“’Deed, sir, and you’re very kind; but there’s none as I care to write to gradely. There’s them as should be all the world to me, but they’re nothing to me now. I can’t tell you just what it is; but it’s even as I’m saying to you. There’s one as I should have liked—ah, well—she’ll be better without it. Thank you, sir; you’re very kind indeed, but I won’t trouble you.”
Frank saw that there was a secret; he had therefore too much delicacy of feeling to press Jacob any further; so he merely said,—
“Well, at any time, if you like me to write home, or anywhere else for you, I shall be glad to do so. And now you’d better be off. Take little Silvertail; a canter will do her good. I shall ride Roderick myself up through the gully. You may tell Mrs Watson not to bring tea in till she sees me, as I may be late.”
Jacob was soon off on his errands, and his master proceeded slowly up the hilly gorge at the back of his house.
“There’s some mystery about Jacob,” he said to himself; as he rode quietly along; “but I suppose it’s the case with a great many who come to these colonies. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ is true, I fancy, in a great many cases.”
It was a lovely afternoon. The sun was pouring forth a blaze of light and heat, such as is rarely experienced out of tropical countries. And yet, when the heat was most intense, there was an elasticity about the air which prevented any feeling of oppression or exhaustion.
The road wound up through quaint-looking hills, doubled one into another, like the upturned knuckles of some gigantic hand. Every now and then, at a bend in the track, the high lands, sloping away on either side, disclosed the distant town lying like a child’s puzzle on the plain, with the shadowy flats and dim ocean in the far background. By overshadowing rocks and down sudden steeps the road kept its irregular course; and now it would cleave its way along a mile of table-land, elevated above a perfect ocean of trees on either side, which seemed as though human hand or foot had never trespassed on their sombre solitude. Yet, every here and there the marks of destruction would suggest thoughts of man’s work and presence. Whole tracts of forest would be filled with half-charred trunks, the centres black and hollowed out, the upper parts green and flourishing as ever.
Nothing, for a time, broke the silence of Frank’s solitary ride, as he made his way along the serpentine road rising still higher and higher, and every now and then emerging upon broader and broader views of the plains and ocean beyond them, while the interlocking hills beneath his feet had dwindled down into a row of hillocks like funeral mounts in some Titanic graveyard. And now, as he paused in admiration to gaze on the lovely view spread out before him, he felt the burning heat relieved for a moment by a flying cloud; he looked upward—it was a flight of the yellow-crested cockatoo, which passed rapidly on with deafening screeches. A while after, and a flock of the all-coloured parakeet sped past him like the winged fragments of a rainbow. Look where he would, all was beautiful: the sky above, a pure Italian blue—the distant ocean sparkling—the lands of the plain smiling in peaceful sunshine—the hills on all sides quaint and fantastic—the highlands around him thick with their forests—the sward, wherever trees were thickly scattered, enamelled with flowers of the brightest scarlet. Oh, how sad that sin should mar the beauties with which the hand of God has so lavishly clothed even this fallen world.
Frank’s heart was filled with a delight that ascended into adoration of the Great Creator; then tenderer thoughts stole over him—thoughts of home, thoughts of the hearts which loved him still, spite of the past. Oh, how his spirit yearned for a sight of the loved and dear familiar faces he had left behind in the old but now far-off land! Tears filled his eyes, and he murmured something like a prayer. It was but for a little while, however, that thoughts like these kept possession of his heart; for he was brought rudely back to things before him by the rapid sound of horses’ feet. The next moment, round a turn of the road came a saddled horse without a rider, the broken bridle dangling from its head.
“Stop her, if you please,” cried a young lady, who was following at the top of her speed.