could get to Campbell's station, and that was eight miles nearer here. So, determined to be among the fun with so many old faces, I, without going near Campbell's, went along this short cut, and camped out at the end of the plain last night. Then getting the bullocks yoked up by six o'clock this morning, I said I would make them do the distance between there and here inside of one o'clock, and I have kept my word; but I made them travel for it! I don't like forcing any animal out of its proper pace, let alone my bullocks, but I thought that for this day I would make it a case of necessity; so here I am, and perhaps you'll give an old acquaintance a load to bring back yourself."

"That I will, Lilly, the whole clip if you like; but how will you get it down? I have always had it sent round by water in Mr. Campbell's boat before. Although on coming through at first I opened a way for the team, it was with great difficulty, and by the observance of great precautions, that we managed to get along; as we did not take time to form the road by cuttings, save such trees as we found absolutely required removing from our path."

"Well, the road through the bush is rough enough in all conscience, but I never yet saw the road that I tackled (and I have tackled some rum ones in New Zealand) that I got beat at; for why, in the most desperate pinches my bullocks will do everything I tell them, and hang on like tigers, or 'back,' 'gee off,' or 'come to me,' just as I speak to them, and now that I am here I will take one load with me, anyhow."

"Well, turn out your bullocks at once, the poor things are blowing hard, after their long tramp. Wallace and Samson are looking well, and, indeed, they are all looking well. I wonder how you manage to keep them so, with all the work you give them."

"It is all by care in using them. Whenever they look fagged I spell them, and then, I know how to drive them."

I smiled at this reminder of the well remembered yet well merited conceit of my old friend; for whom now, in my genuine pleasure at meeting him, I thought to dispense with the forms of society by inviting him to join the assembled company in the sitting-room. But I might have spared myself the trouble of such a request. Lilly was too independent to feel even flattered at such a mark of favour. "No, Mr. Farquharson, thank you," he bluntly replied to my invitation, "though I concern myself about no man's position, as I reckon myself as good as the highest in the land. Yet I know my own place, and I shall feel best pleased with what I have been always accustomed to, and with parlour manners I should be very like a fish out of water; so I'll just away to the kitchen and fare with the hands there."

"Well, Lilly, just as you like; we will see you after dinner, however, and have all your news. There are scarcely any but old friends here, you know."

"Aye, aye, I'll be with you then," he replied, as he proceeded to unyoke his bullocks, and I returned inside.

"Well, ladies, our old Christmas party with but two exceptions (one of whom we can well spare) has come together again; here is our old friend Lilly come to join us; he is outside there with his team."

"Lilly here?" replied Mrs. Campbell. " How strange that he should come here just now; however did he find his way?"

"Lilly here?" chimed in both girls, with looks of unaffected

pleasure at the announcement. "Oh, that is good news; we shall have some fun now." "Yes," added Jessie, "Lilly was always a favourite with me. I think he is so kind, though he speaks so bluntly, and he can look so gruff when things don't go according to his mind."

"Yes," I replied; "Lilly is not in the habit of mincing matters with any one, but he is, for all that, a sterling fellow."

"Yes," remarked Mrs. Ayson, "I have often thought of him, and that wonderful damper that he baked for us in the ashes, and I have often made my friends in town laugh at my description of the scene. What a happy time that was, to be sure!"

"Thus did Lilly's arrival occasion another ripple to our already overflowing measure of happiness. The conversation soon afterwards became general, Mr. M'Gilvray sustaining a conspicuous part in it, with a highland twang in his accent, that a colonial rearing from his boyhood had not been able to eradicate. With his voice at times mingling with Mr. Campbell's more solid brogue, in the discussion of the practical details of sheep breeding, and qualities of wool; or in lively sallies with Jessie, with whom he seemed to delight to engage in a bout ot wit and repartee, he commended himself to my attention as a quick-witted, intelligent, and plucky young fellow. Occasionally, too, Lilly's loud, hearty laugh echoing from the kitchen, informed us of his perfect contentment there, in the society of Tiny, whose softer, but merry tones could also be heard ringing out a happy response.

CHAPTER XXXII. AN ATTEMPTED MURDER FRUSTRATED.

CHAPTER XXXII.

AN ATTEMPTED MURDER FRUSTRATED.

DINNER being over, we spent the whole afternoon until tea-time in wandering about the bush, where that was practicable, for the bush of New Zealand, with its thick, damp undergrowth, and jungle creepers, parasites, and lawyer bushes, significantly so termed, from the clinging pertinacity of their nature, when once in contact with either clothes or skin – is not favourable to walking parties. How-ever, some open glades, formed by the clearing of timber for

our buildings, admitted of our thus enjoying ourselves with some freedom; so, yielding ourselves wholly up to the influences of the scene – the melody of the birds, or the view of the bright gleams from the broad waters of the lake, as they flashed in the sunshine through the forest openings – our sense of calm enjoyment was perfect.

Tea being over, and the candles lighted, the next source of enjoyment we proposed to ourselves was Munroe's bagpipes.

Munroe was summoned accordingly; and forthwith made his appearance in full national costume, by which he appeared suddenly transformed from an ordinary loutish looking working man to one of nature's noblemen, so well did his brawny limbs accord with his picturesque dress, while his Celtic blood seemed to become instinct with fire and martial ardour in the ancient habiliments of his race.

What man with an ear for strathspey music can listen to it, with all the thrilling ecstacy that the bagpipes in the hands of a skilful piper can give, and keep for long inactive on his seat? With the present party, all Celts, as far as the men were concerned, such a thing was not to be thought of. The tables were instantly cleared, and all the party, including the inmates of the kitchen, were on the floor for a dance. Lilly was among them, and with Tiny for his partner, wheeled with great zest and some skill through the mazes of a waltz. Not all, however, joined in, for Mrs. Campbell refused to take part in such active exercise, and I, too, managed to keep out of it for a while, at least, as, never having learned to "trip the light fantastic toe," I was unwilling to make myself ridiculous by taking part in an exercise for which I had no aptitude.

But when at length the simple Scotch reels were proposed, I was fairly forced upon my feet by Mr. Campbell, who also up to this point had kept in his seat.

For the first reel I chose Mary for my partner, and Mrs. Ayson for the next, purposely leaving Jessie to Mr. M'Gilvray, with whose devotion I began now to imagine that she seemed quite satisfied. In the evolutions of the reel, poor Mrs. Ayson seemed quite bewildered, and had to be piloted in her utter helplessness through the figure eight, when in obedience to a hint, she went through some very demure and staid shuffling with her feet, supposed to be expressive of her exhilarating sympathy with the notes of the music.

But of all the dancers, there was not one who appeared to more thoroughly enjoy himself than Mr. Campbell. The music appeared literally to have put life and mettle into his heels, usually so grave and deliberate in their motions; whilst he whooped and snapped with his fingers, and cut the capers of the steps of the Highland fling with the most marvellous agility, his quiet, orderly wife, smiling meanwhile at the enthusiastic absurdity of his manner.

Among the shearers was a smart young fellow named Turner, who was an accomplished step dancer. He was soon sent for, and he greatly contributed to the amusement of the evening, by his artistic performance of sailors' hornpipes and Irish jigs, rendering the latter with great humour and native character.

Meanwhile, my heart began to sink heavily within me. Peculiarly sensitive to the influence of music, my morbid feelings were now vividly impressed by the wild strains of the bagpipes, until, steeped in feelings of sentiment, I seemed to endow the object of my affections with all the attributes of a heroine of romance.

The animated expression of her mobile features, her pallor, now brightened with the flush of exercise and excitement, together with the charm of her slight, yet rounded figure, only added to the ardour of my feelings, and moved me the more to covet so much beauty, and to bitterly regret the improbability of my ever winning it. For, as I watched her as she waltzed, her waist partly encircled by the arm of her smart, intelligent-looking partner, I could not help feeling – while thus forced to acknowledge their fitness for each other – how utter was the vanity of my hopes in this second love passage of my life.

And yet, when the dancers returned to their seats, I could not help noticing how Jessie seemed by design to seat herself by me, as if by that to compensate me for the anguish to my feelings that she was conscious of having caused me by her acceptance of the attentions of my rival.

With my feelings in this state, I was not sorry when I was suddenly called out by one of the men, who told me that the sheep that had been penned for the morrow's operations were breaking out of the wool shed, one of the gates having been insecurely fastened.

Bidding Munro to keep on playing, as we should, with the assistance of the other shepherd, who had been taken on for

the extra work of the shearing, be able to bring back the sheep without his help, I hastily went to the shed.

On reaching there, I found that all the sheep, save those in the pens, had managed to escape, as the mischief had not been discovered by the men until they were nearly all out. They were now, however, stopped by the new shepherd's dog, who had them all gathered up in a heap on the hillside, beyond a small arm of the bush, this being the way to their former feeding ground on the hills.

It was now about dusk, and, seeing that the sheep were safely in hand, but that it would take some time yet ere they were housed, although several of the shearers had come to help the shepherd, and knowing that they would all be secured without the necessity of my presence, I turned aside and walked down to the lake.

I did this as an excuse for prolonging my absence from the party indoors, for which, in the depressed condition of my mind, I felt little inclination.

Thus I went along quietly musing until I came to where the boat that I reserved for my own private use was fastened. Mechanically unlocking the padlock, I got into it, and, pushing off, seated myself and plied the oars listlessly for a second or two, when the thought suddenly entered my mind of rousing myself from the state of depression I had fallen into by a little lusty exercise.

The lake at this point was not more than two miles in breadth, and half-an-hour's vigorous bending at the oars would send my light skiff across, whilst the excuse of the trouble with the sheep would be ample for detaining me for another hour, at least, when, with spirits refreshed by the healthy stimulus of muscular exercise, I could return to the company in a state of mind more fitted to enjoy it.

Moved by these thoughts, I rowed on until the waves curled half way up my bows. I never once rested until I was fairly within a few yards of the opposite shore, where, backing water with one oar, I brought my skiff up parallel with the land that there rose up steeply, allowing the boat to float in deep water at its very edge.

Resting on my oars now, I paused awhile to take breath and wipe my brow, for I was heated with my rapid exercise. And having breathed and allowed myself to cool a little, I again took the oars and gently pushed my boat along the coast, heading down the lake. This I did, I believe, more

from an instinctive desire, than from a deliberately conscious motive. I ascertained this of myself afterwards, when I found leisure to analyse the thoughts that moved me to take this course rather than to head straight back on my return voyage across the lake.

In the course I had taken, from the situation of the mountains that here approached the side of the lake, their dark shadows were thrown a long way out upon the waters. But a little farther down, in the direction that I had now unthinkingly chosen, the land made a sudden bend, and the mountain range was also thrown back further inland, so that the rays of the moon (for it was a lovely moonlight night) fell upon the water almost at its point of contact with the land.

Thus the feeling that constrained me to head my boat towards this point, ere shooting out again in a direct line across the lake, I subsequently thought must have been my instinctive sympathy with the moonlight. Man, unless depraved, naturally abhors darkness, and it, was probably the darkness of these mountain shadows on the lake that I instinctively desired to shnn.

With this object I had been moving my boat towards this point with almost noiseless strokes, as I was keeping my powers in reserve until the moment when I should head my boat for the other side of the lake, intending then to row at the same tremendous rate I had kept up on my outward passage, when, just as I approached the point that I intended to double, and being still in deep shadow, I was suddenly made aware of the sound of approaching oars. On this I ceased pulling, and looking round, saw a boat pulled by two men rapidly approaching, and then disappearing on the other side of this point. "Some of the men bringing over a taste of their Christmas cheer to Howden," I thought, remembering the few bottles of spirits that, by way of making the men share in our own conviviality, I had towards evening sent to their hut.

Howden's hut was over against where I was then resting on my oars, some twenty yards or so inland.

I thought first to hail the men as to their business there at that time of night, but thinking it must be, as I first thought, a visit of pleasure, I had just resumed my oars, when the voices of the two boatmen suddenly falling upon my ear involuntarily inspired me with a desire to listen to what they said. Though their words were but few and

brief, they almost caused the blood to freeze in my veins with apprehensive horror.

"But are you sure," I heard one of the men ask, "that you are right? it will be a caution if you are all wrong after all!"

"I tell you that it is all right, you – – - – – - fool. I knowed he was here, his brother told me – – -" the rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, but I caught enough of it to at once identify in the speakers the hang-dog looking ruffian Hennesy, and his well-matched, though less villainous-looking, companion, Jones. And with my recognition of their voices, there flashed across my mind Hennesy's lowering and prying glance into Howden's face on the evening before, and the loneliness of the situation that seemed to favour with impunity a scene of violence, perhaps murder, upon an unprotected and unsuspicious man.

"Gracious Heaven!" I ejaculated, "it must be this that they are after. Grant me strength, Lord, to be still in time to frustrate their fiendish purposes!" And with this exclamation, I bent to the oars, and caused my boat to dash through the water towards the point now about ten yards ahead of me, where only I could get a landing. To reach it and to spring on shore, and to hurriedly twine the-painter round a bush at the water's edge, was but the work of a few seconds. Then, seizing an oar, I rushed up the little spur, and ran with all my speed towards Howden's hut, whose light I could now see burning but a few yards ahead. A dog, not a very formidable one, kept by Howden, was barking furiously, as if at the sight of strangers, whose presence he both resented and feared. I had got within ten yards of the hut, when suddenly my blood curdled at the sound of a wild, prolonged cry, as of mortal fear, but which seemed to be suddenly stopped, as if by violence, for I could still hear a kind of gurgling sob.

Bounding wildly forward (I never thought of calling out, and so alarming the murderers), on reaching the hut I dropped the oar, and caught up an American axe that was lying gleaming in the moonlight on the wood heap, past which I was in the act of dashing. "Villains and murderers, let go!" I yelled, as I dashed through the door, and beheld the two wretches kneeling over the prostrate form of Howden, whose throat was held in Hennesy's deadly grip, and striking wildly at his head with the axe as I spoke.

In my haste, not calculating the direction of the blow, in its swing the head of the axe came in contact with the door lintel, and turning in my hand, fell violently on the head of the intending murderer, but with its flat instead of its edge, thus without effecting any serious injury.

Both villains instantly bounded to their feet, and terror-stricken at my sudden attack, sprang out through the door, and instantly fled towards the bush, without attempting to defend themselves against me, whom they could easily have overpowered, had they been sustained by the manly courage that in such emergencies is often found lacking in spirits of mere ruffianism. They both dashed out of the hut, dodging on either side of me as they went, ere I could recover my weapon to deal a second blow.

I made no attempt to follow them, but turning my attention to Howden, who was black in the face, although still breathing, I took him up in my arms, first fastening around me a sheath knife that I saw attached to a belt beside me on the table, and, though the burden of his limp body was great, I went out of the hut determined to carry him down to the beach, where the two villains had left their boat, that was then closer to me than my own.

As I staggered along under the weight of my burden, Howden suddenly revived, and desired to be let down on his feet, and in a few minutes later he was able to walk without any assistance.

Scarcely waiting to exchange a word, we entered the boat, the little dog, which had followed, joyously springing in with us, and, each seizing an oar, we pulled hurriedly across the lake.

CHAPTER XXXIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

AS we were rowing, I asked Howden, who by this time was perfectly recovered, the particulars of his late encounter with his assailants. He replied that he had been reading when they suddenly entered the hut. On looking up, at their entrance, he at once recognised Hennesy, whom he had formerly seen, and whom he knew to be a most desperate character. It scarcely needed the latter's fierce

demand that he should turn out his money, to acquaint Howden with the object of his sadden intrusion. On Howden's attempting to snatch up a sheath knife that was lying on the table, they both flung themselves upon him, while Hennesy seized him by the throat, just as an irrepressible cry of terror burst from his lips; the despairing cry that a strong desire of life will wring from the bravest men at the prospect of violently losing it. He shortly afterwards lost consciousness, and only recovered whilst being borne by me towards the boat. His first impression on reviving was that he was in the arms of one of his murderers, who was carrying him away with the intention of casting his body into the lake, but hearing some words that I chanced to mutter, he recognised my voice, and with it his own security.

"You have met this Hennesy before, then?" I demanded.

"Yes, to my sorrow, though then under the name of Morgan, which I believe to be his right name. I knew him, not from personal acquaintance with him, but from his association with one with whom he was only too intimate."

"And this other person was, I presume, a friend of yours?"

"A friend," he replied, sadly. "well, he should have been a friend, for he was a brother."

"A brother!" I ejaculated, in some surprise.

"Ah! that surprises you, Mr. Farquharson; if you knew all you would be still more surprised. He was a man who seemed fated by his own mad folly and unbridled passions to set at naught every prospect of honourable distinction that the possession of undoubted talents and influential friends once seemed to place within his reach, for, as if the path of rectitude were too straight for the demands of his vaulting ambition, gambling and horse racing were the means by which he sought to win life's prizes. The narrow straits of necessity that these hazardous dealings forced him into not agreeing with his high spirits, it being a matter of pride with him to be unfettered in his progress through life by any of the ordinary laws of society, from dice to forgery was with him but a step. Then came the jail, from which with his fierce spirit he soon broke away, and the felon's career – but why should I thus dwell on a brother's infamy? To me it is a theme bitterly degrading, for he was still a brother whom I could have loved. May the Lord remember him!"

As Howden was speaking – we had both considerably remitted our labour at the oars – a flash of memory, first I

believe inspired by Howden's incidental reference to Hennesy's true name of Morgan; led up to a train of ideas in my mind, which, setting aside as too fanciful, I did not then give utterance to. There was something in his description of his brother that somehow at once suggested the idea of Marsden to me; a suggestion strengthened by the remembrance of the disguised ruffian who had formerly bailed me up, and whom Marsden had then so sternly addressed by the name of Morgan. So strongly was I impressed by this, that I involuntarily gazed into Howden's face to confirm my suspicions by any possible brotherly likeness there might be between Howden and Marsden. " But Howden's features, of a calm, thoughtful cast, positively negatived any such idea, and I at once dismissed it from my mind as altogether unlikely.

After a short pause, Howden continued: "For years, when he was in jail, or at large, have I kept my eyes upon him, though, for his own selfish ends, he occasionally made me acquainted with his movements voluntarily; and I have even at times met him at his desire, and have then done my best to move him.

"'Abandon your vile courses, and give proofs of your sincerity of purpose in doing so, and I will still help you to regain, at least in another land, the paths of virtue and honour that you have so far departed from.' But he seemed hardened in his depravity, and the seed sown by a holy mother appeared to have got corrupted within him. Yet still with me, however turbulent with others, he has always seemed to be repentant and humbled. But what can this new thing mean? That wretch must have had my present address from him, or he would not have found me out in this out of the way locality."

"Surely you do not imagine your brother to have been fiend enough to have sent these wretches here to rob and murder you?" I asked, involuntarily.

"Not to murder," he answered quickly, "that might be a gratuitous addition to his commission on Morgan's part, from his own natural villainy and pride in his professional dexterity at such work. But as to rob! Although I have offered to help him if he would reform, beyond just assisting him to a very limited extent, on the few occasions when he has sought me out, I have sternly refused to advance him money on any other conditions. My last information re-

garding him was, that he was again in jail, but the presence of this ruffian here seems to imply that he has again broken away, and is perhaps even now in this country."

We now resumed our former more vigorous use of the oars, and in a short time had reached the shore. Instead of being absent for half an hour, or so, as I had expected, upwards of an hour and a half had elapsed ere I had recrossed the lake, and a good deal of surprise had begun to be felt at home at my unaccountable absence, as the sheep had been secured for some considerable time, and the men on their return, on being interrogated, had denied having seen me at all whilst penning the sheep in the shed; and among the alarmists, as I afterwards understood, no one appeared to be so palpably uneasy as Jessie, for calmly, as I imagined, I had veiled my feelings, yet, with the penetration of her sex, she had marked my distress at her pleasure in Mr. M'Gilvray's attentions during the dancing. Moved by this, she, in her increasing anxiety at my unaccountably prolonged absence, was beginning to conjure up in her excited mind all sorts of desperate fears concerning me, which gained in colour by the close proximity of the lake – a suspicion on her part that did not credit me with much strength of mind, and which, considering that for such hair-brained tragedies I had ever expressed the most profound contempt, did me no small injustice.

"Ho, ho, Mr. Truant," she joyfully exclaimed, as soon as her quick glance detected my entrance, in company with Howden, "it is a fine way, indeed, of showing respect for your company, to run away and leave them to look after themselves! Give an account of yourself, sir!"

"Willingly, Miss Campbell," I replied, in the same lively tone – so thoroughly had my adventure succeeded in diverting my mind into a more natural channel – "and when I have done so, you may probably acknowledge that I have been guided by a divine impulse, which has enabled me to render a great service to this gentleman here, however rude and unceremonious my action may in your eyes at present appear. For this impulse has moved me to no less an act than to row with all my strength across the lake, to the farther side of which I arrived just in time to prevent two murderous villains from robbing this gentleman of his life."

In answer then to the exclamations of startled surprise from all the company, I described the whole scene to them,

and the simple cause and intention that moved me at first to enter the boat, or at least as much of that cause as, for certain reasons, I thought good to state. But Jessie was not to be hoodwinked by this caution. By the keen manner with which she regarded me, when referring to the feeling of dullness that had prompted me at first to enter the boat, it was plain to me that she understood all that was implied in that vague term. She, however, made no comment upon the matter, though, perhaps, like Mary in the Gospel, "she pondered all these things in her heart."

On concluding, I formally introduced the subject of the narrative to the general company as Mr. Charles Howden, at the same time mentioning his occupation.

Hereupon, on the mention of Howden's name, Mrs. Campbell, usually so orderly and composed in her manner, suddenly exhibited signs of the deepest emotion, by first a violent, nervous start, then by her usually pale countenance assuming a more deathlike hue as she fixed her eyes earnestly upon Howden. Then murmuring, "My God, is it possible?" she rose from her seat and advanced towards Howden, and stretching out her right arm towards him in an eager, importunate, nay, almost threatening manner, she exclaimed: "Tell me, where is my brother? You know, you must know where he is now – tell me, I adjure you, for His sake whose fatherly mercy you have just experienced so great an instance of!"

On Howden's part, the effects of Mrs. Campbell's sudden exclamation seemed to be equally emotional. Shading his eyes with one hand, as he returned her gaze with equal earnestness, he muttered, "Mary Carmichael! who would have thought of meeting with her here?" Then in answer to her question, he replied coldly, "Why ask me about your brother, madam? Am I your brother's keeper that you should thus charge me? I know what you would say," he continued bitterly; "it was my action that involved him in that ruin that caused him to abscond from creditors, whose claims he was powerless to satisfy. It was my action, my villainy you would say, rather. No, madam. It was through no conscious villainy of mine that that disaster happened, though it was my mistake, the consequence of which has sent me, too, an exiled wanderer through the world ever since. It was the mistake of wishing to save from ruin that brother of whom you so often heard me speak, but whom you

never saw, that induced me to commit the fatal rashness of putting my name to a bill without consulting my partner. This step I was induced to take, as not wishing to bring the disreputable state of my brother's affairs under his notice, and through him to yours. At the time, I honestly believed that the transaction would be safe, and its negotiation easy. I knew that though our over-draft at the bank was already serious, yet that, though increasing it by another £1,000, within the specified time I could count with certainty upon the returns of our business more than covering this deficit. But the sudden collapse of a business in which we had allowed ourselves to become largely involved, at once turned the tide of these hopes, and exposed my dishonest financing; dishonest only in appearance, but not as regards any benefit to myself. I fell through my too great love for my brother. Any hope that we might have had of surviving our financial ruin and of regaining our credit, vanished through the shadiness of my action at such a critical point in our affairs. From the consequence of this ruin, with a debtor's prison staring us in the face, flight was our only remedy. Your brother fled, a victim of circumstances over which he had absolutely no control, but I, oppressed with the double guilt of having brought reproach on my own hitherto stainless name, and of being the unwitting cause of disgrace and ruin to another.

"We did not go together, but by different vessels. We both reached America; I, with the stern determination of there regaining, if possible, with the payment of all claims against me, the character I had lost, and then returning and claiming the affianced bride I had left behind.

"Within twelve months, however, I heard that she, doubtless convinced of my villainy, had become the bride of another.

"Yes, sir," said Howden, addressing Mr. Campbell, who was listening to all this in silent surprise. "Your wife was at one time my betrothed bride; and yet with you and her children she has doubtless been happy without me. Whilst I, in return for my zeal for the honour of an unhappy brother, am at this day a friendless and a joyless man.

"Do I know where your brother is now, madam? well, yes, partly. We met when the Californian mines were at the zenith of their fame. I was doing well, then; and there, in conjunction with him, forwarded home to our bank credi-

tors all money due by our late firm, I, however, paying in addition to my own share of the business responsibilities, the £1,000 of the bill that had occasioned sudden ruin to us both. I advanced on Mr. Carmichael's account, indeed (who was not then in such flourishing circumstances as I was), a considerable sum of his share of the responsibility, he agreeing, when in a position to do so, to repay me. This he subsequently did rather more than ten years ago, for Malcolm Carmichael was an honourable man.

"He was at that time in flourishing circumstances, he informed me, at Valparaiso, where I understand he still is, and his address then I have with me, and you can now have it." And taking out his pocket book, and tearing a leaf therefrom, Howden handed it to Mrs. Campbell, who received it with a fervent "Thank you, Mr. Howden."

As Howden ceased speaking, I gazed upon him with admiration. There appeared to be something truly noble in his manner, as, with his simple eloquence, he thus vindicated his character before the woman whom he once had so deeply loved, and from whom he was so unhappily separated; revealing as he spoke, a view of his past life, that so well corresponded with my own instinctive and preconceived opinion of him.

To me he had always appeared to be a man of superior parts, with his high, intellectual-looking forehead, and thoughtful manner.

Whatever effect on Mrs. Campbell the revulsion of feeling occasioned by this clearance of the long-clouded character of the man she once loved may have had, the presence of her husband and daughters prevented her from showing it. But that she was not unmoved was plain by the softened expression of her countenance. But, that she now felt regret at the circumstances that had for ever parted her from a man whom she once loved, it would be quite unfair to suppose; indeed, her long union with a man, who, however inferior in mental parts both to herself and to Howden, still had treated her with uniform kindness and respect, and was, moreover, the father of her children, forbade the idea.

