Out There - ebook

Contents

PROEM

BOOK I. LOVE

CHAPTER I. THE DROUGHT

CHAPTER II. MARY

CHAPTER III. BILL BLEWITT

CHAPTER IV. THE BIRTH OF DOUBT

CHAPTER V. LOVE AND GOLD

CHAPTER VI. SOMETHING BREAKS

CHAPTER VII. THE SPELL OF A WOMAN'S SOUL

CHAPTER VIII. TORTURED WITH DOUBTS

CHAPTER IX. IN THE TENDERNESS OF THE NIGHT

CHAPTER X. THE CALL OF THE WILD

CHAPTER XI. THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT

CHAPTER XII. GORDON RETURNS

CHAPTER XIII. THE DECISION

CHAPTER XIV. THE AWAKENING

CHAPTER XV. IN THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER XVI. A VISION OF SPLENDOUR

CHAPTER XVII. THE RIVALS

CHAPTER XVIII. TENSE MOMENTS

CHAPTER XIX. WRESTLING WITH DEATH

CHAPTER XX. THE LAST DAY

BOOK II. VENGEANCE

CHAPTER XXI. HAUNTING FEARS

CHAPTER XXII. LOVE FINDS UTTERANCE

CHAPTER XXIII. OUT OF THE SILENCE

CHAPTER XXIV. THE MESSAGE FROM THE WEST

CHAPTER XXV. THE SERPENT'S TEETH

CHAPTER XXVI. A LITTLE SCANDAL

CHAPTER XXVII. THE HOME-COMING

CHAPTER XXVIII. THY WILL BE DONE

CHAPTER XXIX. CONSCIENCE DOTH MAKE COWARDS

CHAPTER XXX. SOMETHING LIKE A MIRACLE

CHAPTER XXXI. FATE DEALS ANOTHER BLOW

CHAPTER XXXII. TOWARDS THE "GREAT WATERS"

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF HAROLDPROEM

This is the story of one man’s soul.
The paths are stony and passion is blind,
And feet must bleed ere the light we find.
The cypher is writ on Life’s mighty scroll,
And the Key is in each man’s mind.
But who read aright, ye have won release,
Ye have touched the joy in the heart of Peace.

–G.E. Evans.

* *

*

My story was suggested by a beautiful poem entitled “Loraine,” which appears in a volume of verses by the late George Essex Evans, the Australian poet, entitled “The Secret Key,” published by Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1906.CHAPTER I. THE DROUGHT

THE blazing sun flung out its scorching rays from the cobalt sky, lighting up the billowy landscape with a flame of withering tire. The panting earth, riven and shrivelled, was brown and bare. The hardy gum and box trees drooped and wilted, the water courses had dried up, and the erstwhile picturesque little settlement of Glenbar Run had the appearance of having been swept by a thrice heated blast of a smelting furnace. Like most Australian settlements on the fringe of the Wilderness Glenbar Run, an outpost of civilisation, was a straggling hamlet composed of wooden shanties which might have been shaken up in a gigantic dice box and tumbled out on to the earth in higgledy-piggledy fashion. Hardy men from the old country had come here to tempt fortune and make their homes. They were all in the employ of the owner of the Run. There had been fat years and lean years. In the fat ones horses, sheep and cattle roamed the grass-green, well-watered plains, and brought wealth to their owners; then ensued a period when the heavens dried up, the parched earth turned brown and barren, while cattle and sheep perished by thousands, and their bones, bleached white in the pitiless heat, were scattered over the plains. There had been a two years’ drought in the district of Glenbar, and the little handful of settlers bemoaned their fate, and were tempted to curse nature for her cruelty, forgetting the plenteous seasons when the trees put forth their green leaves, when the orchards were golden with ripening fruit, when the rich plains laughed into a harvest, and the cattle roamed knee deep in lush grass. The green years far out-numbered the brown ones, but when the brown ones came they spelt loss for all, ruin for some.

