He started up now and went wandering away towards the trees. There was nothing that could hurt him there. He felt powerful enough to grapple with a dozen blacks, but none were in his thoughts; and, indeed, none were in the forest.
He could talk aloud now, as he walked rapidly up and down past the weird grey trunks of the gum trees.
“My foolish pride has been my curse,” he said bitterly. “But should I allow it to be so? The thing lies in a nutshell I have never yet had the courage to say, ‘I will not touch the hateful firewater, because I cannot control myself if I do.’ If I take but one glass I arouse within me the dormant fiend, and he takes possession of my soul, and rules all my actions until sickness ends my carousal, and I am left weak as a child in soul and body. If I were not too proud to say those words to my fellow-beings, if I were not afraid of being laughed at as a coward! Ah, that’s it! It is too hard to bear! Shall I face it? Shall I own myself a coward in this one thing? I seem compelled to answer myself, to answer my own soul. Or is it my dead mother’s spirit speaking through my heart? Oh, if I thought so I—I—”
Here the strong man broke down. He knelt beside a tree trunk and sobbed like a boy. Then he prayed; and when he got up from his knees he was calm. He extended one hand towards the stars.
“Mother,” he said, “by God’s help I shall be free.”
When the morning broke pale and golden over the eastern hills, and the laughing jackasses came round to smile terribly loud and terribly chaffingly at the white men’s preparation for their simple breakfast, Craig moved about without a single trace of his last night’s sorrow. He was busy looking after the horses when Etheldene came bounding towards him with both hands extended, so frank and free and beautiful that as he took hold of them he could not help saying:
“You look as fresh as a fern this morning, Baby.”
“Not so green, Craig. Say ‘Not so green.’”
“No, not so green. But really to look at you brings a great big wave of joy surging all over my heart. But to descend from romance to common-sense. I hope you are hungry? I have just been seeing to your horse. Where do you think I found him?”