Part 14 (1/2)

For many days the Rises were peopled with prospectors, but one by one they dropped away. The chief constable was loath to leave the riddle unsolved; he had the instinct of the sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. He had been a pursuer of bad works amongst the convicts for a long time, both in Van Diemen's Land and in Victoria, and had helped to bring many men to the gallows or the chain-gang. He had once been shot in the back by a horse thief who lay concealed behind the door of a shepherd's hut, but he secured the horse thief. He was a man without nerves, of medium height, strongly built, had a broad face, ma.s.sive ears, wide, firm mouth, and strong jaws.

One night after the searchers had departed to their various homes, the chief remained alone in the Rises, and leaving his horse hobbled at a distance, cautiously approached Nosey's hut. He placed his ear to the outside of the weatherboards, and listened for some time to the conversation of Nosey and his wife, expecting to obtain by chance some information about the disappearance of the other shepherd.

Nosey was in a bad temper, swearing and finding fault with everything. Julia was prudent and said little; it was best not to say too much to a man who was so handy with the family axe. But at last she made use of one expression which seemed to mean something.

She said, ”Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged.” There was a prophetic ring in these words which delighted the chief constable, and he glued his great ear to the weatherboards, eagerly listening for more; but the wrangling pair were very disappointing; they would not keep to the point. At last he walked round the hut, suddenly opened the door, and entered. Nosey was struck dumb at once. His first thought was that his plan had been sprung, and that the murder was out. The chief addressed Julia in a tone of authority, imitating the counsel for the crown when examining a prevaricating witness.

”Now, missus, remember you will be put on your oath. You said just now, 'Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged.' Those were your very words. Now what did you mean? On your oath, mind; out with it at once.”

But Julia was not to be caught so easily. She replied:

”Oh, bad luck to him, he is always angry. I don't know what to do with him. I did not mean anything.”

”You did not mean anything about Baldy, I suppose, did you, now?”

queried the constable, shamefully leading the witness, and looking hard at Nosey.

Julia parried the question by heaving a deep sigh, and saying: ”Hi, ho, Harry, if I were a maid, I never would marry;” and then she began singing a silly old song.

The constable was disgusted, and said:

”My good woman, you'll find there will be nothing to laugh at in this job, when I see you again.”

As he left the hut, he turned at the door and gave one more look at Nosey, who had stood all the time rivetted to the ground, expecting every moment that the constable would produce the handcuffs. Soon afterwards Julia went outside, walked round the hut, and stayed awhile, listening and looking in every direction. When she returned, Nosey said, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:

”Is he gan yet?”

”I think,” replied Julia, ”he won't be coming again to-night. He has thrown away his trouble this time, anyhow; but ye must hould your tongue, Nosey, if ye want to save your neck; he means to have you if he can.”

Nosey stayed on the run some weeks longer, following his sheep. It would not be advisable to go away suddenly, and, moreover, he recollected that what the eye could not see might some time be discovered by another of the senses. So he waited patiently, standing guard as it were over the dead, until his curiosity induced him to pay a farewell visit by daylight to the place where Baldy was buried.

There had been hot weather since the body had been deposited in the shallow grave, and the crevices among the piles of bluestones had been filled by the wind with the yellow stalks of decayed gra.s.s.

Nosey walked round his own particular pile, and inspected it closely.

He was pleased to find that it showed no signs of having been touched since he raised it. It was just like any of the other heaps of rocks around it. He had, at any rate, given Baldy as good a funeral as circ.u.mstances would permit, better than that of many a man who had perished of hunger, heat, and thirst, in the shelterless wastes of the Never-Never Land, ”beyond Moneygrub's farthest run.” Nosey and the weather had done their work so well that for the next fifteen years no shepherd, stockman, or squatter ever gave a second look at that unknown grave. The black snake coiled itself beneath the decaying skeleton, and spent the winter in secure repose. The native cat tore away bits of Baldy's clothing, and with them and the yellow gra.s.s made, year after year, a nest for its young among the whitening bones.

Everything, so far, had turned out quite as satisfactorily as any murderer could expect. Nosey had been game to do his man, and he had done him well. Julia was prudent enough to hold her tongue for her own sake; it was unlikely that any further search would be made for the lost shepherd; he had been safely put out of sight, and not even Julia knew where he was buried.

Nosey began to have a better opinion of himself than ever. Neither the police nor the law could touch him. He would never be called to account for putting away his brother shepherd, in this world at any rate; and as for the next, why it was a long way off, and there was time enough to think about it. The day of reckoning was distant, but it came at last, as it always does to every sinner of us all.

Nosey resigned his billet, and went to Nyalong. He lived in a hut in the eastern part of the towns.h.i.+p, not far from the lake, and near the corner of the road coming down from the Bald Hill. Here had been laid the foundation of a great inland city by a bush publican, two storekeepers, a wheelwright, and a blacksmith. Another city had been started at the western side of Wandong Creek, but its existence was ignored by the eastern pioneers.

The shepherd soon began to forget or despise the advice of his wife, Julia; his tongue grew loose again, and at the bar of the inn of the crossroads his voice was often heard loud and abusive. He felt that he had become a person of importance, as the possessor of a secret which n.o.body could discover. What he said and what he did was discussed about the towns.h.i.+p, and the chief constable listened to every report, expecting that some valuable information would accidentally leak out.

One day a man wearing a blue jumper and an old hat came down the road, stepped on to the verandah of the inn, and threw down his swag.

Nosey was there, holding forth to Bill the Butcher, d.i.c.k Smalley, Frank Barton, Bob Atkins, Charley Goodall, and George Brown the Liar.

A dispute occurred, in which the presumptuous stranger joined, and Nosey promptly knocked him off the verandah into the gutter. A valid claim to satisfaction was thus established, and the swagman showed a disposition to enforce it. He did not attempt to regain his position on the boards, but took his stand on the broad stone of honour in the middle of the road. He threw up his hat into the air, and began walking rapidly to and fro, clenched his fists, stiffened his sinews, and at every turn in his walk said:

”You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life.”

This man's action promised real sport, and true Britons as we all were we were delighted to see him. Nosey stood on the verandah for a minute or two, watching the motions of the swagman; he did not seem to recollect all at once what the code of honour required, until Bill the Butcher remarked, ”He wants you, Nosey,” then Nosey went.

The two men met in the middle of the road, and put up their hands.

They appeared well-matched in size and weight. The swagman said: