Part 34 (2/2)
After giving him a turn over, I took the billy and replenished it at the river
Before getting into the wagon again, I emptied the contents of Mrs Vivian's bottle into half a pannikin-full of the oxide of hydrogen, and stirred the potion thoroughly with a stick Then returning to my patient, I raised his head, and held the pannikin to his lips He finished the draught, unconscious of its medicinal virtues; and I refolded the old overcoat which served as a pillow, and laid hiently as possible
”The water seems to have a peculiar taste,” heis all deranged I hear your voice through a ringing of bells, and a sound like a distant waterfall I'm just on the border-land, Collins I've very little ain? How long is it since you left me?”
”Froether; they re close by”
”Well, noould n't have the slightest idea whether it was one hour or twelve I've been in the spirit-world since then, or a spirit has visited ing old fas; and that voice has been silent in death for ten years--silent to me for three years before that Thirteen years! That e it see as I see now, but I heard her glorious voice as I used to hear it in our happy days; and I felt that her spirit was bringing forgiveness at last
I'ious man, Collins; I don't knoill become of me after death; but God does, and that's sufficient for me I never believed on Him so devoutly as I do now that He has vindicated His justice uponan act of the blindest folly and heartlessness; and I thank Him thatBut it was a favourite song of hers; and while you were away I heard her sing it, with newin every syllable My poor love!”
”Alf, Alf,” I reo to sleep if you can”
The tears of feebleness had accu the use of his hands, he was throwing his head from side to side to clear them away
”Did you ever th
Before I could reply, he resumed absently, ”When I was a boy, away on the Queensland border, I knew a squatter--as fine a fellow as ever lived-- and this ht her to live on the station A few months afterward, he ca, and found his place occupied by an inti at the station as a guest He ed to conceal his discovery; and, within the next few days, he got his friend to draw out a neill, by which he left everything, without reservation, to his wife A day or two after coun and went out alone, turkey-shooting
He didn't coht; and next day one of the station hands found hih the heart Accidentally, of course But we knew better”
”It ested ”There's a lot of supposition in the story”
”None, Collins Before going out with his gun, he wrote a letter to my father, and sent it by a trustworthy blackfellow My father got the letter about ten o'clock at night; and he had a horse run-in at once, and started off for the station through a raging thunderstor next day only in time to see his friend's body before it was moved to the house My father was terribly cut-up about it He wasstation at the time
”Now let me tell you another true story,” pursued Alf dreao, I knew a man on the Maroo, a tank-sinker, with a wife and two children The wife got soft on a young fellow at the cas stood Presently the husband began to circulate the report that he was going to New Zealand
In the ga
He was in no hurry Afterward, he sold his plant to the station, and bade good-bye, in thethe Don Juan Then he started across the country to Wagga, alone with his wife, in a wagonette Are you listening?”
”Attentively, Alf But suppose I boil your billy, and”----
”Two years afterward, a flock was sold off the station I was speaking of, for Western Queensland; and one of the station men ith the drover's party, to see the sheep delivered Curious coincidence: he met on the new station his old acquaintance, the tank-sinker, with his two children and a second wife The tank-sinker told hi the Maroo, and that he had changed hismyself clear?”
”Yes; so far You know the oods to him once on the Maroo, and casually heard the scandal that was in the air Well, the shearing caot back fro for the shed, a boundary man found, in the centre of one of the paddocks--in the loneliest, barrenest hole of a place in New South Wales--he found where a big fire had been made, and some bones burnt into white cinders and smashed small with a stick He kicked the ashes over, and found the steel part of a woman's stays, and the charred heel of a wos that had probably been in her pocket I was on the station at the ti for wool, and saw the relics when the boundary s done when every man is a law unto himself”
”Supposition, Alf; and strained supposition at that But why should you trouble your s?”
”There was no supposition on the station where the things were found, nor on the station the tank-sinker had left, when they cos were found three or four a; and there was a pine of a year and a half old growing in the ashes
But we'll pass that story I want you to listen to another”
”Some other time, Alf I'll ,” continued Alf doggedly, ”I was very intih principle and fine education Best-informed man I ever knew This poor felloas a drunkard, occasional, but incorrigible
Misfortune had driven him to it His as dead; his children had died in infancy; and at forty-five he was a hopeless wreck He worked at my father's farm on the Hawkesbury for two or three years, and died at our place when I was about twenty-five, immediately before I left home”----
”I don't like to correct you, Alf,” I interposed; ”but I understood you to say that your father was a station-er, on the Queensland border
”Up to the tiht a place on the Hawkesbury, intending, poorhis hobby of chemistry, while I took the care of the place off his hands--for though I have two sisters, I was his only son
His great aenerations But I de with my own
It's no odds about myself; but my poor father deserved better, after all his work and worry Ah, er; and now I don't knohether he's alive or dead!” The prodigal paused, and sighed bitterly