From Squire to Squatter Part 49

They drew the killed in under a tree, and having bound up the wounds of the others, and partly carrying them or helping them along, they resumed the march.

All that day they dragged themselves along, and it was far into the early hours of morning ere they reached the boundaries of Burley New Farm.

The moon was shining, though not very brightly, light fleecy clouds were driving rapidly across the sky, so they could see the lights in both the old house and in the lower windows of Archie's own dwelling. They fired guns and coo-ee-ed, and presently Bob and Winslow rushed out to bid them welcome.

Diana went bounding away to meet him.

"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she exclaimed, "what a time we've been having! but mind, daddy, it wasn't all fun."

Bob could not speak for the life of him. He just staggered in with the child in his arms and handed her over to Sarah; but I leave the reader to imagine the state of Sarah's feelings now.

Poor Craig was borne in and put to bed in Archie's guest room, and there he lay for weeks.

Bob himself had gone to Brisbane to import a surgeon, regardless of expense; but it was probably more owing to the tender nursing of Elsie than anything else that Craig was able at length to crawl out and breathe the balmy, flower-scented air in the verandah.

One afternoon, many weeks after this, Craig was lying on a bank, under the shade of a tree, in a beautiful part of the forest, all in whitest bloom, and Elsie was seated near him.

There had been silence for some time, and the girl was quietly reading.

"I wonder," said Craig at last; "if my life is really worth the care that you and all the good people here have lavished on me?"

"How can you speak thus?" said Elsie, letting her book drop in her lap, and looking into his face with those clear, blue eyes of hers.

"If you only knew all my sad, sinful story, you would not wonder that I speak thus."

"Tell me your story: may I not hear it?"

"It is so long and, pardon me, so melancholy."

"Never mind, I will listen attentively."

Then Craig commenced. He told her all the strange history of his early demon-haunted life, about his recklessness, about his struggles and his final victory over self. He told her he verily did believe that his mother's spirit was near him that night in the forest when he made the vow which Providence in His mercy had enabled him to keep.

Yes, it was a long story. The sun had gone down ere he had finished, a crescent moon had appeared in the southern sky, and stars had come out.

There was sweetness and beauty everywhere. There was calm in Craig's soul now. For he had told Elsie something besides. He had told her that he had loved her from the first moment he had seen her, and he had asked her in simple language to become his wife--to be his guardian angel.

That same evening, when Archie came out into the garden, he found Elsie still sitting by Craig's couch, but her hand was clasped in his.

Then Archie knew all, and a great, big sigh of relief escaped him, for until this very moment he had been of opinion that Craig loved Etheldene.

In course of a few months Squire Broadbent was as good as his word. He came out to the new land to give the Australians the benefit of his genius in the farming way; to teach Young Australia a thing or two it had not known before; so at least _he_ thought.

With him came Mrs Broadbent, and even Uncle Ramsay, and the day of their arrival at Brisbane was surely a red-letter day in the annals of that thriving and prosperous place.

Strange to say, however, none of the squatters from the Bush, none of the speculating men, nor anybody else apparently, were very much inclined to be lectured about their own country, and the right and wrong way of doing things, by a Squire from the old country, who had never been here before. Some of them were even rude enough to laugh in his face, but the Squire was not offended a bit. He was on far too good terms with himself for that, and too sure that he was in the right in all he said. He told some of these Bush farmers that if _they_ did not choose to learn a wrinkle or two from him _he_ was not the loser, with much more to the same purpose, all of which had about the same effect on his hearers that rain has on a duck's back.

To use a rather hackneyed phrase, Squire Broadbent had the courage of his convictions.

He settled quietly down at Burley New Farm, and commenced to study Bush-life in all its bearings. It soon began to dawn upon him that Australia was getting to be a great country, that she had a great future before her, and that he--Squire Broadbent--would be connected with it.

He was in no great hurry to invest, though eventually he would. It would be better to wait and watch. There was room enough and to spare for all at Archie's house, and that all included honest Uncle Ramsay of course. He and Winslow resumed acquaintance, and in the blunt, straightforward ways of the man even Squire Broadbent found a deal to admire and even to marvel at.

"He is a clever man," said the Squire to his brother; "a clever man and a far-seeing. He gets a wonderful grasp of financial matters in a moment. Depend upon it, brother, he is the right metal, and it is upon solid stones like him that the future greatness of a nation should be founded."