"My poor, afflicted friend," she said compassionately; "truly yours has been a suffering and thankless life. But God is wise in all His ways, and what He orders must be for the best. Yet the consequences of error He will not always avert, even though He sees the pure intention with which

that error was committed. And you doubtless committed a great error, and a most unwise action, that even your love for your brother could not palliate in the eyes of the law. Thus you have entailed much suffering both upon yourself and me; for we are, however guiltless our intention, forbidden to expect that God will interfere to remedy the consequence of a violated law. Yet, though by this act you involved me in the same suffering with yourself, God has given me a kind husband and these two daughters to comfort my declining days, and doubtless, my friend, He will yet compensate you for all the suffering that, by that one imprudent act of your life, you have had to bear so long. Still look up and put your trust in Him.

"But you say my brother is in America? Is he not then in New Zealand? Yet what you state I believe, for of old you were ever sincere and truthful. But it is strange – surely it must have been Malcolm that sent all that money to us when we were in Australia, advising us to come over and settle where we are. How should he, in America, have known anything about this country, and especially of this very district, that he should have been warranted in advising us, as we were advised, to settle here?"

"Mr. Farquharson," said Howden, at this point turning hastily to me, as if desirous of escaping from the subject under discussion, "I'll wish you a good night, I think. I'll go out to the men's quarters, and perhaps may even return to my own hut."

"To your own hut!" I repeated in surprise. "You surely, after your narrow escape, cannot think of going back to-night with these murderous ruffians perhaps still hovering about."

"Oh, I don't think they will show their faces there again in a hurry! I guess they are now making tracks for the safety of their necks, and will be miles away in the bush by this time, making their way as best they can towards the coast. But I will go to the men's hut, anyhow, and if I can persuade one of them to come across the lake with me tonight, I will, for I have reasons for wishing to go. Do not keep me, please, I wish to go," he whispered earnestly.

"But surely you could sleep with Lilly here, in the kitchen, till morning, at least? No? Well, if you will persist in going, I will see that one of the shepherds goes along with you to keep you company." I said this as I saw

that he had some powerful motive for wishing to be off, and that no persuasions of mine would move him. Seeing this, I sent word for one of the shepherds at the hut to take my revolver with him, and accompany Howden back to his hut, from which he could return early on the following morning.

There was a good deal to discuss, both in what had just occurred and what had been revealed by his words, after Howden's departure.

"The cut-throat looking villain!" cried Lilly, in reference to the blackguard Hennesy. "I knowed him as soon as my eyes lit upon him, and so did he me, for he took precious good care to keep out of my sight ever after."

I here, for the amusement of the party, related the scene of Lilly's exploit with Hennesy, in which that worthy came to such signal grief by Lilly's hands; as also Lilly's other exploits on that memorable occasion, all of which afforded no small amusement to my auditors. Young M'Gilvray, in especial, was so tickled at my description of Lilly's manner of assisting the police in quelling the riot, in which service he contrived to inflict considerably more damage on the Queen's servants than the rioters did, that he fairly held his sides with laughter.

From this subject to our late scene of operations on the Darling Station, was an easy transition, and I asked Lilly when he had last heard from his friend Lampiere and how he was getting on. I have until now omitted stating the information I had had from Lilly on my first meeting with him. It appeared that ere Lilly had left the Darling, Lampiere received sudden word from some well-to-do relative who had just come out from home and had established some wholesale business in the provision trade in Melbourne, and who had kindly invited Lampiere to come down and take a situation as confidential clerk with him, for which office Lampiere had had some previous training ere he left home. On this proposal being submitted by Lampiere to Lilly, as in all his emergencies was Lampiere's invariable custom, Lilly very prudently advised him to at once take advantage of his kinsman's very considerate offer. Although town life was never to Lilly's taste, he still considered that, on the whole, Lampiere was more adapted for that than for a bush life. "Besides which," as he very characteristically informed Lampiere, "you now have had a very fair bush training, and are able, if you like, to do things for yourself, and will not

be like these town greenhorns, who are only fit to put on their ironed shirts without knowing how ever the shirt was either ironed or washed."

Lampiere's last letter, received by Lilly about two months ago, stated that Lampiere's friend Burrell, who till then had remained on the station shepherding, was contemplating a move to Melbourne, and, in conjunction with Lampiere, was thinking of starting a paper, a sort of ordinary news and literary journal combined; Lampiere to be merely a sleeping partner in the concern.

Lilly's opinion now of Burrell's own poetical powers had been very considerably enhanced by the perusal of a poem that Lampiere had enclosed in his last letter, entitled, "My Old Quart Pot." Unfortunately, I am not able to give my readers a specimen of this poem to exercise their judgments upon, as I omitted to take a copy of it from Lilly, and I have not since seen it; but of the merits of this poem Lilly entertained almost as high an opinion as of Lampiere's "Hut-keeper's Address."

"I'll not say it is just as good as Bill's poem," said he, "but still it is a really good production for all that. He is a smart, keen customer, that. But about this paper – I don't know what to think of it. I hope these two chaps ain't going to drop all their money over the concern. I am glad that Bill is sticking to his situation in his cousin's office. He tells me he gets £5 10s. a week there, and I know he won't spend his money foolishly, so that he is bound to lay some by, if he doesn't lose it in that paper."

"What is the journal to be called; do you know?" I asked.

"The Australian News and Literary Journal" was the reply.

"Rather a long title, I think; however, I trust they will both do well, as they are both very deserving young men."

It was now time to retire for the night, the ladies all in one room, on ample beds, provided by Mrs. Campbell's foresight, on the floor, and the male part of the company in the kitchen in the same manner.

"It seems to me, Mrs. Campbell," I took occasion to say, as, with a more than usually thoughtful countenance, she sat by the fire, while the other ladies were assisting Mrs. Munro with the arrangements for the gentlemen on the kitchen floor," that what is engaging your mind at the pre-

sent moment is an attempt to solve the problem as to who forwarded you the money to Australia – a problem whose solution, to my thinking, is not a matter of such very great difficulty after all."

"Indeed, Mr. Farquharson, do you think so? for, to tell you the truth, I have been perplexing my mind about that very matter."

"Then I will take the liberty of affirming that your sex's vaunted instinct is at fault this time at least."

"How, Mr. Farquharson? I scarcely understand you."

"Has not Mr. Howden stated that you and he were once engaged to many one another?"

"Which statement is perfectly true," she replied sadly; "poor Charles Howden and I were to have been married within a fortnight of the unhappy event to which he referred."

"And is it difficult to imagine, madam, that the love of a person of so highly organised and sensitive a temperament as this Mr. Howden appears to be, would still survive the wreck of those hopes, even after the lapse of all these years, and even take such an extraordinary method of showing his undying affection for her who had once been the cherished idol of his soul?"

As I spoke a sudden light overspread and chased away the thoughtful expression that till then had rested on Mrs. Campbell's countenance.

"Surely you do not think that this was Charles Howden's work? How can he have such means at his command and leading a life, too, of labour in order to earn his own living?"

"I see nothing so very improbable in it for all that. Re-member, Mr. Howden has been actively engaged in the goldfields during the very best days of California, Australia, and New Zealand, and he is intelligent and of very sober habits, all points sufficient in themselves to account for the possession of no inconsiderable fortune."

"But why, if this is so, should he prefer to lead the life of privation and isolation that he does? Why, indeed, should he labour at all?"

"Such a choice is not easily to be accounted for, especially in a person of his intellectual tastes, and I cannot conceive him to be actuated by the mere grovelling desire to facilitate the hoarding of wealth. Yet many things might bias him in favour of this life away from society, for which, perhaps, he

has lost all taste. Disappointed hopes such as he has been the victim of might sufficiently account for such a preference. What particularly roused my suspicions as to Howden's knowledge of this money was his sudden determination to return to his own hut on your reference to the matter, which at the time seemed most extraordinary to me."

"I see it all," replied Mrs. Campbell, "poor dear Charles, how much disappointment and misapprehension has he had to suffer. Yet he comes out of it after all these long years the same noble-hearted, unselfish man as of old. May God reward him for it all, it is more than I ever can."

With these words we separated for the night.

CHAPTER XXXIV. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all."
– -Marquis of Montrose.

THE next morning, it being a working day, I was early in the shed, when one of the shearers handed me a note, which on opening, I found to my surprise to be from Howden. In this note he stated that for urgent reasons he was starting off for Invercargill; therefore he requested me to take charge of his effects, and dispose of his horses, which he expected I could easily manage to get on board Mr. Campbell's large boat, that could at some points be laid almost alongside of the land, for what prices they would fetch, as it was not his intention to return again to that locality. Any money that I should realize from his effects, that, with the exception of the horses, were not likely to be marketable, he also requested me to pay at my covenience into the bank of New Zealand, in Invercargill to his account. But the books he requested me to keep for myself, together with such articles as were not saleable, stating also that I should hear from him again.

As I had been in the habit of transacting business for Howden, that, besides occasional purchases, consisted in taking down his gold and depositing it in the bank of New Zealand,

returning him receipts of its weight, I was quite able to carry out the wishes expressed in his present note.

After breakfast my visitors prepared for their departure. As I was accompanying them to the place of embarkation. I was walking alongside of Mary, Jessie being in front with Mr. M'Gilvray, when suddenly the latter withdrew from her companion and joined me; and, as if by a preconcerted arrangement, Mary stepped forward and took the place vacated by her sister by Mr. M'Gilvray's side.

Looking up into my face with her full blue eyes, clear as a fountain of water, Jessie remarked: –

"What is it makes you look so dull?"

"Why do you ask, or what makes you imagine that I am dull."

"I know very well, and I think you are foolish to give way to such fancies. Why should you not look as cheerful as the others?"

"And why do you give me reason to look dull then, Jessie?"

"Now, why should you talk like that? What occasion have I given you to look dull?"

I glanced significantly at the gentleman in front of me.

"Pooh! Mr. M'Gilvray is a very nice gentleman, and I like him very well as a friend, but nothing else."

By this time we had arrived at the side of the boat, and much as I could have wished the conversation prolonged, I had no further opportunity of saying more then.

But the effects of these few words upon me were simply magical.

I seemed to feel as if a load had been lifted off my heart, and in exact ratio to their previous depression did my spirits now rise to an excess of buoyancy.

As I gleefully shook hands with them all, I called out to Mrs. Ayson to be sure and bring her husband along with her if she felt inclined to pay me a visit again, as I hoped she would, next Christmas.

Next Christmas, forsooth! Little did I imagine that I was standing over a powder mine, whose sudden explosion shortly afterwards would send me far enough away from Lake – – - long ere Christmas would be round again.

That same day (I mean that of the departure of my visitors) Lilly was loaded up, and started away likewise.

On the conclusion of the shearing operations, and when

the stir consequent thereon had subsided, I resolved, in pursuance of a determination that had lately been slowly maturing in my mind, since the departure of my Christmas visitors, to bring to a decisive issue a question that had long disturbed my peace of mind.

The reader will easily guess what this question was.

I accordingly one day rode down to the Campbells, and was received by them with their wonted cordiality.

After tea, I found myself in company with both the girls in the neat flower-bordered garden. It was a lovely evening. The setting sun flushed all the western horizon. Loud, clear, and musical rang the notes of the tuis in the neighbouring bush, while hundreds of twittering notes sounded through the glades of the forest, as the birds fluttered through the leaves. The gooseberry bushes were bending down with their profusion of fruity treasures, while, as we strayed along, we occasionally stooped down in attention to each, as its bursting, mellow tasting fruit seemed to solicit our notice.

At length I found myself alone with Jessie, Mary having lingered behind, and then, as if suddenly recollecting something, or desirous of giving us a better opportunity of communicating with each other, went back into the house.

The golden opportunity so long wished for had at last arrived. I felt my heart palpitating violently in view of the momentous issue immediately before me. I believe my very nervousness spoiled all.

I took her hand. I blundered sadly, and stated my case with almost rude bluntness.

"Jessie, I love you very much. Will you marry me?"

She tried to withdraw her hand from mine, but I held it more tenaciously. Again I spoke: –

"I have loved you a long time; I cannot do without you. Jessie, will you not give me some hope?"

At last she replied, and to the point. She was naturally of a blunt, straightforward disposition.

"I am sorry to hear you speak as you do Duncan," the more formal style of Mister Farquharson had long been set aside in my intercourse with all the members of the family. "I have known you a long time, and I indeed do love and respect you, but only as a friend. Let us go inside." As she spoke she rose up and went towards the house, still looking and waiting for me to accompany her; but, stunned by the

sudden overthrow of my late hopes, it was only with difficulty that I could force myself to do this.

If, with one sentence, Jessie had ruthlessly slain all my fond aspirations for her heart and hand, to do her justice, having dealt the blow, she did her utmost for the rest of the evening to mollify the wound.

She took her seat close beside me, and smiling pleasantly, addressed her remarks straight to me, endeavouring continually to anticipate my slightest desires, or if I did anything for her it was instantly acknowledged by a bright smile and a frank "Thank you, Duncan."

Yet towards her I maintained a deep, almost stern reserve, only giving brief, monosyllabic replies when necessary to questions addressed directly to me.

My reticence was not the result of anger. It was not that I felt revengeful towards the girl for slighting my offer. No, I loved her too well for that. But my irreparable loss grieved me bitterly in proportion to my love.

Had I not been ashamed to do so I would instantly have mounted Selim and ridden home; but to my kind friends such a proceeding would have been an act of rudeness, that I could not think of showing to them. So, harassed and dejected, I found it a matter of no small difficulty to rouse myself to the task of sustaining some kind of commonplace conversation with Mr. Campbell – interrupted by passing remarks from his wife – about sheep, wool, and other station matters; all subjects of inexhaustible interest to worthy, common-sense, plain, plodding, Mr. Campbell.

At length the weary evening came to a close, and I retired to bed, but as the reader may well believe, not to sleep; my faculties being kept awake by a hard, dry grief, that refused to be comforted. All the future seemed to be a dreary plain without any line to mark the horizon.

But enough of this. I had hardly returned home, when I received a painful confirmation of the truth of the adage, that misfortunes seldom come singly.

I fear the reader will think me a strange hero, when I record this fresh instance of my heedlessness and trustfulness. After having already tasted the bitter fruits of a too unquestioning reliance on the faith of another in the matter of my business solvency, what will any sensible person now think of my imprudence, when I confess that I found myself again convicted of the same fatal blunder?

The facts are briefly told. About six months before, Mr. Roscoe, in view of some heavy liabilities in his own mercantile business, received my consent to strengthen his credit, by the use of the cheques of our joint firm for his own private business, though, as he represented at the time, it would only be for a short period.

To any one reasonably cautious in worldly matters, such a proposal would have been viewed with instant distrust.

But so firmly impressed was I with the assurance of Mr. Roscoe's personal probity, and financial solvency, that such a suspicion never once entered my mind.

Besides, I was sustained in my opinion, by the very fact of Mr. M'Elwain's recommendation, for he had known him very intimately for a long time, and I was therefore the more off my guard.

Consequently when the news of the crash came (for Roscoe's business suddenly did crash), it fell upon me with all the more stunning effect, from being so wholly unlooked for.

Mr. Roscoe, as it turned out, was found to be one of those unprincipled scoundrels, who had for a course of years maintained an appearance of fictitious prosperity, by a systematic system of fraudulent book-keeping.

It was with borrowed money he had at first started the station business, and although under my management this business had paid well, yet such was the serious nature of his over-drafts, for his commercial transactions, that the station profits were instantly absorbed as they came to hand. My own incautious loan of my name for the requirements of his private engagements, had in consequence rendered me liable for all his debts; and these proved to be so extensive that the proceeds of the station, when sold, were insufficient to meet them.

In a word, all my own private means, besides £1000 of Mr. M'Elwain's, which I had intended immediately to pay off – would have paid ere then in fact, but for this arrangement with Mr. Roscoe – were entirely lost through the unscrupulous selfishness of a detestable villain, the more detestable for the Christian profession and standing as an elder in the church, with which he had contrived so thoroughly to veil his real character, and who had thought fit to decamp, taking no small share of his plunder with him.

Bad as the ruin of my business in itself was, the bitterness of feeling it caused me was intensified by the memory of my late proposal to Jessie Campbell, which would now lay me open to the suspicion of having been influenced in my offer to her, by purely selfish considerations; for, from the ruin that so quickly followed that declaration, both herself and her parents must conclude – a conclusion to me most bitterly humiliating – that I could not have been ignorant of my impending ruin, and must have been moved by the most mean and contemptible motives – the endeavour to hamper them with my difficulties.

It was the intolerable idea of the certainty of such a suspicion on the part of the Campbells, that made me on the day following the reception of these cruel tidings, when on my way to Invercargill, ride past their house without calling, an act I was never known to have been guilty of before.

The dismal business connected with the transfer of the station property into the hands of the bank officials (indeed, properly speaking, there was no form of transfer in the matter, they having taken prompt possession for themselves), I will not enter into. I will dismiss the whole painful matter with the remark that, on interviewing the Bank authorities, I found that it was only due to their kind consideration that I was allowed to retain possession of my horse and £50 in money, and that all my toil for the last five years in New Zealand had been for naught, and that in addition to having worked hard in the colonies for thirteen years with this result, I was now saddled with the almost hopeless burden of a debt of £1000.

Yet against all this I still resolved bravely to struggle, and to rouse my energies to redeem my honour, now compromised by the serious loss entailed upon Mr. M'Elwain, through his generous action in befriending me; for I had little desire to free myself by a bankrupt's credentials from the encumbrance of this moral responsibility.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE DRUNKEN FIGHT.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE DRUNKEN FIGHT.

"Westward Ho!" – Kingsley.

AT this time the west coast of the province of Canterbury was the scene of a brilliant rush. Gold had been lately discovered there, and numerous rich claims proved the richness of the land.

The country there being all covered with dense bush impossible to penetrate on account of the under scrub, save by cleared paths – was devoid of pasture, and consequently difficult of approach with stock from the plains. Therefore such stock as was driven there was being sold at exorbitant prices.

I was a practised stockrider, and in possession of a horse that would follow cattle anywhere. As I left the bank, the idea of returning and seeing if I could not persuade the manager to advance me a few hundred pounds on my own personal security, to invest in cattle, and drive to the West Coast, flashed across my mind.

The practicability of this plan, to enable me to scrape together some funds, had been borne in upon my mind before this. I had heard some men, at the hotel at which I put up – who had just returned from Hokitika, as the goldfield township was named – talking on this subject, and descanting on the excellence of the opportunity that this offered to any enterprising person with a few hundred pounds of capital in hand. Therefore, my idea was, if I could procure such au advance, to proceed at once to Canterbury, and to gradually muster among the farms on the plains there, or at sales, a herd of cattle, as I had means to pay for them, and to drive them to Hokitika, and there sell them; and to keep to this work as long as the present flourishing prospect of the goldfields continued to offer any inducement for its prosecution.

Whilst standing on the pavement outside the bank, and meditating on the probability of my being able to get such an advance, some one suddenly accosted me, and looking up, I saw Howden standing before me.

Whilst I had long suspected that this man's monetary resources were by no means to be gauged by his usual

appearance, I knew as a matter of fact, that he had several hundreds of pounds located in that very bank, opposite to which we were now both standing; for I myself had at various times paid in sums in gold ore and money, amounting in all to as much. Therefore, after shaking hands with Howden, I bluntly remarked to him, "Howden, as you are doubtless aware, from the report in the papers, how matters now stand with me, I will just ask you, have you sufficient faith in me from what you have seen of my honesty of purpose, and business capacity, to intrust me with a loan of say £500? I have an idea that by proceeding to Canterbury, and purchasing cattle there, and driving them overland, and selling them at Hokitika, I should soon recoup myself for my risk and trouble. I would allow you full market value for the use of your money."

He replied, "I am glad, Mr. Farquharson, that you have mentioned the matter. I can assure you I was desirous of asking you if I could be of any assistance to you, but was hesitating under the fear that you might be sensitive at any reference to the unfortunate calamity that has befallen you. Will £500 do you for the present?"

"Yes, it will be quite sufficient, as I should prefer not to involve myself too deeply at my first venture, so as to see first with my own eyes what the nature of the demand and prospect for the continuance of this work really is at Hokitika."

"I will willingly let you have £500 now; beyond that it would be rather inconvenient for me to go, as the bulk of my money is locked up in investments, but to £500 you are welcome."

"Many thanks, Howden, I can assure you that you have conferred a very great obligation upon me, by allowing me the use of this money. What rate of interest do you desire me to pay you for it?"

"The precise rate that the value of my life deducted from it will leave."

"Tut, man! never mind that! that was only a simple action of humanity and duty. How much interest shall we say?"

"No more on that subject at present; we will talk about it when we come to settle up about the principal."

"Well, as you will; by the bye, any further news about that other affair?"

"Some; but rather vague – but excuse me, I would rather not talk about it at present."

"Where," I inquired, shall I address my letter when I want to write to you?"

"Address to the care of the post office here. If I should not be in Invercargill when it arrives it will be forwarded to me. But in all probability, before you require to do so, I shall see you in Hokitika. In the meanwhile let us adjourn to the bank counter and settle this preliminary business at once."

This dispatched, I was once again ready for action and fighting with fortune.

A hope of inducing Lilly, with his ripe experience in such matters to co-operate with me in my new venture, induced me at once to write to him stating my wish, project, and address in Christchurch, for which place I should leave on the following day, and whither he could write, or come in person in case he purposed joining fortunes with me.

In a few days following my arrival at the A. I. Hotel in Christchurch, to which place I had been recommended by an Invercargill acquaintance, Lilly's answer arrived, testifying, in the first place, grief and consternation at the ruin that had overtaken me, and, in the next, a willing compliance with my proposal of casting in his lot with mine. He stated that on the conclusion of his present trip (for my letter, by my direction, had been forwarded to him where he was on the road,, by the person with whom he lodged at Lawrence) he would send up his bullocks by an agent to be turned out at Campbell's station, where he knew they would be permitted to graze and be looked after, whilst he would come on immediately and join me.

Pending Lilly's arrival I went about among the farmers and attended sales, collecting a herd of cattle larger than I had at first intended, because of the larger capital that the knowledge of Lilly's intention enabled me to invest for our mutual enterprise. Lilly, I should add, had made such good use of his time in New Zealand, that he was able to put £500 into the business with me.

Thus we were both, while working with a common interest, able to start our new business with the respectable capital of £1000.

Besides Selim, and Lilly's favourite mare Coleena, we each had provided ourselves with an additional horse, strong,

sound, and spirited, for each of which we paid a tidy sum of money. Thus, on every trip we started with a fresh horse that was alternately used and rested, so that each animal, though severely worked while on his trip, had ample opportunity to recoup his strength by the time he was again required.

* * * * * *

I now propose to pass over the details of this, my new experience in stock driving to Hokitika, and without pausing to give a description of the striking and varied scenery along our route, both of rugged mountain and primeval forest, or to dilate upon their effects on our minds on first witnessing the magnificent spectacle through the Otira Gorge, with the winding road that there rapidly descends, hewn out of the precipitous mountain sides on the Hokitika slope of the range, and the bridges there crossing and recrossing and crossing yet again the rushing torrents that foam down that wild ravine, or staying to describe our difficulties along the road, then in the process of formation on a most substantial basis of broad stones, now winding by the edges of precipices, now a simple track following for miles the pebbly channels of impetuous torrents, or crossing over dangerous streams that intersected our toilsome route, or again, but as a bridle path, garnished on either side with vine thickets and overhanging networks of supple jacks, winding through the primeval forest amid the deep mud formed under the almost daily droppings of that cloudy atmosphere, when our cattle were only kept back from the bush on either hand by our sagacious dogs. Without wasting time over such matters, however interesting in themselves, I will jump over twelve months that were continually occupied with the claims of this business.

Let it suffice here to say, that at the end of that period both Lilly and I found that, after deducting all expenses, we had rather more than £600 profit each left for our pains, a very happy result, with which we were both entirely satisfied.

Yet the events of this long interval shall not be wholly unrecorded. An account of one evening, as a sample of the times and rough surroundings, when money flowed freely in among reckless spendthrifts, the reader may find interesting as a type of what went on in the Colonies then.

The scene was at a shanty or sort of canvas hotel at the Bealy stream, an affluent of the Waimakariri, and a little way above its junction with the latter. There, as I remember is, along the course of the Bealy, a rather picturesque looking valley, bounded by steep mountain ridges on either side, clothed with thick bush almost to their tops – these tops, however, standing out bare, bleak, and verdureless beyond.

We were on one of our return trips, and consequently disencumbered of all impedimenta. The shanty, where there is now very likely a large substantial hotel and growing township, was then, as I have said, a mere calico affair. It was also, as far as my memory serves me, the only thing in the shape of a building on the ground – outhouses of course excepted. But primitive as was the construction of this hotel, it did not suffer from a lack of customers.

The chief of these customers were prospective miners, on their way to the new goldfield, and others returning from it; some flush with recent rises, others who, in sanguine expectations of similar windfalls, had started with small means to support them while endeavouring to realize such golden dreams, and were now returning with considerably less – that is, nothing. The lucky diggers, who were now rapidly spending in reckless "shouting" the money with which on leaving Hokitika they had decided to secure a more luxurious life in Christchurch, were showing signs of quickly arriving at the same low financial position. The swags of these travellers, mostly carried in oilskin wrappers as a protection from the almost daily rains of this region, were seen piled in a heap at the corner of the tent as we entered.

As this place, at least at that time, was the farthest point that vehicles coming from the plains en route from Hokitika could reach – a gap, between here and the top of the next mountain range, where the road was eventually to go being still unmade – there were several drays and wagons congregated together. The animals that drew them were feeding about in hobbles, and ornamented with tinkling bells – more for use, however, than for ornament – and their drivers made no unimportant item in the crowd who were freely liquoring up at the bar. Nor did their thirst for ardent spirits appear to be in the least moderated by the price of the beverages with which they were endeavouring to quench

it – to wit – the good old colonial charge of one shilling per each "nobbler."

On that day, like on most of the days during my stay in that region, it had been raining heavily. From these continuous rains, and the trampling of many animals, the ground outside the shanty was literally a mass of black, fluid mud. People accustomed to these parts, however, soon come to regard rain and mud as trifles.

Yet, if the exterior of the calico hostelry looked unpromising, still, when inside, we found that, against the discomforts of the evening, there was most substantial provision made. There was, however, no fireplace, whether from prudential, or necessary considerations, I know not, but, in the cook house – a small sod hut, there was an ample fire for any who chose to make use of its comforting glow. And thither both Lilly and I adjourned – after having first tested our host's whisky, to give a start to the blood in our half-numbed bodies – for, though neither of us were habitual dram drinkers, neither were we teetotalers.

