Читать книгу Mount Desolation - Carlton Dawe - Страница 4

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THE sun was setting then, a sullen ball of fire, and its angry beams shot fair into the eyes of two young people who, with slow gait and troubled faces, were slowly wending their way towards the homestead which lay about a mile before them. He was speaking rapidly, with impatient gestures, the red light of the angry sun sparkling fiercely in his eyes. Now and again she would seize his great brown hand in her little gloved one and press it timidly, turning up to his face a pair of the sweetest dark eyes that Mr. Thomas Stanford had ever seen—at least, so that young gentleman thought, for every time she looked up to him he stooped suddenly down and kissed her full on those pouting red lips of hers, or on that smooth white brow over which her hair fluttered in the most wayward manner. She was a tall slender girl, with a rich dark complexion, ruddy and brown like a peach—the sort of complexion only seen with dark women. Her years were but one score, though she looked older, as most Australian girls do, thanks to hot winds and sun. Like the fruit of their native hills, the sun kisses them to perfection with quickness inconceivable. They seem to ripen even as one sits and watches. The child of to-day is the young woman of to-morrow. Ankle skirts and maternity go hand in hand.

Her companion was a tall, dark-complexioned, broadly-built young man of about seven-and-twenty—a typical Australian, active, hardy, sport-loving, blunt, but honest as the day. Features somewhat sharp, and eyebrows slightly compressed, as though their owner had been in the habit of knitting them whenever in thought. This gave a somewhat fierce and eager look to his face, but instead of detracting from it, lent to it a look of command which heightened the general excellence of his well-cut features. White teeth gleamed from beneath a brown moustache, and out from all shone, in strange contrast to the general determination of his carriage, a pair of soft grey eyes. Yet even these, though they had been likened to a woman’s on more than one occasion, had been known to shoot forth lightning sparks which, if they did not burn, at least were known to terrify. But, as a rule, they were soft, and even full of pity, and no one had ever been known to approach Tom Stanford with a tale of true distress without enlisting his sympathy.

What brought him to Mount Desolation no one ever knew or cared. It was known that he had come from somewhere on the Darling, but why, or from which part, was of no consequence. To Mr. Franklin, however, the father of the young girl by his side, he had presented excellent credentials, and was employed as manager of the station, in which capacity he had given entire satisfaction. As we have said, no one had questioned whence he came or what he was, but, for certain reasons which shall be seen hereafter, he volunteered all information respecting his birth and parentage for his employer’s benefit. So from that source we learn that his father was at one time a merchant in Sydney, but that reverses coming upon him, he was forced to the seclusion of a small country house which he had managed to save from the wreck of his fortune. Here Master Thomas, then a boy of twelve, dwelt with his parents for the next five years. Then both mother and father followed each other to the grave, after an interval of five months, and Tom, now a big strapping fellow of seventeen, was sent back to Sydney and put in his uncle’s office. Office work, however, suited not his active nature, and after eighteen months of it he prevailed upon his uncle to let him go into the country to learn the pastoralist’s trade, his ultimate object being to take up some land on his own account. So into the country he went with a friend of the family, a man who owned a big run away up near the Queensland border, and after a two years’ sojourn in those parts he packed up his swag and came farther south. From that time he roamed hither and thither at his own sweet will, for Master Thomas had something of the nomad in him, till he was brought up with a round turn, as a sailor would say, at Mr. Franklin’s station of Koorabyn. Here he proved himself both clever and assiduous, and if he was a little reckless at times Mr. Franklin purposely shut his eyes. There was reckoned no better rider than he on the Darling, and sure no bolder one was ever seen. Buckjumper or bullock, it was all one to him; and a story was told of his having ridden a wild bull for a wager, and won it too. Therefore, when he first came to Mount Desolation he fairly astonished the natives—a race of reckless riders. Horses that no one else could sit he sat and tamed, and when he rode at the races his mount always carried the most money. It was here his reputation for daring increased, and when they saw him ride into the town of a Saturday afternoon, with big Joe Devine, his constant companion, by his side, the people knew there was going to be some fun down at the “Bounding Kangaroo,” for to that alcoholic retreat the “bloods” of Desolation adjourned for fun and frolic. Some of the virtuous ones to whom we have referred, to whom cakes and ale were an abomination, had approached Mr. Franklin on Stanford’s behalf, but as Mr. Franklin had found no fault with that young gentleman, but had proved him to be a most excellent overseer, their visits produced no effect. Besides, no matter what he might do at the “Bounding Kangaroo,” he was never absent from his duties, and that, in his employer’s eyes, was a virtue which outweighed his petty vices.

