"And your mother?" I suggested experimentally.

"She was an invalid for several years before I left home," replied Alf, his tone fulfilling my antic.i.p.ation.

(Have you ever noticed that the prodigal son of real life, in nineteen cases out of twenty, speaks spontaneously and feelingly of his father, with, perhaps, a dash of reverent humour; whereas, to quote Menenius, he no more remembers his mother than an eight-year-old horse? This is cruel beyond measure, and unjust beyond comment; but, sad to say, it is true; and the plat.i.tudinous tract-liar, for the sake of verisimilitude, as well as of novelty, should make a memo. of it. Amongst all the hard-cases of my acquaintance, I can only think of one whose mother's unseen presence is a power, and her memory a holy beacon, shining, by-the-way, with a decidedly intermittent light. Unfortunately, a glance along the three 9ths yet to come shows me that this n.o.bly spurious type of prodigal-Jack the Sh.e.l.lback, va.s.sal of Runnymede Station--will not come within the scope of these memoirs).

Alf dreamily resumed his inconsequent story: "However, this Charley Cross, or Yankee Charley, was an old Victorian digger. About twelve years before his death, he was working on Inglewood, with a mate that he would have trusted, and did trust, to any extent, and in any way. But it was the old, old story. He got a friendly hint, and watched, and watched, for weeks, without betraying any suspicion. At last he was satisfied.

Then he carefully laid down his line of action, and followed it to the end.

One day, his mate, sitting on the edge of the shaft, ready to put his foot in the rope, suddenly overbalanced, and went down head-foremost. Of course, Cross was close beside him at the time, and no one else was in sight.

Cross gave the alarm, and, in the meantime, went hand-under-hand down the rope, intending, like Bruce, to 'mak sicker'; for the shaft was only about forty feet deep. But it happened that the man's neck was broken in the fall.

Cross forgave his wife, and never breathed a word of his discovery or his vengeance; but in spite of this, the woman seemed to live in fear and horror. During the next couple of years, luck favoured him, and he made an independence. He invested his money judiciously; but there's no guarantee for domestic happiness--in fact, there's no guarantee for anything. First, his two surviving children died of diphtheria; then his wife followed, dying, Cross a.s.sured me, of a broken heart.

He sorrowed for her more deeply, perhaps, because she had cost him so dear; and this, no doubt, was what drove him to drink."

"Very probably," I replied. "But, Alf, this taxing of your mind is about as good for you just now as footballing or boxing. Are you a smoker?"

"No."

"That's what I feared. Now, take my advice, and give yourself absolute rest, while I boil"----

"One more story, Collins, as well authenticated as any of the three I have told. I knew a young fellow of between twenty-five and thirty"----

"This won't do," I interposed firmly, for he had become restless and excited.

"Why should you allow your mind to dwell so exclusively on the manifestations of one particular phase of moral aberration, and, to do bare justice to womanhood, an exceedingly rare one--except among the very highest and the very lowest cla.s.ses? Unless you handle such questions in a scientific spirit, you'll find them--or unfortunately, you won't find them--envelop your reasoning faculties in a most unwholesome atmosphere. The perpetual brooding over any one evil, however fatal that evil may be, naturally side-blinds the mind into a narrow fanaticism which is apt to condone ten times as much wrong as it condemns; and you drift into the position of the man who strains at the moderate drinker, and swallows the usurer.

We see this in the Good Templar, the Social Purity person, the Trades Unionist, and the moral faddist generally. Musonius Rufus sternly reminded Epictetus that there were other crimes besides setting the Capitol on fire."

"Have you done? " asked Alf, coldly but gently. "Let me tell you one more story while I'm able. I'll soon be silent enough.----The man I'm thinking of was a saw-mill owner. He had been married a couple of years, and had one child. I could n't say that he actually loved his wife; in fact, she was n't a woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking.

At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant, and vain, and utterly unprincipled--no, not exactly unprincipled, but non-principled. She was essentially low--if you understand my meaning-- low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes, low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have been what is called a bad woman, but--that miserable want of self-reverence-- I can't understand how----Would you give me another drink, please?"

He drank very little this time. He had been speaking with an effort, and a haggard, hopeless look was intensifying in his face. I began to suspect a temporary delirium. The presentiment of impending death was unreasonable, though not ominous; so also with the determination to narrate irrelevant stories; but the incongruity of the two a.s.sociated notions set me speculating in a sympathetic way.

