The Second Dandy Chater

by Tom Gallon

Now, under all the circumstances, it is probable that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have hesitated, at that hour, to draw back that curtain; and the hundredth would have done it—if at all—out of sheer bravado. But the curious thing was, that Betty had no fear of it at all; so completely was she dominated by her dream, and so much did she seem to be dreaming still, that she walked up to the curtain, and softly drew it aside.

Nor did she think it strange, under the circumstances, that there was a face upon the other side; for, although she believed she looked upon Dandy Chater, somehow the dream face had got mixed up with it; the dream-eyes of the child she believed dead smiled at her, out of the face of the man. Still keeping her eyes upon the window, she slipped along to the door and softly drew the bolt, and opened it; and then—for no known reason, and yet for some reason which seemed strong within her—began to tremble very much, as though she faced something uncanny.

A figure moved towards the door, slipped into the room, and took her in his arms. Not Dandy Chater—not the man with a price on his head, and blood on his cruel hands—not the man whose name was a by-word and a reproach in all that countryside; but her boy—her dear lad, back from his grave thousands of miles away! You couldn’t have tried to deceive old Betty Siggs at that moment; she knew that no other arms could hold her like that.

Then, when he called her—as he had done all those long years before—“little mother”—when he whispered, did she remember Tallapoona Farm, and the mare with the rat-tail, and Peter the sheep-dog—and a dozen other things that would have stamped him as her boy, if nothing else could have done; old Betty woke from her dream, and burst into a flood of tears, and laid her old grey head down on his shoulder.

Perhaps it was well that Toby was sleeping soundly above. For, if he had happened to dream, and had wandered, in his night apparel, down to that same parlour, he would have been very properly scandalised. For here was the supposed Dandy Chater, sitting near the table, with Betty Siggs—(hugging him mighty tight round the neck)—on his knee—the while he rapidly sketched out all that happened in those eighteen years.

“Ah—little mother—little mother!” he said, drawing her face down, that he might kiss it—“You didn’t know to whom you were talking, when I strolled in here the other day, and you read me a lecture on the sins of Dandy Chater. It’s been a long time, little mother; picked up, more dead than alive, by an exploring party in the Bush; taken with them miles into the interior; then more miles, by a party bound for the West, with whom they came in contact. Then, five or six years of life with a dear old couple, who had no chicks of their own, and were fond of the friendless boy thrown on their hands. Then, when I could, I went back to Tallapoona—only to find that you had gone to England—no one exactly knew where.”

“An’ you kep’ a thought of me all those years—did you, Phil?” whispered the old woman, proudly.

“Yes—and came back to you as soon as I could. At least—not to you, because I didn’t know where you were. But I remembered the story you had told me; and I knew I had the right to the place which had been my father’s. But I would not have turned out my brother; my idea was that we might live together peaceably, sharing what there was. But he is dead.”

She looked round at him, with a startled face; and he realised, in a moment, that he had given her the clue to the whole mystery. Therefore, with much pains and many pauses to allow her to fully digest the extraordinary story, he told her of the whole business; of his arrival in England—of his discovery of the strange likeness between himself and the real Dandy Chater; and of his determination, on discovering that his brother was dead, to trade upon it. Of his certainty that his brother had been murdered; and of the impossibility of fixing the crime upon any one’s shoulders.

But Betty Siggs saw only with the limited vision of love; knew only that her boy was with her again, and that he was innocent of the crime she had unconsciously laid to his charge.