But as it happened that we had arrived just in time for the supper, of which we stood in great need, our stay by the fire was but a short one. We had previously seen to the feeding of our horses in a most dilapidated building or shed that did duty as a stable.

The signal for supper was now given by the cook, who announced the same at the top of his voice, and the intimation was received by the tippling, rough-mannered guests, with a sort, of derisive yell, and an instant rush for places round the ample board. The rude table was soon closely surrounded by guests, some eager for food, but more hilarious with drink. Making our way there, too, with but little loss of time – for a long ride through a cold wet day is a wonderful stimulant to a healthy appetite – both Lily and I soon became as keenly engrossed in the contents of the bill of fare set before us as any one there. The supper, though but simple, was at least substantial, and well cooked, and the price for it too, by the way, of an equally substantial nature. Instead of cups, we were given tin pannikins, but this we did not mind, for it only recalled the old habits of our station life in Australia.

However, the keenest appetite must get satisfied in time – though ours, if not inconsiderable, were but contemptible in comparison with those of some that we saw there.

The table was again cleared, and the guests once more betook themselves to the consideration of the great problem of happily disporting themselves for the remainder of the evening. To many this consisted solely in "nobblerising," and to most in card playing.

As the evening wore on the scene among so many tipplers grew so wild that the climax of a free fight, in which all were likely to join, seemed to be a by no means improbable or remote contingency.

Among the roystering crowd were two undersized but smartly built men, who particularly engaged my attention. There was a sort of family resemblance between them, so to speak – for the idea was merely imaginary – though not in their features. In this regard, indeed, they were decidedly unlike, The resemblance was in their comparative sizes and general get-up. Both had evidently been seafaring men and were dressed in nautical fashion, with white moleskin trousers and blue shirts, arranged with that peculiar shirt-fold overlapping the trousers-band that sailors alone seem to have the knack of accomplishing, and their similarity of costume was rendered still more marked by their both wearing a Kilmarnock bonnet. Yet not only were they not related, but they were not even of the same nationality, one being an Englishman and the other Scotch. The coincidence of their similarity of costume was the more odd because from what I gathered from their remarks I could see that they were not even acquaintances, and had not met until that evening.

But whether from some mysterious magnetic influence or not I cannot say, but certain it was that all that evening these two were seldom long apart. Yet whatever the nature of this mutual attraction on their part, it could not have been one of love or admiration, since the principal topic of conversation between them was of a decidedly belligerent character. The Scotchman, indeed, appeared to be most anxious to try conclusions with his English acquaintance, and he was continually swaggering up to him and taking him by the shoulders and shaking and pushing him roughly about.

The Englishman, indeed, seemed gifted with a rather more placid temperament, and bore this rough handling with surprising equanimity. Not that he was always patient, however, for his words at times betrayed considerable irritation,

as he kept telling the other not to be a d – – - fool. Half a dozen times or so, at least, these two men moved towards the door, apparently with the determination of "seeing it out" on the "lovely grass," as the Scot in a flight of high poetic fancy characterised what was in reality for some distance round the tent only a sea of black mud. Invariably, however, on these occasions, ere reaching the door their warlike spirits evaporated, leaving them apparently in a more amicable mood, and then either the one or the other swung his would-be opponent round in an opposite direction with the more friendly invitation, "Come along, old man, and have a drink"; only shortly afterwards to become more belligerent than ever.

At one time, however, this belligerent temperament on the part of the Scotchman, who was in reality the more obstreperous and boastful of the two, seemed to be happily diverted into a more peaceful channel, when he loudly signified his intention of favouring the company with the performance of a Strathspey dance. No one, however, happening at the time to notice this most condescending proposal on his part, it, like many a more important motion, fell through for want of support. This was to my great grief, for although I did not care to draw the attention of the others to a notice of this proposal, I was very keen to see the measure performed.

Up to about this stage of the evening Lily had kept quiet – indeed, for him, most singularly so, for in company he was not usually so reserved. But now his attention seemed to be attracted to the movements of both of these heroes. In fact, I rather suspect that Lilly had been in reality taking stock of them all the evening. Now, however, he rose from where he was and reseated himself beside them, his eyes twinkling with some humorous thought, while he appeared to be perfectly delighted with their manners.

I took a sharp glance at my quizzical friend, as I felt persuaded by the deepening lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, always a sign of fun with him, that he was intending to get up to some piece of mischief. What the nature of it was to be, however, I could not imagine, for I observed him simply order drinks for three, the nature of his own being signified by a wink, that the shanty keeper perfectly understood to mean something soft – a temperance cordial – in fact.

Lily apparently became greatly interested in his valorous new acquaintances, feeling their muscles, and declaring that he would be sorry to run the risk of a pounding by either of them. This flattery inflated them much, especially the Scotchman, and he was in the midst of the recital of a conflict, with a fourteen stone weight antagonist, whom he had gallantly felled with a blow, as I left the room to see to the horses, while I heard Lilly again remark, in tones of the most intense admiration, "Drink up your glasses, boys – my word, but you are the right sort, both of you."

As the night looked wild and dirty, I decided on keeping the horses inside, for they were not always accommodated with a shelter on these trips. I stayed talking with the man who officiated as groom, for about half an hour, when suddenly ours ears were startled by the sounds of voices raised as if in fierce anger, issuing from the door of the shanty, that was just then suddenly opened. "There is a row on," remarked the groom, looking out from the door of the stable; "there is two coves going out to fight. My word, they'll fall soft anyhow."

On going to the door in my turn, I beheld several people hurrying out from the shanty, one with a lantern – for the night was pitch dark – and in their midst two men stripped to the waist, each moving with very unsteady steps in the direction indicated by the man with the lantern, who was leading the way.

Now there are few sights more repugnant to my nature than that of a drunken fight. Indeed, to all such spectacles, whether in drink or not – and in my experience among shearers, I have seen many a bloody one – I might almost justly say that I have a sort of cowardly aversion, although I have given proof sufficient on an emergency, that of the grit of true courage, I have my fair average share.

Thus, on the present occasion, on seeing these preparations for this drunken encounter, my instant impulse was to at once adjourn to the house, when, to my intense amazement, accompanying the person who was leading the way to a suitable spot for the encounter, and who had now halted, where, in a hollow depression of the ground, the mud was positively deeper, and more diluted than at any other spot, I recognised Lilly. This recognition on my part at once changed the direction of my steps, and I now – all curiosity and astonishment – walked up to the crowd to see whatever

had taken possession of Lilly's senses, to induce him to act in a manner so unwonted.

Lilly was the very reverse of a brawler, and brawling, especially drunken brawling, he detested, and was always ready to put a peremptory stop to.

"In the name of wonder whatever can Lilly mean? he surely can't have got the worse for drink that he is taking part in this drunken row!" I ejaculated, as I hastily strode, as best I could, through the mud to the scene of action, where a ring was being formed, and where inside, and behind one of the would-be combatants, Lilly might be said to be acting the part of master of the ceremonies, as it was he who was giving all the necessary directions.

By his orders, the man with the lantern was directed to hold it so as to throw the light straight in the faces of both combatants, behind one of whom, as I have said, he stood to act as picker-up in the approaching deadly slogging match. Behind the other, to perform a similar office, stood another man, with a remarkably good humoured expression of countenance. In both of the combatants I speedily recognised the two quarrelsome little sailors, who by this time were so blind drunk that they stood see-sawing in a most remarkable manner, preparatory to the signal from Lilly to begin the action.

Lilly, I should say, was backing up the Scotchman, who was now uttering the most frightful imprecations against the other's eyes, and liver, soul, and body, imprecations which the Englishman paid back in kind.

Of course I now at once penetrated the object of Lilly's presence and previous demeanour with these two champions, with their bombastic wrangling, who, despite their protestations, were evidently afraid of each other; the mischievous fellow had hit upon a method of punishing both, that the sight of the mud, and their drunken condition, suggested as being so exquisitely ludicrous.

For this purpose he had deliberately filled them up with a succession of nobblers till they had reached their present stage of drunken imbecility, by which they were rendered totally unable to inflict any injury whatever upon each other. The amusement therefore that Lilly now proposed to himself, and the other spectators, who had been put up by him to his trick, was the sight of these pot-valiant champions, rolling, and floundering in the mud, in their abortive efforts

to damage each other, and which at the same time would be a sufficient punishment for them for their wrangling and noise. Nor was Lilly much, if at all, out in his calculation, as to the absurd effects that would result from this encounter.

Were a person disposed to view it from a merely philosophic standpoint, the sight was simply calculated to sadden and sicken him, as affording in itself such a convincing proof of the inherent depravity of human nature, that two reasonable beings could, on any terms, be brought to roll about in the mud in such a truly swinish fashion.

But taking a lighter view of the matter, I confess that among the others, I fairly roared with laughter at the scene.

On the word being given by Lilly to begin the fight, which he did in these terms, "Now, lads, go it a-muck" (and go it a-muck they certainly did), they both at once advanced with the most deadly purpose towards each other. For the better development of the scene expected to follow they had been kept considerably apart, so that on the signal for action being given, they had to traverse several yards of deep mud ere they could meet; and that in their inebriated state they accomplished with some difficulty. Ere they had actually done so, in fact, the Scotch sailor's foot sticking in the mud, he, in trying to release it, pitched head foremost into it, and lay there at full length, to be immediately followed by his English antagonist, who, lunging forwards with all his force as the other's descending head seemed within his reach, missed his aim, and losing his own footing, fell on the top of the Scot.

"Fair play, boys," shouted the impartial seconds, darting forward, their shirt sleeves turned well up for the purpose of dragging up the mud-plastered champions and confronting them again with each other. Standing with difficulty, they now darted their fists at each other's faces, with the like result, as before: one fell into the mud and the other atop of him; and there, this time, they were permitted to roll and flounder about as they liked until they were actually heard choking with the mud that had got into their mouths. Again lifted by their seconds, who had thus deliberately left them in the mud for a while, they now presented such a spectacle that their features could not be distinguished. This time the Englishman managed to hit his Scotch antagonist so true that the latter fell flat upon his back, and

under the impression apparently that he had got into bed, he instantly fell asleep. His antagonist, who from the effect of his own blow had also fallen back, was, while lying helpless in that position, heard loudly denouncing the deepest vengeance against the other. He was now declared victor, and both he and his companion were pulled up and dragged into the tent. The breeches of both were then pulled off, and they themselves well washed by several pailful of water being dashed over their naked bodies – a treatment that, in their drunken state, they seemed to be scarcely conscious of – then after being thoroughly rubbed down, they were consigned to their beds, from which they did not move during our stay at the shanty, as we left early on the following morning.

The greatest hilarity prevailed while this wild practical joke was being played, in which the combatants escaped unhurt.

As for their clothes, Lilly himself, aided by the man who had acted as second for the English sailor, rinsed them out in water and left them drying in the cook-house; and thus ended the joke.

CHAPTER XXXVI. A STARTLING DISCOVERY.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A STARTLING DISCOVERY.

TO return to more serious matters. At this satisfactory stage of our enterprise, when we discovered what our profits had been, we were in Hokitika, where we had just disposed of our last drove of cattle.

At this time the cattle market was showing signs of glutting, though this was less the result of a more than usual supply than from the fact of the decline in gold returns that was then making itself sensibly felt throughout the community, and thereby occasioning the miners to be less reckless in their outlay. This, of course, resulted in a general decline in the high prices hitherto readily paid for cattle.

For this reason I, in particular, was desirous of resting upon my oars, as, in my peculiar circumstances, I was unwilling to risk by an unfavourable venture the money I had lately been fortunately able to secure, but which I merely regarded as held in trust by me for him to whom I owed it,

and to whom it was incumbent upon my honour to faithfully repay it.

Musing upon these matters, I strolled down Revel Street one evening about nine o'clock. Hokitika was then at the height of its prosperity, for whatever of failure might about that time have been beginning to make itself felt in the diggings outside, its effects had not yet made themselves so manifest as to affect the business of the hotels within.

And with houses of this description Revel Street was at that time literally studded on both sides. These appeared to be all driving a roaring trade, and were filled with roystering revellers scattering their money about in reckless profusion in shilling "nobblers." In front, the bars were thronged with tipsy diggers "shouting" for their friends and as many "loafers" as happened to be loitering about, to the great increase of the prosperity of the landlords, if to the rapid diminution of their own; while from within – and all the hotels in this respect seemed to be equally favoured – where the inspiring strains of the fiddles were heard playing dance tunes, a still greater throng of spendthrifts were persuading themselves that they were having a fair return in fun for all the money that they were spending so freely.

Passing in front of one of these houses, within which the sounds of harmony indicated that "the mirth and fun was fast and furious," I paused to listen; then, out of curiosity, stepped inside to view the scene.

It was in a low ceiled room, accommodated for the purpose it was then serving with benches at the upper end, that rose in tiers above one another for the benefit of the spectators. The space between the door and the benches was reserved for the dancers, and was barely sufficient – so great was the crowd – to admit of their moving freely. Under other circumstances this apartment, with its tier of benches in the rear and clear space in front, would have been well adapted to the service of God; at the present time, however, with its reeking fumes and reckless assemblage, it appeared to be doing excellent duty in the service of the devil.

The musical part of the entertainment was furnished by a piccolo and fiddle, that were by no means unskilfully played. Besides the musicians there was a third person set apart to act as master of the ceremonies. This gentleman's position was evidently anything but a sinecure, judging from the un-

remitting nature of his exertions, as one set of revellers was instantly succeeded by another, who had been meanwhile impatiently awaiting their opportunity of a clear space on the crowded floor, and who, on the happy consummation of these wishes, were in their turn as eagerly succeeded by a third set, until, what with calling out the orders of the dances, and introducing partners during the whole evening, he was allowed but few intervals for rest, and thoroughly earned his wages, whatever these might be.

On entering, I at once made my way up to one of the raised seats at the farther end of the room. Beside me, where I was sitting, I observed and was struck by the appearance of an individual, sometimes sitting, but usually standing, who appeared to be keenly observant of all arrivals as they entered the door.

He was a man of swarthy complexion, with hair and beard that had originally been black, but were now slightly grizzled. He was perhaps under the middle height, but of a very powerful build. He was dressed in plain clothes, but a certain squareness of shoulders and erectness of carriage bore the unmistakable stamp of a military training; and this, taken in conjunction with his appearance of watchfulness, impressed me at once with the conviction of his being a detective officer in disguise.

That he was on the look-out for some one whose presence there that night he had some reasons for expecting, was evident by the quick scrutinising glance with which he seemed to scan the appearance of each fresh comer as he entered the room.

For the diggers and others who felt disposed for dancing there was here no lack of female partners. Of the peculiar characters of the latter, however, their flaunting garments, their loud voices, unabashed looks, and coarse expressions, left no room for doubt – "beautiful daughters of sin," as the sweet Danish author, Hans Christian, so aptly characterises them, and the records of whose lives, if written, would present such a harrowing picture of betrayal and seduction, of neglect and depravity, of lives reared 'mid scenes of infamy, or of seeds of virtue, crushed by degraded association. Such a picture as might well put our boasted Christian civilisation to the blush, and render us objects of astonishment and scorn to those very heathens, for whose spiritual welfare we equip missionaries with such pains and cost, to send them to

the ends of the earth with tidings of gospel peace and salvation.

Yet among many of these unlovely representatives of womanhood, I observed one whose appearance, manner, and expression of features, at once proclaimed her to be, though with, yet not of, that company; this was shown, too, by the sudden flush on her pale cheek, as she shrank back haughtily from the attention of a flashily dressed, half-intoxicated young man, who, swaggering up beside her, attempted to place an arm over her shoulder.

"Hands off, young fellow!" cried out a young woman, good looking, but with a flushed and dissipated look, whose boisterous manners I had already noted, and who was seated on the other side of the girl whom the young man had accosted. "Hands off!" she repeated, coming forward and seating herself between them; "this lady is none of our sort, so you just keep yourself square and behave yourself, if you don't want to get yourself into trouble."

She uttered this caution in a tone that plainly intimated an intention of hitting from the shoulder on a repetition of the offence – a feat that with her vigorous frame she seemed to be well capable of performing. The young man sheepishly withdrew into the crowd – many who had witnessed the scene cheering the spirit of the heroine with a loud laugh and exclamations of "Well done, Kate, that's the way to talk to him."

I now began to scan the appearance of this woman, whose presence in that rude assemblage the remark of the girl Kate had drawn my attention to, with more interest. Being seated behind her, my observations could only be made by side looks at her face as she occasionally turned her head. Whatever might have been the motive of her presence there, it was evident at a glance that she had at one time been accustomed to scenes of ease and refinement, and traces of this appeared to hover round her still. She was slight and beautiful in form and features, though her face was perfectly colourless. Her eyes, I observed when on one occasion she turned her head round quickly, attracted by some sound behind her, were dark, as also was the colour of her hair. There was something in the quick bird-like motion of the turning of her head that roused in my mind a vague consciousness of something familiar about this woman, that compelled my eyes as if by some secret fascination to rest

continually upon her. I at length asked of the disguised detective if he knew who this woman was, but he simply shook his head and made no reply.

Shortly afterwards the girl Kate, who had before championed her, and who appeared, however inconsistently, to be on terms of intimacy with her and to regard her with some rough sympathy, addressed her.

"Come, Rachel," she said, "what are you moping so much about? It will never do for you to get yourself so low as this, you know; have a drink of summat, it will put some life in you. You know – – -" Here she whispered something into the girl's ear; and then, addressing some young fellow beside her, she said, Here, young fellow, ain't you going to 'shout' for me and this young lady here now?"

"Rachel, Rachel," I mused, but even then my thoughts failed to recognise the person in front of me, so far were they removed from the idea of such a meeting.

Meanwhile, to Kate's proposal to accept of a treat from this young man, her companion replied with a smile and a shake of her head, "Thanks, Kate, but I would rather not."

"Tuts! this will never do, you know. You must rouse up; you know what's before you, so you must brace yourself up for it. You won't dance, I know, but take something to drink, and sing a song; that will liven you up, and brighten your wits for your work."

"A song? I am afraid that my song would be still duller than myself," I heard the other reply.

"Well, have summat to drink first, and then we'll see. Come, Jim, you 'shout.' Mine is brandy; won't you try some of that, Rachel, too? Very well; fetch this lady a glass of sherry."

As Kate had predicted, her companion's spirits seemed to be sensibly revived by the glass of wine that she had been persuaded to take.

"Who can this woman or girl be?" I soliloquised. "She looks respectable in her appearance; but what sort of respectability can this be, that can thus permit her to associate, and even drink, if only wine, in such company as this?"

I confess that, from the circumstances of her surroundings, the utmost extent of my charity in my judgment of this woman – though her face bore the impress of experience,

matured by sorrow – was but to allow her a slightly higher place in society than that of her degraded companion. In the meantime these unfavourable suspicions were confirmed by hearing the girl Kate strongly urge her to give the company a song, for the dancing at this juncture had temporarily subsided. To any respectable woman, who from any circumstance chanced to be one of that assemblage, Kate's request would have caused a feeling of disgust, but to the person addressed, there was evidently nothing offensive in such an idea. She proved this by her manner of refusing to comply at first, but not as if she felt offended at it, but only disinclined. At length, however, overborne by the pressure of her stronger willed companion, her objection seemed to give way, when, as if rousing herself up for a determined effort to acquit herself at once of a task that she saw she could not avoid, she suddenly remarked:

"What shall I sing then, if sing I must? Let me see. Ah, me," she suddenly sighed, as if with uncontrollable feeling, "it is on me again, and I can sing only this."

Then, with a voice whose tones of plaintive, wailing sweetness instantly pierced through the recesses of my memory – as the arrow of a strong bowman pierces the heart of his naked foe – I instantly saw again a house on the banks of the Murray, where once before I had, on a moonlight night, listened outside of a window to that same sweet voice, then, too, wailing as if in forboding sadness the concluding lines of Burns' exquisite lyric –

"And my fause lover stole the rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me."

And springing to my feet in almost overpowering astonishment, bewildered and transfixed with horror at the sudden discovery, and the surroundings amongst which it was made – all of which flashed through my mind like lightning – I listened to the long-lost, the ruined, Rachel Rolleston, singing to the same air the following dirge: –

"The flower that with tender care
Sweet fragrance was wont to diffuse,
The loveliest of the gay parterre
Fair blooming, with refreshing dews.
Till smitten by the summer's blast
Its velvet petals droop forlorn,
When from its bed 'tis vilely cast
An object then of loathing scorn.

"Like it, her hapless lot o'er whom,
A parent's love once watched and smiled,
Who now drags out her wearied doom
From love and honour far exiled.
Now to those bright and shining years
Undimmed by guilt and clouds obscene,
How near the prospect still appears,
But ah! how vast, the gulf between!"

At the moment when the last word or this song was still ringing faintly from Rachel's lips, a stranger suddenly entered the room. He was tall, erect and very muscularly built, with bushy whiskers of a sandy shade. His features seemed indented, or rather rent with deep lines, traced by violent passions that seemed still to flash from his restless grey eyes, and to quiver on his thin, curling lips.

On entering, he fixed a stern, almost resentful glance on her who had been singing, whose eyes at the same moment met his: she suddenly subsided to her seat and clasped her hands tightly over her breast.

As this stranger entered I observed a quick, peculiar, movement on the part of the disguised detective, who chanced at the time to be standing up. As the door opened. I observed the detective suddenly start, then, stooping his head, he put his pipe into his mouth and struck a match. At the noise caused by the match, the new comer glanced up suddenly in the direction of the sound.

For a moment his stern, inquiring eyes endeavoured to penetrate the detective's disguise, then, as if suspicious of what he had observed, he turned round on his heel and abruptly left the house.

CHAPTER XXXVII. A BUSHRANGER'S PLOT.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A BUSHRANGER'S PLOT.

NOT desiring to make myself known to Rachel where she was, as I thought I should be able to do more for her by quietly interviewing her at her own abode, I now resolved to attempt to follow her there, wherever it might be. With this thought, I quietly remained where I was, with the determination of keeping an eye upon her until she should go out, and then to dog her steps.

For a short time she sat as I have described her, wholly

disregarding the unfavourable comments of her friend on the depressing effect of the song she had just sung, for Kate evidently had not observed the stranger whose sudden entrance had caused poor Rachel to collapse so suddenly, Kate having been listening to Rachel's song with drooped head; and the entrance and exit, having all taken place in such a short space of time that she had been unaware of the circumstance until Rachel rose and in a whisper appeared to communicate it to her, and then immediately went out. On her heels I quickly followed, keeping well in her wake as she went along the street. While thus engaged, I was soon made aware that I had a companion with me on the same lay, in the person of the disguised detective; but at first disregarding this circumstance, I kept my eyes steadily fixed upon Rachel's movements.

I watched her enter several shops that were still open, as it was not yet past ten o'clock, and in which she was evidently obtaining supplies of necessary stores, and the various parcels, though all placed inside of a Maori kit, seemed to weigh a considerable amount, for she carried it with some signs of distress, judging by the frequency with which she shifted the load from shoulder to shoulder.

Always keeping well in the shade of the timber, for it was a clear moonlight night, I followed her steadily as she quitted the town, and struck off into the bush by the way of an old timber track. Pursuing this track, she kept on till it struck the bank of the river, along which there was now more difficulty in progressing owing to the tangled nature of the under-scrub, so that at times to avoid it she had occasionally to turn into the bush, where the openings, running parallel with her course, admitted of her progress by that way.

All this time Rachel never once turned her head to see if any one were following her.

Suddenly turning from one of these openings in the bush, she went directly towards the river, when she almost instantly disappeared among the scrub. As I was cautiously endeavouring to follow the direction in which she had disappeared, I was suddenly joined by the detective, for till then, though both pursuing the same object, we had kept somewhat apart. Neither spoke; yet with the same instinctive thought we here paused and gazed around to take note of the appearance of the spot. This a momentary glance at

once revealed. We saw that the level space where we were then standing had become narrowed by the proximity of a mountain spur, that a short way further on appeared to abut directly upon the river's bank. Between that, however, and where we then were, the ground was thickly covered with an undergrowth of tangled scrub, besides other timber. As I have said, it was among this scrub that Rachel had disappeared.

Glancing carefully about, in a little while my companion discovered a path leading into it, and (for the first time speaking) whispering the information to me, we both – first feeling that our revolvers were placed conveniently in case of emergency – proceeded cautiously along this path for about a hundred yards to where further progress along the river appeared to be blocked up by the spur, that there reached down to the bank. We then suddenly observed the gleam of a light coming from the midst of a thick tangle of lawyer scrub and other parasites, in the midst of which a space had been cleared sufficient to allow of the erection of a tolerably large tent.

We now, on hands and knees, approached close enough to the tent to admit of our hearing any conversation that might possibly take place inside it. We had scarcely attained to this desirable position when the sounds of a hasty, heavy stride coming down the spur, which immediately passed within a very few yards of where we were concealed, startled us not a little. But the new comer, without the least suspicion of our proximity, strode on, and at once entered the tent. His form I did not see, but the voice, immediately afterwards sounding clear and distinct within the tent, would have revealed to me at once the identity of the speaker, even had I not been prepared from the events of the evening to make such a discovery.

It was Marsden – the same who about two hours ago had so suddenly entered and so abruptly left the dancing-room. Although with that passion-worn countenance, had I met him under other circumstances, I should, in all probability have failed to identify in him the gentlemanly yet impenetrable Marsden, who had been such a source of mystery and jealous fear to me about six years before on the Murray and Darling. Yet, on reflection, from the glimpse I had caught of them at the dance-room door, the features were indeed the same, but with this difference – that whereas when I

before knew them, they were kept masked by his determination to conceal the storm of passion that ever raged within, the mask was now removed and the passion allowed free vent.

He was now speaking harshly to the woman whose prospects in life he had ruined, and whose spirit he had broken.

"Well, what ails you now, girl, that you assume such a whining look? Why don't you look pleasant and smile cheerfully when a man comes to see you? I might as well go and camp, and root with the pigs on the range, as come here for comfort, I can see."

"Why do you chide me so, Randal? have I not always done my best to please and satisfy you?"

"Done your best? humph! perhaps yes, and perhaps no. You can't say you are doing so very much to please me, when after such a long absence, you can meet me with that reproachful look of yours that you know I hate. Why should you reproach me?"

