By Blow and Kiss

CHAPTER XIII

Ned Gunliffe walked across the yard to where Darby the Bull was leaning on the rails of the fence, and smoking a contemplative pipe.

“Darby,” said Ned, “I want you to do something for Miss Ess. We want to go for a moonlight canter, and I suppose if that trooper sees us running up the horses or taking a saddle down, he’ll want to interfere. Now do you think you could keep him inside for a few minutes till we get away?”

Darby took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Ned.

“Did ye say Miss Ess wanted to go alone wi’ you?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ned. “Go and ask her if you like.”

Darby turned without a word and walked across to the house. Ned saw him knock and heard him speak to Ess. Presently he came back and nodded to Ned. “I’ll fix ’im,” he said.

“Just entice him inside for five minutes,” said Ned. “We don’t want any fuss, you know. Say you want to show him something – anything you like, and keep him talking. Look at the clock when you go in, and allow us a good five minutes. Persuade him to stay inside that length of time.”

“Right,” said Darby, and strode off to the bunkhouse.

He found the policeman sitting in the doorway smoking. Darby walked in. “Look ’ere, mate,” he said confidentially, “there’s somethin’ ’ere I want to show you.”

“Hey? What is it?” said the trooper, looking round lazily.

“Can’t you stir your stumps enough to come an’ look?” asked Darby, and after another look at Ned, strolling quietly across the yard, the trooper rose and went inside. He found Darby lighting a match and looking at the clock on the shelf.

“It’s too dark to see much ’ere,” said the trooper, “unless you wants me to see that clock.”

“No, I wants you to see more’n that,” said Darby. “Wait till I light the lamp.” He fumbled with the lamp for some time, and when he had it lit saw with satisfaction that a good minute of his time had already gone. He looked vaguely round the room, and wondered what he was to show.

“Well, what is it?” said the trooper. He glanced suspiciously at the door and took a step towards it.

“Here,” said Darby, sinking his voice to a mysterious pitch. “Come inside; I don’t want anyone to see me show this.” He glanced round the room again, and inspiration came to him. These chaps was always interested in Steve, so —

“D’you know whose bunk that is – was?” he asked, jerking a finger at one of the bunks ranged round the wall.

“Is – was? D’you mean Steve’s?” asked the trooper, with suddenly aroused interest.

Darby restrained himself from uttering the usual formula. He nodded. “That’s what I want to show you,” he said. The trooper approached the bunk curiously. “What about it?” he asked. “See anything in it?” said Darby, hugely pleased with himself. This was simple, he thought. “Blankets,” said the trooper, and ran his hand over them. “Anything else?” said Darby, sitting down and crossing his legs complacently. The minutes were flying steadily. The trooper jerked the blankets off the bunk, and after a look at Darby suddenly hauled the mattress up and ran his hand underneath. He had vague thoughts of finding the weapon which did the deed, or something equally important. He found nothing. “There’s nothing ’ere,” he said, “excep’ blankets an’ mattress.”

“Like to see what’s inside the mattress?” asked Darby, smoothly. The trooper felt it all over. He turned it over and felt it again. He occupied two or three minutes in convincing himself there was nothing there but straw.

“There’s nothin’ in it but straw, far’s I can make out,” he said, with a puzzled look at Darby, sitting there and smiling contentedly at him. “Wot’s the game?”

“Now wot d’you think could be in wi’ straw in a mattress that you couldn’t feel from the outside?” asked Darby. The trooper thought it over. “Papers – a letter?” said the trooper, excitedly. “Papers, or a letter,” agreed Darby, with great satisfaction. He had been vainly racking his brain to think of something to suggest himself. The trooper whipped a knife out and slit the end of the mattress open, and commenced to grope in it. It was well over the five minutes, but Darby watched him, with the greatest interest in what he would suggest next, or do when he found there was nothing. But the trooper suddenly raised his head. He had heard the faint far-off click of a horse’s hoof on a stone. Darby heard it the same moment, and with one stride was beside the trooper.

“Show ’im something, an’ persuade ’im to stay for five minutes,” thought Darby, with a sudden spasm of doubt as to whether that meant five minutes for each item or for both.

“It’s all right,” he said to the trooper. “I just want to persuade you to stop ’ere a minute or two longer.”

