THE 
 
 Ettl ARCADIA 
 
 AN AUSTRALIAN STORY
 
 THE NEW ARCADIA
 
 THE NEW ARCARIA 
 
 AN AUSTRALIAN STORY 
 
 BY 
 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new . 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 1894
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 LONDON AND BUNGAY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 1'ACIE 
 
 I. STILLING THE TEMPEST ... ... ... I 
 
 II. FIVE POUNDS FOR FLESH AND BLOOD ... 7 
 
 III. DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR ... ... 12 
 
 IV. A TRIANGULAR DUEL 19 
 
 V. ARCADIA ... ... ... ... ... 26 
 
 VI. THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM 32 
 
 VII. KEEPING UP APPEARANCES ... ... 41 
 
 VIII. THE SCREEN OF DEATH ... ... ... 52 
 
 IX. THE GUEST THAT HAD NOT ON A WEDDING 
 
 GARMENT ... ... ... ... 56 
 
 X. PEOPLING THE WILDERNESS ... ... 64 
 
 XI. TRANSFORMATION SCENE ... ... ... 71 
 
 XII. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS ... ... .. 79 
 
 XIII. DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS ... ... 87 
 
 xiv. ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED ... ... ... 101 
 
 XV. ' IT'S LOVE THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO 
 
 ROUND' ... ... ... ... ... in 
 
 XVI. HYGEIA ... ... ... ... ... 119 
 
 XVII. CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITION AT THE GROTTO 129 
 
 XVIII. THE MILKMAID ALL FORLORN 135
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 1'AGE 
 
 XIX. TOM LORD BECOMES SOPHISTICATED ... 140 
 
 XX. MALDUKE SETS HIS TRAP ... ... 146 
 
 XXI. WOUNDED BUT NOT CAUGHT ... ... 151 
 
 XXII. HOW TOM WON A RACE ... ... 159 
 
 XXIII. AN OASIS IN THE DESERT ... ... I 71 
 
 XXIV. HELPING LAME DOGS OVER STILES ... 1 78 
 
 XXV. CHANGES AND CHANCES ... ... ... 185 
 
 XXVI. GREEK MEETS GREEK ... *9 2 
 
 xxvii. THE DOCTOR'S DEPARTURE ... ... 201 
 
 XXVIII. BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS 206 
 
 XXIX. BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA ... ... 215. 
 
 XXX. FIGHTING THE FLAMES ... 228 
 
 XXXI. THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH ... 242 
 
 XXXII. AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS 251 
 
 XXXIII. THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS ... 266 
 
 XXXIV. THE LIVING DEAD 279 
 XXXV. THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT ... 2 94 
 
 XXXVI. THE FAIRY ISLAND .. 35
 
 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 STILLING THE TEMPEST. 
 
 " We sit on a cloud and sing . . . 
 And say the world runs smooth while right below, 
 Welters the black fermenting heap of life, 
 On which our State is built." The Sainfs Tragedy. 
 
 " Some Lancashire lads I know would have made short and cursory 
 work of waiting for Government. ' Hang the Government ! 
 Why wait for them ? Let us co-op, and do the work our- 
 selves ! ' " CRAIG. 
 
 " PULL him down ! " " Knock him off the seat ! " " An 
 aristocrat riding us down like dogs ! " A smart fusillade 
 of such epithets, portending hand-to-hand conflict, broke 
 from the foremost of a straggling band of workmen ; 
 some reckless and uncanny in appearance, others listless 
 and half-interested, but animated, for the moment, as 
 dullest street crowds are, by occurrence of " an accident." 
 
 The dog-cart, apparently of 'a professional man, had 
 run over a city waif hanging on the outskirts of a detach- 
 ment of " the unemployed " on their course to the noon- 
 tide rendezvous. 
 
 The leaders, welcoming a victim, were venting curses 
 on the head of the luckless Jehu. 
 
 1780-M2
 
 2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " A bright specimen of his class ! " cried one. 
 
 "Slowed if it ain't Dr. Courtney of St. Clair. He'd 
 ought to know better," chimed in another. 
 
 Curbing with difficulty his plunging steed, the indi- 
 vidual referred to flung reins to his groom and leaped 
 into the surging sea of scowling countenances about 
 him. He made for the curb-stone, where, supported by 
 a policeman and closed around by a gaping crowd 
 effectually excluding the air the little sufferer lay. 
 
 As usual, it occurred to no one to render assistance, 
 only to ask questions and pass comments. With a strong 
 arm thrusting the loiterers aside to right and left, the un- 
 witting cause of the disturbance bent anxiously over the 
 little unfortunate. Passing a skilful hand about body 
 and limbs, he said to himself, " A broken leg," and to 
 the lad, "All right, my boy, we'll soon set you right 
 again." 
 
 Not far off, of course, was a cabby, eager to bear 
 away the child, glad to secure a " fare," though suffering 
 or death placed it in his hands. 
 
 " They're all the same," remarked one in the crowd. 
 "'It's an ill wind blows no one any good.' Doctor, 
 parson, cabby, undertaker. Death of one's godsend 
 t'otbers. All living one on another." 
 
 " What's the sense of standing and prating there, you 
 big fool ! " exclaimed the doctor. 
 
 Raising the child in his arms, he hustled the men 
 with his elbow and made with his charge towards the 
 cab. Laying the manly urchin, who had uttered no cry, 
 and was contracting his face to restrain the tears, on the 
 floor of the vehicle, " To the hospital," he cried, " as 
 gently as you like," and was stepping in himself. 
 
 "You'll just stay here and answer to us," hissed a 
 coarse voice in his ear as the cab moved forward. The
 
 STILLING THE TEMPEST. 3 
 
 doctor was dragged backward and fell on his knees. 
 The crowd closed round. Cabby, ignorant that he was 
 minus his full load, drove on. 
 
 In a second the doctor was on his feet again the 
 blood mantling his cheeks. "Who dare lay hand on 
 me?" he demanded, defiantly, glaring round on the 
 excited throng. 
 
 " Make way, or I'll find it. I'm in no mood to be 
 trifled with." This to a well-bred, shabby-genteel leader 
 who confronted him. 
 
 " Curses on you ! " the man exclaimed, thrusting him- 
 self forward. "What do you mean by running over the 
 little chap? You did it on purpose. You know you 
 did." The speaker delivered no further harangue that 
 day. Incensed at the indignity to which he was sub- 
 jected, the doctor struck his man a blow that lifted him 
 from his feet and hurled him into the arms of his 
 comrades. 
 
 " None of that," a dozen voices cried. " Two can 
 play at that game, you know." 
 
 " Move on," suggested a valiant constable in the back- 
 ground. 
 
 The men were hustled and urged towards a vacant 
 piece of ground beside a half-finished edifice. Their 
 stricken leader had disappeared. 
 
 They were impressed by the bearing of the doctor. 
 His was a powerful face, a high intellectual brow, an eye 
 that flashed as his fist clenched. Sorrow and anger con- 
 tended in his breast ; resentment on account of the 
 treatment to which he was being subjected, coupled with 
 evident sympathy for the men against whom he found 
 himself by accident arrayed. If not actually in want, 
 they were, he knew, anxious concerning a livelihood. 
 Misguided on one hand, maligned on the other.
 
 4 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Finding a footing on some piles of lumber, he shook 
 off the hand that was laid on his shoulder swept his 
 eye round the grizzled, not" unkindly, faces about him, 
 and said 
 
 "Look here, my men, I am going to see that lad 
 whom, unfortunately, I ran over. It was no fault of 
 mine, as you know. The horse shied at that banner of 
 yours the fellow was carrying, who is not here to speak 
 for himself." 
 
 A smile rippled across the sea of good-natured faces. 
 
 " He's got a headache," suggested one. 
 
 " The little fellow," continued the doctor, " ran in 
 front of the trap. I will see to him. Now as to you. 
 That, I am more anxious about. Do not be fools. Do 
 not be led astray by men who put a false construction 
 on everything some of us may do, and who try to make 
 you believe that every fellow who wears a black coat has 
 a black heart. I'll take my jacket off to-morrow to work 
 beside any honest man, as I have done before, if I can 
 serve society better so, or to try to thrash the man who 
 persists that I deliberately ran that youngster down, or 
 want to over-ride any. Is that clear ? Now, before I 
 go, let me ask, why are you all hanging about the city, 
 imploring Government and every one else to help you ? 
 Why not, for instance, seek the country, where a fair field 
 and means of livelihood awaits you? " 
 
 " How can a man go and squat, what's got no tin ? " 
 growls one. " My children's had nothing to eat this 
 blessed day." The speaker, who did not himself appeal- 
 starved, was, like many of his companions, puffing clouds 
 of smoke from an oft-replenished pipe. 
 
 " For my part," was the reply, " if my children were 
 hungering I should deny myself a pipe. I'd like to see 
 less incense and more sacrifice: '
 
 STILLING THE TEMPEST. 5 
 
 " All very well for you to say, governor. Why should 
 a poor beggar lose the one comfort he's got ? " 
 
 " Right, my man," was the reply, " in this country, you 
 should command luxuries as well as necessaries. But 
 you will not find them in town. Here you have swarmed 
 to manufacture for a population that does not exist. Go 
 on to the lands and become producers, masters of your 
 own destiny. With a prosperous people settled on the 
 deserted plains and half-ringed forests, your workshops 
 might furnish occupation ; your warehouses cease to be 
 clogged with unsalable goods, while folk are shivering. 
 Your railways, extended by compliant politicians into 
 every hungry corner of the land, might groan with freight, 
 and the cry be for more labourers to harvest the golden 
 store." 
 
 " All very well, old man, but how are we to get on the 
 land ? " asked one. " We haven't the price of an axe 
 atween us." 
 
 " You want money, you rightly think. What, however, 
 is capital, but pound placed beside pound, one day's 
 labour upon another? Can't you prut that together? 
 Instead of this senseless parading about overgrown cities, 
 might you not ascertain by practical experiment, whether 
 a mode of settlement that has in other countries success- 
 fully identified millions with the soil might not be adopted ? 
 The occupation of our lands has been so far of a tem- 
 porary nature. The squatter is the sojourner merely, 
 that his name implies. God intended other use to be 
 made of our richest lands than to be pastures for count- 
 less sheep. The selector, after destroying valuable timber, 
 building a hut in an inaccessible corner of a ring-barked 
 allotment, scratching a hundred acres of wheat into the 
 sour soil and silting down the rest of the year to see 
 it grow, the selector, I say, is not a permanent settler.
 
 6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 From the Murray to the sea you may purchase the lands 
 the Government virtually gave away. Is it not possible, 
 in a social, national sort of way, to establish thousands of 
 you on our virtually vacant lands ? I think it is, and I 
 know how. You'll have to learn another trade most of 
 you. Exchange plane for plough, house-decorating for 
 vine-dressing. You'll have to work hard not praying 
 heaven in the morning not to send the job you seek all 
 day ; not flinging down your tools at five o'clock. You 
 must be associated together too. Small holdings all 
 you can get as yet are unprofitable without co-operation. 
 That is the direction in which relief is coming to these 
 countries, I believe. Now put that into your pipe and 
 smoke it." So saying the speaker disappeared midst 
 ringing cheers from the motley assemblage.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIVE POUNDS FOR FLESH AND BLOOD. 
 
 "A most acute juvenal, voluble, and free of grace." 
 
 Love's Labour s Lost. 
 
 " So justice while she winks at crimes, 
 Stumbles on innocence sometimes." HUDIBRAS. 
 
 ' ' There is now in England a mass, an ever-increasing mass, of 
 unemployed labour, supplying victims for unprincipled and 
 short-sighted capitalists, or filling our gaols and workhouses ; 
 try whether association will not gradually assimilate this mass, 
 and render it the strength and not the poison, the blessing and 
 not the curse of our country." Letter of CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 " IT weren't none on your fault, master," the little man 
 was saying. Dr. Courtenay was expressing regret for the 
 mishap. 
 
 " I'm mighty glad to be here, I can tell you," the 
 child ran on. " It's so clean and quiet, and them young 
 ladies," pointing to a group of nurses, "is so kind. 
 Don't let them take me away again." 
 
 " Why do you not want to go home ? " inquired the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Home ? " the child exclaimed. " It's what they call 
 hell at the Mission House. Mother she drinks, and 
 grannie drinks, and they beat me if I doesn't bring 
 enough home at night. I often sleeps out under the 
 railway near the wharfs for fear of them. Then they 
 whacks me more when I gets home for stopping away."
 
 8 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " And where's your father, my little man ? " inquired 
 the doctor. 
 
 " Ah, that's it ! " the child replied with animation. 
 
 " Why does not he look after you ? " 
 
 " He went away, long time ago, last year. He couldn't 
 get no work, and used to come home to find mother and 
 grannie drunk when mother had had a bit of washing 
 to do. One day I corned home, and father was sitting 
 over the fire-place with no fire in it, and his head in his 
 hands. ' Dad,' says I, ' what's up now ? ' and he turns 
 his head away, but draws me to him and nigh squeezed 
 me up, and I seed he was crying. I don't often blubber ; 
 I didn't to-day, sir, did I ? But I howled when I seed 
 father cry. I'll never forget him shakin' and rockin' 
 hisself. Then he knocks away the tears as if he hated 
 them and bit his lip hard. Did you ever see a man cry, 
 sir? Children does, and women, but it's terrible, I thinks, 
 to see a man blub." 
 
 "Was your father ill?" interjected the medical 
 man. 
 
 "Tough as a tram-cable, sir, and brave as a bulldog. 
 I seed him punch Fitzroy Tom's head when he'd made 
 game of mother for being drunk. All the people in the 
 lane said he was a brick and ought to set up a boxin' 
 saloon." 
 
 " What did he cry for then ? " 
 
 "'Cause of mother" here the little one broke down 
 and sobbed. " She used to be so good onst and 'cause 
 of no work. He used to say he wouldn't care what he 
 done, if he could get a job. Then he kisses me and 
 squeezes me up, like a crowd at the theatre door, and 
 goes away. 
 
 " ' Never you mind, sonny,' he calls out, ' I'll come 
 back some day and make a man of you.'
 
 FIVE POUNDS FOR FLESH AND BLOOD. 9 
 
 "We never heard on him since, and mother's been 
 *worse nor ever. One day Tim Smith told me father was 
 making a railway. I thought I'd go too. Perhaps I could 
 sell papers to the chaps there. I saved up seven brownies 
 and went to Spencer Street. I told the cove bobbing 
 inside the window, like a jail-bird, to give me a ticket to 
 where the railway was doing. He said they was making 
 railways everywhere, and I might soon have one to the 
 moon, if they got a member 'lected for there, or got the 
 blind side of the commissioners. 
 
 " ' None of your cheek,' says I, coz I knew he couldn't 
 get through the window at me. 'Give us a ticket, a 
 "holiday excursion" workman's ticket as far as your 
 train will take me for them ' clapping down the brownies. 
 He laughed and gave me one to Donnybrook. When I 
 got there I could see no trains a-making. I just walked 
 and walked. There was fine trees and birds singing in 
 them, and flowers in the grass. But I could not see 
 father. I asked a lot of chaps and they only said, ' Who 
 're you ? What are you a'ter here ? ' I'd never seen the 
 country before. I didn't wonder father ran away there, 
 only I thought he might'er taken me. 
 
 " ' I'll stop here always,' says I, ' till I finds dad.' 
 " But I only found the bobby. He's everywhere ! I 
 hanged out in a stable, and a fat man corned in the 
 morning and says I'd been stealing. I'd like to have 
 punched his head. Then he got a bobby, with tights 
 and boots on, looking mighty mashery as though he 
 done no work, and he asked and asked like everybody 
 else. When I told him about my father and mother, he 
 said, ' You're a little runaway, you beggar. I'll send you 
 back to town.' Then he shook me till I seed double. 
 ' We want none of you larrikins here,' he calls out, very 
 brave-like.
 
 10 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " ' Surely there's room for me and mother and all in 
 our lane out here, 'stead of starvin' in town.' 
 
 " ' Don't you be cheeky, young man,' he says, and 
 hits me on the head. ' We don't want no town varmin 
 out here.' 
 
 " ' But there's plenty o' room,' says I, ' and I does 
 like the birds and the flowers so, and I could help the fat 
 man dig.' 
 
 " ' Dig ! you little fool,' says he ; ' he grows sheep, and 
 has miles of this 'ere country, and two or three on 'em 
 has all the rest of it.' 
 
 " ' And isn't there no corner for me ? ' I puts in, and 
 begins to cry when I thinks of the dirty streets and men 
 with nothing to do but fight." 
 
 "What was the end of it?" suggested the doctor, 
 looking at his watch. 
 
 " He sends me back next day with a bobby who were 
 takin' a cove to town who'd been copped, and they 
 fetched me to mother and grannie, and didn't I get it." 
 
 At that moment there was a disturbance at the 
 entrance to the ward ; a shrill voice was declaiming to a 
 nurse who stopped the way. 
 
 " Let me go to my darling ; I heard he was run over. 
 He's the only joy of my heart." 
 
 " Don't let her come, she'll take me away," cried the 
 child, covering his head with the bedclothes. 
 
 The doctor went to the woman. For half-an-hour he 
 talked to her. 
 
 " Then you'll give me five pounds for him, my little 
 cherrub?" 
 
 "Yes, if you sign this document giving him over 
 entirely to my charge. I'll do the best I can for him. 
 From your own showing and his, you have cared little 
 for him. I shall pay the money to the clergyman whose
 
 FIVE POUNDS FOR FLESH AND BLOOD. II 
 
 name you mention, and get him to give you five shillings 
 a week for your rent for three months." 
 
 "So I'm to sell my own flesh and blood for a five- 
 pound note ? " the woman replied. 
 
 " Not unless you like. Come to my house this evening. 
 I will get the clergyman to be there, and we'll settle it 
 up at nine o'clock." 
 
 That night a woman emerged from the doctor's 
 dispensary exclaiming, as she hurried along 
 
 " Five pounds for my own flesh and blood ! That's 
 what Melbourne and drink's brought me to ! And we 
 was happy enough before we came to town."
 
 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR. 
 
 " But far more numerous was the herd of such 
 Who think too little and who talk too much." DRYDEN. 
 
 " Of all the causes which conspire to blind 
 Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, 
 What the weak head with strongest bias rules, 
 Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools." POPE. 
 
 " So you have another scheme for reforming the world, 
 father? What a pity you are not the Premier, or rather 
 President of the Trades' Hall ! We could all live without 
 working then." 
 
 "You're just like your mother, Gvvyneth. Never 
 appreciating me and my plans, and you're too plain 
 spoke too ! I'll not be treated like this no longer ! " 
 laying down his knife and fork. 
 
 " Dear father, do not become excited," rejoined the 
 girl, slipping from her seat and imprinting a soft kiss on 
 the knitted brows. " Now tell me all about it. There ! 
 I'll sit and sew, and say nothing." 
 
 The speaker was a tall girl, with bright hazel eyes and 
 wavy brown hair, straight Grecian nose, firm mouth and 
 chin one of Nature's queens of common sense and good 
 looks. 
 
 Her father, a widower, whose only child she was, had 
 been a soldier in his time, and now lived on the shilling
 
 DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR. 13 
 
 a day his country allowed him plus another shilling or 
 two his daughter's deft needle won. 
 
 "Too clever by half." "Talks more nor he thinks." 
 " Showy, but won't wash ! " were the epithets with which 
 his comrades summed up valiant John Elms. He knew 
 something of everything building, farming, and schem- 
 ing was a "bush lawyer," spoke much of "Political 
 Economy," and the " Rights of Man." The anarchists 
 he denounced, and claimed himself to be a Christian 
 Socialist. A son of Erin, he could talk by the hour, like 
 most of his countrymen, with that facility that comes of 
 iteration of the same truths, with varied thumpings of 
 table or tub to drive each platitude home. 
 
 The little house in Richmond, thanks to Gwyneth's 
 skill and care, was a model poor man's home. The 
 Sergeant, as Elms liked to be called, was apt at domestic 
 carpentery, as his daughter was with respect to plain 
 upholstery. The parlour, where the Sergeant's meal was 
 laid he came in at all hours from " meetings " boasted 
 a small cabinet-organ, a sewing-machine, and a faded 
 drawing-room suite, rendered ever fresh and clean by 
 immaculate Holland coverings with red pipings. Rural 
 and military pictures, from the illustrated papers, framed 
 in wood or leather work by father and daughter, decked 
 the walls. 
 
 " If there was a prize for the cosiest little home," Dick 
 Malduke, Gwyneth's secret admirer, used to say, " you'd 
 get it, and 'honorary' mention into the bargain." 
 
 " I'm full of a new scheme," remarked the father as 
 he drank his tea. 
 
 " That's nothing wonderful," responded the undemon* 
 strative daughter, "since you propound (isn't that what 
 you call it ?) a fresh theory every day." 
 
 " Oh, but I have some one behind me, I feel, now.
 
 14 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Some one I can work upon, to put some of my glorious 
 principles into practice." 
 
 " And who may be your latest tool, father?" inquired 
 the girl. 
 
 "No tool, by Jove!" was the rejoinder. "A reg'lar 
 big-wig of pluck and spirit, I can tell you. You should 
 have seen him send your Dick sprawling," he added, 
 chuckling. 
 
 " He's more to you than to me," replied the girl with 
 emphasis on the pronouns. " I admire him as I do the 
 rest of the talkers who don't work ! But what hap- 
 pened to your friend, father? This is really quite 
 interesting." 
 
 "It was this way," the Sergeant continued ; " we were 
 going with about two hundred of the poor fellows, for 
 whom my heart bleeds, to our place of meeting. Dick 
 was carrying the colours, when a smartish trap came 
 dashing up. The horse shied at the red flag, and ran 
 over a little boy that was following. We surrounded the 
 dog-cart, and the chaps began to hoot at the gent, though 
 it was no fault of his. He didn't care a straw. Just 
 went and looked after the little man and put him into 
 a cab. As he was getting up, Dick and some of the 
 others pulled him down, and the cab went on. My 
 man he's a real game 'un glared at them like a lion 
 with his tail trod on. Dick who's always too much 
 to say and must be first, excuse my remarking it 
 
 "You can say anything, dear father," interjected his 
 daughter, with an arch smile, " to show what a set of 
 simpletons your followers are, and that Dick's the 
 greatest." 
 
 "Dick," continued the Sergeant, with a smile, "told 
 the gentleman he ran over the child on purpose. He 
 said nothing more. The doctor clean lifted him from
 
 DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR. 15 
 
 his feet with one from the shoulder. And we saw no 
 more of Mr. Malduke." 
 
 " Valiant Dick ! " exclaimed the maiden. 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the door that 
 opened directly on the street. 
 
 "Good-evening, Miss Elms," said a round, thick-set 
 young man as he entered. 
 
 " Why, it's Dick himself," exclaimed the girl. " We 
 were just speaking of you, Mr. Malduke. Talk of the 
 angels and you see their wings." 
 
 The visitor seemed in no mood for badinage. 
 
 "What have you that bandage across your eye for?" 
 asked the girl, not very sympathetically. " You've been 
 fighting, I do declare." 
 
 "Slowed if I have," replied the man moodily; "it's 
 only a cowardly blow that I'll be avenged for yet." 
 
 " Why didn't you up and give it him back then and 
 there?" suggested the Sergeant, with a laugh. "Never 
 mind, old boy, he was too big for you. ' He that fights 
 and runs away' you know the rest. You have to fight 
 another day, you know. Come and have some supper 
 any way, now." 
 
 Midst light banter, that the young man only half 
 appreciated, another plate was set, and the events of the 
 day discussed. 
 
 " I walked with the doctor towards the hospital," said 
 the elder man, "and he told me seeing, I suppose, that 
 I knew a thing or two that he and his friends had a 
 scheme for mending matters. Strange we should have 
 set upon him ! He's had a practice up country, and 
 seems to know all about the life, and a lot about the 
 social question, too, though of course I could teach him 
 a lot." 
 
 The daughter looked up amused, but said nothing.
 
 l6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I'm to see him again, and promised to co-operate 
 with him, much to his delight." 
 
 " It's all rubbish ! " commented Dick, tilting back his 
 chair, " this jabber of co-operation and profit-sharing 
 and their ' new systems.' All a device of the capitalist 
 to make men slaves under another name. I see a lot o f 
 ' s\veatin' ' in it, Mr. Elms. Of course he'il own the 
 land and get all the profit in the end. You see ! " 
 
 '' There you're wrong," replied the Sergeant, " as you 
 raving anarchists always are. You know your game 
 would be up if capital and labour joined hands." 
 
 " Don't hit him too hard, father," interjected the 
 maiden, who was stitching on, amused. " He has been 
 punished once already." 
 
 Dick looked daggers at the girl, whose head was bent 
 over her work, then he continued 
 
 " I don't believe in half-measures. You'll do no good 
 till every blessed thing's burst up and the State takes 
 control, and all's divided fair." 
 
 "Every Saturday night?" naively suggested the girl; 
 " it'll be necessary I fear." 
 
 " Now look here, Dick," said the Sergeant, " don't be 
 a fool; we have the brains. Let us use these fellows. 
 You just fall into line with us. We'll soon get the 
 concern, if it's started, into our own hands and twist 
 things round as we like." 
 
 To much sentiment of this character expression was 
 given. At length the girl, who had kept silence for some 
 time, rose from her seat, and with mingled shame and 
 scorn drawing herself to her full height, her dark eyes 
 flashing, said 
 
 " I'm not going to sit here and listen to such unmanly 
 utterances. God knows, I sorrow for those who are 
 hungry and homeless, but they, for the most part, are
 
 DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR. \J 
 
 honest. They will not lend themselves to stinging the 
 hand that would help them. You throughout are think- 
 ing of yourselves, not of them." So saying, she swept 
 with dignity into the little kitchen adjoining, shutting 
 the door with something very like a bang. 
 
 Dick looked abashed. The father, with a thump on 
 the table, and a somewhat proud though subdued expres- 
 sion on his face, exclaimed 
 
 " Just her mother all over. $he was a lady, you know. 
 Ran away with me. 1 was good-looking in those days, 
 and could always make an impression. 
 
 " What -Gwyneth thinks, she must say. And she will 
 always think for herself, as no woman should, to my 
 thinking. I used to try to tame her. Now I give her 
 head, for her mother's sake, and a bit for my 
 own." 
 
 "She's a thund'rin' fine girl all the same," added 
 Dick. " Didn't her eyes flash ! I'm sorry we vexed her. 
 I'll go and apologize," and the rash youth entered the 
 kitchen and closed the door. 
 
 " Always too much talk, Master Dick," soliloquized 
 the father ; " you are putting your head into the lioness's 
 mouth. You'll get more than you bargained for, I'm 
 thinking, and you'll never win my daughter." 
 
 Gwyneth, her dress tucked about her, was vigorously 
 " washing up " the supper things. She did not raise her 
 head as the young man entered. 
 
 "Miss Elms," he began, "I'm really sorry I vexed 
 you, but you know I must be thorough-going." 
 
 " In your own interest, " she remarked quietly. " What 
 do you care about the poor you talk so much about ? I 
 hate shams." 
 
 " I am devoted, you must admit, Miss Elms, to the 
 cause of Labour."
 
 1 8 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Then why do you not undertake more of it ? " she 
 remarked shortly. 
 
 " I work with my brains, Miss Elms, with tongue and 
 heart, for the Great Cause of the People," 
 
 " All with capital letters," she sneered. " Why do 
 you not sometimes go and do an honest day's work 
 instead of indulging in tall talk ? " she added with 
 contempt. 
 
 "I would for you, Miss Elms. I'd break stones if 
 only you would encourage me. Gwyneth," the young 
 man proceeded, laying his hand on the dish-cloth, which 
 she relinquished to him, " why do you always spurn 
 me? Do you not know that I adore the ground you 
 walk on ? " 
 
 " You should not do that," was the quick reply, " the 
 kitchen's not been scrubbed this week. Now, Dick, 
 don't talk rubbish," the girl continued in her quiet, 
 matter-of-fact manner. "Go home like a good man and 
 take care of your eye. And remember this, if you want 
 to come here any more, don't you dare urge my father, 
 who means well, to play the hypocrite and sneak. Now, 
 good-night. I can let you out at this door. Oh, I'll bid 
 farewell to father for you, you need not go back for that." 
 And the dignified maiden bowed the abashed Agitator 
 out at the back entrance into the narrow right-of-way.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A TRIANGULAR DUEL. 
 
 " For why? Because the good old rule 
 Sufficeth them, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can." WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ' ' To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor. " 
 
 The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 ' ' A huge aggregate of little systems, each of which again is a 
 small anarchy, the members of which do not work together, 
 but scramble against each other." THOS. CARLYLE. 
 
 "The simplest and clearest definition of economy, whether public 
 or private, means the wise management of labour ; and it means 
 this mainly in three senses : first, in applying your labour 
 rationally; secondly, in preserving its produce carefully; lastly, 
 in distributing its produce seasonably." RUSKIN. 
 
 " EXCUSE me, old fellow, but with all your socialistic 
 tendencies you manage to make yourself deuced com- 
 fortable. This is the jolliest den of a smoking-room I 
 know." 
 
 The speaker was a bright, plump little man, satisfied, 
 to judge by the smile that always lurked about his mouth, 
 with himself and his condition ; one who, in a good- 
 natured sort of way, took life easy, and supposed that all 
 others might do the same if they would. Why should he 
 bother ? He possessed ample means to live upon ; not 
 enough to cause him anxiety. He was influenced by no 
 desire to add to his belongings or to enlarge his life.
 
 20 THE NF.W ARCADIA. 
 
 The world was made for him to walk about in, with his 
 hands in his pockets, and he liked his part well ! 
 
 A school-fellow of Dr. Courtenay, he, to escape the 
 English winter, had come on a few months' visit to his 
 friend. 
 
 " I see no objection to a man enjoying the due reward 
 of his toil," replied the doctor. " I've earned all I have, 
 and most I possess is contained within the walls of this 
 abode." 
 
 It certainly was a room to add relish to a good cigar. 
 The dado was of leather-work, the walls above covered 
 with a fine Indian matting. Upon the ledge that ran 
 round the walls stood photographs, articles of vertu, and 
 bric-a-brac, that told of European and Eastern travel. 
 On the walls, between dark oak cabinets and brackets, 
 were hung whips, pipes, fencing-sticks, with a few good 
 studies in oils. 
 
 The doctor was stretched at length in a lounge that 
 having done duty on shipboard was now lined with red 
 cushions. His companion was coiled up " like a happy 
 little dog," as the doctor termed it, on another lounge, 
 pulling at a cherry-wood pipe almost as long as himself. 
 
 Seated opposite these, straddle-legs on a chair, with 
 elbows resting on the back, his dark eyes watching the 
 pair in an amused, half-attentive manner, was a young 
 cleric in short undress coat. His high forehead was 
 surmounted by thick black hair, the close-shaven face 
 revealing a decided mouth, and the set, solid features of 
 a Manning. 
 
 Frank Brown was vicar of the suburban parish. In 
 his time he had rowed in " the 'Varsity " boat, played in 
 the College Eleven, and been one of the men who were 
 listened to at " The Union." By birth and earlier pre- 
 dilections a Conservative, he had, under the influence of
 
 A TRIANGULAR DUEL. 21 
 
 parochial experience in the East of London, and now in 
 his new but poor parish, developed into what he termed 
 an " Eclectic " or a " Philosophical Radical." 
 
 " No one objects to your being comfortable, doctor," 
 he interjected. " You do not try to eat two dinners at 
 the same time, and to waste three men's shares of the 
 good things of this life ; but why may not all be better 
 off? Why must these poor fellows of mine experience 
 such a struggle just to live? Surely God has made this 
 world capable of supporting millions more than now 
 cumber it." 
 
 " Partly of their own fault," began the doctor. 
 
 "Entirely, say I," put in the little man. "Divide 
 your pipes and tobacco of all kinds to-morrow and 
 you'll need another distribution next week." 
 
 " We have heard that before, Tom," continued the 
 doctor. "It is partly men's own fault that the wolf is 
 always at some doors, that you can never drive him far 
 from certain portals, but it is chiefly the result of our 
 social system." 
 
 " We've heard that before," suggested the little man. 
 
 "The principle of competition, that dominates our 
 commercial and social life, involves that the weaker go 
 to the wall. The labourers are the weaker. The 
 strongest among them compete with each other until 
 they drag each other down to a common condition of 
 helplessness." 
 
 " But their Labour Unions and Standards of Wages," 
 suggested Tom, " are supposed to keep up prices and 
 check the effects of competition." 
 
 "And you know full well that those are not only 
 extreme measures, disastrous in their consequences, but 
 that they are artificial devices opposed to the nature of 
 things."
 
 22 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "Just what I say," retorted Tom; "you cannot check 
 the free and healthful play of competition." 
 
 " Yes, you can," replied the doctor; "give men a 
 share in the results of their labour, and their work will 
 be doubly effective, whilst the reward of all parties will 
 be augmented. ' Is it not better,' said the founder of 
 the ' Maison La Claire,' ' to make 500 francs a day and 
 give 300 to the workmen, than to earn 200 francs and 
 keep it all yourself?' ' 
 
 " But the trouble is," persisted the little man, " your 
 workmen say, ' Share the profits with us, bear the losses 
 yourself ! ' " 
 
 " Not necessarily. Labour will take its fair risk if you 
 put it in a position to do so. Pay the men in cash a 
 quarter of what you give them now. Let the remainder 
 of their interest be invested in the concern." 
 
 "But how can they live on a quarter of what they 
 starve on now ? You'll be called a sweater, and have the 
 agitators down on you again." 
 
 " Men can exist comfortably, if accepted principles of 
 co-operation and economy be adopted, on the fourth of 
 what is now expended. For instance, a man now earns 
 2 a week. Most of it is expended in the cost of 
 living ; nothing remains at the end of the year." 
 
 " Owing to your Protection run mad," remarked 
 Tom. 
 
 " No doubt the cost of living is ruinous to the work- 
 ing-man, but unavoidably so under existing circumstances. 
 Everything now tends to draw men to the city. Lead 
 back some of them to the country. Let them, through 
 their managers, be their own provisioners and salesmen, 
 and they can live on a fourth of that they now spend." 
 
 " The squatter can feed a family well on ten shillings 
 a week," suggested the clergyman.
 
 A TRIANGULAR DUEL. 23 
 
 " But what are you going to do with them in the 
 country? The squatter and farmer don't want them." 
 
 "I'd bind them together, maintaining them for the 
 cost of their house-rent in town. Then put them in the 
 way of cultivating the soil and supporting themselves 
 otherwise." 
 
 " But these men, who are ' on strike ' wherever they 
 get a chance, are not going to work for their ' tucker,' " 
 objected Tom. 
 
 " Yes, they will," observed Frank Brown, " if they see 
 a prospect of ultimately winning by their industry a 
 home and independence for themselves and their 
 children." 
 
 " What do they care for that ? " growled the little man. 
 
 "Everything," continued the clergyman. "Scratch 
 the Englishman, wherever he lives, and you find the 
 farmer beneath the surface, and the earth-hunger in his 
 breast." 
 
 "And a lot of good it does him ! " 
 
 " It makes him the colonizing creature of the world. 
 Leads him to cross seas, subdue wildernesses, make 
 gardens of howling deserts, and ports for the commerce 
 of England on every shore," said the cleric. 
 
 " But you have not stuff to deal with like that. The 
 race is degenerate. Your men are loafers." 
 
 " You should have seen them at the doctor's meeting 
 the other day. You should have noted the eager, 
 intelligent manner in which they received his sugges- 
 tions," continued the clergyman, warmly. 
 
 " Where were the idlers I see gathering on waste 
 lands beside your streets and lounging in your parks?" 
 asked Tom. 
 
 "Not there," replied Frank. "Our scheme has no 
 attraction for them. They like relief works, so much a
 
 24 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 week, and soup-kitchens, and all the means adopted for 
 pauperizing them. Our better fellows would starve 
 rather than avail themselves of such methods." 
 
 " Was our friend the agitator with the broken nose 
 present?" inquired the little man, poking the doctor 
 playfully with the end of his pipe. " I did not think, 
 Courtenay, that you were coming to that, when I knew 
 and respected you in the old country ! " 
 
 " He was there, sure enough, looking blacker than 
 ever," replied Frank, " but kept in check by an older 
 man who talked like a book, and brandished his 
 arms." 
 
 " My right-hand man," added the doctor, " a fellow 
 named Elms, who knows something of everything." 
 
 "A dangerous kind of character,'' remarked Tom. 
 "But what's coming of all this talk? we've heard the 
 like before, you know." 
 
 "Yes, and you are going to see something of it put 
 into practice at length." 
 
 " But where's your money ? You must have capital, 
 abuse it as you may." 
 
 " I do not underrate it, I assure you," said the doctor ; 
 "but I want labour to rely more on itself, to learn its 
 true strength, the vast fund of resource it has in reserve, 
 if it will combine for production rather than for 
 destruction." 
 
 " But where's your money to begin with?" persisted the 
 little man. " You know I'm a man of business." 
 
 " Excuse me, old fellow, I never knew that before ! " 
 said the doctor, slapping the thigh of his neighbour. ' ' I 
 observe that if ever there is a thick-skulled, narrow- 
 minded, short-sighted machine of a dotard knocking 
 around, he claims to be a business man above everything. 
 None of your schemes for him ! "
 
 A TRIANGULAR DUEL. 25 
 
 " Because the present order suits him well enough," 
 suggested Tom. 
 
 " While he does not see that it is shaken to its very 
 foundations that he and all he has may be swept away 
 by some tidal wave of social devastation unless a better 
 way be found." 
 
 " But what of the money?" persisted Tom. 
 
 " That is the difficulty so far, I admit. I have nothing 
 to invest. A few hundreds have been promised by some 
 friends, but what are they ? " 
 
 " Never mind," said the clergyman ; " it will come, I 
 am sure. You will be able to work out your schemes by 
 some means yet." 
 
 The doctor lay back on his lounge looking doubtful 
 and troubled. 
 
 " It's faith you are depending upon then, Rev. Sir," 
 said Tom. " What'll faith do for you, if you have not 
 the cash ? " 
 
 " Faith ! " exclaimed the young man, jumping up 
 "faith with power that comes of enthusiasm and high 
 aim, of sympathy for sorrow and suffering, with impatience 
 of wrongs; faith such as animates our good friend 
 incentive rare enough in these cold, calculating days 
 will overcome everything. Mark my words, the doctor 
 will do it ! " 
 
 " On the strength of capital, not of faith," persisted 
 the incorrigible Tom.
 
 26 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 ' O gaily sings the bird ! and the wattle-boughs are stirred, 
 
 And rustled by the scented breath of spring. 
 Oh the weary, wistful longing ! Oh the faces that are thronging ! 
 Oh the voices that are vaguely whispering. " A. L. GORDON . 
 
 " There's a strange something, which without a brain 
 Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain, 
 Planted in man, to bind him to that earth, 
 In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth." 
 
 CHURCHILL, The Farewell, 
 
 " IF ever there was an earthly paradise, it is here, my 
 child." 
 
 "You're very fond of the place, father," remarked a 
 girl whose sixteen summers had dyed her rounded cheeks 
 olive and red; her large eyes were hazel, hair golden- 
 brown ; a picture of beautiful youth she looked, as she 
 sat at the old man's feet plying her needle. 
 
 The cottage stood on a slight eminence. Far away to 
 the right stretched a smiling valley, on either side of it 
 sloped pine-dotted hills, with here and there a huge 
 granite boulder indicating rich soil beneath. A sinuous 
 line of wattle, golden with blossom, marked the winding 
 of the creek, seeming to convert the plain into a series of 
 gigantic primrose-beds. Two miles away, the streak of 
 gold lost itself in a sheet of silver and red, as the creek 
 flowed into a lake, some three miles below. The rays of 
 the setting sun were illuminating its glittering surface.
 
 ARCADIA. 27 
 
 The hills, that there rose sharper from the lake than 
 further up the valley, presented a dark line of smooth 
 sward broken by boulders, pines, and oaks, against the 
 glowing sunset sky. 
 
 " That valley," cried the old man, stretching his clay 
 pipe towards it, " might sustain its thousands. Look at 
 the depth of the soil, fourteen feet there on that bank of 
 the creek." 
 
 " It's very sticky after rain, I know," objected the 
 maiden. " I'd rather drive Peter over a dozen miles of 
 the clean iron-stone in the ranges, than two miles on the 
 plain. Yesterday after that sudden shower it stuck to 
 the wheels of the old buggy till it creaked again. I had 
 to stop at length and try to poke the black soil off with 
 a stick. In a hundred yards it was as bad as ever again. 
 I often wish your black soil further, dad." 
 
 " You should not say that, my girl ; God is good to 
 give us a country like this." 
 
 " But what's the use of it? just to fatten so many more 
 sheep for old Mr. Leicester." 
 
 Thirty years before, Mr. Leicester, the adjoining 
 squatter, had camped beside the creek with the few 
 sheep he had brought out into the wilderness. He had 
 climbed to the top of this very knoll and claimed, as he 
 told his black shepherd, "all he could see between the 
 hills." It was a fairly " large order " some thirty thousand 
 acres but in a few months, in consideration of some 
 imaginary services rendered to] the Government, a land 
 grant made it his. A reserve along the stream had been 
 retained by the State. Ten years before the date of this 
 story, this had been put up to auction. 
 
 Mr. Bowling was the purchaser. Leicester was absent 
 in England. Dick Bowling was one of an ill-fated party 
 of English gentlefolk who " migrated " to Adelaide in its 
 
 c 

 
 28 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 earliest days. Their patrimony they invested in frame- 
 houses, outfit of an elaborate nature, land and stock 
 purchased in the colony. Bowling was a lawyer; his 
 wife was connected with some of the best county families. 
 Their eldest daughter, the belle of Fenshire, was delicate 
 as she was beautiful. The move broke Grace Bowling's 
 heart. She pined for the conditions and companionship 
 of earlier days, and could see no beauties in eucalyptus 
 and mimosa. 
 
 A tree beside the first homestead marks the spot where 
 Grace was laid to rest at last. The grief-stricken parents 
 with their remaining daughter moved on, with sadly 
 shrunken means, to the neighbouring colony. 
 
 Bowling arrived in Melbourne just in time to purchase 
 the reserve, to which a friend at the club had directed 
 his attention. The frame-house was again set up, the 
 hundred and twenty acres fenced, some stock procured ; 
 then the unfortunate lawyer's last penny was expended. 
 None knew how the trio existed. 
 
 Bid he never regret relinquishing the little country 
 practice, as he ploughed his own lands, laid out his 
 garden, killed his sheep, took his produce in the spring- 
 cart to Gumford railway-station ? Bid he not repent 
 his folly, as his daughter swept the dust from ornaments 
 and furniture that had known better days, from portraits 
 of ancestors who seemed to be ever wondering how they 
 came amongst their present surroundings, from the old 
 clock that had stood centuries " on the stairs " at home 
 and seemed never quite reconciled to the house that was 
 all ground-floor ? 
 
 As the old man saw his daughter milking, even driving 
 the reaping-machine, while he sat and rattled his bones 
 over the clods ; as he saw his beautiful old wife making 
 up the butter with her snowy, tapering fingers, trimming
 
 ARCADIA. 29 
 
 the lamps, and bearing the week's produce into Gum ford in 
 the rattling American wagon, did he not repent his folly ? 
 
 No, he never regretted it. He revelled in the life of 
 the country. "Health we have, if not wealth," he used 
 to say. " Peace, if not prosperity. We live our own life, 
 and like it." 
 
 Mrs. Dowling was happy in her husband's satisfaction. 
 It seemed to her strange that such as he, refined, 
 intellectual, admired, should have voluntarily exiled him- 
 self for a struggle for existence such as this. 
 
 "What would the old country and its influence be, 
 good wife," he used to say, " if her sons had not been 
 possessed, so often, of a desire to seek a fuller life abroad, 
 to escape from the deadly conventionalities of an effete 
 society, and to extend all that is best in the national life 
 beyond every sea ? What would England be save for her 
 soldiers and sailors and settlers, who could not rest and 
 rust at home ? 
 
 "I know I have failed," he would sometimes admit, 
 with momentary bitterness. "The greater fortune I 
 dreamed of has never come. The little one I brought 
 has vanished. But cheer up, wife, we'll never give in. 
 None shall call us poor. Have I not my books and a 
 little sphere in which, as Carlyle says, ' to create and to 
 rule and be free ' ? You are happy, my darling. Perhaps 
 we are of more use here in this uncouth, uncultivated land, 
 where we may leave some fragrance of English fields and 
 tastes behind us, than in dear, but dreamy, Fenshire." 
 
 The old man, in his shirt-sleeves, with slouched hat 
 and rough buckskin gaiters, looked still as much the 
 true gentleman as when with shining velveteen he 
 followed the hounds at home, or received the Queen 
 when her Majesty visited the provincial town to open 
 the park presented by his elder brother.
 
 3O THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " She's as much a lady as ever," he would muse with 
 pride as the good wife with skirts tucked around, her 
 husband's brown cabbage-tree hat on her comely, well- 
 set head, goloshes on her dainty feet, went the round of 
 her fowl-yard, fed the butting calf and leggy lamb, and 
 appeared shortly in the parlour as neat and trim as ever. 
 
 "Why should life's plainest, simplest duties be con- 
 sidered menial," he would say, " and the best of its work 
 be delegated to menials ? " 
 
 "You had better come in," said Mrs. Dowling, appear- 
 ing at the open French window. "You cannot see any 
 more of your beloved valley to-night, Richard." 
 
 "But I can scent its fragrance. Isn't the perfume of 
 the wattle and acacia, borne on the moist airs of night, 
 sweet ? And I can hear the music of the vale. Hark 
 to that wailing crescendo of the curlew ! The one thing 
 here that evidently has a history and a pathetic one 
 too. Or does it mourn that the land should lie desolate ? 
 Now that 'More Pork,' or cuckoo as we ought to call 
 him, is lonely too, but he is jolly as a sand-boy about it." 
 
 "The laughing jackass is my favourite," suggested 
 Eva. " The last one has just giggled itself to sleep. 
 Always so delighted with himself and the day's doings, 
 as it chuckles over the thought of how vainly the six-foot 
 snake tried to bite as he whisked it hundreds of feet in 
 the air, and how green the centipede got in the face when 
 he ferreted it out from our fire-wood stack and gobbled 
 it, and so he croons himself to sleep to dream of children 
 not bitten owing to its protecting care." 
 
 " The magpie I claim," said the mother ; " all day long 
 as we work it whistles so gleefully, as if to cheer us on 
 our way, while the locust tribe keep up the running 
 accompaniment." 
 
 " And the frogs in the lagoon " began Eva.
 
 ARCADIA. 3 1 
 
 " Now that will do, corns in at once," insisted Mrs. 
 Dowling; " sit down and sing to us, my child." 
 
 Ere long the old settler, oblivious of the labours of the 
 day, was absorbed in Lyell's Geology ; the maiden was 
 singing sweet ballads of England ; the old lady sitting 
 erect, with spotless cap on her silvery hair, was busy 
 with her patch-work quilt, thinking of the by-gone 
 scenes associated with each remnant of " better days." 
 
 " I hope I am not superstitious," she remarked, as her 
 husband laid down his book to fill his pipe, " but do you 
 know, Richard, as I arrange these patches I collected 
 before we came out, I often see my sisters who wore the 
 dresses, and the old housekeeperwho assorted the remnants 
 you remember her the rooms in which the curtains 
 were hung, and the couches from which the covers were 
 cut. I could describe the old house not from memory, 
 but actually as it is now. My patches, when I am weary, 
 not only reanimate the past, but reveal the present." 
 
 " Perhaps you are clairvoyant, Mary," suggested her 
 husband with a laugh. " You have heard of the principles 
 of 'trace.'" 
 
 "No; what is that?" 
 
 " It is claimed that an impress left on certain articles 
 by former associations enables some persons to trace 
 back the history of the object, and, far away, to view 
 their present surroundings." 
 
 " Very fanciful ; but I really do believe there are 
 times when these bits of remnants make me dream until 
 I see the present condition of those who wore them. I 
 do not like the idea. Of course it is a silly one. I shall 
 do no more to-night." 
 
 At this juncture a loud knocking was heard at the 
 back-door. A shrill female voice was calling, " For 
 heaven's sake let me in ; he's dying ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM. 
 
 "You tell me you have improved the land, but what have yon 
 done with the labourers?" SISMONDI. 
 
 " You have nothing else to do 
 But make others work for you.; 
 And you never need to know 
 How the workers' children grow ; 
 You need only shut your eyes 
 And be selfish, cold, and wise." HOLYOAKE. 
 
 BETWEEN the Bowlings on their little reserve, and the 
 proprietor of the estates extending in all directions around 
 them, a deadly feud existed. The latter owned more 
 than he could ride round in a day, yet he coveted the 
 little farm the decayed gentleman had set by the roadside. 
 The atmosphere of content that surrounded it contrasted 
 with his own feelings of unrest and dissatisfaction. Leicester 
 impounded the poor man's cattle if they strayed, was 
 suspected of setting his dogs on the daughter's " one 
 ewe lamb" when it wandered, summoned the "genteel 
 Cockey," as he termed him, to the Court at Gumford on 
 the charge of " creating a nuisance," when the experiment- 
 ing lawyer-farmer excavated a silo near the great man's 
 fence. Leicester took his seat on the bench on that 
 occasion and adjudicated on the case ; the township 
 Boniface and storekeeper deeming it politic to consent to 
 the order for removal of the nuisance. Poor Dowling's 
 cows yielded no milk that winter.
 
 THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM. 33 
 
 Leicester, with all his wealth, was the poorest man in' 
 all the country-side. The few hands he engaged hated 
 him, and, when they could, neglected his interests. 
 Neighbours' dogs were ever scattering his sheep, selectors 
 persisted in travelling over his huge paddocks, though he 
 had fenced the road across with six-rail wall of wood. 
 Bulls would break his fences, his paddocks be burnt 
 oftener than any one's else, and none have the grace to 
 come to his assistance. 
 
 At nightfall the lonely man would return to the huge 
 mansion he had built, no one knew for what purpose, 
 The great drawing-room was filled with furniture evidently 
 purchased to one large order, the library stocked with 
 books procured from England by the ton. In the 
 chiffonier of the long dining-room was his solace. 
 Again and again through the evening the recluse rose 
 from his pile of " weeklies " to refresh his spirit with 
 whisky. He would doze, then rise and pace the dismal 
 corridors and empty rooms like one possessed. 
 
 " Is life worth the living ? " he would muse as he toyed 
 with the revolver that ever reposed in the chiffonier 
 drawer. " Had he not given employment to hundreds ? " 
 He would proceed to reckon up the scores of miles of 
 fencing, and thousands of yards of excavation for tanks, 
 the building and clearing he had effected the thousands 
 of pounds' worth of wool and stock, of which the Messrs. 
 Goldbags and Co. had had the selling for him. Had he 
 not been a benefactor to his race ? And lo ! the world 
 cared not a straw for him, despised him, would not heed 
 if he died, alone, to-morrow. 
 
 Alas for the ingratitude of man ! 
 
 Now, he was actually compelled by the shire to open 
 some of his closed roads ! The price of wool had fallen 
 more than a penny which involved a loss to him of
 
 34 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 thousands of pounds a year ! He must certainly stop all 
 his donations of a guinea a year to churches and hospitals ! 
 Added to all his troubles, the married couple, who had 
 supplied his personal wants for ten years past, could 
 tolerate his vagaries no longer, and were leaving him. 
 
 Alone in the world the millionaire stood in his ghostly 
 mansion, under his far-reaching hills and valleys of 
 richest pasture deserted, despised ! He would stand it 
 no longer ! One evening when the whisky was firing 
 his brain, he had roved from room to room ! . . . . 
 There was a sudden explosion that no one heard ! A 
 heavy fall ! Then a silence as of death reigned in the 
 great house. 
 
 "I can't find the master nowheres, Jim," said the 
 housekeeper, after taking in the last " hot toddy " before 
 retiring. "I'm afeared for him. He looked so wild 
 again this evening. Come and have a look ; hold the dip." 
 
 In the vast, dim drawing-room the faithful couple 
 almost stumbled over the form of the unfortunate million- 
 aire. The woman screamed and started back with 
 horror. Her husband knelt and sought the pulse of the 
 unhappy man. 
 
 " Not dead," he reported ; " quick, get some water and 
 some whisky." 
 
 Weeping, chattering like two children, the simple pair 
 bathed the wound above the temple from which blood 
 was oozing, poured the whisky that had caused the deed 
 down the throat of the dying man. He was heavy ; they 
 hesitated to try to carry him. 
 
 " Jane, old girl, run and call some one," said the man 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " There's no one to fetch." 
 
 " Go and ask Mr. Dowling to run across. He'll know 
 what to do."
 
 THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM. 35 
 
 " He won't come, Jim ; he can't. He's never set foot 
 in the house all these years, and the poor master did 
 hate him so." 
 
 The woman was supporting the dying man's head and 
 looking with tenderness into the face that had never 
 smiled on her once. 
 
 Why is it that the dog loves most the hand that 
 commands and never caresses; that the devotion of 
 woman is most signally displayed for the husband who 
 acts the brute ; that honest Jim and his wife felt as if all 
 the world was darkening for them as they bent, in the 
 great dim room, over the man who had never given them 
 ought but wages, food, and curses ? 
 
 On their first and last visit in Mr. Leicester's time to 
 the great White House, Mrs. Dowling insisted upon 
 accompanying her husband. The moon bathed the 
 avenue and orange grove, now neglected, with a ghostly 
 light. The unused lounges set around the spacious high 
 verandah seemed as seats for the dead. The great front- 
 door creaked dolefully as, for the first time for many a 
 month, Jane threw it open. In the wide hall were hung 
 brass breastplates inscribed with the names of " Kings " 
 " Billy " and " Bob," and other chieftains of a vanished 
 race, whose spears, " waddys," and "nullahs" were dis- 
 posed around a Walhalla from which all the heroes 
 and the glory had departed ! 
 
 As Jane, with trembling hand, flung open the drawing- 
 room door a weird scene presented itself. The dim light 
 of the rude "dip" which Jim had placed on the grand 
 piano, that never sounded, threw a gruesome light on the 
 long mirrors and curtains, high cornices and stencilled 
 walls, the oleographs with gilt frames of immense pro- 
 portions a dim light before an unused shrine ! Beside 
 it a grizzled man lay dying, and another, with soiled
 
 36 TITE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Crimean shirt and moleskin trousers, knelt before the 
 crimson settee in the midst of the velvet-pile carpet. 
 
 ' Poverty in the midst of riches," whispered Dowling 
 to his wife. 
 
 " Yes, that boundary rider is richer than he, poor man !" 
 
 "And always has been," the husband replied. 
 
 The worthy "couples placed the wounded man on a 
 mattress and bore him to his bedroom. All night long 
 the Bowlings sat and watched, while Jane stood at the 
 foot of the bed gazing wistfully at the troubled sleeper, or 
 wandered about the empty rooms of the lonely house, 
 bewailing her impending loss. Her husband had ridden 
 to Gumford for the Doctor. 
 
 Towards morning the sick man's breathing became 
 more regular. He opened his eyes and looked long at 
 the two watchers. He averted his gaze, then scanned 
 the anxious faces as the sick are wont to do. The 
 sufferer tried to extend his hand towards the watchers. 
 
 " You are better now," said Dowling, taking the hot, 
 moist hand in both of his, while his wife smoothed the 
 pillow and tenderly moistened with a damp cloth the 
 fevered brow. 
 
 " Why do you come ? " the sick man with difficulty 
 whispered. " Why not, like everybody else, leave me to 
 my fate ? " 
 
 Quietly they assured him that the world was much 
 what people made it. That sometimes God left men 
 alone that they might discover how empty it was without 
 the love of their kind and of Him. 
 
 "And you forgive me?" he said, stretching out his 
 hand again, and looking into the face of the man he had 
 wronged. 
 
 " As God forgives. I have angered you unintention- 
 ally, and perhaps given you cause for resentment,"
 
 THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM. 37 
 
 " No, you have not," was the reply. "You. shall not 
 say that. Is there a Bible about ? " he asked, after a 
 pause. " You will find one at the top of the book-case. 
 I used it for the men to take their oaths and declarations 
 upon." 
 
 Mrs. Bowling brought the volume. 
 
 " Now read to me, slowly, Nathan's parable to King 
 David. You'll find it, you know, about the end of the 
 second book of Samuel. I knew the old Book once," 
 the penitent murmured, half to himself; "my mother 
 taught it me." A tear, that he vainly tried to brush 
 away, rolled down the old man's face. " It was the lust 
 for land and gold," he continued, "that ruined me. 
 I thought the whole country-side was mine, and not the 
 Lord's and His people's. Of what good has it been 
 to me? Ah! you cannot know the remorse I have 
 experienced of late," he continued ; " the terrible conflict 
 that has raged in my breast between love and hatred, 
 strength and weakness. I have prayed and cursed with 
 the same breath. I could not unbend. I could not 
 change in my demeanour. I could not confess. Yet I 
 knew that I was wrong. In a mad moment I sought to 
 end all. I am dying, but I have not ended all ! Now 
 read." 
 
 " Let me select something else," Bowling persisted. 
 
 " No, I will not. I am going to hear that from 
 you." 
 
 As the memorable parable sounded again in the ears 
 of the sinking man, Mrs. Bowling bowed her head and 
 wept, but the dying squatter listened with set countenance 
 as though hearing his doom. 
 
 " Read it all," he insisted, as Bowling hesitated. " I 
 know that last verse. Bo not shirk it. ' Give it tongue,' 
 as we used to say to the old collie dog. Poor old
 
 38 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Laddie ! I wonder will he miss me ! Round up the tale, 
 ' Thou art the man ! ' God gave me miles, or I took it, 
 and I coveted your few feet of land." 
 
 " Stay ! " interjected the lady " there is yet another 
 verse you should hear : ' And David said, I have sinned 
 against the Lord. And Nathan said, The Lord hath 
 put away thy sin.' " 
 
 Thereupon the woman's gentle voice, with tender tact, 
 poured into the closing ear oil of comfort for the broken 
 heart. 
 
 " I hate death-bed repentances," the sufferer declared, 
 with a spark of the vehemence that had marked him ; 
 " but I do repent I do. ... I can't do more. I must 
 leave the rest. Stay, quick, yes I can. I can exercise 
 restitution. Fetch me pen and paper. I will bestow all 
 my goods as best I can. I had resolved to leave all for 
 the State to divide. Another shall perhaps do what I 
 failed to attempt. A Solomon shall apply the hoard of 
 a sorry David to a noble end." 
 
 Mr. Dowling was able, in a few words, to pen the 
 preamble to the Will. 
 
 " ' To my faithful servants, whom I spurned in life ' 
 put that in word for word ' I bequeath the manager's 
 house, garden, and the three paddocks adjoining. To 
 the objects of my mad and bitter animosity, Richard 
 Dowling and his wife Mary ' put down those very words, 
 mind. No trimming the fleece ! This is my dying will 
 and confession, remember ' I bequeath the one thousand 
 acres adjoining their homestead ' : 
 
 " We cannot accept it," interposed Mrs. Dowling, her 
 native sense of independence and pride gaining the 
 ascendant over feelings of pity and sympathy. 
 
 " Will you not let me offer restitution, madam ? " said 
 the dying man, with a spice of his old imperiousness,
 
 THE DYING SQUATTER'S DREAM. 39 
 
 "May I not unburden my soul? I will do to the last 
 what I will with my own ! " Then, after a painful pause, 
 more softly, " Let me leave it to your daughter. It is 
 not much, but you'll think less harshly of me when, in 
 your industrious fashion, you turn up that black soil, 
 Dowling." The sick man tried to smile. " You have 
 slogged away like a brick. I admire your pluck ! Give 
 me your hand again. It is harder than once it was. You 
 commend the gentleman to the world. I and such as 
 I defame that ' grand old name.' ' All else of which I 
 die possessed I leave to my nephew 'you know the 
 name ' in the hope that he will make a worthy use of the 
 lands I greedily held for myself.' Tell him," he added, 
 " I repent my treatment of him. To come so far," he 
 wandered on, almost to himself, "and then to be driven 
 away. He was proud and wrong-headed. Ah, but my 
 sister's son, with a big heart of his own, that angered 
 because it condemned me." 
 