Uncle Ramsay said he himself did not know much about it. He knew more about ships, and was quite content to settle down at Brisbane, and keep a morsel of a 20-tonner. That was his ambition.

What a delight it was for Archie to have them all round his breakfast-table in the green parlour at Burley New Form, or seated out in the verandah all so homelike and happy.

His dear old mummy too, with her innocent womanly ways, delighted with all she saw, yet half afraid of almost everything--half afraid the monster gum trees would fall upon her when out in the forest; half afraid to put her feet firmly to the ground when walking, but gathering up her skirts gingerly, and thinking every withered branch was a snake; half afraid the howling dingoes would come down in force at night, as wild wolves do on Russian wastes, and kill and eat everybody; half afraid of the most ordinary good-natured-looking black fellow; half afraid of even the pet kangaroo when he hopped round and held up his chin to have his old-fashioned neck stroked; half afraid--but happy, so happy nevertheless, because she had all she loved around her.

Gentleman Craig was most deferential and attentive to Mrs Broadbent, and she could not help admiring him--indeed, no one could--and quite approved of Elsie's choice; though, mother-like, she thought the girl far too young to marry yet, as the song says.

However, they were not to be married yet quite. There was a year to elapse, and a busy one it was. First and foremost, Craig took the unfortunate Findlayson's farm. But the old steading was allowed to go to decay, and some one told me the other day that there is now a genuine ghost, said to be seen on moonlight nights, wandering round the ruined pile. Anyhow, its a.s.sociations were of far too terrible a character for Craig to think of building near it.

He chose the site for his house and outbuildings near the creek and the spot where they had bivouacked before the murder was discovered. It was near here too that Craig had made his firm resolve to be a free man-- made it and kept it. The spot was charmingly beautiful too; and as his district included a large portion of the forest, he commenced clearing that, but in so scientific and tasteful a manner that it looked, when finished, like a n.o.ble park.

During this year Squire Broadbent also became a squatter. From Squire to Squatter may sound to some like a come-down in life; but really Broadbent did not think so.

He managed to buy out a station immediately adjoining Archie's, and when he had got fairly established thereon he told his brother Ramsay that fifteen years had tumbled off his shoulders all in a lump--fifteen years of care and trouble, fifteen years of struggle to keep his head above water, and live up to his squiredom.

"I'm more contented now by far and away," he told his wife, "than I was in the busy, boastful days before the fire at Burley Old Farm; so, you see, it doesn't take much in this world to make a man happy."

Rupert did not turn squatter, but missionary. It was a great treat for him to have Etheldene to ride with him away out into the bush whenever he heard a tribe had settled down anywhere for a time. Etheldene knew all their ways, and between the two of them they no doubt did much good.

It is owing to such earnest men as Rupert that so great a change has come over the black population, and that so many of them, even as I write, sit humbly at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind.

To quote the words of a recent writer: "The war-paints and weapons for fights are seen no more, the awful heathen corroborees have ceased, the females are treated with kindness, and the lamentable cries, accompanied by bodily injuries, when death occurred, have given place to Christian sorrow and quiet tears for their departed friends."

It came to pa.s.s one day that Etheldene and Archie, towards the end of the year, found themselves riding alone, through scrub and over plain, just as they were that day they were lost. The conversation turned round to Rupert's mission.

"What a dear, good, young man your brother is, Archie!" said the girl.

"Do you really love him?"

"As a brother, yes."

"Etheldene, have him for a brother, will you?"

The rich blood mounted to her cheeks and brow. She cast one half-shy, half-joyful look at Archie, and simply murmured, "Yes."

It was all over in a moment then. Etheldene struck her horse lightly across the crest with the handle of her stock whip, and next minute both horses were galloping as if for dear life.

When Archie told Rupert how things had turned out, he only smiled in his quiet manner.

"It is a queer way of wooing," he said; "but then you were always a queer fellow, Archie, and Etheldene is a regular Bush baby, as Craig calls her. Oh, I knew long ago she loved you!"

At the year's end then both Elsie and Etheldene were married, and married, too, at the same church in Sydney from which Bob led Sarah, his blushing bride. It might not have been quite so wild and daft a wedding, but it was a very happy one nevertheless.

No one was more free in blessing the wedded couples than old Kate. Yes, old as she was, she had determined not to be left alone in England.