But the trooper’s suspicions were thoroughly roused now, and he jumped for the door. Darby caught him by the skirt of his coat in passing and swung him back violently. The trooper’s hand went to his hip, but Darby’s hand went to his and took a grip. And what Darby gripped usually held still. The trooper recognised this, but he made a desperate effort to free himself. Darby twirled him round and threw his arms round him, pinning the trooper’s arms rigidly to his side.

The trooper could use his tongue if he could use nothing else, and he did so with fluency and effect. But Darby held him till a total of ten minutes was gone, and then quietly released him.

The trooper faced him with another burst of language and a heavy revolver pointing in his face. “What – d’you mean?” he demanded.

“It’s orright,” said Darby. “I’ve showed you something, an’ I’ve persuaded you to stay five minutes. It’s orright. You can go now,” and he waved a huge hand towards the open door.

The trooper sprang through it, but was back in a few minutes. “Where’s yer mate gone, blast ye?” he shouted.

“Gone for a moonlight ride wi’ the gal,” said Darby, soothingly. “They’ll be back by’n’bye. You wouldn’t want to go runnin’ after a young couple that way, would you? And besides,” he added, “I dessay Ned shoved the ’orses to the back end o’ the paddock while ’e was at it. But go’n catch yours if you want to. In fac’, I’ll ’elp if you like.”

But the trooper had had enough of Darby’s assistance. “You’ll hear suthin’ more o’ this,” he said viciously. “I suppose you know what you stand to get for interferin’ wi’ a constable in the execution o’ ’is duty.”

“No,” said Darby, with interest. “Tell me. An’ tell me wot was the duty – an’ I didn’t execute you any,” he shouted after the trooper as he hurried out and down in the direction of the horse paddock. “An’, hi you!” he yelled into the darkness, “’adn’t you better come back an’ tidy up that straw you spilt?”

In the meantime Ned and Ess had made good use of the start Darby had given them, and they rode forward in silence at a hard canter. The moon made the track clear to be seen, and Ned Gunliffe rode well in advance. Ess rode with a mind whirling with doubts, anger with Ned and with herself, with fears – fears for herself and for Steve – and, worst of all, with a dreadful and sickening apprehension of what she was going to see.

They rode steadily till they came to the spot from which Ned had first seen the light, and he pulled up there and slid to the ground. “Can you dismount, or shall I help you?” he asked smoothly. Ess was riding across-saddle, and she caught her divided skirt up on the off side and swung neatly to the ground without answering.

He took the reins and tied the two horses to a bush.

“They are up in the old hut a wild-dogger used to live in. It’s empty now, and Steve and the woman are there.”

“So you say,” she said stiffly. “I am here to see.”

“Then follow me, please,” he said. “I need not warn you to move quietly, unless you wish to warn him and give the woman time to slip away. I will go slowly, so that you can keep close.”

He started to clamber over the rocks and up the hill, and, as silently as she could do so, she followed him. The moon was almost down now, and there was barely light to see, and the hill was rough and covered with loose rocks. But Ned Gunliffe moved as quietly as if he were on a grass sward, and moved slowly and patiently to allow the girl to keep up with him without undue noise.

“Wait here and rest a moment and get your breath,” he whispered. “Can you see the hut? And can you see that chink of light? They’re inside.”

They waited while Ess could hear the blood drumming and thundering in her ears. “If a stone rattles or we make any noise,” whispered Ned again, “lie down behind a stone or behind me. He might shoot.” She nodded. She could not have spoken at that moment for her life, and they commenced to move up again, lifting each foot cautiously, and setting it down gently and slowly; and so they came to within a dozen paces of the door. They could clearly see the streak of light shining round the edges of it, and they could hear the low murmur of voices coming from inside the hut.

“You had better speak first,” whispered Ned. “Otherwise he may fling the door wide and shoot, or make a rush. Stand well behind me, and call him and say who you are.”

But Ess felt her courage rising. She had nothing to fear, she told herself. If it were Steve in there, he could explain everything to her. If it were not Steve, and Ned Gunliffe had some plot or purpose of his own which she had not fathomed … she slipped her hand inside her pocket and gripped the butt of a pistol, and half drew it free. Then she raised her voice, and called sharp and clear “Steve – are you there, Steve? This is Ess speaking.”

