Not over pleasant thoughts were those of Gentleman Craig's, as might have been guessed from his frequent sighs as he gazed earnestly into the fire.
What did he see in the fire? Tableaux of his past life? Perhaps or perhaps not. At all events they could not have been very inspiriting ones. No one could have started in life with better prospects than he had done; but he carried with him wherever he went; his own fearful enemy, something that would not leave him alone, but was ever, ever urging him to drink. Even as a student he had been what was called "a jolly fellow," and his friendship was appreciated by scores who knew him. He loved to be considered the life and soul of a company. It was an honour dearer to him than anything else; but deeply, dearly had he paid for it.
By this time he might have been honoured and respected in his own country, for he was undoubtedly clever; but he had lost himself, and lost all that made life dear—his beautiful, queenly mother. He would never see her more. She was dead, yet the memory of the love she bore him was still the one, the only ray of sunshine left in his soul.
And he had come out here to Australia determined to turn over a new leaf. Alas! he had not done so.
"Oh, what a fool I have been!" he said in his thoughts, clenching his fists until the nails almost cut the palms.
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."