But of a sudden this dissipation ceased. One Tuesday afternoon he drove the trap over to the railway station to meet Miss Alice Franklin, who was coming back from Melbourne after an absence of several years. Mr. Franklin had often spoken to the young manager of his beautiful daughter, and had naturally excited that young man’s imagination. At last the news came that she was really coming, and as Mr. Franklin happened to be rather unwell on the day of her arrival, he deputed Stanford to go and fetch her in his stead. Tom was on the platform when the train steamed in; he saw a pretty, fashionably-attired young lady step from a first-class carriage, and as she was the only woman who had alighted, he knew it must be she for whom he had been sent. For the first time in his life Mr. Stanford grew exceedingly nervous. He stood staring at her like a big fool, and it was not till she approached and asked him if he had come from Mr. Franklin that he could find his tongue. But the drive back was pleasant enough for all that. He had seen little of ladies for many years now, and this young girl came like a revelation to him. Was there ever such a sweet voice? he wondered, and he sat listening to her musical prattle like one in a dream. And how she did talk, in her soft cultured way!

What a string of questions she asked, never waiting for a reply! Oh, yes—thus went her prattle—she had been to school at Melbourne, but not for the last two years. During that period she had been “out.” She had not been to Koorabyn for ever so long—not since she was fifteen. She was twenty now. Fancy!—wasn’t she getting old? Was Jura, the kangaroo dog, still alive? My word, how he could jump! And didn’t he have a horrible scar right down his face which a nasty old man kangaroo had once done in a fight? Dead, was he?—poor old Jura! “We called him Jura, you know, because he was so big, and there is a big mountain somewhere in Europe called by that name. Papa has seen it. Of course papa is English, and he knows all about those strange European places.” And how was papa? And were the quinces she had planted five years ago still growing? She was awfully fond of quinces. Injurious! Oh dear, were they? She had often made her luncheon off a quince and a slice of bread-and-butter. And a nice luncheon it was, too! He ought to try it. He smiled and said he would if she would give him a quince from one of her trees. She looked at him and her chatter ceased of a sudden. There was something so earnest in the grey eyes that looked down into hers that she at once relapsed into the “young lady.” A rather irksome silence followed, broken but little till the roof of Koorabyn loomed in sight. All the same, Mr. Thomas Stanford forgot to visit the “Bounding Kangaroo” the following Saturday night.

But time brings many changes, and since that memorable drive Miss Franklin and Mr. Stanford had become very dear to each other; and that is the chief reason why their faces look so anxious in the red glare of this day’s setting sun.

“But, Tom,” she was saying, “do you mean that papa has really turned you off—really, Tom?” She repeated the word as though she could scarcely grasp its meaning.

“Yes, really,” he answered somewhat bitterly. “I am to go the way I came, and the place that knew me once shall know me no more for ever.” He tried to make light of the occurrence, but there was a quiver in his voice he never meant should be there.

“But why, Tom, why has father done all this? I have heard him praise your energy and sense a hundred times; and he even wrote to me in Melbourne the most glowing accounts of his new manager. Now all is suddenly changed, and without a word of warning you are turned away as though you were some rogue or vagabond.”

“Perhaps he thinks I am.”

“He could not think that.”

“You know there are some people in the district who would give me a very evil reputation.”

“But that was long ago,” she said.

“Before I saw you.” He threw his arm round her and drew her to him. “There, there,” he continued. “Let them say what they please. We love each other; what more should we want?”

But this would not satisfy the girl, who, being an only child, and motherless, was naturally of a wilful disposition.

