THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GRANTS 101 Crtrr,;-.1rTr1t1 O . - Barbara Halliday A STORY OF THE HILL COUNTRY OF VICTORIA. . . BY . . Marion Miller Knowles AUTHOR OF "Fronds from the Blacks' Spur," "Corinne of Coral Bluff," "Songs from the Hills, &c. GEORGE ROBERTSON & CO. PROPY. LTD Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane PR (,01,1 K.7S74- CONTENTS. Chapter I. Jim Halliday's Little Girl ... 9 II. "Patsy "... 17 III. Opening Petals 25 IV. 1 he Field of Snow 33 V. " Sammy Smegg " . . ... ... 43 VI. ' Androcles and the Lion " ... ... 51 VII." In the Midst of Life, We are in Death 1 ' 61 VIII. " The Big Fire," and its Consequences 75 IX. Denzil Lane 81 X. " Tags " 87 XI. The Journal of Barbara Halliday ... 97 XII. Another Leaf in the Diary 107 XIII. Dreda Lane to Barbara Hallidav .. 113 XIV. -A Worldly Marriage 121 XV. Barbara Meets Anthony Hagelthorne ... 131 XVI. " Old Jock" 139 XVII. " Foxy Satn's Wife " 147 XVIII. Transportation to the Mallet 153 XIX. Pink Everlastings 161 XX. "Rose" .. 167 XXL A Letter from Dreda. . 173 2215019 Chapter XXII. " The Love of the Man for the Maid " 181 XXIII. " Between the Lines " 189 XXIV. The Sunlight and the Snow 199 XXV. A Revelation and a Temptation XXVI. Barbara Returns to her Journal 217 XXVII. Beside the Grampian Ranges 220 XXVIII. A Mining Accident 2,M XXIX. Denzil's Tactics 2,^9 XXX. The Parting of the Ways 249 XXXI. Dreda Lifts her Cross 259 XXXII. Denzil's Story 269 XXXIII. Dreda to her Friend, Barbara 275 XXXIV. -Matrimony and Kindred Themes ... J,s,^ XXXV. Where the Leaves of Fancy Fall ... 291 XXXVI. "A Long Farewell " id] XXXVII. The Anchorage of the Heart .iu7 XXXVIII. Where Glad Waves Smiled THE OLD STREET, CHERRY'S POINT. A- DOWN this street I walked in sunny morns A blithesome thing; Spring threw sweet kisses from the green-clad hill, Oh, hearts can sing! Oh, hearts can sing! How long ago was it? But yesterday? I feel young still ; Yet where are they who joined me in my play ? Called hence, alas! who wanders where he will? A-down this street good morrows greeted me ; The tones resound With all the freshness of my childhood's day, As child-feet bound as child-feet bound. How pleasantly they rang ? and still shall ring For evermore ! The chords no discord warps to tuneless string ; Once heard, kept aye Love's unforgotten lore. A-down this street what bright hopes tripped with me Of roseate wing ; What worlds to conquer, and what joys to come, And it was Spring and it was Spring ! How long ago was it ? Ah. say not long ! Am I so old ? For still my heart breaks out in happy song- : Not here Life'? tale not here Life s tale is told ! MARION MILLER KNOWLES CHAPTER 1. Jim Halliday's Little Girl. SHE was born in the days when gold was so plentiful that lucky diggers, in a spirit of bravado, were wont to light their pipes with pound-notes. The first music that greeted her infant ears was the noise of the "stampers" in the Hope crushing-machine close by. Miners formed the first sympathetic audience to her stammering baby utterances; and miners' rough, but kindly, hands guided her first tottering little footsteps. From her birth onward many a nugget found its way into her money-box; and, long before she was able to wear them, gold earrings and brooches, solid as the picks and shovels and water-wheels they represented, were showered on "Jim Halliday's little girl." "Jim" was a "general merchant," and sold everything from china ornaments to wine and spirits. His was the first large store opened on the diggings; and it was owing to his enterprise that Cherry's Point was so well supplied with the necessaries and luxuries of life. He was also a gold-buyer, and business of every kind came in his way. Representatives of every nationality found entrance into Halliday's store Italians from the hills, Germans from Drury Creek, Scotch and Irish men from Mulholland Point, io BARBARA HALLIDAY. Hindoos from the Coach Road, Chinamen from 'Possum Gully. And "Jim" got on well, and was liked by all. He would write a letter for a jabbering Chinese as willingly and painstakingly as a letter for a 'towney' to the Old Country; and, moreover, its contents were known to be as safe with him as 'with the dead.' Of Irish-Scotch extraction, with some Ameri- can experience thrown in, Halliday was a big, burly man, of genial disposition and a generous spirit, and no man's enemy but his own. Mrs. Halliday was what the diggers called "a fine figure of a woman," and looked to best advantage on horseback in the neat-fitting habits made to order for her "in town" the local term for Melbourne. She was a handsome woman, of superior intellect. She kept out of the store, and also away from "the crowd," and was a woman of no little importance in the Cherry's Point of those days. Barbara, born on the Ranges, was her second child the first, a boy, having died in infancy; and, whether in her dead babe's grave on the lonely hillside, lay buried, too, the richest of the treasure of her mother-love or whether through the disappointment of having given birth to a girl when another son was hoped for the love given to little Barbara by her mother was not nearly equal in depth and strength to that be- stowed upon her by her father. JIM HALLIDAY'S LITTLE GIRL. n And, seeing "Beebo" (as she called herself) was the apple of her "daddy's" eye, the men who frequented the store set the child up as a queen amongst them, and would, no doubt, have utterly spoiled her, had it