There was an instant of silence and tense suspense, and almost on the second the streak of light outlining the door winked out. They heard distinctly the thud of bare feet on the floor, as if a man had leaped from a bed or chair, then a hissing whisper, and then a voice. “All right, Ess. Just a minute. Are you alone?”

Her nerves had been singing like tensed wires under the strain of that short moment of silence, and she could have screamed aloud with joy at the relief his voice brought. It was his voice – Steve’s voice – never a doubt of that. She steadied her own and answered, “Only Ned Gunliffe. May I come in?”

“No,” he answered sharply. “Just give me a second, and I’ll be with you.”

A minute later the door opened, and Steve stepped out and closed it behind him. Ess moved from behind Ned and would have run forward, but he put a hand on her arm.

“Ask him who is in the hut there,” he said quietly.

Ess stopped abruptly. She had forgotten everything else for the moment in the joy of seeing Steve there. But Ned had shown no sign, made no sound of surprise or disappointment.

“What is it, Ess? What are you doing here? Is anything wrong?” asked Steve.

“I came to – Ned said – ” she faltered, suddenly burning with shame.

“I brought her,” Ned Gunliffe cut in, “so that she could ask you who is the woman you have in there? Or, if you will let Miss Lincoln satisfy herself that there is no woman, I will apologise to her and to you, and we can go.”

He spoke with something of a sneer, and Steve stooped and peered at him in the dim light.

“So,” he said. “And if I refuse to satisfy you – and I fancy it is you and not her who needs satisfying – what then?”

Ned laughed scornfully. “Then there will be nothing more to be said, and Miss Lincoln can draw her own conclusions.”

Steve stood silent a moment, and then he looked at Ess. “Will you take my word for it, Ess? There is no woman in the hut.”

She uttered a glad cry. “I knew it was wrong, Steve. I – ”

“Then you can have no objection to letting us see who is there. You will not deny there is somebody, I suppose?” said Ned.

Steve turned on him furiously. “I will let you see nothing. What infernal right have you to come shoving in here?

“The right of any decent man to see that a girl is not fooled by a blackguard,” Ned said, coolly. “To go no further than that, I have right enough.”

“Steve,” Ess cried piteously, “what need to talk of rights? Surely you will admit my right to know who is in there.”

“I will admit the right of no one – not even you, Ess,” Steve said, with his head up. “To doubt my word, that has never been refused by man or woman or child. I give you my word there is no woman in the hut.”

“Perhaps there is a back way or a window, and she has slipped out,” sneered Ned. Then his tone changed to an angry key. “What’s the use of bluffing? The game’s up, and you know it. You’re clever enough with women, we all know, but you can’t well bring two of them face to face and fool them at the same time.”

“I’ll pay you for that and for this night’s work, Ned Gunliffe,” said Steve, savagely. Then he turned to Ess. “What is it to be, Ess? Will you believe me – or not?”

“And before she answers,” said Ned, “she may take my word, and set the two to choose from. Last night, Miss Ess, I saw a woman come from this door at daybreak, and I saw Steve Knight, and I heard them speak, and I heard her promise to be here to-night. That I will swear to. I brought you here to-night knowing the woman would be here. Whether I am right or not, you can judge for yourself.”

“Steve,” Ess said in a voice half choked with sobs, “tell me it isn’t true. Tell me it’s all a mistake. Let us see who is in there. Stevie, can’t you see how you’re hurting me? Can’t you see how my love is fighting to believe you, and you won’t let it? Have you none of the love left for me that my heart is craving and aching for? Steve, Steve.”

“Your love must fight for its own hand, Ess,” said Steve, sternly. “I can give you no help.”

“You can give me no help, Steve?” she cried wonderingly. “No help?”

“I think we may go,” said Ned Gunliffe. “There is no more to be said, is there?”

A cold doubt was springing up, and flooding and chilling her heart. She made a last effort to choke it back. “Tell me there was no woman with you last night – that there is no one else you love – ”

Ned Gunliffe interrupted her. “For God’s sake, do not lower yourself any more to that man,” he cried passionately. “I cannot stand by and listen to it; and remember there is another woman there listening to it.”

His words caught her and held her rigid, her face pale, and her fingers gripped and shaking on the riding switch she carried.

“A last word,” she said hoarsely. “Can you deny all he has said? Is it true? Yes or No?”

