"The voice of him is like the voice of my boy that was took away. But he was smooth-faced, like a girl, and ye're a dark, wrinkled man.

'Sides, he died years agone, over the water."

But the old lady grew thoughtful and silent from that day, and three weeks after she was carried up to her grave,--

"By the little grey church on the windy hill."

At the funeral, William Lee, the man whom I have been describing, pushed quietly through the little crowd, and as they threw the first earth on the coffin, stood looking over the shoulder of his brother, who was unconscious of his existence.

Like many men who have been much in great solitudes, and have gone days and weeks sometimes without meeting a fellow-creature, he had acquired the habit of thinking aloud, and if anyone had been listening they would have heard much such a soliloquy as the following, expletives omitted, or rather softened:--

"A brutal cold country this, for a man to camp out in. Never a buck-log to his fire, no, nor a stick thicker than your finger for seven mile round; and if there was, you'd get a month for cutting it. If the young'un milks free this time, I'll be off to the bay again, I know.

But will he? By George, he shall though. The young sn.o.b, I know he daren't but come, and yet it's my belief he's late just to keep me soaking out in the rain. Whew! it's cold enough to freeze the tail of a tin possum; and this infernal rubbish won't burn, at least not to warm a man. If it wasn't for the whisky I should be dead. There's a rush of wind; I am glad for one thing there is no dead timber overhead. He'll be drinking at all the places coming along to get his courage up to bounce me, but there ain't a public-house on the road six miles from this, so the drink will have pretty much died out of him by the time he gets to me, and if I can get him to sit in this rain, and smoke 'backer for five minutes, he won't be particular owdacious. I'll hide the grog, too, between the stones. He'll be asking for a drink the minute he comes. I hope d.i.c.k is ready; he is pretty sure to be. He's a good little chap, that d.i.c.k; he has stuck to me well these five years. I wouldn't like to trust him with another man's horse, though. But this other one is no good; he's got all the inclination to go the whole hog, and none of the pluck necessary. If he ever is lagged, he will be a worse one than ever I was, or d.i.c.k either. There he is, for a hundred pounds."

A faint "halloo!" sounded above the war of the weather; and Lee, putting his hand to his mouth, replied with that strange cry, so well known to all Australians--"Coee."

A man was now heard approaching through the darkness, now splashing deep into some treacherous moss hole with a loud curse, now blundering among loose-lying blocks of stone. Lee waited till he was quite close, and then seizing a bunch of gorse lighted it at his fire and held it aloft; the bright blaze fell full upon the face and features of George Hawker.

"A cursed place and a cursed time," he began, "for an appointment. If you had wanted to murder me, I could have understood it. But I am pretty safe, I think; your interests don't lie that way."

"Well, well, you see," returned Lee, "I don't want any meetings on the cross up at my place in the village. The whole house ain't mine, and we don't know who may be listening. I am suspected enough already, and it wouldn't look well for you to be seen at my place. Folks would have begun axing what for."

"Don't see it," said George. "Besides, if you did not want to see me at home, why the devil do you bring me out here in the middle of the moor?

We might have met on the hill underneath the village, and when we had done business gone up to the publichouse. D----d if I understand it."

He acquiesced sulkily to the arrangement, however, because he saw it was no use talking about it, but he was far from comfortable. He would have been still less so had he known that Lee's shout had brought up a confederate, who was now peering over the rocks, almost touching his shoulder.

"Well," said Lee, "here we are, so we had better be as comfortable as we can this devil's night."

"Got anything to drink?"

"Deuce a swipe of grog have I. But I have got some real Barret's twist, that never paid duty as I know'd on, so just smoke a pipe before we begin talking, and show you aint vexed."

"I'd sooner have had a drop of grog, such a night as this."

"We must do as the Spaniards do, when they can't get anything," said Lee; "go without."

They both lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for a few minutes, till Lee resumed:--

"If the witches weren't all dead, there would be some of them abroad to-night; hear that?"

"Only a whimbrel, isn't it?" said George.

"That's something worse than a whimbrel, I'm thinking," said the other.

"There's some folks don't believe in witches and the like," he continued; "but a man that's seen a naked old hag of a gin ride away on a myall-bough, knows better."

"Lord!" said George. "I shouldn't have thought you'd have believed in the like of that--but I do--that old devil's dam, dame Parker, that lives alone up in Hatherleigh Wood, got gibbering some infernal nonsense at me the other day, for shooting her black cat. I made the cross in the road though, so I suppose it won't come to anything."

"Perhaps not," said Lee; "but I'd sooner kill a man than a black cat."

Another pause. The tobacco, so much stronger than any George had been accustomed to, combined with the cold, made him feel nervous and miserable.

"When I was a boy," resumed Lee, "there were two young brothers made it up to rob the 'squire's house, down at Gidleigh. They separated in the garden after they cracked the crib, agreeing to meet here in this very place, and share the swag, for they had got nigh seventy pound. They met and quarrelled over the sharing up; and the elder one drew out a pistol, and shot the younger dead. The poor boy was sitting much where you are sitting now, and that long tuft of gra.s.s grew up from his blood."

"I believe that's all a lie," said George; "you want to drive me into the horrors with your humbugging tales."

Lee, seeing that he had gone far enough, if not too far, proposed, somewhat sulkily, that they should begin to talk about what brought them there, and not sit crouching in the wet all night.

"Well," said George, "it's you to begin. What made you send for me to this infernal place?"

