Rolf Boldrewood

“ Whatever could you be thinking of?'
'What every one who sees you is thinking of,' answered Jack, humbly and regretfully—'love and admiration for your sweet self. Oh! Miss Devereux, I worship the very ground you stand upon.'
'I will never be decently civil to any one again,' declared Pollie. 'I suppose you saw mother and I were glad to see you, and so thought—Heaven forgive you!—that I had fallen in love with you. Don't you know that girls never show their feelings that way? It will be a lesson to you another time. Don't say another word. We shall always be good friends, I hope. ”

“ Maroobil and Corindah in conjunction would make a princely property, no matter how many there might be to inherit it. In every relation of life Harold was a tower of strength. Now she had a son whom she had loved since the days of his fearless childhood. Now was she proud, happy, thankful. Providence did sometimes settle affairs of mortals aright. She had only to thank God humbly on her bended knees that night, to pray with tears and sobs for her darling's happiness, believing in her inmost heart that it was now assured and lasting. ”

“ When, as in my case, one is blessed with a husband who unites all the qualities which women love and men respect, Fate steps in and deprives her of him. How little real happiness there seems to be in this world of ours!'
While poor Mrs. Devereux thus bemoaned herself over the anomalies of life, the weeks of the short spring and early summer passed quickly along the flowery track, which, even in the Waste, is fair with wealth of leaf and blossom, with joyous birds and tempered sunshine, with high hope and joy and expectation of the coming year. ”

“ No, Bertram Devereux, it is not in you. You have deceived yourself as well as her. You would have cheated me, but the attempt has failed. You know in your heart, or rather in your inmost consciousness, that you are incapable of love, pure, unsullied, constant—such as the poets sing of; such as this young girl, doubtless, has brought to you. In the maelstrom of London life, under the spell of old associations, you would have fallen as you have fallen before, and dragged others with you. In that hour I am the only one who has power over you. ”

“ We may have rain yet, you know.'
'I wish I had been a boy, mother,' replied the unconvinced damsel, drumming her fingers on the table as she looked wistfully through the open casement, festooned by a great trailing climber, to where the dim blue of a distant mountain range broke the monotony of the plain. 'It seems to me that none of the men we know have energy or enterprise enough to go beyond the dull round of routine in which they have been reared. Sheep and cattle, cattle and sheep, with a little turf talk for variation. They smoke all day, because they can't talk, and never think. ”

“ A year's peaceful enjoyment of the quiet Corindah life would prepare them for the momentous, unutterably delicious expedition to the Old World, when the dream of Pollie's life would be realised and an elysium of bliss, a paradise, intellectual, social and material, would open before her.
'You romantic child!' Bertram said, looking almost pityingly at her, as in one of her imaginative flights she was, like an improvisatrice, picturing vividly a long list of pleasures to come. 'And so you believe in happiness! ”

“ As the years advance, the fires of passion wax dim; the altar reared to friendship regains its votaries; while the more ornate and ephemeral edifice is too often deserted, empty, and ungarnished.
Thus, at their pleasant evening meal, all was mirthful interchange of news and adventures since last the little party had met. Harold's favourite wine of the remembered brand was brought out as of old; then Pollie was persuaded to sing some of her oldest songs, while Mrs. Devereux and their guest talked confidentially in the verandah. ”

“ We could have afforded to travel in Europe, to revel in the glories of art, science, and literature, to look upon the theatres of the great deeds of mankind—to live, in a word. We do not live in Corindah—we grow.'
Overcome by the emotions which the enthusiasm of her nature had suffered temporarily to overwhelm her ordinary intelligence, she had not noticed that the stage-coach, bringing its bi-weekly freight of letters, newspapers, and passengers, had approached the clump of wild orange trees, on the edge of which she had reined her steed. ”

“ Had any one told her, upon the arrival of Bertram Devereux at Corindah, that her heart would eventually be forced to surrender at his summons, the proud beauty would have laughed the prophecy to scorn. But now, when with pensive brow and thoughtful air she searched its recesses, and examined the feelings which held possession of her waking thoughts, she could not deny that the image of the stranger had no rival to fear, no refusal to dread, in the fateful hour which would decide two destinies. ”

