War to the Knife. Rolf Boldrewood
and square jaw denoted the courage and decision which, young as he seemed, had been tested full many a time and oft. His hands, though bronzed and sinewy with occasional experiences of real hard work, were delicately formed, while his filbert nails, perhaps as true a test as any other of gentle blood and nurture, had evidently never lacked careful tendance.
Fairly well read, and soundly if not academically educated, he was but one of a class of the present generation of Australians who do no discredit to the imperial race from which they spring.
Before these reflections had come to a conclusion, however, Mr. Lexington rose, saying —
"Now that Frank has got to the horses of his native country, we had better adjourn the debate, if you won't take another glass of port, or his mother and sisters will be scolding us for staying too long over our wine."
Soon after their arrival in the drawing-room the opposition found a speaker.
"We thought you were never coming, daddy dear," said Miss Violet. "What in the world do men find to talk about when we're not there? I suppose, though, that you were giving Sir Roland a lecture on colonial experience, and Frank had fallen foul of the shooting and fishing topics, or, worst of all, the great horse question! Ah! I see you look guilty, so I won't say any more about it."
"I'm sure it's very natural, my dear," said Mrs. Lexington. "Of course Sir Roland knows as little of colonial life as your father does about English farming. Either experience would be valuable, you know."
"I am not so sure of that," quoth the merry damsel, who appeared to be of independent mind. "I've rarely known dad take any one's opinion but his own; and as to advising new – er – that is – new arrivals in Australia, you remember what Jack Charteris said when somebody asked him to do so?"
"Something saucy, no doubt."
"Oh no; it was only to this effect – that if the young fellow had any common sense, he would soon find out everything for himself; and if he hadn't, nothing that you could say would do him any good."
"I am afraid that you will give Sir Roland a strange idea of Australian young ladies' manners. For a change, Marion might try this lovely piano. It's almost new; too good for a bachelor's establishment."
Massinger winced a little, but did not explain that, as the adored personage had once been inveigled into joining an afternoon tea at the Court on the way back from a tennis match, of which he had received timely notice, he had ordered a new grand piano to be sent down from London, so that it might be ready for her divinely fair fingers to essay.
"The other one," he replied, carelessly, "was rather old – had, indeed, been sent up to a morning-room; just did for practising on when ladies were in the house."
"I should think it did," said Miss Lexington, indignantly. "Why, it's better now than half the people have in their drawing-rooms. I'm afraid you won't make much of a fortune in Australia if you're so extravagant. Three hundred and fifty pounds' worth of pianos in a house with a family of one!"
"I'm like the man in your sister's story, Miss Lexington," said he, smiling at the girl's earnestness. "Advice will be thrown away upon me. But perhaps I may improve after a few months."
"Months!" said the girl; and a sudden look almost of compassion changed the lustre of her dark grey eyes. "How little you know of the years and years before you! – the changes and chances, the bad seasons, the dull life; and then perhaps nothing at the end – absolutely nothing! And to come away from this!" And she looked round the noble room, which, if not magnificently furnished, was yet replete with modern comfort, and had, in the priceless pieces of carved oaken furniture, the air of ancient and long-descended possession. "How could you?"
He turned and faced her with an air of smiling but irrevocable decision.
"My resolve was not taken without consideration, I assure you; and I have yet to learn that an Englishman is likely to find himself at fault among his countrymen in any of Britain's colonies. But I am anxious to hear my ecstatic instrument for the last time."
Marion Lexington, as are many Australian girls, had been extremely well taught – received, indeed, the instruction of an artist of European reputation. Her ear was faultless, her taste accurate. She therefore, after a prelude of Bach's, broke into one of Schubert's wild, half-mournful "Momens Musicals," which she played with such feeling and power as rather to surprise her hearer, who, a fair judge, and something of an amateur, was no mean critic. She did not sing, she explained, but after she had concluded with a Scherzo, Miss Violet was prevailed upon to sing a couple of songs, which showed, by the management of a pure soprano, that she had received the tuition which had fitly developed its high quality.
Massinger could hardly refrain from expressing a faint degree of surprise, as he wondered how systematic training was possible in the primitive surroundings of a pastoral life.
"An English judge in a cause célèbre once described the squatter's occupation as a 'rude wandering life,'" said Mr. Lexington, smiling; "but for many years my wife and the girls lived in Sydney during the summer, and only went to our principal station, which is near a large inland town in the interior, for the winter – a season lovely beyond description. So my daughters enjoyed educational facilities not inferior, perhaps, to those of country towns in England."
"Like most Englishmen, I must confess to having formed incorrect ideas about our colonial possessions. However, I shall have ample time to amend them, if Miss Violet's prophecy comes true."
"Never mind her, Sir Roland," said her mother, stroking the girl's fair hair. "She is a naughty girl, and always says the first thing that comes into her head. It is just as likely that we shall see you back again with a colossal fortune in five years. Mr. Hazelwood that bought Burrawombie did, you know! You remember him, don't you, Frank? And if a bank-failure epidemic sets in, as was once threatened, we may just then be wanting to sell out and go back to Australia to retrench."
"I give everybody fair warning," said Miss Violet, starting up from her mother's side, "that I am going to settle permanently in England before that takes place. I couldn't endure returning under those circumstances. As a girl with a 'record,' as that American one said who had danced with the Prince, I might be induced to face George Street and Katoomba again; but not otherwise!"
Farewells had been said, old friends and old haunts revisited. The whole able-bodied population of Massinger Court, tower and town, had apparently turned out to do honour to their late landlord and employer, and when Sir Roland deposited himself in an engaged carriage by insistence of the veteran stationmaster, and was, as the phrase runs, "left alone with his thoughts," an involuntary lowering of his animal spirits occurred.
He had, as his friends and acquaintances fully believed, cut loose from all old associations – "turned himself out of house and home," as some familiarly expressed it – quitted for ever the old hall which had been in the possession of his family in unbroken line since the Conquest, and committed his fortunes to the conditions of a rude, quasi-barbarous country.
And for what? For a most insufficient reason, as all the world thought.
What was the abnormal incident which had brought about this dislocation of his whole life, which had made havoc of all previous aims and prospects? Merely the too highly wrought imagination of a girl – of a silly girl, people would doubtless say.
Well, they could hardly so describe Hypatia Tollemache, who had proved the possession of one of the finest intellects of the day, and had taken almost unprecedented academical honours.
At any rate, she might come under the biting regal deliverance, Toujours femme varie, bien fol qui s'y fie. But was she changeable? He could not say so with any show of sincerity.
She had been true – too true – to her ideal. Would that she had not been so steadfast to a vain imagining, an emotional craze!
A dream, a vision that she was destined by example, precept, self-sacrifice, what not, to elevate her sex in particular, the toiling masses in general, the helpless poor, the forgotten captives, despairing, tortured, chained to the oar of the blood-stained galley, "Civilization," falsely so called! Confessedly a lofty ideal. Yet how needless a devotion of her glorious beauty, her precious,