"Alf," said I gravely; "it's foolish to tax your memory for anecdotes now.

Try if you can settle yourself to sleep. I'm sure I'll have great pleasure in exchanging yarns with you at some future time, when you're more fit."

"Listen, Collins," he replied sullenly. "Our saw-mill owner got the inevitable glimpse of the truth. He was blind before; now he was incredulous.

He condescended to play the spy, and he was soon satisfied. This time it was a Government official-clerk of the local Court--a blackleg vagabond, with interest at head-quarters--about the vilest rat, and certainly the vilest-looking rat, that ever breathed the breath of life. Our hero took no further notice of him than to terrify him into confession, and drive him into laying the blame on his paramour. And the amusing feature of the case was, that she, finding herself fairly run to earth, thought she had nothing to do but to turn from the evil of her ways, and take her husband's part against the other fellow. But no, no. Our hero, after thinking the matter over, took her into his confidence, without giving her any voice in the new arrangement. He sold-out to the best advantage, and divided the proceeds with her; reserving to himself enough to start him in a line of life that he could follow without the annoyance of being a.s.sociated with anyone. All that he earned afterward, beyond bare expenses, he forwarded to her, to save or squander as she pleased; the only condition being that she should acknowledge each remittance, and answer, as briefly as possible, such questions as he chose to ask. She humbly a.s.sented to all this, evidently looking forward to forgiveness and reconciliation, somewhere in-time or eternity. But, by G.o.d! she mistook her mark!"

He laughed harshly, paused half-a-minute, and resumed,

"One restraint upon our hero was the thought of his little boy, only old enough to creep about, and incredibly fond of him; though this never softened him towards the worthless, cursed mother. Anyway, after about three years, the little boy died; and his heart was turned to stone.

Still, through mere bitterness and obstinacy he followed the course he had adopted; meeting with a run of success that surprised himself.

The very curse that was on him seemed to protect him from the mishaps that befell other men in his line of work; and he found life worth living for the sake of hating and despising the whole human race, including himself.

There's no pleasure like the pleasure of being a devil, when you feel yourself master of the situation, and--Now I've done, Collins."

"That's right. I've been thinking how to fix things for you till you're able to"----

"First, I have one question to ask you," persisted Alf. "You notice that all these men acted differently. Which of them acted right?--or did any of them? You know, there are two other courses open: to appeal to the law, or to pa.s.s the matter over quietly, for fear of scandal. Is either of these right? One course must be right, and all the others must be wrong."

By this time, I had made up my mind to humour him. "Well," I replied; "it happens that I have given the subject some thought, as I intend, if I can find time, to write a few words on the varied manifestations of jealousy in the so-called Shakespear Plays. You're familiar with the plays, of course?"

"I've read bits of them."

"Possibly you remember, then, that Posthumus, in Cymbeline, on receiving proofs of his wife's infidelity (we know her to be loyal, but that does n't affect his proofs) harbours not one thought of revenge toward the man who has supplanted him. Indeed, as an artistic ill.u.s.tration of Iachimo's immunity from retribution, Posthumus is afterward represented as disarming and sparing him in battle--a concession he would n't have made to an ordinary enemy.

He looks to Imogen alone. Nothing but the sacrifice of her life will satisfy him. On the eve of the same battle, we find him, though seeking for death himself, still gloating over the handkerchief supposed to be stained with her life-blood. Very well. Now Troilus in Troilus and Cressida, is a man very much resembling Posthumus in temperament--brave, resolute, truthful, unsuspicious, and more liberally endowed with muscle than brains"----

"But this has nothing to do with it," interrupted Alf. "I was asking your opinion as to which of the four acted rightly?--or did any of them?"

"Yes, Alf; I'm coming to that. I was going to remark that, though the temperamental conditions of Posthumus and Troilus are apparently so similar--apparently, mind--and their position as betrayed husbands so identical, we find them acting in directly opposite ways. Troilus entertains no thought of revenge upon his faithless wife; he gives his whole attention to the co-respondent. Now let us glance at Oth.e.l.lo.

Here is a man who, allowing for his maturer age, is much like the Briton and the Trojan in temperament, even to the extent of being more liberally endowed with muscle than"----

"But you're not answering my question," moaned Alf. "Which of the four acted right?"