 With difficulty the Will was signed and witnessed. Two 
 men who had come for "killing sheep" were dragged 
 into the room in the early morning to write their names 
 and vanish. 
 
 " I wish the sun would rise," Leicester faintly whis- 
 pered. "Push aside the curtains; right back, please. 
 Often I've lain here and waited for old Sol to appear 
 over the ridge just behind that pine, this time of year. 
 Even now I can see the links of gold, the wattles beside 
 the creek. Jupiter is the morning star just now ; there he 
 shines, ' like a diamond in the sky.' Poor old mother. 
 Venus is the evening star, I shall never see it more. Not 
 here at least. Ah, there it is. God's blessed sun ! " 
 
 And, as they helped him, with a last effort the dying 
 man raised himself, stretched forth his arm towards the 
 distant hills, an'd cried
 
 40 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "See! They are coming. Pouring over the hills! 
 Troops of happy people." And his eyes shone with a 
 novel lustre. "Women and children. All across the 
 lovely valley, where the sheep feed alone." With trem- 
 bling hand he shaded his eyes as if to observe more 
 clearly, and continued, " Vines and fig-trees, and pome- 
 granates around their dwellings. Pure rivers of water 
 flowing between. Hark !- hark ! to the children calling. 
 And to the music at their feast." A pause ... a long 
 breath ..." A new day has dawned ! " he whis- 
 pered slowly, word by word. Then a last gasp. 
 
 Sinking back gently, the millionaire left his fields be- 
 hind. A smile settled on the set face. The eyes fixed 
 for ever. Closing them, the three weeping, kneeled in 
 the silent room into which the first beams of the rising 
 sun were shining.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 
 
 " And even while Fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
 The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy? " GOLDSMITH. 
 
 " Rapine, avarice, expense, 
 This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more : 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence 
 And pure religion, breaking household laws." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "KEEPING up appearances" when the substance is 
 wanting, to be prompted by a generous disposition with- 
 out the power of giving effect to it, moving in a plane of 
 life above the pecuniary standard of those who occupy 
 it, is one of the most painful experiences the professional 
 man or any can know. 
 
 Such was now Dr. Courtenay's position. His wife, a 
 clever, stylish woman, was ambitious for the girls' sake, 
 as she said. Their elder daughter, Hilda, was a dashing, 
 thoughtless girl, intent upon pleasure and admiration. 
 Well-dressed and duly appointed, as, like her mother," 
 she always managed to be, she was capable of making a 
 decided impression in any drawing-room to which she 
 was announced. Art and effect may have contributed 
 more than nature and grace, vivacity of manner more 
 than native power, yet so it was that Miss Courtenay
 
 42 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 more than held her own in the world of taste and 
 fashion. 
 
 Her sister, fair and retiring, with the gentlest of trust- 
 ing blue eyes, rather large mouth, straight soft hair, 
 regular but not striking features, impressed only those 
 who knew her. She thought herself plain and stupid 
 neither of which she was. Her sister did not contribute 
 to undeceive her : neither did her mother. Thanks to 
 the latter's tact and devotion to desirable personages, the 
 Courtenays were asked and appeared everywhere at 
 tennis parties, afternoon teas, dances, and At Homes. 
 Mornings were spent in recovering from the effects of 
 the previous evening's engagements with a little 
 soitpcon of watering and arranging of flowers, to give 
 a sense of having been "quite busy this morning." 
 
 Afternoons were devoted to ceremonial visitings when 
 no engagements to salons, matinees, and other fashionable 
 fixtures intervened. The evening seemed blank and 
 tiresome if no festivity or out-going marked it. A miser- 
 able failure the entire round of feverish existence 
 actually was. No time or opportunity was afforded for 
 forming real friendships, for rational converse, for the 
 joys of intellectual or domestic life. 
 
 There are some things that cannot go on. Dr. 
 Courtenay found himself sinking deeper and deeper into 
 debt. " Calls " were made by financial institutions that 
 hitherto had paid him handsome dividends. The lia- 
 bilities his generous nature had led him to incur in the 
 interest of distressed friends or poor patients were 
 accumulating. Something must be done. The carriage 
 and coachman were "put down." The house, not a 
 pretentious one, must be kept up, or the practice would 
 suffer. 
 
 " If we do not go out people will cease to ask us,"
 
 KEEPING T T P APPEARANCES. 43 
 
 pleaded the wife, when her attention was directed to 
 long outstanding accounts at Buckland & Joshua's and 
 Senior the jewellers. 
 
 Wearied with a long day's round of professional visit- 
 ing, and attendance at meetings, the long-suffering doctor 
 must needs dress and take his wife and daughters to 
 some cloying scene of festivity, with a suppressed yawn 
 thanking his gracious hostess for "a most enjoyable 
 evening," when at length Hilda and her mother had been 
 induced to depart. 
 
 " The whole thing is so false and hollow," he would 
 say. " I despise myself for uttering these conventional 
 lies, and for participating in this make-believe existence. 
 You do not enjoy it," he would protest, " you are 
 always tired. And what is there to show for all your 
 labours? If it were natural, were we in a position to 
 entertain, if you went out as, and where, you really 
 wished to go, I could understand it. But your fashion- 
 able life as now lived is, in my opinion, artificial, unin- 
 tellectual, and a sham throughout." 
 
 " I fear, Charles, you lost at whist to-night," his spouse 
 suggested. 
 
 " No, I did not. No such relief to monotony. I only 
 played to pass the time." 
 
 "It is your absurd dabbling in every form of charity 
 and in all sorts of social schemes that is dragging us 
 down," the good lady urged, as the conversation was 
 continued at a later hour. " What about those men you 
 have sent away? Who, but you, is responsible for their 
 maintenance?" 
 
 " I'm not," the husband replied ; " I shall do my best. 
 If others will not help, they must return and starve here 
 in town." 
 
 The doctor and some friends had indeed despatched 
 
 D
 
 44 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Elms and a few of his people to a "Selection" that 
 Courtenay had " taken up " years before, when practising 
 near a squatter uncle's in the country. The venture was 
 only an experiment, which for lack of funds and scope 
 did not promise much success. 
 
 The doctor had prevailed upon his wife to accompany 
 him to his study. He had been looking into accounts. 
 The good lady protested that " no good came of brood- 
 ing over what could not be altered." 
 
 " Times will change soon," she remarked, toying with 
 an invitation that had just come to Lady Woolenough's 
 'At Home." 
 
 " They will change for the worse," was the man's 
 reply. " We are getting deeper and deeper into the 
 mire, all to keep up these false appearances, and to main- 
 tain a position amongst people who possess thousands 
 for our hundreds." 
 
 " But you must have regard to your practice and to the 
 girls' prospects." 
 
 " What would become of both if anything happened 
 to me ? " he replied bitterly. " My very policies are en- 
 cumbered. If I died to-morrow, you would be beggars. 
 And people would say, truly, that I had lived a lie." 
 
 "But every one else is in the same position ! What 
 squatter or merchant but is in the hands of his bank ? 
 Who are there pay cash for what they eat and use and 
 wear? You might ticket every coat, or dress, or house 
 you see as belonging, if all had their own, to some 
 wretched tradesman." 
 
 " The fact that others are dishonest, or are content to 
 live in a 'fool's paradise,' is no consolation to me." 
 
 At this juncture Hilda with evident excitement entered 
 the room, followed by her sister, looking guilty but 
 resolute.
 
 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 45 
 
 "Maud says she will not accept Lady Woolenough's 
 invitation. She is not going out any more," explained 
 the elder, flinging herself on the settee with a tennis- 
 racquet in her lap. "She wants to play the heroine." 
 
 Poor Maud, looking very guilty, stood beside her 
 parents. 
 
 " We have not dresses to go in, and I do not want a 
 new one." 
 
 " Why not, pray ? " asked the mother. 
 
 "Because we cannot afford it." 
 
 " For that very reason we cannot afford to drop out of 
 everything," remarked Hilda. 
 
 " What makes you think that we are not in a position 
 to go out, Maud ? " inquired her mother. 
 
 "I am very stupid, I dare say," replied the girl, "but 
 I know that father is worn with care and anxiety. I am 
 not going to add to his embarrassment." 
 
 " My dear," remarked her mother, severely, " this is 
 really not your business. This is too bad ! It appears 
 to me that even the girls are becoming mercenary in 
 these days. When I was young we never talked of 
 ' ways and means.' Do you not think that your father 
 and I can manage our own financial affairs ? " 
 
 "She says she is going as a governess," interposed 
 Hilda. " I pity the poor children. An awful lot Maud 
 will teach them ! " 
 
 " Perhaps so," was the reply. " We girls really learn 
 nothing, now-a-days. All that we have known is forgotten 
 twelve months after we ' come out.' At any rate I shall 
 try to improve matters for myself." 
 
 " Very likely we shall let you leave home in that way ! " 
 said her father, kindly, drawing the accused towards him. 
 " It would break my heart to think of girls brought up 
 as you have been, becoming drudges of a modern house-
 
 4 r > THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 hold, owing, too, to our insane attempt to maintain a 
 false appearance." 
 
 "A governess, of all things ! " interposed her mother, 
 warmly. " I had rather you were a housemaid or cook. 
 Then at least you would receive good wages, and 
 command employment and fair treatment. The desire 
 of so many, when they want to earn their own living, to 
 be governesses and clerks, is prompted by the very same 
 false pride you think you discern elsewhere in society." 
 
 ."So I believe," admitted the girl, " but you see I could 
 not well be a cook while my father practised as a 
 fashionable doctor. I do not know. why, however. It 
 would be more honest than our present mode of living 
 and that of many of our friends. Still I recognize that 
 we must ' keep up appearances ' to a certain extent 
 though I do loathe it all." 
 
 " My dear," remarked her father, taking the girl's hand 
 in his, '' you shall not go as a cook just yet. Things are 
 not as bad as that ; but," he added, " there is no doubt 
 that we must economize, and, moreover, we might, I 
 think, compensate ourselves for less excitement by a 
 little more rational home life and some social occupa- 
 tions." 
 
 " Practising on the piano, reading dry books, and 
 carrying soup round to poor people," suggested Hilda, 
 with a toss of the head. 
 
 " We can try to be happy and useful," replied the 
 father, "without making fools of ourselves." 
 
 "Or nuisances either," suggested Mrs. Courtenay, 
 naively. " I consider your ordinary 'charitably-disposed 
 persons ' the greatest bores you ever meet. Such dowdies 
 as they are ! And there is just as much fuss and sham 
 about them, only of another sort, as with those who do 
 move in decent society. They all hate and envy one
 
 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 47 
 
 another. They will pillory you yet. You should hear 
 what Miss Loveless says already." 
 
 " I suppose we must expect to meet with human nature 
 everywhere," remarked the doctor. " We can avoid 
 eccentricities and extremes in each direction." 
 
 "Then you side with Maud," said the mother, with an 
 air of scorn. "We are to refuse this invitation, sell our 
 dresses to those charming persons who advertise, ' Don't 
 throw away your spoons and old clothes,' and sit and 
 work a sewing-machine all day long." 
 
 The doctor was roused. 
 
 "You might do worse than that," he remarked. "Be 
 plain, be honest, that's all I ask." And he sat and 
 smoked his cigar in silence. 
 
 Poor man ! he had struggled hard to make his practice 
 and position. Visions had been his of honourable, 
 unconventional usefulness. Lately, however, he had 
 drifted into a false position. His daughter standing 
 there, more like culprit than victim, had already 
 dragooned herself into the thought of becoming some 
 scorned, uncared-for drudge of society. He knew that 
 that might come ! He had stretched out his hand to 
 help those that were falling his own anxieties making 
 him solicitous for those of others. Now his arm was 
 paralyzed by lack of money. 
 
 " How I hate it ! " he thought. " Those who have, 
 misuse it, those have it not who might put it to good 
 account." 
 
 At this moment Elms was announced. He had written 
 stating that he needed a few hundred pounds for the 
 undertaking in which he was engaged. 
 
 " You need not go," said the doctor, as the ladies 
 moved to depart. While the two conversed, Mrs. 
 Courtenay said, speaking in a low tone, to her daughters
 
 48 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I do not know how it is, but I no more trust that 
 man than I would a burglar. He has designs on your 
 father. Well, there is not much to get out of him, 
 that's one comfort ! Women may be fools, but they 
 read facts and hearts better than do these poor 
 men." 
 
 " There's no help for it, Elms," the doctor was saying. 
 " The thing must be given up. I have no means myself, 
 and can procure none from those who have." 
 
 " It is a great shame, sir," replied the man with evident 
 feeling ; " the poor fellows are doing well. They'll be 
 mad if I tell them they'll have to go. They'll blame 
 you, sir." 
 
 " Perhaps they will. Let them ! Who will be the 
 greater sufferer ? I, who have laid out the little money I 
 had, who have spent my time and drawn obloquy upon 
 myself for their sakes, to be denounced by them and 
 jeered at by my friends or they who have had every- 
 thing to gain and nothing to lose ? " 
 
 And the strong man, from whom all upon which he 
 had set his heart seemed slipping, groaned within himself, 
 though his face was set as if he were undergoing an 
 operation. As he was ! Slowly his life's hopes were 
 being torn from him, but he would not wince. 
 
 " Only why," he was thinking, " so strongly as we 
 desire to live honestly and to some purpose, do we find 
 the means wanting?" Tom Lord and Frank Brown 
 appearing at the door were about to withdraw. 
 
 "Do not go," said the doctor ; "you are in at the 
 death." 
 
 " What death ? " 
 
 "Only that of my little pet scheme. It has collapsed 
 for want of funds." 
 
 " Indeed, I'm sorry," remarked Tom, not looking
 
 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 49 
 
 particularly grieved either ; adding aside to the young 
 clergyman 
 
 "What about your faith, Brown that was to pull you 
 through ? " 
 
 The latter did not respond. 
 
 "You'll join our party to the theatre to-night?" 
 continued Tom. " ' The way the world goes round ' is a 
 grand take-off, they say, of fashionable society of to-day. 
 Very clever, I believe. Mrs. Courtenay is taking us all." 
 
 That lady looked guilty. Maud remarked 
 
 " I am sorry I cannot go, Mr. Lord, thank you." 
 
 "No more shall I," said Hilda, with the air of a 
 martyr. 
 
 " But you will not give up the theatre because that set 
 of derelicts has to return to town ? " said Lord. " Where's 
 your faith?" to Brown. 
 
 The doctor seemed to be in no mood for pleasantries. 
 A heavy weight lay on his heart a dark path stretched 
 before him. Maud was looking out of the window, far 
 away into the future wondering whether filling the 
 minds or the mouths of children were preferable. Hilda 
 was pulling a rose viciously to pieces as it lay on her lap. 
 Brown talked eagerly to Elms, upon whose face a dark, 
 ominous shadow lay. Mrs. Courtenay was reading and 
 re-reading her invitation wondering what life would be 
 worth without the excitement of balls to be prepared for, 
 and daughters to be danced out. 
 
 A knock was heard at the door. The maid delivered 
 a telegram to the doctor, who sei/ed it as a welcome 
 diversion from troubled thought. All eyes turned to- 
 wards him as he tore open the envelope. 
 
 A telegram is a talisman. It turns darkness to light, 
 converts rejoicing into mourning, casts a lightning flash 
 upon distant worlds, revealing achievement won or
 
 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 calamity befallen upon the anxious, waiting heart. It 
 descends as a thunderclap, or instils comfort like the 
 dew. Whose pulse does not throb one beat quicker per 
 minute, when, at critical moments, the red-winged Mercury 
 of modern days appears in the midst ! 
 
 The doctor read, and leaped from his lounge ; thrusting 
 his fingers through his hair, he read again. 
 
 The wife looked over his shoulder, saying, "May I 
 see ? " 
 
 The daughters peered over the other and timidly asked, 
 " May we look ? " 
 
 The men stood by inquiringly. "Wondering what the 
 deuce it all meant," as Tom explained afterwards. 
 
 Like cloud-shadows and sunshine across an April 
 landscape, variations of expression swept over the faces 
 of the readers. Visions of sorrow and of joy, of wonder- 
 ment and anticipation were cast upon each eager 
 countenance. All this in a second. 
 
 " I never expected that" cried the doctor at length. 
 " Poor old fellow ! Right at last ! Not as bad as we 
 thought him. Who is ? " 
 
 The women were looking one to another, then out of 
 the window to weep and to smile, seeing through a thin 
 veil of tears a long vista of promise and of opportunity ; 
 peopled by each with the objects nearest their hearts. 
 Under the trees of her vision, Maud saw children playing, 
 strong men working as they smiled, women spinning as 
 they sang. Beneath their leafy shades mother and 
 elder daughter beheld processions and pageants, as of 
 cloth-of-gold, fairy trains, the Festival of all the Fashions, 
 themselves set at the vista end, receiving the adulations 
 of gorgeous throngs ! 
 
 " May we see ? " asked little Tom, recognizing that the 
 telegram was of general interest.
 
 KEEPING UP APPEARANCES. 51 
 
 He read aloud 
 
 " Gumford. Railway Station. 
 
 "Your uncle died last night, bequeathing his estates 
 to you. Peaceful end. 
 
 " RICHARD BOWLING." 
 
 " Very wealthy, was he not ? " remarked the little 
 man. 
 
 " AVorth about ^200,000," was his friend's reply. 
 
 " Courtenay, I congratulate you. You are worthy of 
 this." 
 
 " Not too fast, old fellow, there may be some mistake. 
 ' There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' " 
 
 " No fear of that. I always thought you'd come out 
 right." 
 
 " No, you did not, excuse me," remarked the clergy- 
 man, wringing the doctor's hand; " you said faith would 
 not do it and it has." 
 
 " Then the work can go on, sir ? " inquired Elms. 
 
 " Yes, I hope so, on a somewhat larger scale, perhaps. 
 I can see daylight now, I think," said the doctor, " though 
 I am somewhat dazed. ' ;
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SCREEN OF DEATH. 
 
 " Cheer the weak ones who are bending 
 
 'Neath this weary burden now ; 
 Lift the pallid faces upward, 
 
 Smooth the careworn troubled brow ; 
 Send a bright and hopeful message 
 To each tried and tempted heart, 
 That the thick and gloomy shadows 
 At that sunshine may depart." 
 
 ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 FOR a moment the doctor stood on the threshold of 
 the ward surveying the rows of white beds ranging on 
 the polished floors. A few patients were sitting about 
 talking quietly or reading, some lay in the beds asleep 
 or suffering in silence seeming to read their destinies 
 on the high, white-washed ceiling. The neatest of nurses 
 moved with softest tread as about a sanctuary conse- 
 crated by sorrow and death to resurrection and recovery. 
 
 "A good large cheque," the doctor mused, "drawn 
 by the rich on account of their heavy indebtedness to 
 the poor. Amongst the fairest fruits of our faith and 
 civilization. What, in the place of temples such as 
 these, would a wild commune set up ? How would the 
 poor and suffering fare if leaders of the mob were 
 ministers of charity ? " He shuddered at the thought. 
 
 "Well, Willie, and how's the leg?" inquired the
 
 THE SCREEN OF DEATH. 53 
 
 doctor, approaching the bed on which the street-arab 
 had lain many weeks. 
 
 " I'm all right now, sir, thank ye. The blooming 
 splinter-boards is off now, and my leg's gettin' strong as 
 a cab-horse's. They say I may leave next week. God 
 knows where I'm a-going." 
 
 " Would you like to come with me," said the doctor, 
 " if I never run over you again ? " 
 
 "If I never get under your horse's feet again, sir. 
 But may I go with you, sir ? The only thing is " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " Well, what's the difficulty? " 
 
 "I would like to go into the country. The flowers 
 they brought me here I never seed such a lot before 
 makes me think of them I picked that one day I was 
 there. They've been readin' to me about gardens and 
 horses and cows and the green grass and the' sweet hay. 
 I'm allus thinking of them." 
 
 "But there's rain and cold, hard work and dry seasons 
 in the country, lad. Life there is not all flower-picking 
 and rollicking in hay-fields." 
 
 '' I know that, sir, and I could work. They allus said 
 I slaved like a brick in town ; sure there I could, and I 
 might " 
 
 " Might what ? " 
 
 The little man whispered, while he brushed away a 
 tear 
 
 "I might find father. He's somewhere there." 
 
 The doctor was moved. 
 
 ."You shall go into the conntry next week," he pro- 
 mised. 
 
 " But I should like to be with you, sir. You've been 
 so good to me all the times you've been here these two 
 months."
 
 54 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " You shall have both your desires. You shall go 
 with me, and live in the country too." 
 
 The lad could not speak, but burst into tears. 
 
 " Poor little man, he's weak still," said the doctor. 
 
 "May I ask one thing more?" said Willie, after a 
 time. " They've read to me 'bout Abr'tim. He asked 
 and asked, and God wern't angry ; and you're almost as 
 good as he were." 
 
 " Don't say that, boy, we are none of us much to talk 
 about." 
 
 " Well, sir, could you take she with we ? " nodding his 
 head towards the -end of the ward. "The young lady 
 over there, Nurse Maggie, what's reading to the old man 
 that's dying there, with the screen round his bed. The, 
 screen's the last thing they sees here. They'd oughter 
 put jolly fine pictures on 't ! I allus thinks how small 
 the world's got for he when I sees the screen put round 
 a poor cove's bed. But they sees into another world, a 
 mighty big and good 'un, all flowers in a blessed country, 
 so th' old parson with the long grey beard says." 
 
 " Why do you want Nurse Maggie to go? To take 
 care of you ? " 
 
 "I can look after myself, never fear. She's got a 
 cough ; I heard th' doctor say she'd ought get into the 
 country. T'other nurse said she couldn't "ford." 
 
 "I fear we cannot take the nurses and the hospitals 
 with us." 
 
 "Leastways will you think on it, sir? You can do 
 what you has a mind for, I believes." 
 
 Next day Dr. Courtenay returned and said 
 " Willie, you can have your third wish too. I did 
 think of what you said, and have arranged that Nurse 
 Maggie and ten of the patients who are getting 
 better "
 
 THE SCREEN OE DEATH. 55 
 
 " Conv'lesccnts, they calls 'em." 
 
 "Yes, that ten convalescents shall stop for a while 
 where we are going, and do a little gardening and looking 
 after the fowls, and so on." 
 
 " Oh, my, that will be fine ! You can't take the old 
 man, sir, 'cos God's took'd him. The screen's gone 
 round 'nother chap now. But there's many says they 
 don't know where they'll go when they gets better, and 
 it will be fun to have 'em in the flowers and the hay."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE GUEST THAT HAD NOT ON A WEDDING GARMENT. 
 
 " I live for those who love me, 
 For those who know me true ; 
 For the heaven that shines above me, 
 And waits my spirit too ; 
 For the cause that lacks assistance, 
 For the wrong that needs resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 For the good that I can do ! " 
 
 THE Town-hall was converted for the time being into 
 an enormous bower suggestive of the leafy glades in 
 which our forefathers held their earliest Witenagemots, or 
 chieftains their marriage festivals. 
 
 High above the balcony, at either side, rose tree-ferns, 
 and boughs of pine, native cherry and apple tree, 
 eucalypts of wondrous leaf, and heather of every variety. 
 On the enlarged stage an Arcadian scene had been 
 depicted by some who were exchanging paint-brush for 
 axe and spade. On the vast floor were set tables spread 
 with the best of plain fare, and decked with fern and wild- 
 flowers from distant plains and ranges. 
 
 About the building were scattered a thousand smiling, 
 expectant guests, clad in white and red. Men with 
 Crimean shirts and brand-new moleskin trousers each 
 with a shining tomahawk stuck in his belt, a blue badge on 
 the arm, embroidered with a spade and axe cross-wise,
 
 THE GUEST WITHOUT A WEDDING GARMENT. 57 
 
 a device of hand clasped in hand above. The men wore a 
 red sash across the shoulder, a harvester's Panama hat 
 on head, with band and streamers of " turkey-red." 
 
 Each woman and child was clad in white, with red 
 sash and -blue badge. 
 
 " Home sweet Home " resounding from the great 
 organ was signal for all to take their places at the feast. 
 They sat by families, children in order of size, father and 
 mother in centre boys and girls together on either 
 hand. All stood as the first verse of the " Old Hundredth " 
 was sung to the accompaniment of the organ. Then 
 they sat and looked bashfully at the viands arranged 
 before them. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen bustled round and bade the 
 guests eat. They needed little persuasion. Often had 
 they been hungry of late, but one who had himself 
 known care, had resolved they should " hunger no more," 
 if they would work. This was the Inaugural Festival. 
 They started for new scenes to-morrow. 
 
 The doctor had decided to put his uncle's lands, which 
 he had inherited, to better use than they had formerly 
 served. His intentions he had communicated by cir- 
 cular to every clergyman and mayor in the metropolis, 
 requesting nominations of suitable persons. Hundreds 
 had been laboriously interviewed, their credentials ex- 
 amined, medical reports procured, and some two hundred 
 and fifty families a thousand souls ultimately selected. 
 
 The rules and agreements had been signed, a suit of 
 uniform given to each person, and provision made for 
 transfer of families and furniture to Gumford Railway 
 Station. 
 
 In the course of his opening remarks the host intro- 
 duced his son, Travers Courtenay, returned the week 
 before from a prolonged absence in the old country.
 
 58 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 He had taken a fair degree at Cambridge, spent two or 
 three years studying engineering in Germany, another 
 twelve months in a leisurely tour through the United 
 States, returning in time to take part in the contemplated 
 social movement. 
 
 The young man regarded the undertaking with 
 interest, mingled with misgivings. He was not free from 
 the somewhat indolent, supercilious spirit with which 
 young men of means are prone to regard social questions. 
 He had no great admiration for the working-classes, 
 deemed them dissatisfied without cause, given to intrigue 
 and agitation not over fond of work. He did not con- 
 sider that, though existing social conditions suited him, 
 they might be nevertheless imposing intolerable burdens 
 on others less favoured ; that the class to which he 
 belonged was not, by nature, any more in love with 
 labour, for its own sake, than the so-called "labouring 
 classes." They, he thought, should be content to toil 
 twelve hours a day, and be thankful for the privilege of 
 doing so. Travers' disposition was, at the same time, 
 generous as his father's, and the thought of the " desolate 
 and oppressed " ever touched avibrating chord in his heart. 
 
 In the course of the repast, the doctor, with pardon- 
 able pride, escorted his intelligent-looking if not actually 
 handsome son, from table to table, and introduced him 
 to some of the company. 
 
 "I must take you to an interesting group," said he. 
 " The man talking and eating so energetically at the 
 head of that table is my right-hand man an important 
 personage in his own estimation, but useful to me. On 
 the right is his daughter." 
 
 " I thought her one of the ladies," remarked the son. 
 "Not a bad-looking girl. Observe the grace with 
 which she is addressing that greasy-looking personage."
 
 THE GUEST WITHOUT A WEDDING GARMENT. 59 
 
 " That's the fellow I had to thrash. Beside them is 
 Willie, the lad I unfortunately ran over. Come, you 
 must make their acquaintance." 
 
 The party rose as the doctor approached. After a few 
 words of introduction, Gwyneth asked, with the ease of a 
 daughter of the best-born 
 
 " May I offer you a cup of tea, sir? " 
 
 " Thanks, Miss Elms, I must move amongst our 
 friends." 
 
 " Perhaps you will stay and have a cup of tea with us ? " 
 suggested Elms to the younger man. 
 
 " Thanks, very much." Gwyneth made room for the 
 young man at the end of her form. 
 
 " I fear you'll find it rather dull in the country," re- 
 marked Travers, with a patronizing air. " No theatres, 
 football-matches, or assembly dances, eh ? " 
 
 " I dare say we can manage to exist, sir, without such 
 dissipation," answered Gwyneth, quietly pouring out the 
 tea. " I fear you imagine we think of nothing save our 
 ' day out.' " 
 
 " I am sure you are a cut above that, Miss Elms; but 
 what will you do with yourself in your spare hours ? " 
 
 " I suppose we can take our books with us, and that 
 my sewing-machine may go ; even my piano, I hope, may 
 not be too bulky for transit." 
 
 " You play then ? " asked Travers. 
 
 "You should hear her sing too, sir," suggested the 
 proud father between his munchings of a big bun. 
 
 " Some thinks we don't know nothing," growled Dick 
 Malduke, applying with both hands the drum-stick of a 
 chicken to his mouth. Travers looked at the shock- 
 haired young man as though he would not mind shaking 
 him as his father had done. 
 
 " Dick calls himself a ' root and branch ' man," ex- 
 
 E
 
 60 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 plained Elms apologetically ; " but he's not as ferocious 
 as he talks." 
 
 " Nor as he looks," interjected the daughter, eyeing the 
 mangled chicken with a smile. 
 
 "And what do you read?" inquired the young man, 
 turning to Gwyneth with growing interest. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose penny-dreadfuls, Scraps and Answers" 
 she replied with a laugh, not caring to parade her literary 
 tastes. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind, sir," interjected her father. 
 " She's been all through my books on Political Economy. 
 She's great on history, and is now reading aloud to us 
 of evenings the Greater Britain. Her mother was a 
 great reader before her." 
 
 " Then you'll be interested in the agricultural com- 
 munities of America 'Riverside,' ' Oneida,' 'Utah,' 
 and the others. I have been visiting them lately." The 
 young man proceeded to describe phases of social life, 
 as he had observed them in America. " If you do as 
 well as those settlers, you'll be all bloated capitalists in 
 a few years." 
 
 " Won't it be fun to see Dick living on the interest of 
 his interest ! " said the girl, mischievously. 
 
 "Not if I knows it," said Dick, savagely; "I'll be a 
 Knight of Labour to the end of the chapter." 
 
 " You'd be the most overbearing and selfish capital- 
 ist ever demagogue denounced," continued Gwyneth. 
 " You know you would, Dick, if you ever possessed the 
 opportunity. It is bourgeois bloomed into millionaire 
 that makes the hardest-shelled capitalist. We'll see Dick 
 in the Upper House yet, with a knighthood." 
 
 The young man looked as if he could devour the girl, 
 with love or hate, as he replied, with feeling 
 
 " At least, I'll not make slaves of the people, to be
 
 TIIK GUEST WITHOUT A WEDDING GARMENT, 6 1 
 
 robbed, or, at best, fed like paupers in soup-kitchens 
 and town-halls just to show off." This with a savage 
 glance at Travers, for whom the agreeable young man 
 seemed already to cherish no special love. "Society 
 will be no better," he added, " till you sweep it away, 
 root and branch, lock, stock, and barrel," and wildly 
 waving his hands as though on the stump, he inad- 
 vertently tilted the epergne opposite him into little 
 Will's face, and the cup of coffee into his own lap. 
 
 Gwyneth so far forgot herself as to hide her face in 
 her handkerchief to smother her laughter. The elder 
 Elms, roused and vexed, bid his friend "not make a fool 
 of himself," while Travers thought that it took " many 
 people to make a world." He wondered that his father 
 tolerated this destructive young man among his guests. 
 
 " Coffee usen't make father drunk," remarked Willie 
 laconically, as he picked up the flowers. 
 
 "You shut up," said the angered youth, " or I'll make 
 it hot for you outside." 
 
 " Did I not say that democracy is ever tyrannical," 
 remarked Gwyneth, " when it gets the chance ? " 
 
 " I've spoilt my best trousers any way," said Dick, 
 beginning to recognize the absurdity of the position. 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Elms, that righteous indig- 
 nation should get the better of me." 
 
 "I've no patience with you," rejoined the girl. 
 ' You're not fit to be here. You're always acting, and 
 the fool is your role." 
 
 " Why did you not wear the uniform ? " demanded the 
 old soldier. "Then you wouldn't have spoiled your 
 own clothes, at least. Moles will wash, which slops 
 won't." 
 
 "I never wore moles in my life, and I'm not going to 
 begin now," was the reply.
 
 62 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Well, I don't like a fellow as is ashamed of his 
 comrades and his colours," said the Sergeant, decisively. 
 
 " I'll wear none of their uniform, if I stop in town for 
 it," swaggered Dick. 
 
 Just then his host passed. Hearing the remark he 
 replied 
 
 " Then you can stay in town, Malduke " adding to 
 Elms "I won't have your friend at any price, 
 Sergeant." 
 
 " Then I'm off," returned the agitator ; " I'll wear no 
 capitalist's bloomin' colours, blowed if I does." 
 
 "I'd better show the way out," remarked Travers, 
 significantly; "we should make short work of such as 
 you at Cambridge, my fine fellow." 
 
 "Oh, I'll denounce you," was the fierce reply. "I'll 
 write to the Leveller, and expose your money-making, 
 sweating scheme. I know your little ways." And to 
 the astonishment of the company, the " guest that had 
 not on the wedding garment" swaggered out of the 
 hall. 
 
 When well outside, Dick paused a moment, then 
 banging one fist into the palm of the other hand, declared 
 with an oath 
 
 " See if I don't go. And smash it all up too sure's 
 my name's Dick Malduke." 
 
 No one, unless it were Elms, quite understood, later, 
 how it was that, despite his unmanliness and some demur 
 on the doctor's part, Dick was permitted to accompany 
 the emigrants. 
 
 The repast ended and tables cleared away, the doctor 
 appeared on the embowered platform, and explained the 
 nature of the undertaking. He was greeted with rounds 
 of applause. Picturesque harvest hats waved in the air, 
 women holding up their children to gesticulate, in
 
 THE GUEST WITHOUT A WEDDING GARMENT. 63 
 
 imitation of their fathers. A thousand faces beamed 
 their thanks on their benefactor. 
 
 "And to-morrow they'd howl him down," remarked 
 Tom Lord, cynically. 
 
 " Don't you believe it," replied Frank Brown, also on 
 the platform. " These people are of the right sort. 
 They'll be treated well and behave well, I'll guarantee." 
 
 " They ! They have no generous feelings. The mob 
 never yet had." 
 
 " As true hearts beat under flannel shirts, believe me, 
 as beneath the whitest starched fronts. The characters 
 of the wearers of both are much mixed. You'll find 
 good and bad everywhere." 
 
 " And a mighty lot more of bad than good in some 
 quarters, I am thinking," persisted Tom, But we shall 
 see.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PEOPLING THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 " Clod the first garden made, and the first city, Cain." 
 
 " Without attempting to predict the exact phases through which 
 co-operation will pass, it can scarcely be doubted that the 
 principle is so well adapted to agriculture, that it is certain 
 some day to be applied to that particular branch of industry 
 with the most beneficial results. . . . The progress towards 
 co-operative agriculture will no doubt be slow and gradual." 
 HENRY FAWCETT. 
 
 "THE old place, I fear, is spoiled for me," Mr. Bowling 
 was saying to his daughter. " My solitude is about to 
 be invaded. All my life I have fled from the town, and 
 now, in my old age, the city is spreading out its arms to- 
 wards me. Its surplus population is to be spread over 
 the plains I have loved." 
 
 "I believe the new-comers are a very respectable sort 
 of people, father," the daughter replied. " They have 
 been carefully selected. Dr. Courtenay is hopeful they 
 will make good neighbours." 
 
 " But I don't want neighbours, my child ; I desire to 
 be left alone. Courtenay is a good fellow, and deserves 
 to succeed in this wild venture of his. But I wish he 
 had chosen some other field on which to launch his 
 experiment." 
 
 " Is not that the very crime poor Mr. Leicester com- 
 mitted, father? He wanted to keep all the country-side 
 to himself. Is not that the sin of half the landowners to- 
 day?"
 
 PEOPLING THE WILDERNESS. 65 
 
 " True, my girl ; we are all a selfish Lot, We, on 
 the one hand, seek to hold the lands ; the working- 
 classes, for their part, will not permit needy cousins in 
 the old country to share with them the bounties of this, 
 If a man possess a trade or profession, he will keep all 
 he can of it. 'Protection,' 'monopolies,' 'favoured 
 classes,' ' locked-up ' lands, and streams, and forests, all are 
 1 barbarisms un-English, un-Christian. In theory I am in 
 favour of freedom, and fairer divisions of the good .things 
 of this life, but in practice well, I'd like to be left 
 alone." 
 
 " I'm so eager to see the people, father. Won't they 
 be delighted with this charming valley, and the. neat- 
 looking tents, with everything prepared for them ? " 
 
 " They ought to be," observed Mr. Dowling, doubtfully, 
 " The pangs of hunger they have felt, and been oppressed 
 by loads of care ; they have had no interest in the country 
 they have assisted to develop, nor in the undertakings 
 in which they have been employed. Now they will have 
 but to work ; I hope they'll do it. Poor Courtenay ! 
 His work's cut out for him." 
 
 " Come and see the tents, father, before the settlers 
 arrive. There are the Courtenays, and Jim and his wife, 
 putting the finishing touch on everything." 
 
 The wide expanse of valley that spread beneath 
 Heatherside the Dowlings' abode was strangely altered 
 in appearance. The wattles and pine-ridges still dotted 
 its undulating surface with clumps of trees midst sweeps 
 of verdure ; the creek, its waters still unpolluted, chat- 
 tered in its willow-shaded channel. Magpies hopped and 
 piped from the gaunt ringed timber ; the grass was knee- 
 deep, since the dead squatter's sheep had been sold or 
 removed to the outer paddocks. Orchids and buttercups 
 reared their heads above the meadow-like pastures, as 
 if wondering how much higher their slender stalks must
 
 66 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 rise to surmount the unwonted growth. In the distance 
 the lake, a mirror of silver, reflected the day's declining 
 rays. All was silent, expectant an earthly paradise 
 awaiting the new race of Seth. Across the valley from 
 side to side stretched a chain of tents, in squares and 
 crescents. Each little tabernacle, labelled with the name 
 of the intended occupant, stood open in a plot of five 
 acres, duly pegged off. The belongings of each family, 
 sent forward the day before, had been neatly bestowed 
 in the allotted tent. The night previous, the balloting 
 had taken place at the White House ; Jim and Elms 
 drawing, one the number of the allotment, the other 
 the name of the future settler, from the doctor's hat 
 on the one hand, from Mrs. Courtenay's reticule on the 
 other. The good lady had protested. 
 
 " I want you to have a hand in it, my dear," the 
 doctor had urged. 
 
 "I suppose because I do not approve." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do ; you are deeply interested already." 
 
 " Only for your sake." 
 
 " No wonder the lady demurs," remarked the in- 
 corrigible Tom, who had come to have a peep at the 
 place. " Naturally she objects to have one man's hand 
 in her reticule and another's in her husband's pocket. 
 Typical and significant." 
 
 " Well, they'll soon be empty again," remarked the 
 good lady. " My husband has not calculated what it 
 will cost to feed a thousand mouths for two or three 
 years, and to run all his factories." 
 
 " The labourers will feed themselves, my dear, if I 
 give them the chance." 
 
 "But will they?" 
 
 "That is just the problem we are going to solve." 
 
 Now the doctor and his followers were putting the last 
 rickety chair on its faulty legs in one tent, propping up
 
 PEOPLING THE WILDERNESS. 6/ 
 
 a derelict chest of drawers in another, tidying articles of 
 vertu in a third. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of the camp ? " asked the 
 doctor of Dowling as he approached. " My back's 
 broken with stooping about in these cramped little cribs 
 all day," and the strong man threw back his shoulders 
 and expanded his great chest as though to get his form 
 into shape again. 
 
 "Your men are fortunate fellows," replied Dowling. 
 "The valley* is picturesque indeed, with its lines of 
 white amongst the green and gold. You could not have 
 selected a better site. The land will grow anything, if 
 it's only scratched." 
 
 "We will do more than that," said the doctor. " We 
 shall deepen the lagoons and have a splendid natural 
 reservoir. We can shape the creek into a canal ; get our 
 craft from the centre of the settlement on to the lake, 
 into the Silverbourne, to the Murray, and the world." 
 
 " Have you fully considered the cost of all these 
 works ? " 
 
 " Every penny. We shall accomplish all with our own 
 labour, which we shall merely have to feed. After six 
 months, provisioning will cost next to nothing." 
 
 " But men will not work for their food only." 
 
 " They will for homes and lands and share in the 
 profits." 
 
 "You have launched upon an enormous undertaking." 
 
 "Not at all. In the ordinary course I must have 
 invested scores of thousands of pounds in the enterprise. 
 As it is, the settlers share the risk." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " They advance their labour. I put my land at their 
 disposal. If the worst comes to the worst, I have drawn 
 no profit from land, which at the same time has been 
 improved ; they, on the other hand, have toiled to little
 
 68 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 purpose. But they have lived in comfort meanwhile, 
 and are better off than when they started. I have no 
 fear, however, of failure, if they only rise to the occasion, 
 and work like free men." 
 
 "That's the rub," said Bowling; "can you ever teach 
 them to do that ? " 
 
 " If making them interested principals partners, in 
 fact will not do it, nothing will." 
 
 " How can you compel those to work who do not like 
 it? You will have some such." 
 
 " No doubt; all, however, have entered into a con- 
 tract. If any will not work, neither shall they eat; they 
 can go." 
 
 " Which a mighty lot will do." 
 
 " Not after the first few months. They will have 
 given 'hostages to fortune.' Every month's labour will 
 forge a chain of vested interest about them. Men will 
 think twice before they abandon, in a tiff, their embryo 
 farms and homes." 
 
 "But these people have always been of a roving 
 disposition." 
 
 " Because you have never tried to interest them in 
 their undertakings. Eacli week you give them a wage 
 that virtually pays them off, buys out that healthful 
 interest that should, by every means, be fostered. If 
 these men worked for my uncle, or a contractor, they 
 could depart any Saturday and leave him in the lurch, 
 taking all their belongings with them. In this case they 
 would have to abandon two-thirds of the result of their 
 labour." 
 
 " Then you have the idea of dragooning and coercing 
 them?" 
 
 " Certainly not, save for their own good. I desire to 
 make labour more effective, more directly interested, and 
 so more content. It is to the men's own interest that
 
 c- TIIK WILDERNESS. 69 
 
 they should postpone receipt of the fullest revenue of 
 their toil, not grab what they can every Saturday night. 
 We can feed them for half what it cost them to cater for 
 themselves. That they have to the good. Undertakings 
 that yield no profit under the wages system you will find 
 we can prosecute to advantage, accepting lowest prices, 
 reaping fullest profits." 
 " Well, we shall see." 
 
 " What is that music sounding over the hill ? " asked 
 Eva Bowling, running towards the speakers. 
 
 "You ought to know the sighing of the wind in the 
 she-oaks on the hills," replied her father. 
 
 "Listen!" insisted the girl. "It is music, martial 
 music ' The Campbells are coming.' " 
 
 " By Jove, it is some band. I can hear it, Courtenay. 
 What does it mean ? " 
 
 "My army, coming in peace and joy," replied the 
 doctor, "to win its victories. Here they are ! " he shouted 
 to his wife further down the hill. 
 
 " Why have they a band ? " inquired Dowling. 
 
 " To cheer them, of course, as music ever does," 
 answered the doctor. " Why should not our regiment 
 be enlivened through all its hard campaign by inspiriting 
 strains ? Why may not life here be brightened by the 
 healthful accessories that render the city so attractive ? 
 We are going to set up 'counter attractions' on these 
 plains, I assure you." 
 
 " Barmaids and dice,'"' suggested Tom, coming up 
 with the others. " I thought yours was to be a temperance 
 settlement, Courtenay ? " 
 
 " Not of your milk-and-water sort. A vigorous, manly 
 life our people shall lead here. All that can properly 
 delight eye and ear, and improve heart and mind, shall 
 they know, if I can secure it."
 
 7<D THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "I see them here they come!" cried Eva with 
 excitement. 
 
 Forthwith over the very ridges that the dying eye 
 of the squatter had looked upon last, a troop bearing 
 banners appeared. Instruments of brass shone in the 
 sunlight horse-teams, bullock-wagons, spring-carts, and 
 drays, laden with singing, laughing, gesticulating women 
 and children ; men astride fowl-coops, youths waving 
 their caps from the top of swaying loads, children 
 running alongside, plucking the heather as the caravan 
 descended into the valley a long, animated line, wind- 
 ing through the solitary pine-trees, round the granite 
 rocks, pilgrims from the dreary city, escaping to the 
 paradise God had prepared for them. 
 
 In the midst of Settlement Square as it was to be 
 called on "the village green" they met, the benefactors 
 and the beneficiaries. 
 
 "Home, sweet Home," the band struck up as the 
 players, all settlers, took their stand under a wide- 
 spreading gum. There were wringing of hands, shouts 
 of delight, capering of children, with some shedding of 
 tears, as all speeded to see on which tent their names 
 were inscribed, and what plot was to be the scene of their 
 future labour. 
 
 As, an hour later, the doctor took his wife's arm and 
 led her slowly homeward his hand trembled. 
 
 " It was almost too much for me," he confessed, " to 
 see the pale-faced creatures, brave with hope, sweeping 
 into the lovely valley. God help them and us. The 
 responsibility is great, and so is the joy." .... 
 
 " Do you remember the old squatter's last vision ? " 
 said Bowling to his wife as they walked home. " It was 
 fulfilled, surely, this very evening."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TRANSFORMATION SCENE. 
 
 " Seek to delight that they may mend mankind, 
 And while they captivate, inform the mind." COWPEP 
 
 " So flows beneath our good and ill 
 A viewless stream of common will, 
 A gathering force, a present might, 
 That from its silent depths of gloom 
 At Wisdom's voice shall leap to light, 
 And tide our barren fields in bloom, 
 Till, all our sundering lines of love o'ergrown, 
 Our bounds shall be the girdling seas alone." 
 
 Australian Poets, J. BRUNTON STEPHENS. 
 
 COULD the walls of the homestead at Mimosa Vale have 
 spoken, striking contrasts might they have described 
 between the selfish life they had witnessed of old, and 
 the generous one they looked down upon to-day. The 
 costly furniture of the late squatter was the skeleton 
 about which a hundred nameless nicknacks and niceties 
 of refined female taste were disposed. The great halls 
 were real " living-rooms " now, suggestive of culture, 
 comfort, and use. The wide verandah that surrounded 
 the building presented at every turn vistas of ferny 
 bowers. The avenue was well kept, the plantation and 
 orangery clipped and cleaned. 
 
 With a pony carriage, tandem-team, and riding-horses 
 at their disposal, Hilda and her mother found to their 
 surprise the country life not intolerable, while Maud dis-
 
 72 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 covered a hundred objects of interest. Her father and 
 Travers had few spare moments. 
 
 Every Saturday a score or two of the families were 
 invited to tea. Later the girls sang to them in the 
 drawing-room, round games were indulged in, and finally 
 a few dances. 
 
 In the course of the clear frosty nights the doctor 
 would interest the men with the microscope in his study, 
 or the telescope on the verandah. No talk of " shop " 
 was permitted that was reserved for meetings when 
 papers were read and discussed in the wool-shed, im- 
 provised for the present into a hall. 
 
 " We have something other to do," the doctor would 
 say, " than to make money. The bane of Englishmen 
 has been that they are engrossed in business. We must 
 have play of fancy here, contact of mind with mind, heart 
 with heart, and soul with its Maker, if we are not to 
 become more mechanical than the slaves of the city. 
 ' Work while you work,' and then, betimes, talk, converse 
 like rational men, or sport for a while as children." 
 
 Every alternate evening the band played on the 
 village green, while children and their elders enjoyed 
 "rounders" close by; great babies of men playing 
 " hide and seek " with the little ones about the tents, as 
 for an hour jollity prevailed. 
 
 " Ours is an Italian climate," the doctor remarked 
 sometimes ; " while we cling to our sturdy English sense 
 of decency and duty, let us sun ourselves betimes, and 
 acquire some of the tastes and graces of a southern 
 life." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Among the neighbouring squatter folk who took more 
 or less interest in the presence and projects of the 
 Courtenays was one Larry O'Lochlan, a red-haired, good-
 
 TRANSFORMATION SCENE. 73 
 
 looking young Celt, dare-devil yet tender, rollicking or 
 serious by turns, as circumstances determined ; a typical 
 Irish gentleman, with the most distinct though refined of 
 brogues ; who rode across country on the best bred of 
 steeds, as though his wire fences were no more treacherous 
 than the stone walls of Galloway. His boundary rider 
 he would knock down " soon as look at him " if he were 
 impudent, ride scores of miles for the doctor for a sick 
 " hand," whom he would nurse and care for with the 
 tenderness of a woman. Every one knew and loved 
 Larry O'Lochlan, as all the country-side styled him. 
 Though proud of his birth, he ever had a cheery greeting 
 or a word of banter for all he met. He could pick off 
 with rifle his wallaby or dingo at a thousand yards, as 
 others with shot at a hundred. Larry was much in- 
 terested in Courtenay's venture. He thought it a prime 
 joke. Moreover, he declared his daughter Hilda " the 
 one girl he had met out here who knew how to sit a 
 horse without giving him a bad back." " A deuced fine- 
 looking girl too. Knows how to talk. None of your 
 Matriculation- Miss about her." 
 
 Larry had come to lunch, leading a young mare " that 
 Miss Courtenay must ride. The creature had a mouth of 
 velvet, action like a fighting cock, pace of a greyhound. 
 She'd take you across one of those tents like a 
 kitten over a cucumber." 
 
 " What a remarkable horse, Mr. O'Lochlan ! " suggested 
 Mrs. Courtenay ; " she must be Irish, surely." 
 
 " Now, you are laughing at me, Mrs. Courtenay. You 
 come too, Miss Maud, with your tandem-team, and see if 
 she isn't an angel." 
 
 " Which the lady or the pony ? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Oh, you English are so matter-of-fact. -I don't hesitate 
 to say that Miss Hilda rides like an angel."
 
 74 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "Angels don't ride," replied Hilda. "You'll have 
 none of your horses in heaven." 
 
 " Then I'm not on to go there, if I do get the chance. 
 Excuse me, Mrs. Courtenay, I mean nothing naughty. 
 But there will be ponies in heaven, and dogs too," con- 
 tinued Larry ; " I've seen them going that way." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " inquired the ladies, laughing. 
 
 "I've seen them lie down and die for me, and I've 
 watched their last look of love, saying as distinctly as 
 they ever spoke in life, ' We'll meet again, master.' And 
 I believe we shall." 
 
 " I did not know," said Tom, " that we were in the 
 fabled fields where the creatures conversed like Christians." 
 
 "No man yet ever got work and devotion from beast 
 or man that did not talk to it, and it to him. Why, my 
 chestnut turns round and speaks to me I'm not so 
 barbarous as to drive with winkers every mile we go. 
 Every horse has a soul, if you only try to find it. 
 
 " Well, doctor, how are those poor creatures of yours 
 getting on?" Larry asked of his host as he joined the 
 party. " You'll do more than I ever could with that sort 
 if you get anything reasonable out of them." 
 
 " We will ride round after lunch, and you can judge for 
 yourself." 
 
 " Excuse me," remarked O'Lochlan, at the conclusion 
 of the well-appointed repast, "but you have less trouble 
 than I experience with servants. You seem to have a 
 most superior set." 
 
 " All ' my children,' as I call them," said Mrs. Cour- 
 tenay. " I receive the daughters of our people for two or 
 three months, teach them what I can, and then secure 
 engagements for them amongst my friends in town." 
 
 "You must, have trouble in breaking in the young 
 fillies I beg your pardon the maids, I mean."
 
 TRANSFORMATION SCENE. 75 
 
 " I take no credit to myself; my daughter Maud takes 
 them in hand." 
 
 " That accounts for their ' grace and goodness,' " 
 remarked the Irishman ; " merely to come in contact with 
 some people is to be the better for it." 
 
 "It is," said the doctor, "the affection my daughter 
 lavishes on them that wins. If you take interest in 
 human beings, you know, you can get even better results 
 than from horses and dogs." 
 
 " I think it very rude of you, Mr. O'Lochlan," remarked 
 Maud playfully, but not without a blush, " to discuss our 
 servants. I shall criticize the appointments of your house 
 when we visit Bullaroo." 
 
 " Mine's a wild barracks sort of place, I fear, but we 
 will get the ' married couple ' to tidy up and give you a 
 welcome, such as it is, when you do come." 
 
 " We shall have to send some of our people across," 
 suggested the doctor, " to show your folk how to work" 
 
 " Excuse me, I would not have one at any price. I do 
 not believe in co-operative slaveys. Menials are all very 
 well in their place." 
 
 "Do not our men and maids ' know their place'?" 
 inquired Hilda. 
 
 " None dare presume in Miss Hilda's presence or 
 that of her mother." 
 
 "I think I know one who has done so, nevertheless," 
 was the quick rejoinder, "just a little." 
 
 " It's all in a good cause, so forgive me. You see I 
 am trying to learn all I can of your emigrants." 
 
 "You certainly have altered the appearance of this 
 prime piece of country," remarked O'Lochlan, as the 
 doctor and he rode across the valley. 
 
 The pair halted in the midst of the settlement. Two 
 miles down the valley, and athwart it, ran the lines of 
 
 F
 
 76 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 cottages, some already finished. All were of the same 
 style of architecture, with high gables, projecting eaves, 
 and trellised verandahs. Before each house a couple of 
 acres had been ploughed. In many instances vegetable?, 
 vines, or fruit-trees had already been planted. At the 
 corner of each garden a poplar had been placed, while a 
 mere path separated each allotment from the adjoining 
 one. Already the water had been laid on ; in some parts 
 a clear stream was flowing along the top of each garden 
 farm. Along two great avenues, that ran cross-wise, 
 trees were planted, and a little tram-line was being 
 constructed. 
 
 " What is the tramway for? " inquired Larry. 
 
 " To bring once a week supplies of wood and provi- 
 sions to each cottage, and to bear produce, etc. into the 
 stores." 
 
 "What is your motive power? Do the youngsters 
 shove the trucks along ? " 
 
 " Our methods are not quite so primitive, as we shall 
 see later on." 
 
 " But you have no fences." 
 
 "Are they so beautiful? Our people, unlike the 
 'Cockies ' of whom you complain, have something other 
 to do than spend their first year in fencing themselves 
 off from their kind. Their Aryan forefathers knew better 
 than that." 
 
 " What are those low brick-walls you are running one 
 above the other, on the hill-side ? " 
 
 " That is our open-air ' hot-house.' " 
 
 "A rather big one. What on earth do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "Those bricks that our men have made, will catch 
 and store the heat of the sun's rays. The vines on the 
 top of each wall, the strawberries at foot, with currants
 
 TRANSFORMATION SCENE. 77 
 
 clambering about, will bear fruit a month before any are 
 ripe elsewhere. We shall be able to put the choicest 
 fruits on the earliest market. This oval we call our 
 village green. This is the cricketing-pitch, these again 
 the football-goals." 
 
 "The children, evidently, appreciate the swings and 
 merry-go-rounds." 
 
 ' We like them to be happy while they can. Work 
 enough lies before them. We run our school on our 
 own lines." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " No home-lessons. All learn a little Latin, some 
 Greek, to exercise their minds. History and geography 
 we teach them together, and Christianity with morality." 
 
 " I suppose you impart the rudiments of science, 
 agriculture, cooking, and the like in these model schools 
 of yours ? " 
 
 "No, that follows in due course. First, we open the 
 minds and hearts of the children, teach them how and 
 why to work. Technical instruction is, then, easily 
 imparted later on. The youths and young women come, 
 for two hours every evening, to receive instruction in the 
 more practical or in the higher arts. What do you think 
 of our church, just finished?" continued the doctor, 
 " with its little peal of bells, sanctuary, and parson's 
 house complete ? " 
 
 " I should have thought they could have done without 
 that luxury for a while. You must have quite enough to 
 do to change the conditions of life as you are doing, 
 without troubling about faiths and feelings." 
 
 " I do not know about that. I am strongly convinced 
 that only by improving the moral standing of men, 
 striking the highest chords in their nature, can we hope 
 to ameliorate their social condition. I want them to act
 
 78 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 as brothers. To do that, they must first realize that they 
 are sons." 
 
 " Then you make the poor beggars go to church, 
 whether they like it or no ? " 
 
 "Not in the least. There is no compulsion in the 
 matter. As a fact, nearly all do attend the Sunday 
 service ; some the one before breakfast, some the short 
 daily prayer at seven ; but of course not many do that" 
 
 " And who's your parson ? " 
 
 " Yonder he is, the Rev. Frank Brown hoeing up his 
 potatoes. That little boy helping is the youngster I ran 
 over last year." 
 
 "Is that broad-shouldered fellow in mole-skin trousers? 
 with his coat off and that huge hat on, the parson ? Not 
 a very conventional one." 
 
 " No, but a really fine fellow. He'll box with you, 
 ride with you, or farm ; but he is devoted to these people 
 and their work. You must meet him another time. 
 Now we must be getting back if you are to have 
 your ride with the ladies. That building in course of 
 erection is to be our hall and theatre. Adjoining it you 
 see the stores, which we keep well supplied, though no 
 money passes over the counter. It's only open two 
 hours a day ; we spend the maximum of time producing, 
 the minimum in doling out. Next you see the butchery, 
 bakery, blacksmiths' and wheelwrights' shops. Pretty 
 busy, are they not ? " 
 
 " By St. Patrick they are. I confess you have done 
 wonders. Now tell me how you accomplish it ? " 
 
 "Simply by believing in these people, as you draw 
 devotion from your very horses and dogs. Sympathy is 
 the talisman that opens the barred treasure-house of the 
 heart, and helps a man to rise to the best that is in 
 him."
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 
 
 " Loveliness 
 
 Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 
 But is when unadorned, adorned the most." 
 
 THOMSON. 
 
 "Mechanism is not always to be our hard taskmaster, but one 
 day to be our pliant, all-ministering servant." 
 
 THOMAS CARI/VLE. 
 
 " Co-operation rightly understood is but the endeavour to realize 
 in economic life the social ideal of Christianity." 
 
 C. W. STUBBS. 
 
 So, with alternating success and failure, two years sped 
 away. The Courtenays, father and son, were, in different 
 ways, admirably adapted to educe its highest product from 
 labour. The doctor was powerfully charged with that 
 human magnetism that instinctively unites man to man, 
 and gives some the leadership. His was a touch, we 
 call tact, that could turn dust into gold, and strike the 
 best chords in human hearts. It enabled him to select 
 his agents, as by instinct, and to apply the labour of 
 each man's hands and brains to its most appropriate 
 occupation. 
 
 His very confidence in man, his belief in the better 
 nature lying somewhere, as ha supposed, in the breasts 
 of all, rendered him liable to deception, and subjected 
 him to bitter disappointment. The atmosphere, how-
 
 80 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ever, of trust and hopefulness in which he moved caused 
 many with whom he was brought in contact to surpass 
 themselves, and surprise their friends. 
 
 His son, of a somewhat similar disposition, impulsive, 
 v/arm-hearted, brimful of the cheerfulness and frankness 
 of youth, played his part easily and naturally. Seem- 
 ingly on terms of perfect equality, he mingled with those 
 amongst whom his lot was cast without spice of patron- 
 age or condescension, invested merely with that native 
 dignity education and worth impart, hedging round true 
 nobility from encroachments familiarity might encourage. 
 
 One thing young Travers did think and puzzle much 
 about. Not so much the social as the mechanical 
 question. Years of practical apprenticeship in the 
 workshops of Germany, together with observation in 
 America, had constituted him a resourceful engineer of 
 the modern school. So much little as yet that could 
 be acquired of electrical science and its practical appli- 
 cation, he was conversant with. Machinery, he recog- 
 nised, had served to augment the social inequalities that 
 he with his father deplored. His aim was to cause 
 science and machinery to serve for once the people's 
 good. 
 
 "You band the men together, see that their hearts 
 beat right," he would say to his father ; " I will put a 
 subtle power into their hands that shall yet again 
 redouble their strength." 
 
 At the head of the valley the stream from the moun- 
 tains passed through two or^three reed-covered lagoons 
 the banks converging towards a narrow inlet. There 
 the waters leapt and dashed over the huge boulders that 
 spanned the gorge. 
 
 " Bubble on, pretty brook," the young engineer had 
 said, "you, like all else here, must henceforth work,
 
 WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. % 8 1 
 
 turning all the wheels and they shall be many of 
 Mimosa Vale." 
 
 A breastwork of masonry was thrown across the 
 gorge by merely filling up, as it were, the gaps between 
 the boulders through which the waters had swept for 
 centuries. 
 