"I am not aware, Randal, that I do; indeed I do not mean to reproach you. God knows that it is only myself that I reproach!"

"Why should you reproach any one, or yourself either?" he replied, speaking in a loud harsh tone. "What have you to complain of? Who is hurting you? Have you not plenty to eat and to wear? If not, it is your own silly fault. What have you to complain of, then?"

"Of nothing, if I only had the mind of the brute that perishes; of nothing, if I had not been reared in affluence and love; of nothing, if my mind had not been expanded by education to enable me more fully to appreciate the advantages I have for ever forfeited; of nothing, if my tastes had not been trained to loathe the nature of the associations that I have so long been surrounded with, and to realise all the impulsiveness of the abyss into which I have been dragged. Yet, Randal, I do not wish to reproach you, though I cannot forget what I have once been, and the bright position that in my love for you I have for ever forfeited."

"What you have been!" he seemed to retort fiercely; "and what have I been, might I ask? Have I forfeited no position? Or, were your prospects and surroundings ever more promising than mine were? Are thief and robber proper designations for me, or their degraded professions my fitting calling by birth and education? I, who was once

looked up to and respected, as my commission of captain in the Queen's army enittled me to he respected. And what am I now? A hunted felon, without a place in which to hide my head, except in a scrub, like a wood-hen. You will tell me that it was my own mad pranks that landed me in this position, that I gambled and forged; true, I did do so, but it was under temptation; it was a wrong that, had I been allowed time, it was my full purpose to have rectified. But, how does a slip such as that compare with the deed of the bankrupt, who by deliberate and systematic fraud cheats his creditors of several thousands of pounds, yet he is acquitted of his villainy, and is – by the same impartial law, that now hunts me as a felon for my comparatively venial transgression, for which I fully resolved to make honourable restitution – permitted to go free, and to set up again in the same nefarious lines as before: ay, is looked up to and respected all the time, as a godly, church-going man by his fellow townsmen. Yet, I must be consigned with other felons to the charge of a devil incarnate, whose brutality drove what feelings of manly pride I had left, out of my bosom: I mean that fiend Price. He was murdered shortly afterwards, and so far it was well for me, for I had sworn to tear his cowardly heart from his body though I should swing for it afterwards!

"Look here, Rachel," said Marsden, here suddenly softening his tone, "I have behaved badly to you I know; I decoyed you away from a luxurious home with false ideas of what my position really was; but it was revenge that made me do so. I was, through ill-treatment, at war with all the world; but, coarsely and brutally as I have used you, I declare to you now, when I see how loyal to me you still are, in sticking to me through my evil fortune, that I feel that there are still some ties common to myself and humanity. There is another, too, but it's useless now referring to him – he was always too stern and uncompromising in his strait-lacedness for me; yet that he has borne much with me also, I must freely admit. But now I will tell you what our present plan of operations must be.

"Morgan and Wilson are already here. I could not get into this neighbourhood until two days ago, and have been skulking about ever since; but even in that time I have seen a chance of robbing the New Zealand Bank that will give me a rise that will enable me to get away to America: and

when there I will begin life again with a clean sheet, on which for the future I trust only honourable actions will be recorded. The bank seems to be quite unguarded, and without any blood-shedding – which, bad as I am, I always avoid – we shall be able to make a clean lift of all its contents. To-morrow, about midnight or a little after, the job is to be done. Now, quick, girl, get me something to eat, for I am hungry enough by this time, I can tell you."

At this point, hearing the harried tramp of approaching steps, that we divined to be those of the two men referred to by Marsden, and considering the task of arresting these three desperate men to be more than it would be wise for us to attempt alone, and, being besides furnished with full information as to their plans, we both withdrew in the same stealthy manner in which we had approached the bushranger's camp. I have said we, for from the first sight of him, I had reckoned myself to be hand and glove in whatever measures should be taken for securing Marsden.

"Well, sir," I asked my companion, "what is your opinion of that nice plot, and of the plausible scoundrel who is projecting it? Do you think that with those companions he will have the resolution to undertake it?"

"A nest of villains," he replied, without directly noticing my question; "however, I am glad that I have plumped upon their camp at last. I have been a long time on the look-out for them. Has that man the resolution to undertake that project, do you ask? Ay, faith he has! I should like to know what that man has not nerve enough to undertake! Whatever his crimes may be, want of courage at least is what no man can lay to his charge."

"They have come over from Victoria, or at least Australia," I said. "You are a detective from there I presume?"

"You have guessed rightly, sir; by the bye, you seem to have been acquainted with that wench, that you followed her so closely to-night?"

"So well," I answered, "that at one time such a term as that applied to her in my hearing would have been instantly answered by a blow from my fist."

"Rather rough, that way of answering," he replied coolly; "but I have heard that at one time she occupied a good position in society, and even now – although such a term comes sort of natural to me, being a north of England man – I believe though the poor girl has had a hard time of it

with him, she keeps pretty straight, although she lives with him, and I don't suppose that they were ever married."

"And of the man Marsden who betrayed and seduced her, what might you know of his career?"

"Rather too much for his good," he answered almost sadly; then continued more abruptly, "let it be sufficient for the present to say of him that a more daring and troublesome bushranger than he, has never been in Australia. At first condemned to three years' penal servitude for forgery, he within two years broke out of gaol and escaped, remaining at large for near two years, during which he committed some daring robberies in Victoria and in the neighbouring colonies. He was trapped at last, being pounced upon whilst fast asleep; but some time ago he again effected his escape, since which his vigilance has been such as to baffle every effort to secure him. Fortunately, however, I kept my eyes upon Rachel's movements, for by her continual attachment and loyalty to him I knew that she was either his wife or mistress; and feeling certain that she maintained some mode of communicating with him, I, as soon as I understood that she had sailed for New Zealand, at once followed on her track to Hokitika, where I have been watching her every night for the last month."

"How did she manage to get that tent fixed up there: do you think she did it all herself?"

"No; I can't say how she contrived it. I fancy that Morgan and Wilson must have done that, and let her know by letter, not to herself (for I have been watching at the post office for her letters), but by means of some intermediate friend; and I rather think now that that girl Kate, who took her part so fiercely to-night, and was whispering so closely to her at times, knows something of these matters. I know that Kate has come from the Upper Murray, where this Marsden, as you call him, was hanging about for a long time."

"Were both of these men, Morgan and Wilson, in jail with Marsden?"

"They formerly were, and it was by his means that they managed to make their escape with him. But on the last occasion when their captain got taken they managed to keep clear; but my belief is, that they had all along contrived to keep up a kind of correspondence with Miss Rachel, and through her with him."

"That suspicion of yours then makes that poor girl guilty of collusion with the deeds of all these desperadoes."

"Ay," he answered, with professional coolness; "I guess that, demure as she looks, she has always had a shrewd suspicion of all that was in the wind between them; and yet it is just possible that for the sake of their own safety, what correspondence they may have had through her, may have been so disguised in its language as to have given her a very obscure idea as to what it was all about – a sort of thieves' cipher maybe. As for Marsden as you call him (though I guess he was never christened under that name), I shouldn't wonder if he has not been quietly planted in Melbourne all the time, to get the police thrown off his scent, till he saw a favourable chance of getting over here."

Conversing thus we reached the town, when, after warning me to observe a strict silence as to what I had seen or heard, he went to the police camp to concoct a plan with the officers there for securing the bushrangers, and setting a watch round the bank.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONFLICT WITH BUSHRANGERS.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CONFLICT WITH BUSHRANGERS.

ON the next morning, urgent business obliged me to start early on a journey as far as the Grey township, about twenty-five miles distant. I rode away without mentioning to Lily my discovery of Rachel and Marsden on the previous evening. This I intended to do immediately upon my return, when I intended, if I could, to secure his co-operation in the service that I determined upon volunteering to the police, to assist them in the capture of the bushrangers.

I took care to have my revolver carefully loaded and stuck conspicuously in my belt, for I was disquieted at the idea of two such desperadoes as Morgan and Wilson being at large in the neighbourhood; to say nothing of Marsden himself, from whose scruples of generosity I had now, from my late view of his appearance, considerably less hope in case of a second rencontre with him. Besides my fears from Marsden, there were at that time some terrible rumours floating about of some atrocious murders recently committed by another gang of desperadoes.

Whether it was that the nervousness engendered by these rumours tended to make me exercise more watchfulness or no, I know not, but the sudden growl of my dog, in a peculiarly lonely part of the road, caused me to at once be in readiness for action with my hand on my revolver. At the same moment I imagined I heard a rustling among the bushes on my right hand, and glancing quickly round, I just caught a glimpse of two men hurriedly retreating through them.

I had ridden about half a mile further when I espied a horseman riding towards me, in whom on a nearer view I, to my great surprise, recognised Mr. John M'Gilvray.

Equally astonished on his part at this sudden meeting, the young gentleman shook me heartily by the hand, inquiring at the same time what had become of me for such a length of time. But with all his unaffected heartiness of manner, I could not avoid regarding him with some stiffness, as, to his handsome person alone I attributed the miscarriage of my suit with Jessie Campbell. I accordingly replied to his friendly inquiries after my welfare in the dry and commonplace manner of one who desires to shorten an unavoidable conversation. Seeing my reserve, the spirited young fellow at once took offence, and after a few more remarks bade me good day, and rode away at a canter.

As I rode away from him I felt some qualms of conscience for the silliness of my behaviour. "The girl has given you up fairly," I reflected, "then why grieve further about her? Mr. M'Gilvray has done you no harm in taking, in all fairness, what you could not get anyhow." Reasoning with myself in this way I resolved, on my return to Hokitika – if not that evening, yet to-morrow perhaps – to seek him out and make the amende honourable for my boorishness to him now. Thus thinking, I had proceeded at a walking pace for about three hundred yards further, when a spirit seemed suddenly to whisper in my ear – whilst with my mind's eye I beheld the loneliness of the road I had just come along, and into which Mr. M'Gilvray would be at this moment entering – "and these two men." Those four words, and no more, seemed, as I have said, to be just whispered in my ear as if by the voice of some warning spirit; but so sudden and powerful was the magnetic influence that they seemed to exercise upon me, that I at once wheeled Selim round and literally tore back in the direction I had just come; nor, as

the result proved, was the impulse on my part either a mistaken one or too soon timed. Just as I had entered the thick, dense scrub that here deeply shaded the road, and through which Selim came tearing in at a stretching gallop, I saw poor John M'Gilvray on the ground, with two fiends on either side of him, each pulling with all his strength at the end of a Chinese sash that was twined at the middle round their victim's throat, who was by this time almost black in the face. What words I uttered as I came upon this fiendish scene, I do not now remember, but a bullet that went singing past one of their heads, as I galloped frantically up, sent both wretches, like hunted wolves, back into the scrub, where they at once disappeared. I did not attempt to follow them. It would have been impracticable for me on horseback to have done so, owing to the impervious nature of the scrub through which they had darted. Yet quickly as they had disappeared, they did not do it soon enough to prevent me recognising the bullet head and flaxen hair of Morgan, as a second shot from my revolver knocked the ruffian's hat off ere he managed to vanish from my sight.

Mr. M'Gilvray, who it seems had been totally unarmed, had been bailed up, and sternly ordered to dismount, with which order, under the threat of two revolvers levelled at his head, he had been obliged to comply. He was then seized and placed in the position from which I had so providentially been enabled to rescue him. His consciousness had not quite forsaken him at the moment when I had come up Consequently, after a minute or so of spasmodic gasping, during which I could do nothing to assist him save to loosen his collar, he quickly recovered; and, being naturally of a hardy and courageous temperament, his sole sense of the greatness of the danger he had just escaped was expressed by an exasperated oath at his utter unreadiness for such an encounter, which had caused him to fall so easily into the clutches of the miscreants; in contrast to the lively account he would have given of himself had he been armed with so much as a stick at the time.

Securing his horse, that in the meanwhile had not strayed very far, we both remounted and rode rapidly back to the Grey, and, dispatching my business there, as hastily returned to Hokitika, which we reached at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Immediately on reaching Hokitika, we rode straight to the police camp and informed them of our

adventure on the way to the Grey, and at the same time volunteered our services in the event of their attempting to secure the bushrangers that night, John M'Gilvray adding in a determined tone that he would like to get a chance of settling accounts with either of the ruffians who had come so very near strangling him.

On the chance of the bushrangers eluding the police at the place where the latter hoped to surprise them, and of their pouncing upon the bank while the police were absent for this object, it was resolved to divide their force; one half to be retained to watch the bank, whilst the other (under the guidance of Duval, the Victorian detective), proceeded to attempt to surprise and capture the gang in their own tent.

The accession to their divided strength, by the tender of our voluntary assistance, was therefore received with great satisfaction by the police; and this satisfaction was increased, when I informed them of the nature and efficiency of a further ally I could promise to procure them, in the person of Mr. Benjamin Lilly, whose zeal in a cause in which the rescue of the long-lost Rachel Rolleston was concerned, I felt perfectly sure we could firmly rely upon.

With these preconcerted arrangements for the capture of the bushrangers at their tent, three policemen well armed were thought amply sufficient, as, by the accession of three volunteers, they would thus be exactly two to one. The remaining police, amounting to two men, were left to guard the bank against a surprise in case the bushrangers had changed their plans. As eleven o'clock had been the hour arranged for surprising the bushrangers at their tent, we laid our plans so as to reach the scene of action at that hour.

We then – that is, Mr. M'Gilvray and I – went back to the hotel, where I was then putting up, and at which Lily was also staying.

On reaching the hotel and shortly afterwards falling in with Lily, who happened to be out at the time of our arrival, I called him aside and told him all that I had seen on the previous evening, as also the nature of the duty in which Mr. M'Gilvray and I were shortly to be engaged, and in which I had ventured to promise for him that he would also take a willing share.

On hearing all that I had to say, which, however, was not done without some strongly worded interruptions on his

part, as would have been expected by all who knew Lilly thoroughly, the great-hearted fellow pulled out the beautiful gold watch that, on an occasion already related, Rachel Rolleston had given him, and that ever since he had carefully worn in a fob inside his waistcoat, and putting it to his lips and kissing it, said, "If ever I prayed in my life to God, it was for the purty young lady that gave me this watch, and that I might some day have the chance of paying off the cold-blooded villain who induced her to leave her home to spend a life of shame and misery with him. And now, may God help me this night to keep the vow that I swore to Him then, that if ever I was to come across him, that it should be my life for his. And if I get that satisfaction, I shall part with my life this night content."

Within the hour, we were all at the appointed place of rendezvous, from which we instantly rode forth to the scene of action. About one hundred yards above the place where we had lost sight of Rachel in the scrub, that is, about one hundred yards from the tent, we dismounted and secured our horses at the bottom of the steep ridge.

Some passing fancy while securing Selim to a tree branch, over which I simply threw his bridle, induced me to look up and to mentally gauge the probable height of this ridge; and I thought at the time that, though too steep to attempt to ride up with any ordinary horse, yet it appeared to be not a whit more so than a ridge up which I had been obliged to force Selim to scramble, with me on his back, a few days before. This I had been compelled to do in order to intercept the flight of a perverse bullock, that seemed determinedly bent on breaking away from the others, and that, unless I had contrived to intercept him on the top of that ridge, would from there have got down into a wild ravine, from which there would have been but little probability of again recovering him.

I also took occasion to observe another distinct feature of this ridge – an observation that was of service to me in the scene that followed very shortly afterwards. This observation was that the spur, at the foot of which among the tanglewood scrub the bushrangers' tent was situated, was a continuation of this same ridge. There was no gully between them. I noticed, moreover, that the side of this ridge was tolerably bare of timber. So much for these preliminary observations.

We had all stalked on our stomachs – to use a game phrase – to within a few feet of the tent, where, however, we had to remain for about an hour, ere events began to develop. I at first felt my heart beating loudly with nervous anticipation. Marsden appeared to be within, and stalking rapidly to and fro, as if impatiently awaiting some arrival. He at times addressed a few words to Rachel, stopping whilst doing so, and then abruptly resuming his hurried stride.

"What the – – - can be keeping them?" I heard him at one time mutter: "they should have been here long before this."

"Ah, here they are!" he at length exclaimed, as steps were heard hurriedly descending the ridge apparently by a clear track – for there was no sound that could come from contact with intervening bushes – and in a few moments, Morgan and Wilson, almost brushing by where I was lying, entered the tent, when, immediately afterwards, the stern voice of Marsden was heard demanding, "Well, what has kept you coves so long? I suppose you have been up to some of your old treacherous games, Morgan, and have been trying to do something on your own quiet lay, that you keep such bad time!"

"What the – – - is that to you what we've been up to? we ain't your servants, I suppose!"

"You are not my servants, no, certainly you are not; but according to our contract while this lay is on, that I have found for you, you are bound to obey me as your captain, and I am the man, Morgan, that will make you stand to your word with me, or if you don't, will send a bullet whistling through your thick skull, you common blockhead!" He continued, after a pause, the other answering not, "Can you not see that it is to your own selfish interest to take notice of what I have to say to you. I have the head to plan how to do a thing clean, like what we are about to do this night; and for this half-hour I have been kept waiting by you, when we ought to have started at once, and taken time by the forelock, so as to be able to do our work deliberately, without being hurried over it. All your ideas, on the other hand, are to knock people on the head, and by that original means to get your own worthless neck into a halter. Take time, man, take time, your neck will be there soon enough, I warrant; but now I merely want you

to be smart and steady, and to keep by me this night, when, if we succeed – as I doubt not but we shall – you can both go your own silly ways, and get hung up as soon as you like."

"How do you know that there is money in that place at all?" Morgan here asked sullenly.

"How do I know? Because I was inside there getting a cheque cashed, and saw enough to convince me that there is no small amount of gold, to say nothing of notes, within that bank at this very moment."

"Well, that's good news anyhow," remarked Wilson, with villainous cheerfulness.

"You are all ready then," demanded Marsden, "and prepared to obey all my orders to-night?"

"Yes, yes," both worthies eagerly replied, for the news of the certainty of gold being in the building that they were about to break into, had caused even Morgan's mood of sullenness to give way to one of cheerfulness.

This kind of work always afforded him the pleasure common to all experts at the exercise of their own peculiar talents.

"That's right. Now, Rachel, put the bottle on the table, and we will have a mouthful of something to eat, and then start at once."

"Surrender in the Queen's name," sounded at this pleasing juncture of the bushrangers' plans, in the stern voice of Duval, by whose whispered orders we had by this time quietly risen to our feet and approached the tent door, whose flap at the same moment one of the officers drew aside, whilst we all simultaneously presented ourselves, with revolvers levelled at those inside.

"Douse the glim," was that freebooter's reply, as in an instant action to our threatening demonstration, he snatched up a loaded revolver that was lying beside him on the table, and fired it at the foremost of the intruders. As his shot exploded, I observed Lilly, who had been impetuously ad-vancing, suddenly reel to one side and fall half-stunned against the side of the tent; but, as it proved, his weakness was but temporary, the bullet having only grazed his temple. Another shot from Marsden next stretched one of the policemen with a broken arm on the ground. At this moment, instead of supporting Marsden by a display of equally resolute behaviour, the ruffian Morgan, with a

cowardly concern for his own safety only, and trusting amid the confusion and smoke to his bull strength, made a desperate rush to break his way out between us; but meeting his charge with the firmness of a rock, Duval, against whom he came in contact, seized him by the collar with his left hand, and his waist with his right, retaining his own revolver as he did so, and, with a sudden exertion of his powerful muscles assisted by athletic skill, he lifted him clean off his legs, when both men came to the ground with a shock that – even amid that scene of confusion – seemed to make the ground vibrate beneath our feet.

In the meanwhile my position, as we attempted to force our way in a body into the tent, chanced to be on the side where the table with the light stood; and seeing Rachel, in obedience to Marsden's command, rush forward to extinguish the light, I too darted forward to prevent her object, and seizing hold of her hand – that hand that at one time even to touch had caused the blood to thrill through my veins – I roughly thrust her back from the table.

It was no time then for ceremonious considerations: the whole scene that I am now attempting to describe began and ended in about a minute. As the wounded policeman fell, John M'Gilvray, slightly built but wiry, sinewy, and an excellent light-weight wrestler, sprang in, and grappling with Marsden, attempted to trip him up. A blow from the butt end of Marsden's revolver on the head, however, and his spirited young assailant lay senseless on the ground. This occurred as I had thrust Rachel from the table. I then sprang across Marsden's path as he was in the act of bounding over M'Gilvray's senseless body, and striking up the muzzle of his revolver just in time to cause the bullet that was intended for my head to pass through the roof of the tent, I threw my arms around him and endeavoured to detain him. In physique I was at that time a well-built man, and one whom it would have taken a man of more than ordinary strength to overthrow; but, in the iron grasp of him, against whom I now pitted myself, I felt as if held in a vice. Lifting me from off my feet he fairly dashed me to the ground, and with a wild shout, the bushranger leapt out of the tent and escaped into the scrub. I sprang to my feet shouting excitedly, and fearless of danger instantly rushed in pursuit, followed by Lilly, who, now recovered from his stun, with an imprecation of fury, and despair, saw the man against

whom he had sworn life for life, now likely to escape his vengeance after having been almost within his reach.

I was also at the same moment followed by Duval, who, with revolver pointed to Morgan's head, had compelled the coward to let the handcuffs be slipped upon his wrists. Wilson too had, in the meanwhile, been secured, and was then in the hands of the remaining policemen.

On rushing out from the tent, I made instinctively for my horse, as the conformation of the spur that I had already noted flashed through my mind and struck me as the probable route that Marsden would pursue. The hundred yards between I must have traversed in a few seconds. Tearing the reins from the branch to which they were hung and flinging them over my horse's head, I vaulted into the saddle.

"On, Selim, on," I shouted, forcing him straight up the face of the ridge before me. My gallant horse refused nothing that I put him to. Stretching himself out, clambering and clinging, he fairly seemed to drag himself up the face, I standing high in my stirrups and leaning over his withers to help his equilibrium. Snorting, panting, but never hesitating, while my "On, Selim, on," still urged him to more strenuous exertions, on and up he went for about two hundred yards, till he gained and passed the brow of the hill. Prom there, glancing behind me, I observed Lilly on foot, dragging his horse desperately after him by the bridle, and Duval doing the same, though somewhat further behind.

On reaching the top, to my great joy I just caught a glimpse of Marsden, going at an easy sweeping canter, about twenty yards ahead. This I could easily observe, as it was a beautiful moonlight night, and the ground for some little space about here was comparatively free of timber. He was mounted on a tall chestnut horse (a pure blood) that as I afterwards understood, he had assisted himself to from some squatter's stable down on the plains about a week before. He was evidently unconscious that he was being pursued, or was possibly under the belief, from the nature of the ground, that active pursuit was impracticable, so for some minutes after I had headed Selim upon his tract he kept going at the same easy pace. On my part, as a matter of policy, I refrained from attempting to undeceive him on this point by instantly pressing upon him, as I was desirous, by a short continuance of this easy pace, to allow Selim to recover some-

what from the exertion of scrambling up the ridge that had so severely blown him.

This for a few minutes I was enabled to do, till Selim's impatient snort in his desire to press on after the horse he saw he was in pursuit of, betrayed my proximity to the bushranger. I saw him turn his head round suddenly to discover the meaning of the noise he heard behind him, when, with a savage imprecation, he urged his horse to the top of his speed. Selim by this time, however, had somewhat recovered his wind.

That in a flat race he would have been a match with his blood opponent is more than I could deliberately affirm. Selim was not a pure blood, yet his speed was by no means contemptible. But here, though a little winded, the chances were altogether in my horse's favour. Marsden's thoroughbred on plain ground might possibly in a mile race have come in a full length ahead of Selim, but where he was, the scrub confused and handicapped him, whilst Selim was a scrub horse. He had been bred amongst it, and had subsequently been trained to muster cattle from such ground, and was therefore now in his natural element, and the manner in which be dashed straight through thickets or under low spreading boughs when he almost had to crouch, or with his fierce snort, darted to either side according as the direction of the animal he was pursuing was changed in the slightest degree, or cut off angles to intercept him when this unpractised courser swerved aside from any obstacle, was such as would have boded ill for the safe seat of a greenhorn or unpractised rider, had such then chanced to have been on his-back. The old stock horse knew his duty, and I knew that while his breath lasted he would never lose sight of the object he was following.

Circumstances, however, favoured the pursuit. Whether Marsden knew the country or no, I know not; probably however, he did not. Heading his horse for the heart of the bush, his career was suddenly checked by a steep gully with precipitous sides. This occasioned him to swerve up along the side of it to the right which brought him in a course trending somewhat in the direction from which he had just come, but which he followed with the probable hope of finding a place of descent down the terrace. This direction was unfortunate for him, for, as it turned out, it brought him in a manner up broadside with his pursuer, whom, by taking

the opposite direction along the gully, he might still have kept straight in his rear, and as sailors say, a stern chase is a long chase. Following Marsden closely, I now coo-eed loudly to apprise Lilly and his companion of this change in our direction. It was, as I have already said, a clear moonlight night. As Marsden advanced, he found that the gully swerved so much in the direction that he had just come from that he would now gladly have gone straight back on a line with his former direction, but the appearance of Lilly and Duval advancing through the trees towards him – Lilly, hatless, his bleeding temple bandaged with his handkerchief, and in a voice, hoarse as a boatswain's call, shouting out to Duval who was behind him, to incline farther off so as the better to hem "the dog" in – showed him that by so doing he would have to run the gauntlet of a fire from the three of us.

Firing his revolver again at Lilly, who fortunately escaped being hit, Marsden now wheeled his horse directly for the terrace which here was not more than twenty feet in height, and without a moment's hesitation instantly leapt his horse over. The poor animal lay at the bottom with her two forelegs smashed, and Marsden, springing off her back, could be seen running off into the bush on foot. Lilly was now on his heels like an avenging fury. Riding furiously to the edge of the terrace, he would have recklessly followed Marsden's example, but Coleena, less blooded or more sensible, baulked and reared. Springing from her back, her fearless rider impetuously took the bank himself. Clinging with nervous hands to projecting roots or branches of trees that grew up from the terrace's side, he let himself clown to the bottom with the rapidity of a squirrel.

Marsden could be still plainly discerned running about one hundred and fifty yards ahead.

The report of Lilly's revolver was then suddenly heard, and Marsden was seen to stagger, but he instantly replie with the remaining loaded chamber of his revolver; that also told, though with less effect upon his antagonist. This, however, did not stop the latter from rushing up, and, with a fierce shout, springing on to Marsden, receiving, as he did so, on the barrel of his own revolver that he refrained from using, a desperate blow that the other had aimed at his head with his now empty weapon.

