Читать книгу The Outlaws of Weddin Range - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 5

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Ben Hall's mind was blessedly purged of murderous intention in that deep slumber of exhaustion. When his senses returned to him his sole desire was to murder thought and to stifle the glowing pain of recollection. Wandering like a ghost through the house where he had spent so many blissful years, he made a brave effort to discover fresh material for the reconstruction of his life. He made several resolutions. He would neither abandon the district nor his home. He would oppose a face of granite to the world, and allow none to suspect the havoc that Bridget had wrought in his heart, but force people to believe, on the contrary, that he was quietly glad to be rid of her. He would devote himself, soul and body, to the task of amassing money, and he would become a power in the land. Thus he would wipe out his dishonor and avenge his hurts, by wringing the vanity of his faithless wife. He would compel her to suppose, by his disdainful indifference to her defection, that his love, too, had been a mockery and a fraud; and by augmenting his fortunes he would oblige her to look up to his eminence from the depths of her own infamy and covet helplessly the brilliant prize that she had forfeited.

Poor Ben Hall! The end of all these desperate determinings was that he hung himself upon his marriage bed in a wild fit of weeping, and sent forth vain heart-broken cries into the still and empty twilight for his darling to return to him. When the mountains of his grief were dry, he stole out to the stables and mounted his best horse. Riding at headlong speed to the nearest village, he entered a public house and essayed the anodyne of drink. The bar-room had its usual tale of loafers—some waggoners whose teams were staked out on the roadside, a bibulous squatter named Hale, and a sundowner or two. Ben nodded to Hale, and called on the publican to supply all hands. The loungers enthusiastically breasted the counter, and prepared for a rousing spree. They had already heard of Bridget Hall's elopement (it is probable indeed that Ben had been the last man in the district to learn of it, for such news travels at the speed of light to all except the interested), and they could see at a glance that Ben's mood was entirely reckless—ergo, his purse would be at their disposal. It was. Three rounds were consumed in as many minutes, but in dead silence, because the loungers were obsessed with a single thought, and they hesitated to offer Ben their sympathy, because of his silence and the inscrutability of his face.

The company was just about to drain the fourth round—supplied noiselessly in response to a peremptory nod—when the outer door opened, and Constable James Garrett stalked into the room. His face was flushed (he had just hurried away from a neighboring inn, having heard of Ben's arrival) and he was obviously not his own master. He strode to the counter (a sundowner obsequiously made room for him) and noisily called for a glass of rum. Ben spoke for the first time. "I'm in charge here, Garrett. If you drink, you drink with me."

"Of course, I will drink with you," cried the constable. Seizing the ready glass he held it on high. "And I'll give you a toast," he bawled; "Good luck to Jack Taylor, the eye-opener of Sandy Creek!"

Ben Hall fell back a step, and his face slowly blanched. Garrett swallowed his liquor and turned to meet his enemy, bringing into prominence his pistol as he moved. "Now, I'm even with you," he jeered. "You took me at an advantage once, but never again. It's my turn now. Offer to touch me, and I'll send you up!"

The warning was apposite, for Ben's rage was in a flame, and his eyes gleamed madness. With a visible effort he controlled his passion, then he muttered, in a queer stammering way: "You've said enough for revenge, Garrett, let it go at that."

"Ay, ay, let it go at that," chimed in Hale, who thirsted for more free liquor, and was impatient at this interruption. "Shake hands and be friends," he added yearningly. But the constable was not to be satisfied with a little triumph, A beggar on horseback, he needs must ride to the devil. He named Bridget Hall, and with a biting jibe besmirched her reputation from the cradle. Ben laughed hoarsely and called for more rum. Garrett, always keeping his revolver pointed and at cock, plied the victim with still coarser insults. But he paused at length to drink, and Ben's chance arrived. The pistol cracked, but the bullet sped harmlessly into the ceiling.

Almost simultaneously the two men crashed to the floor, locked in each other's arms; but Garrett was a mere child in the powerful young squatter's grip, and in a few seconds he was screaming for mercy. As profitably he might have cried to the moon. The punishment meted out to him was brutally severe, but he had labored to deserve it, and neither then nor later did it win the ruffian any sympathy. Garrett was thenceforth known as "the Black Snake," for it was rumoured and generally believed that he carried in his mouth a pronged tongue as the result of his encounter with Ben Hall in the Maid of Arens Hotel, at Wheogo.

Ben spent the next ten days riding from one township to another, drinking heavily and ceaselessly. During all the time he was never once sober, yet never once completely intoxicated. Always he was profoundly miserable, and his wanderings were inspired by the hope of somewhere discovering a cordial potent to obliterate consciousness and memory. Although he never once guessed it, his every moment was shadowed by a watchful and ruthless enemy, who had vowed to destroy him.