not been for the counteracting influence of her mother's some- what drastic training. "Beebo" was of a bright, fearless nature, and went willingly to the roughest digger among them all showing, however, a marked partiality for good looks and refinement of manner. When besieged by many admirers on a Satur- day, it was no uncommon practice of hers to gaze at each one meditatively for a few moments, and then toddle up to the most presentable, curling her fat little fingers round his hand, and saying peremptorily, "Take Beebo up, pretty man!" The loudest of guffaws never daunted her, nor any other noise, for the matter of that! The more lively the customers were, the better she liked it. She made a pretty enough picture as she sat perched up shoulder high her - blue eyes shining between their long, dark lashes, pink roses in her healthy little cheeks, and her golden curls dancing round her dainty head as if they were living sprites themselves. Surrounded always by a masculine atmosphere, she grew to like the odour of cigars and tobacco, and even to tolerate the smell of spirits, when she was drawn close to a whiskered cheek; all 12 BARBARA HALLIDAY. Hie bustle of an active life that is inseparable from a thriving mining centre was delightful to her childish heart, and fed an imagination that was more vivid than her parents suspected. Cherry's Point was then a synonym for gold. Had not one of its pioneers shod his very horses with gold to celebrate the occasion of a "visit from Royalty" to Australia?* Was not its "Evening Star" turning out more pure gold to the ton than any other mine in Victoria? And surely where thousands of pounds were made, thousands of pounds would stay? The township stood with hills before and be- hind it, and hills around it, with half its houses on the slopes of hills, and the other half border- ing streets that were surely "laid" by bullock drivers, so devious were their ways! At one end of the town were two quartz- crushing machines, whose ponderous stampers pounded away day and night. At the other was a "deep cut" into what had the appearance of a gigantic chalk-pit alongside which, however, was a well-trod path to the outlying part of the straggling township, where was located the * Visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to Melbourne, when "champagne lunches" were still the order of the day. and when "Tom Cherry's' 1 name was on every- one s lips, through the above memorable climax to a general outburst of wild and fantastic extravagant v~ in His Highness's honour. (Cherry afterwards died penniless in a ward of the Benevolent Asylum depart- ment of the District Hospital, near which he had amassed a fortune.) JTM HALLIDAY'S LITTLE GIRL. 13 District Hospital and Benevolent Asylum then in charge of a capable master and matron of the name of Seagrove. Through the "Deep Cut" which never received any other title regularly passed most of the visitors to this popular institution. From the Hospital, built on the cottage-plan, led onward a well-made road through picturesque scenery of the Alpine type, bringing the traveller, after a walk of about three miles, to a smaller township, dignified by the name of Rowley's Creek. Towering above Rowley's Creek was a peak called the "Never Mind" the home of a courageous few, who, like eagles, built the home 'eyrie' wherever a space between the rocks gave room, and had their reward by being able to produce the best flowers and fruit in the ranges, in addition to the advantage of being entirely free from the invasions of afternoon callers! To the left of Rowley's Creek, a narrow track followed the river to the Golden Bar. This was the home of the prospector and his dish! And, here, beards could grow as long as they liked, man struggled with his own washing, and opinions could be as free as the wind, and as vehement as flames of fire. Here dwelt the 'possum-hunter and the bear- killer, with none to question his right of living the "simple life." i 4 liARBARA HALLIDAY. Cherry's Point was the goal of all their han- kerings after pleasure and the delights of civilization; and Melbourne might have been ten thousand miles away, for all it held of attraction for them. They were content to keep in touch with it through the medium of weekly news- papers, which their mental appetite literally devoured. DINGING through the forest arches, ^ Chimed the woocUelves' matin bell; Fairy hands decked every portal, Fairy voices filled the dell CHAPTER II. "Patsy." DOWN here as to Rowley's Creek, and up to the Never Mind came, weekly, Halli- day's "Patsy," with his pack-horses of stores for the diggers Patsy the honest, and simple, and God-fearing, who brought no racy anecdotes, who gathered no scandal, but who "let out'' many a bit of news to give zest to a monotonous life! Rowley's Hotel had no attractions for Patsy; but "doing a bit of business for 'the master,'" had. And so the gossip-lover lay in wait for him, on pretence of wanting to know what "new goods" were in, and thus got his "penn'orth of news." On other days, Patsy's labours took him a wide round, to the opposite end of "the Point," where were situated "Foley's Bend" and "Picadilly," "Drury Creek," and "Mountain Home," each dowered well with that natural beauty which is the delight of the true artist. But true artists rarely came as far as Cherry's Point! Their artistic souls rarely carried them past the terrors of Flour-Bag Hill, on the other side of Mountain Home a renowned spot which