"Oh, don't mention it! I'm sure we're very happy to"---- she hesitated, blushing desperately.

"Well, good-bye, Miss Jemima."

"Good-bye," she murmured, half-extending her hand.

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

"I hope so," she faltered.

"Good-bye, Jim," said I, slowly releasing her hand.

"Good-bye." The word sounded like a breath of evening air, kissing the she-oak foliage.

Then the maiden with the meek brown eyes, and the pathetic evidence of Australian nationality on her upper lip, returned to her simple duties.

And the remembrance of Mrs. Beaudesart came down on me like a thousand of bricks. Such is life.

But my difficulties were over for the time being. My loco. had jolted its way over the rough section, carrying away an obstruction labelled V.R., and had reached the next points. I was still two or three days ahead of my official work; and there had happened to be a stray half-crown in the pocket of the spare oriflamme I had unfurled at my camp.

Should I push on to Hay on the strength of that half-crown, draw my 8 6s. 8d., and send my clothier a guileful letter, containing a money-order for, say, thirty shillings? This would test his awfulness at finding out things, besides giving myself, morally, a clean bill of health. Or should I first walk across to B----'s and get d.i.c.k L---- to shift some of my inborn ignorance re Palestine?

I decided on the latter line of action, and followed it with--Well, at all events, I have the compensating consciousness of a dignity uncompromised, and a nonchalance unruffled, in the face of d.i.c.k's really interesting descriptions of South-eastern Tasmania. Concerning my lapse of engagement on the previous evening, I merely remarked that the default was caused my circ.u.mstances over which &c.

I spent a couple of days, besides Sunday, at B----'s place; while the fisherman kept an eye on my horses. I helped B---- to work out a new and rotten idea of a wind-mill pump; d.i.c.k handing me things, and holding the other end. On the first afternoon, a couple of hours after my arrival, I drove into for some blacksmith work; and, whilst it was being done, I looked in at the Express office, and had a gossip with Archimedes on the topics of the day.

And now, whilst duly appreciating the rect.i.tude of soul which has carried me through this trying disclosure, you will surely condone the obscurity in which I have been compelled to envelop all names used herein.

CHAPTER IV

SUN. DEC. 9. Dead Man's Bend. Warrigal Alf down. Rescue twice.

Enlisted Terrible Tommy.

Now what would your novelist rede you from that record, if he had possession of my diary? Something mysterious and momentous, no doubt, and probably connected with buried treasure. Yet it is only the abstract and brief chronicle of a fair average day; a day happy in having no history worth mentioning; merely a drowsy morning, an idle mid-day, and a stirring afternoon. Life is largely composed of such uneventful days; and these are therefore most worthy of careful a.n.a.lysis.

How easy it is to recall the scene! The Lachlan river, filled by summer rains far away among the mountains, to a width of something like thirty yards, flowing silently past, and going to waste. Irregular areas of lignum, hundreds of acres in extent, and eight or ten feet in height, representing swamps; and long, serpentine reaches of the same, but higher in growth, indicating billabongs of the river. The river itself fringed, and the adjacent low ground dotted, with swamp box, river coolibah, and red-gum--the latter small and stunted in comparison with the giants of its species on the Murray and Lower Goulburn. On both sides of the river, far as the eye can command, extend the level plains of black or light-red soil, broken here and there by clumps and belts of swamp box, now cut off from the line of the horizon by the quivering, gla.s.sy stratum of the lower atmosphere.

And where the boundary fence of Mondunbarra and Avondale crosses the plain, is seen a fair example of the mirage--that phenomenon so vaguely apprehended in regions outside its domain, and so little noticed where repet.i.tion has made it familiar. But there it is; no smoky-looking film on the plain, no shimmering distortion of objects in middle-distance, but, to all appearance, a fine sheet of silvery water, two hundred yards distant, about the same in average width, and half-a-mile in length from right to left.

Both banks are clearly defined; irregular promontories jut far out into the smooth water from each side; and the boundary fence crosses it, post after post, in diminishing perspective, like any fence standing in shallow, sunlit water. The most critical and deliberate examination can no more detect evidence of phantasy in the unreal water than in the real fence.

The mirage is one of Nature's obscure and cheerless jokes; and in this instance, as in some few others, she is beyond Art.

She even a.s.sists the illusion by a very slight depression of the plain in the right place. In fact, an artist's picture of a mirage would be his picture of a level-brimmed, unruffled lake; also, the most skilful word-painter, in attempting to contrast the appearance of water with that of its fac-simile, would become as confused and hazy as any clergyman taxed to differentiate his creed from that of the mollah running the opposition.

And Nature, in taking this mirthless rise out of the spectator, never repeats herself in the particulars of distance, area or configuration of her simulacre; it may be a mere stripe across the road--the brown, sinuous track disappearing beneath its surface, to re-appear on the opposing sh.o.r.e--it may be no larger than a good gilgie; or it may be the counterfeit presentment of a sheet of water, miles in extent, though this last is rare.

A hot day is not an imperative condition of the true mirage; but the ground must be open plain, or nearly so; the atmosphere must be clear, and the ground thoroughly dry. It is worthy of notice that horses and cattle are entirely insusceptible to the illusion. Another fact, not so noteworthy in view of the general perversity of inanimate things, is, that you never see a mirage when you are watching for it to decide an argument. It always presents itself when you have no interest in it. In this quality of irredeemable cussedness it resembles the emu's nest. No one ever found that when he was looking for it; no one ever found it except he was in a raging hurry, with a long stage to go, and no likelihood of coming back by the same route.