“ As the hours passed by with no abatement of violence in the falling of the rain or the fury of the storm, in which the wind had arisen, and raged with tempestuous fury in the darkened sky, a feeling of awe and alarm crept over the minds of the two women.
'There is not a soul about the place, I believe,' said Mrs. Devereux; 'Mr. Gateward is away, and every man and boy with him. During all the years I have been here I have never seen such a storm. Poor Bertram! I hope he has taken shelter somewhere. This cold rain is enough to kill him, with such thin clothing as he has on. ”

“ They like and esteem them, perhaps take their parts in rehearsals of the old, old melodrama. But in many cases it is not till they see at their feet the war-worn soldier, the scarred veteran who has tempted fate so often in the great hazards of the campaign, who has shared the cruel privations, the deadly hazards of real life—that the imaginative heart of woman fills up all the spaces in the long-outlined sketch of the hero and the king, the lord and master of her destiny, to whom she is henceforth proud to yield worship and loving service. ”

“ When Wanderer slackened speed a mile on the hither side of the Corindah gate, it was with some surprise that Pollie descried a strange four-in-hand converging from another point. Wanderer pricked up his ears, while his rider looked eagerly across the plain with the intense, far-searching gaze of a dweller in the desert, as if she had power to read, even at that distance, each sign and symbol of the equipage.
'Can't be a coach, surely,' she soliloquised. 'One mail is more than enough for all our wants in the letter and passenger way. ”

“ There is, no doubt, a sense of relief and satisfaction to be gained when one does what one can; I never thought I should feel like this again.'
'Let us have faith and patience, my darling,' said the mother, looking into her child's eyes with the measureless fondness of earlier days, 'and happiness will still come to us. Only persevere in the duties that lie nearest to you. In His own good time God will reward and bless you. After all, there are many good things in this life yet remaining.'
It was the late autumn when Harold Atherstone returned from his far, wild journeyings. ”

“ A horseman was riding at speed along the clearly printed track, through the misty lines of fast-falling rain.
'It is Bertram coming back,' cried Pollie. 'I know Guardsman's long stride; how he is throwing the dirt behind him! I wouldn't mind the ride myself if I had an old habit on. It must be great fun to be as wet as he must be, and to know one cannot be any worse. Do you think he will try to swim the creek?'
'He does not seem to dream of pulling up,' said Mrs. Devereux. ”

“ Devereux gently exercised. And she had told him that he was the one man to whom in fullest trust and confidence she could bequeath her darling, were she compelled to leave her.
'But you must wait, Harold,' she said. 'My child's nature is one neither to be controlled nor easily satisfied. I can trace her father's tameless soul in her. Poor Pollie! it's a thousand pities that she was not born a boy, as she says herself. How much easier life would have been for her—and for me!' Here Mrs. Devereux sighed. ”

“ I ought to be the happiest girl in Australia. Perhaps I shall be when I'm older and wiser. And now I must run in. I want to put fresh flowers on the breakfast-table; but I must first go and say good-morning to dear old Wanderer.'
She dashed off to the loose box, and opening the door, gazed with sparkling eyes at the good horse that stood there munching his morning meal of chaff and maize with an appetite sharpened by weeks of abstinence from anything more appetising than extremely dry grass and attenuated salt-bush. ”

“ My erratic cousin was by no means such a fool as we all thought him. And her fair daughter, too—how about her? A beauty and an heiress, they all say. I never bargained for that. Seems as if there were women wherever one goes—wherever I go, at least. Just my luck.'
Mr. Devereux had scarcely enunciated this disheartening truism, with a mildly resigned, not to say desponding expression of countenance, when the bell of which he had been warned rang out a peal. Placing a rosebud of Gloire de Dijon in his button-hole, he sought the drawing-room, of which he found himself the sole occupant. ”

“ He had seen the unformed girl ripen into a beautiful maiden, an enchanting mixture to his eye of much of the old daring, wilful nature mingled with a sweet womanly consciousness inexpressibly attractive. He could hardly recollect the time when he had not been in love with Pollie Devereux. And now, in these latter years, he told himself that there was but one woman in the world for him—nor could it ever be otherwise.
Men varied much in their dispositions. ”

“ A chamois in a sheepfold, a leopardess in a drawing-room, a red deer in a trim and close-paled enclosure, could not have been more hopelessly at war with surroundings, more incongruously provided with food and shelter. Day after day a growing discontent, a hopeless despair of life, seemed to weigh her down, to take the savour from existence, to restrain the instinctive sportiveness of youth, to hush the spirit-song of praise with which, like the awakening bird, she should have welcomed each dawning morn. ”