demanded physical vigour for its ascent re- BARBARA HALLIDAY. warding the persevering toiler, however, with the most magnificent views from its crown. Drury Gully was a thing of beauty, particularly in spring time, when its waters sang and gurgled, as if beside themselves with ecstasy; and wild violets, and everlastings, blue-bells, and pink- stars, trailing "wild fuchsia," and climbing snow-white clematis, made a glory of delicate colouring which seemed blended by fairy hands. Then there were Right Hand Branch, and Left Hand Branch arms of the Goulburn, which met in the centre of the township, and were spanned by a bridge. From Left Hand Branch, in the proper season, Patsy would bring home to "Miss Babo," as he called her, the most luscious of wild raspberries at sight of which she would shriek with delight, being as much enamoured of their rich crimson colour as of their fresh taste. The Evening Star Hill, too, had its complement of scattered homes, and overlooked McDonald Gully, where another crushing machine worked untiringly. The "Evening Star" rose like a precipice sheer from the main street; but man's ingenuity had contrived a way of turning it to account as an accessible enough part of the township. A wind- ing stair led up the face of the rocky wall from the main street to a natural terrace, on which was built the chief hotel, behind the picturesque structure, on a corresponding terrace, running "PATSY." 19 the "cottage bedrooms," which mainly served for the accommodation of passing travellers. In the heart of the ranges rose the Goulburn there, a gentle, laughing stream afterwards, an imposing river, gathering new volume and velocity, as it was fed by the innumerable small tributaries racing ever from the hills. Patsy could have "written a book" on the Goulburn' s vagaries, out with it in all weathers as he was. But Patsy was one of the "silent ones" of earth, and took everything as it came; "an' welcome be the will o' God/" Jim Halliday was lucky in his men. He had a book-keeper at his desk with the soul of a poet in his weakly frame, and a face to correspond a man to whom his daughter was to owe much, as mind and heart developed; and an under- manager behind his drapery counter, whose pulses beat in tune with all that music calls her own. In the early days good men did not stop to choose between the various means of liveli- hood. They put their hands to what came first in their way. Jim was not musical, he had never got beyond "Hail Columbia, Happy Land," and it was doubtful if he ever knew "St. Patrick's Day" from "The Boyne Water"; but, for all that, he was very anxious that his daughter should some day excel in whatever came under the heading of accomplishments, so BARBARA HALLIDAV. I'oin U'arry was duly instructed to teach Beebo "whatever songs were going.'' This, Tom conscientiously did, and had an apt pupil in the precocious little girl his reward being that she did not lead him quite such a Irving life as she did the rest of his sex! She adored the bookkeeper, Dan McRae, per- haps because he ruled her, not she, him one grave look of his being sufficient to quell any of her childish storms of rage. But of Patsy she made a slave, pure and simple. As he plodded away in the vegetable garden at the back of the house on his one quiet day of the week, digging potatoes, or setting cabbages, nothing delighted the little tyrant more than to suddenly spring on his back, and stay there, till she had him nearly flat with mother earth; or to hide his "lesson-books" (for, though over forty, Patsy went to night-school, having a great respect for "the larnin' "), and look the picture of innocence and baby sweetness while he hunted everywhere talking to himself about "fairies or divils" mislaying them. She also kept the honest soul in terror of her being kicked by the horses, through her boy -like fondness for the wide, clean stables redolent of the smell of fresh hay. She soon learned to distinguish one horse from another, and to mit their names to memory "Boxer, Trust, and Killarney; Darkie, Prince, and Duke." "PATSY." 21 Dolls, for Beebo, never had half the attrac- tion of "something alive." French doll, or Dutch, its usual fate in her dimpled arms was to hang head downwards. She would sit as still as a mouse, that the pigeons might come close to her, and shiver with ecstasy at the sight of a robin-redbreast on the fence. Out in the bush she would lie contentedly for hours on the grass, watching the magpies and listening to their contented little gurgles of joyous melody. A passion for colour, a passion for "life," an ear attuned to song, and a foot that danced as naturally as young leaves in the spring wind- Barbara Halliday had all these. Day by day, like buds in the first rays of summer sunshine, sweet girlish attractions unfolded, and Dan McRae, watching her from his lonely office window, often wondered whether clear, or blurred, gold-edged or sombre-tinted, would be the pages of her future history! H ER thoughts are swaus of sunlit wing, Where blue lakes dream, and sky-larks sing. CHAPTER III. Opening Petals. IN those days Jim Halliday went frequently to Melbourne sometimes by the Warra Warra Track, sometimes by the more travelled road that led to Mossfield from whence the journey could be more comfortably continued by train. Though a coach came by way of Warra Warra Track, it only ran in the summer season; and the usual procedure, m between seasons, for families who wished to go