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Shortly before eleven o’clock the expected visitors arrived, Dr. Haldane and the clergyman riding abreast, and followed by the latter’s two armed servants, one of whom led a packhorse. Lathom met them at the steps and bade them welcome, and the two attendants were sent off to the servants’ quarters, where they would have ample opportunity to exchange gossip and talk about their respective masters.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in,” said the commandant, as he shook hands with his guests. “Mrs. Lathom begs of you to come to her first, before going to your rooms. She will not detain you longer than is necessary for you to take a little refreshment, of which I am sure you stand in need after so long and so hot a ride.”

“Indeed, Lathom, it is most thoughtful of her; for, unlike our reverend friend here, I can never restrain my carnal longings when I know that liquid refreshment is near;” and Haldane, a huge, broad-shouldered, flowing whiskered man, slapped Lathom on the shoulder, and laughed boisterously.

“The weather has indeed been most ungracious,” said the clergyman in slow, harsh, ponderous tones, as he walked towards the dining-room, “but yet we must not presume to question the decree of an all-wise Providence. Hum, ha!”

Mrs. Lathom came forward with outstretched hand. “This is indeed an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Marsbin. I was so charmed when my husband told me that we should have the honour of your company.”

The clergyman bowed over the white hand and murmured something inaudible, though it ended with his usual half-coughed “Hum, ha!” with which he invariably closed even the shortest remark; then the “captain’s lady” greeted Haldane (whom she sincerely hated, and who knew it), and then indicated, with a bright smile, the spirit stand and wine decanters on the table.

“Now, Fred, I shall leave you to look after Mr. Marsbin and the doctor until luncheon; I have no doubt but that presently you will all have much to say to each other. To you, Mr. Marsbin, who have so lately been in Sydney, I look to tell me all the latest news. Captain Lathom never thinks of me in that respect. He brings me the Sydney Gazette with an air of triumph, and thinks he has achieved marvels, when, as you know, that horrid paper contains no news that is not from four to six months old, and I really dread to open it, for one-half of it is occupied with shipping matters, and the other half with notices of absconded prisoners, and of official reports.”

“The mournful exigencies of the condition of this colony—largely populated by a criminal and godless community of persons of innate depravity of mind, necessitate, my dear lady, a dignified austerity of tone in the newspaper press of the colony, an austerity that later on, when a better condition of life prevails, may—and I personally shall not be averse to such a departure—give place to the lighter and less momentous things of life, and chronicle the gaieties and harmless frivolities that are inseparable from a more refined society. Hum, ha!”

As he spoke the clergyman sank slowly back into a comfortable chair, and half-closed his dull, heavy-lidded eyes, and crossed his thick, white, yet shapely hands across the long-vanished line of demarcation that had once existed between his chest and his stomach.

Mrs. Lathom smiled sweetly as Haldane opened the door for her, and then Lathom showed the clergyman to his room. In a few minutes he returned to the doctor.

“Haldane, old fellow! How glad I am to see you again!” and in his quiet, undemonstrative manner he placed his sun-browned hand on his friend’s arm. “Come, let us have another glass of wine together before you go to your room.”

“Wine, Fred, wine! ‘No, an’ you love me, no more wine.’ I drank claret just now for the proprieties only, observe you, my melancholy New Holland knight of La Mancha, who is for ever tilting at the impregnable fastnesses of official stupidity. No, no wine, my boy, but a good, stiff half-tumbler of good honest brandy with good honest water. I want it—after listening to the exordium of our clerical friend.”

Lathom laughed—and his laugh was always pleasant to hear. “Indeed you shall, George, and I’ll join you. You don’t know how glad I shall be to see that man’s back. There is something so repellent about even his manner of speaking that every time he opens his mouth it jars me. No wonder the prisoners hate him.”

“Hate him!” said the doctor, as he poured himself out some brandy. “I would not like to stand in his shoes, Fred. One of these days a bullet will be coming out of the bush and take him in the back, and some poor wretch—half a dozen perhaps—will dance in the air for it. Well, your good health, Fred. How are matters progressing at Waringa?”

“Fairly well. His Excellency said some very complimentary things to me in his last letter, and hinted at the possibility of his paying a visit here after the worst of the summer is over. By the way, my wife is shortly returning to Sydney for a few months. She has latterly had several fainting fits, and I am feeling somewhat anxious.”

“Weather has been very trying lately,” said the doctor, trying to speak with sympathy, but not succeeding too well in the effort; “no doubt she will find that the sea air will do her good. Do you accompany her?”

Lathom shook his head. “No, I cannot, unfortunately; I should not like to apply for leave just now. However, she is taking Helen with her, and they can go down to Port Hunter very comfortably in the boat, and from there by sea to Sydney.”