Lilly was a nervous and muscular man, yet I question if

in sheer muscular power he would have been equal to Marsden, but that the latter was more seriously wounded than himself, a fact that somewhat equalized their strength as they rolled upon the ground with all the ferocity of tigers, locked in each other's arms.

Meanwhile both Duval and I had also dismounted, and were attempting to descend the terrace, when Lilly and Marsden had tired at each other. Duval accomplished this quickly, but I missed my foothold when near the bottom and rolled down heavily, considerably bruising one of my shoulders. "Yield, Howden; the game is up!" cried Duval sternly, as soon as he reached the scene of the struggle, whilst he knelt upon the body of the bushranger.

"Ha! hell-hound; what sent you here? Strike, dog, I yield to none.

With a stroke from the butt end of his revolver, Duval instantly reduced the furious man to a state of partial insensibility, during which he bound his hands with his belt, and then still more firmly secured him with the reins that I fetched from the mained horse, putting the poor groaning brute out of pain at the same time with a shot in the forehead. Duval, then, with Lily's assistance, led their now securely bound prisoner to the tent, that in reality was not much more than a mile away from where we then were, while I returned up the terrace, and, mounting Selim, drove the other two horses before me down the same ridge that we had ascended in such haste. Ere starting, however, Duval, who had formerly been in the army, and had there seen something of surgery, did what he could in a rough and ready way to staunch the wounds of both Lilly and Marsden.

Marsden, now conquered and passive, submitted to what conditions were imposed upon him, but maintained a stern silence all the time.

We found Mr. M'Gilvray feeling rather sick, but otherwise unhurt, his consciousness having returned some time before. As for Rachel, she had left the tent, no one objecting to her doing so.

While returning, however, to Hokitika that night with our prisoners, one idea kept constantly exercising my mind. "Howden," I kept muttering, "what name is this? Is this man Marsden, then, after all, poor Charles Howden's wild brother that he once told me of? Surely it can be none other than he? Yes, now I remember his remark in the

tent; while defending his conduct to Rachel, he said then, that there was one other who had been good to him, but that he was always too stern and strait-laced for him. This just agrees with what Howden said of himself, with reference to his views of his brother's conduct. And yet in features there is no family resemblance between these brothers; certainly there is none in their minds! Poor Charles Howden! how grieved he will be to hear of this sad ending of his brother's mad career. Por be sure this will be the end of it, as the civil authorities will now make too sure of his custody to give him a third chance of escape."

CHAPTER XXXIX. DEATH OF THE BUSHRANGERS.

DEATH OF THE BUSHRANGERS.

LEAVING the wounded policeman in the tent, his companion, who until our return had remained on guard over the two prisoners, having then mounted his horse and ridden hastily to the township to bring medical assistance to him, we all started off with our prisoners, and in about an hour and a half afterwards had the satisfaction of seeing them all lodged in secure custody. Up to that time – ever since Howden's capture – the detective had maintained a stern watch over his charge, as if on the look-out against every possible contingency in the way of an attempt to escape, or an ambushed rescue, and uttering nothing the while beyond brief, necessary directions.

But with the responsibility of this duty off his shoulders, his taciturnity at once gave place to a more considerate manner. Heartily shaking the hands of Lilly and myself, he thanked us for the valuable service that we had rendered. Whilst to the other officials present, he frankly confessed that, but for us, his own efforts in attempting to secure Howden would have been utterly abortive.

"But what sort of a horse is that of yours, Mr. Farquharson?" he added, "has he claws on these hoofs of his, that he went up that ridge in the cat-like way that he did? I should not have believed it possible for any horse to accomplish such a feat as that, unless I had seen it done with my own eyes, as I saw yours do it; it took me all my time to

drag up my, horse on foot behind me, and he is not the clumsiest-footed horse either that I have seen."

"Ay, mate," replied Lilly, patting Selim on the neck with almost as much pride as if the old horse had belonged to himself. "You are not like to see two such horses as this in a lifetime, I fancy; ay, old Selim," he continued, addressing the old horse as seriously as if he reckoned that the animal could actually understand him, while Selim acknowledged his sense of the praise he was receiving in his own way, by vigorously using Lilly's shoulder as a convenient rubbing-post for his head. "Ay, Selim, old boy," he said, "we have to thank your pluck for our luck this night; but for your gameness in climbing up that face, and sticking to that fellow afterwards as you did – flash horse and all as he had – that dog might have been far enough away in the bush by this time."

"Yes, that is true," replied Duval, critically examining Selim's various points; for the detective was evidently a judge of horseflesh. That the result of the scrutiny satisfied him was evident, for he added: –

"I would give something now to own a horse like that. And this horse is fully as good as he looks! How he did go crashing through that scrub, to be sure, for although I could not see him I could hear him. I should have enjoyed being on his back during that chase."

"You might have found it more exciting than safe, if you have not been accustomed to stock riding," replied Lilly, bluntly, adding, "it takes practised men like Mr. Farquharson here and me to keep on Selim's back when he is hunting after anything through scrub, I can tell you. I once had a trial of him, and I know what it means to stick to him in such places. My own mare, Coleena, there, isn't bad, but she isn't a patch to him among scrub or perhaps anywhere else."

"Well," replied Duval, "I should imagine that there is a good deal of truth in what you say there. On a level or steeplechase course I would stick to any horse that ever was girthed, but I daresay even a man like me would require some little practice to fit him for keeping his seat with such sudden halts and sharp bolts to the one side or to the other as I saw that horse give when I came in sight of you, at the time when Howden attempted to double back. To me at that time your horse appeared to literally wheel on a pivot; his

action was so simultaneous with every change of movement on the part of Howden's horse, that I marvelled even then how you managed to retain your seat so easily as you seemed to do."

"My dear sir," I replied, "I just then kept my eyes open for all possible contingencies. Doubtless, however, the secret of the whole matter is practice, by which one's body acquires a kind of instinctive habit of accommodating itself to all sorts of possible emergencies without any conscious effort of the mind. Again, on such occasions, my experience of my horse enables me to leave his conduct in the matter entirely to his own discretion. I content myself then with looking out for the safety of my own head and seat. I know that is all that is required for heading or blocking any animal that he is in pursuit of. My horse understands fully as well as I should myself all that there is to do; and he certainly would perceive any sign of a change in the animal's motions much more quickly. Ay, sir, and what you have lately seen is but a slight sample of my horse's spirit. To see him at his best he should be seen confronted by a wild charging bullock among timber as thick as that of our late scene of action. To keep on his back there, or to prevent yourself from being dashed against a tree branch in such sharp work is what a Yankee might well term 'a caution to snakes,' as, now darting like lightning to either side, and again over a log or under a low spreading tree, Selim, reckless of all obstacles, instantly wheels, or darts ahead, or halts, with every corresponding movement of the bullock, or, if at length charged by the infuriated animal, then on the signal of the slightest pressure of my hand on his mane or wither, with a lightninglike wheel he sends both heels into the stubborn brute's fore-head, a mode of dealing with him that generally sickens the most contumacious bullock. Ay, sir, he is a noble horse, and such a one as I never intend to part with while he has life in his body or I have life in mine."

Soon after this, the wounded policeman was brought into camp, when the doctor who had accompanied him examined the wounds of both Lilly and Howden.

Both were pronounced by him to be but flesh wounds; there being no broken bones in either case. Lilly was hit on the side of his chest just close up to the arm-pit, and Howden, more deeply, on one side of the loin. The wounds of both, though by this time beginning to feel sore and inflamed, were

now properly dressed, and would probably be well in the course of a few weeks.

On the next day, when the prisoners, for the sake of identification, were brought before the magistrates, I observed among the audience, towards the door, the sad pale countenance and lady-like figure of Rachel Rolleston: still lady-like and refined in spite of the misery and degradation of the last few years of her life. Now, under the confirmed conviction of this degradation, I felt a sort of compunction at making myself known to her, not because of any abhorrence on my own part in addressing her, but because of the probable effect that a sudden meeting in her present circumstances with one who had known her so intimately in her happy days might occasion her.

I, at all events, resolved to postpone the necessity of discovering myself to her, until this could be more effectively accomplished in the privacy of her own home. My purpose was, if possible, to reclaim her and restore to her father, and I felt that in return for my services the police would help me to ferret out her present place of abode.

For this end, as my evidence was not required in the examination of the prisoners, I, during its progress, kept my back studiously turned towards her.

As the identification of the prisoners was easy, the examination was soon over, and in virtue of an intercolonial warrant, they were formally handed over to the charge of Duval, though kept under lock and key, until the departure of the first vessel to Australia, when he would be able to sail with them to Melbourne. As it happened, this took place the following day.

As I felt no little curiosity about Marsden, or Howden as he was now properly called, I requested and obtained permission to visit him in the lock-up.

From his known character and the insecurity of the structure that did duty as a jail, he was kept manacled and vigilantly guarded. His two companions were confined together in a separate cell, but as I had nothing to say to them I did not disturb them.

Howden's features, altered as I knew they were by my brief glimpse of them in the dancing-room, presented now a still more haggard and wasted appearance – the work of the maddening sense of his loss of liberty, together with the loss of blood from his wound, which seemed to have exhausted

even his strong frame. To me, in his unkempt state and with his fierce expression, he suggested the idea of some untamed beast of prey that had suddenly been brought in from its native jungle and there bound, and glaring with all its native ferocity at the spectators, that its chain alone prevented it from at once springing upon and tearing to pieces.

On my entrance, he at once remarked with a fierce scowl (for he had recognised both Lilly and me at once during the chase and capture): "So, sir, you seem to have known how to show a due sense of gratitude to me for my having once saved your precious life from the hands of those who in a minute more would have made dead meat of you: for that act of weakness on my part, has led to your being a main instrument of my being run to earth, and consigned to a felon's doom."

"Por my present action, sir," I calmly replied, "you have only to blame your own unprincipled conduct in seducing to a life of shame and misery one whose virtue and grace so well fitted her to adorn the sphere that her fortune entitled her to move in. It was solely to bring you to justice for that heartless act that my friend Lilly and I were among the most bitter and unrelenting of your pursuers, and that, by God's blessing upon our efforts, we have been the chief means of a period being put to your career of unbridled lawlessness."

"And you have come here, sir, I presume," retorted Howden fiercely, "to torment my spirit! – as if that was not sufficiently maddened by other thoughts, without having to listen to one of your canting lectures on moral propriety."

"No, Howden – for that I now understand is your proper name – I have come here for no such purpose: the jail chaplain is far more fitted than I to give you such advice. Although, let me say, it would have been to your advantage, even in a worldly sense, if you had paid a little more attention to such lectures than you ever seem to have done. You would not now stand there like a beast of prey restrained by irons, if you had. Indeed, I hardly know why I have taken the trouble to come and see a man whom personally I have only reason to regard with the deepest hatred, unless from a strange sort of curiosity and wish to find out what the motives were that could have impelled you to perpetrate such an act of villainy, as to so degrade

that high-spirited, impulsive, but foolishly romantic girl. In distress and danger you went to her father's house, and were treated there not only as a gentleman, but almost as a relative; if you had been one, the attention to your comfort and the studied courtesy of their bearing towards you, could not have been exceeded. Was your nature akin to that of the hyaenas, that no kindness can effect, that your flinty heart felt no compunction at the crime you meditated towards those who so cherished you?"

"Sir," Howden answered, "think not that for an instant my conscience will be touched by such high-flown language as that. Yet still I will choose to stoop to your own level of argument. I'll show you, little as you seem to think it, that I, too, have a basis of reason for my actions, that I am not altogether the slave of mere passion, or that my own caprice only has been my rule of life in all that I have done. You suppose my nature to be akin to that of the hyaena. And what pray has reduced me to that state? Because I was born with a nature that has ever been at war with restraint, am I to be reviled for simply following the dictates of my own heart? Because I committed a fault, to enable me to retain my position in society, a fault that I honestly meant to repair had I been allowed time! In rebelling against the undue severity of the punishment meted out to me on that score, have I forfeited the privileges of my manhood? Without a home, and hunted like a wolf, was it an additional crime in me to yield to the instincts of nature, when I met with one whose mind, rising superior to conventional forms, I found in harmony with my own? or was I not to be allowed the privilege of mating like the wolf? You speak of the sphere in which she once moved. Was that sphere superior to that which I once occupied? or was the subsequent descent from that position greater in her case than it has been in mine? You speak of the treatment that I received at her father's hands, and my subsequent ingratitude. Would such treatment have been accorded me by that wealthy conventionalist, had my true character been suspected by him? If you infer such an understanding on his part, your reproach holds good, not otherwise. I accepted his hospitality at its own value, well knowing that had a real suspicion of my true character and pursuits dawned upon the mind of the prudent and correct Mr. Rolleston, I should have been at once hunted from his place

with no more compunction than he would have shown to the dingoes that worried his sheep."

Thus did Howden seek to justify his own unprincipled life by the plea that his own peculiar situation was the proper basis to which his rule of action should conform. In reply I said, to him: "Your sole argument seems to be that, because you were ruined, you were therefore justified in dragging down this innocent girl in the same ruin with yourself. Why, sir, such an argument as that can simply apply to the condition of a beast of prey; but you are not a beast, yet such sentiments show that you glory in your shame – the desire to obey your hellish instinct to prey upon any thing or person you choose to take a fancy to, no matter how good or unsuspecting that thing or person may be. Surely, sir, your moral understanding is not so utterly crushed, as to be wholly blind to the fact of an original principle of right and wrong? To make my meaning plainer, can you not recognise, that the original offence that occasioned your first punishment was in itself a crime against the laws of society? Why then should you pretend to arrogate to yourself the right of immunity from a punishment that you had brought upon yourself? Have I, for instance, the right, for the sake of easing my circumstances, to commit a breach of the law by committing forgery? and if I do this, ought I to expect to escape the consequences of this crime? Or, having committed the wrong, do you think I should be justified and have a claim upon the public sympathy if, instead of bearing my punishment patiently, I persisted in fighting against the law of the land, and continually added to my crime?"

To reason with this man was hopeless. His conscience seemed to be deadened by the pernicious effects of a long habit of false reasoning; and the only effect upon him, of my argument against the root of his so-called justification, was only to add to his fierce impatience. It is only too true, that a long habit of sinful indulgence tends to blunt the moral faculties, until that which appears so reasonable, so logically convincing, to a person whose moral nature has not been warped, to the sin-hardened criminal is utterly incomprehensible.

"Enough of this, sir," he replied, "and of this interview at the same time. We look at the question from different planes, and that which I occupy I shall continue to occupy

to the end of the chapter. Yet, ere you go, I would ask one favour of you, and only one, and were it not that I know you to be a man of spirit and courage, even this favour I would not seek at your hands; but courage is the only virtue that I respect, and in its possession I can always feel that I can repose some sort of confidence. You loved that woman: I know it. She is both spirited and loyal, and for that cause only I plead guilty to some feelings of compunction for the position I have brought her to. But low as has been the life which she has led with me, I believe that she is still honourable. I understand that we are to sail from here to-morrow, and I have a foreboding that I shall see her no more. To-night I would rather not see her, as her pale, patient face would seem to reproach me, and as it is, with all my d – – d reminiscences, I suffer quite enough of that kind of thing already. Will you use your influence to restore her to her father? She is now destitute of means. Had you and that other bloodhound not so cleverly circumvented my plans, I had hopes, with the rise I should have made with the booty from that bank, to have taken her with me to America or India, and there to have turned over a new leaf in my life, and to have blotted out the hateful memory of the past. Your zeal has helped to prevent all that, and therefore all the satisfaction that your action in the cause of morality and injured virtue may give you, I wish you joy of. Now, sir, would you be pleased to leave me?"

"Ere I go," I replied, "have you no word for your brother Charles?"

"My brother Charles," he answered, quickly lifting up his head, while an expression of intense astonishment overspread his rugged features, "What the d – – - do you know about by brother Charles?"

"That which a two years' residence in his vicinity ought to teach me of a man of whom the more I knew the more I wished to know. It was chiefly to talk to you of him that I came to visit you, for on hearing your true name from Mr. Duval, who, however, has given me no other particulars of your life, I concluded that you must be the same wild brother to whom I, on one momentous occasion, heard Charles Howden so sadly refer."

"And this momentous occasion – what was it, that Charles Howden should find sympathy enough in his heart to refer to me?"

"The occasion, sir," I answered sternly, "of a most foul attempt to murder him, when, through God's providence, I was just in time to prevent your brother being strangled by two cowardly ruffians."

"Ha! do you say so?" he answered, hastily, while a troubled expression passed across his countenance. "And pray who were the would-be assassins? Were they taken, or did you identify them?"

"These same villains from whose clutches you were once man enough to set me free, but whose companionship you still seem to delight in, notwithstanding. Was it by your direction, sir, that these same miscreants attempted to murder and rob the brother who had so often tried to befriend you? It seems so palpable that without information from you they could hardly have found out his place of residence in that far and out of the way corner of the land."

"The cowards," cried Howden, grinding his teeth in passion, "it is well for them (or rather it might have been better, for they are both now bound to be hung) that we are all under lock and key now, for had it been otherwise I would have shot both the poltroons like crows! No, Farquharson, whatever I may be, I trust I am not so bad as to connive at an act of butchery on any one, let alone on a brother against whom I have no other cause of complaint than that of his continual reproaches against my mode of life. But, being reduced to the most desperate straits whilst in hiding about Melbourne, as a last resource I thought if I could only let him know of my condition he might – as he had often done before – give me as much help as would at least keep the wolf from the door. This and no more than this was my intention in letting Morgan, with whom I contrived to keep up communication, and who was in as desperate circumstances as myself, though not under such vigilant espionage from the police, know of my brother's whereabouts. But the villain! I might have guessed that his avarice could be restrained by no sense of manliness or even of thievish honour."

"That being the case, for your own, and your brother's sake, Howden, I am glad that you have cleared yourself from the horrid suspicion of complicity in your brother's intended murder, until now this has looked black against you. I would again ask ere I go, then, have you no parting message for me to bear to this brother?"

"Parting message!" said he bitterly; "what parting message could I send that he would care to hear from me, whose life can offer such excellent matter for reflection to his virtuous mind? Yet stay; why should I express myself in this way of one who I know had ever my welfare at heart? You can tell him then, Farquharson," he added – whilst for an instant his face softened into a more tender expression than I had ever before seen there – "did I feel assured that I was at this moment on the threshold of eternity, from which it strikes me that I am not very far removed, I would say this, 'had I hearkened to his wise counsels, it would have been for my good this day, and that my last thought of him on earth will be a kind one.' And now, sir, farewell; I desire you to leave me. Remember your promise about my wife."

"Your wife, sir?" I replied in astonishment. "Am I to think then from your words that – – -"

"Enough, sir; please leave me now. I am sick of these explanations." As his softened manner had again given place to his usual look of fierce austerity, I saw that further conversation would be useless, and left him.

The word "wife" had arrested my attention, but the idea that his use of such a word suggested was instantly dispelled by the look of stern impatience which followed immediately upon my seeking fuller information on the subject; so, concluding that he had made use of the word in a careless sense, I thought no more about it.

On the ensuing day, Howden, with his two companions, was embarked on board a steamer, in Duval's charge. But Melbourne he never reached. Taking advantage of a slight confusion – consequent on their passing between the passengers that crowded the steamer's deck – Howden, finding Duval's vigilance flag for a moment, manacled as he was, made a sudden dart to one side, and in another instant was seen bounding over the side of the steamer, whilst at the same moment a bullet from Duval's revolver entered his side.

Sinking below the water, he never came to the surface again alive; and it was only after a long search that it was found that the determined man had managed to dive completely under the steamer's bottom, where, in spite of his irons, he succeeded in retaining his position, by clutching, with all the tenacity of a death-hold, the off-side paddle-

wheel, until life was extinct; showing thus that he had deliberately designed to end a life that, with his fierce intractable spirit, he found insupportable under restraint.

Thus died Randal Howden in his thirty-fifth year, a man endowed with great natural abilities and a fierce energy, that, turned to a right end, might have won for him a glorious name in military annals. Yet, a victim to his own passions, and misled by his unconquerable egotism, and the atheistical principles that loosened his mind from a sense of all moral responsibility for his actions, these talents but enabled him to sustain for a while the part of hero of an inglorious career, whose dark record was at times but faintly relieved by the gleams of a better spirit in the acts of daring generosity that he could occasionally display; and the humanity – still conspicuous amid the fierceness of his disposition – that always restrained him from securing his depredations by the shedding of blood. Morgan and Wilson, on the other hand, for the committal of a most foul murder – the proofs of which were fully brought home to them – were both hung shortly after their arrival at Melbourne.

CHAPTER XL. A RETROSPECTIVE LIFE SKETCH.

CHAPTER XL.

A RETROSPECTIVE LIFE SKETCH.

I WILL now give a slight outline of Randel Howden's career, as I subsequently learnt it from his brother Charles, whom I shortly afterwards met in Dunedin.

Their family were well connected, but owing to their father's dissipated habits – he died after having led a wild and riotous life – their mother was left in very straitened circumstances. She had had a numerous family, but owing to the prevalence of some epidemic whilst she was with her husband in India, shortly before his death, her family of five sons and four daughters were all swept away save her eldest, Charles, then a boy of eleven years of age. Six months after this sad event the dissipated father died also, and six months after his death the widow, who had meanwhile removed from India to Scotland, gave birth to a posthumous son – Randal – who in his seventh year had the misfortune to lose his mother also.

The child was then taken in charge by a maternal uncle,

who had once been in affluent circumstances, but, owing to reverses of fortune, chiefly incurred on account of his brother-in-law's ruinous extravagance, his income was now considerably reduced. By his influence, several years before his sister's death, a situation had been found for his elder nephew in the counting-house of a friend in Glasgow.

Charles, who even as a lad had shown a disposition of singular nobility and purity, had early made a vow to endeavour to redeem his father's unpaid liabilities and with them the honour of the family, and in his situation, such was the assiduity, the steadiness of his character, and the intelligence of his mind, that at the age of twenty-four he had so entirely won the confidence of his employer, that, on an opening offering for the establishment of a smaller business on similar lines in the neighbouring town of Greenock, this gentleman had of his own accord proffered his assistance to establish Charles Howden in it. This offer was most gratefully accepted, and his patron had indeed no occasion for afterwards regretting this act of generosity.

In three years, such was the success that attended the young merchant's efforts that his business was not only able to dispense with all further support from his patron, but the latter had the pleasure of seeing his young protege on a sure road towards wealth and honour.

Thus it was with Charles until his younger brother had grown up into a tall, promising youth. with singular inconsistency, however, Charles, while devoting himself unsparingly to his business, and working like a galley-slave for the attainment of his first great object, to wit, the payment of his father's debts, cherished the desire of seeing his family restored to its former standing by his younger brother.

For this object, instead of inciting him to work as he did himself, he rather encouraged him to foster the fatal ambition of one day occupying the same position in society as his father had once done. A person of a like noble disposition with himself such encouragement would have merely incited to a meritorious ardour for properly acquitting himself in such a sphere. But, to a nature like Randal's, this was indeed a fatal mistake, as Charles subsequently found out. He sent his brother to college, however, and afterwards found the means for purchasing a commission in the army, that through the help of family influence was readily granted to him.

Finding himself, in spite of his unremitting industry and personal economy, impoverished by these serious expenses, he entered into partnership with a young man of the name of Carmichael, who was of equally industrious habits with himself, and whose acquaintance he had made some years previously. It was then he made the acquaintance also of his partner's sister, Mary, who came to Greenock occasionally to stay with her brother. Between this young lady and Charles Howden a warm friendship soon sprang up, with the result of which the writer is already familiar.

As for Randal Howden, the object of so many hopes and fears, it would seem as if all the benefits heaped upon him went merely to feed a nature self-willed and selfish from the first.

Whilst his dashing manners made him a general favourite with all, he seemed to be utterly unconscious of his proper position towards the brother who had done so much for him. Instead of gratefully accepting all his brother's kindness, he looked upon it as his right, due to his own superior merits.

Although he rose in his profession, yet in the end his intemperate habits of gambling and drinking compelled him to leave the army, after having already been once guilty of forgery. For this offence he was, however, pardoned by his superior officer, ou whom he had forged the cheque, for the sake of Howden's family, with whom this officer was well acquainted. This friend, also, on Howden's promise of reform, furnished him with letters of recommendation to several of the leading merchants in Melbourne. In view, however, of the excesses which Howden had been guilty of in the army, these letters of recommendation were made out in an assumed name so as to give Howden a better opportunity for turning over a new leaf. The name thus given him had been that of Howden's mother.

CHAPTER XLI. MEETING WITH RACHEL.

CHAPTER XLI.

MEETING WITH RACHEL.

SOME hours afterwards, when the excitement consequent on Howden's daring suicide had somewhat subsided, I seriously took in hand the business of hunting out Rachel's lodging.

This, by the help of a policeman, I was easily enabled to do from her intimacy with Kate Dunovan. After some hesitation, as if she had doubts as to the object of our search for her friend, Kate pointed out to ns where the poor girl lived, which was simply in a detached room in a neighbouring hotel.

On entering the house, Lilly, who was with me, thought it wise to keep in the background until I had broken the ground, thinking that this would be more easily accomplished if I were alone, than by both of us suddenly presenting ourselves before her.

The poor fellow, on this occasion, appeared to be almost unmanned by his emotions at the near prospect of again beholding his quondam employer's daughter, whose kind, sprightly, yet winsome ways had formerly so deeply impressed his own rough, yet genuine nature, and whose subsequent betrayal and ruin he had so sincerely mourned.

At my knock the door opened, and Rachel Rolleston once more stood before me. There was but little in the appearance of the apartment (into the interior of which I fear I cast a rather unceremonious glance ere I addressed her) that would associate the idea of moral degradation with its inmate, for though the signs of poverty were many, everything betokened neatness and industry.

Turning my eyes full upon her, I paused for a moment ere speaking, to note what possible effect her recognition of me might have upon her. To my intense astonishment she simply extended her hand to me, with calm dignity, and no other outward expressions of feeling than that shown in the slight touch of sadness in her tone as she quietly remarked: "Well, Mr. Farquharson, is it you? how are you? Come in and sit down." Now, an invitation to sit down in a lady's bedroom seems, at any time, a peculiar one. And although this evidently did duty as a sitting room too, yet that it was used as a sleeping apartment was plainly evident by the bed which stood at the further end tidily and smoothly made.

