Tom Gerrard
His calm, steady voice, and the firm pressure of his hand reassured her. Her father had said to her a few hours before that Forde would take her refusal “like a man,” and she had replied that she knew it.
She raised her face to his as he bent towards her, and, on the impulse of a moment, born of her sincere liking for the man, kissed him. His bronzed features flushed deeply, and his whole frame thrilled as their lips met; and then he exercised a mighty restraint upon himself.
“Good-bye, little woman, and God bless you,” he said softly, as he bent over her.
“But why are you going away, Mr Forde? Father will be so distressed, and so indeed will be everybody—for hundreds of miles about.”
Forde had drawn himself together again, and swinging his right foot out of the stirrup sat “side-saddle” and lit his pipe.
“Well, you see, Kate, my mother has left me two thousand pounds or so. It was that that gave me pluck enough to speak to your father last night. I thought I would go to him first. Perhaps I made a mistake?”
“No, indeed! He told me all that you said to him, and—oh! Mr Forde, we shall all miss you so much,” and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears again. He looked at the gum tree branches overhead, and went on meditatively, apparently not taking heed of her emotion, though his heart was filled with love for the girl, who with bent head, rode by his side.
“And I shall miss much—much out of my life when I leave this part of the colony, Kate. But I was never intended to be a clergyman. I was driven into the Church by my mother—good, pious soul—who, because my father was in the Church, condemned me to it, instead of letting me follow my own bent—which was either the Army or Navy or Commerce.”
“But you made a good clergyman,” said the girl artlessly.
He shook his head. “Well, the fact is, Kate, that I was always pretty sick of it, although I must say that I like the free open life of the bush, and the people; especially the working men, diggers, and stockmen. And their frank hospitality and rough good nature I can never forget.”
“Where do you think of going?”
“To Sydney first Then I’ll decide what to do. I am very much inclined to follow your father’s example and go in for mining; either that or cattle-breeding. But, of course, I shall write and let you know.”
“Do!” she said, earnestly, and then they quickened their horses’ pace, as they saw that Fraser and Gerrard had pulled up at the turn-off to Boorala, and were awaiting them.
“Well, Forde, old man,” said the mine-owner, as he bade the clergyman good-bye, “you will leave a big hole in the hearts of the people about here. Kate and I especially will miss you. And I do hope that we shall meet again.”
“Nothing is more likely. I like Queensland too much to leave it altogether,” and then with another warm grasp of the hand, he said good-bye to them all, and turned along the Boorala track.
“One of the whitest men that ever put foot in stirrup,” said Fraser a few minutes later to Gerrard.
“I’m sure of it!” assented Gerrard. And then they began to speak of Kaburie, Fraser giving his visitor every possible information about the country and its cattle-carrying capabilities. It was, he said, one of the best-watered runs in the north, and a drought had never been known.
“See!” he said, pointing to a sandal-wood scrub, “that is one of the mustering camps on the Kaburie boundary, and there are some of Mrs Tallis’s cattle down there in the creek. Crack your whip, Kate.”
Uncoiling the long stock-whip, the girl cracked it once only, but loudly, and in a few seconds hundreds of cattle appeared from the creek, and through the fringe of she-oaks that lined its banks; they clambered up the steep side and stared at the disturbers, and then at a second loud crack of the whip, trotted off quietly to the camp—bullocks, steers, cows and calves, the latter performing the usual calf antics, curving their bodies, hoisting their tails, and kicking their heels in the air. Once under the cool, grateful shade of the dark green foliage of the sandalwoods, they quietly awaited to be inspected, and Fraser and Gerrard slowly walked their horses about among them. .
“What do you think of them?” asked the mine-owner, who was himself a good judge of cattle.
“Very fair lot indeed, and all as fat as pigs,” replied the squatter, scanning them closely. “Now then, Bully boy, what are you staring at?” he said to a sturdy twelve months’ old bull calf, who had advanced to him. “Ah! you want to be branded, do you? Quite so! Well, I think it very likely you soon will be.”
“There has been no branding at Kaburie for six months, Mr Gerrard,” said Kate, who added that there were now only Mrs Tallis’s overseer, and one black boy stockman on the station, who did nothing more than muster the cattle occasionally on the various camps.
Gerrard nodded. “Ladies are bad business people as a rule. There will be a terrible amount of branding to be done now.”