citywards, was to travel "in the drays." The carriers were, as a rule, a sober, reliable class of men, who saw to the comfort of women and children as far as the means at their disposal and the limited accommodation allowed. Their usual calculation was for a three days' journey, and they were generally up to time, either coming or going. Halliday often went with the gold-escort. It was an imposing sight to see "the escort" start the sun glittering on the troopers' helmets, their splendid horses vicing with each other in their eagerness to be off. Such an event never failed to draw the population out of doors. Bush- 26 BARBARA HALLIDAY. rangers on the roads lent an exciting element to the proceeding. Jim Halliday looked well on horseback, and the townsfolk were proud of him, and never let him go without a cheer. "Faith, he looks as if he were the general of an army, he does, an' more power to him! Good luck go with you, James, old boy!" It was said that while travelling alone on Warra Warra Track, Halliday was once bailed up by four bushrangers; and, only that his well-known name was discovered by one of the gang before they had finished operations, he would never have seen daylight again. His universal popularity saved him, and he was allowed to return with his belt-purse untouched. Mrs. Halliday always rode to town, changing horses after fifty miles. She was a capable and fearless horsewoman, and feared neither man nor ghost. And she could use a rifle "with the best." The home-coming of either parent from these periodical trips meant for Beebo wonderful toys and hours of wild excitement none too good for her active little brain. In due time there came a day when she herself was taken, after elaborate preparations, "down the Track" on, on, towards the great city tied on a packhorse ignomini- ously strapped to it, quite too securely for her liking! travelling without a break through hitherto unknown regions, where the trees were OPENING PETALS. 2; so high that they seemed forbidding giants to her fertile imagination; and where the tree-ferns spread endless rows of wonderful umbrellas beneath. Past musk, and sassafras, and 'Aus- tralian myrtle,' past lightwood and gum, on, on, to a place where were hurrying, bewildering crowds of people, the glare of many lights, the deafening uproar of many noises how different to the gentle hubbub of the mining store on Saturday afternoons! The child hid her face, and wept with terror. In after years, the name of Melbourne aroused a confused memory of magical toys, of pretty dresses, of men and women coming and going some teasing her, some patting her head kindly; and a calmer recollection of placid waters and "beautiful sea-shells," but of nothing more, for the time had not been ripe for the understanding that comes with seeing. She was glad to get back to the hills, and to the faces she knew. An intense fondness for outdoor life seemed to develop from that period, and she was never so happy as when gathering the wildflowers on the slopes of the hills, hunting for maidenhair in the crevices of the rocks, or fishing for "yabbies" in Drury Gully. Mrs. Halliday sent her to a small private school kept by a lady friend; but the regrettable fact must be recorded that, on one or two occasions, Miss Beebo "played the wag," and was found BARBARA HALLIDAY. by the river, with her pretty white pinafore tied up to the waist a sight to "make the angels weep" and enclosing all the pebbles her wilful little hands could manage to gather from the shallows. Water drew her as it draws a duck; and, one day in the winter, when the Goulburn was run- ning high, a woman's shriek for help clove the air that had been tranquilly coming in Halliday's office windows since early morn; and young McRae rushed down the back steps, to hear from the opposite side of the river, that Beebo had somehow found her way to it, and been washed down-stream. He threw off his coat as he ran -keeping his eye on the waters; and, suddenly seeing a blue speck rise for a moment where the waters were deepest, he dived, and rescued ,the child only just in time for she had twice sunk beneath the waves. For months afterwards, the little girl gave a quaint and pathetic description of her thoughts and feelings as "the waves choked her." Her gratitude to McRae for her deliverance from death led to the awakening of a passionately- loving heart; and, from that day onwards, began Barbara's real education. She had found "a hero" someone out of the story-books to look up to with reverential admiration someone "to copy!" . . It was the second great event of her little life; and she was beginning to think deeply on her OPENING PETALS. 