 The central aperture was raised and built into a race. 
 The lagoons were expanded into one great lake by the 
 addition of six feet of water. A huge wheel was set 
 across the stream at the falls, and eventually the needed 
 power secured. 
 
 " There's not more nor enough to turn one mill, and 
 how he's a-goin' to work a dozen, I doesn't know," was 
 the criticism of the villager who acted as head-mason. 
 
 Turbine and dynamo were, however, duly set up, and 
 the mystic wires that should convey the electric power 
 run from gum-tree to gum-tree down the busy vale. 
 
 There in due course, without steam, smoke, or noise, 
 the factories were at work. Here the saw- and flour- 
 mills, there the butter factory and creamery. Alongside, 
 spaces were set apart for the projected fruitery plant, 
 woollen factory, canning, evaporating, and other works. 
 Far down the valley, between avenues and cottages, ran 
 mystic wire carrying light and power to every house, 
 and propelling the cars or trucks that glided as needed 
 to the wharf on the main lake. 
 
 A connection was now in course of construction 
 between the lower lake, " Grassmere," and the Silver- 
 bourne river, five miles distant. The wide, high-banked 
 creek presented few engineering difficulties. One lock, 
 where the creek debouched into the river, would throw 
 back along the creek, whose fall was very slight, suf- 
 ficient water to float the steamers of light draught 
 proposed to be used. To preserve the banks it was
 
 82 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 proposed to haul the steamers through the canals by 
 electric power supplied by an overhead line in course of 
 erection. 
 
 After lunch one Saturday afternoon Travers set forth 
 in his dog-cart to inspect the works while operations 
 were suspended owing to the weekly half-holiday. As 
 he passed down the main avenue the scene that pre- 
 sented itself was an animated one. All hands were 
 busy at home before the football match of the day 
 began. Some forming paths, others setting up rustic 
 sheds and bowers, turning the generous waters to the 
 roots of melons and " Turk's-heads," that spread like 
 vegetable octopi over every available space, between 
 giant rows of Pandrosa tomatoes, clumps of arrowroot, 
 and lines of many-hued herbs. Another man was ex- 
 tending the shelter that protected a valuable and flourish- 
 ing crop of mushrooms. Everything betokened special 
 culture and scientific treatment that spoke volumes for 
 the lectures delivered each night by the resident experts. 
 
 Potatoes, fodder, wheat, &c., were grown by the 
 hundred acres on the common land, while the individual 
 settlers were encouraged to apply their long spare hours 
 at home to the raising of the products that experts 
 indicated as most profitable. 
 
 About verandahs, over rustic archways, bowers of 
 dolichos and irnpomoea had already found footing, to be 
 swept away, like other vigorous make-shifts, when more 
 worthy growths were ready to take their place. 
 
 Valuable prizes, to be competed for each year, had 
 been offered for the best appointed home, most neatly 
 kept garden, for wisest application of land, greatest 
 progress and quickest returns. The agricultural, horti- 
 cultural, and poultry show of the settlement, to be held 
 in a few months, offered liberal inducement for all to
 
 WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 83 
 
 produce the best returns from choicest seeds and plants, 
 supplied upon application at the store. 
 
 Travers, passing a gay word with here a dame and 
 there a busy settler, reined in his steed before one of the 
 farmeries that promised well for more than one of the 
 coveted prizes. 
 
 At the wicket was a little archway covered with quick- 
 growing creepers a seat on either side like some 
 ancient minster's lych-gate built up anew in a southern 
 field. Within were paths of whitest gravel, borders of 
 yellow-green native pine, festoons of blue sarsaparilla 
 and golden clematis stretching from bower to bower. 
 An acacia hedge was in full bloom. Behind the cottage 
 lay the trimmest of vegetable gardens, with beds of 
 flowers for the market. Beside the house was a fernery 
 of wattles, half covered with creepers, while round the 
 four acres ran a hedge of walnuts, almonds, and cherry 
 plums. 
 
 "Good-morning, Miss Elms," said the young man, as, 
 leaving his horse with Willie, he sauntered along the 
 pathway. The girl stepped from the bed in which she 
 had been lashing a tall dahlia to its stake. Hurriedly, 
 by magic as is a woman's way she let fall the skirt 
 pinned round her slender waist. 
 
 " I must not shake hands, Mr. Travers, mine are too 
 dirty. You should not pop in upon us on ' arbour day ' 
 without notice," the maid complained. 
 
 " You ought not then to train your creepers and plant 
 those pepper-trees to shut out all view of the roadway, 
 if you do not desire visitors to come unannounced. 'Pon 
 my word, your garden is becoming like Fair Rosamond's 
 Bower. Lord Tennyson's retreat at Freshwater is such 
 a one as yours will ere long be." 
 
 " You are always welcome," said the girl, with a pretty
 
 84 THE XKW ARCADFA. 
 
 blush, as she stood with her white dress and broad- 
 brimmed hat, suggestive of Tennyson's "Gardener's 
 Daughter." So Travers thought, but then he was be- 
 coming unduly interested in the pretty young villager. 
 
 " May I pick some of this heliotrope, my favourite 
 flower ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; let me make you a little buttonhole, of 
 my best," and as they talked she proceeded to set 
 together rosebud, mignonette and violet, daphne and 
 maidenhair. Tying them with cotton from her rustic 
 work-table near at hand, she presented the miniature 
 bouquet to the young man. 
 
 " Why does this suggest the Tribuna of the Uffizzi ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 "I thought the gallery was called the ' Pitti,' " said 
 the girl. 
 
 " No ; that is further on but have you ever been 
 there ? : ' 
 
 "Unfortunately not, only I was lately reading Ruskin's 
 Makers of Florence, and Mrs. Oliphant's and Trollope's 
 charming descriptions of the city. But why is my humble 
 gift like the Tribuna ? That is the little salon at 
 Florence, is it not, in which the choicest masterpieces 
 are gathered ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and this little nosegay contains, in the same 
 way, the fairest flowers of your mimosa garden. Can 
 you tell me where your father is ? I called to ascertain." 
 
 " I thought you came to see me," the maiden was 
 about to reply, but refrained. She remembered that in 
 the world his position was other than hers. 
 
 "We have nothing to do with the ' outer world,' " he 
 would urge, when the Sergeant's daughter gave expression 
 to such thoughts. 
 
 " My father has not returned," said the girl with
 
 WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 85 
 
 some anxiety. " He should have been here an hour 
 ago." 
 
 " I am going to the works. Let me have the pleasure 
 of taking you. You have never properly seen the lake 
 yet, from the hillside, which we are going to call 
 Fiesole." 
 
 " No ; I should ba delighted to do so, but 
 
 " But what, Miss Elms ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 ''Well, I do. You think people will talk. Why 
 should I not take whom I like for a drive ? Such non- 
 sense ! We have come here to escape Mrs. Grundy. 
 We refused her a block, and left her lamenting in town." 
 
 "But discretion is not nonsense." 
 
 " Look here, Gwyneth I beg pardon Miss Elms 
 you know I hate ' mistering ' and ' missing ' every one, 
 as we are everlastingly doing. May I call you Gwyneth ? " 
 
 The girl hesitated. 
 
 " Perhaps you might, when we are by ourselves." 
 
 " Gwyneth, what you and I do deliberately is right ; 
 that makes it so for us. Now, please, come at once like 
 a good girl. I ought to be on my way." 
 
 " Just let me run and put on my bonnet." 
 
 " Pray do not. I want you to come just as you are 
 the 'Gardener's Daughter.' You cannot improve upon 
 Tennyson. Shall you leave the front door open?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Of course. Our doors and windows have no bolts. 
 Happily we have left such insignia of modern life behind 
 us. None here have need to steal nor the inclination. 
 You said Willie might come," exclaimed Gwyneth as she 
 passed out. She desired that some one should play 
 propriety. 
 
 In a moment they were speeding down the avenue ;
 
 86 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 she in front, Willie behind, looking particularly proud of 
 himself. 
 
 "Manager's daughter's getting up in the world," re- 
 marked Mrs. Smith to Mrs. Robinson, as the trio dashed 
 past the garden in which the housewives were working. 
 " What '11 Dick Malduke say ? I believe she keeps 
 company with he." 
 
 " Not her. He's made a fool of himself about her 
 long afore we come here." 
 
 "Well, he's a nasty-tempered brute. I hope there'll 
 be no mischief over the girl, for she's good-hearted, and 
 clever too." 
 
 "Yes, and handsome. See the way she sits in the 
 trap and talks like a lady at her ease. And doesn't that 
 big hat set her off now ? " 
 
 So Dames Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, with 
 many others, watched the pair as they dashed along the 
 two miles of cottage-lined avenue.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 
 
 " Plough of Nature ! Hand of God ! 
 
 Fallow deep the hills eternal ! 
 Bless for these the mountain sod 
 
 With full fruit and pasture vernal ! 
 Somewhere in the by-and-by, 
 
 Sounds of distant life are humming ; 
 They are nearing, though not nigh, 
 And the day of homes is coming." 
 
 Australian Poets, H. H. BLACKHAM. 
 
 " High in the far-off glens rose thin blue curls from the homesteads ; 
 Softly the low of the herds, and the pipe of the outgoing herds- 
 man, 
 
 Fled to her ear on the water, and melted her heart into weeping." 
 
 KINGSLEY, Andromeda. 
 
 As Travers and Gwyneth turned along the hill-side, 
 who should the unconventional couple meet but Hilda 
 and Maud, riding with Larry O'Lochlan. Both parties 
 were moving too rapidly for it to be marked that they 
 did not pull up. Neither desired to do so. The men 
 doffed their hats gaily. The women looked at their 
 horses' heads demurely. 
 
 "Who is that young 'Duchess of Devonshire' with 
 the buttercups round her hat ? " asked Larry of Hilda, 
 when they were well out of ear-shot. 
 
 "A young person from the village that my brother 
 has picked up. Not very considerate of him. I believe 
 she's respectable enough,"
 
 88 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Do not speak of her in that way," interjected Maud. 
 " She is really a good clever girl. I often meet her/' 
 
 " But that is no reason why our brother should demean 
 himself by driving her out." 
 
 "You know he has peculiar notions," said Maud, 
 " concerning social distinctions. With respect to them 
 he regards only education and character. After all, we 
 are by ourselves in this community." 
 
 " She makes a pretty picture, at any rate," remarked 
 Larry. 
 
 " Pretty pictures should be hung up at home, in their 
 proper place," replied Hilda, with undisguised vexation. 
 " But everything's topsy-turvy here," she continued. " I 
 wish we were back in the city, and had never seen the 
 place." 
 
 At the top of a ridge, as the dog-cart still ascended, 
 Travers drew rein to afford his companion an opportunity 
 of observing the view. 
 
 " See what a year or two has effected since you de- 
 scended this hill the day of the Hegira ! " 
 
 " It is beautiful. I thought so that evening, when I 
 looked on the sleeping valley with its clumps of tents. 
 It is changed as if by magic. How picturesque the two 
 long avenues with the crops and vines and pastures 
 beyond ! The lakes alone are the same." 
 
 "They will appear animated before long." 
 
 " I do admire those boulders and these light-hued trees 
 what do you call them ? " 
 
 " That is the native cherry. Has it not a soft yellow- 
 green leaf ? That a pine. Those sombre-looking sentinels, 
 she-oaks. This again an apple-tree." 
 
 In the scattered gum-trees, white with flower, parrots 
 of rosy hue were chattering, darting from bloom to bloom 
 like bees about the honeysuckle. Below, as if watching
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 89 
 
 for the crops to ripen, a cloud of cockatoos were shriek- 
 ing now sweeping in a white mass upon the plain, now 
 swarming again about another clump of trees, like flakes 
 of snow on a mountain fir. In the pauses between the 
 shrieks and chatter of the feathery tribe, sounds of chil- 
 dren's laughter, the lowing of cattle, shouts of animated 
 groups watching the football contest on the village green 
 far below, arose, as if a few hundred yards away, on the 
 clear air softened and sweet as from another world. 
 Wreaths of smoke ascended lazily from three hundred 
 scattered cottages, the perfume of flowers from a hundred 
 gardens mingled with the stronger odours of eucalypts on 
 the hill-side. 
 
 " Better than the crowded slums and dreary artisans' 
 quarters of most of our cities," Travers suggested. 
 
 His companion was too moved to reply at once. 
 Feelings of gratitude and joy were filling her breast, in 
 which the light of a new-born love was kindling. 
 
 " I should like to live here," she said at length as if to 
 herself, " and look always on that scene, watch the trees 
 we have planted grow, see the first-fruits of our labours 
 bearing down the boughs, and all the promise of the land 
 unfolding and fulfilled." 
 
 "So you shall," her companion had almost replied; 
 checking himself he remarked 
 
 " Strange to say, I have selected this very site for 
 myself. Already I have a lodge erected beyond those 
 trees. Some day, when our ships literally come home, 
 and lie, not two or three, in that broad lake, I shall build 
 a bungalow palace on this hill-side and watch the develop- 
 ment of our village of the vale." 
 
 " Do you remember," suddenly asked the maiden, 
 seeking to change the conversation, " Carlyle's ' Everlast- 
 ing Yea,' in his Sartor Resartus ? "
 
 9O THE NEW ARCADIA, 
 
 "Aye, well I do, one of the finest chapters the sage 
 ever dreamed." 
 
 "You remember," she continued, "the world-sick 
 Teufelsdrockh ascending the mountain-side, breathing 
 disappointment and defiance with every step, and, look- 
 ing down on a scene such a$ this, being softened at last 
 by the sights and sounds of a smiling hamlet. Beautiful 
 it was to sit there musing and meditating," repeated the 
 girl. "I think I know the passage by heart. ' In the 
 high table-lands in front of the mountains ; over me the 
 roof, the azure dome . . . And then to fancy the fair 
 castles that stood sheltered in these mountain hollows, 
 or, better still, the straw-roofed cottages, wherein stood 
 many a mother baking bread, with her children around 
 her all hidden and protectingly folded up in the valley 
 folds.' I forget the rest," said the maiden, hesitatingly. 
 " You remember," she continued after a pause, " the 
 homely descriptions, and, further on, that pathetic pas- 
 sage may I try to quote it ? ' With other eyes could 
 I now look upon my fellow-men ; with an infinite love ; 
 with an infinite pity. Art thou not tried and beaten with 
 stripes, even as I ? Art thou not so weary, so heavy- 
 laden, and thy bed of rest is but the grave? Oh, my 
 brother, my brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my 
 bosom, and wipe away all tears from thy eyes? The 
 poor Earth, with her poor joys, was now my needy mother. 
 Man, with his so mad wants and so mean endeavours, 
 had become the dearer to me ; and even for his suffering 
 and his sins I now first named him Brother.' " 
 
 "Thank you very much," replied Travers, as they 
 drove on. " I shall always associate this familiar scene 
 with that passage. There is much that is soothing and 
 invigorating in the prospect of Nature's peace, especially 
 when evidences of man's domestic joys and husbandry
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 9! 
 
 are prominent. The village, nestling at the foot of the 
 mountain, has a thousand more interests hidden away 
 about it, than all the snowy peaks, giddy ravines, and 
 dazzling splendours of lonely mountain heights. Though 
 world on world, in myriad myriad, roll round us ... 
 What know we greater than the soul? . . . than man? 
 Yet no life is it not strange? is so stunted and dis- 
 traught at the present day as the social." 
 
 " You are going to alter that here, at any rate," she 
 said, cheerfully. " In this valley, human existence is not 
 to be the only sorrowful failure in creation." 
 
 " I hope not," he said, thoughtfully, flicking a fly from 
 his leader's back. 
 
 "Whose sheep are those sweeping round the hill 
 beyond the lake ? " asked the girl. " What yellow 
 specks the lambs appear ! How distinctly the bleating 
 of the little trtiants is carried across the water ! " 
 
 " Do you not recognize your own property?" replied 
 Travers, laughing. 
 
 " I ? I have not one lamb to my name." 
 
 " No great loss. The sweet pet-lamb is a myth ; the 
 reality has cream-clogged chin, body like a child's toy- 
 horse, stiff legs to fit a hogget. When it matures into 
 something comely, it ungratefully takes itself off to the 
 flocks. But do you not know that those sheep are yours ? " 
 
 " The property of the village you mean." 
 
 " Yes, and a very valuable one too, I assure you," 
 replied Travers. 
 
 " But the profit will be your father's." 
 
 "Not at all. He will charge a nominal interest, that 
 is all. By degrees his share will be purchased, and you 
 will own the entire property." 
 
 " I wonder where father is," said the girl after a time, 
 with evident anxiety. " We ought to have met him*" 
 
 o
 
 92 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I will find him out in two minutes, if you like." 
 
 " How can you ? We are, I suppose, five miles from 
 home." 
 
 " Hold the reins, please. We'll soon ring him up." 
 
 "Please do not laugh at me, I really am anxious." 
 
 "I am not joking, as you will see." 
 
 From beneath the seat of the dog-cart the young 
 engineer drew a small machine, which, leaping from the 
 vehicle, he attached to the top rail of the wire fence, and 
 began vigorously turning a handle. 
 
 "What are you doing?" cried Gvvyneth, laughing, 
 while Willie, forgetting himself, stood up at the back and 
 peered over Gwyneth's shoulder with amazement. 
 
 "Why, it's a coffee-grinder, I do believe," the lad 
 whispered. 
 
 A little bell began to ring. 
 
 " Are you there ? " inquired Travers, bending over an 
 almost inaudible disc. 
 
 "Who's speaking?" 
 
 " Oh, my office, is it ? Ask whether Mr. Elms has 
 returned." 
 
 In a few moments the words came "He has just 
 arrived." 
 
 " Tell him we shall be home by six. Has the mail 
 arrived ? " 
 
 " No other news ? " 
 
 " In the Lovibanks Paddock ? " 
 
 " Send a man to repair it." 
 
 " That's all." 
 
 Leaping into the trap, disposing the instrument under 
 the seat, the dog-cart was in a moment whirling again on 
 its way. 
 
 "Your father has returned," reported Travers; "I have 
 told him we shall be back by six. Good sales reported
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 93 
 
 from Melbourne. The telephone shows a great gap in 
 the fence a fire perhaps and some trees fallen." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you can telephone all about the 
 place?" 
 
 " As readily as in a city. The top wire of all the 
 fences outside, and of some cross ones, like this, are 
 rendered continuous." 
 
 " But there must be many breaks." 
 
 "No; a slight connecting wire carries the current 
 round _the straining-post such as that one there; do 
 you see ? " 
 
 In a few moments the head of the lake was reached. 
 Handing the reins to his companion, Travers began 
 inspecting the dam, while Gwyneth surveyed the scene 
 and chatted with Willie. The lad, restrained hereto by 
 Travers' presence, opened his heart as to the beauties of 
 the place the new life, and the telephone, that seemed 
 to impress him much. There was only one trouble, he 
 was no nearer finding his father. 
 
 " I wish I could go and look for him, miss." 
 
 " But you would not leave me and Mimosa Vale ? " 
 
 " No ; but I'd like some one belonging to me, in all 
 the world." 
 
 " So I have caught you, have I ? " said a voice from 
 behind, as a man, with a gun across his shoulder, stood 
 before them. Gwyneth started involuntarily. 
 
 "Oh, it's only Dick," said the girl, recognizing her 
 quondam lover. " You quite startled me. What brings 
 you here ? " 
 
 "Rabbits!" was the laconic reply; "but I didn't 
 expect to meet lovers." 
 
 "I do not know what you mean," replied the girl, 
 reddening.
 
 94 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Yes you do ; and more than that, you know what 
 it is to play fast and loose with two at the same 
 time." 
 
 " You cannot think what you are saying." 
 
 " Don't I ? " was the reply. " Mark you, he shall 
 never have you. Not content with robbing us of the 
 reward of our labour, these capitalists would steal our 
 very flesh and blood." 
 
 " You are talking riddles." 
 
 " Then this is the solution of them. You shall never 
 be the wife of that man, Gwyneth," he continued, with a 
 faltering voice. " We have known each other since we 
 were children. Are you going to cast me off for this 
 squatter's son ? Consider well. I have a lot of good 
 or a lot of bad in me." 
 
 The girl was moved. She had never given her 
 affections to this strange man. She had despised him. 
 Had she taken enough trouble to convince him that his 
 suit was hopeless ? Perhaps not. In truth she had 
 never seriously regarded it. 
 
 Willie had wandered away, plucking flowers. The 
 young man put down his gun, took the girl's hand, and 
 said hurriedly 
 
 " Gwyneth, dear Gwyneth, is it to be heaven or hell in 
 my heart ? Do you choose poverty or wealth ? A plain 
 man who will love you, or a gilded creature who will 
 play with you, and then cast you aside ? " 
 
 Gwyneth had had time to recover herself. Withdrawing 
 her hand she replied 
 
 " Richard Malduke, you must relinquish these wild 
 fancies. You force me to say that I do not love you ; 
 that I never did, that I never can. But let us be friends, 
 Dick, and not make fools of ourselves." 
 
 " Then you love that man ? "
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 95 
 
 She was about to deny the allegation, but the lie she 
 would utter refused to pass her lips. 
 
 " That is no business of yours," she replied. 
 
 " Is it not ? " he exclaimed bitterly. " It used to 
 be," he hissed out, " when you were only a plain 
 carpenter's daughter. Now thnt you are a rich young 
 rogue's plaything " 
 
 Scarcely were the words uttered, when down came the 
 wattle-stick, with which the girl had been toying, across 
 the young man's face, leaving from forehead to cheek 
 its fiery mark. 
 
 Malduke started forward. At that moment, Travers, 
 intent on his work, appeared at the end of the 
 dam. 
 
 " Blow for blow a man cannot give, not in one way 
 perhaps he can in another," muttered the socialist, as, 
 catching up the gun, and shaking his fist at the trembling 
 girl, he disappeared down the bank. 
 
 Gwyneth sat on a log and mused. Enraged at the 
 insult to which she had been subjected, she did not 
 regret the summary chastisement she had inflicted, but a 
 sense of danger impending for herself and for others 
 crept over her. 
 
 "What is the matter, Gwyneth? You seem excited. 
 Your hand is shaking," said Travers, approaching. 
 
 " Oh, nothing. A rabbit started up beside me ; I 
 suppose I am nervous." 
 
 " Is that all ? Come for a stroll down the bank." 
 
 The girl begged to return home, but seeing Travers 
 intent as a matter of duty upon examining the canal, and 
 not wishing to be left alone, she went with him. 
 
 The two were soon at the bottom of the works. 
 
 Thirty feet above them the dam towered ; on either 
 side the smooth sides rose perpendicularly.
 
 96 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I suppose the dam could not break away ? " the girl 
 remarked. 
 
 " I should hope not. The flood would swallow us up 
 in an instant, like rats in a hole. But there is no fear of 
 that," he said with a laugh. 
 
 Further on between the sheer walls the pair proceeded. 
 A head, unobserved, appeared above the works. 
 
 "Yes, 'like rats in a hole,' !> Maldukc muttered. 
 " Into ' the valley of death ' they are wandering. How 
 easily I could da ii if it was only him ! If she were 
 out of the way. Why so ? " 
 
 He wiped his brow, on which drops of perspiration 
 were hanging; blood appeared on his palm. 
 
 "She struck the blow, and walks there, tripping beside 
 him the smooth-faced fool. It shall be their last lovers' 
 walk. She's brought it on herself ! " 
 
 Picking up a long iron rod, the man stepped on to a 
 tree that had fallen into the lake, and plunged the bar 
 into the soft side of the dam just below the water-level. 
 Entering a short distance it stuck in the damp loam. 
 Seizing a heavy maul that lay on the bank, he drove the 
 bar through the bank until it protruded on the other 
 side. Working the rod backwards and forwards, Malduke 
 succeeded in withdrawing it a few feet ; but further out 
 it would not come. The sound of a footstep on the 
 bank caused him -to steal along the dam, and hide 
 himself in the scrub on the hillside. 
 
 Willie, who had returned from his flower quest, had 
 caught Travers' remark as the lovers descended into the 
 gorge : " We should be drowned like rats." To the 
 child's horror water was even now spurting from a hole 
 in the narrow embankment. Every instant the stream 
 increased in volume. Willie cooeyed and called, but 
 the distant pair could not hear. Throwing himself into
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 97 
 
 the slush the child literally battled with the waters. 
 Finding at length the mouth of the orifice, he pressed his 
 tiny hands upon the aperture. For an instant they 
 held back the gurgling waters. Looking round, Willie 
 could see the two, unconscious of their danger, walking 
 on further into the canal bed. When would tlrey turn ? 
 Hours it seemed, as he struggled with the swelling flood. 
 
 Should he not escape while he could ? The lake level 
 was feet above him. His hands, his knees were stiff. 
 He was drenched with the oozing waters. What ! leave 
 his friends to be drowned like rats ! With redoubled 
 energy the child held back the angry, baffled tide. 
 
 A watcher on the bank raised a gun to his shoulder. 
 
 "The darned little cuss. He'll give them time to get 
 back yet ! He is game though," he muttered, lowering 
 his gun. 
 
 The waters shooting now from the fissure almost 
 washed the child away. Now he was hurled down the 
 bank. Now struggled up again, fighting with the flood 
 for the life of his friends. Nails and knees were torn 
 and bleeding. New fissures, through which the waters 
 were gushing, appeared running upward from the orifice 
 and enclosing a solid triangular mass of embankment. 
 
 " Run for your life, lad," rang another voice from the 
 bushes. Unheeding, raising himself on tiptoe, pressing 
 his whole weight against the mass that quivered under 
 his hands, he stood there, staggering, dripping, bleeding ; 
 deluged with slush and clay as if holding back the mass 
 that was quivering above him. He was eleven years 
 old. Horace Bellmaine was younger by half, yet the 
 words apply 
 
 "You sob and splutter out your soul ; with baby gasps you strive 
 To play the man as best you can, thou flounderer of five. 
 D'ye know we ask no harder task, no sterner test of worth, 
 From those who carve a country's fate the men who salt the earth. "
 
 98 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 A few moments more, and with a roar as of the surf 
 breaking through a crevice in the rocks, the body of earth 
 was belched forth. The waters rushed headlong into 
 the chasm below. The child disappeared in the seething 
 waters. 
 
 "Great God ! the dam has burst," exclaimed Travers, 
 seeing the solid wall of water coming down the cutting 
 towards them like a sudden flood in a northern Bilabong. 
 Seemingly there was no escape. Gwyneth, who had not 
 recovered from her former excitement, seeing the body 
 of water approaching, sank in a swoon. 
 
 Seizing the unconscious girl in his arms, leaping on to 
 a bank of clay that had been left obtruding, the young 
 man flung his burden on some, bushes that were growing 
 on a ledge a few feet above. Just as he himself clutched 
 a sapling, the waters roaring down the ravine washed 
 the clay from beneath his feet, flooding the works twenty 
 feet deep ! For some seconds the young man hung 
 suspended above the water-floods, then with a violent 
 effort flung himself, as only an athlete could do, across 
 the sapling. Lifting Gwyneth on to the top of the 
 bank, he began to chafe her hands and call her by name. 
 In a few moments the girl was sufficiently recovered to 
 walk unaided. 
 
 As they returned, and Travers was wondering how the 
 embankment came to give way, thanking heaven mean- 
 while for their miraculous escape, they came upon a 
 man with a child upon his knees. The stranger was 
 rocking himself, weeping and laughing by turns. The 
 boy was drenched. Face and hands and legs were 
 blood-marked. 
 
 " He's coming round ! He's coming to ! My son ! 
 My son ! " the man was saying as the pair approached. 
 
 " It's Willie ! How did he get hurt ? " asked Travers, 
 as the child opened his eyes.
 
 DROWNING THEM LIKE RATS. 99 
 
 " Ho\v did he get hurt ? How did he ever escape ? " 
 the stranger asked. " You should have seen him standing 
 there in the rushing waters pushing back the bank as he 
 seemed to think. I was coming down the track there," 
 he continued, " and called out, ' Run for your life.' It 
 was too late, the dam burst that moment. I stood over 
 the roaring abyss and looked for the lad. That minute 
 he comes up, then goes down again. I hesitated to jump 
 in. ' He's done for, anyhow, I thought,' and a man could 
 not swim in them waters. Then up he comes again. ' He's 
 some one's poor child,' I thought, ' I'll try anyhow,' and in 
 I jumps. I don't know how I got him out. I was nigh 
 done myself, and swallowed gallons. I was dazed with 
 the waters whirling me about. Just then he almost 
 knocked agin me. I grabbed him. Round we goes 
 again ; somehow out of the eddy at last. With a last 
 stroke I gets to the shore. Then the rummiest thing of 
 all comes. Makes me think I'm in a dream. I washes 
 his face and looks, and I sees it's my son." 
 
 Again the poor fellow began to rock the lad in his 
 arms and to weep like a child. 
 
 " How he got there at all, I don't know ; I left him in 
 town." 
 
 " You must be mistaken," said Travers, who had not 
 heard the child's story ; " but never mind, come and get 
 him into the trap." 
 
 Willie was now recovering ; he rubbed his eyes. 
 
 "Am I awake?" he said, looking round bewildered. 
 " I thought you was drownded, miss. I seed yous two 
 walkin' on and on you'd not come back nor wait for 
 me along to the gates of Paradise they singed about at 
 t' hospital. The only thing was, you was going down, 
 down, somehow, 'stead of up above." 
 
 Willie rubbed his eyes again, and stared up at the 
 rough head bent over him in wonder.
 
 100 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I was dreamin' I was dead too, and the angels was 
 turnin' me round and round to see if I was fit to go along 
 wi' they, I suppose." He tried to laugh. "Just as we 
 was crossin' Jordan, and the water was mighty deep, I 
 sees my father. He catches hold on me and I 
 forgets the rest." 
 
 Again the child gazed with a distant look into the 
 rugged face above him. He sat up. 
 
 " Blowed if it ain't my father, be we live or be we 
 dead." 
 
 Recovered at length, the lad leaping up flung his 
 arms about the dripping, dust-stained neck, exclaiming 
 
 " S'help me Bob, I do believe, my dear old dad at 
 last." 
 
 " It must be he," whispered Gwyneth to Travers. 
 " You know the child had lost his father, and was always 
 longing to find him." 
 
 The pair were much affected when they heard of 
 Willie's strenuous efforts to save their lives. Hurrying 
 him to the dog-cart, and hastily telephoning for a gang 
 to repair the embankment, the party rapidly drove back 
 to the village. 
 
 Willie insisted that he had heard hammering behind 
 the dam, and had seen a man slip away into the bushes. 
 Travers was inclined to treat lightly the story, of which 
 the lad had a very hazy idea, owing doubtless to the 
 mental strain and physical shock to which he had been 
 subjected. Gwyneth heard the words, and pondered 
 them in her heart. 
 
 That night, however, there was rejoicing in the hospit- 
 able abode of Jim and his wife. Chattering and exclaim- 
 ing, they received father and son who had been " dead 
 and were alive again, lost and were found,"
 
 IOI 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED. 
 
 " Man he loved 
 
 As man, and to the mean and the obscure, 
 And all the homely in their homely works, 
 Transferred a courtesy which had no nir 
 Of condescension." WORDSWORTH. 
 
 FRANK BROWN was one of an army the nineteenth 
 century has enrolled, crusaders who, at home, spend 
 their days fighting " for Christ and Holy Land " their 
 England ; knights who walk abroad, in crowded narrow 
 streets, " redressing human wrong " ; " Hearts of Oak," 
 upon whose homely deeds of love no earthly lustre 
 shines ; work-day philanthropists seeking, in the sphere 
 of their own life, to work out the social problems others 
 in words dilate upon. 
 
 On the river and cricket-field, on platform, in pulpit, 
 Frank Brown had distinguished himself. The fire, how- 
 ever, that inflamed his breast and flashed in his eye, 
 kindled by concern for sinning and sorrowing outcasts of 
 Church and nation, whose unequal lot he grieved over, 
 impelled him to a life far removed from the conventional 
 one in which he had sought to expend his ardour. 
 
 The ordinary pastoral work of hunting up parishioners, 
 to augment congregations, and swell collections ; the 
 weekly preaching, to order, a discourse to interest or 
 gratify, for the moment, a small circle of self-centred
 
 IO2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 patrons j the preferment-seeking, brother-grudging, heresy- 
 hunting proclivities of a prevalent type of Churchman- 
 ship, he " could not away with." Lack of sympathy in 
 his brethren drove him back upon himself and his 
 ideals. Upon One especially. There was a Life that had 
 been, had given impulse to his. He would live it again. 
 He would get back to the childhood of Christianity, 
 drink of its fountain-springs, and fired by its enthusiasm 
 for humanity, its broad brotherhood, its spirit of unself- 
 ishness and simplicity, he would seek in his own sphere 
 to live the life rather than prate the parrot-cry. 
 
 He was young, and he was wrong. Beneath all the 
 unattractive, repellent exterior of much modern Church 
 life and charitable endeavour, their lies a vast substratum 
 of renewing, regenerating influence. With the impetuosity 
 of youth he stayed not to probe beneath the surface. 
 The men who led the multitude, who talked of manhood's 
 rights and human wrongs, who brought forth each their 
 special panacea for relief of the social disorder they 
 magnified legislator, socialist, philosophical-radical all 
 seemed to lack earnestness and sincerity. What did they 
 care ? Whom did they love ? In what did they believe ? 
 For himself he would seek a new scene where perchance 
 facility might be afforded for working out his ideal. 
 
 The venture of his friend the doctor offered this oppor- 
 tunity. Wedding himself once more to the Church, 
 vowing before the altar abstinence for others' sake, 
 perpetual celibacy that his heart might be single, Frank 
 relinquished his portion of prominence and promise, and 
 cast in his lot with the villagers of the vale. 
 
 A "prophet's chamber" at the White House was 
 offered, with provision for a stipend that should not leave 
 him a loser. 
 
 None of this he would have. His lot should be with
 
 ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED. 103 
 
 his people. With them he wrought, with his own hands, 
 to put up the little Hermitage beside the church. Himself, 
 with aid that was pressed upon him, he fenced and sowed 
 and planted the comely little God's-acre that smiled 
 around the Hermitage and village sanctuary. In all 
 things he would share with others. His rations he 
 would draw from the store. For worldly means he 
 would be dependent upon his own cultivation and live 
 stock. As he worked with or moved amongst his flock, 
 he preached unspoken sermons. His unselfishness silently 
 rebuked the spirit of envy and greed that, born of a 
 vicious system of competition, evidenced itself at every 
 turn in the words and bearings of his people. 
 
 In his suburban parish the young vicar had taken in- 
 terest in a simple couple. Old Alec and his wife, like 
 many other humble folk, almost worshipped the ground 
 on which the " young parson " walked. 
 
 Alec was a tall, well-set old soldier, for years trusted 
 servant of the colonel 'whose memory he revered. The 
 old man was honest, strictly religious, good-natured to a 
 fault ; without an enemy in all the world, save himself. 
 The Company of whose drill-room he was caretaker 
 spoile'd him. The gay, thoughtless militiamen pressed 
 whisky upon the genial attendant, then laughed at his 
 queer muddled talk. 
 
 His wife Jinnie, some five feet high, was one of those 
 over-careful, highly-respectable little people who, in excess 
 of zeal for probity, impel so often to recklessness. Jinnie 
 scolded, starved, locked up her six-foot lord, when he 
 returned " the worse for liquor " to the little picture of a 
 garden and model of a home that Jinnie's frugality and 
 Alec's industry had established. Alec smiled when 
 assailed, submitted patiently to "correction," but per- 
 severed in his evil course.
 
 THE NKW ARCADIA. 
 
 " He went on Sunday to the church, and sat among 
 the boys," and, on Monday, to the drill-room, to forget 
 his heart-felt contrition, and to accept, to his ruin, the 
 "oft proffered" whisky. He went from bad to worse. 
 The choice plants nurtured with such care were sold to 
 pay the rent. The prize fowls followed, leaving the back- 
 yard and ingeniously constructed outhouses, once so 
 animated, desolate and silent as the grave. The old 
 clock that had stood " ninety years " and more, in 
 humble homes on the Border, vanished ; dark, curious- 
 wrought furniture, once so oiled and cared for, followed 
 suit. 
 
 Friends who loved the old couple exerted their utmost 
 to save them. Well-meaning people dragged the old 
 man to temperance meetings, and compelled him, when 
 he knew not what he did, to "sign the pledge " ; others 
 secured his "conversion " in similar mood, and with like 
 result. Alec thanked his friends, went out and had " a 
 liquor up." 
 
 Frank Brown spent many an hour in seeking to make 
 Alec soberer of habit, and Jinnie sweeter in temper. 
 
 One sweltering afternoon the young clergyman dropped 
 in as he passed, regarding with sorrow the desolation that 
 reigned around. Jinnie sat repairing a pair of the 
 old soldier's pants. 
 
 " Never too late to mend," remarked the visitor 
 brightly, as he observed that already the garments con- 
 sisted more of patch than of pristine propriety. 
 
 "It is ' too late' at least for my old man to mend," 
 replied Jinnie with a deep sigh. "Look at him there 
 the beast ! " 
 
 Stretched on the sofa, last remaining joy of the once 
 good stock of furniture, the warrior lay. Only a shirt 
 covered his still muscular frame. He had found the
 
 ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED. 105 
 
 " inner chamber" unduly ctose, and had crept forth to 
 complete his "sleeping it off" in a cooler quarter. 
 
 " Get up there, you drunken loafer ! " cried Jinnie. 
 Seizing a broom the indignant little woman, as if to give 
 vent to her feelings, rushed to the couch of the sleep- 
 ing giant, and began to belabour his almost nude nether 
 limbs. Slowly Alec opened his eyes, and smiled as was 
 his wont. Putting forth his arm, he sought languidly to 
 parry the furious blows of his irate spouse. 
 
 " Not so hard, lassie not so hard ! " he protested : 
 that was all. 
 
 Frank Brown seized the opportunity of making a last 
 appeal before he left the parish. He reasoned with, 
 scolded, implored the erring weakling. He pointed out 
 the ruin to which the home had been reduced, the wreck 
 Jinnie was becoming. The old man, sobered now, hid 
 his face in his hands, and sobbed like a child. For the 
 first time in his life the soldier faltered and yielded. 
 
 " You give me a chance, sir," he asked at length, 
 with streaming eyes, "and I'll never touch a drop again. 
 The old place is ruined, I can never mend here ; but 
 let me go with you, sir. I can plough and sow, and 
 plant and farm, with the best of them. Take me out of 
 this, and God will take me out of myself, and my sin." 
 
 Jinnie, quieter now, shook her head and rocked herself 
 hopelessly. 
 
 " It's been coming on him forty year," she moaned. 
 " He'll never give it up now." 
 
 " ' Never too late to mend,' we were saying of the 
 pants," the cleric suggested. 
 
 The old soldier seized the young man's hands. 
 
 " Did I ever tell a lie, sir, though I often made a 
 beast o' mysel' ? " He looked unflinchingly to his wife, to 
 his priest. Even Jinnie could not lay untruthfulness to
 
 106 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 his charge. " Have I ever, with all my foolishness, 
 blasphemed my God ? " Again a pause and a look of 
 challenge. " Now, sir, you take us two. Jinnie '11 care 
 for you, and I'll be no hindrance. Take me and I'll swear 
 I, Alec McDowl, who never broke his word to man 
 or God, when he know'd what he was doing, as I do 
 now I'll swear never to touch a drop again till my dying 
 day." 
 
 And he never did ! 
 
 The Book was fetched : the vow taken. Even Jinnie 
 was impressed and hopeful for once. The curly grey 
 head of the veteran was bowed on the table, as the 
 young clergyman sealed the oath with a prayer. 
 
 Till, again, he prayed, and himself wept, long years 
 after, beside the lifeless form of his faithful servant, old 
 Alec kept his vow. 
 
 Another lie given to that libel oft aimed against our 
 human nature and God's goodness, to the effect that the 
 inveterate drunkard cannot, midst new and helpful sur- 
 roundings, by exerting his will, and drawing on another 
 source of strength, overcome his deadly habit, shake off 
 his fetters, and walk forth fearless and free. 
 
 The spirit of homeliness and comfort that had vanished 
 from Alec's abode, was transferred to the Hermitage 
 at Mimosa Vale. There Jinnie held gentle sway. She 
 cared for the creature comforts of "the young master" 
 with more effect than a host of hirelings would have done. 
 The parson's home was a model for his people, of clean- 
 liness and grace, and his garden, under Alec's care, of 
 order and beauty as his life, of quietude and strength. 
 Alec got his potatoes in earlier, his crops off sooner, 
 than any one else ; his vines the right depth ; the 
 tender root of young fruit-trees he trailed gently over the
 
 ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED. 107 
 
 central mound of mould closing in the earth around, as 
 though he were burying living treasures. As indeed he 
 was. He generally contrived to make his plants grow 
 and flowers bloom when neighbours lamented over failure. 
 Years of soldiering had not impaired that mystic intimacy 
 with Nature and her ways that the Northern farmer 
 displays. Far and wide across the settlement old 
 Alec's advice and aid were sought when there was a 
 suspicion of vine or rose-cuttings being planted up-side 
 down, when cows were contumacious, chickens caught 
 the measles, or swine the mumps. 
 
 Nothing the old couple enjoyed more than, when 
 supper, which they ate with their master, was cleared 
 away, to stroll to the village green .and " listen to the 
 music." 
 
 Bantering youths and maidens sat about in groups, 
 parents talking between the pieces of the day's doings in 
 field and home, while children scampered in an outer 
 circle of their own, or lay wearied at their parents' feet. 
 The doctor, with pipe and smoking-cap, sauntering' 
 familiarly amongst the company, chatting here vVith a 
 "boss" concerning some new fixing for the mill; there 
 with head-gardener, or chief farm-hand, about the new 
 Reaper-and-binder, or price of the early crop of tomatoes. 
 
 Alec and Jinnie seated themselves, one balmy evening, 
 on a bench, beside Jim and his wife. The two "old 
 hands," deeming themselves superior to the tyros at 
 country work, looked curiously and critically upon the 
 achievements of the villagers. 
 
 "How's the 'Jummies' looking, Jim?" asked 
 Alec. 
 
 ' ; All the world like the pictur' in the drawin'-room afore 
 which t'old master died. They'll shear fine ; but atween 
 you and me and the post, that's a playthin' bit of a fence 
 
 H
 
 IOS THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 they've put up t'other side the lake. The lambs is allus 
 in the corn; the postes be all rammed at t' top of t' 
 hole, 'stead of bottom." The old stockman chuckled 
 merrily as though echoing the last notes of the jackass in 
 the tree above. 
 
 " You didn't learn it all in a day, Jim," remonstrated 
 his wife. " It seems to me, you and Mr. McDowl thinks 
 you knows everythink. What do you say to that toon 
 now? You couldn't play the likes of that if you was 
 paid." 
 
 "They plays all right, but they won't make their 
 fortunes fiddlin'." 
 
 " Who said they would ? " sharply demanded Jinnie. 
 
 The two cronies spake more low, since their wives 
 seemed not in sympathy with the drift of their conver- 
 sation. 
 
 "It'll be a mighty busy time soon," continued Jim, 
 " harvesting and shearing at same time and we've got 
 to do it all oursel's. There'll be some tar wantin', I'm 
 ihinkin'." 
 
 " Lots of the young fellows says they can shear." 
 
 " I know their style. ' Rouseabouts ' and ' Pickers-up ' 
 and bad at that. They'll find it hot work this 
 season." 
 
 "They've done wonders all the same," claimed Alec. 
 
 " It's all along of the management. That's what's pulled 
 it through." 
 
 " There's one thing I'm afeared on." 
 
 "What's that? " asked Jim. 
 
 " It's the discipline. They don't like it. Leastways 
 some don't. They ben't used to it. It's ' go as you 
 please,' mostly, in town." 
 
 " Most on them means well and works well. But 
 they're easy led. They ben't soldiers ready to stand by
 
 ALEC'S WHISKY STOPPED. 109 
 
 their guns and swear by their officers, and put up with a 
 bit of bullying sometimes." 
 
 " I'm afeared they're feather-bed soldiers, a lot of 
 them." 
 
 " They'd oughter pull it out," remarked Jim. " They've 
 got a mighty good start." 
 
 " Their mill and machines work stunnin' ; they're good 
 at that. Them houses is fit for squatters." 
 
 " Eh, and mark you, it's a fine thing to be able to take 
 it all away by canal and river to the sea. They do say 
 the Store in town's well-nigh finished; that'll open people's 
 eyes ! And two ships they've bought. Going to work 
 everythink theyselves, and pocket all the profits." 
 
 " Couldna be no better idee," replied Alec. " It's 
 bound to come." And the old man sang 
 
 " ' For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 It's comin' yet for a' that, 
 When man to man, the warld o'er, 
 Shall brithers be for a' that.' 
 
 " T' only thing is," continued Alec, " will these high- 
 cock-a-doodle coves playing like children go through with 
 the campaign ? They won't mutiny, will they ? " 
 
 " That's the danger," nodded Jim, significantly. 
 
 " See that fellow there they calls Malduke ? He means 
 no good." 
 
 " I don't .think as he do." 
 
 "See him gassin' with them simpletons who fancies 
 theysel's. They're goin' to have a meetin' to-night ' to 
 consider matters.' " 
 
 " That was a rummy business, that burstin' of the dam 
 t'other night. There's somethin' behind that." 
 
 " See Mr. Travers talking and laughing with Elms's 
 daughter. There'll be trouble over that. What do they 
 want to bring love-affairs into a concern like this for?
 
 1 10 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Love and foolishness is at the bottom of all smashes-up 
 and breaks-down." 
 
 " Well, I do like that ! " exclaimed Jinnie, who had 
 caught the concluding sentence. Digging her elbow into 
 her patient husband's side, she ejaculated 
 
 " You was young once, and cared for some one too. 
 For shame to talk like that, you hard-hearted old wretch ! "
 
 II I 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " IT'S LOVE THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND." 
 
 " In peace, love tunes the shepherd's reed ; 
 In war, he mounts the warrior's steed ; 
 In halls, in gay attire is seen ; 
 In hamlets, dances on the green. 
 Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
 And men below, and saints above ; 
 For love is heaven, and heaven is love." SCOTT. 
 
 " IT'S perfectly disgraceful," remarked Hilda, vigorously 
 thrusting a dahlia into the epergne of flowers she was 
 arranging. " Travers ought to be ashamed of himself 
 to be carrying on as he is doing with that village 
 hussy." 
 
 "What has the poor boy been doing now?" asked 
 Maud, who stood at the other end of the dining-room 
 table, " cutting out" some children's garments preparatory 
 to the sewing-meeting at the Grotto. 
 
 " Doing ! " replied her sister, flinging aside disdainfully 
 a huge "flag" bloom that had found its way amongst 
 the flowers. " I might as well set this coarse thing into 
 my specimen vase, as he seek to bring this brazen 
 creature into our family." 
 
 "Hilda, you should not speak so strongly," interposed 
 her sister. " It is unworthy of you. Miss Elms is a 
 quiet, unassuming girl as modest as she is beautiful."
 
 112 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "Then why," asked her sister, "does she encourage 
 him so shamefully ? " 
 
 " I have noted nothing very marked," replied her sister. 
 
 "You were not on the lake yesterday afternoon. I 
 was, sailing with Larry 
 
 "And you object to Travers riding out with his 
 friends?" 
 
 " But Larry is a gentleman. He will bring no disgrace 
 on our name. Now that we are engaged, I suppose I 
 may sometimes venture with him ; even amongst all 
 these prying eyes that I am getting to hate." 
 
 " For my part," replied Maud, " I rejoice in the life 
 and movement that presents itself everywhere here." 
 
 " But you're a saint, Maud. You like common people. 
 I confess I do not. But to return to the wretched 
 rencontre. As we were gliding amongst the dingeys and 
 skiffs, in which these spoilt people were disporting them- 
 selves as though all the lake belonged to them 
 
 "So it does." 
 
 " Maud, dear, do not interrupt me. Just as I was 
 thinking how beautiful the scene was here a boat-load 
 of crowing children and smiling parents there some 
 lads learning to row here a party of girls and young 
 men bobbing under a jibboom 
 
 " I am sure they were all behaving themselves." 
 
 " Simply because they had to do so. They knew 
 that if there was any shrieking or rudeness they would 
 be ordered to shore by the ubiquitous Master of Cere- 
 monies who was cruising round. It's no credit for them 
 to behave themselves here ; they have to do so." 
 
 " They like to," said Maud. " Public opinion is 
 opposed to coarseness and vulgarity. I am sure the 
 lake looked lovely." 
 
 " It did. Apart from the animated life on its surface
 
 'IT'S LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.' 113 
 
 the miles of golden harvest stretching up the valley 
 amongst the creeper-covered cottages, with patches of 
 cultivation about them ; the mills in the distance ; the 
 terraced vines putting forth their first rich growth on the 
 hill-sides the scene was fair enough." 
 
 " Then why could you not enjoy it ? " 
 
 "Just as we hove-to, to watch the scratch eight, who 
 should dash round the steam-launch, on which father 
 and mother and the Bowlings with some Gumford 
 people were standing, but a boat with that girl with a 
 wide-brimmed hat I'll confess rather becoming at the 
 tiller-ropes, and Travers pulling ! He passed close beside 
 us, shipped oars, and began to wipe his brow and smile 
 and nod at us in his provoking manner, as though 
 nothing ever could disconcert or shame him." 
 
 " Why should it ? " interjected Maud. 
 
 " It spoiled the afternoon for me the gold-and-green 
 terraces became black the sounds of merriment grated 
 on my ears. I wished I was anywhere, and that Travers 
 would take himself and his gardener's daughter out of 
 my sight for ever." Hilda's eyes filled with tears as she 
 spoke. Sitting down she began worrying to death a 
 hyacinth. 
 
 "Sister denr," reasoned Maud, "he is a good old boy. 
 Mr. Bowling says that the perfection to which he has 
 brought the mechanical appliances on every hand has 
 never been equalled." 
 
 "And a pretty pass he's bringing the social life to. 
 You do not know who's who, here. Jack's as good as 
 his master ; and his daughter better than her mistress." 
 
 " But there is no master-and-servant relationship here. 
 We have left all that behind us." 
 
 "Yes, and the good old times, when people knew 
 their place, and good breeding went for something."
 
 tI4 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Surely native worth and culture are the main con- 
 siderations." 
 
 " Then family standing and social distinctions are 
 immaterial ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. Those in whose blood virtue and 
 refinement are so established that the highest qualities 
 have become hereditary, will always be honoured and 
 respected by the wise and good." 
 
 "But what have you in common with these people for 
 whom you are always pottering about ? " 
 
 " A thousand things," replied Maud, with spirit. 
 "Their domestic concerns, their maternal solicitude, 
 their loving and hating all touch a chord that vibrates 
 in my heart. Mother, daughter, and chtfd, all present 
 points of contact, especially for those of their own sex 
 and age that does make 'the whole world kin.' " 
 
 "But they are dull and uneducated." 
 
 " By no means. This girl is as well instructed as you. 
 Far more clever than I, at least." 
 
 " Clever in a way." 
 
 "The men, Mr. Bowling, who has observed them 
 closely, says, are, many of them, really intellectual, only 
 needing their hearts to be softened, and the better, un- 
 selfish side of their natures to be touched, to make 
 splendid citizens. Mr. Brown thinks the same." 
 
 " Of course Mr. Brown agrees with you," said the 
 elder, significantly. " You- are all tarred with the same 
 brush, it seems to me. At least he's a gentleman, so I 
 shall not forbid those banns, my dear." 
 
 " Do not joke about that, Hilda," said the younger, 
 blushing to the roots of her hair, as on the slightest pro- 
 vocation she was wont to do. " You know he is under a 
 vow of perpetual celibacy. He despises the words-without- 
 deeds of social reformers, and I, too, mean never to marry."
 
 ' IT'S LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.' 115 
 
 " And so you go about hand-in-hand." 
 
 " My dear, we never do." 
 
 " I mean, metaphorically, visiting your precious people, 
 hob-nobbing with them, drinking mild tea, in their 
 gossipy bowers." 
 
 " Thank you, we do not gossip. We have always 
 something practical to do." 
 
 " Yes, and something very impracticable to perform 
 to be about, always together, a handsome, over-affec- 
 tionate pair of enthusiasts. Loving all the world, you 
 are never to lose your hearts to each other. Very 
 probable !" 
 
 " Of course we shall not. I have, as you know, liked 
 Frank since he was a boy. We are as brother and sister 
 that is all." 
 
 " Why, you are all in all to each other already. You 
 think you are living for these people, you are existing for 
 one another." 
 
 " Hilda, it is unkind of you to speak so," said Maud, 
 with some feeling, as she began to roll up her score of 
 varied-shaped calico. " I must go now." 
 
 " Not with a frown on your sweet face," said her sister, 
 imprinting a kiss on the smooth brow. 
 
 Left to herself, Hilda sat down and pondered. 
 
 " It is my duty," she murmured to herself, " for his 
 sake, for all our sakes, for Larry's. Yes, I will do it 
 now, before I relent." 
 
 Seizing a piece of note-paper, she hurriedly penned 
 the note she had thought upon many a day. It ran 
 thus 
 
 "WHITE HOUSE, MIMOSA VALE, 
 
 DEAR Miss ELMS, 
 
 " Our brother's attentions have not escaped us. 
 We know that he is the soul of honour, and that you
 
 Il6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 are as high-spirited and disingenuous as you appear. 
 Before it is too late, allow me to point out that we could 
 never welcome any choice of his from local circles ; and 
 that when he marries it should be, in view of the equi- 
 vocal social relationship in which we are placed here, to 
 one of his own station in life. Assuring you that I write 
 in kindness, and with feelings of highest respect for you 
 as a neighbour, 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "HILDA COURTENAY." 
 
 Hurriedly closing the cruel little missive, and seeking 
 the gardener, she commissioned him to let one of the 
 lads deliver it by hand. 
 
 The men were streaming homeward from labour in 
 field and mill, garden and vineyard. Children hastening 
 forth to meet them, were hiding tiny hands in hard brown 
 palms, or helping to carry empty lunch-bags. On hun- 
 dreds of joints the basting was being poured, while 
 children were assembling around simple but well-supplied 
 family boards. 
 
 " Good-morning, Gwyneth. Is dinner ready ? " was 
 Travers' greeting, as he stood with raised hat at the 
 Sergeant's door. 
 
 Hearing a step on the gravel, the girl had hurried to 
 the embowered porch to welcome her father, as she 
 supposed. 
 
 " What brings you here ? " she demanded, with surprise 
 not unmixed with evident pleasure. " Where is my 
 father?" 
 
 " At the canal. He telephoned that he could not
 
 'IT'S LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.' 1 1/ 
 
 return till evening. I thought I would bring word 
 myself. How are you going to repay me." 
 
 " With thanks." 
 
 " That's not good enough. I must ask myself to your 
 father's dinner. It is a shame it should be wasted. 
 Besides," he added, taking the hesitating girl's arm and 
 leading her into the parlour, where the dinner was laid, 
 " I want to finish our conversation. Come now, you say 
 grace, and I'll carve. The first of many a dinner we will 
 have together, Gwyneth." 
 . "But, Travers, I've been thinking 
 
 " No, you have not no second thoughts. I stand by 
 the vow you gave me yesterday. Allow me to help you 
 to this juicy mutton. I've come for the token you pro- 
 mised. I see you are wearing the ring. What does 
 your father say." 
 
 " He had not noticed it. I have not told him." 
 
 " But you must. Allow me to pour you out some 
 tea." 
 
 " Travers, you are incorrigible. You come to preside 
 at my table." 
 
 " Long may I do so ! " 
 
 "You are too rude. Would you usurp my very tea- 
 things?" 
 
 The meal, with much lovers' talk, finished, Travers 
 insisted upon being invested with the promised token. 
 After much parley it was brought forth a silver pocket- 
 case with portrait of Gwyneth and her mother painted 
 on ivory. The case had been her mother's. After a 
 profitable contract, her father had had the two photo- 
 graphs copied, and presented it to his daughter two years 
 before. 
 
 " You look, in the portrait, almost as sweet as you are, 
 my Gwyneth."
 
 IlS THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Please be sensible." 
 
 " You are very much like your mother. She must 
 have been charming." 
 
 " Poor thing ! She paid dearly for it," said Gwyneth, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " You shall not suffer for your beauty and spirit, my 
 darling." 
 
 " I value this," said the girl, " more than anything I 
 possess." 
 
 "Save me," suggested the young man. 
 
 "And my father." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " I give it to you though you do not deserve it for 
 your persistency, on the condition that you permit no 
 one to see it. Rather than be the cause of trouble in 
 the valley, I would do anything," said Gwyneth, with 
 warmth. 
 
 " Even to giving me up? " 
 
 " I do not say that ; but, Travers dear, you must not 
 come to see me so often." 
 
 " I shall take the reflection of you here," said the 
 young man, putting the silver case into his breast-pocket ; 
 " and in my heart ; but I must pop in and see you some- 
 times." 
 
 " Once a week," she suggested. 
 
 "Once a day only," he replied, as, snatching a kiss, 
 he leapt the hedge and disappeared. 
 
 Meanwhile the form of another man was stealing away 
 through the embowered beds in the opposite direction, 
 muttering to himself 
 
 " No one shall see it ! Oh no ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HVGEIA. 
 
 " Our human refuse shall be utilized, like our material refuse, 
 when man as man, down to the weakest and most ignorant, 
 shall be found to be (as he really is), so valuable that it will be 
 worth while to preserve his health to the level of his capabilities, 
 to save him alive, body, intellect, and character, at any cost : 
 because men will see that a man is, after all, the most precious 
 and useful thing on the earth, and that no cost spent on the 
 development of human beings can possibly be thrown away." 
 
 C. KINGSI.EY. 
 
 THE doctor had not forgotten his promise to Willie, 
 that Nurse Maggie and some of the convalescents should 
 accompany him to the country. So beneficial was the 
 change in their case, that Dr. Courtenay resolved upon 
 putting into effect a project he had long contemplated of 
 settling, not only the poor and distressed, but the sick 
 and afflicted on the generous soil. 
 ' The conditions of commerce and industry may possibly 
 necessitate the congregation of the busy and strong in 
 the crowded metropolis. He failed, however, to see the 
 wisdom of confining the suffering and afflicted in huge, 
 antiquated edifices reeking with disease ; condemning 
 them to breathe, to the last, the polluted air of the city 
 they rendered still more deadly ; depriving them of the 
 solace Nature might have afforded, and of occupation 
 with which to relieve their dark days and last years. 
 The cost of maintaining the unfortunates in town he
 
 120 TITE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 knew to be double what it would be in the country, even 
 if they were unable to contribute by their labour towards 
 their own support. 
 
 The doctor called a meeting of chairmen of hospitals 
 and benevolent institutions, to which also public officials 
 and charitable workers were invited. His offer to select 
 from various institutions patients suited for his proposed 
 treatment was gladly accepted. He asked a grant for 
 each at the rate of half the present cost of their main- 
 tenance, holding out hopes that at no distant time the 
 subsidy would be unnecessary, and his infirmary village 
 become self-supporting. With the aid of a committee of 
 medical men, convalescents were drafted from the various 
 hospitals ; the stronger patients from the benevolent 
 asylums, and even from homes of the incurable. 
 
 Eventually the deaf and dumb institution was removed 
 bodily ; a selection was very carefully made from patients 
 of the lunatic asylums, even from criminals of a promising 
 character undergoing their first sentence. Arrangements 
 were completed for transfer of the juvenile reformatories 
 to the new settlement. The female refuges were relieved 
 of their more hopeful cases. Special provision was made 
 for the reception and treatment of the intemperate. The 
 good doctor was too capable an organizer to dream of 
 herding all these together. 
 
 Across the lake at Mimosa Vale, beyond the spot 
 where Gwyneth and Travers had nearly met their death, 
 the flats and sloping hill-sides were specially prepared. 
 Lands were cleared and ploughed, cottages and dairies 
 erected, avenues laid out on the plan of Mimosa Vale. 
 Each cottage accommodated two or three patients, or a 
 household. Where possible, family life was reconstituted. 
 The deaf and dumb child restored to its parents, one of 
 whom might be under treatment for intemperance, or
 
 HYGF.IA. 121 
 
 suffering from partial paralysis. The grand-parents were 
 rescued from the benevolent asylum and restored to their 
 children's home. So the strong of a family were able to 
 help the weak. Those in rude health cheered the less 
 fortunate. Each household was debited with the value 
 of the weekly rations received, and seed, tools, and other 
 necessaries supplied. 
 