Steve stood silent, and swiftly the chill waters of doubt were swept away in a boiling surge of rage and shame. She drew herself erect, and her voice vibrated with scorn and passion. “I can go then? I can tell myself that I have sunk to being merely another of your conquests – that, even as you held me in your arms, you were smiling to yourself to think I had been caught as easily as any of them – that you went with my kisses hot on your lips straight to another woman – that wherever I go I am to be pointed and laughed at behind my back as one more of Fly-by-Night’s girls. Oh, I could hate myself, even as I hate you.”

Steve took a step forward and held his arms out to her. “Will you let me speak to you alone for one minute, Ess?” he said. Even in that faint light she could see something of his sunken eyes and haggard cheeks. But she could see also his half-dressed appearance, his feet thrust into unlaced boots, the jacket flung over his shoulders without a shirt beneath, and the meaning was driven home to her by Ned Gunliffe’s words – “Aren’t we keeping you from your – from the woman you have just left?” he said sneeringly.

Steve swung round on him with a bitter oath and jerked a revolver from his pocket. “Get back,” he snapped at him; “get back, you hound, or I’ll shoot you as you stand. D’you think I can’t see your hand in this? D’you think I don’t see the game you’re playing?”

He took another step forward, but Ess stepped to meet him.

“He is going,” she said, “and I am going with him. He is right, and we are keeping you from – from her.”

She laid a bitter emphasis on the last word, and at that his rage caught fire from hers and flared through him like flame through a dead gum.

“Then go with him,” he snarled, “and let him keep you if he can. He’ll find it hard to do, if you shed all your loves as easy as you shed mine.”

Her anger twisted his words to even more than they were ever meant. “Keep me,” she panted, “you hound – ” and lifted the whip she carried and struck him full across the face. “Do you think all men and women are light-o’loves like yourself? He has asked me to marry him, and although I did not answer before, I’ll answer him now – Yes, if he will have one who has soiled herself to think she ever loved you.”

And now the leaping flame of his rage died down and hid itself behind light and mocking words, even as the searing red heart of the fire cloaks itself under light and feathery ash.

He stood and looked at her for ten long heart-beats, and then his taut figure slacked, he half turned and lounged back a step, and threw his head up with a mocking laugh.

“So-ho, that’s it?” he cried. “You turn the trick then, Ned? I congratulate you on the win – if not on the way you played the hand.”

“Take your congratulations with you to – where you’ll end,” said Ned Gunliffe.

Steve laughed again. “To where I’ll end? So the game’s not played out with me yet. Perhaps you plan the wedding day for the day I’m hanged. But I may cheat you yet, Ned, and live to send you a wedding present. A neat design, say, of hands clasped through a hangman’s noose.”

“Let us go,” said Ess in low tones to Ned Gunliffe. She felt weak and exhausted, and near the point of breaking down.

“Or, perhaps,” said Steve, “you would prefer me to wait here till you can make sure of me. Are the troopers waiting below, may I ask?”

Ned Gunliffe turned his head. “You are free to go – for all of us,” he flung back.

“Thank you,” said Steve. “Fortunate for me, I suppose, that we were not married. The gallows would have been needed then to free her, and you’d have brought the troopers with you.”

They went down the hill together, leaving him still standing there, laughing softly, but horribly.

CHAPTER XIV

The two went back to where they had left the horses, and mounted and rode back in the rapidly growing light without speaking any word, and it was not till they were descending the slope of the Ridge to the houses that Ess broke the silence.

“There is no need to speak of this night to anyone,” she said dully. “I will tell my uncle what I think I need, and no more.”

“Very well,” he said briefly, and after a little he went on, “Of course you will understand, Miss Ess, that I hold you in no way to what you said of myself back there. You were overwrought, and I understand, although you had better know that I will still hope.”

“The word I gave I will keep,” she said, “if you still wish it, as indeed I can hardly expect.”

“Wish it?” he exclaimed ardently. “It is the one wish – ” he checked himself and finished quietly, “But I will say no more now. You have passed through enough for one night.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said in the same dull tones; “nothing matters – now.”

Scottie was shocked and amazed when he saw her again. “Are ye ill, lass?” he said. “Ye’re lookin’ like a ghost.”

“No, I’m not ill,” she answered. “Please take no notice of me. I’m upset over something – that’s all.”