Her collected tone so entirely disconcerted me, moreover, that I confess my enthusiasm in her cause seemed to suddenly cool, as if with a dash of cold water. The disagreeable impression of her degradation, confirmed by her seeming entire absence of propriety in thus inviting me into her room, combined with her collectedness of manner on meeting with one who had at one time so enthusiastically loved her,

induced me, in addressing her, to pitch my voice in a tone of rebuke. But from this high ground I found myself quickly taken down.

"I am grieved," I said gravely, "to find you, of all persons in the world, leading such a life as this. Was it madness? was it frenzy, that could have induced Rachel Rolleston, once so admired, to forsake her father's home and the friends who loved her so well, for a life of shame amid the obscene surroundings in which I lately discovered her?"

A slight blush on Rachel's pale cheek, together with an expression of haughty surprise – such as I could have imagined might well have become her of old, if offended – made me suddenly pause, when she anwered quickly: –

"I hardly think, Mr. Farquharson, that you can rightly understand to whom, or of what you are talking. You used not to be rude when I formerly knew you. Surely it would become you now to inform yourself better ere you venture to address me in such language as this."

This spirited rebuke, that her indignant manner further emphasized, completely staggered me, while, at the same moment, Howden's use of the word wife, in reference to her, came rushing to my mind, suggesting that after all she might not be the polluted thing I had been conceiving her to be. Though as evidence on the other side, the scene of the dance-room, with the unmistakable character of some there with whom she certainly appeared to be on terms of intimacy, rose vividly before my mind.

For a moment I hesitated, uncertain how to address her; then, nerving myself to ascertain the truth of her position from her own lips, I replied firmly: "Am I then, madam, from your words to understand that instead of being the mere plaything of a man's pleasure, as I have been led to believe you were, that you are in reality the wedded wife of that man whose earthly account has been this day passed in at the bar of eternity?"

Holding up her left hand towards me to exhibit to my view a plain gold ring that encircled her marriage finger, she replied: "I am and never have been other than the late Randal Howden's wedded wife, as the ring on the finger testifies; that was placed there two days after I had, so unhappily for myself, gone off in his company. During those first two days I was with him as a companion, but in no dishonourable position, for I declared to him from the first

that only as his lawfully wedded wife would I ever accompany him; and it was only from the necessities of the case, no clergyman being available sooner, that the ceremony was postponed till then. When we reached Euston, where one chanced to be staying at the hotel, from which, under the compulsion of Howden's revolver, he was brought at midnight to where we were encamped in the bush, at that place, in that same hour, were those (for me) unhappy nuptials celebrated, in the presence of those two men whom you saw captured with Howden, and whose names as witnesses to that deed I can still show you ou the marriage lines that the clergyman, on the conclusion of the ceremony, committed to my keeping.

"On the evening before, Howden, who indeed would have preferred to have dispensed with such a ceremony altogether but for my determination to quit his company otherwise, had ridden to Wentworth to endeavour to secure the services of a clergyman there, leaving the two men with me encamped among the scrub a few miles off, I occupying, however, a separate tent; but his errand proved fruitless, as there was no resident clergyman there."

I here interrupted her suddenly with the remark, "Good heavens! you really were there that night, then? Do you recollect hearing sounds as of a struggle taking place there?"

"A struggle??" she repeated, looking at me with surprise. "Yes, surely I do, for I was very much frightened about it, thinking it was between the two men, of whom I was always in some dread, and that they were killing each other. So, not knowing what might be the result of the quarrel, I sat still in my tent, keeping the revolver that Howden had given me, with injunctions to at once use it in case of any insolent demonstrations from either of them. But what can you know about the struggle?"

"What do I know, madam?" I answered sadly. "Alas! I have reason now to know too much, though, unhappily for you, I then knew too little."

I then detailed to her the account of my encounter with the two ruffians and my rescue by Howden, and the conversation which followed.

She looked at me with swimming eyes, and replied: "My poor friend, how near you were to delivering me from years of misery! But no; I fear it was ordained that I should have to reap the consequences of my own mad folly! De-

liverance indeed would have been impossible. Knowing my husband's desperate nature, I feel little doubt but that you would have paid for your discovery of me with your life. Unarmed as you were, you would only have fallen a certain victim to his fury, had yon persisted in your attempt to force me away from him. How strange it all seems now! Of course he never mentioned your name to me but merely confirmed my own suspicion as to the struggle having been but a drunken affray between his two companions, and that he had just arrived in time to prevent one from murdering the other."

I felt at her account of her marriage with Howden, as if a mountain had been suddenly lifted off my heart, yet a still lingering suspicion caused me to question anxiously:

"But, madam, what about the strange society I found you in? Excuse my seeming doubts, but the blunt question will out. How could a respectable lady under any pressure of circumstances, associate with those on whose foreheads were plainly written the signs of shame – yes, even sing and take wine in such company?"

"I see," she said slowly and sadly, "I see. Finding me apparently at my ease in such company, you therefore concluded that I must needs be like it! Oh, Mr. Farquharson, how could you, who of old used to be so kind and considerate, how could you, I say, find it in your heart to imagine that Rachel Rolleston, with all her headstrong foolishness, would have had so little virtue, that such a suspicion, under any conditions, could have obtained such a ready acceptance with you?"

At this rebuke I was deeply moved, and answered: "Our Heavenly Father, who knew how great my devotion to you once was, knows also how deep my gratitude is to find the utter groundlessness of that suspicion; but I could not avoid it, because of the conviction I had entertained from the first, that you had been ruined by the plausible wiles of an unscrupulous villain. Yet, would you mind explaining to me how it was that you were so unconcerned in the presence of such company?"

To explain that properly, Mr. Farquharson, it would be necessary for me to put you in possession of the whole of my life, since I forsook my father's house on the Murray. "I believe, however," she added, with a faint smile, "that I was at no time greatly concerned about the forms and etiquette

of society. I was inclined – thoughtlessly perhaps – to set such matters down to the score of worldly pride, a spirit that I was rather too prone to despise. Well for me had it been, had I had a little more of that spirit. Rut when you come to know all, or even a part of all that I have passed through these last few years, it may cease to surprise you, that what now appears so anomalous to you, should have been scarcely perceptible to me. Will you not be still more surprised when I tell you that through the exigencies of my husband's wild career, women of that class have been the only sort of female society that I have been permitted to enjoy? That girl Kate, whom you might have noticed was so friendly with me and so ready to protect me against insult in the dance-room the other evening – I did not observe you there, though I saw and recognised you afterwards – has been, with all the dissipation of her life and the loathsomeness of her calling, a friend to whose kindness and attention I believe, that, under God, I owe my life; for she nursed me through the heavy sicknesses succeeding the births of my two children, neither of whom survived above a few weeks, and afterwards when I was in want, supplied me with means for the bare necessaries of life. Then there were the low orgies that I was at times compelled to witness, yes, and at my husband's stern request compelled to minister to, my voice being in request and popular; until, habituated to such scenes, language, and manners, that would at one time have filled me with disgust, I came at length to regard with indifference."

"This is indeed shocking; and your husband, how did he treat you in other ways? Was he as personally brutal to you as he seems to have been morally callous?"

"I believe that, to a certain extent, he loved me – as much as his fierce nature could love any one; for, whilst he never tried to keep me from the society of his rude companions, or to prevent my ears from being contaminated with their filthy talk, yet, further than that, no one ventured to annoy me. For my husband was a man who was feared by the others, both on account of his courage and the strength of his arm; and more than once have I been forced to witness the sickening exhibition of his prowess with some of the more fractious of his companions, and always with the same result – of his antagonist being left senseless and bleeding on the ground."

"And how could you, Mrs. Howden," said I, for the first

time addressing her by her married name, "still remain among such scenes as these, with your father's door always open to you? Did you never think of that, that you never tried to make your escape from such a life as that?"

"Before you asked that question, Mr. Farquharson, you should first have asked yourself if you could gauge the depth of a women's love for a man to whom she had fully surrendered her heart? If you can answer that, the answer to your other question will not be far to seek. I had deliberately cast in my lot with his, and for his sake I had chosen to forego my father's love and the position of wealth that, as his daughter, I was entitled to; and, unworthy and desperado as I soon found my husband was, the same passionate love that at first made me to go with him, has still, through all these cruel years, constrained me to cling to him, with the constant and yearning hope that I might yet persuade him to flee with me to America, and in that country under fresh auspices, to lay the foundations of a new life.

"For a time, indeed, he appeared to be considerate of me, and to endeavour to keep from my sight the degraded scenes connected with his calling. But gradually his carefulness on this point lessened, until he at length concealed nothing. After that his manner towards me varied with his circumstances, and although his hand was never raised against me, still his fierceness at times was such as to make me tremble at the thought of what might some day follow. This was when he was harassed by the police, when his temper increased in violence and moroseness, and he would drink until what little of the man that had been left in him before, seemed to be swamped in the passions of the brute. On these occasions his harshness towards me was great, for he was disappointed at reaping no benefit through me from my father. For, though by means of an agent he endeavoured to obtain the money that would have been my marriage portion had I married otherwise, my father, knowing well how it would be used, sternly refused to part with a shilling of it to him; nor would I ever, even under pressure, consent to write to my father myself with the object of obtaining it. I had disgraced him sufficiently, without seeking to annoy him further by any such request, even had I not felt persuaded that he would not listen even to my suit. Then came the sickness I had referred to, and the destitution that after my husband's sudden capture I was exposed to, when I was nursed and

assisted, as I have said already, by Kate. Up to that time we had lived in the country about the Upper Murray amid a people who all appeared to be marked with the brand of infamy – convicts and the children of convicts.

"On Howden's capture, I found my way to an obscure lodging in Melbourne. Thither also Kate and one or two of her companions moved. I supported myself meanwhile as best I could by my needle, whilst through Kate I kept up some communication with Morgan and Wilson, who were also then skulking about Melbourne, until Howden managed to elude the vigilance of his keepers. For a long time he lay concealed in a house that Kate knew of, though I myself, for fear of the police, was not permitted to see him. Neither did I again see him until the night when you saw him suddenly enter the dance-room. But informed by Kate of his wishes, I came over here with her. Through her I was informed of the whereabouts of the tent that had been constructed by Morgan and Wilson, as also of Howden's expected arrival in Hokitika. The exact position of this tent I then, by Kate's direction, made myself acquainted with by an afternoon's walk that I took in secret shortly after my arrival at Hokitika,"

"You mentioned that you had seen me before now?" I remarked, as Rachel paused in her interesting narrative. "I had no suspicion of this. Was it in the court-house? I saw you there, but as I did not think that a suitable place in which to discover myself to you, I tried to screen myself from your view."

"I noticed you all the same," she replied. "Indeed, as I knew that you had discovered me, I was surprised that you had not sought me out before, knowing of old what sympathy you had for me. But I recognised you first, Mr. Farquharson, during that dreadful scene of struggle in the tent, when you seized me so hard by the arm, and flung me so roughly from you. See there how you have left your marks behind you," she added, baring her wrist as she spoke, and displaying just above it some blue marks. Singularly enough now, as she spoke, I remembered what I had forgotten till then, but what I had at the time noted, and that was her pale face with her full expressive eyes being suddenly turned up to mine, as I seized her hand to prevent her extinguishing the light in obedience to Howden's command.

And in the swift glance of that terrible moment, what a

train of disconnected thoughts must have flashed through that poor girl's mind!

I rejoined: "I had no idea that you recognised me then, and I feel grieved that even unintentionally I should have been harsh and rough with you, but you know that things were then at a most desperate crisis, and my only idea was the immediate prevention of Howden's escape."

"Nay, indeed, you need not apologise: for that you had then no intention of hurting me, I am now well assured of. Yet I could not help wondering afterwards if you had really known it was me at the time, or if that repulse had been an indication of the contempt with which you had now come to regard me in your heart. You who had once been so kind, and had so valiantly risked your life to defend mine. You of whom I have so often thought with such sad regret. Alas! how great my folly has been, and how bitter the price I have paid for it!"

These words, spoken in the tone of one whose bright spirit had been subdued and broken by sorrow and hardship, went to my very heart, but beyond a glance of compassionate sympathy, I gave no further expression to my thoughts, but after a while remarked: "And now that death has loosened your bonds to this man, am I to understand that this is a grief to you, and that you do not regard it in the light of a happy release?"

She answered in a subdued tone: "The suddenness of his end, unprepared as he was for his Maker's awful presence, though only what his unbridled career gave reason to expect, is a grief to me; but now that he has been taken away, do I count it as a relief? Why, yes; because now freed from my responsibility to him, and the influence of the strange life that his presence could still inspire me with, I can breathe freely and choose my own mode of life for the future. For with him, from the very nature of his circumstances and the desperation of his calling, life was but a mockery and a burden."

"What about the black detective in the scrub?" I inquired doubtfully; "it is evident that it was none other than Howden who shot him."

"It was," she replied; "he himself informed me of the fact, but he did it in defence of his liberty, which he declared he would surrender to neither black nor white: a threat whose stern significance, the determination of his manner when he

attempted to shoot you all as you entered his tent to capture him, so well justified. Yet, though I believe he could do things like that without the least remorse, still he would suffer none of his companions to gain their ends by murder, nor would he permit any one to wantonly insult a woman. He was indeed a most strange mixture of good and evil."

I then asked her why Howden hated Duval so. Her explanation was that this Duval had at one time been an officer in the same regiment with himself, and like him had lapsed into habits of gambling and drinking, for which he too had been eventually forced to leave his regiment. In the course of one of these gambling bouts, Duval had accused Howden of cheating, and they had drawn their swords, but were separated by their companions. Duval then, having joined the police force in Melbourne, made himself particularly obnoxious to Howden by the unremitting activity with which he pursued him, and which was in fact the means of Howden's former capture. This, coupled with their former enmity, seems to have peculiarly exasperated Howden against him. Yet it was strange that, during Howden's trial in Melbourne, Duval mentioned nothing in court about his former character, or that he had even known him before that time.

I now asked her if, on the night of the capture or since, she had observed any one else in my company that she recognised. On her replying in the negative, I told her I would introduce another old friend to her. Then leaving her, I at once went out to find Lilly, and meeting him, told him hastily of Rachel's true position, and the entirely erroneous nature of our suspicions about her; we then at once hurried back to her room. Advancing towards her, with his hat deferentially held in his hand – a mark of respect that I never knew Benjamin Lilly take the trouble to show either to Miss Rolleston in her prosperity nor to any other lady, before – the gallant fellow extending his arm, seized Mrs. Howden's hand in his rough, cordial grasp, saying, "God bless you, Miss Rachel, for I must still call you by your old name, I am mighty proud to see you safe in the hands of your friends again. You must have had a sorrowful time of it, since you went away with that wretch. But he was a bold villain, we will give him his due. And it is myself that is glad to hear, that bad and all as he treated you, he had still some sense of honour left in him, to save your good name. Shure, I thought that he had ruined you entirely, but even if he had.

you would be still all the same in my eyes; for good as gold I ever knew you, and gold is gold," added he sententiously, "though buried in a pigsty."

"Lilly, my dear old faithful friend," cried Rachel, her eyes overflowing with tears, while warmly returning the pressure of his hand. "How can yon show me respect and consideration now? I am sure I but little deserve such kindness from either Mr. Farquharson or you."

"Deserve such kindness, Miss?" said Lilly stoutly, "and why shouldn't you deserve it, shure? Who is it that ever knew you, with your winning ways, and kindness, and want of stinking pride to a poor man, hut would have laid down his life for you? Haven't I still the beautiful watch yon gave me," said he, suddenly producing it, "that ever since then, I have worn agin my heart, and on which I swore an oath before my Maker, that I would have revenge in the life's blood of the villian who, I thought then, had ruined you? and I thank God now, this day, that He gave me the chance of as good as keeping that oath. Yet he was a bold and a brave man, that same Marsden, or Howden, or whatever his name was. What a pity that a man who had such good points in him should be such a rascal as he was!"

To Mrs. Howden I now gave a detailed account of her husband's capture, and the leading part that Lilly had played in it. Wiping her eyes at the recital of the close of the desperate struggle with the man whom she had loved, and whose tragic end now sincerely moved her, she said: –

"And my father, my poor forsaken father, can you tell me anything of him? Is he still alive and well?"

I told her that though I knew no particulars about Mr. Rolleston, with whom I had exchanged no correspondence since I had left him, yet that I believed he was still living in Melbourne, as the death of a man of such wealth and position would have been doubtlessly chronicled in the papers, in which event I should certainly have either read or heard of it. I added: "But as we are about to return as far as Dunedin, our business in this place being now finished, you will of course come along with us, and we will immediately communicate with Mr. Rolleston."

Rachel hesitated a little.

"My father's favour," she replied, "I have but little right to expect after the disgrace I have brought upon him by my disreputable manner of leaving him. Yet he still may forgive

me when he learns that I am not quite so vile as he has had reason perhaps to think I was, and when he knows too what I have suffered. But the girl Kate – how can I forsake her, who has been such a friend to me, yet whom I could not think of taking with me to my father's house ?"

"Mrs. Howden," I replied firmly, "you must not let your feelings of gratitude overpower your sense of what is due to your own character as a lady, for such, in spite of all that has befallen you, you still are. Looking at the matter in this light, you must see that Kate can be no sort of associate for you now. You lately hinted to me that your close association with her, and companions like her, for the last few years, seems to have dulled your sense of the fitness of things. It must now be your study to regain your old point of view in these matters. When you return to your father, you can find means of befriending Kate, according as the circumstances of her position may make it desirable. At present, however, to attempt to do this by a gift in money I should strongly deprecate, for it would only be dissipated at once among her companions. I will see the girl myself and explain to her your altered plans, and that this renders an alteration in your position towards one another necessary."

"You speak wisely, Mr. Farquharson, and your suggestion I will endeavour to follow, but pray explain to the poor girl that it is not pride but necessity that occasions this seeming alteration in my feelings towards her, for that I shall never, never forget her kindness to me, or lose sight of her if she is ever in want of a friend."

"Yes," replied Lilly, who had so far listened to these arrangements in silence, "that is the right way to do things, and if there is any money wanted for the payment of debts, shure we have both plenty of money to pay them for ye, Miss Rachel" – he could not bring himself yet to address her under her married name – "and if your father will not take you home with him, Mr. Farquharson and I will find a home for you. But your father will take you fast enough, and right glad will he be to see your purty face again, white as it is now; for Mr. Rolleston was always a good 'boss,' and a good 'boss' is always a good man."

Leaving Mrs. Howden shortly after this, I sought out Kate's abode. "Humph!" I growled, struck suddenly with the awkward imputation on my character, the sight of me visiting this place might occasion in the eyes of any one who

might notice and recognise me. "Humph! a pretty account of me this would make, to find its way to the Campbells. What would the excellent Mrs. Campbell think of me after that, let alone the girls? Bother the girls! I am not likely to see them again, for some years anyhow. Yet I should be sorry to give them occasion for thinking badly of me for all that." I was by this time inside the house, and inquired for Kate, who, on being summoned from an inner room, at once made her appearance. I desired her to come outside with me, as I wished to talk with her about her friend Rachel. This communication at once called up a serious manner, and she instantly left the house with me, when I, in as few words as possible, put her in possession of the fact of the alteration in Mrs. Howden's circumstances, and the necessary change in the terms of their intimacy, that such an alteration involved, delivering Rachel's message to her at the same time.

The poor girl was neither destitute of good feeling nor of good sense. At Rachel's message, the tears flowed from her eyes, but she replied:

"Shure and Kate Dunovan is not the girl to think herself the aiqual of such a lady as Rachel. What for should I be wanting to disgrace her wid my rough company, I would like to know? For among us the poor girl always seemed like a suffering angel among so many divils. And my heart often pitied her lone condition, and I did what I could to help the poor thing: and she always so maik and gintle too, while I knew she was pining at her heart, tied to that divil's own son of a captain, rest his sowl. For he was not a bad sort at bottim, wid all his roughness. And it's myself that's downright glad to hear that's she's now going home to her father, and to live as she should live in her own proper station, and it's nothing that Kate Dunovan wishes her but good luck and joy in the same. But I will go and bid her good-bye, anyhow."

Saying this, Kate hastily went towards the hotel where Rachel was staying, and rushing up to her room, flung her arms around her neck, blessing her after her own rough fashion with all the sincerity and emotion of her warm, impulsive, Irish heart; while with equal emotion on her part, Rachel promised her that she would never lose sight of her again, but that when she got finally settled at her father's house, she would do what she could to befriend her.

"I'll not send you money, Kate," she remarked, "for it

would do you but little good, you would only spend it in drink, or give it away to your companions; but I will do better for you than that, if you will let me."

After this they bade each other farewell.

I then went to the landlord to discharge what debts might be owing to him for Mrs. Howden's board for the past month. This might have been a serious item – for hotel board was at that time an expensive matter in Hokitika – -but for the hotel keeper's consideration for Mrs. Howden's evident poverty, and his interest in the lady-like gentleness of her manner, that induced him to supply her with such needlework as she was competent to undertake.

On understanding this, as also that the landlord – who appeared on the whole to be a good sort of fellow – disclaimed any intention of pressing Rachel for any arrears she might have been unable to meet, Lilly testified his high approbation of his conduct by at once "shouting for the whole house." As the popular interpretation of this phrase meant every one who was inside the house at the time, guests, servants, and tiplers at the bar, besides the landlord and his wife – this order represented drinks at one shilling per glass for about fifty people.

On the following day we sailed for Dunedin.

CHAPTER XLII. DUNEDIN.

CHAPTER XLII.

DUNEDIN.

"Oh! never till this breast grows cold,
Can I forget that hour,
As standing on the vessel's deck,
I watched the golden shower
Of yellow beams that darted
From the sinking king of day,
And bathed in a mellow light
Dunedin from the bay."
– -Thomas Bracken.

MY sensations on sailing up the bay from Port Chalmers to Dunedin were certainly in harmony with those so effectively recorded in the above lines by the genial and talented poet of Dunedin, as he first saw that picturesque city from the harbour. The city's airy situation on the undulating slopes that rise close to the bay, the sound beyond,

and the mighty ocean yet further off, its vast blue expanse and white-crested billows in constant motion, rolling with hoarse murmur on the shore, and on the opposite side the dense foliage of the pine hills and other heights, broken at intervals by the bright fresh green of early summer – give to Dunedin an appearance of picturesqueness and salubrity that I had not hitherto seen equalled by any place I had been in since I left Scotland.

Towards evening the town appeared very animated. It was New Year's Eve, or Hogmanay, as I heard it more generally called, a term that, after my long severance from the land from whence it came, was strongly suggestive of my early home.

On this day the coaches had been coming into the town laden with passengers from all the districts round. Some had come on visits to their town friends, but the majority to witness the celebration of the Caledonian Games, the chief annual festival of this and the neighbouring Scotch province of Southland, that, beginning on the morrow, were to be continued for two days. From this cause, on this important eve of our arrival, all the hotels and respectable houses of accommodation were so crowded with guests that it was with no small difficulty that Lilly and I succeeded in finding a respectable house where we all could be accommodated. Such a place, however, we happily did succeed in hunting out at last in the "Highland Home" – a well known hostelry in Dunedin, that our ignorance of the town had alone prevented our finding out at once, and that, fortunately for us, was not then so full of lodgers as the others were. This house was kept then, and for some years afterwards, by Mrs. Sutherland, a respectable and motherly widow, at whose hands I felt confident at the first glance that Mrs. Howden would receive such kindly attention as she, poor lady, had of late years been but little accustomed to.

After tea, I took a quiet stroll down the street. At intervals, as I passed along, the wild ringing notes of the martial music of the Gael issued from the hotels, and I had already heard similar sounds proceeding from one of the sitting-rooms at the "Highland Home" – that, as its name implied, was a regular gathering place for Highlanders.

At any other time all this pipe music would have sent the blood tingling through my veins, for I have already owned to my degraded tastes for this class of music, that in

English ears sounds so barbarous; but just then I felt too much occupied with soberer thoughts to spare more than a passing thought to what, at other times, would have so delighted me.

Now that all the excitement through which I had recently passed had subsided, the thought uppermost in my mind was as to how I should in future live. This unromantic question persisted in intruding upon my mind. Ere leaving Hokitika I had lessened the amount of my indebtedness to Mr. M'Elwain by £500, retaining a little over £100 for such emergencies as might turn up whilst I was looking out for fresh employment.

In his reply to my communication concerning the disaster that had befallen my station business, Mr. M'Elwain had shown distinct annoyance at what he termed my inexcusable carelessness, although he made no reference to the loss that my ruin had occasioned to himself. This I believe he would have borne in silence rather than have harassed me for the money. It was evident, however, that his confidence in my business capacities was entirely gone, and that I need look for no further help from him in any future venture.

Doubtless, however, the fact of his having suffered himself to be so completely hoodwinked by the specious professions of the hypocritical villain who had ruined me, prevented Mr. M'Elwain from being more openly censorious than he otherwise might have been.

But though I had reason for thankfulness that my cattle business had so speedily enabled me to wipe out such a large part of my debt I was still £500 in arrears, a serious, nay, in my circumstances, an almost hopeless sum for me to expect to be able to defray for years. This my present musings showed me all too plainly. "Mighty fine, these late chivalrous bushranging exploits of yours, I daresay, Duncan Farquharson," I soliloquised in some disgust, "but you will now please devote your thoughts to the more prosaic adventure of earning bread and butter for yourself. And pray how, besides this first necessity, are you to pay your respected kinsman this £500? This I'm sure it passes my imagination to conceive; yet that mountain must be first levelled ere you can take one step towards your own future welfare."

In the midst of all this depression I was not, however, without some gleam of hope that the renewal of my acquaint-

ance with Mr. Rolleston might possibly end in something good for me after all. I had already telegraphed to him the tidings of his daughter's discovery and rescue, and I had received a telegram in reply, informing me that he intended taking passage for Dunedin by the first boat that should leave Melbourne for that town.

However much I might be disposed to disclaim the idea of any sort of monetary recompense for the services I had been able to render Mr. Rolleston's daughter, still, it was evident that I could not prevent the fact of these services becoming known, and when known they would probably create an impression in my favour, as to them would be due the recovery of his daughter. Besides, Mr. Rolleston had in the past had some personal experience of my capabilities for station management. Hence the logical deduction was, that had Mr. Rolleston such a situation vacant, he might bestow it upon me. This reflection revived my spirits upon the whole, and enabled me to get rid of the depression that was beginning to prey upon me.

