Not his happiness, however. A middle-aged bachelor with a good digestion and enviable bank balance is not—whatever the sensational novelist may assert—usually slaughtered by one such miscalculation. He does not like it, of course. He fumes and frets for a week or two, and probably says, 'Confound the girl! I thought she really liked me.' Then he falls back upon the time-honoured calculation—a most arithmetically correct one—of those 'other fish in the sea.' Claret has a soothing effect. The Club produces alleviating symptoms. And the Laird of Cockpen either marries the next young lady on his list, or, departing to far lands, discovers that the supply of Calypsos and Ariadnes is practically unlimited.
MacCallum, like a shrewd personage, as he was, held his tongue and took the next mail for Europe, reappearing within two years with an exceedingly handsome and lady-like wife, who did full justice to his many good qualities, was very popular, and made Wanwondah quite the show country-house of the neighbourhood.
CHAPTER VI
After this stupendous incident had ruffled the waters of provincial repose, a long untroubled calm succeeded. Little was heard in the article of news except the weekly chronicle of stock movements: who had sold, who had bought, who, having stocked up—that is, filled his run with all the sheep it would carry, and more—had sold to a new arrival, and gone to England 'for good,' or at least till the long-dated station bills became due. Among this last-named division was Mr. Jack Charteris, who, having sold one of his far-out runs to a Queenslander, considered this to be a favourable opportunity to take 'a run home,' as he expressed it, for a year, for various specified reasons which he displayed before his friends, such as seeing the world and renewing his constitution, lately injured by hard work and anxiety. So he ostentatiously took his passage by a well-known mail-steamer, and made all ready to start in a couple of months. He had, however, two plans in petto, of which he did not advise society generally.
One was, by personal application to English capitalists—being provided with all proper credentials from his bankers and others, with a carefully drawn out schedule of his properties (purchased lands, leasehold, sheep, cattle, horses, outside country), with carefully kept accounts showing the profits upon stations and stock for the last five or ten years, the increasing value of the wool clip, and the annual expenditure upon permanent improvements; the whole with personal valuation (approximate), and references to leading colonists of rank and position—to discover whether he, John Charteris, with an improving property, but constantly in want of cash advances, could not secure a loan for a term of years at English rates of interest, say five or six per cent, instead of at colonial rates, eight, nine, and ten. This would make a considerable difference to Mr. Jack's annual disbursements, relieve him from anxiety when the money-market hardened, and would, moreover, euchre his friends the bankers in Sydney, with whom he was wont to carry on a half-playful, half-serious war of words whenever they met.
His other coup was to make a farewell visit to Corindah, and at the last moment 'try his luck,' as he phrased it, with the daughter of the house. He was not over sanguine, but in reviewing the situation, he decided that with women, as with other 'enterprises of great pith and moment,' you never know what you can do till you try. He ran over all the reasons for and against on his fingers—as he was wont to do in a bargain for stock—finally deciding that he would 'submit an offer.'
Many a time and often had he acted similarly after the same calculation—offered a price far below the owner's presumable valuation and the market rate of the article. As often, to his great surprise, it had been accepted. He would do so now.
'Let me see,' he said to himself. 'Old MacCallum got the sack, they say. I rather wonder at that—that is, I should have wondered if it had been any other girl. Not another girl in the district but would have accepted him on his knees. Such a house—such horses! Good-looking, pleasant fellow, full-mouthed of course, but sound on his pins, hardly a grey hair—regular short price in the betting. What a sell for him! Well, now about Jack Charteris. How stands he for odds? Nine-and-twenty next birthday; fairly good-looking, so the girls say; plenty of pluck, good nature, and impudence; ride, run, shoot, or fight any man of his weight in the country. Clever? Well, I wish I was a little better up in those confounded books. If I were, I really believe I might go in and win. The only man I'm afraid of is that confounded cousin fellow. He is infernally sly and quiet, and, I expect, is coming up in the inside running. I'd like to punch his head.'
Here Mr. Charteris stood up, squared his shoulders, and delivered an imaginary right and left into an enemy with extraordinary gusto. Then exclaiming, 'Here goes anyhow! I'll go in for it on my way to Sydney. I'll provide a retreat in case of total rout and defeat. It will be half forgotten by the time I return.'