Mary held out her hand to him, and when he gave her his vast brown paw, what does she do, but put it to her lips and kiss it?--as if there was not enough without that. And, to make matters worse, she quoted Scripture, and said, "Forasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me." So our good Doctor had nothing left but to break through that cloak of cynicism which he delighted to wear, (Lord knows why!) and to kiss her on the cheek, and to tell her how happy she had made them by coming back, let circ.u.mstances be what they might.

Then she told them, with bursts of wild weeping, what those circ.u.mstances were. And at last, when they were all quieted, Miss Thornton boldly volunteered to go up and tell the Vicar that his darling was returned.

So she went up, and Mary and the Doctor waited at the bed-room door and listened. The poor old man was far gone beyond feeling joy or grief to any great extent. When Miss Thornton raised him in his bed, and told him that he must brace up his nerves to hear some good news, he smiled a weary smile, and Mary looking in saw that he was so altered that she hardly knew him.

"I know," he said, lisping and hesitating painfully, "what you are going to tell me, sister. She is come home. I knew she would come at last. Please tell her to come to me at once; but I can't see HIM yet. I must get stronger first." So Mary went in to him, and Miss Thornton came out and closed the door. And when Mary came downstairs soon afterwards she could not talk to them, but remained a long time silent, crying bitterly.

The good news soon got up to Major Buckley's, and so after church they saw him striding up the path, leading the pony carrying his wife and baby. And while they were still busy welcoming her back, came a ring at the door, and a loud voice, asking if the owner of it might come in.

Who but Tom Troubridge! Who else was there to raise her four good feet off the ground, and kiss her on both cheeks, and call her his darling little sister! Who else was there who could have changed their tears into laughter so quick that their merriment was wafted up to the Vicar's room, and made him ring his bell, and tell them to send Tom up to him! And who but Tom could have lit the old man's face up with a smile, with the history of a new colt, that my lord's mare Thetis had dropped last week!

That was her welcome home. To the home she had dreaded coming to, expecting to be received with scorn and reproaches. To the home she had meant to come to only as a penitent, to leave her child there and go forth into the world to die. And here she found herself the honoured guest--treated as one who had been away on a journey, whom they had been waiting and praying for all the time, and who came back to them sooner than expected. None hold the force of domestic affection so cheap as those who violate it most rudely. How many proud unhappy souls are there at this moment, voluntarily absenting themselves from all that love them in the world, because they dread sneers and cold looks at home! And how many of these, going back, would find only tears of joy to welcome them, and hear that ever since their absence they had been spoken of with kindness and tenderness, and loved, perhaps, above all the others!

After dinner, when the women were alone together, Mrs. Buckley began,--

"Now, my dear Mary, you must hear all the news. My husband has had a letter from Stockbridge."

"Ah, dear old Jim!" said Mary; "and how is he?"

"He and Hamlyn are quite well," said Mrs. Buckley, "and settled. He has written such an account of that country to Major Buckley, that he, half persuaded before, is now wholly determined to go there himself."

"I heard of this before," said Mary. "Am I to lose you, then, at once?"

"We shall see," said Mrs. Buckley; "I have my ideas. Now, who do you think is going beside?"

"Half Devonshire, I should think," said Mary; "at least, all whom I care about."

"It would seem so, indeed, my poor girl," said Mrs. Buckley; "for your cousin Troubridge has made up his mind to come."

"There was a time when I could have stopped him," she thought; "but that is gone by now." And she answered Mrs. Buckley:--

"Aunt and I will stay here, and think of you all. Shall we ever hear from you? It is the other side of the world, is it not?"

"It is a long way; but we must wait, and see how things turn out. We may not have to separate after all. See, my dear; are you fully aware of your father's state? I fear you have only come home to see the last of him. He probably will be gone before this month is out. You see the state he is in. And when he is gone, have you reflected what to do?"

Mary, weeping bitterly, said, "No; only that she could never live in Drumston, or anywhere where she was known."

"That is wise, my love," said Mrs. Buckley, "under the circ.u.mstances.

Have you made up your mind where to go, Miss Thornton, when you have to leave the Vicarage for a new inc.u.mbent?"

"I have made up my mind," answered Miss Thornton, "to go wherever Mary goes, if it be to the other end of the earth. We will be Ruth and Naomi, my dear. You would never get on without me."

"That is what I say," said Mrs. Buckley. "Never leave her. Why not come away out of all unhappy a.s.sociations, and from the scorn and pity of your neighbours, to live safe and happy with all the best friends you have in the world?"

"What do you mean?" said Mary. "Ah, if we could only do so!"

"Come away with us," said Mrs. Buckley, with animation; "come away with us, and begin a new life. There is Troubridge looking high and low for a partner with five thousand pounds. Why should not Miss Thornton and yourself be his partners?"

"Ah me!" said Miss Thornton. "And think of the voyage! But I shall not decide on anything; Mary shall decide."

Scarcely more than a week elapsed from the day that Mary came home, when there came a third messenger for old John Thornton, and one so peremptory that he arose and followed it in the dead of night. So, when they came to his bedside in the morning, they found his body there, laid as it was when he wished them good night, but cold and dead. He himself was gone, and nothing remained but to bury his body decently beside his wife's, in the old churchyard, and to shed some tears, at the thought that never, by the fireside, or in the solemn old church, they should hear that kindly voice again.