The earliest settlers in that wild region were the Prestons, descendants from hardy English stock, an ancient family who have written their names in something more stable than water. Emigrating from the old country their wandering feet came at last to this edge of the wilderness in a season when all was green, and the narrow meandering river flowed deep in its bed; there they pitched their tent, there they made their home; they sowed and reaped; their four-footed beasts increased and multiplied, and they waxed rich. They were followed in time by a family who boasted of their descent from the Scotch Gordons. The lure of Australia had drawn them from their native heath where the Scottish hills were barren, and life was hard, toil profitless.

Wide and rich as the district of Glenbar was the Prestons considered the Gordons intruders, and resented their settling there; a bitter feud arose between them, and lasted for many years. The Prestons, however, having made good their claims, did more than hold their own, and finally ‘the Gordons retreated about forty miles further to the south-east, and founded the township of Gordonstown. But the feud continued between the two families until death claimed the old generation, and a new one began to consolidate that, which in the primitive days, their fathers had begun. The old feud seemed to have been forgotten and Harold Preston, Lord paramount of Glenbar Run, was the close friend of Oliver Gordon of Gordonstown. Harold was Australian born, but Gordon had come from the old country while still a young man and so they had been much together, though Gordon had spent some years in the South, Melbourne and Sydney, and it seemed as if the bond of friendship that knit them would remain unbroken during the span of their mortal lives.

Harold Preston’s homestead was a congeries of irregular buildings, including a large and roomy frame house which served the purpose of a dwelling and office, and numerous out-buildings, which now gaped and yawned in the blistering heat, and, excepting the stables, were silent and deserted. It stood at the end of “Main Street,” a street only in name, facing the plains that stretched away to the north-west where land and sky seemed to meet. In a roughly boarded room whose wooden walls were hung with guns, revolvers, spears and pouches, Harold sat at a paper-strewn table. The window frames were hung with matting to keep out the blinding sunlight; saddles and harness, spades, rakes and a miscellaneous assortment of other tools were scattered about the floor, while a large oil lamp swung from the wooden ceiling.

Harold was a splendid specimen of a man who looked younger than his twenty-six years. He had a massive frame, muscular and well knit by the hard, open-air life he had led. He was a bushman by instinct and training, and the sun had tanned his skin to the colour of an Arab. Indeed his dark eyes, hair and moustache might have enabled him to pass for an Arab. Attired in a thin woollen shirt, belt, cord breeches and long boots, his arms bared to the shoulders, he looked like a man capable of bearing any hardship, one who would be dauntless in the face of danger. But now as he sat with a number of open letters before him, he seemed thoughtful and troubled. His elbow rested on the arm of his chair, his hand was pressed to his forehead. He was not alone. His manager, Jim Dawkins, who an hour ago had ridden in from Gordonstown with the mail bag, was reclining on a rickety couch, blowing clouds of smoke from a clay pipe. His large felt hat was flung carelessly on the floor, his shirt was wide open at the neck, and the exposed parts of his body were brick-brown. He was the product of a country and mode of life that demand brawn and exceptional powers of endurance. After his long ride in the scorching heat, he had been content to rest and remain silent for half an hour enjoying his pipe while his employer perused his letters.

At last he swung his feet off the couch, and sitting upright, spoke.

“Bad news; eh, boss?” Jim was a man of discernment; he used his eyes to good purpose.

“Yes, Jim. Couldn’t be worse. This drought means ruin for me.”

“Not as bad as that I hope, boss.”

“Yes, Jim, ruin, absolute ruin,” said Preston with a sigh. “The loss of fifty thousand sheep and cattle during the last two years, to say nothing of the failure of the crops, had nearly brought me to the end of my tether, and now the final blow has fallen.”

Jim jumped to his feet, his great bulky frame heaved.

“God! What is it, boss?” he exclaimed.

For some moments the boss remained silent. His feelings had overcome him, but with an effort he recovered himself.

“Frampton & Heathcote, the solicitors in Melbourne, write to say that their client has instructed them to foreclose the mortgage on my property.”

Jim Dawkins’ tanned forehead puckered into a frown.

“Blarst ‘em,” he snapped ferociously.

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