Ben's companions of this era were the riff-raff of the countryside; sundowners, drunken teamsters and stockmen, and suspected highwaymen—all those, indeed, who customarily sought relaxation, excitement, or information in the low social change-houses of vice and gossip provided by the remote wayside public-houses of the period. Ben's commerce with this scum was entirely innocent of any ulterior criminal intention, but Garrett chose to think otherwise, and laid his plans accordingly.

On the eleventh day Ben found himself at Wowingragong. A race meeting chanced to be in progress, and some idlers whom he met at the local tavern persuaded him to visit the course. Ben had scarcely entered the enclosure when he was accosted and publicly arrested by Sir Frederick Pottinger, chief of police of all that district, and charged with having lately committed highway robbery under arms.

Numbers of Ben's respectable friends and neighbors were present. They clustered round the officer and his prisoner, and were so indignant when they heard the ridiculous charge that they threatened to make trouble. Ben, however, was perfectly indifferent. He advised his sympathisers to let him alone, and submitted quietly to arrest, holding up his wrists for the hand-cuffs. The truth was, he cared nothing what happened to him, and so vain had been his quest of oblivion in drink that he was almost prepared to welcome the new experience. Sir Frederick Pottinger haled him to the lock-up, and thrust him into a cell. Next morning he was formally committed.

The police then carried him to Orange, and lodged him in the town prison, the committing magistrate having refused him bail. Ben lay in the Orange gaol awaiting his trial for five weeks. His enemy devoted the time to amassing evidence against him. Ben spent the days in painful reflection. He soon recovered from the effects of his reckless debauch, which had, in fact, in no wise distressed his magnificent constitution. But he remained terribly unhappy. The friends who visited him always found him silent and morose. He refused all help, all consolation. He would not consent that a lawyer should be employed to defend him, and he seemed only to desire to be left in solitude.

What were his thoughts can only be guessed, but that they did not greatly concern the charge hanging over him is a certainty, since he made not the slightest preparation at any time for his defence.

At length came the day of his trial. The court was crowded to the doors with excited and curious spectators. Ben stood in the dock, chained hand and foot like a desperate felon. Many cried "Shame," as he made his appearance thus accoutred. But Ben seemed not to feel the degradation. His handsome face was perfectly composed, and his bearing was self-possessed and proud. He gave the impression of being quite detached from his surroundings and quietly scornful of the humiliating position in which he was placed.

During the formal preliminary ceremonies he was seen to smile contemptuously once or twice, but he took no part in them, except to say, "Not guilty," in a firm and resonant voice, when required to plead. The Crown exhausted its rights of challenge while the jury was being empanelled; but Ben challenged no man, nor did he cross-examine a single witness for the prosecution. One might have thought that he desired to be convicted. The judge, however, was concerned that justice should be done. He had conceived, moreover, an interest in the prisoner (whom he afterwards described to a friend as one of the finest-looking men he had ever seen), and he put a number of shrewd questions to each witness.

The result was sensational.

When the Crown case was closed, the perspiring prosecutor was constrained to admit that there was no case for the prisoner to answer. Every witness had broken down in the box before his Honor's cross-examination, and Ben's innocence was manifest. The judge made a few stinging comments on the methods of the police, and curtly directed the jury to acquit the prisoner, which they did at once, without leaving their seats.

Ben's triumph was complete. The sergeant struck off his gyves in the midst of a noisy public demonstration, which the Court criers could not suppress. Ben bowed gravely to the judge, and strode quietly through a lane of loudly cheering sympathisers to the door, a free man.

Half an hour later he left Orange for Sandy Creek, his mind as to the future fully resolved. He intended to sell his station, muster his stock, and forthwith remove with all his horses and cattle to another and distant part of the colony.

In all likelihood the plan had been conceived and elaborated while he lay in prison. Certainly it was a wise one. It seemed highly improbable that he could ever be happy on the Lachlan, where every association was identified with memories of the faithless wife, whose image even yet he had been unable to tear out of his heart; and beyond that, the Lachlan held an active enemy possessed of the power and opportunity to annoy and hurt him, and determinedly bent upon his ruin. Ben's aspiration now was to seek in some far territory, the peace and quiet of which his life had been so sadly bereft. He was still young, barely five and twenty years of age, and what right had he to suppose that the present darkness would not lighten?

Now and then fate and circumstance appeared too strong for him, but might he not, in some remote and even fairer district, among fresh faces, and helped by people to whom his story was unknown, found another home, build up a new and brighter career, and at length, perhaps, come on speaking terms with happiness again? At any rate he would make the experiment, and put all his soul and strength into the effort. Should he let it be said that a worthless woman had spoiled his life, beaten him to earth, and robbed his strong young Manhood of the power to rise again? Perish the notion! A curse upon such weakness! He could live lonely and prosper thus in all things best—and he would! Ben shook a shut fist skyward as he rode, as though defying all the slings of fortune. But the next moment all that loneliness means to the married heart smote his consciousness with misery, and, bowed upon his horse's neck by a force beyond control, he groaned.