Kate, unaware of the twinkle in Gerrard’s eyes, was indignant. “Indeed, Mrs Tallis was considered a very good business woman, and knew how to manage things as well as Mr Tallis. What are you laughing at, Mr Gerrard?”
“At Mrs Tallis’s smartness. She has saved herself some hundreds of pounds by dismissing her stockmen, and leaving the calves un-branded. All the work and expense will fall on whoever buys the station.”
“Oh, I see!” and Kate smiled. “But, after all, I suppose–”
“That all is fair in love and war. And buying a cattle or sheep station is war in a sense between seller and buyer. I should have done the same thing myself, I suppose.”
“I don’t believe you would,” said the girl frankly. “Mr Aulain told father and me that you were very Quixotic.”
“Aulain doesn’t know what a hard nail I am in money matters sometimes, Miss Fraser. I’m a perfect Shylock, and will have my pound o’ flesh—especially bullock flesh.”
“I know better, and so do you, father, don’t you,” and her eyes smiled into Gerrard’s. “Mr Aulain told us all about your selling a hundred bullocks to the French authorities at New Caledonia, and then, because half of them died on the stormy voyage to Noumea, you returned half the money. Was it your fault that the steamer was nearly wrecked, and the cattle died?”
“Aulain did not think that it might have only been a matter of my setting a sprat to catch a mackerel. You see I was anxious to establish a big cattle trade with the French people.”
Kate shook her head decisively, but there was an expressive look in her eyes that gave Gerrard great content.
Towards the afternoon the travellers saw a horseman coming towards them, and Kate recognised him as Tom Knowles, the overseer of Kaburie, for whom Gerrard had a letter from Mrs Tallis. He was a lithe, wiry little man of fifty, and Kate and her father exchanged smiles as, when he drew near, they saw that he was arrayed in his best riding “togs,” was riding his best horse, and that his long grey moustache was carefully waxed. He had long been one of Kate’s most ardent admirers, and had a strong belief that he was “well placed in the running with Aulain and the parson” for the young lady’s affections—and hand.
“Well, this is a pleasure,” he cried, as he rode up and shook hands with Fraser and his daughter; “I was coming over to Gully to spend an hour or two with you, Fraser, but, of course, you are coming to me?”
“Yes!” said the mineowner. “This is Mr Gerrard, Knowles. He has come to see you on business, and we came with him.”
The overseer, who had at first looked at Gerrard’s handsome face with some disapproval, at once became at ease, and in a few minutes, after Gerrard had explained the object of his visit, the party put their horses into a smart canter, and half-an-hour later came to a wide, sandy-bottomed creek, fringed with huge ti-trees. On one of these, which was on the margin of the crossing, was nailed a large black painted board with an ominous inscription in white.
“LOOK OUT FOR ALLIGATORS.”
“Mr Tallis had it put up,” explained the overseer to Gerrard; “as two men were collared by ‘gaters here. But when the water is clear, and the creek low, as it is now, there is no danger. It is when the creek is high after rain, and the water muddy, that the crossing is risky. I suppose you have any amount of the brutes up your way?”
“Thousands! The rivers, creeks, and swamps are full of them, and I have lost a lot of cattle and horses at Ocho Rios by them.”
An hour later they arrived at Kaburie, and Kate was, at the request of the admiring Knowles, acting as hostess and preparing supper.
CHAPTER XIII
Two days had passed, and Gerrard was still at Kaburie, though Kate and her father had left the previous day; they were, however, to return, bringing with them three or four stockmen to assist Knowles and Gerrard to muster the cattle, for he had decided to buy the station and leave Knowles there as his manager. Although there were but four thousand head of cattle on the run, they were widely separated in small mobs of a few hundreds each—some high up in the ranges, and some haunting the low-lying littoral, and frequenting the flat marshy land about the mouths of the numerous creeks debouching into the sea, where they eagerly ate the lush, saline grasses and creepers that lined the coast above high-water mark—and to “round up” all these scattered mobs on their various camps, and count every beast, meant very hard work. Then too, Gerrard intended to have a general branding at the same time, and he felt a thrill of pleasure in his veins, when Kate had said to her father: “Father, why cannot we help, too? You can safely leave the battery and claim to Sam Young for a few days. And as you and I know the country so well, I am sure we should be of some use to Mr Gerrard.”