29 own account. She became more amenable to discipline, and eagerly imbibed whatever she was taught. Her hero should never more have occasion to complain of an inattentive pupil. Had he not said she "must have been saved for some- thing good!" There were no kindergarten schools then; but McRae, with his love of botany, made it an ex- cellent substitute for eye and ear and hand train- ing, and contrived to implant as well many a high ideal in the child's soul. Barry "put her right" in the "pieces" and songs she laboriously practised; and Patsy heard her catechism when "mother" was busy with the numerous callers who disturbed the general routine of the day. /^\VER the SILENT SEA, Deepened the glow Gleaming from unseen heights, On fields of snow ! CHAPTER IV. The Field of Snow. AS time went on, Barbara saw less of her father than of old. James Halliday had his 'dour turns' now, like other people, and his hearty laugh was growing less frequent. Mining speculations into which he had somewhat heavily plunged against his wife's advice, were turning out a cause of worry and anxiety. He loved his little girl just as fondly as ever, but a tangled skein in his business affairs took more of his time and attention than he had ever dreamed he would care to expend on anything. However, he did his part by his daughter, according to the light that was in him. He taught her to ride, and shoot, and encouraged her in all exercises that tended to develop her physically. None among the girls of her age had a finer carriage or exhibited more animal courage than she. To her mother he left almost entirely her training in morals and manners. If she grew up as good as his wife, she "would do!" And under Mrs. Halliday's refining influence, Barbara was doing well though she showed a strong distaste for household tasks, which fretted her mother, and often caused friction between the two. She devoured every book that came in her way, and it soon became necessary to sort the con- 34 BARBARA HALLIDAY. tents of the book-case a miscellaneous assort- ment having gathered there through the years. McRae was the first to read lengthy poems to her, and to explain their hidden meaning. Proud to show that she, too, could read and under- stand, she would commit many of these to memory, and repeat them for him, to his and her father's immense gratification. But her mother took more pride in her voice as a singer than in its use as an elocutionist, and often took a volume of good poetry from the child, in order to insist upon the "practising" of standard vocal exercises and the sentimental songs of the day. Long, dreary hours in those days were given, even by the child in pig-tails, to the supposed study of the 'art divine' which is, beyond all other, inborn. At first, the piano as a musical instrument was completely satisfactory to Barbara; but, as she grew older, the violin grew to have such an irresistible fascination for her that she was allowed to take lessons from the town-fiddler a master of his art, who should have had, but never did have, "a career." A musician to his finger-tips by nature, the struggle of his parents to earn sufficient daily bread for a numerous family, had thrust the delicate lad early into life's background. Poor old Johnny Lennox! To earn a bare living he had to be at everybody's beck and call, playing for a ball one night, teaching "tunes" THE FIELD OF SNOW. 35 to stupid pupils the next now playing for a wedding or a christening now pouring his soul out in strains no one understood, in the lonely hut on the hill which he called "home." "Sure, Johnny's never alone," 'twas said, "'tis fine dances with the spirits of the bush he has when other folk are sleeping!" Barbara Halliday proved to be, to the clever old musician, his one pearl of great price. Her fingers were "made for the strings"; the inner self of the girl stood revealed in the music she learned to draw from them. And the Hallidays hoped, with pardonable pride, that "a brilliant future" might be before their child. "Didn't the great artists of the world shine forth from just such sequestered surroundings?" Just at this juncture, when all other studies bid fair to be entirely given up for the more en- trancing one of the violin, McRae fell ill; and, when on his feet again, he was ordered away to a warmer climate by the Melbourne doctor, for whose advice his employer had sent him away on a brief holiday consumption having already set its dread seal upon him. Through Halliday's influence, he managed to get light employment on a boat going to Japan, and was obliged to bid farewell perhaps a last farewell to the little girl who had, since her babyhood, filled a long-aching void in a heart full of chivalrous tenderness towards all living things, yet for years fated to stand peculiarly alone- BARBARA HALLIDAY. He was quite unprepared for the agony of grief which the child showed. With scalding tears and passionate kisses, she clung to him, and begged him not to leave her; she would "make him well again," would "take him out for walks," and learn everything he wished even give up her beloved violin if he would only stay! "I can't bear you to go! Dear, dear Dan, you must not go!" He was surprised, and touched, at the depth of feeling in what he had thought a somewhat fickle and wayward little heart. He soothed her with tender words and caresses and promises of return. "Anyway, you will still have Tom and Patsy, little girl!"' "Tom and Patsy aren't you!" "You will have father and mother," he added gravely, stroking her long, fair hair. "Yes," said Barbara; "but" a puzzled frown upon her brow "they aren't you, either"; and a little sob caught her breath. "Beebo, if I had to go even further away to a country out of this world altogether and could never come back, however much I longed to, do you think you would still remember me, child? Do you think you would always be wanting me to 'come back' ; just the same as now?" The child followed his every word wistfully, guessing that some deeper meaning lay beneath their surface; and, when his questions ended, she THE FIELD OF SNOW. 37 stroked his face with a tenderness as of a mother, and answered sadly, but without tears: "Oh, Dan, oh, dear Dan, of course I would; and then, perhaps, if you couldrit come back, God would