"Well," I replied; "I'm afraid my conclusions won't have the rounded completeness we value so much in moral inferences unless I'm allowed to empanel Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, as well as Oth.e.l.lo, and thus work from a solid foundation. But we'll see. I'll put my answer in this way: A casual thinker might p.r.o.nounce it impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rule of conduct here, on account of necessary diversity in conditions.

He would, perhaps, argue that, though abstract Right is absolute and unchangeable, the alternative Wrong, though never shading down into Right, varies immeasurably in degree of turpitude; so that the action which is intrinsically wrong may be more excusable in one man than in another, or under certain conditions than under others. Now, I'm not going to deny that it lies within our province, as rational beings, to cla.s.sify wrongs, provided we do so from a purely objective stand-point. I shall endeavour to deal with that issue by-and-by. I merely notice"----

"Stop! stop!" interrupted Alf, rolling his head from side to side.

"Answer my question!"

"Well, if you must have it like a half-raw potato, I give my vote in favour of Potiphar the Fourth, the saw-mill man. I don't see what better he could have done. It was n't the most romantic course, perhaps; but I'm not a romantic person--rather the reverse--and it meets my approval."

"And your deliberate conviction is that he acted rightly--rightly, mind?"

"a.s.suredly he did. That is what I was driving at; but now you have to take my conclusion as an ipse dixit, rather than as a theorem. The misanthropy of the gentleman's after-life is another question, and one which would lead us into a different, and much wider, region of philosophy. But I think we'll find it interesting to trace, step by step, from its genesis to its culmination, the involuntary process of thought which led each of your Potiphars, separately, to his independent action. We can't embark on this inquiry just now, Alf, for we shall have to grapple with the most minute and subtle shades of psychical distinction, and we shall have to deal largely in postulates; for though"----

"I want to tell you something, Collins," interrupted Alf, in a tone now free from all trace of the distraction and constraint which made it painful to listen to him. "Like poor Cross, I feel impelled to place my tragedy on record, but in one man's memory only. I trust entirely to your discretion.

Did you know I was a married man?"

"No; I certainly did n't," I replied, recalling myself; for I had been half-listening to a sound in the lignum. But as he spoke there flashed across my mental vision the picture of his wife--a tawny-haired tigress, with slumbrous dark eyes; a Circe, whose glorious voice had been silent in death for ten years, and lost to him for three years longer. Hence, by some sequence worth tracing, the voluntary exile, the Ishmaelite occupation; the morbid, malevolent interest in the Messalinas at large; and the generally pervading smell of husks. This, let me tell you, is what comes of meddling with tawny-haired tigresses, who hara.s.s a man out of individuality, and then die or abscond, leaving him like the last cactus of summer.

"No young fellow could have started in life with a fairer prospect than I had," continued Alf, in a grave, composed tone. "But I was guilty of one deliberately fiendish and heartless action, and following upon that action, I made a mistake that nothing but death can absolve. I married a woman, who, I believe, was divinely a.s.signed to me as a punishment.

I'll tell you the whole story"----

"Wait, Alf," said I hastily. "I must leave you for a few minutes.

Do you want anything before I go?"

"Nothing, thank you. Don't stay long."

"You may be sure I won't. Try if you can go to sleep."

I jumped off the wagon. There was no time to lose. During the last few minutes, a peculiar cadence in the sound of Alf's bells had told me, just as surely as words could have done, that the bullocks were mustered, and travelling away. My horses were not far off; and, to save time, I took Alf's saddle and bridle from under his wagon. As I did so, I heard his voice, low and monotonous. I paused involuntarily.----

"O Molly! Molly, my girl!--my poor love!--my darling!"----

I hurried away, and put the saddle and bridle on Bunyip. Body o' me!

I thought--can a tawny-haired tigress be called Molly? This must be seen into when I have time.

In a couple of minutes Bunyip had settled down to that flying trot which would have been an independence to anyone except myself.

After clearing the lignum, I got a back elevation of the bullocks, half-a-mile out on the plain; and, rapidly overhauling them, I perceived that I should have to pit myself against the Chinese boundary rider this time.

Consequently I felt, like Ca.s.sius, fresh of spirit and resolved to meet all perils very constantly.

"Out of my way, you Manchurian leper, or I'll run over you!" I shouted gaily, as I swung round the cattle, turning them back.