Douglas Fraser had never said “No” in his life to any request of Kate’s since she was fifteen, and he smiled assent. And then in addition to that he had taken such a strong liking to Gerrard that it gave him pleasure to afford him all the assistance in his power.
“All right, Gerrard!” (men in the Australian bush do not “Mister” each other after a few hour’s acquaintance) “we shall be here. And I’ll send over to Boorala for three or four good men to help in the mustering.”
So Kate and her father had ridden away and left Gerrard and Knowles to themselves for a few days; and Gerrard and the dapper little overseer planned all sorts of improvements that were to be effected in the way of making Kaburie a crack breeding station.
As father and daughter rode side by side along the track back to their home, through the darkening shadows of the coming night, they talked about Forde and Aulain, Fraser resting his big brown hand on her knee, and looking wistfully into her face.
“And you see, my child, that I well know that there will come a time when you and I must part Some man–”
“Never, father, never! I liked Mr Forde very much, but not well enough to marry him, and part from you. And I kissed him, dad, when we said good-bye. Do you mind much? I couldn’t help it. I felt that I must kiss him.” (Then tears.) “I thought I had better tell you, for I feel so horribly ashamed of myself.”
“There is nothing for you to be ashamed of, child,” said her father tenderly; “Forde is a man, and, as I told you, he would take your refusal like a white man and a gentleman.”
“He did. And I could not help crying over it.”
For some minutes they rode on in silence, then Fraser said:
“When is Aulain coming?”
“As soon as he is able to sit a horse, he said,” and then her face flushed. “I wish he would not come, father, and yet I do not like the idea of writing to him and telling him so—especially when he is ill.”
Fraser nodded. “I understand. Still I think it would be the better course to take. I had imagined, however, Kate, that you thought more of Aulain than you cared to admit, even to me.”
“So I did; and so I do now, but I would never marry him, father, no matter how much I cared for him.”
Her father looked at her inquiringly.
“I think I am afraid of him, dad, sometimes. He is so dreadfully jealous, and he has no right whatever to be jealous of me, for we were never engaged. And then there is another thing that is an absolute bar to my marrying him, though I fear I am too much of a coward to tell him so; he is a Roman Catholic. And whenever I think of that I remember the awful tragedy of the Wallington family.”
“I think you are quite right, Kate,” said the mine-owner gravely. “Frankly, whilst I think Aulain is a fine fellow, and would make you a good husband, I must confess that the thought of your marrying a Roman Catholic has often filled me with uneasiness.”
“Don’t be afraid, dad,” she said decisively. “In the first place, I am not going to marry anyone, and shall grow into a pretty old maid; in the second, if I was dying of love, nothing in the world would induce me to marry a Roman Catholic. Whenever I think of poor Mr Wallington as we saw him lying on the grass with the bullet hole through his forehead, I shudder. I loathe the very name of Mrs Wallington, and consider her and Father Corregio the actual murderers of that good old man.”
She spoke of an incident that had occurred when she was sixteen. Wallington, a wealthy Brisbane solicitor, had gone to England on a six months’ visit When he returned, he found that his wife and only daughter, a girl of five and twenty, had fallen under the influence of a Father Corregio, and had entered the Roman Catholic Church, and his long and happy married life was at an end. A week later he shot himself in his garden.
“I am afraid that poor Aulain will cut up pretty roughly over this, Kate,” said her father presently.
“I can’t help it, father. And I think, after all, I had better write to him to-morrow. I really do not want him to come to the Gully.”
And she did write, and Aulain’s face was not pleasant to see as he read her letter.
“By ______! if it is the parson fellow, I’ll shoot him like a rat,” he said, and then he cursed the fever that kept him away from Kate.
He went over to the Clarion office and saw Lacey, who was quick to perceive that something had occurred to upset the dark-faced sub-Inspector.
“How are you, Aulain? Any ‘shakes’ to-day?” he asked, referring to the recurring attacks of ague from which Aulain suffered.
“Oh! just the usual thing,” replied his visitor irritably, as he sat down on a cane lounge, and viciously tugged at his moustache. “I thought I would come over and worry you with my company for a while, and get you to come across to the Queen’s and share a bottle of fizz with me. They have some ice there I hear—came up by the Sydney steamer last night.”
Lacey’s eyes twinkled, “I’m with you, my boy. I’ve just finished writing a particularly venomous leader upon mine adversary the Planters’ Friend, and a nice cool drink, such as you suggest, on a roasting day like this, will tend to assuage the journalistic rage against my vile and hated contemporary.”