“I want to know what it means, Tom, and what you mean. As my father is not a madman, there must be some reason for your dismissal. What is it? for you, at least, must guess.”

“I do, and since you wish it I will tell you. The fact that I have served your father for three years without an angry word is, or should be, sufficient proof that I have served him well.”

“There can be no doubt of that.”

“During the whole of that period I have been his companion, his friend. Under my care the property, never a good one, has considerably increased in value. In fact, all that a man could do has been done by me. Yet, without a word of warning, I am informed that I had better look out for another place, as Mr. Franklin intends to manage the run himself. Now, as your father has never taken interest enough in his property to be able to manage it, you will easily see that there must be some other motive for my dismissal.”

“Yes, yes, but what can it be?”

“Can’t you guess?”

She shook her head.

“Are you quite sure?”

She looked up at him, blushing like a rose, and said in a low voice, “Can it be Mr. Wingrove?”

“I am glad you did not profess ignorance. Yes, it is Mr. Wingrove, for it can be no one else. The man admires you.”

She tossed her pretty head disdainfully. “What of that?”

“Much, dear. When a man like Martin Wingrove sets his heart upon a thing it will go hard with him if he does not get it. He is rich, influential, unscrupulous. And in our case he has the power to press, to injure. I am afraid of him.”

“Then, I suppose, you are also afraid of me?” she asked somewhat pertly.

“Almost. I sometimes think that I was never born to such good fortune, that I am living in a fool’s paradise, and that I shall wake up one morning and find my Eve has flown. But you love me,” he added hastily, almost excitedly; “you do love me, Allie?” She buried her crimson lace on his breast and whispered, “You know I do.”

“But say it,” he said, “say it.”

“I love you, I love you.”

He bent down and kissed her passionately, fiercely. “By heaven,” he said, as he strained her to him, “I’ll kill him if he comes between us.”

“Hush,” she cried, putting her hand to his mouth, “you must not say such wicked things.”

He seized the little gloved hand and pressed it to his lips.

“It is the gospel,” he said earnestly. “You are all I have in the world, all I hope for; you are my life itself. There is nothing I would not do for your sake, be it sacrilege or crime. There can be for me no happiness, here or hereafter, except through you.”

She clung to him thrilled, yet half afraid of his fierce words.

“You must not love like that. I am only a poor silly girl, utterly unworthy of such devotion. You should have been the lover of some grand fierce woman, not a poor little body like me.”

He laughed in an odd sort of way, but said nothing.

In the meantime the sun had sunk, and the cloud of dull red gold that it had left in its wake began to slowly dissolve into the steely haze: the chirp of the parrots died away, and only the low humming of insects filled the air. Away ahead of them the great black mountain loomed up solemn and grand, like some awful spirit in a world of fire.

At last the girl, who had remained silent for some time, shut in a world of thought, turned to him with a nervous, inquiring look.

“I have been thinking, Tom, and I cannot see why we should blame Mr. Wingrove for your dismissal. It is all very well to say that the horrid man is in love with me, and that he would dismiss you if he had the power; but he was not your master.”

“Master, Allie!”

“Forgive me, dear.”

“No, no, you are right. I am a slave, and master is the correct word. The only difference between me and the negro is that I may call my body my own. Well, Wingrove is not my master—I wish it were only that.”

“What could be worse?”

“He is the master of my master.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Have you not heard, do you not know?”

“I have heard nothing, I know nothing. It is five years since I have been here. All the world seems changed since then. Even old Desolation yonder, who was the wonder and terror of my childhood, scowls more fiercely and looks far gloomier than he did in the old days. Did you notice what a weird thing it looked a moment ago as it loomed up through that cloud of fire?”

“I did,” said Stanford, “and I thought of Dante’s Hell.”

“Yes, yes,” she almost screamed, so excited did she get, “that is it—it is Hell. Have you never heard the legend of that mountain?”

“Never,” he answered. The people of Mount Desolation knew as little of legends as they did of Greek.