 Around each cottage a few acres were ploughed. 
 Provision was made for gardening, fruit-planting, dairying, 
 poultry-keeping, basket-making, broom manufacture, silk- 
 worm culture, and other industries suited to the capacities 
 of the less strong and active. All were expected to render 
 some service. 
 
 Many so-called " incurables " recovered, and after 
 being subjected to a careful examination, were allotted 
 a block at Kokiana, when that settlement was formed. 
 Within two years Hygeia was entirely self-supporting. 
 In a short time it maintained its own receiving-hospital, 
 accident wards, and the like in the city. 
 
 On the top of the hill overlooking the lake, consump- 
 tives in the first stage were afforded a home and oppor- 
 tunity of recovery. A mile further down the stream, the 
 reformatory was stationed. 
 
 All who did not abuse it were afforded freedom within 
 their own settlement. The warders' cottages and gardens 
 were disposed along the ridges that shut in the successive 
 bends of the river. All were afforded an opportunity 
 of not only purchasing full freedom with their labour, 
 but of acquiring a homestead-block in an independent 
 community further on. Every means were adopted of 
 sweetening the life and elevating the tastes of those who 
 had fallen under a cloud. Precautions were taken to 
 prevent contagion, physical or moral, between the 
 respective cantonments of Hygeia.
 
 122 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Some few, of course, of the criminal class fled away, 
 were re-arrested, and completed their term in the barrack 
 gaols in town. The operation of the law of heredity was 
 not suspended, but in the majority of cases love and 
 wisdom wrought their work. The youth whose existence 
 had become a menace to society was transformed in the 
 course of years into a prospering yeoman. The prospect 
 of winning land and a home by honest means, of acquiring 
 an assured position among a free community, won the 
 wavering to the ranks of industry. The alternative to a 
 life of vice and crime was no longer one of hopeless, life- 
 long drudgery. " Honesty " was at length " the better 
 policy," and self-interest threw its tremendous weight into 
 the scales that were trembling in the balance. 
 
 This spirit of hope, prospect of betterment, and of 
 ownership, wrought a like transforming effect upon those 
 mentally and physically afflicted. Their spirits revived, 
 and in many instances lifted them out of the trammels of 
 disease in which they had long lain. 
 
 If any spark of health lingers in the pallid cbeek/in 
 the confused mind or vitiated heart, let the free air of the 
 country play on that cheek and gladden, as it must, that 
 heart ; put some implement of industry into the unsteady 
 hand ; let the man work for himself, for a home, and if it 
 be not altogether too late, the sick will revive, and rejoice 
 in the healthful pleasure of making a plot of God's earth 
 fruitful, and their own. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon Gwyneth, taking Willie with 
 her for company, sailed across the lake she was an 
 expert yachtswoman now to see how Nurse Maggie 
 and her friends fared at Hygeia. A dozen times she 
 paused, after landing, and peeped into happy homes, 
 within or about which, young and old, hale and sick were
 
 HYGEIA. 123 
 
 resting or labouring. More than one Willie recognized 
 as erstwhile fellow-inmates of the hospital. 
 
 "You did not bring the terrible screen with you," 
 he said to a nurse he knew; "you'll never want it 
 here." 
 
 " We have to thank you, young man, for inciting the 
 doctor to initiate a reform with respect to hospital 
 methods and management that has long been awaiting 
 some one to start it." 
 
 " When I look around on these scenes," the nurse 
 added to Gwyneth, " I shudder as I think of those blank 
 white-washed walls, with the lines of close-packed houses 
 and dusty, stifling streets on which we used to look. 
 Nearly all, we find, can do something here feed fowls, 
 cut flowers for the market, and see to the silk-worms. 
 Others garden and farm quite effectively. It is the sense 
 of home and ownership that prompts them." 
 
 " You remember," said Gwyneth, " the saying of 
 Arthur Young was it not somewhat to this effect? 
 ' Set a man to work in the garden of another, and it will 
 speedily become a wilderness ; give him personal interest 
 in a desert rock, and he will cause it to flourish, and 
 blossom as the rose.' " 
 
 A long visit Gwyneth paid to the consumptives on the 
 hill. They had a peculiar attraction for her. Their lot 
 was so hopeless, where all others were renewing their 
 strength. 
 
 " They seem half-way to heaven already," said Willie, 
 as in the hot afternoon the two panted up the hill. " I 
 fear they've got the screen here." 
 
 " It's a terrible disease," replied the girl, as though 
 communing with her own thoughts. " Largely bred of 
 foul air, and unhealthy, unnatural conditions of modern 
 life. The scourge of God ! My mother fell its victim. 
 
 i
 
 124 TIIE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 And my heart always goes out towards those who pine 
 away on the hill-top." 
 
 A few hours later the pair came upon the village green 
 of the deaf mutes. Frank Brown was playing cricket with 
 the lads. Maud, beside a table, beneath an awning, was 
 preparing sandwiches and refreshments. 
 
 " Do you two never get tired of your self-imposed 
 tasks ? " asked Gwyneth, exchanging an affectionate greet- 
 ing with her friend. 
 
 " I might fairly ask that of you," replied Maud. 
 " There is not much task about it either. We had the 
 most delightful sail across the lake, and a scamper on 
 ponies to the Reformatory Bend." 
 
 " Is it true that you are engaged ? " whispered Gwyneth, 
 casting a questioning glance on the radiant face of sweet 
 content beside her. 
 
 " You all are ever imagining that," said Maud, amused. 
 " We are 'engaged' in a common and a pleasant work." 
 
 " And nothing else ? " 
 
 " Why should there be anything more ? Cannot people 
 like each other and work together without love-making ? 
 We have eschewed such nonsense." 
 
 After a while Gwyneth moved on. 
 
 " Nothing more ! " Maud repeated to herself as she 
 cut and patted her sandwiches. " I think not. Some- 
 times I am afraid. I shall be disappointed if we come 
 to grief like other selfish people. It is so nice in theory 
 to be brother and sister, but so hard in practice." 
 
 " Now, Maud, have you a grand lunch for these 
 famished urchins ? " called Frank, as he came to where she 
 was engaged. " I do not know what I should do without 
 you," he added, looking admiringly at the busy maiden. 
 
 "You'd go on just the same in your happy-go-lucky 
 fashion."
 
 HYGEIA. 125 
 
 " Indeed I should not. I should become dull as ditch- 
 water, and miserable as a bandicoot." 
 
 " Do not say that, Frank. I like to think of you as 
 the one single-minded man in the universe doing good 
 for the love of it." 
 
 " Then you do not care to be identified inseparably 
 with my day-dreams ? " 
 
 " Do not ask what I want. We try not to be introspec- 
 tive and self-contemplative." 
 
 " A high ideal, Maud ! Are we succeeding ? " 
 
 The girl looked furtively at her companion and averted 
 her eyes, while the colour deepened on her cheeks. 
 
 " Maud, must there never be anything more ? " 
 
 The words she had lately heard from another startled 
 her. 
 
 " Is my vow, do you think, to be ever binding ? I was 
 young when I made it. We are both older now." He 
 laid his hand on hers. She did not remove it. She 
 hesitated. Then, with the tenacity of a good woman 
 clinging to her ideal, she raised her eyes, after a pause, 
 and answered 
 
 " I could never be party to your breaking it, Frank." 
 
 " Then we must leave the question as it is, I suppose," 
 replied the young man, withdrawing his hand with a sigh. 
 
 Gulping down the tender feelings arising in his breast, 
 the young man joked and grimaced with his afflicted 
 friends as though all his life were wrapped up in making 
 them happy. But it was not. 
 
 " I believe he is quite content in just performing his 
 daily task," thought Maud, as she looked on, vexed with 
 herself because the thought brought her no pleasure. 
 
 Amongst the domains of the inebriates, Gwyneth and 
 Willie were moving.
 
 126 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " We have had few cases of desertion and failure," said 
 the farmer's wife who acted as matron. " One case, how- 
 ever, perplexes me. I wish you would try your persuasive 
 powers, Miss Elms ; the sound of your voice and touch 
 of your hands are more soothing than whole sermons of 
 others." 
 
 " I would it were so," replied Gwyneth, laughing. 
 " Where is your patient ? " 
 
 In a bright room opening from the broad verandah a 
 woman lay on a snow-white pallet. A wealth of dark 
 hair contrasted with the pallor of the worn face it 
 encircled ; large hazel eyes almost glared at the intruders. 
 The woman turned her face towards the wall. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said the matron. " She has drunk for 
 years. Now that, for the first time, she has awakened to 
 a sense of her position, she is crushed with remorse." 
 Quietly, Gwyneth took her seat beside the patient. 
 The woman turned her head for a moment, as though 
 resenting the advance. Gwyneth's hand lay carelessly, 
 as it were, on the shrinking shoulder, and the gentle 
 light in her eyes shed its radiance on the troubled brow. 
 The woman, with a deep sigh, turned, more quietly, away. 
 Gwyneth motioned for the matron to leave. Insensibly, 
 almost without signs or words, by the sheer attraction of 
 her presence and influence, the visitor drew the woman 
 out from herself. The hard look slowly disappeared. 
 Bending forward till the dark tresses covered the hands 
 that held hers, the pent-up soul poured out its grief in 
 tears that had not flowed for months. 
 
 "The kindness here," she sobbed, ' : the beauty and 
 quiet of the place, make me feel my sin and loss the more. 
 They remind me of the happy home I once had, which, 
 owing to discontent and longing for excitement, we broke 
 up to seek our fortune in the city. My husband found no
 
 1IYGEIA. 127 
 
 work. I fell into bad company. He left me. I actually 
 sold my one child for drink ! I did not know what I was 
 doing. . . . Now my sin has found me out. . . . No 
 one accuses me. ... I condemn myself. ... I am 
 lost and alone." 
 
 Gwyneth calmed the conscience-stricken woman with 
 words of which she well knew the comfort herself. 
 Willie's story flashed to her mind as she recognized the 
 unmistakable likeness existing between mother and child. 
 
 " If your husband and son were restored to you, could 
 you serve them truly, and retrieve the past ?" 
 
 " If they were ! . . . But that is impossible ! Could I 
 see my child again, and work and slave for him ^ could I 
 show my husband that the devil has gone out of me at 
 last, that the sweetness of this place has entered into my 
 soul, I should feel that God had not cast mo off. But 
 that is impossible. My family, my God, have deserted 
 me." 
 
 " If you had the chance of making a new home here, 
 for your husband and son, would you never fail again, 
 from the old cause ? " 
 
 The woman clutched the girl's hands, her eyes rolled 
 with excitement. 
 
 " Ah, miss," she cried, sinking back on to her pillow, 
 " if I had that chance, I would show I valued it to my 
 dying day; but I have not. Do not mock me ! " 
 
 The woman lay still. The hard expression settled on 
 her face again. 
 
 Gwyneth rose and lightly tapped on the window, 
 beckoning to Willie, who was picking flowers in the 
 garden. 
 
 " See what I have got for you ! The sick people grew 
 them all themselves," cried the lad, bursting into the 
 room.
 
 128 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 He stopped on the threshold, holding the door in his 
 hand. He looked hard and long at the sick woman, who 
 was gazing in wonderment upon him. The boy hesitated, 
 blushed scarlet, and stood toying with the flowers as if 
 doubting whether to flee or to stand his ground. 
 
 " Do you not know this person ? " inquired Gwyneth. 
 
 "Course I do. Her's my mother." 
 
 " Are you not glad ? " 
 
 "That depends." 
 
 " Depends upon what ? " 
 
 " Whether she's gived up the drink." 
 
 " Your mother is filled with remorse for all her past 
 doings. She is going to live a new life in this sweet 
 garden, and wants you to help her." 
 
 Slowly the lad drew towards the mother's side, and, 
 kneeling down, showered kisses upon the weeping face. 
 
 The next day the grandmother joined them, and the 
 next the father. 
 
 Removed from all special temptation, the four estab- 
 lished themselves permanently and happily beside the 
 lake. 
 
 " At the least," said the doctor to himself, after paying 
 the household a visit, " I have set that little man on his 
 feet again, and led one lost woman to value the ' flesh 
 and blood ' she so lightly sold for a five-pound note. 
 Undoubtedly the land can do wonders. Some of the 
 most diseased trees of the city merely require careful 
 transplanting."
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITION AT THE GROTTO. 
 
 " Our most earnest philanthropists and zealous workers in the fields 
 of sin and misery in crowded cities, are coming, more and more 
 every day, to the conviction that an improvement in the 
 physical conditions of life is the first indispensable condition of 
 moral and religious progress." S. LAING. 
 
 THE women and girls of Mimosa Vale had assembled 
 at the Grotto for their bi-weekly meeting, over which 
 Maud presided. 
 
 " Anything to get away from wholesale factory life," 
 the doctor often remarked when taking counsel as to 
 means for clothing his huge family. Power had been 
 laid on to many of the cottages. Sewing-machine or 
 mangle, spindle or loom, could be attached and worked 
 at a moment's notice. 
 
 The good people required, however, direction and 
 assistance. For this purpose " cutting-out " expeditions 
 had been provided at the Grotto. The clothing of one 
 thousand souls or rather bodies was no small matter. 
 Two-thirds of their means and energies humble people 
 ordinarily spend in clothing their offspring. Intent, at 
 every turn, upon economizing human labour, and 
 sweetening the conditions of life, the doctor under- 
 took to clothe, as to feed, his proteges with the expendi-
 
 130 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ture of half the time and thought usually involved in the 
 process. 
 
 The Grotto consisted of a large hall, decorated with 
 pictures and statuary. The panels of the walls, on 
 either hand, were hung on hinges from the wall-plates. 
 In fine weather these sides, like the front of Eastern 
 bazaars, were opened out and attached to a frame ten 
 feet high. Beyond on either side lay a luxuriant garden 
 of tree-ferns and shrubs. At the upper end was a 
 rockery, about which lichens and maiden-hair, stag- 
 horn and bird-nest were seeking to hide rugged rocks 
 and gnarled roots. Down the centre a stream of water 
 fell from rock to basin and fern-bed, winding through 
 the well-kept grass-plots on either side of the hall. About 
 the buildings and gardens were rustic seats and tables. 
 In a bower at the upper end was, on one hand the " tea- 
 garden," on the other the cafe. 
 
 When Maud arrived operations were in full swing. 
 With a smile here and a word there, she glided through 
 the groups of workers, and deposited her bundle on the 
 long table on the dai's. There a score or so were busily 
 engaged " cutting out." A committee were delivering 
 to those who applied, calicoes, flannelettes, woollens, 
 tweeds, and other materials. Two girl-clerks entered 
 the goods against the applicants' names. 
 
 " The prettiest scene, I always think this," said Gwyneth 
 to Maud, "in all the village." 
 
 " It is interesting," replied the latter, looking round 
 upon the animated scene. 
 
 A buzz of animated conversation, ripples of happy 
 laughter, mingled with the sound of the falling waters, and 
 the singing of birds in the aviary. At every little table 
 women sat cutting and arranging various articles of need- 
 ful attire. The gowns the women wore were loose and
 
 CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITION AT THE GROTTO. 131 
 
 flowing, gathered with a blue girdle about the waist, 
 reaching somewhat below the knee. There was no 
 corset-factory at Mimosa Vale. Material was not 
 furnished, or aid given, for the manufacture of needless 
 trappings and trammels. The consequence was that the 
 women were as strong as the men. The two doctors of 
 the community spent most of their time at the Perfume 
 farm. For the men were being made red flannel shirts, 
 white trousers, and white military-cut jackets. Waist- 
 coats were discredited as unnecessary. 
 
 Some girls were engaged plaiting straw, others shaping 
 and stitching hats the men's with high crown, the 
 women's with broad brim. Others were affixing red 
 trimmings or bands. 
 
 Adjoining the Grotto was "the Bower," consisting of a 
 hall with sides opening on to a garden, similar in arrange- 
 ment to the Grotto, save that more machinery in the 
 shape of sewing-machines, &c. was disposed about it. 
 Only a partition, now pushed aside, separated the two 
 enclosures. Here in the morning a party of boot- 
 makers had wrought. Girls now occupied the room, 
 sewing "uppers" and other concomitants for boot manu- 
 facture. (High heels, tapering toes, and kindred abomi- 
 nations were discarded.) Women wore sensible boots 
 like the men, and walked, worked, and ran as though at 
 length locomotion was not penance. 
 
 At one end of this building some girls and boys, with 
 a few old men and women grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers were engaged in basket, brush, and broom 
 manufacture. The broom-millet was grown most suc- 
 cessfully on the estate. The stalk had been cut up and 
 consigned to the silos by the ton. Thousands of bushels 
 of the seed, much like sorghum, had been deposited in 
 the poultry-farm granary. The broom fibres oft blessed
 
 132 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 by all who ever possessed a foul pipe were now being 
 manufactured by old folk and children into an article 
 superior to any " American broom." The fibre was quickly 
 gathered together by hand, and bound round with fine wire 
 worked by a spindle. The broomsticks, of native woods 
 fashioned at the saw-mill, were inserted, and an article 
 that brought each year thousands of pounds to the 
 community was ready for use or sale. 
 
 Now from ca/eand tea-garden fresh-cheeked waitresses, 
 girls of the settlement, were emerging with tray in hand, 
 serving tea and coffee and slices of brown bread or oat- 
 cake to the busy workers. 
 
 A blind father played beneath a fern-tree upon the 
 harp he had made, his grandchildren, boy and girl, ac- 
 companying him on violins. 
 
 Gwyneth played the piano. Then the blacksmith's 
 daughter poured through the buzz of conversation the 
 swelling tones of the organ. 
 
 Maud touched a button a dozen gongs sounded in 
 Grotto and Bower, garden and hall, a signal for strict 
 silence to be maintained. 
 
 The doctor appeared on the platform. He had 
 promised half-an-hour's address. "A Grain of Wheat " 
 was his topic. 
 
 Graphically, but lightly, with the aid of diagrams, he 
 explained, for the benefit of the mothers and housekeepers 
 of the present and coming generation, how three ele- 
 ments conduce to the building up of the human frame 
 Phosphates, Nitrates, and Carbonates, supplying re- 
 spectively bone and sinew, flesh and fibre,, fat and heat. 
 The grain, he pointed out, contained in exact proportions 
 the constituents needed for support of man. " Hence we 
 speak," he said, " of ' the staff of life.' But men, in the 
 outer world, had broken that staff, stripped the good grain
 
 CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITION AT THE GROTTO. 133 
 
 of God of its precious outer coating ; ' bolted,' refined, 
 and ' silk-dressed ' the product of Providence until nothing 
 was left in the pasty, consumptive-looking ' refined flour ' 
 save fat and heat. God gives you ' whole meal,' satisfy- 
 ing, healthful nourishment. Never again," he concluded, 
 " deprive your children of ' the food of God.' " 
 
 Again the buzz of conversation proceeded, with much 
 comment on the doctor's playful sallies; the work 
 never slackening meanwhile. By special request Maud 
 recited, quietly, but very feelingly, Hood's ' Song of the 
 Shirt.' More than one eye was moistened. Dark 
 visions of the old life arose for a moment in many a 
 mind, like spectres of the past, thoughts of " sweating " 
 in crowded alleys, vain bargainings for a halfpenny more 
 a dozen with unfeeling representatives of fashionable 
 firms a dark background that cast into grateful .relief 
 the generous, rational life of the new world of labour. 
 
 " Thank you so much," whispered one of the girls, 
 drying her eyes, " not only for the poetry, but for every- 
 thing. I often think we are not half grateful enough. 
 It was that very ' stitch, stitch, stitch ! ' that killed my 
 mother. The life of the factory-hand in town girl, boy, 
 or man is as different from this as jail must be from 
 Government House. Oh, the crowd) the air, the noise, 
 the tone ! " The girl shuddered involuntarily as she 
 recalled painful incidents of the past. 
 
 Once more the gongs sounded. " Gwyneth Elms," 
 Maud announced, " will sing." From the Bower some 
 of the girls strayed in, that they might hear better, for 
 Gwyneth was prime favourite. 
 
 " ' I cannot sing the old songs,' let us have that," 
 suggested one. 
 
 " ' I cannot sing the old songs,' " echoed a dozen 
 voices.
 
 134 TI 1 ^ NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " It is a little sad," expostulated Gwyneth. 
 
 Seating herself, however, at the piano, she struck the 
 first chord, and the workers, peeping round distant pillars 
 and above leafy ferns, stood in attitude of expectancy. 
 
 At that moment a child stepped on to the platform 
 and handed a letter to Gwyneth. A boy had left it at 
 the door. "Urgent" was written across the envelope. 
 Gwyneth's voice failed ; coughing, she asked for a glass 
 of water. Thought of impending trouble, mishap to her 
 father, or to some one else, instinctively prompted her 
 to peep at the letter, as one handed the water. As she 
 read, a flush of indignation mantled her cheeks, then a 
 sense of cruel wrong and indignity caused her to turn 
 pale and tremble. Remembering in a second that a 
 hundred eyes were riveted upon her, she slipped the 
 missive into her pocket and began her song. 
 
 " Cannot people pretend 'when they sing ! " remarked 
 stout Mrs. Strong. " You'd think to hear her that her 
 heart was breaking." 
 
 " So it is, I believe," replied lean Mrs. Long ; " don't 
 you make no mistake, she feels it all. Didn't you see 
 her get that letter just now ? " 
 
 "She did have a turn. I thought she'd faint." 
 
 " It's all along of that Mr. Courtenay, that she's been 
 carrying on with lately. Only trouble will come out of 
 that, you mark my words." 
 
 " I'll never hear that song," replied her companion, 
 threading her needle, " without hearin' that sweet tremblin' 
 voice, and seein' that poor scared-lookin' face. It'll be 
 many a day afore she sings that again, I'll be bound ! "
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE MILKMAID ALL FORLORN. 
 
 " Question not, but live and labour 
 Till your goal be won, 
 
 Helping every feeble neighbour, 
 Seeking help from none. 
 
 Life is mostly froth and bubble ; 
 Two things stand like stone : 
 
 Kindness in another's trouble- 
 Courage in your own." A. L. GORDON. 
 
 EARLY that evening Gwyneth, complaining of a head- 
 ache, retired to her room. Again and again she read 
 the cruel letter. What did the woman mean ? Gwyneth 
 did not want her brother. She crushed the note in her 
 hand and flung it from her. 
 
 "Yes, I do," she soliloquized with herself. "That 
 is the terrible part of it. I do love him. Why should 
 I not ? " she "argued. " His affection drew forth 
 mine." Then again her thoughts took another turn. 
 " Yes ; this is the way of society. ' It cast my mother 
 off and broke her heart, because she presumed to love 
 one 'beneath her.' Now I am shamed and insulted, 
 torn from the object of my affection, because the tra- 
 ditions of society forbid my allying myself with one 
 ' above me.' Does not God teach us to love ? Attached 
 as Travers and I are, having so much in common, can
 
 136 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 He intend that, owing to mere accidents of birth and 
 station, we should be separated for ever ? " 
 
 Long the rival feelings of love and pride wrestled 
 together in her breast. " He would ever be the same. 
 What business was it of any one else ? " 
 
 But it was other persons' concern. Perhaps they had 
 not considered that enough. She did love him, she 
 repeated, and she kissed the ring he had set on her 
 delicate finger. But, for his sake, she would not come 
 between him and his family and prospects. She would 
 never be an object of toleration ; she had no wish to 
 slip in amongst those who did not desire her presence. 
 No ; for his sake, on that ring, as she kissed it, she swore 
 she would give him up. She would be hard and cold, 
 to turn his thoughts, his heart away from her. 
 
 Then as she looked back on the late happy weeks, 
 the drives, the sailings on the lake, the walks about the 
 hills, refined converse of books and work and travel 
 conversation so different from that to which she was 
 ordinarily wont to lend her ears as she realized what 
 she was giving up, she wept, as trembling on the brink 
 of some deep abyss. She set her firm lips, however, till 
 the colour vanished, beating the resolve into her very 
 soul' " It shall be as though it had never been." And 
 so, from very weariness and sadness, she slept. 
 
 Before the sun was up, Gwyneth, as was her wont, was 
 lighting the fire, putting away her father's pipes and 
 books, letting the sweet perfume of the flowers in at 
 every opened door and casement. But she had no song 
 this morning to mingle with those of the doves and 
 canaries. Her dog followed her with saddened amaze- 
 ment when his morning greeting was unreturned. The 
 very brightness of the early morning jarred upon her 
 feelings. Why should all else be glad?
 
 THE MILKMAID ALL FORLORN. 137 
 
 " Gwyn, my girl, what ails thee?" asked the father, 
 scanning her face curiously as he munched his toast. 
 "You haven't been crying?" 
 
 "I'm only a little tired, father," replied Gwyneth, 
 trying to brighten up. 
 
 "I never knowed thee tired and miserable-looking 
 before. What's crossed thee, girl ? " 
 
 "Nothing, father. Please do not tease me." Then 
 relenting, " One cannot always be gay." 
 
 " I will not tease thee." Elms often used the singular 
 pronoun as token of endearment. " But if anything 
 goes wrong, you let me know. I could twist this settle- 
 ment round my finger ; those who cheer the doctor and 
 his son to-day would hoot them to-morrow, if I gave the 
 word. But I do not want to not yet. Let that young 
 man, however, trifle with you You need not look like 
 that. Though you haven't told your old father, he's 
 seed what was going on. I suppose he's thrown you 
 over?" 
 
 " Who ? Mr. Travers ? He has done nothing of the 
 kind. There is nothing between us. I have given him 
 up for ever." 
 
 " Then you are a bigger fool than I thought." 
 
 "That's my affair, father. Please let us change the 
 subject. I'll try to do right, for your sake, father, as well 
 as for others. Please, father," she added, "do not talk 
 as you did just now about the people. I cannot think 
 that they would be so fickle and ungrateful as you often 
 suggest. I will not entertain the idea for one moment." 
 
 " Then, my dear, you do not know human nature as 
 I do." 
 
 "There must, then, be something wrong, radically, 
 in Church, State, and Society, or somewhere, if the 
 great mass of our people are the cold-blooded, calculat-
 
 138 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ing, childish set you always depict them as being. But 
 I must be off to my cows. Good-bye, dad." Imprinting 
 a kiss on his brow, the daughter brisked lightly out of 
 the room. 
 
 " I'm not going to make others miserable," Gwyneth 
 thought to herself, as she set on her pretty head the 
 wide-brimmed hat, and with milk-bucket in hand and 
 milking-stool over her arm, sallied forth to the cow-yard. 
 
 The vale was alive. Strings of people streaming up 
 from the morning bathe at the lake, women and children 
 returning on the trollies, men and boys on foot. Each 
 family had its own space staked out on the shingly 
 shallows of the lake. All bathed together in families. 
 A regulation swimming attire, composed of rough 
 sacking cloth that did not hold the water nor cling to 
 the figure, had to be worn. A Master of Ceremonies 
 checked the slightest infringement of the rules that 
 regulated all proceedings at the bathing-station. Unless 
 exempted by medical certificate, all were expected to 
 bathe regularly. The morning swim and gambol in the 
 waters flowing from the creek out into the deep lake, 
 conduced more than anything to the health and good 
 spirits of the community. 
 
 This morning Gwyneth avoided the groups of return- 
 ing bathers, and sought her cows amongst the two 
 hundred that were lowing about the great milking-shed. 
 It consisted of a long open roof of sawn palings, protect- 
 ing two rows of bails, thirty on each side. In the 
 centre, rails for the trollies ran, bringing down fodder 
 from the fields and silos a quarter of a mile away, or 
 bearing away the milk in huge vats to the creamery and 
 butter factory attached to the lower end of the long 
 building. To each cow, as it was milked, a stated supply 
 of fodder was given by lads in the centre, while a couple
 
 THE MILKMAID ALL FORLORN. 139 
 
 of men received the milk and weighed it, entering in 
 a book the amount to be credited to the person 
 contributing. 
 
 Next to Gwyneth, old Alec was milking, and next 
 again, the Rev. F. Brown. He usually milked a cow or 
 two, after the morning swim. In the cow-yard he met 
 many he would not otherwise come in contact with in 
 the course of the day. He could spin the genial liquid 
 forth with two hands, frothing the bucket as it rapidly 
 filled, without once staining his white trousers. 
 
 " You have not been singing this morning, Miss 
 Elms," remarked Alec, as he let the maiden's cow out 
 of the bail. 
 
 " Do not, please, call me miss," remarked Gwyneth, 
 almost petulantly. " I am only a brown milkmaid. Be 
 so good as to turn that cow away, she's been milked." 
 
 " Milkmaid or no," replied Alec, gallantly, " I con- 
 sider the likes of you as much a lady as any that never 
 was no use but to be looked at." 
 
 " But I'm only a working-man's daughter, and have no 
 wish to be a 'miss.' This young cow will not give 
 down her milk this morning." 
 
 " Owing to me standing here, maybe," replied Alec, 
 apologetically, while he continued " It's what you are, 
 not what your father was, I looks to. In life the best 
 goes to the top, like the cream up there in the factory 
 whirligig, and I puts you up top, anyhow," and doffing 
 his hat, the good soul returned to his milking operations.
 
 140 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 TOM LORD BECOMES SOPHISTICATED. 
 
 "We think 
 That when, like babes with fingers burned, 
 
 We count one bitter maxim more, 
 Our lesson all the world has learned, 
 
 And men are wiser than before. 
 That when we sob o'er fancied woes, 
 
 The angels hovering overhead 
 Count every pitying drop that flows, 
 
 And love us for the tears we shed." 
 
 OLIVER \VENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 " HULLO, Brown, old man, who'd have imagined you'd 
 come to this ! " It was Tom Lord who spoke. Arrived 
 at the Homestead the night before, he had sauntered out 
 before breakfast to see his friend, the young parson. " I 
 thought to find you saying morning prayers with the 
 milkmaids. Why, that is a pretty clerical get-up of 
 yours ! " 
 
 " Funny little man ! " exclaimed Frank, rising from his 
 stool. " I cannot give you a paw." 
 
 " Dripping, as usual, with the milk of human kindness," 
 replied Tom, grinning, as was his wont, from ear to ear, 
 his hands in his pockets, hat on the side of his head. 
 
 " We have not come to grief yet, you see," suggested 
 Frank. 
 
 " By Jove, no ; the place looks stunning. No strikes 
 yet, or lock-outs ? " 
 
 " Only Good Fortune struck, and Care locked out/'
 
 TOM LORD BECOMES SOPHISTICATED. 141 
 
 replied the clergyman, with his head set against the cow's 
 side. 
 
 " But I say, Brown, the ' living ' cannot be a rich one 
 if you have to milk your own cows before breakfast they 
 might provide you with a slavey." 
 
 " There are no slaveys here. I like to come and 
 mingle with the young people and old folk while the 
 freshness of morning lights on them. I don't care to look 
 on with my hands in my pockets, so I milk a cow or two." 
 
 " One for my nob, I suppose ; but I could not milk a 
 cow if I was paid for it." 
 
 " No? Just loose that leg-rope, like a good fellow." 
 
 " How the deuce do you manage it ? Won't untie," 
 said Tom, who, while Frank was delivering his pailful to 
 the man at the vat in the centre, was fumbling at the 
 creature's leg, trying to untie the running knot on the rope 
 about the cow's leg. 
 
 " Look out, man," cried Frank, laughing. " She'll 
 kick your head off; she's a youngster." 
 
 " They don't kick, do they ? " 
 
 " Only when they're scalded." 
 
 " Now, what do you do that for ? To wash them ? I 
 heard that the whole box-and-dice of you have a swim in 
 common every morning. That's jolly ! I shall go to- 
 morrow and see the fun. 
 
 " By Jove ! what's that ? My horse in a fit," exclaimed 
 the townsman, "with the boss's best saddle on. Hullo ! 
 look at his legs in the air. He seems to like it." 
 
 Frank looked round and roared with laughter. 
 
 "You are a city gossoon. He's only rolling. I'm glad 
 it's not my saddle." 
 
 " Will he die ? " asked Tom, anxiously. " Talk of turn- 
 ing up feet to the roses ! I do believe the beggar 
 wants to smash that confounded saddle, the way he goes
 
 142 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 back and back on to it. ' If at first you don't succeed, 
 try, try, and try again.' There, he's over now on the other 
 side." Putting up his eye-glass, Tom inquired " Are 
 you sure he's not ill ? " 
 
 " Which the saddle or the horse ? The former very 
 much so. You old brute," cried Frank, "up you get ! " 
 When the creature stood and shook himself, Frank ex- 
 amined the saddle, and put the rein over a fence. 
 
 "I rode over," explained Tom, "and thought I'd let 
 him stray about and feed." 
 
 " Please remember we don't do that here," remonstrated 
 Frank. " Though fairly prosperous, we are compelled to 
 consider saddlery and other little items." 
 
 "He's such a confounded heighr/'growled Tom. "I led 
 him to half-a-dozen fences to scramble up, but the brute 
 would walk off just as I got my foot in the stirrup. You 
 see, I'm not used to riding." 
 
 " No, I should think not. What are you doing over 
 there ? " continued Frank. " That's the wrong side of 
 the horse, never fool about there. A skittish beast 
 wouldn't stand it. Hullo ! look out, you'll pull the 
 saddle over ! What on earth are you at ? " 
 
 " I'm just practising getting up while you are there. 
 Don't let him lean away from the fence, please, as he 
 always does when I want him to stand as close as he can ; 
 and don't, like a good fellow, allow him to go on when I'm 
 half up. It's deuced undignified snatching for reins and 
 pummel and the other stirrup that you can never find, 
 while, like John Brown's soul, your nag will 'go marching 
 on.' " 
 
 Frank roared. 
 
 " Why, you little fool, you're getting up the wrong side." 
 
 " Blow'd if I am," insisted Tom, with the little breath 
 left in his round body, as he balanced on the backbone
 
 TOM LORD BECOMES SOPHISTICATED. 143 
 
 of the animal, leaving it doubtful whether he would 
 succeed in pulling a captured leg from under him, and 
 as to which side he would roll off on. 
 
 " There you're wrong," persisted Tom. " One injunc- 
 tion they gave me at the stables in town was, ' Keep to the 
 right, sir, that's the rule of the road.' I always remember 
 that, and know, at least, on which side to mount my 
 horse." 
 
 "Well, get down now. Here, on the right side. Not like 
 that," said Frank. " Grasp the mane and reins in your 
 hand, and come down so ; let me turn you round, beside 
 the shoulder, not at the flank, ready to be kicked." 
 
 " Then what'll a fellow do if he runs away ? I like to 
 keep my eye on the brute all the while." 
 
 " Come on," laughed Frank, " I must be off to my 
 pigs." 
 
 Beyond the great cow-yard was the piggery. From the 
 creamery a pipe high in air conveyed the skim-milk to a 
 long trough about which pigs many and sundry were 
 grunting, jostling, thrusting with nose and shoulder, 
 devouring what they could ; then, if the young people 
 would let them, trampling the residue with their feet. 
 
 " Greedy creatures, these dirty pigs," soliloquized Tom, 
 as the two leaned for a moment upon the fence. 
 
 " Irresistibly reminding of your vaunted social life in 
 town both alike a selfish, dog-in-the-manger scramble," 
 remarked Frank, waggishly. 
 
 " That's rough, old man." 
 
 " But true to life nevertheless. There's a lot of the 
 hog in our nature, and it comes out very strongly in the 
 city. But these pigs are not dirty. Look at their glossy 
 coats." 
 
 " But all pigs are dirty by nature." 
 
 " There you are generalizing again, and accepting
 
 144 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 traditional misbeliefs, as you do with respect to certain of 
 your fellow-beings. Some working-men are indolent and 
 ill-conditioned therefore all are. Some poor people live 
 in slums, are dirty and wretched therefore all must be. 
 Fallacy of the particular to the universal. You ought to 
 know better, Tom." 
 
 " But how on earth can you keep pigs clean ? " 
 
 " You see that race over the stream. Every day all 
 the piggies," exclaimed Frank, " are driven through that 
 trough before they get in here for their breakfast. If 
 such care had ever been taken, Moses would not have 
 condemned swine's flesh." 
 
 From the milk-duct, women and girls were drawing off 
 the skim-milk and bearing it to round kiosk kind of sties 
 with triangular-shaped compartments. 
 
 " What are those other sets of kiosks ? " asked Tom, 
 putting up his eye-glass ; " not more pigs, I hope." 
 
 " We have a soul above bacon, though there are tons 
 of it in the store some of my own fattening too. That 
 you are looking at is the poultry-farm." 
 
 "You wash your hens in that race as you do your 
 pigs? I am getting quite sophisticated." 
 
 " Not unless they have a mania for setting. The geese 
 and ducks revel in that mimic lake." 
 
 " You are a soaring sort here. I see your very ducks 
 and geese take their pastime high in air," said Tom, 
 pointing to a flight of birds sweeping above the water. 
 
 " By Jove ! they settle in the trees too. Ton my 
 soul I never saw a duck do that before. Do your fishes 
 fly?" 
 
 " My dear fellow, you have everything to learn. Those 
 are wild-fowl." 
 
 " They are mighty tame nevertheless, to judge by the 
 way they make themselves at home."
 
 TOM LORD BECOMES SOPHISTICATED. 145 
 
 " No one is allowed to disturb them. Our lakes and 
 streams are alive with such. Those are black duck. 
 These, in the tree, shags. These again, wild-geese." 
 
 "Ah, yes, standing on one leg, and sententiously sur- 
 veying the water, now hiding their head so that we shall 
 not see them." 
 
 " You muff ! Don't you know a crane when you see 
 one ? " 
 
 " At least I recognize the ' rara avis.' Your black 
 swans, now, are dignified." 
 
 " These," continued Frank, approaching another series 
 of circular houses, " are our poultry-yards." 
 
 " You are death on triangles," remarked Tom, " like the 
 first book of Euclid." 
 
 " All have a separate compartment for their fowls, and 
 make what use they choose of this common run." 
 
 " That is, they take their chance of their ducks being 
 considerably mixed, or being pecked at like a poor 
 Benedict, or of being set upon by some game bird. I'd 
 keep fighting-cocks if I went in for poultry here." 
 
 " ' Every care and no responsibility,' is our rule." 
 
 " Who is that nice-looking girl fussing about those 
 incubators ? " asked Tom, as they looked in at a large 
 shed, in which were artificial " mothers " and hundreds of 
 chickens chirping. " I saw her just now at the milking- 
 sheds." 
 
 " That's Miss Elms, the daughter of one of our over- 
 seers." 
 
 "There's no mistaking that face," replied Tom. "I 
 saw it yesterday under peculiar circumstances. Thereby 
 hangs a tale." 
 
 " Well, come home, and let's have it over the chops."
 
 146 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MALDUKE SETS HIS TRAP. 
 
 "Is it your moral of life ? 
 
 Such a web simple and subtle, 
 Weave we on earth here in impotent strife, 
 
 Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle, 
 Death ending all with a knife ! " BROWNING. 
 
 As the two friends sat at breakfast, Tom related the 
 incident that the sight of Gwyneth's face had recalled. 
 
 " Hearing that you were engaged with some meeting 
 or other, and the doctor being over at O'Lochlan's, I 
 strolled down to the Bowlings'. They had a score or 
 two of these precious people in to their ' Monthly Social,' 
 as they called it." 
 
 "It's very good of Bowling," said Frank. " He only 
 half likes it all. He has certain old-fashioned notions 
 about the movement." 
 
 "So I should think. He talked pretty straight to one 
 or two last night. Mrs. Bowling and her pretty daughter," 
 continued Tom, "gathered the women into the big 
 kitchen, explaining some kind of new-fangled style of 
 sewing. The men were with Bowling smoking on the 
 verandah. 
 
 " One of them named Malduke, I think was treating 
 the company to some wild rhodomontade of a lightly- 
 flavoured socialistic order. Bowling set the fellow down
 
 MALDUKE SETS HIS TRAP. 147 
 
 properly. The man did not take it kindly, and I noted 
 that one or two seemed to sympathize with him. 
 
 " Those confounded mosquitoes will always make for 
 me," Tom continued. " As they were particularly 
 aggressive, and I did not desire to be drawn into con- 
 versation, in which case I might have spoken my mind 
 too freely, I withdrew to the other end of the verandah, 
 and enjoyed my pipe behind some creepers with less 
 molestation from human and insectile bores. The window 
 of a little room off the parlour," continued Tom, " was 
 open close to me." 
 
 "That is Eva Dowling's apartment," remarked Frank. 
 
 "I must have dozed. I was aroused by the sense of 
 some one moving beside me. Lo and behold ! our 
 socialistic friend was in the room examining a silver 
 pocket-case. As he held it near a turned-down lamp 
 beside the window, the light fell on two portraits, painted 
 on ivory. One was that of an elderly lady, and the 
 other, that very girl with the striking face, whom, in this 
 place where everything is topsy-turvy, you set to milk 
 cows and feed pigs." 
 
 "Gwyneth Elms ! " said Frank. "But what on earth 
 was the fellow doing, in Eva's room ? " 
 
 " Wait and you shall hear. The stupid fellow hurriedly 
 kissed the portrait, whipped out his knife, quick as light- 
 ning removed the miniatures, and substituted two photo- 
 graphs. Closing the case he deposited it carefully on a 
 shelf containing a lot of girls' books and nicknacks. In 
 a moment he was out of the room. 
 
 "Now what did all that mean? Some devilment, I'll 
 be bound, for there was a wicked expression on the 
 scoundrel's face all the while. 
 
 " When I rejoined the motley company I was glad to 
 find Travers amongst them. He expressed regret that
 
 148 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 he had to go to Gumford next clay. Dovvling said that 
 he, too, ought to pay a visit to the Bank, but the old 
 horse. Peter, was ailing. 
 
 " Travers offered to drive him. Bowling remarked, 
 however, that he had another engagement, and suggested 
 that his daughter could do his business, and it was 
 arranged that Travers should give her a lift. 
 
 " 'Deuced lucky fellow,' I whispered him afterwards." 
 
 " You were on the wrong scent there. He's head over 
 ears in love with some one else." 
 
 " ' Don't be a fool,' he replied, ' she's only a child. If 
 it were some one else whom you do not know, then you 
 might envy me my drive. I'll introduce you to-morrow. 
 But I'm glad to oblige the Dowlings. Eva is a sensible 
 piece of goods, too ; does half the business in Gumford 
 and on the farm. Her parents slave in the same way, 
 yet are as refined as they are plucky.' " 
 
 Though Frank affected to treat the incident lightly, it 
 set him thinking. 
 
 "Come and have a sail on the lake," he suggested. 
 " I am going to take a holiday on your account. We 
 will ask Miss Maud to come too." 
 
 "Are you and she still carrying on?" asked Tom. 
 
 "None of your nonsense, Lord. We never did and 
 never shall make love. We are devoted to 
 
 " Each other. Yes, I know all about it, old fellow. 
 You still make believe. Happy innocents ! " 
 
 Smiting his friend on the chest, and bidding him not 
 make senseless suggestions, Frank with his companion 
 jumped into a car, pressed a button, and were in an 
 "instant gliding swiftly towards the lake. 
 
 Gwyneth had promised to spend the morning at Mrs. 
 Dowling's, and to read to the old lady the Laureate's
 
 MALDUKE SETS HIS TRAP. 149 
 
 latest poem. The girl's heart was ill attuned for social 
 intercourse. As she walked across the fields, the fragrance 
 of the fresh-mown grass had no charm for her. 
 
 Catching sight of Malduke at work in the field, she 
 turned aside and, further on, sat for a moment on one 
 of the benches, set at every few hundred yards beside 
 the unfenced roadways. Scarce had she seated herself 
 than she observed a high dog-cart, with tandem team, 
 that she knew well, rattling along towards the spot where 
 she sat. It was too late to move. 
 
 Could she believe her eyes ? There sat Travers with 
 the laughing, evidently delighted, Eva Bowling beside 
 him. Since so often Gwyneth had scolded him for 
 noticing her in public, the youth did not draw rein, but, 
 smiling, doffed his hat, while Eva waved her hand towards 
 the girl. A cloud of dust from the horses' feet circling 
 at that moment into a little whirlwind, enveloped her. 
 The girl's heart beat fast. Had the horrid sister instructed 
 him to insult her ? Was he subservient ? Already 
 interested in this child of the forest he had picked up. 
 
 " Excuse my intrusion, Miss Elms," said Malduke, 
 appearing at this juncture with a hay -fork over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I do not excuse it. Be careful." Then, almost 
 savagely, " You remember what happened last time we 
 met ! " 
 
 "I have something very important to tell you," he 
 urged, "something you ought to know. Gwyneth," he 
 continued, with earnestness, " though you rebuff me, I 
 cannot calmly see you scorned by another." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said she, her cheeks flushing. 
 
 " I mean this," Malduke answered hurriedly. " Travers 
 Courtenay has long hesitated as to whether to give his 
 affections to you or to Miss Bowling. His friends, as
 
 150 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 you may know, have brought pressure to bear. Last 
 night he virtually settled matters with Miss Dowling and 
 her parents. I was there; saw him kiss her in the 
 garden ; and, listen," for Gwyneth was hurrying away 
 " I saw her later in her own room the window was open 
 imprinting a kiss on the silver case you once owned, 
 which now contains his portrait and hers, side by side. 
 I could not help seeing it." 
 
 " It is a lie," replied the girl, passionately. " You have 
 concocted this story to make mischief. I know" she 
 continued, " that Eva has not my silver case." 
 
 "No," was the reply; "she placed it I could not avoid 
 observing on the top of a little book-case hanging on 
 the wall." 
 
 " I do not believe one word you say." She stamped 
 her foot petulantly on the ground. 
 
 " Were you blind just now? " the man hissed. "Even 
 before the dust from his horses' feet smothered you. 
 Can you not see he despises you- as a poor man's 
 daughter ? that they both enjoyed the fun ? " 
 
 " That again is untrue. But I will not discuss it with 
 you. I will listen no longer to your base suggestions." 
 And Gwyneth hurried along the road towards Heatherside. 
 
 " You'll find your property on the little book-case," 
 called he after her. 
 
 "The iron is entering into her soul now," he muttered, 
 walking away. " Serve her right. She'll be glad to turn 
 from her gilded lover to the arms of the simple champion 
 of the People, humble though he be. After all," he 
 soliloquized, tossing the hay almost jubilantly, "she 
 might have a better chance of being a fine lady, mistress 
 of all she surveys, with me for her husband, than as the 
 -wife of the great Travers. The ground on which he 
 stands is mined.''
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WOUNDED BUT NOT CAUGHT. 
 
 "Only a silent grief 
 
 When in her room alone ; 
 But tears bring no relief 
 
 When every hope is flown. 
 Only the constant memory 
 
 Of their meeting 'neath the trees, 
 Yet a girl's fine heart is breaking 
 Over trifles such as these." 
 
 Australian Poets, FRANCES S. LEWIX. 
 
 ' ' Why, let the stricken deer go weep, 
 The hart ungalled play ; 
 
 For some must watch, while some must sleep, 
 So runs the world away." SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 MRS. BOWLING was one of those genial, sunny natures 
 who have a warm welcome for all. A specially cordial 
 one she extended to Gwyneth as she met her at the open 
 French window. 
 
 "Come in, child," she said. "You look pale, and 
 usually you have such a fresh colour. What is the 
 matter, my dear?" 
 
 "Nothing, thank you : I hurried rather." 
 
 " Well, then, sit down, and give me all the news," and 
 the old lady proceeded to retail hers. 
 
 " I rflust tell you about Eva's good fortune," said the 
 garrulous old dame. " She has gone to Gumford, you'll
 
 152 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 be glad to hear, with Travers Courtenay. I may tell 
 you," she added, lowering her voice confidingly, "you 
 are so sensible. She is really very fond of the dear 
 young fellow. We all are. She has been cooped up 
 here all her life. And he's about the first real gentleman, 
 other than her father, she has ever met. Do you not 
 think the young man charming, dear? But I suppose 
 you have not seen much of him. How should you ? " 
 
 " Not much," was the reply. " You see he is a gentle- 
 man, and I " The old lady was not versed in the 
 
 gossip of the place. 
 
 "Eva was pleased as a child to go with him," the 
 dame ran on. " He has often been here of late. I am 
 not sure whether it is only to consult Mr. Bowling, as he 
 professes. Certainly they did talk a good deal of ' shop.' 
 But his taking Eva to Gumford to-day looks as though 
 he were interested in the child. Does it not ? " Mrs. 
 Dowling was not aware that her husband had, in the 
 simplicity of his heart, and for his own convenience, 
 himself proposed the arrangement. " I do despise any- 
 thing like match-making," continued the old lady, " but, 
 do you know, if it came about in a natural sort of way, 
 of course there is no one I would rather have for a 
 son-in-law than young Mr. Courtenay. You should be 
 bridesmaid, dear. Would not that be nice ? We have 
 known Travers' parents so long. Then, again, it is not 
 wrong to remember that he will, of course, be wealthy." 
 
 " And you really think she returns his affection ? " sug- 
 gested Gwyneth. She was choking, but felt she must 
 say something. 
 
 " I am sure he has a very warm place in her heart, 
 but of course she is young and unsophisticated. I should 
 not let her marry for a couple of years, I think. * Would 
 you?"
 
 WOUNDED BUT NOT CAUGHT. 153 
 
 "I do not know," replied Gwyneth, with difficulty 
 retaining her calmness. "The sooner the better, I 
 should think " with some suspicion of bitterness. 
 
 The old lady looked up and eyed her in the kind, 
 rude way elderly folk often affect. 
 
 " You do not seem quite to like the idea. You are 
 not yourself this morning, dear. You know no ill of the 
 young man, do you? One has to be so careful in these 
 days. Eva is the apple of our eyes," and the proud 
 mother paused and pondered as she wiped the gathering 
 moisture from her spectacles. 
 
 "Shall I get the book now, Mrs. Bowling?" asked 
 Gwyneth, as cheerfully as she could, while a burden was 
 pressing upon her heart, and a storm of mingled feelings 
 agitating her. But, despite her sorrow, she would do 
 her duty. 
 
 " Yes, dear, please do ; you will find the volume in 
 Eva's room, on her little book-case over the bed." 
 
 Gwyneth involuntarily started, but in a moment rose 
 calmly and sought Eva's apartment. She seized the 
 book nervously, intending to hurry back with it. Her 
 eye would rove, however. It caught sight of a shining 
 object on the top shelf. 
 
 " It could not be ! " she exclaimed in anguish. " 1 
 will not believe it. I shall not even look." She hesitated. 
 " Yes, I will," she continued, " to settle the matter. Of 
 course it cannot be mine ! " Standing on tip-toe the girl 
 reached down the little case. Her heart beat wildly. 
 Behold, in her hand, her poor, dead mother's gift passed 
 on by her child to the man who swore he loved her ! 
 With trembling fingers she opened the case, and closed 
 it again, and sat, lest she should fall, on the pallet bed, 
 and gazed far across the creek, through the gum-trees to 
 the fields beyond, where reaping-machines were merrily
 
 154 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 rattling, and harvest-hands, youths and maidens, mothers 
 with their children, sang as they set up into stocks the 
 golden sheaves. All became as night for Gwyneth. Then 
 a cruel glare ; and in the centre was fixed the vision of 
 her mother's gift, with the portraits of Eva and the man 
 she loved side by side ! 
 
 "It is too cruel! too cruel!" she sobbed. "He 
 might at least have returned my gift." There must be 
 some mistake, she tried to think, but all was so circum- 
 stantial ! What her father and Malduke had wildly 
 uttered of yore concerning the heartlessness, the vicious- 
 ness, the cruelty of the "upper classes," flooded her 
 mind. For a moment the stricken thing lay on the bed, 
 her face buried in her hands, as she moaned, and called 
 her mother's name. Had she been at hand to guide, 
 her child would not have yielded herself so freely, to be 
 cast off with scorn by the first monied youth, with 
 attractive face and speech, who pretended to woo her. 
 
 " Can you not find it, dear?" the old lady was calling 
 from within. 
 
 Quietly, now, the girl replaced the silver case took 
 up the blithesome Foresters, and hurried forth. She 
 smiled as she entered the room. 
 
 " I was looking at Lancelot and Elaine" she re- 
 marked, cheerfully. " I have brought it too. May I 
 read that, instead of the babble of Robin Hood and Maid 
 Marion ? It is somewhat weak and wearisome." 
 
 " Anything you like, my child. But how your hand is 
 shaking ! Are you sure you are not ill ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no " with a light scornful gesture " only 
 indignant at the thought of the gay knight's treatment of 
 1 the Lily-maid of Astolat.' I was peeping at a few pages. 
 I suppose it's the way of the world, especially of knights 
 and gentlefolk."
 
 WOUNDED BUT NOT CAUGHT. 155 
 
 " My dear, I never heard you speak like that before. 
 The true gentleman is the soul of honour. Blood always 
 tells." 
 
 " Yes ; and sometimes cries to heaven for vengeance ! " 
 Gwyneth spoke with vehemence. "What a picture is 
 this ! " and she read in tones of mingled pity and 
 indignation 
 
 " In her right hand the lily, in her left 
 The letter all her bright hair streaming down- 
 And all the coverlid was cloth-of-gold, 
 Drawn to her waist ; and she herself in white, 
 All but her face, and that clear-featured face 
 Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, 
 But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled." 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Bowling, " how your voice 
 trembles ! You enter too fully into the feelings of these 
 mere creations of the imagination. Your nerves are too 
 finely strung." 
 
 The girl read on, of the last missive of that other 
 broken-hearted maiden 
 
 " I, sometime called the maid of Astolat, 
 Come, for you left me taking no farewell, 
 Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
 I loved you, and my love had no return, 
 And therefore my true love has been my death." 
 
 The old dame wiped her eyes and spectacles, saying, 
 as she curiously scanned the girl's face 
 
 "Gwyneth, darling, I believe you have a history. You 
 have been badly treated some time or other." 
 
 "Perhaps I have," replied the girl, shortly; "but what 
 is that ? I am only a plain common girl ! " 
 
 As, after an hour's reading, Gwyneth stepped quickly 
 with beating heart towards her home, glad to be free 
 from the guileless but garrulous old soul, the returning 

 
 156 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 dog-cart flashed past her. True to his sense of propriety, 
 Travers again did not rein his horse. Without raising 
 her head Gwyneth passed on. 
 
 "Strange she did not see us," remarked Eva. 
 
 "Dear Gwyneth, whither so quickly?" called Travers, 
 a few minutes later, having deposited his charge at the 
 gate and hastily turned to pursue the retreating figure. 
 "You are playing me a trick," exclaimed the young man. 
 Though close beside her, he failed to attract the girl's 
 attention. He slackened speed to the pace of her walk. 
 Jumping out of the trap, though still holding the reins, 
 he laid his hand on her arm. It trembled. The maiden 
 shook as though she would fall. As she turned, Travers, 
 observing the pale face and strange, wild expression on 
 the countenance, ordinarily so serene, drew back. 
 
 "Gwyneth, what has happened?" he exclaimed, 
 thinking some dire misfortune had overtaken her as 
 indeed it had. 
 
 "You must not touch me," she almost shrieked, 
 shrinking away. " You must not call me by that name. 
 Leave me. I can be played with no longer." She 
 looked round like a hunted thing. 
 
 " Gwyneth, what do you mean ? Played with ! You 
 know I love you, as no one else in the world. What has 
 come over you ? What has risen up between us ? Who 
 has been troubling you, my darling ? " 
 
 Gwyneth faltered. Could this fervour be all assumed ? 
 But the sister's letter ! that revealed like a lightning- 
 flash their relative positions. She would give her life to 
 know that all she had lately seen and heard was indeed 
 a dream, as it sometimes appeared. Might she not take 
 his outstretched hand and trust him to answer ? She 
 hesitated. 
 
 Turning, she looked the young man full in the face^-
 
 WOUNDED BUT NOT CAUGHT. 157 
 
 eyed him as though she, the penniless carpenter's 
 daughter, were princess, and he humble yeoman. 
 
 " Show me the keepsake." She would give him one 
 last chance. " Return that to me, and at least we will 
 part in peace." 
 
 The young man coloured, became confused, so unusual 
 with him. 
 
 " Gwyneth, I hastened after you partly because I was 
 eager to confess to you that I had lost it. Do not look 
 like that. What have I done ? I flung off my coat to show 
 that fellow Malduke and some others how to straighten 
 a fence. Half-an-hour after the pocket-case was gone. 
 I cannot trace it." 
 
 Ah, had she not seen it herself, amongst the trinkets 
 of the girl he had been driving about all day the 
 photographs side by side ? had she not heard the old 
 lady talking? Otherwise she would have believed him. 
 But all was against him. His manner was refined, no 
 doubt. Splendidly he lied, finely he acted and braved 
 it out, and yet she loved him. Her heart was breaking, 
 but her lips did not falter as she said deliberately 
 
 " I am sorry to say I cannot believe you. Unfortunately 
 I know the truth. Choose your gentlewoman, but pray 
 leave me alone. Do not come after me," she said, as 
 the young man stepped towards her, " I cannot bear it." 
 She bounded away. Travers stood as one stunned, 
 holding the horse's reins and gazing after her. Then, as 
 in a dream, he mounted his trap and drove moodily 
 away, feeling that for him all the light had fled from 
 Mimosa Vale. 
 
 " Miss Elms, dearest Gwyneth, let me comfort you. 
 The proud upstart has cast you off; let a humble 
 follower lay the tribute of his devotion at your feet."
 
 I5 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 It was Malduke who thus accosted the pale, scared- 
 looking creature as she entered her garden calm retreat 
 no longer. 
 
 " How dare you speak to me ? Step from my path at 
 once," imperiously insisted the long-suffering girl, as she 
 moved towards the porch. 
 
 "Because T ravers Courtenay is a fraud and a deceiver, 
 a specimen of his class." 
 
 "Again you lie," was the reply. " He is not false. I 
 will not believe it. But he is nothing to me," she added, 
 recovering herself; " much less so are you. Begone, 
 Richard Malduke, and dare not dog me or cross my path 
 again." She fairly glared at him. She scarce knew 
 what she said. 
 
 Like a whipped hound, the young man retired, mutter- 
 ing to himself 
 
 " Not tamed yet ! But she shall be." 
 
 Meanwhile Gwyneth flung herself on her bed and 
 sobbed her heart out. Then she sat up, put her .hair 
 back from her face, and gazed over the lake, on which 
 .they had sailed so happily, and said 
 
 " I cannot, I will not believe it. But there is an end 
 to it all. A foolish fancy ! But the trouble is I love 
 him still."
 
 159 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. 
 
 ' ' Looking at the moral aspect of the question alone, no one will 
 deny the advantages which the possession of landed property 
 must confer upon a man or a body of men that it imparts a 
 higher sense of independence and security, greater self-respect, 
 and supplies stronger motives for industry, frugality, and fore- 
 thought, than any other kind of property." COBDEN. 
 
 Two or three years had elapsed since the emigrants 
 trooped over the hills and sought their rest in Mimosa 
 Vale. Each anniversary of the Hegira was commemor- 
 ated by two days' high festival. 
 
 The sky on the present occasion was cloudless ; so 
 rare and transparent the air, that the vines on the terraced 
 slopes about the red-brick walls stood out as though a 
 few hundred yards away. At six o'clock in the morning 
 a special service was conducted in the church for those 
 who cared to attend. The entire community was repre- 
 sented, largely out of respect for the settler parson. The 
 doctor read the lessons ; the Bishop of the Campaspe, 
 who had come the night before to take part in the 
 festival, preached. 
 
 " Two are better than one, and a threefold cord is not 
 quickly broken," was the text from which the good man 
 educed lessons as to the benefits arising from " brotherly 
 union and concord." The transformation that had been 
 effected in the lonely valley, he said, witnessed to the
 
 l6o THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ability of human labour to establish itself, under free 
 and fair conditions, without aid of the State, dole of 
 charity, or the Church. They had learned, he pointed 
 out, that by loving their neighbours as themselves, life 
 became, in spiritual as in all temporal things, trebly 
 richer. 
 