Arriving at the Queen’s Hotel the two men went upstairs and sat down on comfortable cane lounges on the verandah, and in a few minutes the smiling Milly appeared with a large bottle of champagne, and a big lump of the treasured ice, carefully wrapped up in a piece of blanketing. As Lacey attended to the ice, Aulain began to cut the cork string.
“Oh! by the way, Lacey,” he said carelessly, “I saw in the Clarion yesterday that Forde, the sky pilot, is leaving the Church. Are you ready with the glasses.”
“I am. Faith, doesn’t it look lovely. Steady, me boy, these long sleever glasses hold a pint. Here’s long life to ye, Aulain. Heavens! but it is good,” and he sighed contentedly as he set down his glass again.
“Ye were asking about Forde?” he said as he wiped his red, perspiring face. “Yes, he is giving up parsonifying. I had a letter from him by the mailman yesterday from Fraser’s Gully. He was staying there for the night with our friend Gerrard.”
Aulain’s black brows knit, and his hand clenched under the table, as Lacey went on,
“His mother has died, and left him some money. And very glad it is I am to hear it, for a finer man I don’t know.”
“Much?”
“He didn’t say; but I know that his mother was pretty well off. He merely wrote me asking me to mention in the Clarion that he was leaving the Church, and was going South. Ye see, he has a power of friends all over the country, and he just asked me to write a bit of a paragraph saying he was going away, and regretted that he could not come to Port Denison to preach next Sunday fortnight.”
Aulain re-filled Lacey’s and his own glass, “Lucky fellow! When is he leaving Fraser’s place?”
“He was leaving that morning for Boorala, and Fraser and his daughter and Gerrard were going with him as far as the turn-off. By a bit of good-luck, Gerrard—who also sent me a few lines—met Forde and Miss Fraser on his way to the Gully. Here is his note,” and he took a letter from his pocket and handed it to Aulain, who read:
“Fraser’s Gully.
“Dear Lacey,—As the Boorala mailman is calling here this morning, I send you a line. I had the good fortune to come across Miss Fraser and Mr Forde at Cape Conway, and we all came on to her father’s place together. I like Fraser. He’s a fine old cock. The parson, too, is a good sort As for Miss Kate Fraser, she is a modernised Hotspur’s Kate—a delightfully frank and charming girl. I envy the lucky man who wins her. I hope the boy has not got into any mischief, and is giving you no trouble. Give Aulain my regards, and tell him I delivered his letter sooner than I anticipated. I leave for Kaburie this morning, and am to have the pleasure of being accompanied by Fraser and his daughter. Tell Jim that if he gets into any mischief whilst I am away, I’ll make it hot for him.—Sincerely yours,
“Tom Gerrard.”
Aulain handed the letter back to Lacey. He was outwardly calm, but his heart was surging with passion. What business had that d–d parson fellow and Kate to be together at Cape Conway, fifteen miles away from her home? And then his receptive brain conjured up the blackest suspicions. Forde had come into money, and Kate had written to him saying that she could not marry him, “because she would never marry and leave her father.” He set his teeth.
“I think we could do another bottle, Aulain,” said Lacey presently.
“Right, old man!” replied the sub-Inspector mechanically, and then Lacey noticed that his bronzed face had become pallid.
“‘Shakes’ coming on?” he asked, sympathetically.
“Just a bit; but the fizz is doing me good.”
CHAPTER XIV
Mustering on Kaburie was almost over, much to the satisfaction of every one taking part in it, for the weather had been unpleasantly hot even for North Queensland, and heavy tropical thunderstorms had added to the difficulty of the work by the creeks coming down in flood. All the cattle running in the mountain gullies and on the spurs, had been brought in, the calves and “clean-skins” branded, and now there remained only those which roamed about the coast lands.
Early one morning Gerrard, Fraser, and Kate, with three stockmen, were camped near the mouth of a wide, but shallow creek, whose yellow, muddied waters were rushing swiftly to the sea. The party had arrived there the previous evening, and now, breakfast over, were ready to start to muster the cattle in the vicinity. Heavy rain had fallen during the night, but Kate’s little tent, with its covering fly had kept her dry, and the rest of the party had slept under a rough, but efficient shelter of broad strips of ti-tree bark spread upon a quickly-extemporised frame of thin saplings.
