However, it was distinctly patent to all the inquiring or admiring minds of Pilot Mount that the oracle, in the case of Nurse Lilburne’s antecedents, was at present dumb, nor could cries or lamentations extract an answer. To Mrs. Banneret once, indeed, she relented so far as to say, ‘Some day you will know, if to any one I may show gratitude for true friendship and womanly sympathy. In the meantime think of me only as Nurse Lilburne. For your husband I have only done what I would have done for the humblest miner. And may God grant that some day I may be counted worthy to receive payment in kind!’
So they parted on the last day of the Bannerets’ sojourn on the great ‘Last Chance’ goldfield, as it was now called,—famed throughout all Australia as the wonderland of that Far South land which had given so many wonders and surprises to the old world, and to the country which had founded it; which a hundred years from its birth, in peril from starvation, from conquest, from criminal surroundings and ignorant misrepresentation, had established an export trade of many millions, and borne sons who fought shoulder to shoulder with Britain’s best troops in defence of the Empire.
Mrs. Banneret was not the only person on the goldfields who was interested in the story of [122] ]Nurse Lilburne’s life. So attractive, so exceptional a personage could not long remain in such a community, where the men outnumbered the women in the ratio of at least a hundred to one, without being admired, flattered, besieged, indeed, by importunate suitors who were only too willing to condone her past—whatever it might have been. But to all such approaches she was adamant. She quietly put them by, not coldly or haughtily, but with a nun-like aloofness, as if all matters unconnected with her duties were not only impossible of acceptance, but even of consideration. Even the most ordinary civilities, such as a seat in a buggy or pony cart to the Polo Club matches, or the races connected with the club formed for the encouragement of that fashionable game, were quietly declined, even though proffered by the president, a married man, whose wife had always been most friendly and sympathetic. Jim Allerton, whose tandem was the admiration of all beholders, implored her to honour him by accepting a seat to the ground—the day being brilliant, with a cool breeze—the occasion certain to be historical in years to come; such an opportunity would perhaps never occur again: the Governor of West Australia, with his wife and daughter, were to be present. She smiled graciously, and confessed that she could not have refused such an offer—once upon a time—but now—he must excuse her. Jim retired heartbroken, so he said.
He was not the only admirer—the Adonis of the field, Eachin Durward, a tall, handsome, [123] ]grand-looking Highlander, was known to be devoted to her,—was well-off too,—would have left for Europe via Cairo, and the East generally, if only she would deign to express a wish—a preference for any particular route. But she was dumb as the Sphinx.
As deaf also, to all entreaties of men, as she who sits by the Pyramids—sad, silent, awful in lonely sorrow—in wisdom unspeakable, in experience vast—in knowledge coeval with the æons, whose memorial—save of her, and the eternal pyramidal monuments—hath perished.
. . . . . . . . .
Eastward ho! Home again,—blessed word, thrice blessed reality. The hot desert blast—the dust—the heat—the swarming flies—the glaring sun at noon—the scarce less tyrannous heat at even,—all things that bore so hard on frail humanity—all left behind for a season! What a paradise of hope and joy seemed opening before the ‘happy pair,’ in truest re-adjusted sense of the word. And the calm, peaceful savour of all the best joys of life was heightened by the recurring thought that under all things there was the solid foundation of success—success undoubted—ungrudged—won by enterprise and work, a wide-spread treasure-house in which so many of the most honest toilers of earth were permitted, nay, invited to share.
With health assured—indeed benefited by recovery from the dread fever-grip—so rarely relaxed—it seemed apparent that he, Arnold Banneret, ‘never looked better,’ as his friends assured him, than on his return from the Golden [124] ]West—that fateful Eldorado which numbered so many of the best and noblest of Australia’s—Britain’s—sons among the ‘unreturning brave.’
The voyage completed—the harbour—the haven par excellence of all fair havens, regained, the meeting on the wharf—of the entire family—wild with joy, and shouting all kinds of differing information, in one breath—all rosy with health and frantic with delight, may be left to be imagined by those home-returning parents of similar experiences. Nothing had gone wrong. The household had been discreetly, lovingly, capably managed in the absence of the high-contracting parties of the little state,—that state, when multiplied by thousands and ten thousands, which makes so much in valour, virtue, and stability, in the onward march of Empire.
Again established in their most comfortable house, on one of the heights which overlooked the harbour on the winding highway to the South Head—a dream of beauty by day or starlit night, by sweet moonrise or palest dawn—unequalled, unapproachable beneath the Southern Cross—how pure, how peaceful, how unspeakable was their happiness! What avenues of enjoyment opening out daily, stretching in the future to illimitable distance, filled the perspective!