Next day Lilly and I went to witness the Caledonian Games. We should have taken Mrs. Howden with us if we could have induced her to come, as we both thought that the animating sight of the sports, and the vast crowd of people would have tended to lighten her spirits, but she preferred to remain where she was.

It was the first time since my arrival in New Zealand that I had had the pleasure of witnessing these games; consequently, on entering the large area of ground that has been so liberally endowed for the celebration of these pastimes, I was not a little interested in the animated scene. The ground and grand stand crowded with thousands of spectators – everything gay with the flags of various orders and nationalities fluttering in the breeze – the refreshment booths, and in the centre of the large circular space, round which a deep ring of spectators stood densely packed watching the struggling competitors, the same old lion flag of Scotia that has waved in past ages over so many hard-stricken historic fields: all these things together presented a show that, combined with the influence of a bright day, was truly exhilarating.

CHAPTER XLIII. A GENEROUS OFFER.

CHAPTER XLIII.

A GENEROUS OFFER.

I WAS intently watching an exhibition of Highland dancing. This dance was the reel, and the manner of its excution, by four stalwart Highlanders, was exciting my admiration. I thought it a most gallant entertainment, and it gave me a vivid impression of the prowess of old Caledonia's sons. For such exercises as this, methought, could only have been the expression of the genius of a stalwart and active race.

I was thus absorbed when I suddenly felt a hand upon my shoulder. On turning round, in obedience to this claim upon my attentions, to my equal surprise and pleasure, I saw the tall form, with the usually pale, pensive countenance, of Charles Howden – now lightened up with a smile of pleasant recognition. We shook hands with that cordial grasp that only mutual esteem can give.

Turning away in instant forgetfulness of the scene that had been engrossing my attention, I walked on with my friend till we got free of the crowd, when we slackened our pace for the sake of greater conversational convenience. What the topic of our conversation was the reader can doubtless guess. With all the events of his brother's capture and death, and the active parts taken in connection with them by Lilly and myself, Charles was already acquainted. This much from the newspaper's reports he had already learned.

For the news of my interview with his brother in the goal, he was, however, wholly unprepared. His brow, whose wonted gravity had deepened into sadness when we began to talk, now looked sadder still as I faithfully detailed to him my conversation with his brother, and that brother's last message to himself. Yet he thanked God, in a tone of inexpressible fervour, when he understood that he had hitherto been wronging him by the suspicions of his complicity with Morgan and Wilson's attack upon himself.

That evening I took Charles to the "Highland Home" to tea, and introduced him to Mrs. Howden. On learning his name, Rachel shook hands with him with great feeling. With his name and disposition, she was, indeed, well acquainted already, as at times, when in his better moods,

Howden had spoken to her about this brother in terms that, coming from her husband, had given her a very exalted idea of what her brother-in-law's character must really be.

On Charles' part, Rachel's appearance, with features so worn, and yet so sweet, and still refined, in spite of all the terrible experience of the last few years appeared to make the most favourable impression. During all that evening, what remarks he made to her were addressed in a tone of most marked respect, whilst he appeared, to give the most studious heed to her slightest word, his fine, intellectual countenance being strongly marked with an air of compassionate tenderness as he seemed to realize the full depth of the misery that a person of her disposition and accomplishments must have suffered in the life that her romantic attachment to his brother had entailed upon her. He was, indeed, a man of a rare excellence of spirit, and, as I watched him then, with his attitude of chivalrous respect towards her who had been so degraded and crushed, I felt as if I could have taken him to my heart.

At length the pleasant evening came to a close, and bidding Rachel a kind farewell, Charles took his leave. Lilly retired to his own room, but I went out with Charles to accompany him a part of his way home. On my signifying my intention of doing this, he remarked that he wished to speak to me about something, anyhow.

This something turned out to be a very liberal offer on his part to assist me with means that would enable me to start again in business for myself. For with my present fortunes and prospects, he had, of course, been made pretty well acquainted by the necessity I had been placed under of applying to him for assistance before; and, although I had repaid him in full all that I had then received from him, he shrewdly conjectured from his knowledge of my character, and his acquaintance with the extent of my monetary obligations to my kinsman, what the probable state of my finances were.

He now informed me that he had several thousands of pounds saved, and in safe keeping. That it was his intention, within a week or two at the furthest, to proceed to Melbourne, and thence to sail for Britain. In the home country, it was his intention to invest his money safely, and to spend the remainder of his days quietly. Said he: –

"I have no ambition for the further heaping up of money.

I am the last of the family, and my connections are but few, and those few are personally strangers to me. This £1,000 I can easily spare to you until such time as you are able to refund it to me. Interest from you I neither require nor will accept. You will, by this means, moreover, be able to pay off your debt to your cousin, for, from what I have seen of you, my opinion, Mr. Farquharson, is, that the thought of that debt presses as much upon your sense of independence as in a similar case it would, I know, upon mine.

"Were I not convinced that my poor sister-in-law will shortly be placed under the protection of her wealthy father, whom you tell me is even now on his way from Melbourne, I would have entrusted you with another £1,000 for her future settlement in life – for in this matter at least I should look upon myself as being heir to my poor brother's moral obligations, and should desire to make her some amends for all the bitter wrong she has endured through her devoted attachment to him. But you will, however, accept of this sum from me."

That I was deeply moved at such generosity I need not say, but strong as the temptation was, in the prospect that such a sum at my command opened up, I hesitated to accept it. I had had drilled into me from childhood, by my mother, a perfect horror of debt, and the lesson had been impressed upon me by the example of my father, whose views on this subject had been only too lax. The difficulties that had been brought upon the family by his weakness, had caused my mother to be peculiarly careful to impress all her children with the necessity of scrupulous honesty in money matters.

On the former occasion when I had accepted a loan from Charles, the case had been different, for then I had had a well-defined plan in my mind that I knew would, if properly carried out, realize a handsome profit. Apart from this view of the matter, moreover, I was not without hope of being able to dispense with the necessity for any more capital to enable me to make a fresh start in life. I felt morally convinced that if it lay within his power, Mr. Rolleston would, through his influence, find me some such situation as I had formerly occupied under him. This would be to me a much more agreeable, if slower mode of freeing myself from the difficulties of my present situation, and perhaps yet enable me to occupy a respectable position in life,

With this thought I deemed it best to decline Charles Howden's kind and noble offer till such time as Mr. Rolleston would arrive in Dunedin, when, failing Mr. Rolleston's ability (for I made no doubt of his will) to find such a post for me, I frankly agreed to accept it most gratefully, with this understanding, and wringing his hands with the warmth that such disinterested kindness would naturally inspire, I parted with him, and retraced my steps rapidly to the "Highland Home," with a spirit considerably lightened.

CHAPTER XLIV. HAPPY MEETINGS.

CHAPTER XLIV.

HAPPY MEETINGS.

I ATTENDED the exhibition of games on the second day also, though for but a short time only, for, feeling by that time pretty well satiated with the spectacle, I left early.

It was well on in the afternoon, and I was strolling along the pavement in Princes Street, in a fit of deep meditation, and the central figure of all my thoughts was the same that had at one time held supreme control there, to wit – Rachel Rolleston, now Mrs. Howden. The advantageous position that fortune had now placed me in, towards her who had at one time been the object of my devoted love, and whom I still deeply respected, was also very apparent to my mind. And with it the magnificent prospect of worldly advantages, that the possession of her hand as sole heiress of her father's immense wealth opened up. What need indeed for further toil, or chafing over future prospects, with such a means to fortune, almost within my grasp? These were thoughts that I should have been more than human to have pretended to ignore, but when it came to deliberately acting upon them, there were two distinct bars to the vision.

Firstly, as regarded Mrs. Howden herself, I felt convinced that, though all that respect could give and gratitude bestow were already freely mine, yet there was that in her present condition that would have made the idea of an offer for her hand a matter of simple indelicacy, and especially so in face of the advantages that I should gain, which would at once stamp my action as wholly mercenary.

Secondly, there was an even greater bar to such a proposi-

tion on my part, in my still smouldering passion for Jessie Campbell.

But Jessie had deliberately refused me already. Then why take further account of her? It was true that she had done so. Yet it was none the less true that her image still reigned supreme within my heart, to the exclusion of her once potent rival.

My thoughts reverted to the time when Rachel Rolleston was all in all to me; Jessie nowhere, by comparison. How little then did her manners please me, when held captive by Rachel's charms. To what, then, could the change be due? It was not that I thought that Rachel had degenerated, either through her sorrows or, especially, her marriage with another. I could still imagine my old love surviving the last, whilst my compassion would have been enlisted for the first. Nor could it be that Rachel, by her preference for another, had deliberately abdicated her throne in my heart, for Jessie had done the same.

Thus engrossed in my own thoughts, I slowly sauntered along, when my eyes were attracted by a carriage and pair of peculiarly showy horses that were prancing [by. Whilst my eyes were directed towards it, it was suddenly stopped and the window let down, and a lady's hand extended eagerly towards me.

Wondering who in fortune's name it could be who could be claiming acquaintanceship with me, I stepped across to the side of the carriage, and, to my intense astonishment, recognised the laughing countenance of Mary Campbell, although she was so richly and tastefully attired and adorned with jewellery that I almost doubted the evidence of my own senses.

"Ah, ha! you naughty man, we have found you at last!" she laughed, as I stood gazing in a sort of bewildered way at the unexpected apparition. "Now, don't stand staring there as if you could not believe it was me, for it is me and no one else. Jump in, and you shall soon learn all about what is evidently now such a source of surprise to you."

On complying with her request, I was rather disconcerted on finding myself suddenly in the presence of her sister, of whom, little dreaming of her whereabouts, I had just been so intently thinking. Jessie's cheeks coloured slightly as our eyes met, while she shook me kindly and warmly by the hand. I had never before seen her so reserved. I, too, felt

inclined to be reticent towards her – not, of course, from annoyance, but from confusion – so I continued to address my remarks to Mary.

I should mention that Jessie was dressed with the same elegance as her sister. Both ladies looked superb. Mary was now in the full bloom of womanhood; and, as I gazed on her dimpled cheeks, her graceful proportions, and her bright, blue eyes, I marvelled at the blindness of all her bachelor acquaintances in letting her go free so long. "But bide a wee," as kind, garrulous old Mansie Waugh would have said. I very soon learned that Mary was not quite so free as I had imagined.

Mary, who did all the talking – for Jessie said never a word – now let me into the secret of all their grandeur. It was owing to the sudden reappearance of their long-lost uncle, an immensely wealthy man. Their mother, on receiving his address from Charles Howden, had lost no time in writing to him, when at once determining on putting a period to his career of money-making, he, as soon as he was able to wind up his business, had obeyed his sisters earnest injunction, to set sail for Dunedin, at which place, on his arrival, he at once took steps for settling down for life.

"And nothing would do for him," said Mary, "but we must come and stay with him, and mother has been down since Christmas. And you must never leave us again, for my uncle has more money than he knows what to do with, and I am sure that he will help you to do something better than going wandering about the country. We often wondered where you had got to – Jessie and I were always talking about you and Selim and Lilly. But we were on the look-out for you to-day, for, you see, Mr. M'Gilvray called upon us last night, and told us you were in town, and that he had seen you at the games: and he told us all about your terrible bushranging battles. Why, Duncan, but you are quite a hero now!"

Here Mary stopped, not so much from want of something to say, as for want of breath.

"It is strange," I said, "that Mr. M'Gilvray made no mention of your being in town, when I saw him yesterday; but then I was not in his company more than a minute or so, as he turned round to speak to some one else, and we got separated in the crowd, so I saw no more of him."

"Just like the idle fellow," replied Mary, with a pretty

pout. "He never seems to think of any one but himself, or he would have told you where we were at once. I have a good mind not to speak to him again for that."

In reality, as I very soon learnt, Mary had a good mind to do nothing of the sort. By this time I saw the carriage turning into the drive, and made an effort to get out; but here Jessie joined her sister in resolutely preventing my doing so, and, constrained by their wishes, I accompanied them into the house.

"But why had I made such a silly pretence of reluctance to do that which one would have thought I would have done out of common politeness?"

The truth was, reader, that my feelings in Jessie's presence were so painful that the tumultuous surging of my blood through my veins had made a coward of me, and, with or without reason, I was desirous of beating a speedy retreat from her presence.

The thought of my rejection, when asking for her hand, on the last occasion of our meeting, was still bitter to my memory, and the humiliation of it was the more intense, because of the unabated loyalty of my heart for her still.

With these feelings strong upon me, I accompanied the ladies into the house, resolved firmly not to let my feelings master me.

But when ushered into the handsome sitting-room, the sudden exclamation, in a tone of genuine gladness and surprise of – "Duncan Farquharson, is it possible! how glad I am to see you again" – as Mrs. Campbell took my extended hand, almost put all my prudent resolutions to the rout. As a sort of compromise with myself, however, I took care, when seating myself, to select a chair on the side of the room opposite to where Jessie was seated.

But to maintain even the semblance of reserve in the presence of Mrs. Campbell and her two daughters, who showed such a warm, eager interest in my welfare, seemed to be so hopeless, that I foresaw at once that an inglorious surrender would be inevitable.

I had also here the pleasure of shaking hands with another acquaintance, in the person of Mrs. Ayson, who had been one of my Christmas guests the year before, and on whom I had laid such strict injunctions to bring her husband with her, when she repeated the visit next year. Here, too, was her husband, a mild, blue-eyed, cherry-cheeked, gentlemanly

looking man; and thus meeting within such a few days of the time fixed by my invitation, though in such a manner, and in a place so little dreamt of by me when I gave it, occassioned no little merriment at the time. But to be sure, we were feeling so generally happy, that it took very little to arouse our laughter. The first greetings over, the conversation turned upon the events in which I had so lately taken part, and then at once I thought of Rachel, who, till then, through my confusion, occasioned by my sudden meeting of Jessie, had been forgotten. With this thought came also the reflection of the absurdity of my boggling at entering the house of my newly-found friends, when I had such joyful news to give them, of the recovery of her who had once been so dear to them all.

I had given some particulars about the manner of Howden's capture, at the ladies' request, though they had already from Mr. M'Gilvray received a circumstantial account of the whole thing. When Mrs. Campbell remarked, "But, Duncan, whatever could have induced you and Lilly and Mr. M'Gilvray to join in this desperate affair? or what possible interest could you have had about this man Butler's capture?"

I stared at Mrs. Campbell in some surprise at this question, when I suddenly recollected how much she had yet to learn about the matter. I forgot to state before that Howden was only known to the police by the name of Butler, and that when John M'Gilvray had agreed to make one of our party in the attempt to capture him, I had not informed him of my motives for my strong interest in this man, beyond the remark that I had the most powerful reasons for desiring his capture, and I had not seen John again until I met him at the Dunedin games.

Consequently from his ignorance of Butler's real name, in his narrative to the Campbells, of the circumstances attending the capture, it was only by the name of Butler that he had referred to the prisoner. All this I suddenly recollected now, and said, with a smile, "You consider my action quixotic I see, Mrs. Campbell, but I have only to pronounce one word to cause you to change your views on that point. Then, instead of calling Lilly and me rash for our conduct in venturing into that affair, you will praise us, nay, I venture to say, that you will thank God for having permitted us to render such assistance as we did in effecting that man's capture."

"Indeed," said Mrs. Campbell, looking at me intently, "and what word is it pray, that is to have such a wonderful effect upon me?"

"This man Butler, alias Howden, might possibly have had another alias that would sound more familiar to you," I answered.

"Whatever can you mean, Duncan?" she replied, turning slightly pale, as if thinking that something horrible was about to be revealed; "what alias can that be?"

"Marsden!"

"Merciful heaven!" cried Mrs. Campbell, springing to her feet, as that name aroused a train of most painful thoughts. "And that girl in the tent – – "

"None other than Rachel Rolleston."

"My poor, lost darling!" exclaimed Mrs. Campbell, in a tone and manner of the keenest anguish, as she clasped her hands together at my answer, and both girls joining in au exclamation of sorrow.

"No; not lost, Mrs. Campbell," I said, hastily, springing at the same time to my feet, in the eagerness of my feeling to disabuse the minds of these friends of such unpleasant suspicions concerning Rachel's character. "Not lost, though recovered without one stain of shame upon her brow, save that of the folly of her first step in believing the plausible representations of a thorough villain. Though, heaven knows, a deeper stain than that might well have been effaced by the sea of suffering through which she has since passed."

I then gave them the whole history of Rachel's experience. The silent tears that flowed from the eyes of her friends at the story bore ample testimony to the depth of their sym pathy with Rachel in this sudden eclipse of her happiness. Even Mr. Ayson wiped his eyes, and blew his nose with extraordinary vigour, to the danger of the healthful condition of that organ. On learning where Rachel then was staying, it was at once decided to go and fetch her in the carriage. The mother and both daughters were unanimous in their desire to proceed with me to the "Highland Home," but it was at length settled that Jessie should wait at home and see to the preparation of tea, as the hour for that meal was now at hand, whilst Mary and her mother should accompany me in the carriage.

"Oh! Duncan," Mrs. Campbell feelingly remarked, "both you and Lilly have indeed acted bravely in what you did, and

deep is my gratitude to the Almighty Being who made you both the providential means of this great deliverance."

I involuntarily here glanced towards Jessie. Our eyes met, but, applying her handkerchief to her face, she hastily left the room.

On reaching the "Highland Home," I sprang out of the carriage, and, preceding the ladies, bounded up the stairs and knocked at Rachel's door. On her opening it, I seized her hand, saying, in a low, earnest tone: –

"Courage, dear friend. There are those coming upstairs whom you love well, and who love you. They are Mary Campbell and her mother. I accidentally discovered this afternoon that they were in town. Keep up your courage now, as you always do, and do not let this shock of happiness overpower you altogether."

By this time the ladies, who had been shown the way by the landlady, were on the landing. For a moment, Mrs. Campbell and Rachel and Mary looked earnestly at each other, as if curious to note the changes that had taken place in the time that had elapsed since they had parted. Then, extending her arms, Mrs. Campbell exclaimed, in a broken voice:

"My own darling, have I found you at last?" when, bounding forward, Rachel threw her arms round the neck, and laid her head on the bosom of her who had been a second mother to her. Mary also rushed forward, and the three were locked in one another's arms. Feeling that this was no place for me, I turned and hastily descended the stairs.

As we were entering the carriage to return, Lilly, who had been absent from the house when we arrived, just then chanced to come up; and great was his astonishment when, in the occupants of the carriage, he recognised his old friends.

Regarding the handsome equipage with astonishment, Lilly bluntly remarked: "Why, Mrs. Campbell, you seem to have got up in the world since I last saw you?"

"Not much up, Lilly," replied Mrs. Campbell, with a smile, "although well enough, and thankful for many things. This carriage belongs to the brother you may have heard me speak about sometimes. He has turned up at last: and turned up, I am also happy to say, a wealthy man. Jessie and Mary have been staying with him for some time, but I have only been down since the holidays began. But jump

in; you must come with us too. My brother has often heard us speak of you, and I know he will be very glad to see you. I have heard how nobly you acted in concert with Mr. Farquharson towards our former mistress here; but jump in."

"Tiny is with us, Lilly," Mary put in, archly, on seeing him hesitate. The hint about Tiny had the effect, however, of instantly allaying his fears of compromising his independence by taking his place among company with whom he could not feel at home; and he accordingly took a seat in the carriage, when we drove swiftly to Mr. Carmichael's house. To avoid witnessing another scene when Jessie and Rachel met, I allowed the ladies to enter the house, whilst I stood watching the groom take the horses to the stable.

As for Lilly: on leaving the carriage, he was for striding straight off to the kitchen, when I called after him that he had better come into the house with me, as I knew that he would be expected there.

"No, thank'ee, Mr. Farquharson," he answered, bluntly; "what should I do among the parlour mob, I should like to know?"

I smiled to myself as I shrewdly conjectured it was less his aversion to the "parlour mob" than the magnetic attraction of Tiny's presence in the kitchen that influenced him to move so promptly in that direction.

On entering the house, I met Mr. Carmichael, Mr. John M'Gilvray, and a precise-looking, elderly man, to whom I was introduced as Mr. M'Gilvray, senior. Mr. Carmichael was a bluff-looking gentleman of frank manners and intelligent countenance. He looked considerably older than his sister, although they were twins; but this was no doubt due to the harassing cares of a business life, as well as to the effects of long residence in a sultry climate.

The evening that followed was a most pleasant one. We all engaged in a well-sustained conversation, and "fought our battles o'er again," during which I could not help thinking that I looked very much like a hero, as I realized the fact that there were three people then present whose lives I had at once been instrumental in saving.

There was Mary, whom, with the help of Selim, I had some years before saved from a watery grave in the Murray, and Rachel, who, on the Darling, I had probably been the means of preserving from the horns of an infuriated bollock,

besides the prominent part I had so lately been enabled to play in the scene by which she was ultimately rescued from a miserable state of existence; and, lastly, there was John M'Gilvray, whom I had preserved from strangulation.

I observed, with some surprise, that, contrary to what I had expected, John M'Gilvray attached himself to Mary during the evening, and well did this charming young lady now look with her vivacity and dimpling cheeks as she parried some thrust from her companion, with a quiet counter sally of wit, that generally had the effect of unexpectedly turning the tables upon him, when the merry-hearted fellow signalled his defeat by a hearty laugh.

Jessie was consequently seated by me at the tea-table, and afterwards seemed to prefer to have her chair by mine, though she spoke but little. As for Rachel, she kept her place close by Mrs. Campbell during the whole evening, and I observed that the elder lady's eyes, as if moved by a feeling of maternal solicitude, scarcely ever left the face of her long-mourned friend.

The evening was considerably advanced, when some reference chanced to be made to Lilly as being in the kitchen.

"Eh, what's that? what's that?" cried Mr. Carmichael, quickly, and starting from his seat as he spoke. "Do you mean to say that your friend Lilly has been in the kitchen all the evening? Why let him remain there? Bring him in here instantly."

"I am afraid, Malcolm," replied Mrs. Campbell with a smile, "you will find that Lilly has his own peculiar notions about what he thinks to be his proper place, and these notions you will find it a vain task to try to knock out of his head. Knowing this peculiarity of his, I took no pains to disturb him where I knew he was perfectly contented to be."

"Then," said Mr. Carmichael impetuously, "if he won't come to where we are, I will go to where he is. Come with me, Isa, and introduce me to him. Come along, M'Gilvray, and get yourself introduced to this man: after what I have so often heard my sister and niece say [of him, and what his conduct has lately been in the bushranger exploit, I am sure he is worth knowing."

We all, that is, all save Mrs. Howden and Jessie, rose and adjourned to the kitchen, where we found Lilly, apparently happy as a king, "spinning," as he himself termed it, "cuf-

fers" to Tiny about old times, and late times, too, and all the adventures he had been through since he had last seen her.

"Lilly," said Mrs. Campbell, as we all entered the kitchen, "this is my dear brother, Malcolm; he washes to be introduced to you."

"Wishes to be introduced to me?" replied Lilly, bluntly; "that's easily done, for here I am at his service, and I am glad to know your brother, Missis; for if he is anything like you, I know he is worth knowing."

"Thanks, Mr. Lilly," said Mr. Carmichael, laughing. "I hope I deserve some part of this compliment at least, But why, man, should you be content to stay in the kitchen r My sister's friends are surely worth inviting to sit where she and I sit."

"I thank you for thinking that much of me, sir, but Mrs. Campbell knows my way, and it is my way to think that a working man should keep among working men, and a 'swell' among 'swells.' Now, I am no 'swell,' and I don't think I am ever likely to be one. Not but that I think myself as good as any 'swell' for all that, for, on that point, I am like Bobbie Burns, who said that –

'The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.'"

"Right, Lilly! I honour you the more for sticking to such sentiments as these, and there is no man that I more truly respect than an independent, upright, and down straight working man; I have risen in the world myself, but I have known what it is to turn my hand to a hard day's work with pick and shovel, and it is for that reason that I have learned to respect a man as a man only, in whatever sphere I find him."

With a few more remarks, Mr. Carmichael shook hands heartily with Lilly – the elder Mr. M'Gilvray following suit in an equally frank and pleasant way – and Mr. Ayson in a more genteel though none the less sincere fashion. On our return to the sitting-room, spirits and some supper were laid on the table. Having taken of the former sparingly, I rose to depart, to Mr. Carmichael's great surprise, who had taken it for granted that I was to pass the night under his hospitable roof. But although Mrs. Campbell and Mary joined vigorously with Mr. Carmichael in trying to overrule my

decision, Jessie said nothing, though she looked as if she would have liked to very much, I thought best to be firm on this point. Por although I had ingloriously surrendered my position of composed reserve, in front of Jessie, and had, I fear, become as chatty and frankly communicative as if i had never suffered the heroic grief of slighted love, there was still that much of the spirit of pride left in me as to cause me to preserve at least some appearance of consistency with what I conceived should have been my line of action.

Both Mr. Carmichael and Mr. M'Gilvray senior, accompanied me to the door, after I had shaken hands warmly with all in the room. When at the door, Mr. M'Gilvray remarked, "You are not thinking of going away from town for a few days, at least, I hope. I have a particular reason for desiring you not to leave Dunedin at present."

I replied that I should most likely be in town for a week anyhow, and perhaps longer – as it depended entirely on the nature of any opening that might offer for my future employment.

"Just so," replied Mr. M'Gilvray. "But anyhow, whatever crops up, be sure and let us – that is, Mr. Carmichael and myself – see you before you take any steps for the future."

"Surely Mr. Farquharson will do so, for I expect nothing less than that he will, at any rate, pass his evenings with us, even if he is determined not to take up his quarters in my house whilst in town. You will certainly do this, won't you, Mr. Farquharson?"

"I'll not actually promise that I will do so, Mr. Carmichael; so much must depend on other things."

"Mr. Rolleston, on his arrival, will, of course, stay with us, and I believe that the 'Tararua ' is expected to-morrow evening at Port Chalmers; you must certainly come up when he does arrive."

"I most certainly will, Mr. Carmichael, not only because of my natural pleasure in seeing him, but for other reasons as well."

"That is right; we will expect you to tea then to-morrow evening."

"If the 'Tararua' should have arrived in time to allow Mr. Rolleston to reach Dunedin by that time, I will be there."