 In a loft above the wide chancel-screen the band was 
 playing. With the surpliced choir of men and boys, 
 some clergy and singers from town were associated. The 
 chairs, free to all, were every one occupied. As orchestra, 
 choir, and people joined in the Te Deum, and all faced, 
 like one army, the figured eastern light, high above the 
 home-carved reredos and glowing altar, the first beams 
 of the dawning shed a soft light about the sacred 
 building. Frank Brown felt that a better day was indeed 
 being ushered in. 
 
 Later, all repaired, by tramway and on foot, to the lake. 
 The common daily bathe was enlivened by swimming 
 contests for families, for men, and for women. The 
 lake rang with laughter, that coursed along its surface, 
 and set the magpies in the few gaunt gums remaining, 
 piping a loud symphony of song. 
 
 The morning ablutions over, the prize-winners 
 announced, all assembled in a bower of saplings and 
 gum-boughs specially erected for the purpose. Here 
 about one thousand five hundred persons sat down to 
 the breakfast that a committee of the villagers dispensed. 
 The band played ; the ' Song of the Village Settlers ' 
 was sung ; the doctor and the bishop delivered short 
 addresses inseparable from all British social gatherings. 
 
 Later, a stream of visitors wound down the hill-side in 
 four-in-hands, wagons, and Cobb & Co.'s coaches ; in 
 every and any kind of vehicle. Half the township of 
 Gumford, miners of Tin-pot Gully, " Cockies " from the
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. l6l 
 
 selections, " hands " from the stations, were among the 
 visitors. The sham-fight between the yeomanry and 
 their neighbours resulted in victory for the local organ- 
 ized force. 
 
 The regatta in the afternoon was the principal event 
 of the first day. The Mimosa, of one thousand tons, 
 yachts, barges, rafts, and pontoons were placed in 
 requisition by onlookers, while the wattle-lined shores 
 were crowded with eager partisans. 
 
 The " eights " did good rowing, though a crew from 
 the Yarra carried off the prize. That for the "fours" 
 fell to the villagers. Amusement was caused by the 
 awkward attempts of some of these latter to manage 
 their crafts. Cheers and laughter burst from the onlookers 
 as here and there two village-made boots shot upward, 
 a well-rounded back disappeared into the bottom of a 
 boat that discharged its awkward cargo into the smiling 
 lake. 
 
 The gig and dingey chase made an exciting finish. 
 Travers happened to be the dingey man ; a crack oarsman 
 from the town the occupant of the gig. Breathless 
 excitement reigned as the champion of the vale careered 
 in his cockle-shell round his antagonist in long razor- 
 back boat. Here dingey just saved himself by backing, 
 there by darting aside. A roar of delight rang across 
 the water as gig, trying to seize his nimble antagonist, 
 almost capsized. In an incautious moment dingey allowed 
 himself to be closed in by the sides of the Mimosa. 
 
 "Gig has him now ! " was the cry. 
 
 " Dodge him, dingey ! " echoed back others. 
 
 Catching a rope suspended from a spar, Travers flung 
 himself clear of his boat just as gig dashed at him, and, 
 missing his man, fell headlong into the water. Now 
 Travers is on the spar, straddling towards the thronged
 
 1 62 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 bulwarks. Gig in his turn has the rope, and is raising 
 himself, hand over hand, to the beam, in eager pursuit. 
 Peals of laughter greet his dripping and bedraggled 
 appearance. 
 
 " Quick, dingey, he's upon you ! " is the cry. 
 
 Through the throng on deck Travers pushed his way, 
 dodged round the companion, about the mainmast, dis- 
 appeared down the forecastle, in a trice dashing up the 
 ladder from the hold. Now gigantic gig presses him 
 sore. For a moment dingey stands on the bulwark on 
 the side opposite his boat. He almost brushes past 
 Gwyneth, who leaned there. Their eyes met. So eagerly 
 was she watching the chase, she forgot the restraint set 
 upon her. She smiled, then recovered herself. In a 
 moment dingey dives into the lake, coming up twenty 
 feet from the vessel's side. Another second, and gig 
 follows. 
 
 " Poor dingey, you're done at last ! " some murmur. 
 
 Gig's head appears a few feet from the object of his 
 pursuit. A few strokes, that evinced the superiority of 
 gig's swimming powers, bring him close alongside. 
 
 " It's all up ! " shout hundreds of voices. Again dingey 
 disappears. Gig waits for him to come to the surface. 
 Breathless seconds pass ! A minute ! two ! Gig looks 
 anxious ; dives down, down, with open, staring eyes, 
 seeking in the dark depths of the lake the form of him 
 who, he feared, must be unconscious. The stillness of 
 death lay upon the steamer. As she leaned over, with 
 her boat's spar in the water, eagerly all watched the 
 surface from which the face of him so full of life a few 
 moments before had disappeared. The strain became 
 intense. Another and another dived from the vessel's 
 side. 
 
 " Will no one save him ? " almost shrieked Gwyneth,
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. 163 
 
 as she clutched convulsively at the arm nearest hers. 
 Two ashen faces looked blankly on each other ! Despair 
 was written on each Hilda's and Gwyneth's. 
 
 " Oh, my wicked letter ! " thought the former. 
 
 " How could I mistrust him ? " murmured the latter. 
 
 All this in two seconds. 
 
 Hark ! a cheer that rends the air. The report of the 
 gun shakes the little vessel, causing the ladies to stop 
 their ears after the report is over. 
 
 " Time's up ! Dingey's won ! " a hundred voices are 
 shouting. A rush now to the other side of the vessel. 
 Gig climbs disconsolately on to the spar and regains the 
 Mimosa. 
 
 " Hang him, I thought he was drowned. I could 
 have caught him otherwise," growled the discomfited 
 one, as he saw the victor on the other side, paddling to 
 his yacht midst the plaudits of the onlookers. 
 
 " No, you would not have caught him," said the 
 Mimosa skipper. " Not a man on board could dive 
 under the ship as he did." 
 
 Somewhat disdainfully Hilda drew her arm away and 
 looked coldly at Gwyneth, as though she would say, 
 " What do you mean by touching me, minion ? " 
 
 Gwyneth heaved a sigh of relief and looked out across 
 the lake, thinking 
 
 " What business had I to smile at him and he at me ! 
 I'll be very careful not to do it again." 
 
 The varied entertainments of the evening over, the 
 visitors repaired to tents that had been pitched for their 
 accommodation. Tom insisted upon "camping out" for 
 the first time. 
 
 In the dead of night groaning, as of a man dying, 
 awoke him. 
 
 " Good God ! what's that ? " he cried as he clutched the
 
 164 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 arm of his sleeping companion, a grumpy old " Cockie " 
 whose team had been beaten in the tug-of-war the day 
 before. 
 
 " Hold to it, boys ! All together now. Bend your 
 backs," responded the sleeper. 
 
 "Wake up, man," cried Tom, "some one's dying! 
 Hearken to the terrible moan." 
 
 The champion of the team at length leaped up, 
 growling 
 
 "What the deuce do you want?" 
 
 " Some one's dying, I say." 
 
 The champion listened a moment, cast a pitying, 
 withering glance at the little man shivering in his pyjamas, 
 and flung himself back into his nest of blankets, exclaim- 
 ing " Pity you're not dying. Don't yer know a native 
 bear when yer hear it snore ? " 
 
 " A bear !" cried Tom, seeking his revolver ; " black or 
 white ? Are they large, or ferocious, hereabouts, sir ? " 
 
 " By Jove, arn't they ! Eat you up, soon as look at 
 you ! " This was the only information the little man 
 could elicit. 
 
 Reconnoitring for himself, expecting to encounter 
 some huge creature intent on a deadly embrace, Tom 
 was disappointed to trace the gruesome sounds to a 
 rounded mass suggestive of an overgrown 'possum. 
 
 "Is that their native bear?" exclaimed the English- 
 man, disdaining to fire. " Everything's disappointing in 
 this country, even its beasts and adventures. Now 
 I thought I'd something to write home about," and 
 he wrapped himself in his rug, and hoped that no 
 snakes had taken possession of it in his absence. While 
 pondering as to the proper mode of procedure, if one 
 discovered itself coiled coquettishly on his breast, he 
 fell asleep.
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. 165 
 
 " Hullo, I say, covey, lend us your ' billy ' to chop 
 some wood to boil the ' tommy,' " Tom called to a 
 neighbour next morning. 
 
 Novice-like, Tom was intent upon parading technical 
 terms applying to the paraphernalia of the camp. 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? " retorted the Gumford 
 bank-clerk, who had occupied the adjoining tent, and 
 was also making preparations for the early morning meal. 
 
 "I was inclined to forget which was which 'billy' 
 or ' tommy,' '"' explained the Englishman ; " but I re- 
 member that ' billy ' is short for ' bill-hook ' the affair 
 the fellows top the shrubs with at home. So 'tommy' 
 must be t'other thing the can or pot you boil your tea 
 in. This billy's mighty blunt," he added critically, 
 rubbing the rough edge of the weapon. 
 
 " Not the only city-tool that's taken that way," replied 
 the rude bank-clerk. 
 
 All who could secure steed or vehicle rollicked off to 
 witness the coursing-match. Abbott-buggies laden with 
 ladies, dashing through timber, over fallen logs a foot 
 high, across trackless creeks, galloping over open plains, 
 threading in and out thick trees of the ranges, astonished 
 the city men who had never before seen a " throw off " 
 n the bush. 
 
 The " horse races " constituted the great event of the 
 afternoon. Every " Cockie " for miles round had brought 
 the pony that was " sure to win." The squatter sent his 
 son with " the half-brother to ' Calyx,' " who won the Cup 
 five years before. 
 
 " Races are right," decided the doctor, " bar three 
 things 'betting,' 'beer,' and 'cruelty to beasts.' We 
 shall wind up with a scamper or two for the fun of the 
 thing to prove our horse-flesh and our men. But he 
 who bets, whoever he be, walks off the course,"
 
 1 66 THE XE\V ARCADIA. 
 
 Young " Cocksure," nephew of a neighbouring squatter, 
 deemed this " all blow," as he publicly termed it, and 
 offered " two to one on Travers' 'Temeraire.' " 
 
 True to his word, the host, approaching the young 
 spruce, bid him " Good-bye," and putting arm in his 
 escorted him off the course. None essayed " odds " 
 after that. 
 
 "You spoil your sport, as you do your work, in town," 
 explained the doctor to some friends. " We are going 
 to have both pure and simple here. English folk take 
 pleasures sadly, their labour moodily, owing partly to the 
 greed that in some form of gambling or exploiting 
 finds its way to every social sphere. I'll have none of it 
 here. What say you, Brown ? " 
 
 " That I am going to win the ' Wattle Blossom ' the 
 prize of the day," was the reply. Arrayed in red 
 flannelette and white pants, the village parson was leading 
 his light-limbed steed by the rein, flung carelessly over 
 his arm. 
 
 " Looks well, but not very dignified, in that get-up," 
 objected the mining manager of the " Golden Stream," 
 who held forth at the chapel on Sundays. 
 
 " Dash dignity ! " retorted the doctor, energetically. 
 ' Your churches are dying of it or were doing so, until 
 such as my friend Brown arose. Because he identifies 
 himself with the lawful pursuits and pastimes of his 
 people, in no namby-pamby, patronizing way ; because he 
 lives their life right down amongst them and a higher 
 one all the while, never forgetting it, though he does 
 not always speak of it he holds these people by the 
 heart-strings. Brimful of life animal spirits, intellectual 
 force and spiritual life, as you call it he is, literally, the 
 father of his flock." 
 
 " J won't have this, Torn/' Frank Brown was say-
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. 167 
 
 ing. " You know you couldn't sit your horse once 
 round." 
 
 " I'm going to ride, and ride to win, nevertheless," 
 persisted the little man, as he scraped some mud from 
 the sides of a huge beast he was leading. 
 
 " Why, your mount's been rolling, and never even been 
 groomed since," remonstrated Frank. 
 
 "You want me to scratch my .horse to give you a 
 show," retorted Tom. " I won't do it ! That's plain. 
 I'm going to show you all how to win, hands down." 
 
 Unmercifully Tom had been chaffed concerning his 
 horsemanship. He rather liked the joke, and loved to 
 exaggerate his awkwardness just, as he termed it, " for 
 the fun of the thing." 
 
 So cleverly did he mingle affectation of innocence 
 with evidence of shrewdness, that it was difficult to 
 discover where his knowledge ended and ignorance 
 began. 
 
 " Let those laugh who win. I'll whip you all to- 
 morrow," he had ominously declared. 
 
 Tom and O'Lochlan had put their heads together. 
 
 " I have a horse," said Larry, " that'll carry you first 
 past the winning-post, if only you can stick to him." 
 
 "I'll do that, never fear," Tom assured him, "if they 
 won't bump against me." 
 
 " That they'll do, right enough," replied Larry, 
 laughing. 
 
 " I do not mind, O'Lochlan, if I get a good grip of 
 the pummel. The man should be canonized who 
 invented pummels. They are so convenient when you 
 feel you're rolling off e.g. when the brute stops 
 suddenly that's always awkward, isn't it ? and you 
 lie on his neck ; or when he shies at a rustling leaf." 
 
 " Well, you hold on by your eyebrow, and you'll finish
 
 1 68 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 right. The old stager knows his way about, and will 
 jockey himself better than the ' Cookies ' can their own 
 horses." 
 
 Purposely Larry sent the old blood across with the 
 marks of a roll in the half-dried dam still fresh upon 
 him. 
 
 The appearance of Tom upon his mud-caked " Levia- 
 than " was the signal for shouts of derisive laughter. 
 One whispered that Lord, a moment before, had been 
 bribing the stable-boy to " give him a leg up." 
 
 " What shall I do," he was reported to have said, " if 
 I come off in the race ? I'll never get on again, myself, 
 even if I'm whole lengths ahead, as I shall be. I 
 supppose you couldn't follow us, sonny, just to be handy 
 to pop me on again, in case I find myself on the 
 ground?" 
 
 "Whiff!" went the pistol. Off the strange field 
 started. Travers on "Temeraire," Brown on "the 
 Rector," Tom astride " Leviathan," the village carrier 
 on a mount borrowed from the local storekeeper, 
 shearers on their Rosinantes twenty, of all sizes, styles, 
 and strides jockeys high in stirrup, arching over neck, 
 or leaning back to save their steed all in a ruck. Now 
 " Temeraire " draws out, Gumford storekeeper's nag 
 presses him hard ; "the Rector" creeps steadily to the 
 fore. 
 
 Last time round ; Storekeeper's nag well beat ; 
 "Temeraire" and "Rector" neck to neck. 
 
 "Two to one on 'Rector'!" incautiously cries one, 
 of habit taught. All were too intent to heed. 
 
 " Well ridden, Parson ! ' Rector ' 's got it ! " was the 
 cry. Turning towards " the straight," Frank Brown had 
 clearly secured the inside running. 
 
 " Bravo, ' Rector ' ! ' Temeraire ' 's out of it."
 
 
 HOW TOM WON A RACE. 169 
 
 Where all the while is " Leviathan," with his confident 
 jockey ? Forging along, with even steady pace. Others 
 may shoot forward, others drop behind, his level stride 
 neither quickens nor slackens. Nay, it is quickening 
 now ! Slowly from out the field he draws. The clay 
 brushed by living curry-combs from his shining sides, 
 the jockey clinging manfully with both hands to the 
 friendly pummel, the reins fluttering like ribbons in the 
 breeze. 
 
 Now the self-riding steed is riding past Storekeeper's 
 nag. Then drawing slowly ahead of brave "Temeraire," 
 up to " the Rector," who is whipping hard ; head to 
 flank to shoulder they ride. 
 
 Neck to neck, they flash up " the straight," Frank 
 riding as a jockey bred ; Tom bundled up like a bicycle- 
 rider, all elbows and legs ! One second more ! Old 
 " Leviathan's " great eye glances round at his one 
 competitor. The huge beast puts forth, for one last 
 moment, his full powers. In a few strides Tom with his 
 pummel shoots past the post, ere " Rector's " nose has 
 come into line with it ! The cheers that greeted the 
 winner might have been heard at Gumford. 
 
 While other competitors were struggling to rein in 
 their steeds, still dashing onward, " Leviathan/' a few 
 yards from the winning-post, duly comes to a standstill, 
 almost throwing Tom across his neck. Jauntily but 
 stiffly, the townsman dismounted, on the wrong side, 
 descending like a miner down a ladder, and dropping 
 from a little height on to the ground. Round the course 
 the prize-rider was carried, bowing and grimacing to the 
 applauding multitude. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you I'd beat the field ? " he called to 
 Travers and Frank, as they came to wring the victor's 
 hands.
 
 I/O THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " You stuck on gamely/' they replied, " especially in 
 that scramble round the far turn. I thought you'd come 
 off." 
 
 " Couldn't if I'd tried," replied Tom, wagging his 
 head. " There wasn't room to fall." 
 
 " It's a good job you didn't try," they answered. 
 
 " A hundred guineas for the veteran, Larry," said 
 Travers, coming up to where O'Lochlan stood fondling 
 the sagacious creature, of whose coat scarcely a hair was 
 turned. 
 
 "Not a thousand," was the reply. "Not another 
 horse in the country could ride itself like that to win." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," demurred Tom, " / rode the 
 race. And won it too ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 AN OASIS IN THE DESERT. 
 
 ' ' The little smiling cottage, warm embowered ; 
 The little smiling cottage, where at eve 
 He meets his rosy children at the door, 
 Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife 
 With good brown cake and bacon slice, intent 
 To cheer his hunger after labour hard." DYER. 
 
 "THE heavens were as brass, the earth as iron," deso- 
 lation reigned beyond the confines of the little land of 
 Goshen, where everything flourished the more as the 
 air became drier and sun hotter. Elsewhere " the seven 
 lean kine," seven months' drought, ate up, as so often is 
 the case, the " seven fat kine " of prosperous years. 
 After every spell of excessive heat, the thunder-storm, 
 threatening all afternoon, broke with much noise and 
 glare, sweeping of dust, and rolling onward of majestic 
 cloud-cumuli, but, though every available tub and bath 
 about each homestead was set to catch them, only a few 
 drops of rain fell. Another day, wild stranger-clouds, 
 laden with precious water, rolled themselves upward from 
 the Southern Ocean, only to carry the watery store, for 
 which man and beast and land were thirsting, to deluge 
 oft-favoured zones with tropical rainfall. 
 
 Again the outlying " Cockie " must harness his emaci- 
 ated beast to travel ten, fifteen, twenty miles for a barrel 
 
 M
 
 1/2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 of water, to last the sad, unwashed household for another 
 week ! In vain might the thirsty traveller crave one 
 half-bucket of -that far-fetched fluid for his pinched-up 
 beast ! With grudging does the otherwise hospitable 
 selector grant him a pannikin-full for himself. The 
 wheat that had rejoiced in the spring sunshine has lost 
 heart. It will make the best of a bad job, hastily form 
 at the top of each stinted stalk a miserable apology for 
 an ear, and await, bolt upright, the advent of the stripper. 
 
 Four bushels to the acre, the fair promise of spring 
 yields to the sorrowing farmer, who must subsist on that 
 starveling harvest for many a weary month. Burnt wheat 
 his coffee, infused in water already the colour of the 
 future decoction, his best beverage. Boiled wheat, baked 
 wheat, fried wheat, his only food, and that of his children, 
 for months to come, save for the occasional luxury of 
 'possum baked whole in clay, wallaby soup, or dainty 
 snake pie ! 
 
 What of his live stock and crops ? The carcases of 
 the few cows and sheep he possessed are lying beneath 
 the shade of wire fences, bogged fast in the lignum 
 swamp, or covering the gaping clay bottom of the long- 
 exhausted "tank." Of other crops he has none. He 
 is a man of one idea, and that is wheat. If that succeeds 
 he settles his score with the storekeeper and bank ; if 
 that fails, he is lost. No tree has he planted, no shed 
 built, no garden sought to form. Nor could he ! Alone, 
 unaided, the State has encouraged him to venture, void 
 of capital or experience, "on to the land." Half the 
 year through waters have flowed, not so far away, unused 
 to the sea. 
 
 A few simple wood-and-earth works, and the frogs 
 might be merrily croaking all the summer through, down 
 that winding lignum-lined creek, and across the miles of
 
 AN OASIS IN THE DESERT. 173 
 
 caked lake-bed ; but that would have implied foresight 
 and system with respect to settlement, not to be expected 
 of a country where few look beyond their nose, or wider 
 than the lobbies of Parliament House. 
 
 Nay, some water-works there may be near the thirst- 
 ing selector. Of these, however, a few " boss-cockies " 
 are the virtually self-appointed trustees. Their own 
 wide wheat-fields they drown in ignorant endeavour to 
 irrigate. Every care at least they take that no water 
 passes them down the baked channels run, by the 
 way, beneath the surface instead of above it. The 
 wheat-fed selector has the satisfaction of knowing that 
 hundreds of thousands of pounds have been expended 
 by an enterprising State on " colossal irrigation works." 
 He may know that the overgrown farmer who represents 
 him in Parliament has enough water and to spare. Strange 
 to say, such reflections impart not extra relish to the 
 baked-wheat coffee and 'possum puddings of his Sunday's 
 repast. He is an unreasonable man. 
 
 Be it remembered, not every year, by a great many, 
 brings a drought. Thousands of yeomen have overcome 
 a score of the disabilities outlined in these pages, and by 
 dint of sheer pluck "have established themselves on the- 
 broad acres they own. Within the favoured Vale of 
 Mimosa "the sound of many waters" was ever in the 
 ear. 
 
 " Clear and cool, clear and cool, 
 Lave in it, bathe in it, 
 Mother and child," 
 
 the settler is singing. His wife is watching her rosy- 
 cheeked two-year-old paddle amongst the sedges. Along 
 the wide channels maidens are propelling their dingeys. 
 The village hand is angling for " a bit of a fish to take 
 home to the missus."
 
 i;4 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Along the valley for miles rolled the flowing sea of 
 green sorghum and maize, broom-corn and wheat. In 
 the meadow, the well-watered lucern half hides the cattle 
 that have strayed into it, while orangery, orchard, and 
 vineyard streak with diagonals of green the red soil of 
 the sloping hill-sides. 
 
 " I could not believe it was the same world," exclaimed 
 a bronzed, unbarbered selector, as he leaned over the 
 boundary-wire beside the topmost channel. 
 
 Twelve miles he had driven his jaded beast, to the 
 music of the rattling, empty barrel and staggering, spoke- 
 shrunken wheels. One who had never seen that plain 
 of his before, could not imagine it as it had been in 
 spring-time, knee-deep with prairie-growth of grass. 
 Now, the very stalks of the last blade are blown away, 
 the north wind finding but driven sand to sweep in its 
 spiral sirocco-course ; this, heaped high in the kangaroo 
 grass alone of all green things remaining suggests the 
 "desert" once supposed to spread from coast range to 
 centre of continent. All, for hundreds and thousands of 
 miles, fertile and smiling all the year round, if only water 
 be conserved. 
 
 "Just you go and stand in that maize," suggests a 
 settler, cutting watercress beneath the willows. " Creep 
 in that there row and hold up your whip, and you ben't 
 able to top the corn, I'll lay you." 
 
 No more he could. Burly Starveling with bushy beard 
 disappears into the ocean of green, and only the rustling 
 and laughing of the yellow beards far above his head 
 indicate the position of the dusty man of the plains. 
 
 " Slowed if it ain't like a hot-house ! " he exclaimed, 
 as he emerged from the jungle. " It's clammy as cow's 
 breath in th' mornin'. No wonder the stuff grows." 
 
 " It's all the water as does it," replied Smith, the
 
 AN OASIS IN THE DESERT. 175 
 
 settler. " The Land of Canaan, what flowed ' milk and 
 honey ' pure, leastways, which growed grass and flowers 
 was nigh all watered like this, Parson Brown, he says. 
 That's why it reads so cool and fresh-like in th' Old 
 Book. Now that the Turks, and the Rummuns afore 
 'em, has let all the water run off, Canaan's dry as a bone 
 again, and dusty as your darned plain. It's all the water 
 as does it. I reckon," continued Smith, eyeing the 
 visitor critically, ''you have not eaten a house down, 
 exactly, this mornin'." 
 
 " Boiled wheat and 'possum," replied the selector, 
 shortly. 
 
 "You come along of me. We're just in time for grub. 
 See them herbs there," remarked Smith, as he conducted 
 his guest along the winding path in front of his cottage. 
 " I made nigh forty pound, few months back, from a bed 
 no bigger nor that. The girls chops it up and puts it into 
 old salt bottles. Here, Betsy Jane " to a damsel busy, 
 with her sister, chopping and bottling the dried herbs, 
 " tell your mother a gen'leman from the plains is a-goin' 
 to have tucker with us." 
 
 "What do you say to that?" as he led the bewil- 
 dered " Cockie " to the garden at the rear. " You can have 
 that melon to make jam on, if you can lift it there 
 now." 
 
 The stout selector essayed to grasp and raise the 
 shining dappled monster, only succeeding in rolling it a 
 few feet, so as to expose the white circle on which it 
 rested. 
 
 "Never mind, covey, we'll get a couple of rails and 
 roll it into the cart afore you go. You needn't bust 
 yoursel' now." 
 
 " This be a cool place," remarked the visitor, as he 
 stood in the porch, covered, as was half the roof of the
 
 1/6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 cottage, with clambering creepers. "There's not a green 
 leaf a mile of our hut," he continued. " Thistles is the 
 only thing thrives there, and they looks sick-like, and 
 stands far off one from t'other, as if they'd squabbled." 
 
 " Don't stint the butter, mister," urged the good wife, 
 as she observed her guest applying the slightest streak to 
 his bread. " There's a plenty where it corned from. 
 That brown bread's cooked this mornin'. Try them 
 scones Sar' Ann's just made." 
 
 " I've not seed butter nor milk sin' spring," exclaimed 
 the man. " No wonder your children looks fat. It's 
 two shillin's a poun' at Grogham's shanty." 
 
 "We sends tons away every week," replied Smith, 
 proudly. " Doctor says we gets top price, 'cause no 
 other coves has butter comin' in. ' It's an ill wind 
 blows no one any good,' says Mike Milligan, next door, 
 when the north wind's on. Leastways it makes a market 
 for we." 
 
 " Now, my good man," urges Mrs. Smith again, " try 
 this 'ere strawberry and cream." 
 
 " Bless you, I've not tasted the like," replies the guest, 
 " since I corned on these blessed plains." 
 
 " Well, eat your fill ; there's miles of strawberries and 
 raspberries on Mimosa Vale. At same time, this corned 
 out of our own garding. We wants nothing from the 
 store now," she continued, " but a bit of groceries of 
 Saturday nights. You come over on Sunday, and we'll 
 give you a taste of somethin' good sucking-pig." 
 
 "Yes," interjected Sar' Ann, "as Mr. Milligan says, we 
 knows what appetite means here. ' When I'm eatin', I'm 
 'appy; when I'm full, I'm tite.' " 
 
 " Sar' Ann," remonstrated the laughing mother, " don't 
 you repeat Mr. Milligan's rude sayin's." 
 
 " Bless you, he means no -harm," she added, apolo-
 
 AN OASIS IN THE DESERT. I// 
 
 getically, " only he allers tries to be funny. And why 
 shouldn't he ? He's nothin' to trouble hisself about. No 
 more's the rest on us, for that matter." 
 
 " I wish /hadn't," exclaimed the surfeited selector, as 
 he stuck the haft of his knife and fork on the table the 
 signal that " he'd done," and " a child could play with 
 him " and he looked out of the open, paneless window, 
 across the valley, and thought of the howling, poverty- 
 stricken wilderness, not twelve miles away, with soil 
 as good as this, but parched for lack of water; and 
 his eyes filled with tears, at thought of the contrast 
 suggested.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HELPING LAME DOGS OVER STILES. 
 
 "Amavimus, amamus, amabimus." Kingsley*s Epitaph. 
 
 " Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
 To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; 
 Blest that abode where want and pain repair, 
 And every stranger finds a ready chair ; 
 Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd, 
 Where all the ruddy family around 
 Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 
 Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale : 
 Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
 And learn the luxury of doing good." GOLDSMITH. 
 
 " Ploughmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once and 
 
 still could find, 
 Sons of God and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 ON the following Sunday, in accordance with the 
 invitation of Mrs. Smith, Mr. Sandbach attended with 
 his wife and children, and partook of the sucking-pig, 
 together with luscious luxuries his children's mouths had 
 seldom known. To save a trip he brought the water- 
 barrel with' him ; three slender urchins standing up 
 inside, to make room in the cart. In front of hospitable 
 Mrs. Smith's garden the rattling wheels of the sun-baked 
 dray staggered for a last time, and collapsing, rolled the 
 barrel with its laughing occupants into the middle of the 
 road.
 
 HELPING LAME DOGS OVER STILES. 1/9 
 
 " We'll get the wheelwright to do it up in the 
 mornin'," said Smith. 
 
 " But I can't pay to have it mended," complained Mr. 
 Sandbach, ruefully. 
 
 " Never you mind, put it down to me," said Smith, 
 reassuringly ; " it's paid for already. Last night's return 
 at the store showed as I'd passed the red credit-line. 
 They rules a line in red when a fellow gets into the right 
 side of the books." 
 
 " Best thing you can do with your first credit, Sam," 
 remarked his wife. 
 
 " You know that po'try Miss Maud painted in red and 
 gold, and that Parson Brown framed and hanged up in 
 the club-room," added the irrepressible Sar' Ann 
 
 " ' Do the work that's nearest, 
 
 Though it's hard at whiles, 
 Helping, when you meet them, 
 Lame dogs over stiles.' 
 
 " Mr. Brown says that po'try were made by the best 
 parson ever lived these days ' Big-Gun Kingsley ' they 
 calls him, or some'ut o' that kind." 
 
 " 'Canon,' you mean," says her father, " but it's all 
 along the same. Parson Brown says it 'ud do his eyes 
 good to see this place. He loved the poor, and the 
 country, though they did leave htm to die alone, and 
 no notice taken on him, 'cause he spoke up for the 
 people." 
 
 "Come on, Sandbach, bring the lady and the kiddies 
 in," continued Mr. Smith. " You'll have to camp the 
 night, I'm thinkin'. Come in and welcome." 
 
 Mr. Sandbach was overcome by the warmth of his 
 reception. His wife, carrying a baby, that seemed to 
 have drawn all the life from her hungered frame the 
 one of all the family that appeared to have thrived at 
 her expense was speedily deposited in a be-cushioned
 
 180 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 and padded arm-chair constructed out of an empty barrel 
 in Sam Smith's spare hours. 
 
 " There ! " said the facetious host, happy to be able, 
 for the first time in his life, to extend a helping hand to 
 others ; " your kiddies corned in a tub, now you rest 
 y'rsel in one. Like old Dodgerknees they talks about," 
 he continued, " what liked the sun, and told the Gov'nor 
 when he called to get out of his daylight. Our valley 
 wants nought of any one but sunshine, what God gives, 
 and water." 
 
 "You're too good," protested Mrs. Sandbach, who 
 had not for many a month sat still and watched other 
 people bustling about. 
 
 "Duty's a pleasure, marm," remarked Smith, gallantly. 
 " We should ne'er 'a been here if the good doctor hadn't 
 a-helped us ' lame dogs over stiles,' and it's the least we 
 can do to try shove along others, now we're in the swim." 
 
 " You should hear what Parson Brown says o' that," 
 added Mrs. Smith. " You must come to-night. It'll 
 do you as much good as water on the thirsty soil." 
 
 Mrs. Sandbach thought that if that were true, the 
 village priest's discourse must indeed be refreshing. 
 
 No service had she attended, or parson seen, for 
 years ; save when one mild youth, with sickly face and 
 white tie, rode to her door and asked half a bucket for 
 his horse, and she had to refuse him, whereat he rode 
 wearily away. Occasionally there was service at Mr. 
 Fenceoffs, the squatter, but he and Mr. Sandbach "did 
 not hit it," and Sunday, if they remembered the day, was 
 a convenient one for water-carting and thistle-cutting. 
 
 On one occasion, indeed, Mr. Grogham had become 
 seized with the necessity of Divine Service being held in 
 his stable. The uncharitable did say that he had an eye 
 to nobblers many and sundry, after service and before 
 the tea-meeting. At any rate he charged the sickly
 
 HELPING LAME DOGS OVER STILES. l8l 
 
 young " Reader " more than the amount of the " collec- 
 tion," upon which, unfortunately, he had to subsist, for 
 the privilege of tossing all night on a chaff mattress in 
 which certain aggressive insects had made their abode. 
 
 Oats were given his horse. The " Reader " saw to 
 that. But he did not observe Mr. Grogham scooping 
 out the feed ere the jaded beast had well dived his 
 eager nose to the bottom. 
 
 " Poor old Moses, you should feel better now ! " said 
 the sickly " Reader " when, twenty minutes later, he dis- 
 covered the feed all gone. " You have eaten it quickly, 
 my boy. Enjoyed it better than I the ham and half- 
 hatched chicken, swimming in the fat of rancid bacon. 
 The butter was strong, Moses, suggestive of cart-grease ; 
 the tea well boiled, and bread sour ; but never mind, 
 Moses, you have done well, /get my reward hereafter." 
 
 Mr. Grogham was devoted enough to ride round to 
 urge the settlers to attend the little service that would 
 " remind them of the old country." The good man 
 wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. Mrs. Sandbach 
 consented to attend. What was her surprise when, upon 
 crossing the paddocks to the little beer-smelling shanty, 
 she beheld Mr. Grogham ploughing his field ! 
 
 " Well, you are a good 'un ! " she remonstrated " a- 
 plaguing me to come to prayers, and you working this 
 Sabbath just like any other." 
 
 Poor thing, she had rummaged up her grandmother's 
 poke-bonnet, so suggestive of "church"; her father's 
 massive Prayer-book was clasped under one arm, the 
 youngest " hopeful " dragged wearily by the other, the duly 
 " dressed " children following in straggling train behind. 
 
 She had mistaken the day ! It was only Saturday ! 
 
 Never after was she clear enough in her chronology 
 to venture to Mr. Grogham's service again. She had 
 misgivings, too, as to whether that was the way heaven-
 
 1 82 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ward ; especially when she remembered the unfortunate 
 condition in which her ordinarily sober husband returned 
 from the ploughing-match ! For Mr. Grogham was a 
 public-spirited man. Inaugurated races, too, merely " for 
 the good of the district " in his paddock. He is now 
 member of Parliament for the county, having defeated old 
 Fenceoff by twenty votes. He could have bought two 
 hundred with his nobblers had it been necessary. 
 
 Many selectors, other than Silas Sandbach, were 
 attracted by the flow of water and of the milk of human 
 kindness towards the already famed valley. Weary of 
 carting water, they secured from the doctor terms whereby 
 they could settle below the lake opposite Hygeia. 
 
 By degrees a new settlement was formed. Five 
 thousand acres were set apart for the fugitives from the 
 plains, fifty acres each. The deeds of their own land, 
 rescued by the doctor for a bagatelle from the store- 
 keepers of Gumford and Cockietown, were placed in 
 Escrow in the local bank as against advances made to 
 the new-comers for provisions, materials, &c. A figure 
 was agreed to as representing value per acre of the old 
 land and the new. 
 
 The waters were carried on to the new land. Those 
 who had failed to exist on their three hundred and twenty 
 acres worked singly, prospered upon the fifty acres each, 
 operated upon in common. 
 
 The new settlers elected their own trustees, with the 
 doctor as chairman, binding themselves by means of 
 an agreement as to discipline and mode of working. 
 Kokiana, as the new settlement came to be called, 
 benefited by the organization already existing. It was 
 charged merely the cost to the old settlement of services 
 rendered. The Mimosa Vale people derived advantages 
 proportionately. 
 
 Though the lakes had held out during the severe strain
 
 HELPING LAME DOGS OVER STILES. 183 
 
 imposed upon them by the drought, the water level had 
 been considerably reduced. Now, with the accession of 
 a hundred additional labourers, it was determined to 
 connect the Upper Lake with the Campaspe river. The 
 storage power of both lakes was further augmented by 
 raising the embankments. After the first winter rains, 
 sufficient water was stored to meet the requirements of 
 all the factories, and to maintain irrigation works for 
 thousands more settlers. The finances and titles of the 
 associated communities were kept entirely distinct. 
 Failure or complication with respect to one, need not 
 affect the position of the others. 
 
 Before many months had passed, the Kokiana folk had 
 a common-land of five hundred acres under fodder crop. 
 Upon the produce, duly siloed, of this alone, they 
 maintained one thousand milch cows all the year round, 
 about ten to each family, together with pigs and fowls, &c. 
 in proportion. The dairying operations brought them in 
 about ^25,000 per year. They had a creamery and 
 cheese-factory of their own. Stores were procured and 
 produce dispatched in bulk for all the settlements. A 
 branch store existed in each village, and a central 
 emporium in the metropolis. 
 
 The refugees at Kokiana discovered that under the 
 new system they could exist comfortably for half the 
 expense it cost them to starve on the plains. Five to ten 
 sheep fattened on one acre of irrigated lucern. Little 
 fencing was needed. Their cottages were brought on 
 skids from the scenes of desolation they had dismally 
 dotted. Speedily the men paid for their fifty acres, and in 
 many instances bought other fifty. The doctor took over 
 the outlying selections, and credited their late owners 
 with the value of them. By degrees other selectors, 
 recognizing the advantages of association and the trans- 
 forming effects of water, relinquished their distant
 
 I 84 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 holdings, and settled on the fringe of ever-increasing 
 Kokiana. 
 
 The social growth was organic now ; like the polyp, 
 ever throwing off new life from within, not to wander 
 forth in sporadic adventure, but to cleave to the ever- 
 widening fringe like the associated action of animal- 
 cules, that have thrown up England out of the abyss of 
 the Northern Ocean, and set her round with glowing 
 walls of chalk like the house-to-house, if not hand-to- 
 hand, labour of coral insects, that have dotted the glassy 
 waters of the Pacific with gem-like isles, encircled in rings 
 of coral. 
 
 The young men and maidens of Kokiana, with their 
 friends, attached here a fifty-acre block, and there another 
 to the far-spreading sea of green, until the plains beyond 
 the valley were brought under the influence of organ- 
 ized labour. Eventually extremes met, history repeated 
 itself, the tides of the new system spread over the wastes 
 left high and dry by the old. The deserted selections 
 were absorbed, and where one family had starved, five 
 flourished in peace and profusion. 
 
 Beyond Kokiana and Hygeia, towards the Silverbourne, 
 Fabricia was later established, a settlement of men of 
 various trades boot-makers, clothiers, smiths of all sorts. 
 In the centre were airy workshops ; in front, on either 
 side, a row of cottages, each set in a " garden of cucum- 
 bers " and other growths that delight the eye and palate of 
 man. Far away beyond, on either side, extended the 
 garden-orchards, vineyards, and meadows of " The Jolly 
 Smiths," as the farmers of Fabricia came to be called. 
 Four hours a day each worked at his special occupation, 
 earning enough to support his family. The remainder of 
 the day the settler was free to cultivate his plot and to 
 remember that he was no longer a machine, but a son of 
 Nature and of God a brother of his kind.
 
 i8s 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CHANGES AND CHANCES. 
 
 " And the hot sun rose, and the hot sun set, 
 And we rode all the day through a desert land, 
 And we camped where the lake and the river met, 
 On' sedge and shingle and shining sand." A. L. GORDON. 
 
 IN due course Hilda and O'Lochlan were married. The 
 magic of a woman's touch is seldom more graphically 
 illustrated than upon the advent to the bachelor's home- 
 stead of the bride from the city. So, from the moment 
 Larry lifted the wilful Hilda from her glowing chestnut 
 across the threshold of their future home, was it at 
 Bullaroo. Pipes, spurs, stockwhips disappeared from 
 place of honour in the dining-room, relegated to a cosy 
 quarter of the spruced-up barracks across the tidied yard. 
 No longer from every sofa and easy- chair dogs greeted 
 the visitor with snarl or whine. Cows were duly milked, 
 and butter was made. No longer squatter and guest 
 fared worse than " Cockie " who had a wife. Bread was 
 not always sour and meat high. Hence Larry swore less 
 oft. The Chinese cook despite his expostulations was 
 relegated to the vegetable garden across the creek. A 
 cook from town, housemaids with wondrous white caps 
 and spotless aprons, flitted about the clean kitchen and 
 renovated house. " Old Mary," the black gin, was not 
 now permitted to ogle at all hours in the parlour window,
 
 1 86 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 nor her sable spouse and mates, with pickaninnies clad in 
 seamless, some said unseemly, suit of black skin, to camp 
 in the back-yard. 
 
 " Swept and garnished " was the homestead, and Larry 
 and his visitors, clerical and otherwise, had reason to 
 thank their stars that a lady had come to Bullaroo. 
 
 "The course of true love " does not necessarily "run 
 smooth " after marriage, especially if it did not do so 
 before. 
 
 " In every life some rain must fall, 
 In every year some days must be dark and dreary." 
 
 Scarce was the garden at the front, whence cabbage 
 and melons had been removed, nicely laid-out, and the 
 tennis-lawn, where the gallows had swung, was clothed 
 with coat of velvety grass ; scarce had the Vixen filly 
 come well to her paces and she and Hilda fallen into 
 harmony, than the first little home of the " happy pair" 
 had to be broken up. 
 
 Did Larry, like many a married man, attend less to 
 business now? 
 
 However it was, the terrible drought came upon him 
 unawares. The " Cockie " he had " hammered " cut his best 
 dam, just after the last rains ; the new tank, not properly 
 puddled, leaked. Heavily stocked, he tried, when too 
 late, to lighten himself of his load. After the first draft 
 to market, he would, he declared, rather " boil all clown 
 than accept such prices." The sun did the boiling for 
 him, and the hot winds the drying of carcase and of fleece. 
 Often did the newly-married couple return with buggy 
 full of remnants, all of value that was left of the sheep 
 whose wool was silvering the plains. 
 
 Larry welcomed an opportunity, after the first rain, of 
 selling out. The "desert " of last week was a prairie of
 
 CHANGES AND CHANCES. 187 
 
 grass a foot high, when the Hon. Herbert Fitzhubert from 
 the old country, with Messrs. Hyan's and Ramman's 
 agent, came to inspect. 
 
 Despite the ominous carcases and still fleeting fleeces, 
 a fine property was Bullaroo Plains. The new chum from 
 England had capital ; the old one from Ireland had lost 
 his. It was well as it was. 
 
 The Hon. Herbert's sisters played the first game on 
 Hilda's tennis-court, and "old Mary" was again permitted 
 to flatten her nose if flatter it could be on the dining- 
 room windows ; for the Hon. Herbert was never caught 
 kissing his sisters, and it was " such a good joke " to tell 
 the folk about at home this lubra looking in at lunch- 
 time. 
 
 The very fact that the doctor was, as he termed it, 
 "hard as nails," encouraged him to draw too heavily 
 on his splendid reserves of physical and mental 
 vigour. 
 
 Happy, in some senses, they who have occasional 
 reminder that man cannot with impunity toil and think 
 sixteen hours a day, who are compelled by physical 
 admonitions to lie still awhile and taste of the bittersweet 
 of repose. 
 
 The terrible strain to which the doctor had been 
 subjected began to tell. For the first time he learnt that 
 he had a liver and a heart. The medical adviser, whom 
 his wife had by intrigue contrived that he should consult, 
 insisted upon his absence for a while from the scene of 
 his labours. A sea voyage would set him up. 
 
 Happily the advice harmonized with the indefatigable 
 pioneer's plans. 
 
 The opening of an Emporium in London was in his 
 mind, with a dozen expedients for placing products upon 
 the best and largest markets. He would observe, tooj
 
 188 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 irrigation methods in the Western States, and the progress 
 of co-operative enterprise in England. 
 
 " And you call that a holiday trip ? " exclaimed his wife, 
 aghast, ere he had half enumerated the purposes to be 
 served by his trip. 
 
 " A change of occupation, my dear," exclaimed the 
 good man, " is the best restorative. You would not have 
 me hang about the clubs and salons of London and 
 Paris ? " 
 
 Travers had taken up his abode at the bungalow that 
 he had built on the hill overlooking the lake. He was 
 not himself. The mysterious barrier that had arisen 
 between Gwyneth and himself preyed upon his mind. 
 His duties, however, he discharged with unfaltering 
 regularity. 
 
 Mrs. Courtenay and Maud could not be left alone in 
 the great White House. Some one must take the doctor's 
 place. 
 
 The O'Lochlans had come over for a few days to tell 
 of their contemplated departure from Bullaroo. 
 
 "And what are you going to do next?" asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 "Lord knows," replies Larry. "I shall keep the few 
 thousands I have left, until I see a good line. But I 
 cannot be idle long. I'll be getting into mischief if I do. 
 Run away with some other girl ! " he suggested, tickling 
 on the neck with his riding-whip his wife, who sat 
 embroidering his initials on a saddle-cloth. 
 
 " I have it," cried the doctor. " Men always come to 
 my hand as I want them. You'll stay here, look after 
 the old lady, with Maud and her curate, not to mention 
 the few thousand folk scattered down the valley and 
 across the plains." 
 
 " Not if I know it," demurred Larry* " It would be a
 
 CHANGES AND CHANCES. 189 
 
 dog's life for me. No one but you could stand it. 
 Besides I've too plaguy a temper." 
 
 " You're all right," said the doctor. " Though you must 
 not go in for ' hammering ' our boys ! You get on 
 well enough with people when you like, and for God's 
 sake, do like, old man-." And he went to the window 
 and looked across the valley, and away into the middle of 
 next month. 
 
 His wife placed a hand on his arm. 
 
 " Is not your heart outside rather than in ? " she 
 whispered, looking with a shade of sadness into his eyes. 
 
 He bent down and kissed her. 
 
 "My dear, I could not love my work as I do, if I did 
 not love my God and you the more." 
 
 The wife's eyes filled with tears ; she tried to under- 
 stand, and could not. 
 
 The sacrifices we make are easier for ourselves than 
 for those who love us. The woman, whose whole life it 
 is to spend herself for others, rebels when she sees her 
 husband expending half his energies so. 
 
 Meetings were held. Larry and Travers were appointed 
 co-managers. Head men, who had for some time virtually 
 held office, were duly appointed ; nominated by the vote 
 of the men and women, and approved by the doctor as 
 president. 
 
 The announcement of the intended departure was 
 received with regret and concern. The doctor's person- 
 ality, to a greater extent than he realized, had conduced 
 to the harmonious working of his plans. 
 
 His son-in-law was admired as a visitor. The villagers 
 opened their eyes as he " cleared " their hedges and 
 ditches, appearing and disappearing like a meteor of the 
 plains. 
 
 The doctor had his misgivings. Earnest injunctions
 
 190 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 he gave to his high-spirited son-in-law as to cultivation of 
 temper and tact. True as steel, open as the day, honest 
 as the light, he knew Larry to be. Unless unforeseen 
 difficulties arose, all should go well. 
 
 " Now, my charmer," cried the Irishman a few weeks 
 later at the door of the house he, was leaving for ever, 
 ' ; give me your dainty foot. There," as Hilda sprang, 
 not quite as lightly as heretofore, into the saddle, " dry 
 your eyes, my girl. You'll want them undimmed. 
 Chestnut's fresh, you know. If fortunes are broken, our 
 hearts are not. And I don't mean my wife's neck to be 
 either. 
 
 " Hang the gates, let's take the fences. Across the 
 country once more with the wind whistling in our ears to* 
 blow out all the nonsense." 
 
 So saying he touched the chestnut on the shoulder with 
 his whip, and " made believe " to press spurs to " Mooroo- 
 bool's " sides. Hilda caught one glance of the chickens 
 she had reared running about motherless, of Mrs. Rails, 
 the boundary rider's wife, crying, with a dirty apron to her 
 face ; and away the two sped, over the fences, across the 
 creek; she, as if flying from her destiny ; he, as if hastening 
 to meet his ; and the blood rushed again to the girl- wife's 
 white face, and the thought of past disappointment with 
 sense of impending trouble passed away as they bounded 
 in mad career across the hollow-sounding plains. The wild 
 Irishman shouted meanwhile 
 
 " Round goes the world, 
 Its troubles I defy, 
 
 Scampering along together, my boys, 
 My dear old wife and I." 
 
 "Larry, you must be steady now; we are just turning 
 into Kokiana. You seem in good spirits at leaving our 
 first home behind you."
 
 CHANGES AND CHANCES. 19 1 
 
 ' k l never look behind, no sane rider does," was the 
 reply. " I see a big fence in front, stiffer than I've cleared 
 yet. I want all the nerve and spirit I've got, and I don't 
 mean to waste any on useless repinings." 
 
 The wife understood. He was taking a smart run at 
 his big fence. 
 
 " Hilda, old girl," he continued, " I'd never forgive my- 
 self if I got this affair knotted up. I would not touch it 
 with a finger but for your sake and the old man's." 
 
 "There's a handsome pair," said Mrs. Sandbach, who 
 sat at her door darning stockings, while her husband dug 
 around some promising trees. 
 
 "Yes," said Sar' Ann, "they seems made for their 
 horses, and their horses for they, as we're made for the 
 broom, and the work for we." 
 
 " Handsome is as handsome does," remarked Mrs. 
 Smith, who was visiting her friends. " He's a fine man, 
 maybe, but ' a far cry ' from th' good doctor. There's 
 not the likes of him about in all the country-side. Good 
 luck go with him, says I ! "
 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 GREEK MEETS GREEK. 
 
 " O what a tangled web we weave, 
 When first we practise to deceive." SCOTT. 
 
 " My friend, get money ; get a large estate 
 By honest means ; but get at any rate." HORACE. 
 
 " I hate ingratitude more in a man 
 Than lying vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint 
 
 of vice." SHAKESPEAKK. 
 
 " FIFTY thousand pounds that bit of paper's worth if 
 only things take a right turn." 
 
 Elms sat at the table in his front parlour. Malduke 
 bent over him scanning two documents, evidently objects 
 of interest to both men, 
 
 " The boss will not rummage for them again, and won't 
 miss them," continued Elms. " I was in luck ; he got me 
 to help him overhaul the papers .he's got registered in 
 a book and stowed away in the safe. He was two minds 
 to make away with this bit of a Will about the first affair. 
 My heart was in my mouth. ' At any rate the land's 
 there,' he says ; ' it hasn't run away, though the people 
 have. If anything happened to me it might be worth 
 something to you, Elms.' Then he adds a codicil, and 
 sets two visitor chaps to witness it. 
 
 " ' This property I bequeath to my faithful co-worker, 
 John Elms, for his sole use and benefit.'
 
 GREEK MEETS GREEK. 193 
 
 "'The spot where we made our first modest venture,' 
 he said, ' will be of interest, and perhaps of some little 
 value to you. The scrub has got up again, I understand, 
 but the land ought to be worth two or three pounds an 
 acre. ' 
 
 " He went on," continued the Sergeant, " to read this 
 other will, settling Mimosa Vale and his other properties. 
 He's certainly dealing handsome with the men," con- 
 tinued Elms, perusing the document. " The five thou- 
 sand acres will virtually be theirs with all the improve- 
 ments. Twenty thousand pounds if a penny ! And 
 that's a low figure considering all the plant that's on the 
 place. Now let's see if this first bit of paper bears the 
 construction you think it does," continued Elms. 
 
 Both read and re-read the few lines contained in the 
 smaller document, whereby the property known as 
 " Courtenay's Village " would devolve, in event of the 
 doctor's death, to John Elms, as trustee in the interest 
 of those concerned. The codicil made the disposition 
 absolute. 
 
 This instrument had been drawn in town, before the 
 larger venture was projected. Later the men were with- 
 drawn to Mimosa Vale. Nothing had been generally 
 known of the original tentative movement. 
 
 " By Jove ! you are right, lad," exclaimed Elms, after 
 a long pause, when both were turning over in their minds 
 a host of possible contingencies. 
 
 " If this other Will was out of the way, and if anything 
 happened to the doctor, the Mimosa Vale Estate, the 
 only place men know as ' Courtenay's Village,' would be 
 mine." 
 
 " And mine," suggested Malduke, with a leer. 
 
 " Yes, and yours. You, of course, put me up to it. 
 You'd have your share."
 
 194 TI1F < NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " First and foremost then," suggested Malduke, " make 
 away with this stupid scrawl. I'll soon do it," and he 
 seized the document spread before them. 
 
 " Not so fast," replied the elder man, laying his heavy 
 hand on the crackling sheet. " He's been a good friend 
 to me. This is a noble settlement of his property." 
 The man hesitated. He looked out on to the bright, 
 luxuriant garden, and then down to the dark floor, and 
 seemed, as expressions of good and evil flitted across his 
 face, to receive suggestion from the dark and from the 
 light. 
 
 " Such a friend," growled Malduke, with vehemence, 
 " as the conscience-stricken oppressor ever is to the poor 
 who serve him. A friend remember, John Elms, who 
 spurned your daughter from his son's side." 
 
 " That's true," muttered Elms, with an oath. " If 
 they'd only let that come off, and not allowed their 
 blessed pride to break the child's heart, as her mother's 
 afore her, I'd have no need to think of this," holding up 
 the slip of paper, " to get my girl her rights. It is her 
 rights," he continued, smiting the table with energy. " I 
 have sworn she shall have the position her mother lost. 
 She's a born lady, if ever there was one." 
 
 " It seems to me," Malduke could not resist slyly 
 remarking, " that with all your levelling, old cove, you're 
 always ready specially you half-and-half chaps to 
 scramble up into the place you'd pull others down 
 from. At any rate," he continued, noting the fiery 
 Irishman's darkening face, " your daughter's been badly 
 done by; she's been scorned and shamed. You, too, 
 shoved into a corner. No real leader as you're born to be 
 a mere farm-hand ' boss.' It wasn't for this you put the 
 old man up to the business. See again," pointing con- 
 temptuously to the document, " he's not left you a thing
 
 GREEK MEETS ;OREEK. 195 
 
 in the whole blessed business. 1 call that downright 
 robbery. 
 
 " Tear it up, man," continued the agitator, observing 
 that he was working successfully upon the Irishman's 
 pride. 
 
 "Where's your principles?" he added. "Sitting 
 still and seeing a place like this handed over to a 
 lot of scrambling individuals. Who's ever got right to 
 give away the land that belongs to all ? Where's your 
 Communism here, I'd like to know ? I say it's all base 
 Individualism and bastard Socialism. 
 
 "Haven't you the right?" he continued, when the 
 other still hesitated. '.' Who, I'd like to know, hit 
 upon this idea and made this place but you ? Haven't 
 you every call to cast to the winds this one-sided scrawl 
 that's written, like all their title-deeds, with the black 
 blood of traitors and murderers, that leaves you, and 
 your daughter, John Elms, out in the cold ? " The wily 
 persuader laid his hand impressively on his victim's arm. 
 
 ' ' I have been treated scandalous, that's certain," 
 growled Elms. "But tampering with another man's 
 papers is mean." He hesitated. " Well, all's fair in 
 love and war. I suppose I'd better. At any rate here 
 goes ! " 
 
 In a moment the so carefully prepared document of 
 the man then visiting humble homes to say farewell, was 
 torn across and across. 
 
 " Here, take it and burn it, you base leader, as your 
 name implies," exclaimed the Sergeant, thrusting the 
 handful of pieces into his companion's hands. 
 
 The latter went to the kitchen, caught up an empty 
 tin that lay on the table, thrust the fragments into it, 
 pressed down the lid till the jagged sides caught together, 
 put the tin into his pocket, and, in less time than it takes
 
 196 Till-: NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 to relate, returned to Elms, who was staring at the re- 
 maining Will. 
 
 " One of them two inevitable things has happened," 
 remarked Malduke, sententionsly. " Number one, the 
 Will has disappeared. Now, as to number two, if any- 
 thing should happen to the doctor, you must see to 
 that, Elms. You're to be his guardian angel." 
 
 "What do you mean, you devil of an. anarchist?" 
 cried the elder, starting and turning a searching eye on 
 his companion. " You're a very fiend, Richard Malduke, 
 as all your cruel crew are. For all the estates in Christ- 
 endom I'll lay no hand on him." 
 
 " God may do that," replied the other, with mock 
 solemnity, feeling that he had been moving too fast. 
 " The man's done for. One foot in the grave already. 
 You are going with him to-morrow. A lot of things 
 may," he added, significantly, "happen between here 
 and the other side of the world and back." 
 
 " I'm not going to help them, at any rate," was the 
 dogged reply, as the tempted one thumped the table, 
 looking very savage and very virtuous. 
 
 " Well, consider at least these two things," said the 
 agitator, accustomed to marshal his crude thoughts 
 under artificial headings. " Think what you and I could 
 do with this here place, if it was ours the kind of real 
 living commune we could set up. And consider again, 
 what's the good of a man when his work's done ? Is it 
 not sometimes a mercy to remove him from trouble to 
 come to put him out of his misery, poor chap ? 
 What is the cause, I'd like to know, of the present de- 
 terioration of the race ? Why, the insane way in which 
 useless people are patched up, in hospitals and asylums, 
 and set adrift to sow seeds of disease throughout the 
 community. One of our planks is, away with the useless !
 
 GREEK MEETS GREEK. 197 
 
 A safe and speedy passage for them to the other world. 
 If only your maudlin Christianity, with its mawkish 
 sentiment, would not keep alive and maintain drivelling 
 idiots, paralyzed paupers, sickly consumptives, and can- 
 cerous plagues of society, this world would be a fairly safe 
 hunting-ground for a clever man. The poor wretches 
 are happier in the other world, the parsons tell them. 
 We're better in this, without them. It's for the benefit 
 of all concerned that the sick drones as well as occasion- 
 ally mischievous persons of importance should sometimes 
 be got out of the way. 
 
 " Have you not a duty to Society ? " he continued. 
 "Are you always going to live for the individual? 
 Don't be weak, John Elms. Rise to the level of the 
 principles you profess. Now, to speak plainly and 
 practically, would it not be well for all if your com- 
 panion slipped by chance though you happened to be 
 near say, out of the stern-lights of the Mimosa one 
 dark night, or tumbled beneath a locomotive as you 
 and he rushed across a line to catch a train ? A hundred 
 and one sad little accidents like that might happen 
 anywhere between the Vale and New York. Eh presto ! 
 the thing's done in a moment. He'd go to heaven, 
 and the property 'd come to you and to me." 
 
 " We'll say nothing more about that," replied Elms, 
 evidently torn by conflicting passions. " Maybe in the 
 natural course the doctor will never return." 
 
 " He must not return. He shall not," said the other, 
 with a diabolical expression on his cunning counten- 
 ance. 
 
 "Look here, old man," he continued, with an ugly 
 smile. " You're going to leave me sorrowing to-morrow. 
 Just let's have a friendly understanding. You write 
 down here what's to be my share."
 
 198 THE :N T F\Y ARCADIA. 
 
 " \Vhat do you want, disinterested mortal, Friend of 
 the People ? " 
 
 " You know. Your daughter, and a third interest in 
 the property." 
 
 After some demur, the Sergeant, who was turning 
 over in his mind what he would do with the place, the 
 palace in town he would build, &c., &c., if, by any 
 chance, the coveted possession did fall to him, signed 
 the agreement that Malduke dictated. 
 
 " A thing like that," Elms thought, " is not worth the 
 paper it's written on. In any case the man must have a 
 share, if fortune favours us." 
 
 " Now, give me your hand," said Malduke, rising, 
 after depositing the agreement beside the tin in his 
 jacket pocket. t: Swear to me that, come what may, old 
 Courtenay never returns to Mimosa Vale." 
 
 " I'll do nothing of the kind, you devil's son," doggedly 
 replied the Sergeant with an oath, as he made the table 
 creak again with a bang of his fist. "I'll not say what 
 will happen, or what I'll do," and he turned to read the 
 Will afresh, and to dream of the possibilities conceived 
 for him in the womb of time. 
 