To complete the picture--which I want you to carry in your mind's eye--you will imagine Cleopatra and Bunyip standing under a coolibah--standing heads and points, after the manner of equine mates; each switching the flies and mosquitos off his comrade's face, and shivering them off such parts of his own body as possessed the requisite faculty. And in the centre of a clear place, a couple of hundred yards away, you may notice a bullock-wagon, apparently deserted; the heavy wool-tarpaulin, dark with dust and grease, thrown across the arched jigger, forming a tent on the body, and falling over the wheels nearly to the ground, yet displaying the outline of the Sydney pattern--which, as every schoolgirl knows, differs from that of Riverina.

In the foreground of this picture, you may fancy the present annalist lying--or, as lying is an ill phrase, and peculiarly inapplicable just here--we'll say, reclining, pipe in mouth, on a patch of pennyroyal, trying to re-peruse one of Ouida's novels, and thinking (ah! your worship's a wanton) what a sweet, spicy, piquant thing it must be to be lured to destruction by a tawny-haired tigress with slumbrous dark eyes.

No such romance for the annalist, poor man.

Such, then, was my benevolent and creditable allotment, such my unworthy vagary, at the time this record opens. I had camped in the Dead Man's Bend late on the previous evening, had wakened-up a little after sunrise, and turned out a little after eleven. Then a dip in the river, to clear away the cobwebs, and a breakfast which, if not high-toned in its accessories, was at least enjoyed at a fashionable hour, had made me feel as if I wanted a quiet smoke out of the gigantic meerschaum which I unpack only on special occasions, and something demoralising to read.

But the austere pipe resented this unworthy alliance so strongly that, for peace sake, I had to lay aside the literary Dead-Sea-apple.

Then I remembered the official letter I had received on the previous day.

I had merely glanced over it before acting on the orders it contained; now I re-opened the doc.u.ment, and pharisaically contemplated the child-like penmanship and Chaucer-like orthography of my superior officer:--

Sydney 28/11/83

Mr T Collins

Dr sir Haveing got 3 months leave of Abscence you are hereby requested to be extra atentive to the Interests of the Dept not haveing me to reffer to in Cases of difeculty or to recieve instructions from me which is not practicacable on account of me being in the other Colonys.

I write this princ.i.p.aly to aquaint you Communication from Mr Donaldson Mr Strong Mr Jeffrey representives will meet you at Poondoo on monday 10 prox re matter in dispute. Keep this apointment without fail comunnicate with central Office pending further Orders from me.

Ynnnnnnnnly

R Wmlnlnllnn

I was now on my way to keep the "apointment." I was still about twenty miles from Poondoo; and the next day would be "monday 10 prox." I intended to start again at about two o'clock; so I had still a couple of hours to spend in what civilians call rest, and soldiers, fatigue; whilst studying such problems as might present themselves for solution. Pup was safe by my side, and I had nothing to trouble myself about. A thought of the transitoriness and uncertainty of life did occur to me, as it has done to thinkers and non-thinkers of all ages; but I deftly applied the reflection to my superior officer, and so turned everything to commodity.

The unfortunate young fellow, I thought, is a confirmed invalid, sure enough.

A trip round the colonies may liven him up a bit, or, on the other hand, it may not; and, if he returns, it is to be hoped that kind hands will soothe his pillow, and so forth; and when, with dirges due, in sad array, they have performed the last melancholy offices, I trust that some one will be found to dress, with simple hands, his rural tomb. I would do it myself, for, as the poet says, "Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns."

A sweet fancy, but not so filling as the cognate reflection----

"Ha-a-ay!"

Somebody calling from the other side of the river; probably some forlorn and shipwreck'd brother, looking for his mates--The cognate reflection, namely, that nothing withdraws but it leaves room for a successor.

And this successor--thus favoured by a Providence which has kindly supervised the fall of the antecedent sparrow--will be ent.i.tled to live in a four-roomed weatherboard house, with the water laid-on, and a flower-garden up to the footpath, and a few silver-pencilled Hamburgs in the back yard, and everything comfortable. Ah, me! it is the thought of the dove----

"Ha-a-a-ay!"

Peace! peace! Orestes--like, I breathe this prayer. Thy comrades are sleeping; go sleep thou with them.----The thought of the dove that has suggested this fairy picture of the dovecote. And something tells me that Jim Quarterman is not likely to forget a certain cavalier who called one day about a dog. Doubtless her memory holds him enshrined as a person of scientific attainments and courtly address; offering a contrast, I trust, to the uninteresting hayseeds who have come under her purview.

And will he not come again? Yea, Jim, mystery and revelation as thou art!

he will come again, to lay at thy shapely and substantial feet the trophy of an----

"Ha-a-a-a-ay!"

Ay, lay thee down and roar--Of an a.s.sistant-Sub-Inspectorship. Ah, Jim!

tentatively beloved (so to speak) by this solitary, but by no means desolate, heart!--setting aside the rises I would take out of thy artlessness, and the way I would whip thy simplicity with my fine wit till thou wert as crestfallen as a dried pear--I confess a spontaneous thought a.s.sociated with the mental carte-de-visite of thy wholesome avoirdupois. No less, indeed, than the psychological recognition of an angel-influence----

"Ha-a-a-a-a-ay!"

In vain! in vain! strike other chords! You can call spirits from the vasty deep; but will they come when you do call for them?--An angel-influence, tangible, visible, audible, which would make Jordan the easiest of all roads to travel by thy side. Peerless Jim! crowning triumph of Darwinian Evolution from the inert mineral, through countless hairy and uninviting types!

how precious the inexplicable vital spark which, nevertheless, robs thy sculptured form of all cash Gallery-value; and how easy to read in that gentle personality a satisfying comment on the concluding lines of Faust :