Haldane nodded. “You’ll feel lonely. Better invite me to come and stay a few weeks with you. I want to murder some of those ducks in the creek.”

Lathom’s face lit up with pleasure. “I shall be delighted. ’Tis just like you to suggest what I fear will be an inconvenience to you. And yet I quite intended to ask you to come.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll come next week, and kill every duck within ten miles.”

During luncheon Mr. Marsbin told Mrs. Lathom all the latest news—the arrival of a fleet of transports under the convoy of His Majesty’s ship Marlborough; the dinner given by the Governor to the captain and officers; the advent of two fresh “Methody” parsons, and two “Papist” priests; the political troubles in Ireland and “at home”; the condition of the penal colony in Van Dieman’s Land; the intrusion of American whaling and sealing ships into southern seas, and their alleged frequent interferences and collisions with the crews of colonial vessels; and, lastly, the spread of bushranging, not only in Van Dieman’s Land, but in New South Wales.

“ ’Tis indeed a sad state of affairs, dear madam,” he said, after describing an attack made by a band of escaped prisoners on the estate of Mr. Feilding, only fifty miles from Sydney. “Mistaken leniency has now grown into such direct maladministration of justice that there will be, I fear, such an accession to the numbers of these desperately evil men before long, that human life will be rendered unsafe even in the more thickly settled portions of the colony. The troops at the disposal of the Governor are few—so few that His Excellency does not, I imagine, realise that a combination of these villains may one day result in a terrible massacre of the good, the law-abiding, and even the repentant. Hum, ha.”

“Ah, sir, not that, I trust,” said Lathom quietly; “individual cases of pillage, ending in murder, by some case-hardened ruffian, are indeed common enough, but the community at large need have no fear of these wandering bands of escaped convicts constituting a serious menace to their lives by making anything beyond a half-hearted raid upon some isolated estate such as that of Mr. Feilding. Their main object is to obtain food, of which they are always in want. Were any of Mr. Feilding’s people maltreated?”

“No blood was shed,” replied the clergyman in his deep, rasping voice, “but the villains seized and bound all the servants, plundered the store-room of provisions and spirits, and openly told Mrs. Feilding that had they found her husband at home they would have cut off his ears and given him a flogging! Little did they dream that Mr. Feilding himself was concealed above the ceiling of the very room in which they sat carousing! Hum, ha!”

Lathom uttered an angry exclamation of contempt. “Do you mean to say, sir, that Mr. Feilding played the coward, and left his wife to face a gang of escaped convicts? ’Tis monstrous. I have no sympathy with him. ’Twould have served him but rightly had they carried out their threat.”

“I fear, Fred, that you are rather too hasty in asserting your opinion,” said Mrs. Lathom coldly. “What could one man do against seven?”

“Nothing, perhaps. Much, most probably. But then one must not expect too much from a creature of Feilding’s calibre in time of danger. How such a contemptible person was given a responsible position passes my comprehension. He is utterly unfitted for it—not one single qualification does he possess.”

The clergyman’s fat face darkened, and something like a scowl gathered on his coarse fleshy forehead. Haldane leant his elbow on the table, and gave his host an encouraging nod of interest and sympathy to proceed, for he knew that “flogging Feilding” had received his appointment as a magistrate of the territory through Marsbin’s influence alone, and he was inwardly smiling with delight at the clergyman’s discomfiture.

“Go on, Fred,” he said. “I, as you know, am deeply interested in this subject, not only as a fellow-magistrate with you, reverend sir”—and he bowed to Mr. Marsbin—“but for other reasons. By heavens, madam—sir, I beg your pardon”—and again he bowed solemnly to the clergyman—“but ’tis a shocking thing to hear that one of His Majesty’s magistrates played the cur in the presence of his own wife. Egad, did our outspoken king know of such disgraceful conduct, he would make short work——”

“Sir, we should thank you to allow Captain Lathom to continue,” said Marsbin, turning down his lips. “But I presume that his Majesty would feel astonished and grieved to learn that in this young country there is growing up an indifference—nay, callousness—to the principles of law, order, and religion, that can only end in rebellion and disaster. Hum, ha! Pray proceed, Captain Lathom, with your indictment of Mr. Feilding.”

Mrs. Lathom rose. “Now you are going into all sorts of things of which a poor little woman can have but scanty knowledge, so I shall leave you. But I shall be bold enough to say that I feel convinced that—that the dangerous condition of affairs to which Mr. Marsbin alludes so guardedly may be very imminent unless we have a governor sent to us who—who will protect the superior classes from the encroachment of emancipated convicts.”