 " By God, you shall swear though \" A hand clutched 
 his shoulder. Malduke spoke in a tone he had not 
 before adopted with his friend. " You'll not trifle with 
 me ; I have a public duty to perform, John Elms. I 
 have been trained to let no false sentiment come between 
 me and such obligations. Listen to me ! Make no 
 mistake. If Courtenay sets foot on that wharf, after to- 
 morrow, I shall be compelled, mark you," the man 
 spoke slowly, with emphasis ; drawing near he hissed in 
 Elms's ear, "to denounce you, to expose the man, his 
 trusted servant, who stole and tore up, in my presence, 
 the Will, that I can produce " tapping the tin "who,
 
 GREEK MEETS GREEK. 199 
 
 moreover, sought to bribe me with a share of the 
 spoil" again laying his hand on the document in his 
 pocket. 
 
 The Sergeant was trapped. Again, however, the 
 firebrand had flared too fast. Springing forward, up- 
 setting the table, the fiery Irishman seized his tormentor 
 by the throat. They grappled and rolled on the floor. 
 The younger man shook off his assailant and rushed into 
 the kitchen, seeking to escape by the back-door. He 
 stumbled in his haste. The Irishman sprang on his 
 victim, and seizing a knife from the table, brandished 
 it unpleasantly about the conspirator's throat. Elms was 
 only hesitating for a moment, as he had done before. 
 His animal passions, strong when aroused, were urging 
 him to desperation. 
 
 "Murder! Help!" cried the horror-stricken wretch 
 beneath. 
 
 At this juncture, fortunately perhaps for both men, the 
 door was thrown open. Old Alec, with a huge pitchfork 
 in his hand, appeared on the threshold, exclaiming 
 
 " By the Hokey Pokey ! Mr. Elms, what are you up 
 to? I thought some one was being murdered." 
 
 " Only a bit of horseplay," replied the ready Sergeant, 
 rising. " We've been having a farewell glass together, 
 haven't we, Dicky ? It's got into our heads a bit. Hope 
 you're not hurt, Duke. And how's the world treating 
 you, McDowl?" 
 
 Alec pretended to accept the explanation of the guilty 
 pair, who appeared less at ease than their feigned merri- 
 ment suggested. As the old man left, Elms was putting 
 together some papers strewn about the parlour floor, 
 while Malduke searched anxiously in another part for 
 something he had lost. 
 
 " You don't see an old tin about, do you? " asked the
 
 200 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 younger man, quietly, as if not to be heard by the 
 other. 
 
 " Be you hungry, then ? " queried Alec with surprise. 
 " Miss Elms don't keep her lobster on the parlour floor, 
 though for the matter of that, it's clean enough to eat 
 'em off." 
 
 " It's empty, man, "replied Dick; adding to himself 
 " With paper worth fifty thousand pounds." 
 
 Passing out by way of the kitchen, Alec observed on 
 the floor the very tin. He saw that it had been rudely 
 closed and contained paper. 
 
 "The rogues have been fighting for this," muttered 
 the old man, picking it up and putting it into his pocket. 
 He said to himself as he departed "I'll take care of it 
 for them. I wish to God some other man than that dog 
 Elms was a-going with the master to-morrow. The Lord 
 preserve him ! "
 
 2OI 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 THE DOCTOR'S DEPARTURE. 
 
 " Work, love, and wrestle on, 
 
 Loving God best ; 
 Then when thy work is clone. 
 Lie down and rest. " 
 
 "Through sunless cities, and the weary haunts 
 Of smoke-grimed labour, and foul revelry, 
 My flagging wing has swept." The Saint's Tragedy. 
 
 PANTING, the Mimosa lay beside the wharf. The 
 villagers, who had a half-holiday to see the doctor off, 
 were congregated on the jetty to receive a last hand- 
 shake from their benefactor. Women were crying, men 
 lamenting, and discussing "how things would go without 
 him." 
 
 " He looks bad," said one, a calculating creature. " I 
 suppose it's all right with us, if anything happens him." 
 
 " God help us then ! " replied the other, fervently. 
 
 "The property's settled, ain't it?" asked the first 
 speaker with concern. 
 
 "Property, property, property, that's what I hears 'em 
 say, rich and poor alike," replied his companion, with 
 feeling. " You heard him tell he was leavin' all to us, 
 What 'ud be the good of that," continued the good soul, 
 " if anything happened him ? I'd see no light lying
 
 202 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 across Mimosa Vale, and the missus and the children 
 'ud break their hearts." 
 
 " Tut, man, no one can live for ever, He's a good 
 sort, maybe. But he's only done his duty. What are 
 the big 'uns for, but to look a'ter we ? I don't feel under 
 no obligation to no man. I works hard, I know, for all 
 I gets." 
 
 "And when had you such a show of scooping the 
 profits, Jack Tomkins ? " replied honest Sam Smith. " It's 
 coz the likes of you has no gratitude nor manly feelin', 
 and allers thinks of your own belly and your own skin, 
 that more doen't do like the doctor. T any rate 
 most on the fellows feels that all their hearts is stowed 
 away, with the butter and cheese, in the ship what 
 carries our boss." 
 
 The children marched on deck holding up flowers 
 which they deposited on the taffrail beside the doctor. 
 In a short while the floral offerings almost touched the 
 spanker-boom. Many a little one clung to the good 
 man's knees till forcibly led away weeping by elder 
 brother or sister. Mrs. Sandbach begged the doctor to 
 " find out " her brother, who, when she saw him last, 
 twenty years before, was working for a tinker somewhere 
 off Cheapside. 
 
 " I dare say you'll see him thereabout, doctor dear," 
 she added, "and if you'd give him this bottle of herbs, 
 and say as how I growed and dried them, I'l be so much 
 obleeged to ye." The^ood creature moaned as she 
 essayed, with some risk, to " walk the plank " with apron 
 to her streaming eyes. 
 
 Another would never forget the doctor's kindness, if 
 he would, as he was passing, hunt up his father, who used 
 to tend pigs in the Isle of Skye. 
 
 Innumerable were the commissions to ''all sorts and
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DEPARTURE. 203 
 
 conditions of men," with which the doctor was en- 
 trusted. 
 
 " You've spoiled them," said his wife, clinging to his 
 arm. " They think you only live for them. Mr. Elms," 
 said Mrs. Courtenay, turning to him, " I charge you to 
 bring my husband safe back. If anything befall him, I 
 hold you responsible." 
 
 Pale and worn the man shrank from her imploring 
 gaze. He was about to speak. By some chance his 
 eyes met Malduke's, and he was silent. 
 
 " Thank you very much, I am able to look after 
 myself," was the doctor's laughing reply. " I wish I 
 could feel as easy about you and these simple children 
 all." 
 
 " Larry, my boy," laying his hand affectionately on his 
 son-in-law's arm, " you will, I know, be patient and 
 long-suffering." The strong man's voice quivered. 
 
 " Governor, if necessary, I'll give my life for them for 
 your sake," was the reply. 
 
 " Hush, Larry, do not say that," expostulated Hilda, 
 in whose breast, like that of her mother, a vague dread 
 lay. 
 
 " I'll hold the reins, bless you, with a hand of velvet," 
 continued the Irishman, reassuringly, " I won't even 
 tickle them with the spur. I'll just tool them along, 
 without their knowing it, over every bit of fence we have 
 to take together. Never fear," he continued, "we'll all 
 be in at the death." 
 
 Again the young wife's hand twitched involuntarily on 
 that of her husband. 
 
 '< Tell my landlady in Loundes Street," called out Tom 
 Lord, "that I'll be back to pay her my little bill. And, if 
 you're passing, old man, pop in at Hill's, Bond Street, and 
 inform him that my last coat pinches abominably under 
 
 o
 
 204 TIIE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 the arms. And, I say, old fellow, don't be hob-nobbing 
 all your holiday with Tom Burns and Ben Tillett, or 
 stumping it beside the fountain in Trafalgar Square." 
 
 The bell rang for the decks to be cleared. Father 
 and son stood hand-in-hand, while a dozen final directions 
 were given. 
 
 " Do not break your heart, my boy, over that girl," 
 said the elder. " If it is to be, it will be, and with my 
 blessing. But duty first. I look to you and Larry, you 
 know." 
 
 " We'll not fail you, sir," was the young man's reply, 
 as putting his arm in Maud's he hasted off the vessel. 
 Already a severe conflict was raging in Travers' breast 
 between love and duty. He dared not, he felt, give 
 assurance that action might belie. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Elms," said Maud, shaking the 
 Sergeant's hand. "Take care of father. I know he's 
 safe with you. I will look after Gwyneth. Come along, 
 child," and not thinking of the awkwardness of the 
 situation for her brother, on whose arm she leant, the 
 girl slipped her disengaged hand into Gwyneth's and 
 drew her weeping towards the ship's side. 
 
 " I'll do my best, miss," replied the Sergeant. 
 
 " Yes ! Your best, or never show face here again," 
 hissed Malduke into his ear, as he leant forward from 
 the gangway. 
 
 The cheers, the sobs had died away. The waving of 
 a thousand hats and handkerchiefs was merging into one 
 bright flutter on the receding shore. The doctor sat on 
 the taffrail beside the mountain of flowers, symbols of 
 numberless silent prayers. 
 
 The streak of golden wattle, threading through the 
 vale, became engulfed in the ocean of green. Far up 
 the valley the factories seemed, in the dazzling mirage,
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DEPARTURE. 205 
 
 as ships riding on a sea of emerald. On either side the 
 vine-clad hills ascended to pine-dotted ranges amongst 
 which white-fleeced sheep were moving. The smoke 
 hanging in the clear atmosphere above lines of cottages 
 told of good meals preparing, with which the housewife 
 would cheer those regretting their loss. 
 
 On the vessel speeded, past Hygeia, where conva- 
 lescents waved the spade with which they were playing ; 
 past Kokiana and Fabricia, where hundreds turned out 
 to rend the air with acclamations. All the while, he 
 who had clad the waste with gardens and peopled the 
 lonely plain with rejoicing sons of labour, took up, now 
 one, then another of the flowers he had made to grow 
 in the wilderness, and cast them into the water, until 
 from the quay, across the unrippled bosom of the lake, 
 through the narrow winding of the canal, out on to the 
 broad waters of the Silverbourne, extended a sinuous 
 line of floating flowers, about which the birds dipped and 
 fishes leaped, connecting the lonely man at the taffrail 
 with the scenes of homely industry he was leaving behind. 
 
 When would his good ship plough that floral path 
 again ? Flowers would it be, or tangling weeds of sorrow 
 and care that, returning, the boat would cast from her 
 bow ?
 
 206 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS. 
 
 " Two paths lead upward from below, 
 
 And angels wait above, 
 Who count each burning life-drop's flow, 
 
 Each falling tear of love. 
 While Valour's haughty champions wait 
 
 Till all their scars are shown, 
 Love walks unchallenged through the gate, 
 
 To sit beside the Throne ! " O. W. HOLMES. 
 
 "The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun ; 
 And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on." 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 TOM LORD had taken up "a twenty acre block" beside 
 the lake, and was "graduating," so he termed it, "as a 
 co-operative ' Cockie.' " 
 
 He had purchased " a Snowden blood warranted " 
 quiet in saddle and harness. Since his memorable 
 victory at the village races, Tom disported himself in 
 most correct " bush " garb. A pair of immaculate 
 riding-pants and top-boots, Crimean shirt with fiery- 
 coloured " cummerbund," neck-scarf to match, had been 
 procured from town. The hugest of cabbage-tree hat?, 
 swathed in pugaree, completed the little Englishman's 
 outfit. Nay, we must not omit the long spurs, whose 
 frequent collision with each opposing foot had left scars 
 on either shining toe.
 
 BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS. 2O/ 
 
 By the village artist Mr. Lord had been photographed 
 astride his " Snowden," mounting and dismounting. The 
 instantaneous representations of the tyro cracking his 
 stock-whip were not quite successful. Rejected by the 
 ardent knight, the artist retained copies which attracted 
 attention after Mr. Lord's departure for " a peep at the 
 old country." 
 
 The tell-tale camera depicted hat sent spinning far 
 afield by the unaccommodating whip ; which had, as Tom 
 remarked, a remarkable affinity for his head, round 
 which it coiled with boa-like affection. 
 
 Old " Snowden " was less patient, when the snake-like 
 thong wound about the creature's ears, or inserted itself 
 beneath his tail. He resented the indignity in a fashion 
 that caused the Englishman anxiety as to " the tenure of 
 his seat." 
 
 The gentleman-rider, as he liked to be styled, would, 
 in true bush fashion, look after his own stable. True, his 
 long-suffering steed raised objection to his currying its 
 slender legs. The combing of its tail, when the flies 
 were playful, caused anxious moments. Tom, never- 
 theless, had reason to be proud of the animal's glossy 
 coat. Its food he administered in strict accordance with 
 directions contained in a library of yellow-back works he 
 collected on " The Horse," " The Pig," " The Cow," " My 
 farm and four acres," with other such bucolic manuals. 
 
 Alas ! an evil day arrived. " Snowden " ate without 
 a relish. Had he been licking salt too much ? That 
 must be removed. 
 
 The hay might be sour, the oats musty ; Tom would 
 complain at the granary. 
 
 Yet another day and " Snowden " refused food entirely, 
 actually lay down in his stall, the picture of misery, and, 
 later, seemed to be considering the advisability of de-
 
 208 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 parting this weary life altogether. His master was in 
 despair. 
 
 Hastily the local vet, old settler Snooks, was sum- 
 moned. Travers attended too, out of sympathy. Snooks 
 suggested bleeding, and terrified Tom by thrusting his 
 arm half-a-yard down the patient creature's throat to 
 administer a ball. 
 
 " I was relieved," explained Tom afterwards, " when I 
 saw his hand reappear." 
 
 The next day the sad animal was worse. Some cruel 
 wretch actually advised " another ball " oflead\ti\<-> time, 
 to " put him out of his misery." The hay, the oats, the 
 green stuff, the bedding had all been duly examined. 
 None could surmise the cause of the mysterious indis- 
 position. 
 
 "What water do you give him ? Let's have a look at 
 that," said the leech in despair. 
 
 " Water ! By Jove, I never tJwught of that ! " ex- 
 claimed the amateur hostler. " Slowed if I gave him 
 any ! " speeding frantically for a bucket. " Poor brute, 
 he's been nearly a week without a drop to drink ! You 
 see there's so much to think about in a stable." 
 
 " Slowly does it," counselled Mr. Snooks. " Another 
 bucket in an hour, and he'll be all right." 
 
 "If you're thinking of riding across the continent, 
 Tom," remarked Travers, " he'll be in fine form now. As 
 good as a camel to bear you over the waterless desert." 
 
 The little man's troubles were not yet ended. The 
 next afternoon Gwyneth met him, disconsolate, descend- 
 ing the hill towards the settlement. He was leading 
 the unfortunate "Snowden," about whom harness was 
 loosely hanging. The remains of a shaft balanced in 
 the belly-band. At every other step the creature trod 
 upon its breeching and trappings.
 
 BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS. 209 
 
 "What has happened, Mr. Lord?" exclaimed Gwyn- 
 cth, smiling despite her sad thoughts. 
 
 " What has not happened ? " was the reply. " I never 
 imagined before how stupid are the ways of horses. 
 You must know I started off this morning in my buggy 
 to see Mr. Bloakes the banker at Gumford. I ' hung 
 up,' as they call it, my horse and trap to the post set for 
 the purpose in front of the stuccoed building. It was 
 literally a ' hang up.' I came out in a few moments to 
 find my Rosinante actually strangling, tied up in the 
 most awful way. The more it backed, the more it 
 somehow pulled itself together, till down it fell, its head 
 tied round its neck. Even now I don't know how it all 
 happened. There's something very wrong about the 
 ways of harness that acts like that." 
 
 " You left the reins /// the rings on the saddle," sug- 
 gested Gwyneth, laughing, " and then tied him up by 
 them." 
 
 " Yes, I looked to see all was right." 
 
 Gwyneth explained, as best she could, that the 
 Australian way, whatever gentlemen practised in England, 
 was to draw the reins out of the rings under such cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " Oh, I see now," replied Tom ; " why can't they give 
 a fellow all these wrinkles, and not leave him to find 
 them out by bitter experience ? 
 
 "It's the way of the world," he continued, solemnly 
 shaking his head. " No doubt it would take a long time 
 to tell a man all he needs to know before he graduates 
 as a bushman. Cambridge and ' the Little-go ' are 
 nothing to this 'big-go' in Australia. 
 
 " Well, that wasn't all," the rusticated undergraduate 
 continued. " Some grinning urchins and a blacksmith, 
 who, / know, was laughing in his greasy, upturned sleeve
 
 2IO THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 all the while, extricated my lashed-up steed. The fat baker 
 was cruelly seated on poor ' Snowden's ' head through- 
 out the unravelling process. Now that I am sure was 
 unnecessary. I had had enough of the dusty streets and 
 smirched faces of Gumford for that day. I drove slowly 
 homewards, a sadder but a wiser man, 
 
 "Across the bridge, you remember, is a rare patch of 
 grass. ' My poor old sat-upon beast, in more senses than 
 one,' I exclaimed, 'you shall browse the luscious herb 
 awhile.' I was afraid to take the brute out of his terrible 
 trappings, lest I might be unable to incarcerate him again. 
 You know I never can remember the number of holes in 
 the ' belly-band ' and ' turns ' of the breeching round the 
 shaft ; not to mention sundry needful adjustments of 
 traces and reins. So I thought he should feed as he 
 was, while I enjoyed the more fragrant weed and cogi- 
 tated upon ' what may happen to an Englishman in 
 Australia.' 
 
 " How could he, I thought, see to eat and avoid the 
 wretched thistles with those horrid, hot winkers on ? In 
 tender regard for my long-suffering nag I managed, by 
 dint of standing on tip-toe (he would stick his ears in 
 the clouds, of course), to drag off, somehow, the head 
 gear. 
 
 " I hardly know what happened next," continued 
 Tom, wiping the perspiration from his face. " As one 
 possessed, hurling me into a bed of thistles, the creature 
 dashed off. Trap and horse went bounding and crashing 
 over logs, through bushes, till, smash ! they were caught 
 in a thicket. I limped after them. At sight of me the 
 creature started again. By furious kickings, of which I 
 could not have thought my placid steed capable, he had 
 extricated himself from my precious 'Abbott.' I caught 
 bhe beast at length, and here I am," concluded the
 
 BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS. 211 
 
 unfortunate Jehu, looking demurely upon his wrecked 
 harness and dusty steed. 
 
 Gwyneth comforted the little man as best she could, 
 and, inserting the straggling straps into buckles and 
 rings, essayed to proceed on her way. 
 
 " Miss Elms," said Tom, placing his hand on the girl's 
 arm. Her face had resumed the expression of settled 
 melancholy that imparted to her clear-cut features a 
 solemn beauty of their own. 
 
 " I have long wanted to impart some information to 
 you," he began. " I can tell you something of your 
 sorry young lover." 
 
 The girl started, imagining that he spoke of Travers. 
 Malduke was in his mind, as he continued 
 
 " He's not worthy of you. I can tell you of a little 
 intrigue I witnessed at lieatherside." 
 
 The mention of Eva's home roused the girl. 
 
 " Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Lord," Gwyneth 
 replied, "but really I do not care to discuss the matter." 
 
 "Do please sit for a moment on this bench," he 
 replied. " I dare not hang up ' Snowden ' again, but I 
 can hold the reins. Let me tell you what I know." 
 
 Ah, why did she not stay and hear ? A few words as 
 to Malduke's movements would have cleared up every- 
 thing. Days and nights of anguish would have been 
 spared the lonely girl had she only listened to the little 
 man's story. How often do the Fates, our own im- 
 patience, or readiness to believe the worst, cause us to 
 miss the chance, when it comes, -of forgiving and being 
 forgiven ! 
 
 "I must tell you," continued Tom, intent upon con- 
 veying his information, "I saw him in Eva's room, 
 cutting out a beautiful representation of yourself from a 
 silver case."
 
 212 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 The girl would not hear more. 
 
 " Mr. Lord," she replied, with trepidation, " T know all 
 about the wretched affair ; please say no more." 
 
 Hurrying away, she left the little man scraping absently 
 at his sorry steed's sides. 
 
 " There is some mystery here. I wonder where Travers 
 comes in?" he muttered to himself as he turned toward 
 his " homestead " as he called his primitive habitation. 
 " Confound it, if Travers were not in love with the girl," 
 he said to himself, "I should fall head over ears myself. 
 She looks 'so sweet,' as the girls say. But, hang it all, 
 it's- enough to drive a horse about, without seeking to 
 chevy a wife. No, I'm game with cattle, and am getting 
 on, but I'll not just yet undertake any further ' breakings 
 in.'" 
 
 Gwyneth moved on, sad and desperate. She was 
 absolutely alone in the world. Malduke had been 
 tormenting her again,. and hinting at the place being his, 
 her father's, and hers, shortly. Some plot was brewing. 
 Travers was not himself. A love-sick man has a short 
 temper. The men were finding that out. O'Lochlan, 
 with best intentions, was not succeeding. The men 
 were unsettled since their day-star had disappeared. 
 
 Gwyneth seriously contemplated flight. In the city 
 she could forget her troubles, and not ever be meeting 
 the man she loved, who loved her not, and the man she 
 hated, who loved her still. 
 
 She proceeded to the gooseberry field, where, with 
 other maidens, her task was to pick the ripening fruit. 
 Doggedly she settled herself to the "sad, mechanic 
 exercise, like dull narcotics, numbing pain." Eva, 
 passing by, happened to see her. In her impulsive, 
 gleeful way, the child of the forest hurried forward, 
 exclaiming
 
 BROKEN TRAPS AND BREAKING HEARTS. 213 
 
 " Gwyneth dear, you do look so charming ! My dear," 
 she continued, taking the elder girl's hand, " I must tell 
 you. I have such news. I am so happy. I dare not 
 inform any but you. Travers Courtenay," she added 
 Gwyneth's clear brow darkened ; all the world seemed 
 conspiring to sound her ungracious lover's name in her 
 ear " has proposed virtually," continued Eva. " I 
 think his way so much nicer than fine sentences lovers 
 string together in novels. He's given me a beautiful 
 silver case with -what do you think ? my own likeness 
 and his side by side. He sent a message by my maid 
 that he had taken the liberty of putting a keepsake on 
 my shelf, and there I found it." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Malduke had given the message 
 to the servant-girl, Ann, with whom he had ingratiated 
 himself. Travers had, indeed, in an absent mood, 
 plucked some flowers, as he strolled in the Heatherside 
 garden, and, not knowing why, told Ann to give them to 
 her mistress, with his compliments. Meeting the young 
 man the next morning, Eva, in her simple way, had said, 
 with the silver case in her mind, that she felt she ought 
 not to keep his beautiful gift. He, thinking of the 
 bouquet, begged her to accept his present as a souvenir 
 of their pleasant drive. " I hope we may have a longer 
 one together some day." The girl pondered the passing 
 words. Her youthful imagination associated varied 
 sentiments with the beautiful present so strangely con- 
 ferred. She recalled the words with which Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes' "Autocrat" proposed to the "little school- 
 mistress." "Shall we take the long walk together?" 
 This other "longer drive," what could it mean but 
 life's pleasant wandering through Elysian Fields in 
 company ? 
 
 As to Travers, the girl's artless joy touched him."
 
 214 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Unconsciously it revealed to him the fact that he, whose 
 few flowers, as he thought, had caused her such delight, 
 was object of much interest to her. Love begets love. 
 Travers, with pain and mortification, experienced the 
 fact, in slight degree. Gwyneth was first and all to him 
 in the universe ever in his thoughts but somehow, 
 as he moved moodily about his lonely lodge on the hill- 
 side, the face of the bonny, brown-eyed maiden of 
 Heatherside would obtrude itself unsummoned upon his 
 imagination. 
 
 Gwyneth, as she returned at the close of the afternoon 
 to her desolate home, said to herself 
 
 " I need know no more. He discarded me for her 
 There can be no mistake now." 
 
 Her father had arranged that Alec and his wife should 
 live with his daughter and care for her. Throughout a 
 sleepless night the heartbroken girl formed her plans. 
 
 Fortunately Mrs. McDowl was away, nursing a settler's 
 wife. Alec's duties involved his absence. When the 
 good couple returned at nightfall, they found on the 
 parlour table a note from their ward stating that, feeling 
 life in the old home intolerable without her father, she 
 had resolved upon leaving for a while. Would they care 
 for her domestic charges, and excuse her hurried depar- 
 ture ? This episode, associated as it was with Travers' 
 treatment of the village belle, did not improve the dis- 
 cipline of the settlement. The girl could not be traced 
 beyond Gumford, where she had taken train for Mel- 
 bourne. Travers, anxious for the fate that might befall 
 the friendless maiden in the great city, after struggling 
 long with the sense of duty that would keep him at his 
 post, finally left the settlement to discover, if it were 
 possible, traces of his lost love in the mazes of the 
 metropolis.
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 
 
 " O well for him who has a friend, 
 Or makes a friend where'er he comes, 
 And loves the world from end to end, 
 And wanders on from home to home." 
 
 TENNYSON, The Wanderer. 
 
 " Open, candid, and generous, his heart was the constant companion 
 of his hand, and his tongue the artless index of his mind." 
 
 CANNING. 
 
 THE doctor stepped ashore at Plymouth a restored man. 
 He spoke that same night to an immense audience 
 assembled in the matchless Guildhall, from whose pictured 
 windows the early settlers of England looked down. 
 
 Speeding by train through hedge-bound fields, beneath 
 ancestral oaks and elms, across the garden of England 
 the fairy-land of Devon winding beside gleaming sands, 
 beneath beetling cliffs, he paused at length as in a dream 
 the joy of which only the exile knows at his native 
 vale of Dawlish. 
 
 A lump was in the wanderer's throat, as, perfect 
 stranger, he mounted the sloping hill to right, and gazed 
 on the well-remembered lineaments of the vale that pours 
 its beauties on to the rock-sentinelled sands. He crossed 
 the valley and ascended the embowered hill opposite, 
 moving solemnly, as over the graves of ancestors and
 
 2l6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 relics of early youth, to the. old church amongst the 
 trees, out by the lych-gate to the rectory, reposing, as 
 when first he awoke to consciousness of being, beneath 
 the giant trees in that fairy hollow. 
 
 He dare not move forward. His heart was too full 
 for speech with strangers, where parents' voices, long 
 since hushed, had so lovingly sounded. There hour 
 after hour he sat, envying the passing farmer and rustic 
 children, who, seeming not to realize that they dwelt in 
 a paradise upon earth, eyed him curiously. 
 
 When the warm beams of the July sun were beating 
 life into the^ decaying walls of old Exeter, he passed, one 
 Sunday morning, up the well-remembered winding hill 
 from the station to the Close in which stood the ancient 
 Norman pile. Under its time-scarred portal, from whose 
 countless niches the sculptured figures had departed 
 as had the faces he once knew from the streets alone 
 in the venerable nave he knelt as in another world. On 
 more than one great tablet of brass he read the names 
 of school-boy chums, fallen in battle, or distinguished in 
 State. 
 
 Slowly he moved in London, lost in its crowds ; out to 
 the docks, where college-mates, who had promised to 
 impress the age, spent their lives in a desert of vice and 
 crime that gathers around the great store-houses of the 
 world. 
 
 Into the Black Country, seeking vanished faces, he 
 wandered, where strong men stalked the street craving 
 work that, half the year, never came. Thinking of 
 scenes afar, of thousands of unpeopled miles in his 
 adopted country, wasting for lack of people to till it, his 
 heart sank within him. Gaunt-looking men, vouched 
 for by clergy and employers, followed him, as he moved 
 from thronged halls in which he had been telling of the
 
 r.ETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 217 
 
 resources of the lands across the sea. Eager trembling 
 voices begged 
 
 " Oh, sir, for God's sake help us ! Take us to where 
 is hope and work." 
 
 These faces haunted him. Long he conferred with 
 early friends, now in authority, but ever with the same 
 result. 
 
 England would keep her battalions of abjects, that she 
 might have a ragged army from which to select her 
 underpaid hirelings. 
 
 " If you take the best, we must pay higher wages to 
 the worst," they argued. 
 
 So, for the sake of gain, masters clung to their 
 shivering, starving slaves, and cried 
 
 "After us the Deluge. Though the great arising 
 come, please God it be not in our time." Meanwhile 
 they held to cheap labour and abundance to choose 
 from, in the course of the infernal barter of flesh and 
 blood for wage. 
 
 From Victoria Street, Westminster, came the echo of 
 an equally coward cry across the sea " If these men 
 come to the Island Continent that a handful hold, then 
 our monopoly fails, our wages fall." 
 
 So between the grasping ones who would keep and 
 the greedy ones who would not have, our doctor beat 
 his wings against the iron bars of a hideous custom in 
 which he found himself enclosed. None dared help him 
 open up a highway between the landless people and the 
 unpeopled lands of a world-embracing empire of lust and 
 greed. 
 
 "One day," he remarked to some, whose appeals rang 
 long in his ears as he afterwards moved in bright, distant 
 scenes, " one day I may return, and thousands of you, 
 carefully gathered, shall be borne away, in fleets bringing
 
 2l8 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 cheapened food, to rich unpeopled lands of yours across 
 the sea." 
 
 In Europe and America plans were matured for 
 disposal of produce, plant was procured, agents appointed, 
 methods observed, and again the good ship turned her 
 prow from American ports towards the lands across the 
 Pacific, where the long roll of southern seas beat out their 
 music on illimitable Austral shores. 
 
 The demon that accompanied Elms urged him more 
 strenuously as the Mimosa glided each day two hundred 
 miles nearer home. Would nothing happen ? 
 
 Of the flight of his daughter from home, Malduke had 
 given an account calculated to arouse resentment against 
 the Courtenays and so against the doctor. Again and 
 again, at a critical moment, the demon of passion and 
 greed prompted him to stretch out a hand that would 
 have consigned his master to eternity. A special Provi- 
 dence seemed to hedge him round. 
 
 While the good doctor was engaged reviewing business 
 transactions, the Sergeant, to drown his care, betook 
 himself to drink. Not until Elms was on the verge of 
 delirium did Dr. Courtenay observe his condition. 
 
 One evening, when between fever and drink the 
 Sergeant was wandering in mind, the doctor was surprised 
 to find him, half-dressed in his cabin, poring over a docu- 
 ment taken from his trunk. Standing unperceived at 
 the door, the doctor heard him muttering : " If anything 
 happens him the place is mine. Only I must destroy 
 this Will, as we did that other. Dick Malduke's not 
 here, the devil that he is, to clap it into a tin and hold 
 it as a witness against me. There it goes," cried the 
 lunatic, as, crushing the document, he flung it almost ~at 
 the doctor's feet. 
 
 Something in the texture and colour of the paper
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 219 
 
 caused Dr. Courtenay to pick up the paper hurriedly. 
 What was his surprise to discover one of the testamentary 
 forms that he had left, as he thought, in his safe at 
 Mimosa Vale! Meanwhile the Sergeant had rolled 
 himself muttering into his bunk. 
 
 When the fever had abated and the stores of intoxi- 
 cants that were discovered had been removed, the man 
 rapidly recovered. The doctor, much perplexed by 
 what he had heard, spoke to the Sergeant on the subject. 
 His reply was evasive. 
 
 " That settles it," declared Elms with an oath. God 
 knows what I may not have said, how much he knows. 
 He's such a cool customer you never can tell what in- 
 formation he possesses. Now at any rate he shall not 
 return." 
 
 The excessive heat that had contributed to unsettle 
 the Sergeant's mind, culminated in a 'thunderstorm and 
 hurricane that, as in an instant, whipped the placid ocean 
 into fury. The one possible course was to run before 
 the wind. The -tight little craft was, virtually, battened 
 down, mountains of waters hurled themselves after her, 
 as if seeking to overtake and overwhelm the scudding 
 bark. Now and then a mighty wave would break on the 
 quarter, causing the vessel to tremble like an affrighted 
 steed, sweeping the deck fore and aft. The engine fires 
 were extinguished, only the remnants of foresail and 
 mainsail sufficed to keep her on her course. The howl- 
 ing of the winds and thud of the waves were broken only, 
 all through a dreadful night, by the hoarse cries of the 
 captain on the bridge, giving directions, or by the crash 
 of rigging falling about the deluged deck. 
 
 Elms, not yet fully recovered from his fever, tormented 
 by a guilty conscience, cowered in his bunk in an agony 
 ,of fear.
 
 220 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried, " save me from this death, and 
 I will yet be an honest man." 
 
 The doctor, as the lurching of the ship and shifting of 
 movable fittings permitted, proceeded calmly with the 
 calculations with which he had proposed to pass the 
 spare hours of the voyage. 
 
 His mind, however, would wander onward to scenes 
 he had hoped he was nearing. Again he stood on the 
 quay, felt the pressure of loving hands, those from whom 
 he seemed so long to have been parted. Above the 
 tumult of the elements he almost seemed to hear his 
 daughter's voice singing, as so often before, ' Rocked in 
 the cradle of the deep.' He hummed the familiar tune 
 to the accompaniment of his hand on the empty saloon 
 table. A smile settled on his countenance. "Soon," 
 he mused, " we shall be there, if it is to be ; if not, all 
 is well." 
 
 He was awakened from his reverie, not an unpleasant 
 one, by the shouting of officers, scrambling of slippery 
 feet upon the treacherous deck, and, above all, by the 
 cry ringing from end to end of the bounding vessel, 
 " Breakers ahead." 
 
 "Ah," he murmured, "the end of the voyage may be 
 near. It will have to come some day. I can do no 
 good on deck." He looked at his watch. " Five o'clock ; 
 thank God we have daylight," he said. 
 
 " Make ready the boats," was shouted down the com- 
 panion way. A wave of spent water followed and swept 
 along the floor of the saloon. In a moment all hands 
 were on deck. The dark outline of a cliff was looming 
 out of the morning haze. To right and left, a mile or 
 so away, the waves were hurling themselves scores of 
 feet high, against two low headlands. These were the 
 extremities of a small island towards which the vessel
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 221 
 
 was running. The captain was evidently seeking to 
 round the nearer of these points that lay to the starboard. 
 
 The dullest landsman's eye could recognize that there 
 was but small chance of passing that cruel cliff. 
 
 Within an encircling ridge of rock lay comparatively 
 calm water and a shelving beach. Hurled on that outer 
 wall of coral, however, no man could hope for escape 
 to the palm-clad slopes that seemed, tantalizingly, to offer 
 an arbour of repose, " so near and yet so far." The 
 doctor secured himself, as directed, upon the bridge 
 beside the captain. 
 
 After a while it was evident that the agile craft, 
 answering splendidly as she was to the helm, though 
 almost broadside to the tempest, could never round the 
 bluff or escape to the open sea. 
 
 "Let her run," shouted the captain, seeming to think 
 that, dashed high on the outer rocks, some might be 
 hurled over the bar into the calm beyond. As the 
 doomed vessel flew, as if relieved to have the strain 
 withdrawn and the matter settled, towards the cruel 
 rocks, the breakers that were dashing scores of feet high 
 above the bar revealed how slender was the hope of one 
 man escaping to tell the tale of the last of the Mimosa, 
 The line of breakers, stretching two miles in each 
 direction, dead ahead, seemed but a hundred yards off. 
 For one second the captain grasped the doctor's hand as 
 he passed, with eyes still staring into the yeasty Maelstrom 
 before them. 
 
 " We've done our best, doctor. This is the end 
 of it." 
 
 " No good ends," replied the other calmly. 
 
 The next second the captain started, as if struck. 
 " Hard aport ! " he suddenly shouted. That moment a 
 narrow opening through the bar, seemingly no broader
 
 222 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 than the vessel's width, presented itself. To the last, 
 like British seamen, all had stood at their posts. Round 
 whirled the wheel, about sprang the ship as though 
 understanding what was being done. The hungry waves 
 to the starboard dashed themselves on the rocks that the 
 mainyard almost touched as it passed. A huge wave 
 lifted the fragile Mimosa on its breast, and just in the 
 nick of time, turning the vessel, as with unseen hands, 
 fairly hurled her through the narrow opening. 
 
 A cheer, such as Englishmen alone can raise, even 
 when death stares them in the face, rang out above 
 the Titanic thudding of the breakers claiming their prey. 
 The little vessel glided across calm waters within the bar. 
 
 " If the lagoon runs round clear to the lee, we need 
 not even beach her," the captain exclaimed. In a few 
 moments, as it seemed, the inner point was rounded, and, 
 sheltered by the island-rock, in perfect calm the gear- 
 strewn vessel'lay. 
 
 Those who have battled a week on the Indian Ocean 
 against the stiffest monsoon, spray painting white with salt 
 the topmost ring of the leviathan's rolling funnel, to 
 glide in an instant into still waters beneath the welcome 
 cliffs of Socotra ; those who, after three months' voyage, 
 having been hurled at last, by the storm with which 
 Australian shores often welcome the wanderer, within the 
 overlapping, precipice-gates of Sydney harbour, to find 
 its bosom without a ripple, the flowers in the gardens of 
 Watson's Bay scarce bending to the breeze ; those who 
 have looked sudden death in the face, in a moment 
 surveying all the voyage of life and conjuring up last 
 fleeting pictures of blanched, praying ones at home 
 only they can estimate the feelings with which the small 
 crew of the Mimosa dropped anchor in the calm lagoon, 
 and lowered boats to reconnoitre the garden-isle that had
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 223 
 
 threatened, so nearly, to mark the scene of their watery 
 graves. 
 
 We may not stay to tell of pleasant rambles about the 
 azalea groves and live-oak clumps of Walpole Island. 
 It was quite uninhabited, being, as the captain explained, 
 outside the beaten tracks of commerce, that follow one 
 marked highway as closely as if buoys floated at every 
 knot. It was removed, too, from the Polynesian groups, 
 he showed, and was too small to maintain a population 
 of its own. 
 
 " Woe betide," continued the skipper, " the trader 
 marooned or sailor cast away on this lonely isle ! A year 
 he might wait the passing of some craft, swept, like our- 
 selves, out of its course. A canoe driven to sea from the 
 distant islands might land here for water and cocoa- 
 nuts ; but the visitors would, most likely, gobble up the 
 marooner, if he were not too utterly starved to be tooth- 
 some." 
 
 These remarks impressed the benevolent doctor. Ere 
 they weighed anchor, after a few pleasant days' repose, 
 a supply of stores was landed and stowed away in a 
 cave that was duly walled up. Directions were inscribed 
 on a board beside the beach. 
 
 When a last visit was made to the island by the doctor, 
 accompanied by Elms, together with the first mate and 
 apprentice, Doctor Courtenay further supplemented the 
 provision made for any possible castaway by flinging into 
 the cave a tomahawk, a few rough tools, a gun and 
 ammunition, fishing-lines, and also a copy of Shakespeare 
 and of the Bible. "The poor fellow would die," he 
 remarked, " even if he had plenty to eat, with nothing to 
 read. I am sure /should." 
 
 The party, having a few hours to spare, ascended the 
 one cliff to which the backbone-like central ridge
 
 224 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ascends, until, attaining an altitude of some hundred 
 feet, it falls precipitously into the ocean. 
 
 The view was pleasing a sweep of ocean on all sides, 
 save for the little garden-isle of palms fenced in by a 
 low wall of coral and foam. 
 
 The mate and the apprentice, his nephew, lay on the 
 summit and smoked and dozed. Seeking, as he said, to 
 photograph the scene on his mind, the doctor sat on the 
 edge of the bluff. The opportunity he seized of conversing 
 with Elms concerning his possession of the slip of paper 
 supposed to be deposited in the safe. 
 
 As they conversed, almost angrily at times, the tempta- 
 tion came again and again upon the perplexed Sergeant 
 to hurl the doctor from the cliff. His legs dangled 
 over the edge. Once Elms started to his Yeet. One 
 push from behind would effect his purpose ! A bush hid 
 them from the eyes of the mate. Elms gasped. He 
 beat his breast as he stood behind his victim, fighting a 
 terrible battle. The doctor, observing his excitement, 
 which he attributed to his remarks, thought to leave the 
 man a few moments to recover his composure. Perhaps 
 he had pressed him unduly. 
 
 " Elms, lend me your hand ; there's a good fellow. 
 Here, take the end of my stick," he said, stepping down 
 the face of the cliff to gather a rare rock-plant that had 
 caught his eye. 
 
 " Hold firm, my man," he continued, as he stooped 
 carefully on a slight track below which the precipice 
 seemed to fall away, perpendicular, to the sea. 
 
 " Don't be frightened," cried he, as he felt the stick he 
 grasped tremble in his hand. " I always had a cool 
 head for this kind of work. Have often crept along 
 wilder cliffs than this in dear old Devon."
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL ANT) DEEP SEA. 22$ 
 
 " Come back, sir ; for God's sake, come," suddenly 
 cried the Sergeant. Somewhat startled, the doctor, 
 raising his eyes carefully, beheld an ashen face peering 
 over the cliffs upon him. The wretch was fighting the 
 devil he had played with so long. Two men looked 
 down on the doomed doctor Elms as God created 
 him, and Elms as the devil was making him. His mind 
 was in a whirl. Here was his opportunity. The deed 
 so long contemplated might be must be done. The 
 arm of the better man, however, his very physical nature, 
 refused to perform the treacherous act to which the devil- 
 mind of the man prompted. 
 
 In the almost lunatic eyes of the wrestler the doctor 
 read his own terrible peril. He must, however, retrace 
 his steps, though few, with care.' One sudden move- 
 ment, and he was lost. Still he was cool. Fixing his 
 eyes on the craven, on whose trembling hand his life 
 hung, he steadied him with the sjaell of his powerful 
 gaze. One step, now another, he felt his way back. 
 
 At the last critical point, when to round a boulder he 
 must needs hang heavily on his friend for support, a 
 wild, diabolical expression sprang into the face of the man 
 he watched. 
 
 At times, so strained are man's nerves that they per- 
 ceive, as by a flash of intuition, whaJ: no ordinary sense 
 could reveal. Courtenay saw that he was doomed. 
 His hour was come. With a hiss of hate or of madness, 
 the wretch above, at the critical moment, deliberately 
 released his hold on the cane on which hung the life of his 
 benefactor. For one second the miserable man balanced 
 himself, seeking to cling with one hand to the cliff, 
 stretching out the stick with the other towards his com- 
 panion, imploring with wide, despairing eyes and working 
 features that he would snatch it again. Human Elm.s
 
 226 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 almost did so; the Satanic Elms restrained him. Again 
 the human prevailed ; the true man's heart beat. Relent- 
 ing, Elms frantically reached forth the hand that had 
 momentarily failed to seize the cane. 
 
 " Give it me again ! Another inch further ! " he almost 
 shrieked, as he stretched forth himself over the yawning 
 abyss. Alas ! his victim's balance, almost miraculously 
 maintained, was lost. With a last look the set face 
 seemed to recognize the traitor's repentance. It was too 
 late. Still outstretched, the stick described a circle in 
 the air. The saviour of many human lives fell headlong 
 down the cliff! 
 
 The wretched man above almost hurled himself after. 
 Remorse, despair filled his breast. He was not by nature 
 a bad man, as men term it. He was but a greedy, 
 cunning one, that had played with his besetting sin 
 till it mastered him. In a sense it was worse for him. 
 From a higher height to a lower depth of torment he 
 was falling. 
 
 On the face of the cliff the murderer grovelled. He 
 tore the ground. " My God ! " he cried, " slay me. 
 Hurl me from this rock ! I see it now ; it is stamped 
 with fire upon my brain. My friend ! My benefactor ! 
 O God ! his eye ! That last look ! He forgave me. 
 Ah ! he saw that I^vould save him. And I could not. 
 My God, I could not ! " 
 
 By wild cries the mate was awakened from a peaceful 
 dream of return to home beside the inland sea. Starting 
 to his feet, he was horrified to find the Sergeant alone, 
 seemingly in a fit, on the edge of the cliff. No possible 
 means of descending presented itself. The unfortunate 
 chief, Elms stated half-coherently, had fallen by accident 
 down the precipice. Dragging away the dazed, tottering 
 man, who was calmer now, they descended to the beach.
 
 BETWEEN DEVIL AND DEEP SEA. 
 
 Long they searched by boat beneath the bluff. The un- 
 fortunate man would have fallen into the water that ran 
 deep under the beetling rock. His hat and cane they 
 picked up. Two enormous sharks cruised round the 
 boat as they searched. The doctor would be dead before 
 he touched the water. They shuddered to think that 
 doubtless his body had already been mangled and 
 devoured by cruel fishes of prey. The stains of blood 
 one thought he saw on the water. All the next day 
 sorrowing investigation was made of cliff and shore, but 
 no vestige or memento of the loss was discovered, save 
 that hat and stick. 
 
 When the latter was brought to the ship, Elms at the 
 sight of it shuddered, and talked all night in his sleep of 
 a hat and cane, and a face that haunted him. None were 
 surprised at the effect the terrible accident had on the 
 doctor's fast friend and right-hand man. 
 
 As the vessel sped uneventfully westward, Elms slowly 
 recovered. One part of him was dead, and the other part 
 felt as though a burden was rolled away. 
 
 " I am sorry for the poor old man," he would mutter ; 
 " but, as Malduke would say, it had to be. He had 
 done his work, and now vaster prospects open out for 
 Mimosa Vale and plain John Elms." 
 
 For the twentieth time that day he folded up the 
 precious Will he had recovered from the doctor's papers, 
 and examined, with the interest of a proprietor, all the 
 provisions the good man had made for extension of the 
 new system he had inaugurated.
 
 228 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 
 
 " As from one faint spark arise 
 The flames, aspiring to the skies, 
 And all the crackling wood consumes." PINDAR. 
 
 '"Twas well ; he toiled till his task was done, 
 Constant and calm in his latest throe, 
 The storm was weathered, the battle was won, 
 Then he went, my friends, where we all must go." 
 
 Australian Poets, A. L. GORDON, 
 
 "ARE not those flying squirrels peculiar little creatures?" 
 remarked Larry to Hilda as they walked by moonlight 
 in the garden of the White House. " See that fellow, 
 now, climbing by leaps to the topmost branch of that 
 great gum ; now he has sped out into space. How 
 gracefully he flies down to the foot of that box, now up 
 that red gum, to dart again down to another tree-trunk ! 
 Always up and down just like our life." 
 
 "Can they not fly up ? " asked Hilda. 
 
 " No," he replied, " nor even horizontally ; only down, 
 from one tree-top to another trunk-base. Just the way 
 we make our running, it seems to me. Painfully climb- 
 ing up no flying then. When, for a moment, we spread 
 our wings such as they are down we come with a 
 jerk, to the level we started from." 
 
 " You're in a philosophical mood to-night, Larry," said 
 his wife. " What has become of your wonted good 
 spirits ? " 

 
 FIGIITTNr, THE FLAMKS. 22Q 
 
 " Well, this news from Queensland is not cheering. 
 If I had gone in with my cousin, as he urged me to do, 
 my fortune would be made at this minute. He writes 
 you have not read the letter yet that the Artesian bore 
 has struck water, and has converted the chain of dried- 
 up holes into miles and miles of perpetually flowing 
 streams." 
 
 " But did you not say it was costing ^i a foot to 
 sink the bore, and that they had got two thousand feet 
 down in two places? Think of the risk and the expense," 
 said the calculating wife. 
 
 " That's all over now. He's a made man ! What's 
 ^5000 to pay for such a boon ! Think of it a river 
 drawn from underground ! Mitchell plains, with abund- 
 ance of water, is the finest country on earth. The 
 entire north of our continent will be fertilized in another 
 few years by Artesian waters." 
 
 " Never mind, dear boy, you stayed here for my 
 father's sake and for others 
 
 " Yes, and I'll see it through. But the pace is 
 getting hot. I had a brush with some of the fellows 
 this morning. They have no gratitude and no sense, 
 and I, alas ! little patience. See those flying-foxes sweep- 
 ing down on the peaches and those 'possums, too ! 
 Ton my word I must get my gun." 
 
 In a moment he returned with it. The foxes, like 
 bats the size of bull-dogs, were darting about ill-omened 
 birds or beasts of night. Larry brought down two or 
 three. 
 
 " N T ow why should God make such ugly, mischievous 
 creatures ? " he remarked, prodding an expiring fox with 
 his gun. "Why link each pair of feet together so as 
 to enable such uncanny flesh to fly and extend their 
 depredations? So with some two-legged nuisances.
 
 230 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 What are they made for ? No sooner do you render 
 some wilderness fruitful, than down sweep a few greedy 
 creatures to spoil your labour. It will be like that in 
 this valley, if the governor does not return quickly." 
 
 At that moment a figure, pushing its way through the 
 sheltering pampas grass and bamboos, stood grimacing 
 in the clear moonlight. Hilda, startled, clung to her 
 husband's arm, then laughed aloud and exclaimed 
 
 " Tom, where on earth have you been ? You are a 
 guy!" 
 
 "Useful rather than ornamental," the little man 
 replied, surveying his costume. " We've been taking a 
 bees' nest. Great fun ! Despite all my precautions, 
 however, I got terribly punished, till I took to my heels, 
 with two or three swarms about my ears. They seemed 
 to pick me out. None of the other fellows minded them 
 a bit. Blood will tell," he continued ; " mosquitoes, and 
 now bees, prefer mine to any less blue. Now they're 
 down my back, and up my legs ! Hear them slyly 
 buzzing before stinging," and the little man started off 
 gyrating around the amused couple now dashing his 
 hat on the ground, now brushing the dazed creatures 
 from his ears, now grabbing his legs as though he would 
 tear away flesh and trousers rather than give the bee free 
 play. 
 
 His was certainly a peculiar costume. A " viator " 
 travelling-cap was pulled over head and ears, towel round 
 the neck as though he were returning from a bathe, a 
 great blouse, buckled by a saddle-girth about his waist, 
 hung to the knees, his trousers were tucked into the top 
 of woollen socks. 
 
 " I wanted to see the fun," he explained ; " I would 
 not touch the stuff for worlds. I'd rather spread my 
 ' Row's Embrocation ' over my home-made bread than
 
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 23! 
 
 eat that stuff. To see it hanging, sugar-bags full, in the 
 sun, with all the flies in creation fighting for a footing 
 white comb, black comb, and breeding comb jammed 
 into the same old sack ! I'd as soon eat macaroni, after 
 seeing it hang like hurdles in all the dirty narrow streets 
 of Naples, as touch your bush-honey ! But I thought 
 my education would be incomplete if I did not just for 
 once see them ' take the bees.' 
 
 " The way they found the hive struck my fancy. You 
 know that little black boy, Barry, that's always cutting 
 about. He watches, it appears, the bees going to the 
 water-hole to drink, or get mud for their comb. He 
 catches a bee, twines a bit of wool or silkworm fluff 
 about its body. Off it starts for home, black boy after 
 it. Over logs, round bushes ; he never takes his eyes 
 from the sailing piece of wool. ' The Quest of the 
 Golden Honey Fleece ' you might call it. Miles away 
 it may be, he observes the creature fly at length into the 
 hollow of some lofty tree, through a crevice made by a 
 broken bough. He ' blazes ' that tree with his tommy 
 or billy, which is it ? and the next night ' lays the 
 fellows on.' The biggest bit of comb they give him for 
 his pains. They have three buckets full of the ambrosia- 
 of-the-bush to-night. They are going to ' Italianize ' the 
 swarm, and set them up afresh on the bee-farm in the 
 ranges. 
 
 " Bees, however," he continued, as he made a vig- 
 orous onslaught on his left arm, crunching an unfor- 
 tunate captive, " are not the only creatures that carry 
 honey in their mouths or legs, is it ? and a sting on 
 their tongue or wherever they carry their arms. 
 
 " When the men had the tree down didn't it topple 
 with a crash ! I chased a 'juvenile 'possum perched on 
 the back of its ma. She had experienced, painfully, the
 
 232 THE NEW ARCADIA* 
 
 truth of the lullaby she had been singing to the occupant 
 of her pouch 
 
 * When the tree breaks the cradle will roll, 
 Down will come 'possum and mummy and all.' 
 
 " I missed my game, but barked my shins on one of 
 the boughs sprawling most awkwardly about. When I 
 returned I stood on a log, at a respectful distance from 
 the bees, who were buzzing ferociously inside the hollow 
 tree. The foolhardy men were cross-cutting close to 
 the hive. Ere long they chopped out the block of wood 
 between the cuts and laid bare the comb. They had 
 managed to perform the operation 'in the midst of the 
 dense smoke of a fire under the log. Some smoulder- 
 ing boughs they now put upon the aperture they had 
 made, and sat down to rest while the poor bees scrambled 
 away to the remotest ends of the hollo"w trunk. 
 
 " I could not avoid hearing snatches of the men's 
 conversation. They ought, they said, to be paid so 
 much a day for their labour, not merely to be credited 
 with a share of profits. 
 
 "'I've worked,'. said Bill Bastion, as they call him, 
 ' eight hundred days, I reckon. I'm a-goin' to have 
 ,400 for that, in cash. They've got plenty I'll not be 
 content with the miserable ^,50 they've given me, and 
 the rest in credit.' 
 
 " Others," continued Tom, " sought to explain that he 
 held the balance in land and improvements. 
 
 " ' How 'm I to know as I'll ever get 'em ? ' replied Bill. 
 'Courtenay's run away Boss O'Lochlan's mighty high- 
 handed. I'd not be surprised if some bright day one 
 jumped up and said, "Here, all you fellows, clear out! 
 This blooming place's mine ! " He was determined to 
 have it out at the meeting to-morrow.' Bastion announced
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 233 
 
 that he intended to ask you to resign in favour of * the 
 Talkers,' as some call the committee. ' He's nowt but a 
 squatter and a capitalist,' " he concluded. 
 
 " My thanks for renouncing a fortune," said Larry, 
 bitterly. "Well, I've done the best I could, for the old 
 man's sake, and if he finds chaos when he returns, I 
 can't help it." 
 
 "The great bulk of them are loyal," replied Tom; 
 " but that Malduke is ever sowing dissension, and, as I 
 always told you, these fellows are suspicious to a degree. 
 Brown says it's not their fault goodness knows ! That 
 it's all owing to the system in which they have been 
 brought up." 
 
 The next evening Larry had a bad hour with the men. 
 Bastion especially, urged on by Malduke, was decidedly 
 plain-spoken. 
 
 " What did O'Lochlan care for them, I'd like to 
 know ? Who ever took up a job such as he had nobbled 
 for any one's good but his own ? " 
 
 Save for the influence of Brown, who poured oil on 
 the troubled waters, and of the better men, a painful 
 scene would have been enacted. 
 
 Larry kept his temper admirably. All his old squatter 
 instincts prompted him to go down and strike the man 
 as he jeered amongst his comrades. The sense, how- 
 ever, that he was holding the position for another, 
 restrained him. The task imposed of fighting a hard 
 battle almost alone, had brought out all the better 
 elements of his character. The rollicking, dare-devil 
 young squatter had settled into a self-ruling, painstaking 
 toiler for others. 
 
 Though touched to the quick, stung by the deadly 
 bite of ingratitude, he that night smoked his pipe in 
 seeming cheerfulness, and, owing to her delicate state of
 
 234 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 health, forbore to tell his wife of the indignities to which 
 he had been subjected. 
 
 The settlers paid dearly for their three buckets of 
 honey. Intent upon their rights, the men forgot to put 
 out their fire. The next morning, before noon, an 
 ominous column of dense smoke announced a bush-fire. 
 The country was dry, and ere long the crackling of 
 burning bushes startled the settlers. 
 
 Here again co-operation saved them. A thousand 
 hands, all under discipline, moving like skirmishers in 
 a long line on the edge of the fire, beat back the 
 flames. 
 
 For the present the valley was safe. 
 
 Girls and children, like angels of comfort, brought the 
 "squash," for which parched tongues were thirsting. 
 Little ones wondered to see "how the water ran off 
 daddy's face." For the moment there was breathing- 
 space. 
 
 The fire, nevertheless, must be watched. It had a 
 knack of creeping stealthily about, and leaping up where 
 least expected. 
 
 Suddenly in the afternoon the wind changed with a 
 wild gust. The slumbering fires leaped into furious life, 
 tongues of flame sprang along dried trunks, and leaped 
 from tree to tree overhead. Where only grass was burn- 
 ing before, the whole forest was ablaze now. A hundred 
 feet high, clumps of scrub and undergrowth sent up a 
 roaring column of fire, half-burnt leaves circling upward 
 in a whirlwind, to be scattered far and wide. Scorched, 
 the men fell back. 
 
 Human aid was powerless save here, to sweep a road 
 with bushes, or there, to burn back the grass on the side 
 of the track that was threatened. 
 
 Suddenly Bill Bastion appeared. He was rushing
 
 FICiHTING THE FLAMES. 235 
 
 madly along the flaming hill-side, crying, " My child I My 
 little Poll ! My own wee Mary ! " 
 
 Some of the children, it appeared, had been taking 
 lunch to their parents on what was then the back of the 
 fire. The sudden change and rise of the wind had con- 
 verted this into the front. Up the valleys on each side 
 of a hill the hungry flames swept. 
 
 With extreme difficulty the infant band had, by strong 
 arms and swift feet, been rescued. Alas ! one of their 
 number, little Mary Bastion, was missing. She had been 
 with the party on the ridge, and now " was not." Her 
 parents were distracted. For a while none could pass 
 that barrier of smoke and fire. When it rolled away, 
 what would be left of wee Mary ? 
 
 The hill on which she last was seen was partially pro- 
 tected by masses of bald rock, which had checked the 
 advance of the fire in that direction. Ere long, however, 
 it would creep through interstices, and, revelling in the 
 thick undergrowth that crowned the summit of the knoll, 
 envelop all in flame. 
 
 Larry, who had been galloping round all the morning, 
 directing and encouraging the fire-fighters, appeared at 
 this juncture on the scene. 
 
 In a moment he grasped the situation. At the wall of 
 fire and down at his horse he glanced. 
 
 " I think we might manage it, ' Salamander/ " he cried. 
 " I'm game to try if you are ! " Patting the arched neck, 
 his eye searched for some break in the mass of fire and 
 smoke that was mounting to the skies. 
 
 Springing to his side Bastion laid a trembling hand on 
 his rein. 
 
 " No, sir," he cried, " you shan't try it. No living ma~n 
 could ride through that forest now. When we can it'll 
 be But you couldn't fetch her out of it now." 
 
 Q
 
 236 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Give me your hand, Bastion," cried Larry. " I'll 
 bring your child back, if I find her, though, of course, to 
 serve some selfish end ! " 
 
 Remorsefully Bastion looked at the man he felt he 
 had wronged, and was silent. 
 
 In a moment Larry, dashing spurs to his horse, was 
 making straight for the roaring furnace. Women screamed. 
 
 " It's madness ! It's certain death ! " declared selectors 
 standing by, who knew all that lay beyond that flaming 
 cordon. "If he gets through that wall of fire, the 
 smoke '11 smother him." 
 
 Yellow-haired Saxon and gleaming chestnut were in 
 an instant lost to sight. One wild leap ! and the im- 
 penetrable wall of smoke closed, as though a thick 
 curtain had fallen behind them. 
 
 With lips compressed, eyes half-shut, peering through 
 the resinous canopy, the daring rider dashed. The smell 
 of fire was on him and his horse. On all sides trees 
 crashed, boughs were falling from blazing tree-tops. 
 Horribly, as here and there they found vent at the top, 
 the fires roared through the hollow funnels of the trees. 
 
 Now reining horse on haunches, the rider escaped 
 destruction from the six-foot trunk hurled across his path, 
 then, dashing spur at critical moment, he leaped a tree- 
 head ere the dust of its fall had arisen. Here to right 
 to round the base of the gum that was falling to left, there 
 to left to escape the forked tree-top descending upon him. 
 
 Blinded, gasping, smothering, he reels in the saddle. 
 His legs mechanically hold him in his seat, as, when life 
 is extinct, the ring-tailed 'possum clings by its tail to the 
 bough. 
 
 " Into the jaws of death, 
 Into the mouth of hell," 
 
 rode the O'Lochlan.
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 237 
 
 At length the knoll is gained. Across the bare rock 
 limps the almost hairless ' Salamander.' " Co-ee ! " shouts 
 the singed and blackened rider emerging on the hill-top. 
 The universe seems wrapped in smoke and flames. 
 
 Again and again between the roar of the flames, the 
 scream of the kangaroo enclosed in the fire, as snakes 
 crawled away between the horse's feet to die, and the 
 iguana hung to the blazing bark unable now to dodge 
 the rider, as if playing " hide and seek " round the smok- 
 ing trunk, as the hot rocks beneath his feet seemed to 
 quake, and the hill reverberated with the crash of giant 
 gums the rider staggered round the little knoll, calling 
 with thicker, choking voice 
 
 " Mary ! Coo-ee ! Hullo o ! " 
 
 Ah ! there, surely, is a response ! 
 