“In the native tongue,” she continued, apparently forgetting in her excitement aught else but the mountain, “it is called the Hill of the Dead. Long, long ago, when the inhabitants of this country lived and warred as civilised men do now, there was a very powerful chief who made war against the magicians who lived in the great ranges yonder. This chief had determined to overthrow the magicians, and with that object in view gathered together a vast army; but in the night, while the countless thousands lay wrapped in sleep, the magicians arose in their might, and tearing yonder great hill from its seat in the earth, they hurled it upon the sleeping camp.”

“How did you come by that strange story?”

“It was told to me by an old blackwoman whom we had about the station when I was a little girl. And, moreover, she used to say that the mountain could foretell when any great event was at hand. “When mother died she foretold it, as I have heard father say a hundred times; and before the great drought came she told us that the mountain had given a terrible warning.”

“Really,” said Stanford, now interested in spite of himself, and casting strange looks towards that grim iron mass, which nestled, as it were, in a great cloud of lurid fire; “but did she forget to tell you how you were to read the warning?”

“No, even that was explained, and I turned it into rhyme.”

“You did?” said he admiringly. “Do you remember it?”

“Yes,” she replied, and forthwith repeated the following verse:—

“When the Mount like a demon looms through the glare of a sullen fire,

The heart of the watcher shall weep for the loss of a soul’s desire.”

There was something uncanny in the tone of her voice, and he quivered in spite of himself, but with a laugh he said, “Why, you elf, you are as full of superstitions as an old-world peasant. The grim old mountain yonder may be the tomb of thousands, but the days of signs and omens are past, and we are here to make fate, not to bow to it.”

“Of course it is silly,” she said, “and I try to shake off the feeling; but somehow I think that my life will for ever be associated with that horrible mountain.”

“Then the association shall be one of pleasure—a pleasant memory. It shall no longer be Mount Desolation to us, but Mount Hope; and the demon who sits enthroned in yonder grim fortress we’ll transform into an angel; and the ‘sullen fire’ of your rhyme we’ll change to the golden pathway along which our aged feet shall walk to the home of eternal sunshine. There,” he added, with a laugh, “isn’t that a better view of the picture?”

“I hope for our sakes it will be the true one. But you were to tell me something,” she said, coming back to the point she had so abruptly quitted. “What is there between my father and Mr. Wingrove?”

“Perhaps I ought not to tell you. Yet it will out sooner or later, and to you it can be no breach of confidence. Your father, then, is in Mr. Wingrove’s power.”

“How in his power?”

“Mr. Wingrove holds a mortgage on Koorabyn. He is your father’s friend, of course, and would take no advantage of the power he holds; but, should he determine on striking, he could drive the master of Koorabyn forth as its master has driven me.”

“Are you sure of what you say?” she asked.

“Yes. I do not know the amount, but I know of it.”

“Then the blackwoman’s legend was no fanciful conceit; the days of signs and omens are not past, and the mountain has renewed its warning.”

“No, no,” he cried, as he folded her to him, “the black’s legend was an old woman’s tale. We are to make our fate, as I said before, not leave it for others to fashion. Will you come with me, Allie? We’ll go to Melbourne, Sydney—anywhere you choose, I am not rich, but I am young and strong, and I’ll work for you, dear, while I can stand. You shall never see that horrible mountain again, never know what it is to have a care, save such as heaven may be pleased to send. I will devote my whole life to you, and shall be amply rewarded in knowing you are happy. What do you say—will you, will you come with me?”

She made no reply, but sobbed gently on his breast.

“Do you know,” he continued, as he pressed his lips into her wayward hair, “I am beginning to grow half afraid of that man Wingrove. He has too much power, too much wealth, for me to contemplate him with serenity. He loves you in his own selfish way; and he has good reason to hate me. Our grievance dates prior to your return. I threatened to horsewhip him once, and he has never forgotten it. That in itself was enough to make him my implacable enemy. He swore then that I should live to rue that day, and he is one who never forgets or forgives. I laughed at his threats then, but I can’t laugh now. I do not fear him as man to man,” he added suddenly, as though to remove any suspicion of his cowardice from her mind: “I fear no man alive; but this secret power which has robbed me of my place, which may rob me of my hopes, my life, is what I dread. There is no combating wealth and power, Alice, unless with similar weapons. The poor man must go under. Was it not Napoleon who said that ‘God is always on the side of the big battalions’?”