"Then that is settled, I will send the carriage to the

wharf to meet Mr. Rolleston when he lands, and have him driven to my house at once."

With this understanding and a cordial exchange of handshakes we parted. Lilly, who had been warned of my departure, I found waiting outside at the gate, and together we strode off in high feather to the "Highland Home."

CHAPTER XLV. FORTUNE AT LAST.

CHAPTER XLV.

FORTUNE AT LAST.

THE "Tararua" arrived in Port Chalmers several hours earlier than had been anticipated. Consequently, her passengers for Dunedin were landed at the jetty about four o'clock on the same afternoon. Apprised of this in time, I was on the wharf when the steamer arrived, and among her passengers I had the felicity of at once recognising my quondam employer, though now sadly altered by sorrow, against which his immense wealth had proved no specific. Grasping my hand with almost nervous eagerness, he betrayed what thoughts were uppermost in his mind, by the hurried ejaculation, "My daughter, is she well?"

"Well, and as happy as the society of her best friends can make her, for she is at present with the Campbells," I replied with a smile.

"May the Lord reward you, Mr. Farquharson, for your goodness to my unhappy child, and for lifting off such a load of sorrow from my heart. But are the Campbells here? I always thought that they lived in Southland."

I put him in possession of the circumstances that occasioned the presence of Mrs. Campbell and her daughters in Dunedin, as also of the happy accident of my meeting them as I had done.

"But see," I continued, "here is Mr. Carmichael's carriage that he has sent to meet you, as he promised to do; so we had better get in at once and you must prepare your mind, my dear sir, for meeting with your daughter within half an hour."

In much less than that time Mr. Carmichael's spirited horses had borne us up to his house. Mr. Carmichael himself was on the verandah as we drew up. Hastily descending the steps, he met us as we stepped out of the carriage.

"Mr. Rolleston, I presume?" he remarked, as, without farther ceremony, he took that gentleman's hand within his own cordial grasp; while, by way of introduction, I said: "This is Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Rolleston."

"Compose yourself, my dear sir," the former now rejoined; "you will find your daughter awaiting you inside; come away." They entered the house, but not thinking it quite in taste to make myself a spectator of the meeting that would follow between the long-divided father and daughter, I lingered on the veranda for some time.

When I eventually entered, Mr. Rolleston was seated in an easy chair by the fire, showing by the way he bent towards it that his thin Australian blood was particularly sensitive to the chill breeze that so frequently rises of an evening in New Zealand. Beyond, however, a quietly happy expression on his face, there was no indication of any unusual emotion – no expression of delight in the romance of the hour – for the simple reason that there was not one particle of romance in Mr. Rolleston's prosaic nature. Save in the first rush of his natural feeling as a father (and of these he had his full share) on his meeting with his long-lost daughter, when he was overcome for a few moments, there was nothing to show that his thoughts had been moved from their wonted prosaic channel. And, though not without gratitude of the sincerest kind towards me, as his subsequent conduct showed, he had by this time assumed his wonted plain, practical manner of discourse; and business matter's and topics of the day, ever paramount in his mind, were now being as calmly passed under review by him as if nothing extraordinary had so lately occurred to displace the habitual current of his thoughts. By his side sat his daughter, with a sweet expression of grateful love that gave a flush to her face and a softer light to her eye.

The conversation I will not attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that that evening was one of unmixed happiness.

As the evening drew on, other visitors, in the persons of the M'Gilvrays (father and son), arrived. Lilly also found his way into the kitchen again, where he appeared to be perfectly at home, chatting with Tiny, as that comely damsel busied herself with the duties of her office.

That Tiny's interest in Lilly's arrival was of the liveliest kind appeared to be amply demonstrated by the cordiality of her welcome and the liveliness of her speech, so con-

trary to her wonted demureness and almost staidness of manner.

On hearing that Lilly was in the kitchen, Mr. Rolleston instantly proceeded thither and, greeting him most cordially, took a seat and entered into conversation with him, as in former times had been his frequent habit. For Mr. Rolleston was always plain in his manners, and utterly wanting in that pride of place that causes most people in his position to affect an air of superiority when conversing with their dependents. Long, on the present occasion, did he stay talking with his former stockman, of whose worth and integrity he had always entertained such a high opinion. As for Lilly, he conversed in the same blunt manliness of tone to his old employer that he was ever wont to observe when under him, and for whom, as a master, his regard had been as great as had Mr. Rolleston's of him as a servant. Perhaps, on the present occasion, the wonted bluntness of his manners might have been slightly softened into a tone of more marked respect, for the pathos attending Mr. Rolleston's present circumstances and appearance in meeting with his daughter, to whose recovery Lilly's own chivalrous exertions had so largely contributed.

While Mr. Rolleston was with Lilly, Mr. Carmichael and the elder Mr. M'Gilvray had also risen and withdrawn into another room where they remained a considerable time as if engaged in the discussion of matters of business. In due time I rose to take my departure. As I shook hands with Mr. M'Gilvray senior, he glanced inquiringly at Mr. Carmichael.

"Yes, I know," the latter replied, as if in answer to a mute inquiry, and going to the door with me requested me particularly to come to tea on the morrow, as there was a matter of business that he and Mr. M'Gilvray wished to discuss with me. "Tell Lilly to come also," he continued.

Of course this I readily promised to do, and shaking hands with him very heartily went away, wondering what the nature of this business might be.

On the following evening I duly fulfilled my promise, while, as usual, Lilly made for the kitchen. After tea I was summoned into another apartment, whither Mr, Carmichael, the elder Mr. M'Gilvray, and Mr. Rolleston had already repaired. As this apartment was evidently used by Mr. Carmichael as an office, I immediately surmised that the

subject for which I was now summoned must be something official. I was not permitted to remain long in suspense as to the nature of this business, for almost upon seating myself, the precise mannered Mr. M'Gilvray delivered himself thus –

"We have sent to you, Mr Farquharson, to speak to you on a simple matter of business. I am, myself, a practical man, who seldom wastes time in beating about the bush where business is concerned; so on the present occasion I will go to the point of what I desire to speak to you about at once. From your own remarks, and what we have otherwise learned of your late history, Mr. Farquharson, I think I am right in assuming that you are not very well off in money matters. This being apparent, both these gentlemen and myself, who have all such occasion for gratitude towards you – and, speaking for myself, for your courageous behaviour in preserving my son from a cruel and shocking death" – Mr. M'Gilvray's voice here momentarily quavered – "for which words fail me to express my thankfulness – I say," he continued, clearing his throat and regaining mastery of his voice, "that both those gentlemen and myself have been consulting together how we can in some measure express our sense of these obligations to you. Now, one way presents itself of doing this in a substantial way, which I conceive should not be painful to you to accept of, nor unreasonable in us to offer you. In my hands lately, as estate agent, there has been placed for disposal a valuable run on the Windaway river. The run carries at present twenty thousand sheep, and its grazing capacities are such that two or even three thousand more added to that number would not overstock it. Now as the occasion of this sale is simply compulsory – being pressure of the mortgagees, who have no confidence in the present owner, who appears to have been a most injudicious manager – all this fine property can be obtained on the payment of the mortgagees' claims – that is £1 a head for the sheep. So that £20,000 will purchase it all, including improvements, horses and cattle, of which latter, however, there is no great stock on the place. Now the case stands simply thus: this property we three have decided to purchase for you, and you can repay us by yearly instalments.

"According to the most prudent calculations made by Mr. Rolleston and myself – who you will admit ought to be good judges of such matters – with such an advantageous start,

there should be no obstacle in the way of an intelligent and energetic man making all this magnificent property his own in ten years' time, at the very furthest. Of your own fitness for such an undertaking, Mr. Rolleston's past experience of your efficiency and integrity when in his service would be ample proof, even if none other were forthcoming; but I have also the testimony of my son. It may be pleasing to you also to know that Mr. Rolleston himself has offered to supplement his own share of the cost of this purchase, by his personal security to both Mr. Carmichael and myself, against the possible contingency of loss to us in the undertaking. This security we have, however, declined, for being equally obliged with him we have thought it only right to be equal partakers in the risks that may be involved in this manner of expressing our sense of these obligations. Interest on this money of course you will be charged, but it will be at the lowest market rate, as our desire is to benefit you and not to burden you. Now what do you say to this proposal? I should think it is one that is in every way suited to your taste and spirit."

I, at first, felt quite stupefied with the very magnificence of the offer thus suddenly held out for my acceptance. But gradually, as I deliberately contemplated the full bearings of this proposal, so congenial to my taste and habits, my natural hardihood of spirit reasserted itself, and in thought, I could already feel my knees pressing Selim's sides, as I made the rapid circuit of this new field for my energies; and, with alert eyes, marked the details, the attention to which was to crown my undertaking with the stamp of efficient management. Nor in the present instance did my natural horror of debt appal me as it had done at the idea of a loan from Charles Howden, when the prospect of a profitable investment had appeared so vague and shadowy. It happened also that I knew something of this same station property, for a few days before I had heard all its advantages canvassed by a station manager from the same district, with whom I had by chance foregathered at the Caledonian games. Taking all things together, therefore, I saw my way clear to the end, with as good a chance as ever man had, of coming out at that end a winner.

These were the palmy days of wool and mutton, when a man with any practical sense and energy could not possibly have failed of success under such advantageous conditions as

were then submitted to me. I, however, thought of Lilly, and determined on securing his co-operation with me in this enterprise. For while the thought pleased me of enabling him to share in my good fortune, I knew also that with his intelligence and energy in co-operation with my own, the risks of ultimate failure were proportionately reduced. To Mr. M'Gilvray's question I accordingly made answer: –

"Gentlemen, that my thanks to you all are of the deepest and sincerest nature, for such unheard of generosity in making me such a magnificent offer as this, I need not say; and though the responsibility of incurring such a monetary obligation seems such a serious one, yet in view of the advantages I can see in this prospect, I have enough faith in my own sense and energy to induce me to accept your noble offer, as I feel convinced that you will never have cause to repent putting such trust in me as you have now shown. Yet, although certain that I shall be able to go through with this undertaking successfully by myself, I should be just as pleased if my friend Lilly could go with me into it. He has some money of his own to begin with, and with him. to help me, any risk that there may be in this would be lessened."

"Good! I approve of your idea, Mr. Farquharson," here spoke Mr. Rolleston. "To Lilly's integrity and abilities, my own long experience enables me to bear the very highest testimony, and I should be glad to see him go with you as a partner in this run."

"Let Lilly be sent for then at once, that we may see what he has to say himself about the matter," said Mr. Carmichael.

Accordingly, Lilly was sent for. He came, and on the nature of the proposal being explained to him, he, for a minute or so, considered it squarely, and then gave his opinion, with his accustomed straightforward bluntness.

"There is no man I know of that I would sooner go mates with into any speculation than with Mr. Farquharson. And if there is no other way for it, I am willing to go along with him into this run; but, left to my own choice, I would sooner be my own master, with what I have, than go partners with any one; and no man can be his own master while he is a partner. I have £1,000 of my own money, and this money I will put into this business with Mr. Farquharson, if there is no other way for him to get the run; but, if he can get on without me, I would sooner

myself buy a small place, and work it after my own fashion. This is my mind on the matter."

"Then," replied Mr. M'Gilvray, "there is no cause why you should not follow your own wish, the more so, as bordering this run, I have also for disposal a small place, with a freehold of good arable land, of about 700 acres, and a government lease of mountain country, that, in all, is capable of carrying about 3,000 sheep."

"This is the place for me," said Lilly, emphatically, "and let Mr. Farquharson take up the big run; and when he wants any help for mustering, or anything else, he will know where to find me."

Thus this great matter was settled, and thus once more the clouds lifted from my life's prospect, and another stage in my chequered career began.

I then informed these true friends of Charles Howden's generous offer a few days before, and my motives for hesitating, at the time, to accept it.

"How like Charles Howden!" Mr. Carmichael warmly exclaimed, on hearing this. "My kind old friend, how true he appears to have always proved to that ideal that he seemed so early to have set up for his own guidance! I trust I shall see him to-morrow. I will look him up at his lodgings, if you will come with me, Mr. Farquharson."

I replied that I would do so willingly.

Next day, accordingly, I took Mr. Carmichael to Howden's lodgings, where we found him at home. Long did these old friends converse together of days gone by, and the strange vicissitudes of life encountered since. I told him, too, of the bright change in my prospects, and to whom I was indebted for it. Mr. Carmichael strongly advised Charles against his idea of settling in the old country, where he would simply lead a melancholy life in scenes from which his tastes and sympathies had been long weaned by his colonial experience.

"Go home, by all means," was his practical friend's advice, "and solace your spirit with a sight of your childhood's haunts, but leave the bulk of your money, at interest, where you are. You will find yourself sated with a very few months of residence at home, with all its formalities and old-world notions, from which your long intimacy with the rough independence of colonial ways has utterly alienated all your sympathies."

To this shrewd advice Charles was eventually persuaded to listen, and the event amply justified its wisdom. Within twelve months of his departure for Britain, Charles returned again to Dunedin quite content to settle there for life.

Impatient to visit our future homes, Lilly and I left Dunedin for the Windaway as soon as the necessary legal business in connection with them was fairly put through. Nor was our gratification at our new possessions a whit lessened on finding that our homes were not more than four miles apart, because my home station had been built near the end of the property marching with Lilly's ground.

Our manner of parting with our kind friends in Dunedin I will not particularise, but I do believe that Mary's regret on that occasion was not a little increased on Selim's account, on whose back, ever since the happy accident of our meeting, she was accustomed to take daily exercises; and for which animal, ever since her adventures with him on the Darling, when on the red bullock's broad forehead he gave the full benefit of his clattering heels, her regard had amounted to positive affection.

CHAPTER XLVI. CONCLUDING REMARKS.

CHAPTER XLVI.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

"Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds." – PROVERBS xxvii. 23.

THE end of my narrative is now at hand; and the readers who have found sufficient interest in these pages to accompany me so far, will now be in a fair position to form an estimate of my individual character. There is little of interest that remains to be told, and what there is, I will tell as briefly as I can.

To begin with, then, I will say that, in my new undertaking, matters prospered so well with me, that thanks to my unremitting attention and diligent economy, in six years I had little more than £3, 000 remaining unpaid of my monetary obligations to those generous friends who had started me in this run; moreover, I had repaid the £500 still owing to my kinsman.

At this time, however, a change in the conditions of the

land tenure of runholders necessitated my making – in order to preserve the best of my station from being cut up into farm allotments – freehold of all this land, comprising 15,000 acres – excellent arable land the whole of it. All this I was enabled to secure only by the use of such influence in high quarters as, I confess, had the effect of raising a howl of indignation from the popular party at such unprincipled "toadying" to the interests of the "bloated squatter," for I had secured it all at the upset price of £1 per acre. As I, however, felt quite justified in an action that was quite legal, this howl I paid but little attention to.

The necessity for this purchase, however, threw me back in my monetary obligations almost to my starting point six years before, though of course with property much increased in value, as being freehold. Though a sudden fall in the price of wool (that, however, regained its former value in the market in a couple of seasons), a few years after making this purchase, gave me an anxious time while it lasted; yet, steadily pursuing the same method and economy of expenditure as before, I contrived to avoid the rocks on which so many runholders struck, to wit, extravagant expenditure of money on improvements, and wasteful farming.

At the time of my writing this, my place is almost free from debt and in excellent working order. All this, I imagine, is saying a great deal in face of the sharp experience of so many years of depression, that runholders, as well as other business men, have had to face. And now the near prospect of a move from the time-worn primitive residence in which we have hitherto resided, to one of a more pretentious class – a long deferred hope – seems to mark the culmination of happiness to Jessie and myself.

"Jessie and yourself? What! You really married Jessie after all, and not a word to say how it came about?"

Yes! Of further romance in this matter there remains no more to be told. The cause of the sudden change in my love prospects can be related in a very few words.

It was on a hint that I received from Mary – mind you, ere I had been aware of the sudden brilliant change that was dawning upon my prospects – that she had often seen Jessie crying over my photograph, on my sudden disappearance after the collapse of my lake station, that I conceived that my prospects with her were not quite so desperate as I had been led to believe. After this I took the very earliest

opportunity I could for an interview with Jessie, and after a very few words of passionate entreaty, she let the mask of indifference fall from her sweet loving face, and with an irrepressible burst of tears, leant her head upon my shoulder, while I pressed her in a fond embrace to the heart that had so long and loyally treasured her. Shortly afterwards we were married by the Rev. Dr. Stuart. Now I have six healthy boys and one girl, who is the youngest and the pet.

It appeared that John M'Gilvray had really entertained thoughts of asking Jessie's hand; but he was a clever, practical man who would be the very last to break his heart for a woman's love. His common sense soon showed him that with Jessie he had not the ghost of a chance. Yet, by a singular coincidence, at the time that he made this discovery, he also made another, and that was the superior charms, in his eyes at least, of Jessie's sister Mary; and they were married at the same time, and by the same kindly hands as Jessie and I. They immediately settled down on the station owned by John's father that was given to the son by him. They, too, have now several blooming children. Thus was Mrs. Campbell in one day deprived of both her daughters. But she bore her loss the more resignedly, that one of them was afterwards to be her own next neighbour. Mr. Carmichael, however, made a sort of good-humoured protest at being then suddenly deprived of what he termed his two bonnie housekeepers, but he was laughed and kissed into acquiescence with the necessities of the case.

Shortly after my own marriage and settlement in life were thus accomplished, I became concerned about Lilly. We were frequently at one another's places, and I observed that he was becoming silent and moody. It was not that he was dissatisfied with his new home, for he had expressed himself as being delighted with it, and upon his arrival there had set himself to work with his accustomed energy, upon his improvements and management, when all of a sudden he began to grow listless and careworn. The fact was, that Lilly, who never had more than one heart for a woman's love, had offered that to Tiny, who, from what seemed to be a mere feminine caprice, had declined the gift. Tiny was now staying with her parents, who owned a farm not many miles away, in the same district in which Lilly and I had settled.

Tiny's motives, however, for refusing Lilly, were not those

of mere feminine caprice, for she in reality entertained such a genuine regard for him that her own heart smote her sorely in being obliged to give him the pain of this refusal. It was simply a matter of religious principle that had caused this conscientious girl to act in the manner she did. Tiny was a strictly Bible-taught Presbyterian, whilst, by profession at least, Lilly was a Roman Catholic. Now, whatever effect love's all potent influence might yet possibly have in softening down Tiny's own conscientious objections on this head, by Tiny's mother, a rigid Presbyterian of inflexible principles and old world prejudices, popish views were looked upon with horror, so that this was deemed an insuperable bar to her daughter's union with Lilly.

With all this I was fully acquainted, as Tiny had detailed it all to Jessie, hence my information on the subject. Much therefore did I cogitate on the possibility of being able to reconcile these jarring elements, that threatened to sap the happiness of my old friend's hitherto contented life.

Of old I had known that Lilly's religion was simply traditional, and that real attachment to the leading Romish doctrines he had none; or rather, I should say, that to some such – as the celibacy of the clergy – their claims to the power of forgiveness of sins, and of papal infallibility, he was roundly antagonistic. I knew, moreover, that beyond what information he had been able to gather from the wordy disputes of polemical shepherds and shearers, in the station huts in Australia, that doctrinal knowledge of the rival merits of Popery and Protestantism he actually had none. For among the elements that went to make up Lilly's early scanty education, religious teaching was an item that had been left out of the question altogether.

Love is a potent factor in helping most people to overcome difficulties that stand in the way of its consummation. In the present instance, at my suggestion, it caused Lilly, in order, as he said, to see to the bottom of this doctrinal difficulty, to resort to the local clergyman for information. A better step he could not have taken, for this Mr. Davidson was a well read person. He was particularly well versed in all the points at issue between Catholics and Protestants, and, being as pious as he was erudite, it was a matter of delight to himself to help Lilly through his difficulties, by faithfully explaining the different renderings of these doctrinal texts. He did not stop there, for besides mere doctrinal

knowledge, he revealed in his teaching the Christ who was behind all these doctrines, until such scales fell from my old friend's darkened eyes, that at length, instead of a blind traditional adherent to a Church, the chief of whose doctrines he had ever repudiated, he was able to say with humble earnestness, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."

To Tiny Sutherland, with her rigid, Bible-loving mother's consent, he was shortly afterwards wedded, and the little group of fair, curly-haired and dark-eyed toddlers – according as they reflect the images of either parent – may be seen now about the door, to prove that their union has not been fruitless. And a fond father Lilly makes; for, when in the house, he is seldom to be seen without one of his children on his knee. He has prospered also; and although his bluntness of speech, impatient spirit, and sarcastic wit are, as of old, still outward manifestations of the irrepressible Old Adam, yet behind these is a spirit of earnest, Christian consistency. This, combined with his strong force of character and keen sagacity, has caused Lilly's opinion to be deferred to on all matters of public interest that crop up in the neighbouring borough of Risington. As of old, when the influence of these traits gave him such prominence among the rough and ready and frequently fractious bushmen in Australia, they still carry the same marked influence with all classes here, and all this influence is always on the side of good. His old mechanical and manual ingenuity were also here strikingly and amusingly exemplified. Although Lilly had probably hardly ever seen a plough at work until after purchasing his own farm, yet, determining to obtain a thorough insight into the working of this implement, he undertook the holding of it himself; nor did he desist, until at ploughing matches, in two successive years, he, first with the single, and next with the double furrow plough, carried off the first prize, defeating on both occasions competitors renowned over all the districts round. After this he resigned the further working of the plough to his hired man.

Of William Lampiere, too, there remains something to be told. It was several years after my settlement in the Windaway district, that one evening, among the contents of the mail's budget, there came a parcel, which, on being opened, turned out to be a slim volume of poems, on the gilt letter-

ing of the green cloth covering of which I saw printed, to my great surprise and pleasure,

BUSH POEMS,
BY
WILLIAM LAMPIERE.

My first impulse was to send a messenger post haste to summon Lilly to view this permanent memento of his friend's poetical talent, but a second thought caused me to pause in my purpose. Lampiere had, since parting on the Darling, kept up a regular correspondence with Lilly; and although Lilly's distaste to the use of a pen amounted almost to a positive aversion, yet his genuine affection for Lampiere constrained him to write in acknowledgment of his friend's monthly epistle about twice in the year. I, therefore, judged that the same post that brought this book to me had brought another to Lilly also. Indeed I thought it would be strange if Lilly did not shortly appear to tell me of the very news that I was on the point of sending to him.

It turned out as I had thought it would. In little more than an hour afterwards, Lilly came into the parlour, with an expression of exultation on his countenance, at what he considered such a convincing proof of Lampiere's genius that was almost laughable in its very childlike earnestness, the more so as it was in such singular contrast to the keen and almost sarcastic expression on Lilly's features at other times.

The book consisted of rather more than one hundred pages. The poems were short, some of a meditative character, and others descriptive of bush scenes and scenery, and they certainly, in my judgment showed merit in the earnestness of their tone and truthfulness of their colouring. But best of all in Lilly's eyes there was his favourite poem, "The Hut-keeper's Address."

I observed afterwards some critical notices of this book in the Australian and New Zealand papers. Most of these were kindly and encouraging in their tone, save the conservative Australasian, that only deigned to notice this humble yet genuine contribution to colonial literature with a supercilious snub, "that proved the man who wrote it to be only a common snob," as Lily remarked in wrath when he read it.

About twelve months afterwards we had a visit from Lampiere himself. I was very glad to see him, and to know that he was doing well in his situation, and that his friend Burrell had succeeded so well with his literary journal that it was now quite an established and widely-read periodical.

While he remained, he resided chiefly with Lilly. Although he always found a welcome in our house which he occasionally availed himself of. He seemed to be greatly entertained with the children, and a short poem that he wrote descriptive of our house and social amenities, Jessie declared to be prettier than any in the book. It was entitled "On the Appearance of a Home of Friends."

"Their children numbered seven,
And beautiful were they,
With eyes like stars of heaven;
Brows open as the day.
There were Jim and Jack, and Tom and Dick,
And Bab, and little Sandy,
And Saucy Kate, her mother's pet,
Nicknamed Sugar Candy."

Mrs. Howden and her father returned to Melbourne a few days after the business in connection with the purchase of my run was concluded. Although in her own quiet way supremely happy, that elasticity of spirit that had once imparted such a ringing joyousness to her manner Rachel never regained. In its place, her manners became pervaded by a deep, unostentatious piety. Of suitable offers of marriage – some of them representing positions in society that might well have tempted her, had she been influenced by feelings of personal vanity – she had several, but declined them all. True to her promise to Kate, her first care when she found herself settled at home was to invite the poor girl to place herself under her protection. This Kate, after some preliminary difficulty, at length consented to do, when by Rachel's unremitting kindness and earnest conversation, she soon became completely reformed.

The happiest times in our home life are when it is brightened with Rachel's presence during the occasional visits to New Zealand, when the principal part of her time is distributed equally among her former friends, the Campbells, M'Gilvrays, and ourselves. If her wealth, as her father's sole heir, is great, the sums that she annually disburses on

behalf of various charities are also great, and to such as work in the direction of providing for the reclamation of such as Kate Dunovan, her sympathy is ever ready and her purse ever open.

As for Charles Howden, the calm brightness of his life's middle age seems to have amply compensated for the troubled clouds that had so long obscured its spring. He breaks the monotony of his town life by visits to his country friends. To me his face is ever welcome, and his society ever a boon. But it is chiefly with the Campbells that his time is spent.

Of the manner of Selim's end, it now but remains to say a few words ere I close this narrative.

About seven years after my settlement on my station, on going out one morning to the paddock, to my sorrow, I found Selim – that, save in the severest weather, was always suffered to go in the paddock, as with his natural hardy constitution he took badly to the stable – lying down, with his legs bent under him, in a paroxysm of cramp. I tried what remedies I could think of to recover him, but in vain. The sands of life with my brave old steed were evidently running out. The effects of former toil had told at last, and his once powerful constitution had suddenly collapsed. I was not able to get him on his legs again. And the most trying action that I was ever called upon to perform in my life, was when, after tying my handkerchief round his eyes (thereby sparing myself the additional pang of observing the intelligent animals possible consciousness of the action that cruel necessity impelled me to), I put the muzzle of my revolver almost against his forehead, and pulling the trigger, thus put him beyond the reach of pain that I could not otherwise relieve. Digging a deep pit beside him, I there interred him, and at his head, I had shortly afterwards a large square post erected to commemorate the spot where lay the remains of the brave companion of my wanderings.

THE END.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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