 Only the death-cry of the opossum, awakened from 
 dream of gum-leaves galore to find that for it " the end 
 of the world " had come. 
 
 Hark ! a moan of pain ! Only the wombat that has dug, 
 with bandicoot and rabbit, its own grave, and is being 
 buried and cremated at the same time. 
 
 There, indeed, is a step behind ! Only the emu singed, 
 frightened no longer of aught save the fire, with native 
 companion, blackened and graceful of gait no more. 
 
 The flames creep on. Soon the little oasis in the 
 desert of fire will be swept by the devastating flames. 
 Here already they have found entry. There is no beat- 
 ing them back. They have seized, with wild joy, the 
 wattle-clump, and are leaping from its silver boughs to 
 the pine-tree top above. Another moment and the bushy 
 knoll will be wrapped in one sheet of roaring fire ! 
 
 Ah ! what is this, nestling in the heather ? 
 
 " My God, I thank Thee ! The child ! The child ! " 
 cries the choking rider. He reels from his horse.
 
 238 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 There, beside the prone trunk, whose head is already 
 attacked by the flames, lies the rosy-cheeked, three-year- 
 old, smiling in her sleep ! She is clasping the flowers 
 she had plucked tapering, open-mouthed orchids, wild 
 fuchsias with delicate maiden-hair. 
 
 Overcome by the enveloping smoke, stupefied but 
 unhurt, the little one had cast her golden head across the 
 dimpled arm that still clasped the flowers, and committed 
 herself, unconsciously, to the guardian angels that keep 
 special watch about children and drunken men ! 
 
 In a trice the daring Irishman is in the saddle ; the 
 child, half-stupefied, on his arm ! 
 
 Down the hill he dashes, as the dried bracken, on 
 which the little one had lain, catches fire, sending a lurid 
 column to heaven, to mingle with the firmament of 
 smoke above. 
 
 Again, over blazing logs, round crackling, tottering 
 trees, through walls of smoke and flame for the cruel 
 wind keeps high the limping steed and reeling rider 
 
 stagger 
 
 " Back from the jaws of death, 
 Back from the mouth of hell." 
 
 Hours seem to pass ! A hundred deaths impend ! 
 
 At length, ah ! can it be ? The light of the outside 
 world penetrates the canopy of smoke. They must be 
 near the edge of the ring of fire. They may yet escape 
 from their Inferno ! 
 
 " A few strides more, ' Salamander,' " Larry hoarsely 
 cries. " Ah, another branch ! Leap, lad, leap ! " 
 
 The spent horse is slow. 
 
 He responds to the warning spur. Half a second too 
 late ! The cruel bough strikes the fated rider on the 
 neck. The broken fork-ends of the dead branch 
 penetrated the ground on either side. Stooping low the
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 239 
 
 horse walks free from beneath the yoke. With wild eye 
 the terror-stricken beast seems about to fly. It pauses ; 
 utters a plaintive whinny. It paws the ground as though 
 in pain ; sniffs the cheek of the motionless form 
 stretched beneath the upright fork, but still grasping the 
 unconscious child. 
 
 The bough that struck the blow shielded the pair from 
 branches that fell about. The hot breath of the faithful 
 steed recalled the fallen man to life. 
 
 He moved his head. It was agony ! He sought to 
 raise his body. The weight of the world seemed resting 
 upon him, though the fork was six feet off ! 
 
 " My God, my back is broken ! " exclaimed the wounded 
 man. 
 
 Still his steed pawed the ground, and turned himself 
 about as though to say, " Mount on me, and I will bear 
 you out of this hell." 
 
 " Go, ' Salamander ' : go 1 You must not perish here : 
 go, and tell them where we are." 
 
 The creature never stirred. With a painful effort the 
 wounded man sought to throw a stick at the faithful 
 animal. It only shook its head, while the silken mane 
 fell over its bowed neck. It absolutely refused to 
 leave. 
 
 The maimed man dragged himself, after a while, along 
 a track, beside which he had fallen. Here the gravelly 
 soil had afforded little for the fire, that raged overhead, 
 to feed upon. Clinging to the child with one arm, 
 writhing along with the other, the horse following with 
 nostril sniffing the ground, and burnt hoof casting up the 
 heated ashes, as in grief, the procession neared the 
 opening on the hill-side. 
 
 Now, from very pain, the indomitable Irishman faints. 
 He recovers again.
 
 240 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I must save the child," he gasps, " whatever comes." 
 Again, along the pathway of pain he drags himself. 
 
 When night had fallen, he found himself he knew 
 not how on the track outside the timber, where the 
 party had swept and burned. 
 
 The tide of fire had rolled away westward. The 
 searchers, some of whom left the spot almost as he 
 emerged upon it, were hoping now to get from behind 
 upon the hill, where traces of Mary and her rescuer 
 were expected to be found. 
 
 The shifting breeze from the south had swept the 
 valley clear of smoke. In all its beauty it lay untouched 
 below. 
 
 Supporting himself on one elbow, while the other arm 
 clasped the child he had saved, the dying man looked 
 out across the valley he was to scamper over no more. 
 His eyes rested on the White House, where, at that 
 sunset hour, his wife clasped in her arms a new-born 
 child that was never to know the light of a father's smile, 
 or the inspiration of his voice. 
 
 As he clung to the child of his enemy of yesterday, 
 the father seemed to think it his the little stranger he 
 was leaving in a world of woe. Ineffectually he tried to 
 brush a tear from his eyes. 
 
 "Happy little vale!" he murmured, as he looked 
 down on the smoke-crowned chimneys, beside which old 
 folk were discussing, " Where they'd find Mister Larry 
 and poor little Mary's corpses." 
 
 " I've done what I could ! For the old man, for duty, 
 and for God ! " he gasped. 
 
 Up the stretch of glittering water the last rays of the 
 setting sun were dyeing red and gold, he looked for 
 the returning vessel so long expected. He thought he 
 saw it approaching. "In at the death ! Relieved at
 
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 241 
 
 last ! " he cried. " Hilda, to horse ! Governor ! My 
 child." Convulsively he clung to the little one sleeping 
 on his arm, and in death still fancied it his. 
 
 When the darkness of night was lighted only by the 
 lurid glare of some expiring flame, that flickered here 
 and there about a blackened tree-bole, little Mary awoke. 
 
 " Daddy," she cried, springing to her feet, and bending 
 over her preserver. " No, it's not ! Why, it's dear Mr. 
 Lochlan, fast asleep ! Mr. Larry, do look at me," she 
 piped, toddling about him. " Talk to me, please. Vill 
 you take me home? I's so frightened ! " 
 
 She tried to turn his head. It was stiff and cold. 
 
 " You'se not asleep," the child half-laughed and half- 
 cried ; " you'se eyes open. But you's so cold." 
 
 Poor little Mary ! Happy little Mary ! 
 
 Never before had she looked upon death; knew it 
 not when she saw it ! Partially stupefied still by the 
 smoke, the wee one crept again into the encircling arm, 
 stiff in death, and slept beside the smouldering fires as 
 if in Paradise, with the brave man's spirit that had passed. 
 
 In the morning they found them. 
 
 The horse that had been feeding about during the 
 night stood whinnying by. The golden wavy hair of the 
 dead man was blown by the morning breeze back from 
 his smooth icy brow. A smile was fixed on the clear- 
 cut face ! The hand still supported the firm, resolute 
 chin. The eyes were widely open looking out across 
 the valley, and, seemingly, on into another world. Scarce 
 could they believe him dead. 
 
 Bastion, as he clasped to his bosom the crowing, 
 chattering child, knelt down with bowed head, shaking 
 like an aspen leaf. Strong, rough man as he was, scalding 
 tears of bitter remorse fell drop by drop upon the cold 
 brow of the wronged man, who had died for his child.
 
 242 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH. 
 
 "Thou bringest'the sailor to his wife, 
 
 And travelled men from foreign lands ; 
 And letters unto trembling hands ; 
 And, thy dark freight, a vanished life." 
 
 In Mtunoriain. 
 
 BY his self-sacrifice and death, Larry achieved more than 
 by wisdom and firmness in life. In their sympathy for 
 the young widow, the people forgot imagined wrongs, 
 and contended to assuage her grief and to second the 
 efforts of the sorrow-stricken women upon whom, for a 
 while, control virtually devolved. 
 
 Hilda was softened by her great grief. She reproached 
 herself for the self-seeking, and contempt of those beneath 
 her, that hitherto characterized her life. Her first visits 
 were to the cottagers, who had sent loving messages 
 with other tokens of their sympathy. So it came to pass 
 that, as often is the case, strength came by suffering, 
 and a new love arose out of the ashes of the old. 
 
 About a month after Larry's death the telephone 
 announced the Mimosa in the lower canal. Ere long 
 the entire community had assembled at the lake to greet 
 the wanderers. A chill struck to the hearts of all as the 
 word passed from lip to lip" The flag ! it is half-mast 
 high ! " The mother whose son, the wife whose husband
 
 THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH. 243 
 
 had sailed a year ago, felt a sickening dread steal over 
 them. 
 
 ' ( I sees my Johnnie at any rate ! " " There's my old 
 man ! " cried one and another, as the vessel drew nearer, 
 and returning ones waved to those they recognized on 
 the shore. 
 
 " Where is the doctor ? " cried or thought every on- 
 looker. On the bridge beside the captain stood Elms, 
 seemingly in some authority. 
 
 "Perhaps he is not quite well," suggested old Bowling 
 to Mrs. Courtenay, who, with face of a ghost, was leaning 
 heavily on his arm. 
 
 None on shore dared ask, no one on board dared tell 
 the dreadful news. Upon the hushed multitude a spell 
 lay as though a terrible woe were impending. Slowly, 
 almost solemnly, the ropes were flung, seized and made 
 fast ; the very captain giving his orders as though some 
 dread ceremonial were being enacted. 
 
 When the blow fell and the truth was told, one long 
 wail of anguish arose from the bereaved community. 
 Women and children wept, while strong men trembled. 
 Mrs. Courtenay's face became like marble. She tottered, 
 then, with sheer force of will recovering herself, strode 
 like a stricken lioness to the deck and confronted Elms. 
 His blood-shot eyes fell before her searching gaze. 
 
 " Man," she cried, hardly knowing in the first rush of 
 despair what she said, " where is my husband ? Did I 
 not charge you to bring him back ? Where is he ? I say. 
 What ! you do not answer ? Before his bereaved people 
 I denounce you as his murderer." 
 
 Accused so unexpectedly, the man caught at a rope to 
 steady himself. Could she know his terrible secret? 
 The vessel seemed to swim round. He sat on a seat 
 and gasped. The captain in a few words explained the
 
 244 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 nature of the catastrophe that had befallen the doctor. 
 Mr. Dowling seizing Mrs. Courtenay, as she seemed 
 about to fall, led her away, calm, majestic, and broken- 
 hearted. 
 
 " I know not why," she exclaimed, as the good man 
 supported her through the throng, " but I had presenti- 
 ment of evil. That man, strange to say, was always 
 connected in my mind with it. I never trusted him. 
 When first I saw, I shuddered. Did you mark how 
 he cowed ? how the brand of Cain seemed written on 
 his craven countenance ? I feel sure there was foul 
 play." 
 
 The shadow of death brooded over the once smiling 
 valley. With muffled voice men and women spake of 
 the wise and good seemingly greater in death mysteri- 
 ously snatched. By degrees a terrible rumour, that 
 touched them more acutely still, went abroad. The 
 entire property, upon which for years they had laboured, 
 had devolved unconditionally, it was whispered, upon 
 Elms. 
 
 "That could not be!" all exclaimed. Again and 
 again had the doctor assured them that every provision 
 had been made for protection of their interests. Could 
 he, all the while, have intended to hand them over to 
 the tender mercies of this man all instinctively distrusted ? 
 Alas ! the deed was drawn three years before was 
 actually in existence when the doctor gave his specious 
 assurances. 
 
 More powerfully does loss of property affect many than 
 the death of their dearest friend. Witness so often tears 
 of sorrow suddenly drying on the face, that glows with 
 rage when it is discovered, after the funeral obsequies, 
 that in the will the mourner has been forgotten. Con- 
 siderations respecting property and gain rule, alas ! under
 
 THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH. 245 
 
 a devastating system of competition, the world of grief, 
 as that of action and of joy. 
 
 <( My friend is gone," may be a sad thought. " How 
 does that affect me ? " is, inevitably, the first question 
 asked. Oh, self, self! prominent in our prayers and 
 pains, cherished in the " business and bosoms " of all, 
 underlying our charities, affecting our friendships, raising 
 its horrid head in the very hour of sorrow and of death. 
 
 AVonder not, that in the breasts of these simple ones, 
 whose homes were about to be snatched from them, and 
 the hopes of years blasted, a terrible revulsion of feeling 
 took place. There was no escape from the inevitable con- 
 clusion that the doctor had deliberately sacrificed them. 
 
 " Did we not say," some, wise after the event, would 
 urge, " never trust a capitalist? They cannot help their- 
 selves. Seem they good, and mean they well, they can- 
 not escape from the traditions and customs of their 
 class." 
 
 A further explanation Malduke took pains to offer and 
 enlarge upon. When this will was drawn, the doctor's 
 son was engaged to Elms's daughter. He dared not 
 devise the property direct to his son. He had so left it 
 that, in the ordinary course, it would pass to him and 
 his. So the cruel, silly tattle passed along. The name 
 of him who had devoted fortune and life to their cause 
 was, as is so often the case, execrated and defamed. 
 
 Some there were Alec and the Smiths, Sandbach and 
 Bastion unreasoning enough to believe in the doctor 
 still, to cling to the hope that all would be cleared up 
 yet. There was some dreadful mistake. 
 
 "How do you make that out? Facts is stubborn 
 things," urged those who laughed them to scorn. 
 "There's not one blessed thing you can rake up that 
 looks like fair dealing."
 
 246 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " If all the world riz up and told me as Jinnie was 
 bad," argued honest Alec, with animation, " would I 
 believe them ? If every darned thing seemed suddent 
 agen her, would I 'spect th' old woman? When the 
 Lord seemed to 'a forgotten me, as when He took our 
 only child God rest his soul ! would I hold from 
 believin' on Him ? All can stick when all is spic and 
 spankin'. Love wants no larnin' and logic. It sticks 
 to its man, and its God, coz, in its in'ard heart, it knows 
 Him and trusts Him. To my dying day," continued Alec, 
 with energy, " I'll believe in the doctor, whatever fair- 
 weather friends may say. And look ye here, Dick 
 Malduke, don't you be tellin' none on your wicked lies 
 in my hearin', or, sure's my name's McDowl, I'll see if 
 there ben't enow strength ieft in this 'ere arm of mine to 
 ram the lie down your wicked throat." 
 
 The law took another view. Probate was granted, and 
 Elms assumed entire control. Kokiana and the allied 
 estates, together with the remainder of the Station, were 
 adjudged not to be included in the property assigned to 
 Elms under the name of " Courtenay's Village." 
 
 The Sergeant called a meeting, and delivered what he 
 considered a rallying speech. He was a friend of theirs, 
 he said ; had suggested the undertaking to the doctor. 
 
 "Curses on you for it ! " interjected one of the com- 
 pany. " Were there no workhouses in town, that you must 
 bring us out here to be starved and robbed in the 
 wilderness ? " 
 
 " Hitherto," continued the Sergeant, " you have pur- 
 sued a wrong course. You have merely modified Indi- 
 vidualism. I propose to sweep it all away, to set up 
 a pure Communism. But I shall act fairly by all if they 
 are worthy." 
 
 " Who's to decide that ? " asked one.
 
 THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH. 247 
 
 " I shall," replied Elms, his blood rising. " I'm a 
 soldier. I believe in discipline, I can tell you. So no 
 nonsense, or, mind, you walk ! That's plain." 
 
 Poor creatures. The iron was entering into their soul. 
 Inwardly they cursed the dead man for devoting them 
 to such a tyrant. 
 
 " We are agin private property," continued Elms. 
 " No playing at individual allotments and ' private 
 accounts ' with us. We're all equal in the sight of God, 
 and mean to remain so." 
 
 "I hope you will," growled one, stooping behind a 
 friendly back. 
 
 "Three cheers for Pure Democracy and Socialism 
 Undefiled ! " called out Malduke. 
 
 No one responded. 
 
 Forthwith committees and boards were abolished. The 
 books that contained records of each man's standing 
 were ordered to be burnt. Happily Frank Brown man- 
 aged to secure and to hide them. 
 
 " Individualism, Familism, must be killed," decreed 
 the dictator. 
 
 At every cross-road, great kitchens and eating-rooms 
 were run up in weather-board. All were compelled to 
 eat in common. 
 
 " It means a great saving .in time and food," claimed 
 Elms, " instead of every busy-body of a woman pottering 
 about with her own provisioning." 
 
 None were permitted to claim ownership in cattle, 
 poultry, or other stock. All was to be regulated. And 
 so it was. Men and women worked as little and as 
 ineffectively as they could. Cows were dried off; vege- 
 tables ran to seed ; crops were -spoiled ; machinery 
 was smashed ; bad work performed. None felt interest 
 in the duty he was called upon mechanically to discharge.
 
 248 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Elms and his lieutenant were hated. The doctor's 
 good memory was defamed, 
 
 "It seems to me," remarked Mike Milligan to Joe 
 Smith, over the fence that now parted them, " we had 
 one extreme in town, now we've got the other here, and 
 atween the two, the frying and the fire, we seems pretty 
 like to be cooked." 
 
 "At Kokiana," replied Joe Smith, " Sandbach says 
 things goes smooth enough. They've just had another 
 five shillings a share dividend, and half-a-crown carried 
 for'ard in the books." 
 
 " Ah, they've got the right thing," replied Mike ; " what 
 the doctor intended here, if that scheming lunatic Elms 
 hadn't got hold on him. At Kokiana each helps t'other, 
 and all gets the bringin'-ins of his own labour." 
 
 The Bowlings and Frank Brown often dropped in 
 during the long summer evenings, to cheer the desolate 
 party at the White House. Mrs. Courtenay would have 
 left the place for ever, but that her daughters were now 
 more than ever wrapped up in the interests of the suffer- 
 ing people. They tried to comfort them ; submitted to 
 many a door being slammed in their face, and many a 
 vicious word uttered as they passed. 
 
 " Poor folk ! " they said apologetically, " they have been 
 terribly disappointed. Of course we know that dear 
 father never intended this but how can they know that ? 
 All appearances are against him in their eyes." 
 
 It was strange to hear Hilda taking the people's part 
 as against Tom Lord's denunciations. 
 
 " Did I not always say," he would remark with more 
 feeling than he ordinarily exhibited, "that these folk 
 who raised their ' Hosannas ' so high, would cry ' Crucify 
 Him ' ? ' Not this man, but Barabbas ' the robber. The 
 same old story over again,"
 
 THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH. 249 
 
 " But, Tom, they have much seeming provocation." 
 
 "See again," he would say, "the tender love ot 
 democracy ; the tyranny of the precious pair, and the 
 handful that self-interest has already gathered about 
 them. Any one would sell the other and their whole 
 cause for a song. The possession of money or power 
 transforms your most exemplary democrat into a demon 
 of oppression, the moment he gets his chance." 
 
 " That is only another way of saying," replied Hilda, 
 " that human nature is a monopoly of no one class. To 
 improve the social state it is not sufficient to shift the 
 balance of power. You must elevate the moral nature 
 and touch the heart." 
 
 On the evening in question, Mrs. Courtenay asked 
 Mr. Bowling to accept, in memory of her late husband, 
 the walking-stick, almost sole memento of him who was 
 gone. Bowling showed it to his wife, who was putting 
 the finishing touches on her patchwork quilt. As moon- 
 light flooded the room, Maud sang softly Blockley's 
 setting of 'Enoch Arden's Bream.' Hilda and Tom 
 continued their conversation beside the open window. 
 Mrs. Courtenay lay on the sofa lost in thought, listening 
 to the words her husband had loved 
 
 " It was my dream in lonely beauteous land, 
 To tread once more each old familiar scene. 
 And she was there ! Oh, could each dream remain ! 
 But when I woke, my heart was yearning still, 
 If I might look upon her face again." 
 
 "Richard," whispered Mrs. Bowling, in a strange, 
 soft voice, as if her thoughts were far away, while 
 nervously, as one blind, she returned the walking-stick 
 to her husband, " I suppose it is the music, or the moon- 
 light, or all the sad memories influencing me ; but I see 
 so clearly the doctor clinging to his cane for life, and a
 
 250 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 savage-looking man, like Elms, but different, looking 
 down on the poor soul. Ah, the creature has treacher- 
 ously let go the stick. He's lost." So saying, the 
 doting dame raised her hand to her brow ns if in pain. 
 
 The song proceeded, and Mrs. Bowling continued 
 
 " It is so strange ! He is walking on the beach, up 
 and down, alone long-bearded and grey. He's look- 
 ing out across the sea, like poor Larry from Hillside. 
 He's shading his eyes. Now sitting down with elbows 
 on his knees and face buried in his hands." 
 
 "Thank you," murmured the company, as Maud 
 finished the song, that seemed to come from the depth 
 of an aching heart. 
 
 "Thanks, Rachel, you may light the lamps," said Mrs. 
 Courtenay to the maid who entered. Under their 
 unwelcome glare the elder ladies appeared pale the 
 one who had heard and pondered the strange words of 
 her friend, the other whose fancies had been set roving 
 by touch of the dead man's cane.
 
 251 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 
 
 "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ! 
 Do noble things, not dream them all day long : 
 And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever 
 One grand, sweet song." C. KINGSLEV. 
 
 "Yet no cold votress of the cloister she, 
 Warm her devotion, warm her charity ; 
 The face the index of a feeling mind, 
 And her whole conduct rational and kind." CRABBE. 
 
 ON the morning of her flight, Gwyneth sallied forth 
 with merely a small bag, which waxed heavier as she 
 proceeded. Looking down upon the Vale, as she topped 
 the hill, she thought with aching heart of all that had 
 happened since the cavalcade of fugitives had joyfully 
 descended that way. She avoided now the dusty track 
 that meandered about the wide, fenced road. She shrank 
 behind a gum-tree as a cloud of dust hurled itself, with 
 ominous rattling accompaniment, along the road, and by 
 degrees there emerged from the thick canopy two horses, 
 a tray-wagonette, a silk-coated selector, and wife with 
 faded finery that had done duty in Bourke Street. The 
 man was smoking, the woman suckling a child. From 
 the pillar of dust they emerged for one moment, into the 
 cloud they disappeared, and Gwyneth pursued her way. 
 
 Now, past the old township of Hampstead, left 
 out in the cold by the railway, the distant roar of 
 
 R
 
 2 , 2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 whose infrequent traffic resounds through the world of 
 gums, three miles away. New Hampstead-now styled 
 Gumford-scorning the older, whose very name it cast 
 off, seeking a lustre of its own, revels in all the luxury o 
 two trains a day, and all the township turned oir 
 
 interview them ! 
 
 No "Cobb and Co." rattles now along the straight- 
 run" into the deserted township of Hampstead, with n 
 one length of "macadamized" swept clean by ram a: 
 wind No bushranger, or strange suspected character, 
 flings now, as of old, from his horse at the shanty-once 
 famed hostelry-and, casting down "a fiver,' demands 
 drinks all round." No camp of blacks obtrudes itself 
 amongst the wattle-boughs beside the sinuous, high- 
 banked stream. The Australian "Auburn" lives alone 
 on the memories of halycon bygone days, of which, in 
 the long summer evening, a handful of fossilized fogies 
 tell, beneath the once-animated verandah. 
 
 Across the long bridge at Gumford Gwyneth passed. 
 A timorous glance she cast at the camp of nomad non- 
 entities that ever sprawls and holds high conclave beside 
 the friendly piers. That sacred fire, around which grizzled 
 beards of the bush,smooth chins from the city are gathered, 
 is never suffered to die out. Ere one weary tramp, or 
 party of aimless wanderers, leaves the rendezvous, another 
 old sinner from the stations, or youngster from town, not 
 yet carrying swag as though part of him takes up the 
 vacated position and piles high the never-failing logs. 
 
 "Hungry, and thirsty, and footsore, and old, 
 OhMaS are the years that his grey hairs have told ; 
 All trackless the desert lies stretching before 
 The eyes of 'Old Archie' grown blighted and sore ; 
 He d'ags his tired feet through the hot burning sand, 
 With a swag on his back and a stick in his hand. 
 The bottle he carries is drainless and dry, ^ 
 And all he can do is to lie down and die.
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 253 
 
 For records of rascality and crime, for tales of youth's 
 fair promise blighted, for sights and sounds suggestive of 
 the white man turned savage, and the free man slave, 
 for a glimpse, from the " Bridge of Sighs," at a stream 
 of weird, wasted life, flowing perennial from station to 
 homestead, forest to plain, from north to south of the 
 vast continent streams of humanity uncared for, un- 
 thought of men of promise of yore, who work and drink 
 and trudge again, to beg at last and to die, with crow to 
 caw the funeral obsequies, and ant to compete for the 
 last legacy of flesh for a peep into this world unique, 
 stand for one moment, as Gwyneth did, upon the bridge 
 that spans the sapling-shrouded stream, ere you cross 
 the tarred timbers and find yourself in Great Gumford. 
 
 Gwyneth made for the railway-station, as the be- 
 nighted traveller on the illimitable plains for the light in 
 the window, the scrambler in the dark forest for the 
 barking of the dog. 
 
 The straight, level line of rail that connects Gumford 
 with the outer world, divides the township and country- 
 side into two hemispheres. On that side, plain for 
 hundreds of miles ; on this, forest : there, they drink 
 squash and shandygaff; here, whisky and strong beer : 
 there, they wear silk dust-coats, affect tray-buggies, and 
 shave; here, the bullock-team holds its own, German 
 wagon and lumbering dray, the beard is thick and tangled : 
 here English Churchman, who swears by his own, Scotch 
 Kirkman, sinewy "-Holy Roman "; there, smooth Bible- 
 Christian " Primitive Methodist, with light dash of mild 
 " Salvation Army." Speedily climate and physical con- 
 formation of country affect the habits and character of 
 the population. 
 
 The plan of Gumford is simple. Facing the all- 
 important railway-line run two rows of opposing public
 
 254 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 houses and stores. Here, at the conservative corner, 
 where squatters imbibe, Thomas Coke holds sway. 
 Mark him as he stands, with legs well set beneath a 
 portly frame, head of a Bismarck, on broad, unrounded 
 shoulders, descendant of generations of Irish gentle- 
 men. Blood and breeding tell. A lay-rector, brought 
 up to sniff Popery, sip port, and bag game, ruined by the 
 O'Connell Reforms of which, with clenched fists and 
 flashing eye, he still speaks. Wife and daughters he left 
 in Ireland, so that he might seek fresh fortune and a new 
 home in Australia. 
 
 First the paid manager, then the proprietor of rural 
 hostelries, the disendowed rector, with the dignity and 
 grace that never forsook him, played the host for profit, 
 as erstwhile for love. Tom Parnell and "the Radical 
 crew," as he termed it, of this new land he roundly de- 
 nounced, turning away thereby clients more liberal to 
 Will Short's ' Farmers' Arms ' opposite. " He went on 
 Sunday to the church," not to "sit among the boys," 
 but to occupy front seat and to hand round the plate, 
 looking the squire of the parish he was born to be. He 
 wrote each week [to the daughters in Dublin, and sent 
 them means to maintain the position the family had ever 
 filled. For thirty years father and daughters never 
 wavered in their ardent, Hibernian affection. Here, 
 they never saw each other more. To the last, in dusty, 
 sordid, brawling Gumford, Tom Coke held his head 
 high, ever sober, solid, dignified a gentleman and 
 Christian, untainted by all the grossness of the bar. God 
 rest thee, Tom Coke, and keep thy memory green ! 
 
 As Gwyneth passed, Coke's quick eye observed her, 
 as did that of the young bank-clerk spending his spare 
 hours in the only way that suggested itself, lounging and 
 refreshing oft, beneath the hospitable verandah.
 
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 255 
 
 L'hommc qui rit of the township, who stands talking to 
 the bank-clerk, checks for one moment his hilarity as 
 the maiden passes ; the half-stupefied tramp, sitting on 
 his swag and leaning against the verandah-post, looks up 
 with admiration, as he grinds his tobacco in revolving 
 palms. The bank-manager is crossing the road with the 
 twentieth client to commemorate at Tom Coke's bar, 
 account-squaring results of a fruitful harvest. 
 
 "Deuced fine girl!" he exclaims, as the frightened, 
 thing hurries past. The bank-clerk with handsome face 
 and open heart, who might be a man of worth to-day, if 
 the wealthy institution he served had bestowed one 
 thought on the pitiable lot of such as he follows the 
 girHo the platform. The appearance of such a girl in 
 Gumford was an unwonted experience. With the 
 absence of ceremony acquired in the country, the youth, 
 curious and admiring, asks can he " do anything for_her ? " 
 The round man who ever laughs is rolling, with hands in 
 pocket, across the desert of dust to see " this pretty 
 piece of goods." 
 
 "No train for two hours," the lounging station-master 
 reports. 
 
 Here, to be gazed at and questioned by half-intoxi- 
 cated natives, Gwyneth cannot stay. She remembers 
 the St. Clouds at the store opposite, whose pretty 
 daughters had been delighted with her retreat at Mimosa 
 Vale, and had repeatedly asked her to spend a few days 
 at Gumford. 
 
 Smiling, good-natured St. Cloud almost leaps the 
 heaped-up counter, when he sees the anxious-looking 
 maiden threading her way amongst bags and tins and 
 cases that range about the floor. 
 
 The wanderer is taken by storm ; begged to remain in 
 the cosy, domestic addendum to the busy store. The girls
 
 256 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 play and read and paint. Gwyneth could be happier 
 resting there, where the freedom and freshness of the 
 country are associated with tastes and accomplishments 
 of city life ; but she dare not ; she will, as soon as possible, 
 hide herself in the metropolis. 
 
 The three clear-eyed, round-cheeked specimens of 
 rustic beauty " see her off" from the platform upon 
 which, including storekeeper King of the township, with 
 tall hat on side of head, all Gumford, from bank- 
 manager and mad doctor to tramp and tinker, stand ; 
 and, in the "second-class ladies' compartment," midst 
 bottles and babies, Gwyneth pursues her weary journey 
 towards the distant seaboard. 
 
 Past deserted "flats" and "rushes" and "gullies," 
 where maddened thousands once dug, where the crash 
 of " cradles " exceeded the present roar of the train as 
 it speeds through miles of half-filled graves of golden 
 hopes; past the gardens into which, here and there, 
 enterprising holders of "miners' rights" have transformed 
 the ocean of mingling mullock heaps ; through now 
 civilized Quartzopolis, where oak and elm mingle strangely 
 with gum and curragong, casting pleasant shade and 
 bright streaks of green across the city, greed-for-gold 
 left so bare ; past the roaring " stampers " treading out 
 the yellow specks embedded in milk-white quartz : past 
 " Poppet heads," where the ringing signal-stroke of 
 metal on metal gives the word for earth's treasures to be 
 hauled from two thousand feet below the roaring city ; 
 now rushing through the lonely "stations," whose sheep 
 spread over pastures where millions of human beings 
 might prosper ; through the garden of the land, across 
 Dividing Range where rain falls oft, and the black soil 
 yields a richer harvest than all the gold-spangled rock 
 left behind ; on, ever on, screeching past sleepy platforms
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 257 
 
 and nameless "sidings," towards the glow in the southern 
 sky, where myriad lights of the never-sleeping city cast 
 their Aurora Australis on clouds rolling up from the 
 Southern Pole. 
 
 More terrified, and with reason, than in forest and on 
 plain, the lonely girl extricated herself from the mass of 
 human freight which the express disgorged on the seeth- 
 ing platform ; hurried through the throng of boisterous, 
 beckoning " cabbies," of friends welcoming travellers and 
 monopolizing half the platform in the process, of porters 
 looking carefully after those having no luggage or needs. 
 
 Stepping into a tram, Gwyneth in half-an-hour found 
 herself at Bridge Road, Richmond. A few steps brought 
 her to the shop of Mrs. Strivens, a whilom neighbour of 
 hers. 
 
 The good lady was counting the takings of the day. 
 Hers was a small green-grocer's shop. In the window 
 was a card, that Gwyneth was relieved to recognize still 
 in place, " Apartments to Let." A warm welcome Mrs. 
 Strivens accorded the wanderer. 
 
 "Yes, there was a bed to spare, though not a room. 
 Pennie Scribblings and Millie Cole \yere still with her, 
 and a new boarder whom Gwyneth would not know." 
 
 The two old friends, who happened to come in a few 
 moments after, received Gwyneth with delight not un- 
 mixed with surprise. 
 
 " There, I'm not going to kiss you any more ! " ex- 
 claimed demonstrative Pennie, panting. " Now, sit 
 down. Take off your bonnet. Mrs. Strivens, kindly 
 oblige us with ' coffee for four ' without the pistols ! 
 Now, Evangeline you know that was always my name 
 for you I'm going to keep to it tell us what good luck 
 brings you to town. We thought you had renounced 
 the city for ever."
 
 258 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Gwyneth, darling, you are more beautiful than ever," 
 said Millie, the Academy student, as she took her friend's 
 hands and looked lovingly into her face. "You shall sit 
 for me to-morrow, dear. But, stay, your countenance is 
 more pensive. There are fresh lines of thought and care ; 
 you have a story to tell, darling. Now we will hear it." 
 
 Gwyneth did not tell the story ; at least not the 
 more important part. She explained that her father had 
 been called away, and that she, finding the life dull, had 
 resolved to see her former friends again. To Pennie 
 that night the poor girl confided more. 
 
 Pennie was correspondent for two papers, reported for 
 two more, was sub-editor of another. 
 
 " But I'm heartily sick of the Society trash ! " she ex- 
 claimed ; " of taking notes of nothing, and writing up 
 everything not worthy a thought." 
 
 " What of your book ? " asked Gwyneth. " Has that 
 been a success ? " 
 
 "Just where it was, half-finished. I get no time for 
 real writing ; scribbling for a living is my one occupation." 
 
 Millie's report was little better. Sometimes the girl 
 had a little picture sold. She had a few pupils. But 
 there was no incentive. Life for her, too, was a dull 
 struggle for existence. 
 
 The third boarder was a widow of nineteen, without a 
 penny and without a friend, Mrs. Gussey Gore, whose 
 husband had run through his money and lost his health 
 in twelve months, leaving her after a short year of wild 
 expenditure, which the young couple mistook for happi- 
 ness, alone in the world. Twelve hours a day Gussey 
 Gore plied her needle to the order of the " Ladies' 
 Work Association," and of Buckland and Joshua's in 
 Bourke Street. She managed to pay for her board. 
 The future she dared not anticipate.
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 259 
 
 The evening hour was the bright spot of their ex- 
 istence, when the friends returned and books were read 
 and talked about, and pictures discussed. Then the 
 lonely three lifted themselves above their depressing 
 surroundings, and revelled in a world open to all 
 who possess the entree to spheres of art, literature, and 
 science. 
 
 Each of the trio contributed from their respective 
 connections, small commissions that enabled Gwyneth 
 to pay for her board. Pennie dispatched her to a 
 garden-party to report for her paper, The Solar System. 
 Millie managed to dispose of one or two of the studies 
 with which Gwyneth occupied her spare hours; while 
 thin delicate Gussey Gore was glad, when orders came 
 in apace, to share her labour and slender reward with the 
 new arrival. 
 
 Gwyneth discovered, however, that she had been 
 incapacitated, by sojourn in the country under such 
 different surroundings, for the hard life of the city. 
 
 She pined for the freedom and pure air of the Valley. 
 The close foul atmosphere of the narrow streets sickened 
 her. The ruthless competition, in which all about her 
 were involved, seemed like the scramble of wild beasts, 
 half-starved, compared with the Arcadian simplicity she 
 had discarded. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Strivens poured the tale of her woe into 
 the girl's ear. She had been making a bare livelihood. 
 Forthwith a large shop, with much wealth of paint and 
 window-gilding, had opened across the way. Having 
 some little means, the new-comers were able to undersell 
 their rival, although Mrs. Strivens' margin of profits was 
 already a vanishing factor, despite the fact that she 
 purchased goods at the earliest market, and little Johnnie 
 wheeled them home. Her husband, a printer, since his
 
 260 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 second son apprenticed to the firm could do his father's 
 work for nothing, had lost the situation held for twenty 
 years. The old man, who felt his life-work slipping from 
 his hands, bitterly upbraided poor Charlie for " taking the 
 bread out of his sisters' mouths " and " cutting his own 
 father out." What could the youth do but weep when 
 sore pressed? Was he not "bound " for years to come 
 yet ? Had he not to do what he was bid ? The eldest 
 son was a saddler just " out of his time," but gentlefolk 
 were "putting down " their horses, and after five years' 
 application there was no demand for the saddles William 
 had studied to make. 
 
 " If I'd only learnt to plough with the horses, instead 
 of to harness them," the young man complained, " I could 
 go on the land to-morrow that's always there and make 
 something grow, if it was only ' Turks' heads ' for mother's 
 window." 
 
 Their straitened circumstances and Gwyneth's ac- 
 count of the. new system that was establishing itself 
 beside the lake, set the four girls thinking and talking. 
 Why should they not transfer the scene of their labours 
 to such a favoured locality ? Might not a party of home- 
 less girls win a living there, and spend spare hours in 
 writing, sewing, and painting, with other delights, as their 
 tastes and acquirements suggested ? 
 
 "One fact alone is significant," remarked Gwyneth. 
 " Here it costs us one pound a week to live, or starve, 
 whichever you care to call it ; there, a number of us 
 could exist, in comparative affluence, for two shillings a 
 week each. Though far from town, we ought to be able 
 to earn with our hands and our brains as much as that, 
 and a great deal more." 
 
 The girls revelled in the idea. At the Work Associa- 
 tion, Academy, and Salon, they canvassed and expanded it.
 
 AMAZONA THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 26 1 
 
 The proposal was enthusiastically entertained by scores 
 of girls struggling disconsolately for a living. The idea 
 of homes and gardens, cows and fowls of their own, with 
 Art as a pastime, presented itself to their youthful imagin- 
 ation as a possibility almost too good to be realized. 
 
 Travers had sought out Gwyneth, and endeavoured by 
 all means to converse with her. She steadily avoided 
 him. Her heart, however, was breaking ; the freshness 
 was departing from her spirit. She was restless ; felt she 
 must have change and fuller occupation. 
 
 Her father wrote begging her to return. She replied 
 that she could not settle down again to the old life ; but 
 would he, she asked, let her know whether she and some 
 of her friends could establish themselves on the southern 
 end of the lake? Eventually a scheme was formulated 
 whereby five hundred acres should be ploughed and 
 prepared, fifty cottages built, and a site laid out for the 
 proposed novel colony. 
 
 Ill at ease himself, fearful of his daughter's dissatisfac- 
 tion with the part he had lately played, Elms was glad to 
 facilitate Gwyneth's return to the neighbourhood, though 
 not to his home. 
 
 As to the domestic arrangements other designs were 
 in his mind. The White House, the natural centre, must 
 be his. It ought not to be a difficult matter for a man 
 of his parts to win the widow of the deceased doctor. 
 Meanwhile Gwyneth was just as well out of the way at 
 the other end of the lake. If she must go into retire- 
 ment, better there than to a convent. 
 
 The perfected scheme was laid by Gwyneth before a 
 special meeting of "the Salon of the South," and Artistic 
 and Literary Club for Ladies, that PennieScribblingshad 
 done much to promote. 
 
 With a beating heart Gwyneth ascended the lift and
 
 262 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 laid aside her shawl and hat in the ante-room. The 
 spacious L-shaped Salon was filled with ladies of all and 
 every class and attainment. 
 
 Many were young and prepossessing, personally 
 attractive still to the eye of the outer world some few 
 plain but powerful many long since escaped from the 
 tender simplicity of " sweet seventeen." From every eye, 
 however, intelligence gleamed ; on many a face genius was 
 stamped ; on each high brow force was written. 
 
 Here and there a few much-overshadowed men were 
 bestowed on corners of couches and edges of chairs. 
 Sub-editors, not yet quite " case "-hardened to the 
 charms of fair women, young doctors who had been 
 prevailed upon to "read a paper," with art critics whose 
 wives thought them safe ensconced at the Club ! 
 
 Gvvyneth's paper created, even in this august company, 
 quite a sensation. The proposal was welcomed with 
 acclaim. Why should not daughters of Eve return to the 
 Garden of Eden, the Graces be ensconced beside the 
 streams, and nymphs explore the woods again ? 
 
 So it was that Amazona was founded. 
 
 Fifty of the fair, whose duties were of such a character 
 that they could be performed at a distance, set forth for 
 the home beside the lake. For each five a cottage had 
 been erected. 
 
 A light breakfast and lunch each household prepared 
 as best they could, but dinner, which was veritably "a 
 feast of reason and flow of soul," was partaken of in 
 common in the large weatherboard mess-room, that 
 served also as concert-hall, reading-room, and theatre. 
 
 Four cows, a crate of fowls, five acres of land for 
 garden purposes, already ploughed, were apportioned to 
 each party ; seeds were supplied, directions given, tech- 
 nical papers read. From the common store each party
 
 AMA7ONA THE FLTC.IIT OF THE MAIDENS. 263 
 
 received their weekly provisions. The product of farm- 
 yard and field was disposed of in connection with 
 agencies already in existence at Mimosa Vale. 
 
 Millie's pictures, painted under brighter auspices, 
 fetched double the price she used to command. Pennie's 
 paper had to exist without her, while she gave herself 
 in spare hours to completing the volume that ere long, 
 with others, brought her fame and fortune. 
 
 None but those who know from experience, could con- 
 jecture the reason why a freshness and pungency, lacking 
 in earlier efforts, pervaded her subsequent works. Many 
 of Millie's students followed her. Once a month Gussey 
 Gore dispatched to the Work Association a small parcel 
 that now readily commanded purchasers. One or two 
 hours' work with her needle per day sufficed to keep her 
 in credit on the books. As time wore on it was discovered 
 that the cows and the poultry of each fair settler yielded 
 them return at the rate of fifty pounds a year. The garden 
 of cut- flowers for the market, the perfume-farm and apiary, 
 silk-worm grove later, with a dozen other natural indus- 
 tries for which feminine hands were adapted, yielded 
 profits that brought wealth to the promoters, and prompted 
 daily applications for admission to the ever-extending 
 garden-community of Amazona. 
 
 On the lake, after work on the soil, the maidens 
 developed their muscles and cleared their brains after 
 study or sedentary occupation. At the annual regatta 
 their yacht distanced all male-manned competitors ! A 
 score strong, the Amazons would ride forth, after cows 
 had been milked, and gardens cared for, to hunt the kan- 
 garoo in outlying portions of the station. The maidens 
 became sure of eye, as fleet of foot, and came to handle 
 rifle and revolver with a readiness calculated to deter any 
 had there been such who would invade their retreat.
 
 264 THE NF.W ARCADIA. 
 
 One of the most successful of all the associated 
 settlements was the fair and famed Amazona. For a 
 month, or a longer term, those who could not entirely 
 tear themselves from the city were permitted to sojourn 
 at the settlement. Largely it helped to solve the question, 
 " What shall we do with our girls ? " 
 
 When, shortly, a direct line of rail connected the settle- 
 ment with the metropolis, many nurses and seamstresses, 
 writers and others, worked about their garden homes, 
 when no special duty called them away, while at other 
 times they spent a few hours, or days, profitably in the city 
 
 By degrees, not, it must be supposed, because of their 
 comparative wealth, but by reason of their womanliness 
 and aptitude, the maidens of Amazona were largely 
 sought after, and shortly the synonym for a good house- 
 wife and worthy woman of mind was " a Daughter of the 
 Lake." All were free to wed or wander as they willed. 
 But only those approved at the monthly parliament could 
 join the sisterhood and settle at Amazona. 
 
 Any ceasing to reside could retain their garden farm 
 cultivated at their expense and share in the quarterly 
 dividends. 
 
 For Mrs. Strivens and her family a corner at Kokiana 
 was found where, with none to compete, but all to help as 
 they were helped, she flourished. 
 
 Only, as is often the case, the promoter of the fairyland 
 was unhappy. 
 
 Gwyneth could not but grieve over the change that had 
 come over her father, and ponder in her mind by what 
 dreadful devices Malduke and he had gained control at 
 Mimosa Vale. For Travers, too, she pined, always, 
 despite her anger, haunted by the thought that some 
 terrible mistake had parted them, and made him appear 
 in such despicable light.
 
 A MA/ON A THE FLIGHT OF THE MAIDENS. 265 
 
 And so, with the burden of responsibility pressing upon 
 her, the young creature worked and worried on, fading 
 and failing, as her friends feared, from day to day, finding 
 chief consolation in visiting the pale consumptives at 
 Hygeia, taking them out in her yacht on the lake, and 
 striving to impart to others' lives a brightness and joy 
 that had vanished from her own.
 
 266 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 
 
 " Like a rock that breasts the sea, 
 
 Firm he stood in front of foes ; 
 To his friend a sheltering tree, 
 That in changeless beauty grows. 
 
 Firm alike to friend and foe, 
 
 Firm in gentleness and faith, 
 Firm in ' yes,' and firm in 'no,' 
 
 Firm through life, and firm in death." 
 
 SIR HENRY PARKES. 
 
 " The flying rumours gathered as they roll'd, 
 Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told ; 
 And all who told it added something new, 
 And all who told it made enlargements too ; 
 In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew." PRIOR. 
 
 BESIDE the lonely beach the doctor sat, with elbows on 
 knees, his eyes sweeping, for a thousandth time, the un- 
 broken horizon, that never revealed speck or sail. As the 
 soft breeze whispered amongst the palm-leaves, and the 
 waters gently lapped the coral shore, the desolate man 
 often dreamed that he heard his daughter's voice singing 
 in the distant vale. 
 
 " If I might look upon her face, and know that she was 
 happy ! " 
 
 Starting to his feet he paced the gleaming sand, stretched 
 forth trembling hands across the deep as though he 
 would draw to him the loved forms he sometimes fancied 
 he saw before him. 
 
 "Too hard, too hard to bear!" he groaned, pressing
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 267 
 
 with his hands his throbbing temples, and, all unnerved, 
 sitting down again to weep. 
 
 Some twelve feet below the top of the cliff from which 
 he had fallen was a ledge, invisible from above, that pro- 
 truded from the face of the rock. Catching on a projecting 
 bush, he fell on the ledge, and rolled inward against the 
 cliff. 
 
 Stiff and stunned, he lay all day on the horizontal 
 fissure. Now he opened his eyes and half realized his 
 position ; now closing them, dreamed of distant scenes he 
 had hoped so soon to visit. Again he awoke. It was 
 night. He dared not move. Hour after hour he watched 
 for the dawn. Daylight fully revealed his terrible position. 
 A few feet from where he lay, the wall of cliff descended 
 precipitously to the water. Not a goat could clamber to 
 or from that dizzy shelf. Above him arose the cliff, sloping 
 outwards to the sea. 
 
 There was no escape. He lay down to die. Possibly a 
 rope might be lowered, but how could the searchers 
 imagine that he had found lodgment on that cliff face ? 
 The action of Elms and the expression on his face con- 
 vinced him that the search would not be protracted 
 longer than he could contrive. 
 
 As he thought of the treachery of the man he had 
 befriended, of the Will of which Elms had been mumbling 
 in his fevered ravings, of the incoherent remarks about 
 Malduke, and the document that had been destroyed, 
 the doctor recognized the whole truth. The provision 
 that, with a few lines, he had made for the disposition of 
 the first venture, might be read as applying to the later 
 estate. 
 
 The thought of his people and his life's work in the 
 hands of these treacherous intriguers caused him, seeking 
 means of escape, to tear again with his hands the smooth 
 
 s
 
 268 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 walls of his prison-house, and to scan with a practised 
 eye the face of the cliff. 
 
 The coral rock, up-thrown by volcanic action, and 
 exposed to the climatic influences of ages, was crisp and 
 yielding. A slight foothold would suffice him. He 
 could balance wherever chamois or its hunter could 
 stand. 
 
 Out on the face, yard by yard, he cut footsteps, a 
 narrow siding, in a slanting, upward direction. A sharp, 
 flat stone served as chisel. A few yards along the dizzy 
 precipice face he had levelled when night fell. From 
 sheer hunger and exhaustion he slept. The next day, 
 the third, he continued his labours, while the wild-fowl 
 circled about him, and the white foam, restless to receive 
 him, laved the rocks hundreds of feet below. Before the 
 sun sank his task was accomplished. Out upon the clift 
 top the captive tottered, blood streaming from the hands 
 that had torn a pathway from a living grave, suspended, 
 like Mahomet's, between heaven and earth. He staggered 
 to the knoll where the mate had slept. A blood-stained 
 handkerchief he waved, shouting till the sea-birds, 
 sweeping in wonder around, drowned his cries with their 
 screeches. Away, towards the horizon, was a dark spot 
 on the water, and a lingering line of smoke, that seemed 
 unwilling to leave him to his fate. 
 
 " Lost and cast away ! " he cried, as he grovelled on the 
 hill-top, and wondered why the cruel ledge should have 
 intercepted, his descent to oblivion. " For the first time 
 and last," he bitterly thought as he dragged himself 
 down to the cave he had stocked, " has the provision 
 I have made for others brought benefit to myself." 
 
 Water, fresh and tasteless, was procured, by sinking in 
 the sands a few feet above high-water mark. Fish and 
 mutton-birds with their eggs, cocoa-nuts and roots, served
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 269 
 
 to eke out the store he had made. A hut he built him- 
 self; later he planted a garden, and, to pass the time, 
 sowed seeds he discovered in his store. The wild-fowl 
 he sought to tame. 
 
 A catamaran he constructed, and set forth on one 
 occasion to cross the Pacific on a raft of logs ! A merci- 
 ful gale hurled him the next day on to the beach. Months 
 passed, much as they have done for thousands shut up 
 with themselves on desolate rocks of the ocean. 
 
 The " Two Greatest Books in the world," as he called 
 them, helped him to preserve the reason, which some- 
 times seemed to be failing. Hour after hour he would 
 read aloud dialogues and description, and live and con- 
 verse with those whom genius and inspiration have 
 rendered immortal. On margin and cover of each 
 volume he wrote, with his one pencil, annotations and 
 comments, that served to occupy his mind. With the 
 indomitable resolution that had ever marked him, he 
 refused to lie down and die, or to relinquish the priceless 
 spiritual and intellectual powers that were left him. 
 
 Of the very irony of fate it seemed that he who 
 had decried so persistently the evils of individualism 
 should be taught, on that desert island, what complete 
 isolation involves ; that he who had devoted himself to 
 social enterprise should be reduced to communing with 
 the fancied and the dead should realize how helpless 
 the most gifted, cut off from his kind, deprived of the 
 power of co-operation and communion with his fellows. 
 
 Again the stars, that had looked down on the ledge 
 on which he had lain and first realized his desolation, 
 returned. Almost a year, he knew, had elapsed. 
 
 A hurricane, that swept away his hut in the night, 
 hurled a " dug-out " canoe, empty, on the shore. His 
 blankets he converted into a sail. A store of fresh fowl
 
 2/0 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 and eggs, with kerosene-tin of water, he stowed in the 
 hollow trunk of his out-rigged craft. 
 
 For days the lone man sailed over placid waters, out of 
 sight of land. At night he directed his course by the 
 stars, trusting to good fortune to do the same for him by 
 day. 
 
 On an evil morn he awoke to find thai his tin had 
 sprung a leak, and given out its last drop of water. Days 
 passed, when the sun beat down upon him, still sailing 
 on, he knew not where ; nights, when deadly dews 
 descended upon his aching limbs and fevered head. At 
 times he raised himself from the coffin-cabin in which 
 he lay, and, in a moment of returning consciousness, 
 wondered when it would end, how long he would be sail- 
 ing over placid seas to some impossible "nowhere." 
 
 Now he was in his coffin, wild birds his mourners, stars 
 his funeral tapers, dews of night his shroud. It is 
 daylight, a steaming white craft is bearing down upon 
 him. The blue flag he recognizes, of the " Royal Thames 
 Yacht-club,'' of which years ago he was a member. He 
 is dreaming, surely. Youthful days are returning to him. 
 White jackets, however, and friendly bronzed faces are 
 bending over the bulwarks of " the white ship." Bare, 
 brown arms are lifting him out of his floating coffin ! 
 
 "Ah, ah !" he laughs, "that is not kind, to disturb a 
 man in his grave." 
 
 Kindly they laid the fevered, emaciated form on good 
 Captain Bongard's own bunk. 
 
 The Southern Cross, returning from a six months' 
 cruise amongst the palm-clad isles of the coral sea, drew 
 next day in sight of the tapering pines of Norfolk Island. 
 Wives and children and black scholars, two hundred 
 strong, all clad in white, descended to the quay, waving 
 and shouting and weeping for joy, to welcome the bronzed
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 2/1 
 
 men whom duty had called half a year from their 
 home. 
 
 Between two of the Christian pioneers of civilization 
 the gaunt and haggard stranger staggered up the hill-side, 
 casting wild eyes around, seeking for some face, he ever 
 saw, to welcome him ; weeping when he learned that he 
 had not yet come to the home beside the lake. The 
 good Bishop, himself crippled by the deadly dews of the 
 treacherous seas, welcomed the social missionary to his 
 bungalow. 
 
 The man revived, and feasted with the three hundred 
 of all ages and grades, who, in the great mess-room, 
 suggestive of an Australian wool-shed, partook of their 
 meal in common. 
 
 Pitcairn Islanders welcomed the victim of a modern 
 mutiny, showing him their clean-swept, macadamized roads 
 and leafy avenues, and receiving him to their massive 
 stone residences, relics of the labours of long-defunct 
 - convicts. In the stone chapel, beautiful as the Isles in 
 which it gathers the music of the coral seas, memorial 
 of the bishop-martyr who fell, fearless, at Santa Cruz, 
 the doctor, with dark-skinned Christians in white robes, 
 worshipped. 
 
 Later the Mary Ogilvey brought letters three months 
 old to the isolated community hungering for news. The 
 restored wanderer accepted the invitation of Captain 
 Gartle to voyage in his trim schooner to Sydney. A 
 brief stay at Lord Howe's Island, pleasant basking under 
 the unrivalled palms that fringe the bright seaboard, and 
 on to Sydney. 
 
 The doctor was afraid to telegraph, knowing that he 
 must be accounted dead. He took steamer to Adelaide. 
 Still unnerved, though daily gaining strength, he dared 
 not make himself known. He clung to the vessel, and
 
 2/2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 so thought of returning quietly by water as he had 
 departed. At Echuca, as he voyaged, he experienced 
 a shock that stunned him. 
 
 Strolling into an hotel, he took up, to while away the 
 time, one of those society papers that 
 
 " Like the flies of later spring, 
 Lay their eggs and sling and sing, 
 And weave their petty cells and (lie." 
 
 His eye fell on a column headed in large characters 
 "A VILLAGE ROMANCE." 
 
 The writer recalled the fact of a Dr. Courtenay having 
 sought to establish a Village Community on a tributary of 
 the Silverbourne. How a year ago the founder had lost 
 his life, leaving the estate in question to his manager and 
 friend one John Elms, Esq. This gentleman was now 
 candidate for a seat in the Upper House. 
 
 His friends accused him of exchanging Radical 
 principles for Conservative. A man with property and 
 position such as his, was wise to modify his opinions. 
 He had experienced difficulty, however, with respect to 
 the people so strangely left at his mercy. Matters had 
 come to a crisis. There was prospect of the entire 
 community being summarily evicted unless they could 
 see their way to sinking their individuality and falling in 
 with their despotic master's peculiar ideas. 
 
 Love, of a romantic character, had, however, as is 
 often the case, promised to cut the Gordian knot. The 
 disconsolate widow was, so rumour had it, likely to 
 yield to the blandishments of the lucky man who had 
 stepped into her husband's shoes. Mr. Elms, it appeared, 
 was willing to concede favourable terms to the distressed 
 settlers if their advocate, the fair widow, would accept
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 273 
 
 the late manager's suit, and agree to an alliance that 
 would unite the two properties. The projected union 
 was likely to be happily consummated at an early date, 
 when the villagers would be assured of their title to their 
 lands, and their master to the rich widow, &c. 
 
 The wretched print the doctor laid on his knee, and 
 gazed blankly, for an hour, at the picture of Millais' 
 ' Huguenot ' that happened to hang on the wall opposite. 
 His -whole life passed in review before him ; since a 
 lovely woman first nestled to his breast and confessed 
 that she loved him. The parting beside the lake, the 
 eager longing for return, the face that haunted him as he 
 paced the sand of his exile, all flashed in turn before 
 him. 
 
 And it was for this he had persevered and lived ! 
 To find his wife the accepted bride, nay, perhaps already 
 the wife, of his would-be murderer ! He would return 
 to the island retreat and spend his remaining "years in 
 companionship with the sea-fowl. He walked forth 
 beside the wide river. Might he not fling himself on its 
 turbid bosom, be lost, and remain forgotten? Nay, he 
 was cowed, but not coward yet ! He would go on to 
 the bitter end ! 
 
 Apparently his unhappy wife was, at worst, but sacri- 
 ficing herself to purchase terms for the oppressed people. 
 She was their champion in his absence. 
 
 He would see her again, though she should not know 
 him. He must avoid that man lest murder should soil 
 his name. Nay, he might yet, if it were not too late, 
 unravel the mystery and save his wife. But not if, even 
 for others' sake, she had yielded to this man's impor- 
 tunities. She would never again be his ! 
 
 His canoe the traveller had lowered from the deck 
 into the river and made fast to the stern, professedly to
 
 2/4 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 ascertain that it was taut and sound. In the early 
 morning he dressed himself again in the tattered island 
 garb, brought as a relic to amuse his friends. He 
 looked in his cabin glass. He had grown older and 
 whiter in the night. He thought, with a sickly smile, 
 there would be little likelihood of his being recognized. 
 Clean-shaven, round-figured, well-dressed and upright, he 
 had gone forth, nearly two years ago he returned 
 with grey, flowing locks and beard, stooping and worn. 
 
 With first streak of daylight the mariner stepped into 
 his canoe, paddled unobserved, softly, from the wharf, 
 spread his blanket-sail to the morning breeze, and sped 
 past startled sheep, and wondering punt-people, up the 
 Silverbourne. The red-gum splitter flung down his axe 
 and called to his mate, cooking the morning meal, to see 
 the wondrous sight. 
 
 In a few hours the white-haired voyager entered the 
 canal. Wattle-blossom, blown from myriad branches by 
 last night's wind, floated like a streak of gold on a silver 
 stream, past him to the sea. The mimosa-scent brought 
 him thoughts of home and the treasured past. He 
 recalled to his mind the bright pathway of flowers that 
 had marked his departure amidst the prayers and bless- 
 ings of those who now cursed or had forgotten him. 
 No loving hands had plucked this wattle-bloom ; it was 
 hurled by the wild wind to its watery grave, as he was 
 cast away on the stream of life, to disappear in the ocean 
 of oblivion. 
 
 A flush returned to the wan cheek, as the founder 
 observed the downs of Fabricia dotted with close-lying 
 gardens, and pleasant booths of industry ; as the children 
 of Kokiana ran to meet the singing house-father return- 
 ing to his vine-clad cottage. Away, over the plains, the 
 orchards now . spread. Even the palsied hands of
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 2/5 
 
 Hygeia had covered the hillside with corn and lowing 
 kine. And here, beside the lake, a new settlement had 
 arisen, where only women moved, vicing with the mag- 
 pie and canaries in song. Girls sit in the sun and sew, 
 others with writing-pad on lap hold the pen, while 
 maidens descend laughing, with brimming pails of milk 
 in either hand, from the farmyard on the hill. 
 
 Beneath a golden wattle, about which paroquets are 
 shrieking as they flit amongst the white waxy gum- 
 blossom, a girl is painting. 
 