“Do you not overrate this man’s power? How can he possibly injure you who have done nothing wrong?”

“How has he injured me? How he will I cannot say; though if he fights me fairly he may wish he had never begun the contest, But you have not answered my proposal. Will you come with me?”

“But I am sure papa will never consent to our marriage—at least not yet,” she added by way of a sop to her gloomy Cerberus.

He smiled in a grim sort of way. “That’s why I want you to run away with me.”

“Papa would never forgive me.”

“Would that affect you so much?”

“Of course it would.”

“Then you do not love me as much as I thought.”

“I love you better than anyone in the world,” she said, “though you are a cross, disagreeable old thing. But papa—he is my father, he has been good to me. I should be more ungrateful than you would have your wife if I were to treat him with such ingratitude.”

“Quite true,” he said. “I was wrong, forgive me.”

“You may kiss our hand,” she said, in her own queenly way. He seized it, carried it reverentially to his lips, and kissed it very earnestly. Then suddenly drawing her to him, he caught her in his strong arms, and showered a volley of kisses all over her face and hair; nor would he have released her then had she not declared that he was crushing her to death.

“You are too rough for anything,” she panted, as he loosened his grasp. “Look at my hat and hair.”

“Very pretty, both. But do you know, I’m half mad whenever I come near you.”

“Really, Tom, you frighten me. You look so fierce and passionate at times that I’m sure I’m half afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me,” he laughed. “It is I who am afraid of you.”

“Ah,” she said, “why won’t you trust me?” There was just a little echo of pain in her voice.

“I do—I will,” he answered almost fiercely, “for if I lose faith in you I am lost indeed.”

“Now you are beginning again,” she said, holding up her finger with a roguish look.

“There, there,” he replied, his eyes almost swimming with tears, “you know what you are to me. Let evil come when it may, I will stand beside you till you yourself say ‘ Go.’ ”

“And that will never be.”

They walked on slowly till they came to the slip rails which led into the home paddock, and thence to the house. These Stanford let down and she stepped within. He replaced them again, barring himself, as it were, from her; for with his dismissal had come the intimation that his presence would, no longer be welcome at Koorabyn. Mr. Franklin had dealt in no half-measures. A month’s wages were paid in lieu of notice, and Mr. Stanford’s belongings were removed in a trap to the Mount Desolation Hotel. The irksome business was gone through in a very few minutes. Stanford was too proud to inquire the cause of his dismissal; Mr. Franklin, for reasons of his own, said as little as possible. Thus, what might have been a very unpleasant incident was, through the pride of one and the shame of the other, concluded with courtesy, if with no great respect.

“Good-bye, Allie,” he said, as he hung over the rails; “when shall I see you again?”

“Soon, soon.”

“Ah,” he continued, “if you could only love me well enough to trust me, there would be none of this parting—not till our sun set for ever.” And as he spoke he instinctively gazed away to where loomed the great mountain in its cloud of dying fire. And while he looked he thought the flame grew bright with a weird unnatural glory, while the uncouth mass took unto itself the form of some strange creature, half human, half beast, yet wholly repugnant. He turned from it with a fierce scowl. The superstition which lies in all men had been touched.

“Ah,” she cried, “did you see it?”

“See what?” he asked with a laugh.

“The mountain!”

“Why, child, what do you mean?”

But she had gone without replying. He leant forward on the rail watching her hurrying figure with a strange beating at his heart. What could it mean, this legend of the mountain, this blackwoman’s tale? But what an idiot he was even to question it! And yet, in spite of all, as Alice’s form disappeared in the distance, he turned once more to the great forbidding thing, and found himself unconsciously repeating the rhyme she had spoken:—

“When the Mount like a demon looms through the glare of a sullen fire,

The heart of the watcher shall weep for the loss of a soul’s desire.”