send somebody in a big, big ship, to take me straight to you!" "My little girl! My little girl!" The man crushed her to his breast, and bent his head over her curls to hide the hot tears that were gathering in his own eyes. The woman he had loved had never loved him in return. Life, but for this child's innocent devotion, had been very barren of affection; and now his doom had been spoken! In his heart, he knew he would never return. What last words could he leave with this loving little one, that they might bring forth good fruit in after years, when passion was awakened, and she needed more than ever a guiding hand? "Barbara!" he called, suddenly, as if she were not anear, but far off. The child started; it was so seldom he called her by the "stiff er" title her father and mother rarely used. "Barbara, it will soon be winter time here!" "Yes, Dan." He took her hand, and led her to the window. "What will you be able to see from this window then, dearie?" "Only snow, Dan shivery, white snow all over the roofs of the houses, and the roads, and 38 . BARBARA HALLIDAY. the grass!" She shuddered as with cold as she spoke. "You told me last winter, Barbara, that it was a 'beautiful' sight; that it made you think 'of lovely things'?" "Oh, yes, Dan, so it does; but this winter you won't be here, you see!" "Well, I want you to look at the snow, when it is here again, and feel as if I were here talking to you, and that this is exactly what I am saying: 'Little girlie, keep your soul as white as the snow, but let it warm, like the snow, all thai lies beneath it!' The Saviour of mankind told us to 'keep ourselves unspotted from the world,' You cannot understand what that means now; but, some day, when you are years older, some- thing may remind you of me, and you will probably think of the happy days of childhood spent in this beautiful spot and then then perhaps you will say, 'Dan, dear Dan, I have kept my soul like the snow and unspotted from the world!' " His tenderly-intoned voice broke a little; but Barbara, dry-eyed, listened intently to every word the look on her face showing that, already in imagination, she stood alone, gazing at the snow lying heavily on the house, and hill, and path, as it was wont to do for weeks at a time in Cherry's Point! Her lips moved noiselessly with the sound of the last words; then she said: "But you won't THE FIELD OF SNOW. 39 hear me?" and her soft blue eyes dilated a little, as if the raven wings of the Spirit of Fear were already overshadowing her young soul. McRae smiled, and his vioce had a remote tone in it that made her look up at him in wonder, as he answered: "Perhaps I will! God is good perhaps I will!" For a few moments the child could not take her eyes off her companion's rapt countenance as he looked upward, "just as if he saw some- thing" she could not see. In the light that streamed through the window, he looked like the picture of Saint Michael in the church on the hill which had been presented as a thank- offering by a wealthy mine-owner who had been miraculously preserved from a cruel death. Filled with awe, she did not move till he turned away; and, ever afterwards, when she thought of Dan, she saw with her mental vision the beauti- ful, speaking face in a transfiguring glow. pORGOTTEN ? Halls of memory keep The loved and lost, long- sunk in sleep ; And never yet were they so far, N T o dream could cross Love's harbour bar ! CHAPTER V. "Sammy Smegg." THE Hallidays parted with McRae with genuine regret. He had always been above his position, and they had made him as one of the family. They knew his place would never be as satisfactorily filled again. But they did not know his loss was to be but the beginning of disaster for them and theirs. The first time Barbara saw the new book- keeper she shrank from him with such evident repugnance that the man's sallow face flushed with anger. He spoke ingratiatingly, but the expression of his eyes sent her out of the room with an indefinable feeling of fear at her childish heart. He certainly was not prepossessing in appearance, yet hardly deserved Beebo's strongly-expressed description of him as "a big, snarling wolf, Dad!" His ugly mouth and prominent teeth could never reconcile the beauty-loving child to his looks, and she avoided him on every possible occasion. His name was Smegg Samuel Smegg and he was soon invariably spoken of as "Sammy." He kept closely to the books, and showed great deference to Halliday, with whom he soon got on well, "Jim's" trustful nature 44 BARBARA HALLIDAY. never failing to look for the best in his em- ployees. But Mrs. Halliday "kept him in his place," to use her own words. She missed McRae, and was of a loyal nature. Dan's loss, however, was, on the whole, felt most by Barry, who did not find in "Sammy" a kindred spirit. There was some- thing about the man that repelled him in- definable, yet ever present. Patsy plodded on as usual, keeping his opinion to himself only saying, now and again, to Barbara: "Say a prayer for poor Dan, honey; say a prayer for poor Dan," which the child religiously did. Only once was Patsy betrayed into saying, '"Tis not a wolf that's in the office, Miss Babo, but a fox!" As Barbara grew older, she was not without many admiring friends of her own sex, chief among whom was the doctor's daughter a girl three years older than herself. She was neither as clever nor as good-looking as Beebo, but she had plenty of originality and daring about her, and was duly