In the Roaring Fifties Part 42

This was on Sat.u.r.day. Jim was in Tarrangower an hour before noon on Sundays The first digger they met directed them to Mary Kyley's tent.

Mary was busy preparing dinner, but dropped everything, and rushed at the visitors, half' smothering Jim in a motherly hug.

'Murder! you're looking peeky and thin, Jimmy!' she cried.

'Never mind me, Mrs. Ben; I'm all right. Where's Joy?'

'She's gone for a bit of a walk in the sun.'

'Could I find her?'

'Deuce take your impatience! This isn't flattering to me!'

'Harry will comfort you. I want Aurora, and I want her badly. If she doesn't want me, you'd better have left me to die when I had the good chance down there at Eureka, Mary Kyley.'

'That's good to hear. On my soul, I like the ring of it! Keep round the bend of the hill to the left. You'll see her among the saplings.'

He found her within a few minutes. Seeing her in the distance, he ran like a schoolboy, and arrived at her side breathless. She was sitting on a log; her hat was at her feet. She was radiant with health and colour again. It seemed to him that she had a peculiar affinity with the sunshine. He sank on his knees, seizing her hands, speaking nothing, seeking a verdict in her face. She slipped her hands from his and clasped them about his neck, and her face sank down to his.

'Oh, ma bouthal, you have come back to me,' she murmured.

'Yes, I've come back, Joy he said hoa.r.s.ely.

'And with the true light in eyes.'

'With my soul full of love for you, my Joy.'

'And the other?'

'There is no other! There never was another! There was a childish waywardness, a summer madness--G.o.d knows what! But I know now Joy, that you are mistress and master of me, that without you I am worthless. I want you, my darling.'

'You have me!--you have me, Jim! Every beat of the heart of me!'

She pressed her face to his, and their first kiss had not the rapture of that kiss. In it mingled the old sweet emotions, and new ones born of sorrow that were sweeter still.

'I only understood one side of my love for you,' he said presently. 'I had to be taught the rest in a hard school.'

'I knew you would come back to me, sooner or later. You have come soon.'

'You knew?' He looked at her wonderingly for a moment, but the surprise pa.s.sed. It only seemed strange that he had not recognised all along how inevitable was his return. 'Now that I have come I go no more,' he said.

'I cannot spare you from my side. I want the ties. I would clamp you to my heart with iron if I could.'

'Arrah! 'tis a happy girl I am, Jimmy,' she whispered. 'Hush! d'ye hear the song in heart?'

He laughed at the brogue, and pressed his lips amongst her thick hair.

'I want you for my wife,' he said.

She clung to him closely in silence for a moment and then he raised her gently and they walked back to the tent, hand in hand.

Nearly a year later Mr. and Mrs. Done were in Melbourne together when the Petral sailed for England. Amongst the ship's pa.s.sengers were Mrs. Donald Macdougal, her two children, and Lucy Woodrow. Mrs. Macdougal, a wealthy and attractive widow, had sold b.o.o.byalla, and intended to make her home in England. Lucy was still her companion, and, bidding them farewell, Jim was glad to know that the girl was well and not unhappy.

Jim and Aurora followed the rushes for some years after their marriage, and when they settled down in a substantial house at Ballarat, Done long regretted the canvas walls and the stir and gaiety of the tented fields.

By this time Ballarat was a prim town of many churches and strong Wesleyan proclivities, and Eureka had been justified by the concession of nearly all that the diggers fought for. One-armed Peter Lalor was a staid Parliamentarian and a stout Const.i.tutionalist now, and the grave in which Micah Burton and the other rebels lay buried was an honoured spot. But by this time, too, new interests had been born into Done's life, new existences had been incorporated with his own, and he had a quaint fellowship with the youngsters, for in his heart remained a sneaking delight in the folly that is the scorn of fools. There were people who called Joy a hoyden at forty, but she retained the invincible soul of the woman who laughs.

THE END