“ Mother, he is talking most childish nonsense about shooting himself.'
'But I never talk anything else, do I Mrs. Devereux?' said the young gentleman, running up to the kindly matron with a look of sincere affection. 'Your mother's known me all my life, Miss Devereux, and she won't believe any harm of me. Will you, my dear madam?'
'I never hear of you doing any foolish thing, my dear Jack,' said Mrs. Devereux maternally; 'and as long as that is the case I shall not be very angry at anything you can say. We all know you mean no harm. Don't we, Pollie? ”

“ The face of Nature had indeed changed. Within a fortnight the arid dusty plains, so barren of aspect, were carpeted with a green mantle, wondrously vivid of hue and rapid of growth. The creek ran musically murmuring towards the river, which itself 'came down,' a tawny, turbid stream bank high, and in places overflowing into long dry lagoons and lakelets. Even the birds of the air seemed to be apprised of the wondrous atmospheric change. Great flocks of wild-fowl soared in, migrating from undreamed of central wastes. The lakelets and the river reaches were alive with the heron and the egret. ”

“ Bertram Devereux.
So much for the impression Pollie was capable of producing on a worn, world-weary heart.
It was a strange fate which had thus imprisoned this beautiful creature, so richly endowed with all the attributes which combine to form the restless, tameless, unsatisfied man, amid surroundings so uninteresting and changeless. Eager for adventure, even for danger, she was curious with a child's hungering, insatiable appetite for the knowledge of wondrous lands, cities, peoples; hating the daily monotone to which the woman's household duties are necessarily attuned. ”

“ I shall feel like an Arctic explorer.'
The pleasures of the metropolis, doubly sweet after a lengthened absence, had been sipped for a fortnight, when a breezy morn saw the ladies of Corindah steaming out of the harbour on board the Cathay, a magnificent sea-monster of the P. and O. persuasion, containing all kinds of delicious foreign novelties, social and material.
'Mother, I don't think I can have been really alive before,' exclaimed Pollie, as they walked down the splendid flush deck. ”

“ In a general way this young woman's unrest and disapproval of her environments merely took the form of a settled determination to explore the wondrous capitals, the brilliant societies, the glory and splendour of the Old World—to roam through that fairy-land of which from her very childhood she had eagerly read the legends, dreamed the dreams, and learned the languages. 'Eager-hearted as a boy,' all-womanly as she was in her chief attributes, she could not slake the thirst for change, travel, and adventure, even danger, with a draught less deep than actual experience. ”

“ Their time was all too short when the route was again given, and the party with which they had amalgamated proceeded by tourist stages to the dream-region of Rotomahana.
Of the glories and triumphs of that wonderland who shall tell adequately, who depict with a tithe of the fresh brilliant colouring that Nature—earliest of Royal Academicians—has invented?
'I will never go back,' quoth Pollie; 'here I will live and die. I will become a guide, like Maori Kate here—magnificent creature that she is! I will never be proud of civilisation again. ”

“ Then he lit one last cigar, which he smoked slowly and calmly to the end. 'They are very good. I may never get another. Who knows what the morrow may bring forth? Good-night, my darlings!' he said, waving his hand in the direction of Corindah. 'Good-night, sweet fond wife and child of my love! God keep and preserve you when I am gone! Good-night, my pleasant home, its easy duties and measureless content! Good-night, O earth and sea, wherein I have roamed so far and sailed so many a league! ”

“ For a man of his deep, dreamy, passionate, perhaps originally melancholy, nature there was but one sequel possible after the deliberate choice of youth had been ratified by the calm reason of manhood. If fate denied him this happiness, all too perfect for this world—the unearthly, unutterable bliss which her love would confer—there should be no counterfeit presentment, no mocking travesty of the heart's lost illusions. ”

“ Hast thou not enjoyed ease, love unwearying, anxious tendance, from the dawn of thy helpless, as yet useless being; and while all creation suffers and travails, canst thou not endure the unfolding of thy fated lot?
Applying, possibly, some such remedies to her mental ailment, life appeared to go on at Corindah much as it had done, Pollie thought, since the earliest days she could remember as a tiny girl. She could almost have supposed that the same things had been said by the same people, or people very like them, since her babyhood. ”