admired by the more retiring Barbara. Dreda (short for "Etheldreda") Lane had a strong-willed, almost masculine, personality, and already took a pride in making other girls carry out her projects, and fall in with her views on every subject. She was proud of the fact that she was a professional man's daughter, and insisted upon being allowed to take the lead in "SAMMY SMEG." 45 whatever amusements and recreations were organized by those of her own age. The girls, following the example of a bigger world in such matters, took Dreda at her own valuation, and paid her the homage she de- manded, without demur. Her "big notions" amused Halliday, and he liked nothing better than to "take her down a peg," as he called it; still, he did not discourage the intimacy between her and his daughter, partly for the reason that he and the old doctor were "cronies," and had done each other many a good turn in the earlier days of the diggings. Mrs. Lane was an aggressive, deep-voiced woman, who dressed loudly and entertained largely one who was never happy unless she was patronising somebody, or arguing on what she considered the most "up-to-date" question of the day. She spoke of Cherry's Point as "this dull hole," and bemoaned the fact that she was obliged to bring up "Miss Lane" in such a place, where "the poorer class" were "too familiar," and "aped their betters!" The doctor, on the contrary, was a mild, un- assuming individual, with an absent-minded air, and a heart that carried him wherever pain and poverty called. It was said that if Mrs. Lane did not personally see to his books and collect his accounts, he would never have had "a penny to his name." 46 BARBARA HALLIDAY. The doctor loved a pipe and a yarn with Jim Halliday, and often the two would sit for a couple of hours exchanging reminiscences, or in utter silence, broken by the doctor at the last with some such words as these: "Milk and roses pure milk, and morning roses that was Kate's complexion, Jim! Never saw anything to beat it!' "And never will," was the invariable and expected answer. "Kate," needless to say, was not Mrs. Lane's Christian name! The doctor's Kate had been in her grave many a day, and he had married late in life. With the exception of his son Denzil, his children resembled their mother. Denzil was away at college, studying for his father's profession. Cherry's Point, like all country townships, had its cliques, -formed, of course, by its women- folk. Society was divided into -three distinct classes the first, and highest, consisting of bank managers, doctors, clergymen, wardens, clerks of court, lawyers and the unprofessional who, even if "unfortunately" obliged to be in trade, had high-born or wealthy connections. Class No. 2 embraced tradesmen in the retail lines, milli- ners, dressmakers, apprentices, etc. Class No. 3 was made up of miners and labourers, and all who earned their own living by the sweat of their brow. Mining managers came under the heading of Class I., and their relatives were not slow to take advantage of it. "SAMMY SMEG." 47 Jim Halliday suffered less from cliquism than most. He not only belonged to the "wholesale," but his wife had "good blood" in her veins. Perhaps, on the latter account, she never suf- fered the mortification of being either snubbed or ignored by the other 'ladies' of the town, and often had the satisfaction of gathering under her roof at one time, representatives of the three classes each one of which dared not publicly offend the other, for reasons of policy. Mrs. Halliday knew how to entertain well, and her dinners and musical evenings were always looked forward to. The wife of the second doctor in the place was not popular, and was credited with being "ower mean," while her husband was looked upon as being "a little wrong in the head," having become addicted to the taking of drugs. Among the men of all classes, there was that free and easy style of intercourse always to be found in mining centres. They left to their womenkind the classifying, and social treatment of, the individual proper. The miners' wives as a rule, an intelligent and capable body of women resented "cliquism" with all the intensity that is part of a strong and active mental organism, and "paid out" the patronising in a hundred and one little ways, many of which were both clever and amusing. They were not without a humourist among them a certain Mrs. O'Dea, who, though a miner's 48 BARBARA HALLIDAY. wife, had had "a college education" in her youth, in "the Old Country," and was gifted, more- over, with a sarcastic tongue! At election times she shone as the wit of Cherry's Point, and candidates were known to pass her door in fear and trembling, for her voice had a subtle, carry- ing quality, and she had a word and a joke for all always managing to make her word-pellets strike the most vulnerable place in the character of her hearers. Elections were momentous events in those days, when nothing was done by halves, and they often ended up in unseemly riots. "THE HEART of a child is a sweet wild rose, Petal by petal its leaves unclose, A touch too hasty, a smile too cold, And hidden from sight is its heart of gold ! CHAPTER VI. "Androcles and the Lion.'' THE local police-station was a long, narrow building, bearing a remarkable resemblance in shape to a coffin. Later on, Cherry's Point's sergeant of police was to take a promi- nent part in the arrest of the Kelly Gang, winning one of the chief Government awards.