‘I didn’t lave it off. They sent back the last of it without a word or message. That made me wild, and I started drinkin’, and never cried crack till it was gone. I began to wander about and take billets as a stock-rider. ’Tis the way I’ve lived iver since. If it wasn’t for the change and wild life now and thin—fightin’ them divils of blacks, gallopin’ after wild cattle, and campin’ out where no white man had been before—I’d been dead with the drink long ago. But something keeps me; something tells me I can’t die till I’ve seen one from the ould country. Who it is, I can’t tell. Sometimes I see Mary in my drames, holdin’ up the child like the last day I seen her. I’d have put a bullet through me, when I was in “the horrors,” only for thim drames. I shall go when my time comes. It’s little I’d care if it was in the night that’s drawin’ on.’
Here he rode on for some minutes without speaking, then continued in an altered voice:
‘See here now, Mr. Wilfred, it’s little I thought to say to mortial man the things I’ve let out of my heart this blessed day. But my feeling to you and your father is the same as I had to my first master—the heavens be his bed! If he’d always been among such people here—rale gintry—that cared for him and thought to help him, Tom Glendinning would maybe have been a different man. But the time’s past. I’m like a beaten fox, nigh run down; and I’ll never die in my bed, that much I know. You won’t spake to me agen about this. My heart’s burstin’ as it is; and—I’ll maybe drop—if it comes on me again—like it—does—now——’
He pressed his hand closely, fiercely, upon the region of the heart. He grew deadly pale, and shook as if in mortal agony; his face was convulsed as he bowed himself upon the saddle-bow, and Wilfred feared he was about to fall from his horse. But he slowly regained his position, and quivering like one who had been stretched upon the rack, guided his horse along the homeward path.
‘’Tis spasms of the heart, the doctor tould me it was,’ he gasped at length. ‘They’d take me off some day, before you could light a match, “if I didn’t keep aisy and free from trouble,”’ he said. ‘Maybe they will, some day; maybe something else will be too quick for them. It’s little I care. Close up, Mr. Wilfred, we’re late for home, and I’d like to regulate thim calves before it’s dark.’
Much Wilfred mused over the history of the strange old man who had now become associated with their fortunes.
‘What a life!’ thought he. ‘What a tragedy!’ How changed from the days when he followed the Mayo hounds; reckless then, perhaps, and impatient of control, but an unweaned child in innocence compared to his present condition. And yet he possessed qualities which, under different treatment might have led to honour and distinction.
As far as personal claims to distinction were concerned, few districts in which the Effinghams could have been located, would have borne comparison with the vicinity of Lake William. It abounded, as we have told, in younger sons of good family, whom providence would appear to have thus guided but a few years before their own migration. This fortunate concurrence they had themselves often noted, and fully did they appreciate the congenial companionship.
Besides the local celebrities, few tourists of note passed along the southern road without being intercepted by the hospitality of one or other household. These captives of their bow and spear were shared honourably. When the Honourable Cedric Rotherwood, who had letters to Mr. Effingham, was quartered for a month at The Chase, fishing, shooting, and kangaroo-hunting, the Benmohr men and their allies were entreated to imagine there was a muster at The Chase every Saturday, and to rendezvous in force accordingly. A strong friendship accordingly was struck up between the young men. The Honourable Cedric was only five-and-twenty, and years afterwards, when Charlie Hamilton went home with one station in his pocket, and two more paying twenty per cent per annum upon the original outlay, his Lordship, having then come into his kingdom, had him down at Rotherwood Hall, and gave him such mounts in the hunting field, and such corners in the battues, not to mention a run over to his Lordship’s deer forest in the Highlands, that Charlie, on befitting occasions, refers to that memorable visit with enthusiasm (and at considerable length, say his friends) even unto this day.