And then came the disturbance of household G.o.ds, and the rupture of life-old a.s.sociations. And although they were begged by the new comer not to hurry or incommode themselves, yet they too wished to be gone from the house whence everything they loved had departed.

Their kind true friend Frank was presented with the living, and they accepted Mrs. Buckley's invitation to stay at their house till they should have decided what to do. It was two months yet before the Major intended to sail, and long before those two months were past, Mary and Miss Thornton had determined that they would not rend asunder the last ties they had this side of the grave, but would cast in their lot with the others, and cross the weary sea with them towards a more hopeful land.

One more scene, and we have done with the Old World for many a year.

Some of these our friends will never see it more, and those who do will come back with new thoughts and a.s.sociations, as strangers to a strange land. Only those who have done so know how much effort it takes to say, "I will go away to a land where none know me or care for me, and leave for ever all that I know and love." And few know the feeling which comes upon all men after it is done,--the feeling of isolation, almost of terror, at having gone so far out of the bounds of ordinary life; the feeling of self-distrust and cowardice at being alone and friendless in the world, like a child in the dark.

A golden summer's evening is fading into a soft cloudless summer's night, and Doctor Mulhaus stands upon Mount Edgecombe, looking across the trees, across the gla.s.sy harbour, over the tall men-of-war, out beyond the silver line of surf on the breakwater, to where a tall ship is rapidly spreading her white wings and speeding away each moment more rapidly for a fair wind, towards the south-west. He watches it growing more dim minute by minute in distance and in darkness, till he can see no longer; then brushing a tear from his eye he says aloud:--

"There goes my English microcosm, all my new English friends with whom I was going to pa.s.s the rest of my life, peaceful and contented, as a village surgeon. Pretty dream, two years long! Truly man hath no sure abiding place here. I will go back to P----, and see if they are all dead, or only sleeping."

So he turned down the steep path under the darkening trees, towards where he could see the town lights along the quays, among the crowded masts.

Chapter XVIII

THE FIRST PUFF OF THE SOUTH WIND.

A new heaven and a new earth! Tier beyond tier, height above height, the great wooded ranges go rolling away westward, till on the lofty sky-line they are crowned with a gleam of everlasting snow. To the eastward they sink down, breaking into isolated forests, fringed peaks, and rock-crowned eminences, till with rapidly straightening lines they disappear gradually into broad grey plains, beyond which the Southern Ocean is visible by the white reflection cast upon the sky.

All creation is new and strange. The trees, surpa.s.sing in size the largest English oaks, are of a species we have never seen before. The graceful shrubs, the bright-coloured flowers, ay, the very gra.s.s itself, are of species unknown in Europe; while flaming lories and brilliant parroquets fly whistling, not unmusically, through the gloomy forest, and over head in the higher fields of air, still lit up by the last rays of the sun, countless c.o.c.katoos wheel and scream in noisy joy, as we may see the gulls do about an English headland.

To the northward a great glen, sinking suddenly from the saddle on which we stand, stretches away in long vista, until it joins a broader valley, through which we can dimly see a full-fed river winding along in gleaming reaches, through level meadow land, interspersed with clumps of timber.

We are in Australia. Three hundred and fifty miles south of Sydney, on the great watershed which divides the Belloury from the Maryburnong, since better known as the Snowy-river of Gipps-land.

As the sun was going down on the scene I have been describing, James Stockbridge and I, Geoffry Hamlyn, reined up our horses on the ridge above-mentioned, and gazed down the long gully which lay stretched at our feet. Only the tallest trees stood with their higher boughs glowing with the gold of the departing day, and we stood undetermined which route to pursue, and half inclined to camp at the next waterhole we should see. We had lost some cattle, and among others a valuable imported bull, which we were very anxious to recover. For five days we had been pa.s.sing on from run to run, making inquiries without success, and were now fifty long miles from home in a southerly direction. We were beyond the bounds of all settlement; the last station we had been at was twenty miles to the north of us, and the occupiers of it, as they had told us the night before, had only taken up their country about ten weeks, and were as yet the furthest pioneers to the southward.

At this time Stockbridge and I had been settled in our new home about two years, and were beginning to get comfortable and contented. We had had but little trouble with the blacks, and, having taken possession of a fine piece of country, were flourishing and well to do.

We had never heard from home but once, and that was from Tom Troubridge, soon after our departure, telling us that if we succeeded he should follow, for that the old place seemed changed now we were gone. We had neither of us left any near relations behind us, and already we began to think that we were cut off for ever from old acquaintances and a.s.sociations, and were beginning to be resigned to it.

Let us return to where he and I were standing alone in the forest. I dismounted to set right some strap or another, and, instead of getting on my horse again at once, stood leaning against him, looking at the prospect, glad to ease my legs for a time, for they were cramped with many hours' riding.

Stockbridge sat in his saddle immoveable and silent as a statue, and when I looked in his face I saw that his heart had travelled further than his eye could reach, and that he was looking far beyond the horizon that bounded his earthly vision, away to the pleasant old home which was home to us no longer.