* Except after election times, and when a prisoner was brought in from one of the far-out districts, policemen in Cherry's Point had a fairly easy life of it. As a rule, they were a genial, good-looking lot of men, who kept the peace by their own manly and honest virtues as ordinary citizens. Only one murder stained the prison annals, and the poor victim's grave was distinguished in the hill-cemetery by a cairn of quartz crystal, at which children looked with fear and curiosity, as if expecting to see blood-drops ooze out of the stones. It was whispered among them that "the Melbourne Waxworks had the wicked man on show, with his pick still in his hand." Away, beyond the cemetery, was a "leper tent" on a lonely rise; and Seaforth, the master of the hospital, carried to the miserable creature * Sergeant Kelly. 53 BARBARA HALLIDAY. within it, with his own hands, every second day, his allowance of food and drink whistling to him to come out and take it from the spot where he had laid it and watching to see that the un- fortunate creature availed himself of his sus- tenance. This was the leper's only way of communication with the outer world, as that side of the range was naturally shunned by the people. In the picturesquely-situated cemetery, Barbara took a great interest, and never tired of going from grave to grave to read the in- scriptions on the tombstones. So many were of miners who had been killed, from time to time, at their daily work, that, when the text under- neath their names was not, "In the midst of life we arc in death," she felt as if there were some- thing wanting in solemnity and appropriateness. On each stone were usually displayed the emblems of the benefit society to which the miner belonged, and whether it were an open hand with a heart on it, keys, or an inverted compass, she never rested till she had discovered the meaning of all. "The Foresters' " emblems were, on the whole, the most in evidence, that Society being then at the height of its popularity. But her inquiring little mind never forced her feet as far as the suicides' allotted portion, nor the Chinamen's a number of the latter having been laid to rest there by their countrymen, who had "claims" down Rowley's Creek way, or who "ANDROCLES AND THE LION." 53 were gardeners on the slopes of the Goulburn. The peculiar burial ceremonies of the Chinese were carried out with great exactitude on that quiet hill. The meaning of the word "suicide" was not clearly denned in Barbara's mental dictionary. All she knew was that it had something to do with "murder," and that these "set-apart" poor creatures had invariably been found dead, "out in the bush, where the trees were high." Of Chinamen she had a wholesome fear since hearing "a John" who sold fancy goods periodic- ally, tell a neighbour to "drown every one of her little girls," "Lilly girls no good!" After Daniel McRae had been gone some months, Barbara made a big effort to write long letters to him at regular intervals; and in this her mother encouraged her, as she thought it a good way of accustoming the little girl to express her thoughts and ideas, and in aiding her to compose long sentences. It was a letter-writing age, and the brief scrawls of the present hour would have been considered positively derogatory to one's dignity to receive! One of Beebo's letters ran in this wise: "Dear, Darling Dan, I just loved your last letter, and shall keep it for ever and ever. I miss you, dear Dan, more and more and more, and I never, never go near ugly Sammy Smegg in the office, and Dad says I am a stuck-up little heathen! but Mother doesn't mind at all. ,1 BARBARA HALLIDAV. Don't forget to send me that beautiful blue bird you said you would. You asked me to tell you what walks I go, and all about what I see. Well, dear Dan, on Wednesday I went for a long, long walk with Mrs. Hawthorn (the lady-one, whose husband is the bank manager) and her little girl, Hilda, who wears such pretty silk dresses. "It was a lovely day, and Mrs. Hawthorn said we could be "truly rural; for once" so we took a lot of nice sandwiches with us, and went all the way to Rowley's Creek. The people down there don't like Mrs. Hawthorn much, because she looks down on them; and when we passed Mrs. Ruffy's (the fat vegetable woman at the Bend), she called out names after her, and said: 'If the good Lord let His sun rise on the good and bad alike, it wasn't her business (Mrs. Haw- thorn's) to walk by people as if they were dirt beneath her feet!' And Mrs. Hawthorn said to me that it was that sort of common, vulgar woman that knitted, and knitted, and knitted, when the French Revolution knocked off people's heads, but I don't think it was, for I know Mrs. Ruffy sends heaps of eggs that are never stale to sick people in the hospital, all for nothing. And she brings me bunches of flowers to the store. "But, oh! not long after we passed, her place, dear Dan, something happened that was nearly as bad as revolutions! We had eaten our lunch on the pretty track that goes on to the Black 'AXDROCLES AND THE LION." 55 River, and walked on a bit further to improve our minds with the scenery, when, all at once, we saw a queer-looking man, with a face all whiskers down past his waist, and with long hair behind; and he was kneeling down where some foxgloves grew very thick, and calling out loud! "He had a lot of dogs with him; they were sitting up as quiet as mice, waiting for him, and looked just like the big marble dogs in our hall that Da