“Ye’d tell me, lass, if it was onything I could help ye in?” he said very tenderly.

Her lip quivered. “Yes, uncle, I would tell you. But it’s nothing you can help me in. Nobody can help me.”

Later that evening, when they were sitting together, Scottie pretending to read, but covertly and anxiously watching her, and she sitting with her sewing idle in her lap and her eyes set on nothing, she roused herself and said, “I’ve broken everything off with Steve Knight, uncle. Please don’t ask me any questions, or make it any harder for me. It is all over now.” She waited a little to offer him the chance to speak, but beyond a low “Vera weel, lass,” he said nothing.

“And I’ve promised to marry Ned Gunliffe,” she continued, “although I’d rather it wasn’t spoken of just yet.”

Scottie sat in silence turning over the two items, and trying to find a possible reason for them.

“I’ll no ask questions, Ess,” he said at last, “but I hope ye’re no just goin’ on hearsay, or on tales ye may have heard. Whiles things get sair distorted, an’ it’s hard tae judge. I’m loathe to think Steve wad hae gie’n ye cause – ”

“No more loathe than I was,” she said bitterly. “But I’m not acting on hearsay. I’ve seen him, and – everything is ended. Let us say no more, please.”

Scottie was a good deal worried by all this, but he wisely decided to let things take their course, and wait for what turned up. He had other worries enough on his hands at that time too, and for the next few days Ess was left a good deal to herself.

The work of keeping the sheep together, and of protecting them from dingoes and foxes, and at the same time letting them have a chance to find feed enough to let them live, was keeping all the hands of Coolongolong hard at work.

The hills were about burnt and eaten bare, and pool after pool was drying up, while the heat and the “dry spell” showed no signs of breaking. Everyone still spoke of it as “the dry spell,” and none were willing to call it “the drought.”

That had been spoken of and warned against often enough before, but for years now it had always broken in time, and the rains had come to turn the hills and plains into plentiful pastures and an abundance of feed. There had been good season after good season, and many of the places out back had stocked and stocked till now, when the pinch came, owners began to wonder if they had not overstocked, and if it would not have paid better not to have eaten the pastures out so bare.

Sinclair, the boss, drove often up to Thunder Ridge, and as far into the hills as his sulky and trotters would take him.

He stayed often at the Ridge for the night, and Ess was always glad to see him and listen to the cheery word he still had, in spite of the black disaster that was creeping near him again.

“We won the first round,” he said to her once. “We got them into the hills, and you know how near a thing that was. Well, we’re not done, and we might win through yet – might win through yet.”

“If only the rain would come,” she said, looking out on the aching sun glare. “I’m so tired of the sun and things.”

“You’re looking worn,” he said kindly. “You mustn’t let it get you down, my dear. It’s not much of a place for a woman, I know, and I wouldn’t let my own come into it just now. They’d be willing enough to come if I’d let them, but it’ll be time enough for that when I can’t afford to send them down to the sea for the summer. They tell me they’ve had good showers again round the coast.”

“Oh, and not a drop here,” she cried. “Isn’t it hard?”

“It’s hard, it’s hard,” he said. “But it’s a hard country, one way and another.”

“I’ve heard that before, so often,” she said, “and I’m beginning to see it for myself. I wonder you don’t try to find a station where the seasons and the country are kindlier.”

“We’re like they say a sailor gets about the sea,” he said. “We curse it at times, but we get it in our bones, and we wouldn’t live happy away from it. And it’s not always like this. It can batter a man to his knees one time, and, if he has grit to keep on fighting, as like as not it turns round and lifts him to his feet, and showers treasure on him with both hands. A blow and a kiss, my dear – a blow and a kiss.”

“And can one still love the thing – or the one – that gives the blow?” she said in a low voice. She was thinking of another blow. He looked keenly and long at her.

“Yes,” he said softly, in tones to match her own; “and – it’s queer enough we’re built perhaps, but so that the kiss does come, we may love the giver the more for the blow that came before.”

“I wonder,” she said absently.

“No need to wonder, my dear,” he said gently. “Take it from me, that’s an old man, and has seen and taken a many blows and not too many kisses – if there’s any good in the heart of a man or a woman, the kiss wipes out the blow, and is the sweeter for it.”