"I want money," said Lee.

"Then you'd better axe about and get some," said George; "you'll get none from me. I am surprised that a man with your knowledge of the world should have sent me such a letter as you did yesterday, I am indeed--What the devil's that?"

He started on his feet. A blaze of sudden light filled the nook where they were sitting, and made it as bright as day, and a voice shouted out,

"Ha, ha, ha! my secret coves, what's going on here? something quiet and sly, eh? something worth a fifty-pound note, eh? Don't you want an arbitrator, eh? Here's one, ready made."

"You're playing a dangerous game, my flash man, whoever you are," said Lee, rising savagely. "I've shot a man down for less than that. So you've been stagging this gentleman and me, and listening, have you?

For just half a halfpenny," he added, striding towards him, and drawing out a pistol, "you shouldn't go home this night."

"Don't you be a fool, Bill Lee;" said the new comer. "I saw the light and made towards it, and as I come up I heard some mention made of money Now then, if my company is disagreeable, why I'll go, and no harm done."

"What! it's you, is it?" said Lee; "well, now you've come, you may stop and hear what it's all about. I don't care, you are not very squeamish, or at least, usedn't to be."

George saw that the arrival of this man was preconcerted, and cursed Lee bitterly in his heart, but he sat still, and thought how he could out-manoeuvre them.

"Now," said Lee, "I ain't altogether sorry that you have come, for I want to tell you a bit of a yarn, and ask your advice about my behaviour. This is about the state of the case. A young gentleman, a great friend of mine, was not very many years ago, pretty much given up to fast living, c.o.c.k-fighting, horse-racing, and many other little matters which all young fellows worth anything are pretty sure to indulge in, and which are very agreeable for the time, but which cost money, and are apt to bring a man into low society. When I tell you that he and I first met in Exeter, as princ.i.p.als in crossing a fight, you may be sure that these pursuits HAD brought the young gentleman into VERY low company indeed. In fact, he was over head and ears in debt, raising money in every way he could, hook or crook, square or cross, to satisfy certain creditors, who were becoming nasty impatient and vexatious. I thought something might be made of this young gentleman, so finding there was no pride about him, I cultivated his acquaintance, examined his affairs, and put him up to the neatest little fakement in the world, just showed him how to raise two hundred pounds, and clear himself with everybody, just by signing his father's name, thereby saving the old gent the trouble of writing it (he is very infirm, is dad), and antic.i.p.ating by a few years what must be his own at last. Not to mention paying off a lot of poor publicans and horse-dealers, who could not afford to wait for their money. Blowed if I don't think it the most honest action he ever did in his life. Well, he committed the--wrote the name I mean,--and stood two ten-pound notes for the information, quite handsome. But now this same young gent is going to marry a young lady with five thousand pounds in her own right, and she nearly of age. Her father, I understand, is worth another five thousand, and very old; so that what he'll get ultimately if he marries into that family, counting his own expectations, won't be much less I should say than twenty thousand pounds. Now I mean to say, under these circ.u.mstances, I should be neglecting my own interests most culpably, if I didn't demand from him the trifling sum of three hundred pounds for holding my tongue."

"Why, curse you," broke in Hawker, "you said two hundred yesterday."

"Exactly so," said Lee, "but that WAS yesterday. To-morrow, if the job ain't settled, it'll be four, and the day after five. It's no use, George Hawker," he continued; "you are treed, and you can't help yourself. If I give information you swing, and you know it; but I'd rather have the money than see the man hanged. But mind," said he, with a snarl, "if I catch you playing false, by the Lord, I'll hang you for love."

For an instant the wretched George cast a hurried glance around, as if considering what wild chance there was of mastering his two enemies, but that glance showed him that it was hopeless, for they both stood close together, each holding in his hand a c.o.c.ked pistol, so in despair he dropped his eyes on the fire once more, while Lee chuckled inwardly at his wise foresight in bringing an accomplice.

"By Jove," he said to himself, "it's lucky d.i.c.k's here. If I had been alone, he'd have been at me then like a tiger. It would have been only man to man, but he would have been as good as me; he'd have fought like a rat in a corner."

George sat looking into the embers for a full half minute, while the others waited for his answer, determined that he should speak first. At length he raised his head, and said hoa.r.s.ely, looking at neither of them,--

"And where am I to get three hundred pounds?"

"A simple question very easily answered," said Lee. "Do what you did before, with half the difficulty. You manage nearly everything now your father is getting blind, so you need hardly take the trouble of altering the figures in the banker's book, and some slight hint about taking a new farm would naturally account for the old man's drawing out four or five hundred. The thing's easier than ever."

"Take my advice, young man," said d.i.c.k, "and take the shortest cut out of the wood. You see my friend here, William, has got tired of these parts, as being, you see, hardly free and easy enough for him, and he wants to get back to a part of the world he was rather anxious to leave a few years ago. If he likes to take me back with him, why he can. I rather fancy the notion myself. Give him the money, and in three months we'll both be fourteen thousand odd miles off. Meanwhile, you marry the young lady, and die in your bed, an honest gentleman, at eighty-four, instead of being walked out some cold morning to a gallows at twenty-two."

"Needs must where the devil drives," replied George. "You shall have the money this day week. And now let me go, for I am nearly froze dead."

"That's the talk," said Lee; "I knew you would be reasonable. If it hadn't been for my necessities, I am sure I never would have bothered you. Well, good night."