“Bravo, Ida!” laughed Lathom, as he opened the door. “ ’Tis the first time I have heard you speak so strongly;” and he placed his honest hand caressingly on her shoulder as she went out.

“Mrs. Lathom’s sentiments do her the greatest honour, sir, and I congratulate you on the possession of so gifted a wife. ’Tis eminently pleasing to me, sir, to meet such a lady as Mrs. Lathom;” and then, all his fighting blood up, he looked Lathom squarely in the face.

“Now, sir, let us talk. Put aside the fact of my sacred office. Put aside the fact—which I shall now avow—that the Home Government, on my recommendation alone, appointed Mr. Feilding to the position he now occupies, and tell me, sir, why you object to this worthy gentleman? Hum, ha!”

Lathom motioned to his soldier servant, who (with Helen) had been waiting, and had discreetly retired out of hearing, to bring the spirit-stand.

“Thank you, Walsh. That will do; you need not wait. Helen, please see to Mrs. Lathom. No doubt she will like some tea;” and eager and half-angry as he was to come to battle with the clergyman, he spoke, as was his invariable custom, with a simple courtesy that again made Mr. Marsbin turn down his lips and then raise his heavy fat-lidded eyes as if appealing to Heaven to note that he, at least, did not approve of an officer in the King’s service speaking in such an unduly condescending manner to a female convict. But Lathom was ready for him.

“Now, Mr. Marsbin, we three can talk freely. You have asked me why I object to Mr. Feilding as a magistrate. In the first place, his legal attainments are of the most rudimentary character, and that disqualification, added to an infirmity of temper, have made his decisions notorious throughout the colony; in the second, he is not a gentleman, either by birth, education, or instinct, and never having tried to act as one, cannot therefore inspire respect either in his brother magistrates or in the minds of the public generally; in the third, his intemperate habits, his coarse language, and even his personal appearance, render him an object of derision and contempt.”

The clergyman was silent. Haldane watched his face keenly. Then Lathom resumed—

“I think, sir, that you, as a clergyman, will most heartily agree with me that it is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of public decorum and morality, and for the present and future welfare of this colony, that the private lives of the civilian officials—men who bear most weighty responsibilities on their shoulders—should be above suspicion.”

“Certainly, sir. I approve of your sentiments.”

“Unfortunately, the very reverse obtains in too many cases, with the not unnatural result that many thousands of men and women who have been sent here for crimes against society, instead of being helped to redeem themselves by a proper example being set them by those in authority, sink deeper and deeper into vice. Then the fearful punishments which follow, instead of being a deterrent, act in exactly the reverse manner by rendering them indifferent and callous. Is it any wonder, then, that we hear of these attacks on isolated settlers, these burnings and pillages? Ah, sir, in my opinion our Convict System is entirely wrong. It punishes with terrible severity. It does little to redeem, little to elevate. I sincerely trust that its existence will soon be brought to an end, for the manner in which it is administered is a disgrace and a blot upon the fame of the British nation, and cannot longer be tolerated by the free settlers of this colony.”

He paused, and then, with flushed cheeks and brightening eyes, went on—

“This attack on Feilding’s house, now. We all know that Feilding has a number of well-armed servants, who are quite able to protect him. That they did not do so gives me no surprise; no doubt they were in collusion with the escaped convicts. And yet only five miles from Mr. Feilding’s house is Major Waller’s farm, inhabited by but four persons—the major, his wife, and his two daughters. Waller himself is, as you know, a rheumatic cripple, and unable even to hold a pistol in his hand. Yet his house contains much more than that of Feilding to tempt any lawlessly-inclined person. How is it that he has never yet been attacked? For seven years he has lived in the most absolute security.”

“It has long been known to me, sir,” said Marsbin severely, “that Major Waller has on several occasions shown a misplaced sympathy with the criminal classes.”

“Misplaced! No, sir, not misplaced, but a human, an honourable sympathy—a sympathy that does him the greatest credit. As a disciplinarian he was the terror of his regiment; as a gentleman and a Christian he gained the respect and, I firmly believe in some cases, the love and gratitude of certain convicts who were rapidly being turned into wild beasts by the floggings given them until they came under his control.”

Then seeing that Mr. Marsbin’s face was flushing purple with anger, he ceased, and at once became the courteous host, with but the one thought of entertaining his guest.

“Now, Mr. Marsbin, will you give me the pleasure of showing you over the new maize mill we have just erected on the banks of the creek? ’Twill prove, I trust, a great boon to the settlers hereabout.”

“Any enterprise that conduces to the improvement of the country has my approval and interest, sir,” said the clergyman pompously, as he rose. “I will accompany you with pleasure. Hum, ah!”