The Bushranger's Secret

by Mrs. Henry Clarke

He was bent on staying at Warrandilla for a time, and would have tried his hand at any work offered to him, but as it turned out the work he could do best was just the work that was wanted, and he got regular employment at once. Mrs. Morton was devoted to her garden, and Lumley was really a clever gardener; so that, though she could not help agreeing with her husband's verdict about the man, she was eager to keep him.

Lumley made no secret of his past "misfortunes."

He had been shipped to the colony while it was still a convict station, and his record was by no means a good one since his first term had been worked out.

"But I have never had a good chance before, madam," he said to Mrs. Morton, trying to keep his shifty eyes fixed in a straightforward look upon her face. "I've never had a good kind friend like you before. Please God, I'll do well now."

And though Mrs. Morton distrusted his professions of reform, she found him a clever steady workman, and one most anxious to please. He became one of the most frequent attendants at the religious services which Mr. Morton held two or three times a week in the little chapel next his house.

If Mr. Morton had been a different sort of man the new gardener might have gone on to worse hypocrisy still, but there was something in his employer's strong keen face that kept him back from that.

As Lumley put it to himself, "Shammin' religion is no go with him."

It was about three weeks after Lumley's appearance at the station that Gray's time for departure came. Everyone was very kind to him; their kindness and sympathy cut him to the heart. They tried to comfort him by telling him that no one could have shown more energy in the search than he had, that nothing had been left undone, and that Harding himself would have been the last to wish that his friends should grieve too much. In some such strain Mr. Morton talked to him when he went to the house to bid him good-bye.

"You must cheer up, my lad," he said kindly. "You have done all you could. No man can do more."

Gray made no reply, nor did he raise his gloomy eyes to meet the pleasant kindly glance of his employer. Mr. Morton went on: "So you are thinking of going back to the old country, Gray. Well, there ought to be room there for a man like you; and I don't wonder at your wanting to get away from here after what's happened."