 "Will he pause a moment," Millie Cole timidly 
 requests, " while she sketches his gliding coracle ? " 
 
 Seizing a bough, the white man acceded. In a few 
 moments Millie had caught the outlines of a picture that 
 brought her fame when the grey man was famous. 
 
 Across the rippleless lake, towards the quay, where 
 the band is playing, and knots of men, women, and 
 children are lounging, the venerable voyager proceeds. 
 All crowd to the pier-end to observe him. Speculations 
 are rife as to who he may be. 
 
 " Some ' wild man of the woods ' from the sources of 
 the Silverbourne," suggested one. 
 
 " An old ' hatter ' been in hiding most like/' hazards 
 another. 
 
 " A log hollowed out into a boat," screech some 
 children with glee ; " and got a little log aside it. I'd 
 like to ride on it." 
 
 '' Why don't he have one on t'other side ? " laughs Sar' 
 Ann Smith, " to match it ? " 
 
 " Blowed if the old cove hasn't his ' bluey ' for a sail ! " 
 exclaims Mike Milligan. 
 
 " He's not wore no new suit, nor seen no barber, for 
 many a day, I reckon," cries Sar' Ann. 
 
 Oblivious, seemingly, of the curious eyes fixed upon
 
 2/6 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 him, and of the animated comment he was exciting, the 
 mysterious stranger made fast his canoe, ascended the 
 steps of the pier, and slowly and deliberately made his 
 way through the gaping crowd. As though wearied, he 
 seated himself on a bench beside a woman with one 
 child in her arms and others about her. The children 
 shrank away startled. 
 
 "You seem tolerably happy here," remarked the 
 visitor, in an absent sort of way, looking languidly 
 around upon the settlement that warm suns and genial 
 waters had so rapidly developed. 
 
 "Speaks English 't any rate," remarked some of the 
 company aside ; " though, like the deaf coves at Hygeia, 
 he talks like as he'd half- forgotten how." 
 
 " Happy ! " exclaimed the mother, after a pause, while 
 she considered whether she should reply ; "you're better 
 off, wherever you've been, all by yoursel', than us here. 
 Sold, is what we calls it," she added, after further 
 observation of the stranger. "A flash fellow of a 
 doctor brought us all here. Swore as we'd be all right. 
 Then went away ; died, tumbled over a precipix or 
 som'ut, and left us to a wild beast of a man." 
 
 " How do you know that no provision was made for 
 you ? " inquired the stranger. 
 
 " Know ? Haven't we all seed the bit of a Will he 
 did leave ? Look here," continued the woman, with 
 animation, "that child there were called a'ter him, 
 ' Charles Courtenay.' When he goes away he says a lot 
 of soft things, and puts his hand on his head, and the 
 child gived him flowers. Now, they hates him. I've 
 scratched his name out of the big Bible and wrote the 
 child ' Beelzebub ' i'stead though Billy's the short we 
 gives him. When the childer wakes up of nights and 
 thinks they see a bogie, they calls out, 'the doctor's
 
 THE WHITE MAN OF THE WOODS. 2/7 
 
 comin' ! ' That skeers 'em more nor Bunyip hi'self. 
 ' Doctor's ' same as devil hereabouts." 
 
 " Was he not kind to you when he was here ? " 
 
 " Maybe, good enough, but he's spoilt it all. Curses 
 on him ! " 
 
 "Then you've forgotten all the good he did," said the 
 stranger, rising and causing the company who were 
 ogling around to fall back from his wild, withering 
 glances. " Just the way of the world ! " he exclaimed, 
 with indignation. "The first lie heard you have ac- 
 cepted. Have taught your very children to curse their 
 benefactor." 
 
 "Benefactor!" cry they all; "beast we calls him! 
 Deceiver ! Murderer ! " 
 
 " There's one blessed thing," exclaimed a woman with 
 crooked nose and a cross eye, " his missus is goin' to 
 marry the man what has the place. I pity her, but, 
 anyhow, we'll get our rights." 
 
 "Better not get them at all-than in that way," rejoined 
 a stalwart man, who pushed himself forward. " Sure's 
 my name's Bob Bastion," he continued, " the matter '11 
 be cleared up yet. I distrusted one, in the cowardly 
 way we all do, his son-in-law, and he died for my child. 
 I'll never suspect another friend again until I die. With 
 men like Elms and Malduke about, any fool might 
 reckon there's more to be said yet." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " cried some. 
 
 " What about the son-in-law ? " inquired the stranger, 
 grasping Bastion's arm with a trembling hand. "You at 
 least are an honest man and true," and he looked him 
 hard in the face; " I'll believe you." Then very slowly 
 " What was that you said " his voice faltered " about 
 the man that died for your child?" Involuntarily 
 the stranger put his hand to his brow and shuddered.
 
 278 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " It's up there, cut in stone," Bastion, in a hoarse 
 voice, replied. " We all subscribed to have it. None 
 can forget it now. See and read for yourself, old man. 
 I don't like to talk 'bout it." 
 
 The stranger moved through the crowd, past the 
 pleasant homes, up the steep hill-side, amongst the 
 vines, saying to himself as he beat his breast, " A Ueast, 
 a Murderer ! My poor wife ! My boy Larry ! " 
 
 The sun set. Darkness was swiftly descending on the 
 valley. The wanderer read the chiselled lines that told 
 how his son had died. Flinging himself beside the 
 stone figure, all the world became dark as that valley, 
 and cold as the recumbent figure staring for ever across 
 the ungrateful land. One at least had done his duty, 
 and died for it. Alas ! no achievement without sacri- 
 fice, no life without death !
 
 2/9 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 
 
 " She is not dead, and she is not wed ! 
 But she loves me now, and she loved me then ! 
 And the very first words that her sweet lips said, 
 My heart grew youthful again. 
 
 ******* 
 And I think, in the lives of most women and men, 
 There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, 
 If only the dead could find out when 
 To come back and be forgiven." LYTTON. 
 
 " Ah, God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
 Like some of the simple great ones gone 
 For ever and ever by, 
 One still strong man in a blatant land, 
 Whatever they call him, what care I, 
 Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat one 
 Who can rule and dare not lie." TENNYSON. 
 
 NEVER had Mrs. Courtenay been quite in sympathy 
 with her husband's enterprise. Now that he was gone, 
 however, her one aim was to conserve the interests of 
 his people. 
 
 The advances of Elms she regarded with detestation. 
 Never could she unite herself with him. The hallucin- 
 ations of her friend, Mrs. Bowling, haunted her. Nightly 
 she dreamed of his return, and awoke to know it im- 
 possible. She could not marry another ; least of all this 
 man she loathed. 
 
 But the poor women and children who clung to her, 
 while the men implored her intervention ! They knew,
 
 280 TH"E NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 and hinted at, the terms upon which she might purchase 
 their emancipation. Should she not sacrifice herself for 
 them ? It could not be for long. Under stress of 
 sorrow and anxiety, her heart had troubled her again of 
 late. At any time the end might come. Would she 
 not sleep well, at last, with the consciousness of having 
 sacrificed herself for others ? 
 
 At one time, the distracted woman went so far as to 
 permit Elms to have a deed of settlement prepared, 
 whereby the rights of the villagers would be secured to 
 them. This document was in her possession. That 
 very evening Elms was coming to learn finally whether 
 she would accept him and his terms. 
 
 The man was intoxicated with success. Always vain 
 and covetous, he had set before him, as the height of 
 his ambition, occupancy of the White House, alliance 
 with the family of his deceased master, and an assured 
 position in society. 
 
 His daughter should yet have the rights to which, by 
 birth on her mother's side, and by talents on his, as he 
 liked to think, she was entitled. 
 
 Mrs. Courtenay was sitting in the garden as the day 
 closed, that was to decide the fate of those whose 
 destinies hung on her work. It was a terrible thought ! 
 a gruesome position ! She started as the straight, slim 
 form of the Sergeant appeared. He wore a close- 
 buttoned frock-coat, and tall hat. A cane was in his 
 hand. 
 
 "Good-evening, madam," he said, as he approached, 
 touching his hat stiffly, as to a superior officer. His was 
 the demeanour of one who had power, and intended to 
 use it. " May I ask," he continued, leaning lightly on 
 his cane, " whether you have perused the document I 
 submitted to you, and approve it ? "
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 28l 
 
 " The settlement is satisfactory," replied the lady, 
 looking him steadily in the face, " so far as the people 
 are concerned. Can you not, I implore you to consider, 
 give effect to it without the conditions imposed ? " 
 
 " Why should I yield all without receiving any- 
 thing?" 
 
 " Because, by your showing, all was given to you on 
 such terms." 
 
 " Was it, by Jove ! " exclaimed the man, lashing, 
 without moving from his position, at a poppy-head. 
 " Who, I should like to know, devised this scheme for 
 the social redemption of the people, and made this place 
 all it is ? " 
 
 " My husband," responded the lady, shortly and 
 significantly. 
 
 "One who may be your husband, madam," was the 
 reply, " if you are wise, and care for the people as much 
 as you profess." 
 
 " That can never be. It is out of the question," was 
 the prompt reply. Then, more persuasively " Let me, 
 Mr. Elms, as a friend, beg you, as one in whom my 
 husband reposed much confidence, to give these people 
 their rights. Think of the opportunity of doing good 
 that presents itself. Be magnanimous ; sign this docu- 
 ment to-night, and for ever I will be indebted to you. I 
 will bless your name ; and," she urged, " your daughter 
 might come and stay with us in town. We could take 
 her about as the child of a good man who, when he had 
 the power of doing otherwise to his own profit, secured 
 his friends in their lawful possession. John Elms," she 
 continued, with emotion, "think what this threatened 
 eviction means to those poor women and children, to the 
 men who have toiled here so hard and so long ! You 
 cannot, you will not, I am sure, cast them out."
 
 252 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 She might as well have appealed to the gnarled gum- 
 tree beside her. 
 
 "What of myself, madam?" was the almost insolent 
 reply. " A man must think of that sometimes. What 
 should I have ? Nothing. I give away all my property to 
 a useless set of folk who would, to-morrow, laugh at me 
 for my pains. No, madam. If assured of the position, 
 in every respect, your late husband occupied, I should be 
 willing to yield all you ask ; but, be sure, Mrs. Courtenay, 
 on no other conditions. Dear madam, good lady," he 
 continued, in more softened tones, "there is a soft side 
 to my nature. I am devotedly attached to yourself. I 
 sorrow deeply, I assure you, for your bereaved condition. 
 Let me try to fill, humbly, the good doctor's place. I 
 can manage ; I can command. This vast property so 
 richly improved would be the envy of all beholders. 
 You could live mostly in town, where I should be only 
 when the House sits. You can enjoy yourself, and grace 
 society," he added, with a grim smile, " with the sense 
 of having made this little world of ours and, may I 
 add, plain John Elms himself, for ever happy." 
 
 The Sergeant bent on his knee in the moonlight, and 
 sought to take the lady's hand. Mrs. Courtenay with- 
 drew it hurriedly. She rose from her seat, and turned 
 towards the house. 
 
 " Mr. Elms," she said, with decision, " that, I say, 
 can never be. You must not humiliate yourself and 
 me. I could never, for any consideration, marry again." 
 
 The man sprang to his feet. He, the dictator of 
 
 Mimosa Vale, had humbled himself in vain ! had been 
 
 spurned ! Seizing the document that lay on the beach, 
 
 he passionately tore it into a dozen pieces and cast them 
 
 . to the winds. 
 
 " Madnm," he almost shouted, "you will rue this
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 283 
 
 decision. This night your precious crew get their notice 
 to quit on the morrow. I'll set people here that I can 
 depend upon. As for you, proud woman " he scowled 
 upon her and shook his fist" when you hear the 
 children cry and see the women weep, when you think 
 of men cursing your husband for lending them wild 
 impossible hopes, you can remember that you did it ; 
 that you sacrificed them to a morbid sentiment ; that one 
 word from you would have saved them. And you would 
 not say it. Now, good-night, madam, and thank you for 
 nothing." The Sergeant strode off, cursing the misguided 
 woman who could refuse John Elms. 
 
 Mrs. Courtenay, trembling, seated herself again on 
 the bench. A pang shot to her heart. A cold moisture 
 suffused her brow. 
 
 "My God !" she exclaimed, with panting breath, "my 
 hour surely has come. What have I said ? What should 
 I do ? Oh, my husband ! His poor people ! The 
 children that clung about his knees ! Ought I God, tell 
 me to sacrifice myself for them ? " 
 
 And so, while her heart beat tumultuously with an 
 ominous thud, and then almost seemed to stop, the 
 distracted woman sat, in the cold, unsympathetic moon- 
 light, and wondered and wished herself dead "Save for 
 them," she gasped, "for his work ! " 
 
 Passing from Larry's grave on the hill-side, the white- 
 haired visitor moved unobserved along the line of 
 cottages. Opposite the church, he was almost startled 
 by the sudden leaping and gambolling of a dog about 
 his feet and knees. It was his own " Collie " the one 
 thing that recognized and greeted him in all the valley. 
 Stooping down, he caressed with trembling hand the 
 faithful creature, while it licked furtive kisses on his 
 cheek. 
 
 T
 
 284 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Dear old Collie ! " exclaimed the visitor, fairly 
 hugging the animal that whined with delight. 
 
 "Good God, what's this?" exclaimed Alec, shuffling 
 up. " The dog's never noticed a soul for nigh two 
 years. Maybe you knowed his master, sir, the good 
 doctor that went away and died. Collie thinks you're 
 some'ut to do wi' he. He's as 'cute as a Christian." 
 
 At that moment the dog, seeking to lick the face of 
 the visitor, knocked the slouched hat off. The head and 
 brow on which the moonlight streamed, revealed to the 
 old man what love had told the dog. 
 
 " My God ! it's the doctor himself, or his ghost," ex- 
 claimed Alec, clasping one of the visitor's hands in both 
 of his, and gazing into his face. "Ah, it is you, master. 
 I can see you now, spite of the white beard. Them 
 eyes ! And that look ! There's no mistaking the 
 voice." 
 
 The doctor stood hesitating. He had desired that 
 none should recognize him as yet. The strong moon- 
 light shed an unearthly glamour upon the tattered gar- 
 ments and thin bare arms of the wanderer as he still 
 embraced the dog, while a wealth of grey hair fell, like a 
 cloud, about the nestling companion of former days. 
 
 Alec, wiping his moist brow, drew back. There was 
 something uncanny about the ghostly apparition that 
 uttered no voice. 
 
 "Alec, good soul," exclaimed the doctor, putting down 
 the dog and placing both hands tenderly on the old 
 man's shoulders, " I did not mean any should know me, 
 but the dog and you, cleverer than all the crowd, have 
 found me out." 
 
 Voices of men approaching recalled the excited pair. 
 " Quick, others are coming," whispered the doctor ; 
 " let us out of the way."
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 285 
 
 They crept into a back room of the dark school beside 
 them. In a few words the doctor explained how he 
 had survived. A meeting, he learned, was to be held 
 that night, when the question of the eviction was to be 
 finally settled. 
 
 "That man, he is not married again?" inquired 
 the doctor, as though he could not trust himself to 
 ask. 
 
 " Not exactly, sir. But he hopes to be," replied the 
 old man, significantly ; " all depends on to-night." 
 
 His companion understood and shuddered. 
 
 " Thank God ! thank God ! " he murmured. 
 
 In the course of their hurried conversation, Alec 
 alluded to the tin box containing torn paper that he had 
 secured. Requested to do so, he speedily brought it 
 from his house. The doctor, recognizing the pieces, 
 procured some gum and a sheet of foolscap in the school- 
 room, and proceeded, as the two conversed, to gum the 
 severed pieces side by side. In a short time the Will 
 was restored. 
 
 Elms entered the great hall and pushed his way through 
 the assembled company, rage and mortification in his 
 heart, and a black scowl on his face. 
 
 "It's all up," whispered some, "she'll have nowt to 
 say to him. You see. Plague on her ! " 
 
 Elms explained that from the first he had done what 
 he could for them. They, however, had been ungrateful 
 and indolent. He had resolved to fill their places with 
 persons better calculated to carry a communal experiment 
 to a successful issue. He had hoped that another turn 
 might have been given to events. Mrs. Courtenay had 
 it in her power to arrange an amicable settlement, if she 
 cared to do so. At a last interview, however, she had
 
 286 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 finally refused to intervene in any way. " She leaves you 
 to your fate." 
 
 " Thank God ! " cried a deep voice from behind. 
 
 "You wouldn't say that, gov'nor," called one standing 
 near the grey-haired visitor, "if you knowed what hangs 
 on 't. She's as unilateral as her husband afore her. 
 What's we to the likes of them ? Dirt ! Drat 'em 
 all ! " 
 
 From under his slouched hat the stranger's eyes 
 flashed, but he said nothing. With arms akimbo, he 
 seemed to be holding himself together, restraining him- 
 self. 
 
 " Now I've done with you all," continued Elms. 
 "To-morrow at noon you all clear out. A posse of 
 police will render any assistance needed," he added, 
 significantly ; " indeed," jerking his thumb over his 
 shoulder, " they're now enjoying themselves at euchre 
 in the room hard by." 
 
 The poor men argued and implored, threatened and 
 raved in turns. Elms was imperturbable, gratuitously 
 insolent that was all. The women and children who 
 were gathered about the doors, hearing the dreaded edict, 
 sobbed aloud. 
 
 At this juncture Frank Brown leaped on the plat- 
 form. 
 
 " Elms," he cried indignantly, " I have sought by ail 
 means to appeal to your sense of justice, to your better 
 feelings. But all in vain ! Now, I tell you that you shall 
 not be permitted to alienate these people from their 
 lawful and hard won possessions. Cast them out to- 
 morrow," he cried with energy, " and I will raise such a 
 tempest of righteous indignation from end to end of the 
 country as shall render it impossible for you to persevere 
 in your policy of spoliation. These people shall have
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 287 
 
 their rights, and you your deserts, if I speak and labour 
 to my dying day to secure them." 
 
 Stolidly, with something between a smile and a scowl 
 on his darkening features, the dictator stepped towards 
 the clergyman. 
 
 " We want none of your meddling, young man," he said. 
 " What has parsons to do with social questions ? Go and 
 pray with the women. That's what the likes of you's fit 
 for." And he rudely jostled the young man with his 
 shoulder, as though he would push him from the platform. 
 
 In another moment the Sergeant was high in the air. 
 The cleric seized him round the waist, and, lifting him 
 like a kitten, stalked with his struggling tormentor across 
 the platform, depositing him with a thud in the chair, 
 that groaned again with the impact. 
 
 " Don't you dare lay hands on me," cried the clergy- 
 man, in his excitement shaking his fist in the bully's 
 face. " You are one of those I have met with before," 
 he continued, "who think they can insult a clergyman 
 or a woman with impunity, imagining that the one will 
 not and the other cannot resist the indignity. You 
 made a mistake this time, however. We may have 
 dealings with one another yet, John Elms. For you 
 are not going to do as you would with these people. 
 Don't you, as you value your skin, have resort to physical 
 methods. I do not want to thrash you. I ought not to 
 do it, but when I think of the insults heaped on the 
 wife of my dead friend, and these brave fellows "here, I 
 feel I should welcome an opportunity of thrashing you 
 within an inch of your life." 
 
 At a sign from Elms the constable at the door had 
 summoned his comrades from the building adjoining. A 
 score or two of white helmets were now visible amongst 
 the shock heads of the company.
 
 288 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " Sergeant," cried the dictator, " remove this disturber 
 of the meeting. He has just assaulted me." 
 
 As the police approached the chair the settlers gathered 
 in threatening attitude about their champion, daring the 
 constable to lay hands on their parson. 
 
 " We're three hundred to thirty, old man," cried one 
 of the residents to the sergeant in charge. " Don't you 
 make no manner of mistake. We're not a-going to see 
 he touched or walked off." 
 
 Speedily all became confusion. Elms tried in vain to 
 make himself heard. At more than one point the police 
 were in conflict with the settlers. After a while, Frank 
 Brown managed by signs of deprecation to secure 
 silence. 
 
 "You have not the right," he cried to the constables, 
 " to remove me. Nor have you," he continued, glancing 
 round at his supporters, "the power. Men, sit down," 
 he urged, "let us finish this wretched business. Only 
 beware, Elms, how you act. I have another shot in my 
 locker." And he said very deliberately, gazing scrutin- 
 izingly at his adversary, " God alone knows what happened 
 on that desert isle, but I can surmise." 
 
 It was but a desperate, haphazard suggestion, intended, 
 if possible, as a last resort to deter the man. 
 
 The shaft, however, struck home. Elms winced and 
 drew back in his chair. Then, as if resolving to set at 
 rest for ever the doubts that had been more than once 
 hinted at suggestions that the doctor might not have had 
 fair play the man, coming to the edge of the platform, 
 said, with some trepidation 
 
 " I know what you mean to imply, that I am in some 
 way responsible for my predecessor's sad fate. That is a 
 lie ! If the dead arose from his watery grave to-day he 
 would exonerate me. He would acknowledge frantic
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 289 
 
 efforts to save him at the risk of my own life. I call the 
 dead, whom I served, to acquit me of your foul slander." 
 The man spoke impassionedly. A solemn silence followed. 
 
 "The dead, John Elms," exclaimed a voice, almost 
 sepulchral, from the back of the assemblage ; " the dead 
 do rise and denounce you as traitor and murderer." 
 
 All turned and looked in the direction whence the 
 sound proceeded. Elms became ashen pale. Then, 
 seeing only the white-haired visitor, of whom he had 
 heard, pushing his way determinedly through the crowd, 
 he heaved a sigh of relief, and, recovering himself, called 
 out, waving the man back with his hand 
 
 "Strangers are not permitted to take part in these 
 proceedings You, old man, have no voice here." 
 
 " Only the voice of the dead" exclaimed the doctor, 
 gaining the platform and removing his hat. Simul- 
 taneously all recognized the old ring of the well-known 
 voice and the outlines of the lofty, massive brow. 
 Seized by a strange superstitious dread, the rough men, 
 whose nerves were already highly strung by excitement, 
 fell aside in fear and awe. Elms staggered back towards 
 the chair, clutching it with one hand and passing his 
 hand over his brow with the other, as though he were in 
 a dream and would remove a terrible apparition from his 
 sight. Had high Heaven indeed heard his blasphemous 
 words ? Had the dead indeed come back to accuse him ? 
 The room reeled round him. Those eyes he knew so 
 well ! Dumbly they had implored him, when he hurled 
 his friend to destruction. Those eyes, that voice, had 
 found him out ! Quailing before the terrible gaze of the 
 injured man, the culprit sank into the chair he had 
 lately occupied with such nonchalance, covered his 
 ashen face with his hands, and cowered before the silent 
 condemnation of that worn, wrinkled countenance.
 
 290 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " He who was dead has come back at your summons, 
 John Elms," exclaimed the stranger slowly. '' He 
 whom you cast to destruction has returned to convict 
 you." 
 
 The would-be murderer neither spoke nor moved. 
 A deadly silence lay upon all. Women outside fled away 
 screaming " The doctor's riz from the grave and come 
 back." Children scampered down the avenue crying, 
 " A ghost ! a real, live ghost ! " 
 
 Police pushed their way into the assemblage, their 
 faces almost as white as their helmets. 
 
 "Take that man," cried the doctor in unmistakable 
 accents. " I am a magistrate, as you know ; I will sign 
 the charge-sheet later. Arrest him on my information 
 for attempt to commit murder. You came here to witness 
 the eviction of honest owners of the soil. You can take 
 with you the spoiler and wrongful possessor." 
 
 The doctor's manner was commanding. The guardians 
 of the peace made their way through the bewildered 
 company, mounted the platform, and laid hands on the 
 abject creature almost slipping from the chair. 
 
 " Come on, Mr Elms," they said. The wretched man, 
 still hiding his face in his hands, writhed in the chair and 
 groaned. They raised him, supported him across the 
 platform, down the room, his face still covered in his 
 trembling hands. He verily believed he had looked 
 upon the dead. All night in the log-house he moaned 
 to himself " The face from the grave ! The voice of 
 the dead ! " 
 
 Not a word was spoken as the self-convicted culprit 
 was removed. Then Brown seized and wrung the 
 doctor's hands. One by one the men plucked up courage, 
 and with some shame-facedness approached him they had 
 cursed so hard and so long. He received them quietly.
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 2QI 
 
 He was the same, there was no mistaking him now but 
 changed. 
 
 The anathemas he had heard had eaten into his soul. 
 He could never, he felt, be the same man again. 
 Instinctively the audience apprehended the fact. The 
 men on their part were self-convicted, self-condemned. 
 The mere presence, without one word of extenuation, of 
 those we have misjudged often tacitly acquits the wronged, 
 and condemns the hasty accuser. Some sought to explain 
 and excuse. Not unkindly, but firmly, the doctor waived 
 them off. He explained in a few words his almost 
 miraculous preservation. 
 
 "Now," he said, "I have come to establish you, to 
 finish the work, and to depart for ever. You will have 
 the land ; that is all you want,'"' he added, 'with some 
 bitterness. " When rny death seemed to come between it 
 and you, you cursed me, as you thought, in my grave. I 
 ought never to have expected more. I told you at the 
 outset that lack of confidence between man and man, 
 selfishness of purpose, readiness to believe the first lie 
 concerning those who would befriend you, is your failing 
 the failing of the race. That is not your fault personally. 
 The conditions in which you have been reared are 
 responsible for it. See, at least, that your children, whose 
 lot, please God, shall be a happier one, believe in man, 
 stand close together, and learn to be true till death. 
 I forgive you. You knew not what you did. But my 
 heart can never forget." 
 
 At this juncture a voice sounded from the body of the 
 hall " It's all bunkum ; I happen to know that he never 
 made no Will but the one what old Elms had. He never 
 left the place to us as he promised. Where's the Will he 
 blows about ? Let him produce it if he can." 
 
 The doctor recognized the voice.
 
 2Q2 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 "That is your last shot, Makluke, is it, you arch- 
 scoundrel ? " he replied. " You and Elms, I happen to 
 know, made away with that Will, as you thought you had 
 done with me. Here it is, however, preserved to con- 
 found you as by the providence of God I have been." 
 
 The doctor handed the restored document to one who 
 stood near. 
 
 As they read its provisions and discovered them more 
 favourable and liberal than ever the doctor had indicated 
 of old, the sense of their ingratitude unmanned them. 
 They felt as the citizens of Rome when Anthony read the 
 depositions of "Great Caesar." They were filled with 
 remorse. They tried to express contrition. 
 
 The doctor seemed as though he heard not. 
 
 " It is easy to trust me now," he said calmly. " Would 
 to God you had done so when appearances were against 
 me!" 
 
 Some of the company in their rage sought Malduke. 
 He had disappeared. 
 
 The doctor, whose thoughts were of another, slipped 
 away, leaving the excited company to pore over the 
 recovered Will, and discuss the unexpected turn events 
 had taken. 
 
 " It is she," the doctor murmured, as moving towards 
 the White House he drew near the bench upon which 
 his wife was seated. 
 
 " I could not do it even for their sakes," she was 
 saying. " I dare not dishonour the dead, even to serve 
 those for whom he died." 
 
 She pressed her hand to her heart as though to stay its 
 wild, tumultuous beating. 
 
 She heard a step approaching. 
 
 " That man again ! " she exclaimed, springing up. She
 
 THE LIVING DEAD. 293 
 
 trembled from head to foot, pressed her hand to her side. 
 " My husband, thank God, my husband ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 She would have fallen. The strong arms embraced 
 her and set her on the bench again. 
 
 The long waiting was over. She opened her eye?, and 
 beamed on the face of him who was dead. "I did what 
 was right ! " she murmured ; her arm clasped his neck. 
 " God has rewarded me ! " The wearied head fell on his 
 breast. 
 
 The shock, the revulsion of feeling was too great ! 
 
 The smile the moonlight illuminated settled into a 
 fixed expression of peace and rest. 
 
 The doctor's wife was Dead !
 
 294 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 
 
 " One pain is lessened by another's anguish, 
 One desperate grief cures with another's languish." 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 " And when I learnt it at last, I shrieked, I sprang from my seat, 
 I wept and I kissed her hands, I flung myself down at her feet." 
 
 TENNYSON, Charity. 
 
 " And I knew why we love and suffer, 
 I saw through what white lakes of fire 
 The souls of some mortals must tremble, 
 Before they are fit for the higher. 
 
 And the secret of living was loving, 
 And loving must ever be pain 
 Till He, by whose word came our being, 
 Shall summon that being again." 
 
 Australian Poets, AGXF.S NEALK. 
 
 SOME months had elapsed. The doctor, sad but 
 steadfast, was occupied, happily for him, with plans for 
 putting the affairs of his settlements on a permanent and 
 self-governing basis. Hilda, subdued now, took special 
 interest in the development of the Amazona community. 
 Gwyneth directed her. Half her time the girl spent 
 about the beautiful hill whence the consumptives looked 
 out on all the land of promise that was ripening, but not 
 for them. Her work was done, Gwyneth felt. The 
 perfecting of it she left to Hilda and the friends who 
 had assisted to establish the girls' colony. The strain 
 imposed by concern for her father's absence, his
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 295 
 
 mysterious return, and subsequently his arrest and dis- 
 grace ; the cruel treatment to which, as she felt, she had 
 been subjected by the man she still loved deeply all 
 told upon a not robust constitution. 
 
 Brightness and joy she still brought to many a desolate 
 occupant of the Mount, but the seeds of disease, as a 
 result of her untiring devotion, were implanted in her 
 slender frame. 
 
 Daily she grew more ethereal and lovely, as the con- 
 sumptive often do. The sweet spirit that was hers 
 shone from the delicate frame that was languishing. 
 She almost welcomed the prospect of soon being laid to 
 rest beside the fresh-made flower-beds that crowned the 
 hill where those she had comforted were sleeping. Sad 
 she was, but not morbid. To the last, life afforded her 
 opportunity of engaging in work she loved. Calmly 
 about the lake her yacht glided, as she sought to cheer 
 those who like herself were passing to another shore. 
 
 " You have not escaped me this morning," said Hilda, 
 gently laying her hand on the girl's arm, as the latter 
 was about to step into her boat. Gwyneth, with a 
 wearied expression, sank on to the seat on the pier and 
 gazed pensively at the waters rippling against the peace- 
 ful prow of her yacht. " I have been wanting for a long 
 time to see you, dear," said the young widow, softly. 
 Seating herself by the sick girl she took her hand in hers, 
 and stroking it lovingly, added " I want to ask your 
 pardon for a great wrong I did you." 
 
 " I do not quite understand you, Mrs. O'Lochlan," 
 replied Gwyneth, with a shade of reserve. 
 
 " Do not speak like that, Gwyneth. Look at me, dear." 
 
 The girl turned her head and gazed, almost vacantly, 
 into Hilda's face. Her thoughts were far away.
 
 296 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 " I, too, have suffered," pleaded Hilda, " for ray pride 
 and selfishness, I suppose. Let me relieve my mind by 
 confessing my sin and securing forgiveness." 
 
 The thought of all that the gay young bride of a year 
 before had endured touched Gwyneth's heart. Schooled 
 to forget her own grief in that of others, she tried to say 
 something sympathetic. Words, however, failed her. 
 She merely bent her graceful neck and kissed the young 
 widow's anxious brow, while the gentle breeze blew the 
 unconfined tresses of golden hair about the other's pale 
 face. 
 
 " Gwyneth, I shall always hale myself for having 
 written that horrid letter ; for having despised you you, 
 who were so vastly* my superior in every way for 
 having striven to separate you from my brother. Can 
 you forgive me ? " 
 
 The dying girl placed an emaciated arm round the 
 other's neck, bent her head, as if tired, on Hilda's breast, 
 and said 
 
 " Forgive you ? I thank you, now. It had to be." 
 
 Through her closed eyes tears found their way, and 
 moistened the long lashes upon which they glistened as 
 dew. 
 
 Hilda kissed the frail girl, and stroked the transparent 
 cheek. Bending over her she whispered 
 
 "It had not to be, Gwyneth. He loved you dearly. 
 Never for one moment has he wavered in his attachment. 
 I know it." 
 
 The sick girl opened her eyes that seemed to have 
 expanded and gathered lustre as her frame decayed. 
 Fixing a searching gaze on her companion's face she 
 exclaimed 
 
 " It cannot be. I have imagined every possible ex- 
 planation of his conduct. Only one remains."
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 297 
 
 Hilda produced the silver case. The girl's eyes 
 glistened. Her hand shook very distressingly. With 
 trembling ringers, as once before, she opened the little 
 casket. Her mother's and her own likeness were there, 
 as when with girlish pleasure she had presented it to her 
 lover. 
 
 " Can it be all a dream ? " she exclaimed, as she bent 
 over the love-token, and the hectic glow suffused her 
 delicate cheeks. " Those other faces I saw there ! 
 Could they be the creation of a diseased imagination ? " 
 
 She kissed the little casket, bathed it with tears, while 
 the breeze wiped it again with her hair. Quickly arid 
 quietly Hilda told her all. What Tom Lord had seen; 
 the part that Malduke had played. 
 
 Gwyneth opened her eyes, clasped the silver thing 
 amongst tresses that lay upon her breast, looked up to 
 the soft, cloudless sky, and her eyes sang her Te Deum 
 and Nunc Dimittis in one breath. 
 
 "You must see him, dear, and be reconciled," said 
 Hilda, cheerfully. " You will soon get better now." 
 
 " Too late for that," replied the girl, smiling through 
 her tears. " If it could have been, I should have loved 
 this world too much. But tell him, please, I loved him 
 dearly to the last. Ask his forgiveness for my having 
 doubted him. Everything was so against him. I was 
 so alone. Now, if you do not mind," she added after 
 a long pause, " leave me, dear Hilda, to accustom my. 
 mind in solitude to this last new joy." 
 
 Weeping and embracing they parted.' Gwyneth 
 loosened her little boat, whose sail was already set, and 
 as it skimmed over the rippling surface of the waters, the 
 dying girl, who knew at last that she was loved, lay on 
 the white pallet she had placed in the stern for her sick 
 passengers. The little cargo of flowers she had shipped
 
 298 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 for others lay about her slender white-robed figure, as 
 she reclined beneath the snowy sail. 
 
 " Now I may trust my eyes to rest upon the scene of 
 our happiness once more," she murmured. " I will 
 approach within a mile and return." 
 
 She made fast the stern-sheet, and, still resting amongst 
 her floral offerings, almost lost in a reverie of happy 
 thoughts, glided unconsciously onward with tiller against 
 her back and a lily in her hand, towards the village pier 
 at the other end of the lake. 
 
 The birds skimmed curiously about the barque, 
 whose lovely occupant was still sleeping or in a faint 
 as the flower-laden barge drew towards the wattle shores. 
 * * * # 
 
 Travers had returned, moody, despondent, and heartily 
 ashamed of himself. He confessed to his father that he 
 had betrayed the trust reposed in him. He had felt, he 
 said, that under the circumstances his presence in the 
 valley was rather a hindrance than otherwise to his 
 brother-in-law. From colony to colony he had wandered. 
 News of his mother's death had aroused him from his 
 selfish inaction. He had "come to himself," and 
 resolved to stand by his father's side and to atone by 
 single-handed devotion for failure in the past. 
 
 It was the doctor's birthday. A quiet family picnic 
 had been arranged, with the view of withdrawing him from 
 labours to which, as a solace for pain, he was devoting 
 every waking hour. The party drove to the spot where 
 the creek debouched into the lake. The wattles were 
 untouched, although on either side, beyond their fringe 
 of gold, the gardens and homesteads ranged. 
 
 The Bowlings were talking to the doctor of Travers 
 and his troubles. Mrs. Bowling was speaking of Gwyneth, 
 and how unwittingly she had caused her pain, of how
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 299 
 
 feelingly the girl had read to her the tragic story of 
 Elaine. 
 
 " I cannot help it," the fanciful old lady continued, 
 "but, now that I know all, I am ever, in my dreams, 
 associating Gwyneth with Elaine, and seeing the child 
 herself reclining in the barge in which the Lily-maid 
 voyaged to Camelot." 
 
 On a bank below the old people, the young folk, Eva 
 and Maud, Travers, Frank, and Tom, were sitting, close 
 to the rivulet brink. The girls were plaiting wreaths of 
 wattle and clematis. Travers was bravely battling with 
 his despondency. Seizing the garland Maud had woven, 
 he had bent forward and laughingly placed it on Eva's 
 brow, exclaiming 
 
 " So I crown you Queen of the Vale." 
 
 Instinctively he thought of the one who was still the 
 queen of his heart. He raised his eyes to look across 
 the lake to the vine-clad hill beyond, where, it was said, 
 its guardian angel spent her days. 
 
 He started to his feet. 
 
 Mrs. Bowling, above, who had just concluded her 
 remark about the Lily-maid, uttered a startled cry. All 
 stood as if spell-bound. 
 
 Upon the lake, a few hundred yards away, a boat with 
 white sail was bearing down upon the very spot where 
 they stood. The tiny vessel seemed filled with flowers. 
 Amongst them lay a frail form, clad in white, a lily in 
 her hand. Her eyes were closed, a smile played upon 
 the wasted, ethereal face, about which lay a profusion of 
 golden hair. 
 
 No one moved. Not a sound was uttered. Like a 
 fairy vision, the little vessel glided onward towards the 
 picnickers. It brushed along the bank on which the 
 fresh-crowned Queen of the Lake was sitting. The sail, 
 
 U
 
 3OO THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 catching in the overhanging wattle-boughs, moored the 
 bark within a yard of the lately animated group. 
 
 Travers, not knowing what he did, sprang forward, 
 bent over the motionless figure, took one of the trans- 
 parent hands in his. The silver case was clasped on the 
 still heaving breast. 
 
 " Gwyneth, my darling, speak to me!" cried the 
 young man with quick, eager breath. " Gwyneth, you 
 are not dead ! You shall not die ! You have come to 
 me at last, my child ! " Slowly the maiden, recovering 
 from her swoon, opened her eyes. Only that one 
 distracted face she saw bending over hers. 
 
 " You forgive me," she murmured, after a long pause, 
 during which she gazed, wonderingly, into his face. She 
 tried to say more, but voice failed her. She put her 
 slender arm about his neck and drew her lover towards 
 her. He kissed the cold brow, on which the dews of 
 death were gathering. " I came I do not know how 
 nor where I am," she whispered, slowly, with difficult)'. 
 " I came to tell you that I love you still. That I 
 know, now, that you loved me always. Now let me fall 
 to sleep again. I am so tired ! so tired ! " she repeated, 
 as if to herself. " Ah ! but so glad ! " and the old smile 
 set on her delicate features. She pressed his hand, 
 though she seemed to sleep. 
 
 "Gwyneth," cried the young man wildly, "you shall 
 not die. This is only a swoon. Speedily you will 
 recover now. We will be happy together yet," and he 
 chafed her hands as though she were in a faint, and 
 showered kisses on the cold forehead. 
 
 " Hush ! " at length, opening her eyes again, she mur- 
 mured, as the flame of life flickered. " That may not be. 
 I am bride of Another now, who gave His life for me. 
 We are one in Him ! "
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 301 
 
 " Eva ! " she murmured after a pause, as the girl, with 
 the mimosa wreath still about her chestnut locks, stole 
 near and bent a terrified face over the floating death-bed 
 of flowers. 
 
 " I know you loved me," said the dying maiden, 
 slowly, to her lover. "Now you shall love her. She is 
 yours, and you shall be hers. Often I shall look upon 
 you. Your joy will be mine." 
 
 Still clasping the lily sceptre, the dying girl sought the 
 hand of each, clasped them together upon the casket on 
 her breast, the smile, as of an angel breathing benediction, 
 as of the wearied going home, settled on her lovely 
 features, the tresses on her breast ceased to heave. " The 
 Lily-maid of Astolat" had passed to "where, beyond 
 these voices, there is peace." 
 
 That day Travers learned all the intrigues of Malduke. 
 How he had sought to compass the doctor's death and 
 frustrate his plans. Willie's father had recognized him, 
 and related how, evidently, he had sought to drown his 
 love and his rival in the canal works. At his door lay 
 the guilt of the tragic death of the Lily-maid beneath the 
 mimosa boughs. Travers was maddened by grief and 
 rage. He paced the bush distracted. The evil-doer, he 
 learned, lay in hiding beyond the ranges. 
 
 "JUSTICE! REVENGE!" cried the frenzied man, as 
 he beat his breast. Seizing his horse he disappeared 
 along a mountain track. Fearing his friend's passion 
 and despair, Frank Brown, with a boundary rider who 
 knew the country, started in pursuit. 
 
 Along the side of steep mountains, across slippery out- 
 cropping rocks, upon the edge of precipitous " sidings," 
 Travers, as one demented, rode. That face in the boat 
 haunted him. '' My murdered child ! My wronged
 
 302 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Gwyneth ! " he cried between his teeth, urging his reeking 
 steed, mad in sympathy with himself, to leap ravines and 
 dash through blinding scrub ; now rattling down the 
 fern-tree gully, now swimming the swollen mountain 
 torrent, again dashing up the almost vertical pile of 
 slippery boulder. 
 
 The sun had set. Beside a dismal lagoon, in which 
 the frogs were croaking as though all that world were 
 theirs, stood, in a low gorge beneath the hills, a lonely 
 splitter's hut. Travers sprang from his steed, white with 
 the sweat of a twenty miles ride. With a trembling hand 
 the young man opened the rude shutter that served for 
 a window. 
 
 Stretched on a bunk, clad in crimson shirt and mole- 
 skin trousers, the outcast lay asleep a revolver on the 
 table beside him, a gun in the corner at his head. 
 Travers stole into the bark-hut across the earthen floor, 
 and took the revolver from the table. As he reached 
 over to seize the gun Malduke sprang up. Travers 
 leaped towards the door. The trapper, trapped at last, 
 stood at bay. He was ashen pale. His eyes glared 
 with fear and rage as he stood facing his foe. He saw 
 that for the moment his assailant was mad. 
 
 "At last I have you," cried Travers. "Powder and 
 shot are too good for you. One of us will never leave 
 this hut alive. Coward ! You need not tremble so. 
 There, my own hands shall settle you, not your miserable 
 tools." He threw the arms far into the bush. Then, 
 keeping his eye on the object of his frenzied hate, he 
 barred the door with its greit cross-piece of wood. 
 
 "Now, craven, defend yourself!" In the middle of 
 the hut, illuminated only by the ghastly moonlight, the 
 two met. Wildly for each other's throats they struggled. 
 Malduke was the heavier; Travers more agile and
 
 THE LILY-MAID OF ASTOLAT. 303 
 
 skilful. Now the rude tenement trembled as though a 
 branch had been whirled against it by the storm, while 
 the two hurled each other against the slab sides. At 
 length Travers secured the grip his practised hand sought ; 
 over one shoulder, beneath the other he passed his amis, 
 back across the table he hurled his foe. With knee on 
 chest he grasped the other's throat as in a vice of iron. 
 
 Another moment and the miscreant's course would 
 have been run. Crash ! The tressel gave way beneath 
 the strain. Travers, half -hurled by his antagonist, fell 
 heavily, his head striking on the log that served for a 
 bench. 
 
 A deadly silence reigned in the rude cabin, save for the 
 laboured breathing of the half-choked wretch who stood 
 trembling in the midst of the earthen floor. He opened 
 the door and drew a deep breath. A beam of moonlight 
 streamed across the hut on to the white face of the 
 unconscious man. 
 
 " I'll settle him now," muttered the other, as he sought 
 with trembling fingers the revolver among the branches 
 that surrounded the deserted hut. "Ah, here it is. 
 This'll finish him ! " hissed Malduke, as with a more 
 assured tread he re-entered the shanty. 
 
 Travers had come to himself. As the other entered 
 he sprang again upon him. Again they wrestled for life. 
 Two desperate men beating out each other's life, the 
 hatred of their panting breasts, in the silence and 
 darkness of the lonely ravine. 
 
 Whiz ! at length went a shot through Travers' hair, 
 grazing his ear. Again he seized his foe, hurled him 
 beneath him. 
 
 Two figures appeared at the door. 
 
 Another shot. A death-cry ! 
 
 An awful stillness, broken only by the plaintive wail
 
 304 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 of the curlew and dismal howl of the dingo on the hills. 
 "More blood, more blood ! " the cuckoo seemed to cry. 
 
 ' Quick, Bob ! " cried Frank to his companion. " Strike 
 a match. I fear we are too late." 
 
 The two lay as dead. Smoke was issuing from the 
 deadly weapon Malduke still grasped in his hand. A 
 stream of blood was oozing from his temple. The shot 
 intended for his enemy had, in the death-struggle, entered 
 his own brain. Malduke had gone to his account. 
 Travers, who, owing to loss of blood, had swooned again, 
 was stretched across the corpse. 
 
 For two days he was dazed. Gwyneth he followed to 
 her grave on the hill-top, as in a dream. By degrees the 
 sense of duty and obligation returned. He recalled how 
 she, whom he had loved and lost, brought life and hope to 
 thousands for whom, while her own heart was bleeding, 
 she "made a way in the wilderness." 
 
 In the long evenings at Heatherside, new plans were 
 evolved, old sores sought to be healed, but not one 
 word of love was spoken.
 
 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE FAIRY ISLAND. 
 
 "As on the smooth expanse of crystal lakes, 
 The sinking stone at first a circle makes ; 
 The trembling surface by the motion stirred, 
 Spreads in a second circle, then a third : 
 Wide and more wide, the floating rings advance, 
 Fill all the wat'ry plain, and to the margin dance." POPE. 
 
 " Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue 
 I have seen her so far away for is not Earth as yet so young ? 
 
 Every tiger-madness muzzled, every serpent passion kill'd, 
 Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd, 
 
 Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles, 
 Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles." 
 
 TENNYSON, Sixty Years After. 
 
 "The English Wholesale Society possesses six steamships, choco- 
 late, woollen cloths, biscuit, sweets, soap, bootand shoe-works, 
 and a corn-mill. It has fifty-eight officers of departments, and 
 3758 persons in its employ. It issues a handsome volume 
 yearly, the IVholesa'.e Annual, with illustrations of its many 
 works and depots, with statistical facts of its remarkable pro- 
 gress, and essays of great value on economic and public ques- 
 tions." HOLYOAKE. 
 
 THE doctor, with Travers, when fully recovered from 
 the shock he had received, proceeded to perfect and 
 complete the organization that had been for so long in 
 course of development. 
 
 All were agreed that communism, pure and simple, 
 such as Malduke and Elms had sought to establish, was 
 distasteful and impracticable. The principle of represent- 
 ation and management that the doctor had inaugurated 
 was definitely formulated.
 
 306 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Each settlement was divided into four wards, or 
 " quarterns." These elected, each, by ballot of men 
 and women, three representatives on the Village Council. 
 In the same way all associated industries and factories 
 were represented. The council elected annually its 
 own president, and officers of the crafts. The council 
 transacted all business connected with the domestic 
 affairs of its own settlement. The presidents and chief 
 officers, together with a special delegate from each 
 quartern, represented the village. This supreme body 
 controlled all the associated settlements. Five of its 
 number, elected every three years, acted as a supreme 
 court of appeal and arbitration, to which all questions, 
 undecided by the local board, were finally referred. 
 
 The financial committee of each village and separate 
 industry published a statement, each quarter, showing the 
 position of every member of its community. 
 
 Three classes of labour were recognized skilled, 
 unskilled, and a third class. This last consisted of 
 youths, old people, and the less effective workers. The 
 second class of farm, dairy, and labouring hands. Those 
 convicted, before the Bands of Labour, of not working 
 satisfactorily, or of malingering, were subject to degrada- 
 tion from their class, and finally to expulsion from the 
 settlement. The agreement each had signed was proof 
 in any court of law that they had rendered themselves 
 amenable to the decisions of the community. The 
 knowledge, however, that due discipline could and 
 would be maintained, and prompt effect given to the 
 decision of each community, restrained the indolent and 
 unruly, or caused them quietly to withdraw. That subtle 
 force, public opinion, was against them, Jf offending, or 
 contending, they had not only one employer to deal with, 
 but an entire community. It was to the interest of all
 
 THE FAIRY ISLAND. 307 
 
 that every man should contribute his fair share of labour, 
 and receive only his due proportion of profit. The com- 
 plete system of representation rendered it impossible 
 that any despotism could be established. 
 
 Ten per cent, more of dividends the second class 
 received than the first, and the third than the second. 
 
 Those whose accounts were in credit might draw half 
 their share of dividends in cash, or all in coupons. 
 
 These latter had ten per cent, larger purchasing power 
 at any of the stores or settlements, than cash. So men 
 were encouraged to leave their capital invested in the 
 vast co-operative enterprise that was beginning to attract 
 world-wide attention. 
 
 For the first time the principle of co-operation on a 
 large scale was being applied, by the same persons, to 
 both production and distribution. 
 
 Two sheep-farming communities, associated with the 
 earlier ones, took over the remainder of the doctor's 
 station, together with the Selectors' Plains from which 
 Kokiana folk had fled. The Hon. Herbert Fitzhubert 
 was glad to sellout to the " Co-ops.," as they were called, 
 who speedily secured the intervening country. 
 
 No fires devasted the country, no dams were cut. 
 Hands were not called out, or eyes of the country 
 " selected " by would-be black-mailers. All, from man- 
 ager to " tar-boy," had regard to their own interests, 
 since all had their due place in one of the three classes 
 of industry. 
 
 In the ranges were mines that, owing to the demand 
 for high wages enforced by frequent strikes, had long 
 been worked at a loss ; these lines of mines the 
 " Co-ops." by degrees purchased. The labour difficulty 
 vanished. The ore was won for half the cost its 
 mining entailed before. Those who laboured received
 
 308 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 the necessaries of life, and were afforded an opportunity 
 of purchasing an interest in the enterprise, and a holding 
 on the agricultural settlements. 
 
 The accounts of the special industries were kept 
 distinct. If, owing to no fault of the workers, any enter- 
 prise happened to continue unprofitable, it might, if 
 deemed worth preserving, be subsidised by the central 
 Parliament, until it should become self-supporting. On 
 this principle costly machinery was, when necessary, 
 erected and paid for by the workers in course of years. 
 
 Conspicuous among the ever-multiplying factories were 
 the flour-mills. The " Co-ops." had bought out the large 
 wheat-growers that lay between Mimosa Vale and 
 Gum ford. Fruit- and meat-preserving, cheese and butter 
 factories, together with saw-mills, ship-building yards, 
 iron-works, brick-yards, woollen and leather factories on 
 the cottage-and-garden principle tanneries and work- 
 shops of almost all kinds, were established. 
 
 In the metropolis, and later in Sydney, Adelaide, 
 London, and New York, colossal Emporiums were 
 located. Direct from the spot where the produce was 
 grown or wrought, it went to the vast stores without 
 intervention on the part of any cream-skimming middle- 
 man. Each vessel and store, as factory or settlement, 
 was credited with its own work done or money earned. 
 This was apportioned in dividends to the three classes 
 that manned every vessel and ran every store. 
 
 In the case of the five-storied Melbourne store, that 
 eventually covered two acres of ground, all hands were 
 allotted rooms in the Labour Palace adjoining, or cottages 
 in the suburban " village " at Blackburn. All received the 
 necessaries of life as their friends in the country did, 
 membership of their clubs, etc., and wanted for little 
 else. They were virtually catered for wholesale, and
 
 THE FAIRY ISLAND. 309 
 
 cost the community in cash little more than half the 
 amount that must otherwise have been paid away in 
 wage. The dividends that they received in coupons, 
 representing the equitable distribution of the entire 
 earnings of their own store, constituted comparative 
 wealth laid up for them in course of years. 
 
 As head became silvered, or children grew up, the 
 store employee of the city might purchase, by merely a 
 transference of accounts in the books, without a penny 
 passing, one of the garden-retreats at Lib/dale, or a 
 home on one of the ever-extending settlements beyond 
 Mimosa Vale and on the Silverbourne. 
 
 By degrees factories at Brunswick and West Melbourne 
 fell into the hands of the settlement folk. A share of 
 the inter-colonial and ocean steam-ship trade was secured. 
 In South Australia a vast tract was acquired. The 
 Southerners were shown how to farm the plains, well 
 watered now, at a profit. 
 
 Later on, powers were taken from the Government, 
 and a trunk line of railway run to Port Darwin. The day 
 of railway commissioners and octopus bills passed away. 
 The three classes, duly represented, managed and worked 
 their own lines for their own benefit, in conjunction with 
 fleets and factories, settlements and cities of labourers 
 associated with them. All along the line, Co-operation 
 triumphed over Competition. 
 
 " What is to hinder," asked Tom Lord of Travers, as, 
 in the early days, they discussed the marvellous develop- 
 ments of their enterprises, " the inevitable disintegration 
 and falling apart of the allied industries? Your several 
 stores and banks and insurance offices in town are 
 bound to become independent." 
 
 " If it suit them to go alone, they are welcome to do
 
 310 THE NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 so," was the reply. " All are free with us. The fact is, 
 however, it is to their interest to remain loosely associated 
 as they are now. Our settlements charge the Stores only 
 the fair cost of production, the Stores again only an 
 equitable charge for distribution to members. If a factory 
 or allied institution essays to stand alone, it at once 
 becomes subject to the action of competition. It relin- 
 quishes its favoured position. Middle-men come in, and 
 profits are materially diminished. If it suit two hundred 
 to co-operate, it stands to reason the benefit is proportion- 
 ately increased when two thousand join hands." 
 
 "But will not this prodigious organization," objected 
 Tom, " fall to pieces of its own weight ? Will it not 
 become too cumbersome to be managed from one 
 centre ? " 
 
 " Not necessarily. Our constitution provides for local 
 self-government. Each enterprise is really self-contained, 
 save that it is associated with other organizations worked 
 on the same principle. Only in case of dispute and 
 difficulty need reference be made to the central authority. 
 All who benefit, however, are compelled to abide by the 
 articles of association. That is the condition on which 
 they receive the world-wide benefits of our organization." 
 
 "In so large a concern, what protection have you 
 against exploitation and corruption ? " 
 
 " Universal representation and supervision on the part 
 of the various boards." 
 
 " But will not the individual interest be lost sight of in 
 this vast organization? " 
 
 " Not in the least. Each department keeps, as we see, 
 its own accounts, makes, on an approved scale, its own 
 division of profits. Every man feels that he may, by 
 application and economy, benefit himself directly. 
 
 "There is no doubt," concluded Travers, "that we
 
 THE FAIRY ISLAND. 311 
 
 have contributed something towards solving a vexed 
 social problem, and towards reconciling, by combining 
 them, the interests of capital and labour. Life need no 
 longer be a hopeless drudgery for any of our people, while 
 the thrifty secure the due reward of their self-denial." 
 
 Dr. Courtenay did not witness the fuller developments 
 of his " New Order." 
 
 " It shall increase, I must decrease," he was wont to 
 say. " My life is spent. My work is done." Ere 
 twelve months had elapsed, he prepared to bid farewell 
 to the scenes of his disinterested labours. 
 
 The distrust of him, when he was on his trial, the 
 domestic bereavement he had suffered, the conviction 
 that his communities should now learn to govern them- 
 selves, rendered him impervious to all requests that he 
 should remain. 
 
 "I have forgiven them," he would gently but firmly 
 say, "but those curses poured ignorantly on my head 
 ring in my ears, and will do so to my dying day. I do 
 not blame you. I accept the inevitable. No man ever 
 yet served the people without dying, or being prepared to 
 do so, for them perhaps by them. I shall return to the 
 palm groves that sheltered me when man had cast me 
 off, and was hurling anathemas on my head. I want you 
 to know that you cannot distrust a friend and retain him ; 
 that to foster love is of more worth than to win wealth. 
 Ah ! escape as you can from the spirit of selfishness, greed, 
 and distrust that has marked and doomed the ' Old 
 System.' Go forth to welcome the spirit of trust and love 
 that must characterize the new." 
 
 Elms served the ten years to which he was sentenced, 
 then disappeared.
 
 312 THF. NEW ARCADIA. 
 
 Frank and Maud toiled radiantly on, at times tempted 
 to renounce the vows that contempt for the selfishness of 
 others had imposed, and to seek their own happiness in 
 wedded life. On such occasions they redoubled their 
 energies, threw themselves more resolutely into labours 
 for others. They survived the ordeal, to laugh at the 
 prevalent opinion that man and maid may not love all 
 their life, as brother and sister, and nothing more ! 
 
 Only once they kissed and embraced when, long 
 years after, the aged Bishop-of-all-the-Settlements bent 
 his snowy head of flowing hair over the angelic but aged 
 face of a smiling woman, who was passing away. In 
 momentary despair he cried 
 
 " Maud, I cannot live without you." 
 
 "Then you have loved me?" s-he murmured, taking 
 his hand. 
 
 " All the while, from the first till now," he answered, 
 as the great, unwrinkled brow fell on the breast of the 
 angel whose spirit had fled ! 
 
 Hilda became Mrs. Tom Lord, and schooled her 
 husband, volatile to the last, into some sense of the 
 dignity that became a landed proprietor and member for 
 his district. Eventually Sir Thomas became one of the 
 most popular members of a powerful Ministry. 
 
 For a year or more, Travers, the president of the " New 
 Order," sought in the ' sweet vale" of Mimosa, at 
 Heatherside, to " heal him of his grievous wound." 
 
 No love was overtly made. Men and women do that 
 but once. But on the anniversary of the coming of the 
 Lily-maid, Travers took Eva, ripened now into graceful 
 womanhood, to the wattle grove beside the lake. Sitting 
 on the grassy bank, beside which the mysterious barque
 
 THE FAIRY ISLAM). 313 
 
 had glided, he took the maiden's hand in his, and quietly 
 said 
 
 " Here, Eva, were we betrothed, here let us renew our 
 vow." For the first time he kissed the ruddy cheek, 
 and felt the fountain of hope and joy unlocking again in 
 his breast. 
 
 None could be much with Eva, much less love her, 
 and be unhappy. 
 
 All the old vigour and joy returned to Travers' sunny 
 face. His laugh rang high again. He went forth to 
 charm by his very presence the simple folk, who would 
 trust him now to the death. 
 
 Mrs. Travers was the light of the valley as of her old 
 home. Her mother had her wish ; though, sometimes, 
 she would remove her spectacles and wipe her scarce- 
 dimmed eye, as she thought of her son-in-law's first love, 
 who slept amongst the flowers on the oft-visited hill- 
 top. 
 
 On his distant coral isle the brave doctor was not 
 unhappy. All the charm that taste and art could lend 
 to nature, was imparted to his island retreat. Seeds and 
 plants from all the coral isles, frequent visitors brought 
 him. His bungalow of books and bamboo house of 
 curios and paintings were the admiration of Royal Navy 
 captains, who ever contrived to have some business to 
 transact at the " Fairy Island," as they re-named the 
 desert rock he had converted into a garden of paradise. 
 
 The doctor's yachts and steam-launch lay safe within 
 the coral-bound lagoon. Often he voyaged forth to meet 
 the passing vessel of the "New Order" bringing him 
 messages of love, and tokens from grateful hearts across 
 the sea. 
 
 A bent, close-shaven, care-worn man on one occasion 
 stepped on the beach from the boat of a passing vessel.
 
 314 TI1E XKW ARCADIA. 
 
 The doctor was mending his yacht-sail, and whistling 
 a song of the sea. 
 
 The man sprang towards him, kneeled on the sands, 
 and grasped the grey old yachtsman's knees, took his dis- 
 engaged hand, and kissed it. 
 
 " I have come," said a deep, almost sepulchral voice, 
 " to crave your forgiveness. I could not die till I had 
 done so." 
 
 " Elms, my man ! " gasped the doctor, " God bless you 
 for that word ! I have often grieved for you, knowing 
 you were tempted and misled. Now my cup of joy is 
 full." 
 
 The " right-hand man," in his right mind now, restored 
 by suffering, took his place beside his patron, and served 
 him with devotion and veneration until he died. 
 
 Only old Alec, who had secured permission to join the 
 doctor after Jinnie's death, demurred. He was jealous, 
 but only for a moment. 
 
 So, midst -books and notes, palm-groves and coral 
 walks, the "good grey" hair of the three "old salts" 
 long floated in the breeze that gently fanned the shores 
 of their beauteous Fairy Isle. 
 
 THE END.
 
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