Just as they started the sky cleared and the blue dome above was unflecked by a single cloud as they rode in single file along a cattle track leading to the beach, which they reached in half an hour.
“What a glorious sight!” said Gerrard, as he drew rein and pointed to the blue Pacific, shimmering and sparkling under the rays of the morning sun. “Look, there is a brig-rigged steamer quite close in—evidently she must be calling in at Port Denison, or would not be so near the land.”
“Yes,” said Kate, “that is one of the new China mail boats, the Ching-tu. How beautiful she is—for a steamer, with those sloping masts, with the yards across, and the curved shapely bow like a sailing ship. Oh! I do so wish I were on board. I love ships and the If I were a man I should be a sailor.”
“Would you?” said Gerrard, as he looked at the animated, beautiful face. “I, too, am fond of the sea, though it robbed me of father, mother, and a brother-in-law, my twin sister’s husband. She died of a broken heart soon after.”
Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, how dreadful!” and then as they rode on Gerrard told her the story of the Cassowary.
“What a sweet child your little niece Mary must be,” she said, when he had finished, “and I am sure, too, that your protégé, Jim Coll, must be a perfect little man. I wish I could see him.”
“I can safely promise you that, now that I have bought Kaburie, and I feel pretty sure that you will gain his affections very quickly; especially if you will let him ride that bucking filly. I daresay that I shall be back here within twelve months, and bring Master Jim with me.”
“This is where we separate, boss,” said a stockman named Trouton, “if you, Mr and Miss Fraser and me take the right bank of this creek, my two mates will work down on the other bank, and we’ll get the cattle on both sides at the same time, and drive ‘em all on to Wattle Camp, which is between this creek and the next to the south of us.” Then turning to the other stockmen, he warned them to be careful of alligators.
“You chaps must keep your eyes skinned if you have to swim any bits of backwater, now the creeks are up. Don’t cross anywheres unless you have some cattle to send in fust, and keep clost up to their tails if yous can’t get in among ‘em. ‘Gaters like man and horse meat next best to calf.”
The two men nodded, and riding down the bank, crossed the creek and quickly disappeared in the scrub on the other side; then Gerrard’s party turned towards the coast, Trouton leading the way with the packhorses along a well-defined cattle-track. A quarter of an hour later they came across a small mob of cows and calves, which as the stockwhips cracked, trotted off in front, to be joined by several more, and in a short time the mob had increased to five hundred head, and Trouton and Gerrard decided to drive them across the creek to join those which were being rounded up by the two stockmen on the left hand bank. In reply to a question by Gerrard, Trouton said that the crossing was a good one even when the creek was as high as it was then, on account of its width—about two hundred yards from bank to bank.
“It is a hard, sandy bottom, boss, and we shall only have about forty yards of swimming to do. If we rush ‘em they’ll get over in no time.”
“Very well. But we will cut out all the cows with calves too young to swim.”
This did not take long, and some thirty or forty cows with calves were separated from the mob, and driven some distance back into the scrub by Fraser. Then with the usual yelling and cracking of whips the main mob was rushed down the bank into the water, a wide-horned, stately bullock, plunging into the yellow stream, and taking the lead Close behind the cattle followed the three men and Kate, the latter and Gerrard keeping on the “lee” side of the mob so as to prevent them spreading out and getting too far down-stream, where there was danger from a number of snags of ti-trees, which showed above water in the middle of the creek. The cattle, however, kept well together, and when the deep part was reached, swam safely across, despite the rather strong current.
“They went over splendidly, didn’t they?” cried Fraser to Gerrard, as he gave his horse a loose rein and leant forward to let the animal swim easily. “We are lucky to get them over so easily, and–”
His words were interrupted by a cry of terror from Kate, as the colt she was riding gave an agonised snort of terror, and began pawing the water with its fore-feet.
“Help me, father! Mr Gerrard! Oh, it is an alligator!” and as she spoke she was nearly unseated. “It has Cato by the off hind leg.”
Gerrard, only ten yards away from her, turned his horse’s head, and shouted to her to throw herself off, and then, with a deadly terror in his heart, saw her shaken off; and disappear in the surging stream, but in a few seconds she rose to the surface, panting and choking, but swimming bravely, though she was unable to see. Gerrard, now beside her, leant over, placed his left arm round her waist, and held her tight.
