Grif: A Story of Australian Life

by B. L. Farjeon

That gleam of hope vanished as soon as it had shone upon his troubled soul. He pressed his hand to his heart, and motioned her to proceed.

She told him how she and Grif had started to walk from Melbourne half-an-hour after poor Milly died--every word she uttered of this part of her story struck him as if it were a dagger's point; she told him of Grif's goodness to her--(the lad had awoke, and was standing by them, listening to Alice with rapt attention, and when she mentioned his name she took his hand and kissed it); of the kind friends they had met upon the road; of their walking a long distance that day, and of their stopping providentially to rest for a while before proceeding to her father's house; all this she told him almost breathlessly. But he saw what she made no mention of; he saw in her care-worn face the anxiety and grief she had suffered for him--he saw in her patient, uncomplaining eyes, the perfect purity of her love--he saw in her soiled and ragged clothes the wondrous evidence of a holy self-sacrifice--and he fell upon his knees, and, burying his face in her dress, he sobbed like a little child.

"Oh, my dear! my dear!" he cried. "How unworthy I am of your love!"

"Not unworthy, Richard," she said happy in the thought that his nature was not hardened; "unfortunate, not unworthy. We have gone through terrible storms, dear, but they will pass away presently. Surely we have suffered enough!" But there was no sound of complaining in her voice as she raised her streaming eyes to heaven.

He kept his face buried in her dress, and the memory of their last parting, when he knelt before her as he was kneeling before her now, and when she blessed him with her hands upon his head, came to his mind. How low had he fallen since that time!

"There is a more terrible storm for you to bear than any you have yet borne," he said. "There is a greater peril before us than any we have yet encountered."

Her face was hidden from him, but he held her hand in his, and it suddenly turned cold. Her fingers tightened upon his, and she asked, "What is it? What storm? What peril?"

"I had a mate, a Welshman, a man with a soul as innocent as a child's--with a heart as tender as a woman's. I was growing to love him. I had another mate, a villain, who stepped between us and told to each of us such lying stories of the other, that we quarrelled, and almost fought. All the gold-diggers knew that we were at enmity with each other. They all knew that if there were any true cause for our quarrel, poor Tom would be found to be in the right, I in the wrong. They knew him to be good and gentle-hearted. They knew me to be proud and selfish. They loved him. They despised me. We lived in a tent together, and slept beneath the same roof. One night I came home, filled with bitter feelings, which I had been expressing in company. I was stung almost to madness by what my villain-mate told me Tom had said of me. I never stopped to think, I never stopped to ask, but I let my passion have full sway. When I came home, determined to quarrel, pledged to do so, proud fool as I am! because I had said as much out-of-doors--Tom met my passion with sweetness, and forced me to talk of the cause of our falling-out. Then we discovered that our false mate had been lying to both of us, to make us enemies for some purpose of his own, which I did not know then, but know now. We shook hands, and were friends again; we laid out plans for the future--for your happiness and mine chiefly, for Tom taught me my duty that night. We went to bed, and in the morning Tom was found dead, murdered with my knife! That and the other awful evidence of my own ungovernable passion were against me, and I was obliged, or thought I was obliged, to fly for my life; the gold-diggers swore they would lynch me if they caught me. So I fled in the company of the villains from whom I have but this day escaped. The false mate who set Tom and me quarrelling was the Tenderhearted Oysterman, disguised so that I could not recognise him--and the murder of the Welshman with my knife was the means they took of compelling me to join them. I escaped from them to-day--to warn your father and save him, if possible. That is why I am here. After that I do not know what will become of me. As I hope for mercy, I have told you the truth!"

When he had spoken the words: "Tom was found dead, murdered with my knife," Richard, whose face was still half-hidden in his wife's dress, felt her limbs tremble, although no sound escaped her. At that sign, he rose abruptly, and he spoke the last words of his confession, "As I hope for mercy, I have told you the truth!" with his back turned to her. The moment's pause that ensued seemed to him an hour; the stars paled out of the skies, and a thick darkness fell upon him and shut out the sight of everything but his own deep misery; then a great tremor of happiness came upon him, for he felt his wife's arms about his neck and heard her voice whispering in his ear: "I know you have, my love. Did you think I could believe you otherwise than unfortunate? More now than ever must we be brave, must we be firm; not only life and happiness, but honour is at stake. Courage, love! courage! Think! Is there no way to prove your innocence of this dreadful charge? The letter I have is something."

"It is something," he said; "but oh Alice, my dear, in the harsh judgments of men, with all-cruel circumstance against me, it will be but poor testimony in my favour. All the gang know he committed the crime. If I had a witness, one who had heard the villain confess, as he confessed to me, laughing the while, that he stole my knife, and with it did the deed, for the purpose of trapping me--if I had such a witness, my innocence would be established. Oh, Alice, if I had such a witness--for your sake, my love! my darling! whom I have surrounded with shame and misery--"