Part 15 (1/2)

When we had tian to oes, unless he keeps himself that close that he won't talk to any one or let any one talk to him, he's sure to find some one he likes to be with better than another If he's old and done with most of his fancies, except sot his life before him it's a woman So Jim and I hadn't been a week in Melbourne before we fell across a couple of--well, friends--that ere hard set to leave It was a way ofand have a look at the boats in the bay and the fisher on So the water under her paddles and tearing up the bay like a hundred bunyips The first screw-boat Jim and I sae couldn't ht all stea before the breeze like seagulls, and the waves, if it was a rough day, rolling and beating and thundering on the beach I generally stayed till the stars ca was so strange and new to a reen trees that I was never tired of watching, and wondering, and thinking what a little bit of a shabby world chaps like us lived in that never seen anything but a slab hut, h days and holidays

Sometimes I used to feel as if we hadn't done such a bad stroke in cutting loose fro would coed off and put in the dock, and maybe shut up for years and years Sometimes I used to throw myself down upon the sand and curse the day when I ever did anything that I had any call to be asha bad and evil in all , thinking about these things, and wondering whether there was any other country where ahounded down for the rest of his life, when I sao on the beach ahead of , and as I passed her she turned her head and I saw she was one of two girls that we had seen in the landlady's parlour one afternoon The landlady was a good, decent Scotch woman, and had taken a fancy to both of us (particularly to Jiht--she was that simple--that ere up-country squatters fro in the sheep or cattle line everybody could see that ere There was no hiding that But we didn't talk about ourselves overood reasons The less people say the an to be looked upon as bosses of some sort, and to be treated with a lot of respect that we hadn't been used to irl and I She was a good-looking girl, with a wonderful fresh clear skin, full of life and spirits, and pretty well taught She and her sister had not been a long time in the country; their father was dead, and they had to live by keeping a very s They were some kind of cousins of the landlady and the sas and Sundays

Her name was Kate Morrison and her sister's was Jeanie This and a lot ot back to the hotel, where she said she was going to stay that night and keep Mrs Morrison coan to be a deal better acquainted It all cairls a good turn by putting the well-to-do fellows like us; and as Jier one, Jeanie, seemed to take a fancy to each other, Mrs Morrison used to ot to know each other well enough to be joked about falling in love and all the rest of it

After a bit we got quite into the way of calling for Kate and Jeanie after their day's as done, and taking them out for a walk I don't know that I cared so ot to think that hat people call in love with each other

It went deeper with her than me, I think It mostly does omen I never really cared for any woman in the world except Gracey Storefield, but she was far away, and I didn't seeable to live in that part of the world, h we'd broken a six-pence together and I had my half, I looked upon her as ever so much beyondht happen to fall across

So, partly froirl had ood and all, I just took it as it came; but it meant a deal more than that, if I could have foreseen the end

I hadn't seen a great many women, and had made up my mind that, except a few bad ones, they was ood to lead, not hard to drive, and, above all, easy to see through and understand

I often wonder what there was about this Kate Morrison to make her so different from other women; but she was born unlike them, I expect

Anyway, I never met another woman like her She wasn't out-and-out handsoure was pretty near as good as a woht and active; her feet and hands were sht she had any temper different from other women; but if I'd noticed her eyes, surely I'd have seen it there There was soe and out of the way about theht when you looked at theot roused and set up about anything, they'd begin to burn with a steady sort of glitter that got fiercer and brighter till you'd think they'd burn everything they looked at The light in theain in a hurry, either It see, whether their oished it or not

I didn't find out all about her nature at once--trust a woman for that

Vain and fond of pleasure I could see she was; and fro, ry for money and jewels and fine clothes; just like a person that's been starved and shi+vering with cold longs for a fire and a full s when they can get the else, and would sell their souls or do anything in the whole world to get what their hearts are set on When erous, but they hardly hurt anybody, only themselves When women are born with hearts of this sort it's a bad look-out for everybody they coht I was rich, and she o shares in er sister, Jeanie, to her plans, and our acquaintance was part of a regular put-up scheirl, with beautiful fair hair, blue eyes, and the prettiest ood as she was pretty, and would have worked aithout gru in that dismal little shop from that day to this, if she'd been let alone She was only just turned seventeen She soon got to like Jiood, and used to listen to his talk about the country across the border, and such simple yarns as he could tell her, poor old Jio and live with him under a salt-bush if he'd come back and marry her after Christmas And of course he did promise He didn't see any harm in that He intended to come back if he could, and so did I for thatand short of it was that ere both regularly engaged and had o over to Tasmania or New Zealand, when this terrible blow fell upon us like a shell I did see one explode at a review in Melbourne--and, my word! what a scatteration it made

Well, we had to let Kate and Jeanie know the best e could that our business required us to leave Melbourne at once, and that we shouldn't be back till after Christmas, if then

It was terrible hard work to make out any kind of a story that would do Kate questioned and cross-questioned me about the particular kind of business that called us away like a lawyer (I've seen plenty of that since) until at last I was obliged to get a bit cross and refuse to answer any more questions

Jeanie took it easier, and was that down-hearted andwith Jim that she hadn't the heart to ask any questions of any one, and Jim looked about as dismal as she did They sat with their hands in each other's till it was nearly twelve o'clock, when the old irls off to bed We had to start at daylight next ; but we made up our minds to leave them a hundred pounds apiece to keep for us until we came back, and promised if ere alive to be at St Kilda next January, which they had to be contented with

Jeanie did not want to take the money; but Jim said he'd very likely lose it, and so persuaded her

We were oing away all in a hurry We had come to like Melbourne, and had bit by bit cheated ourselves into thinking that we ht live comfortably and settle down in Victoria, out of reach of our enemies, and perhaps live and die unsuspected

From this dream ere roused up by the confounded advertisement

Detectives and constables would be seen to be pretty thick in all the colonies, and we could not reasonably expect not to be taken some tiht it over and over again, in every way The erous it see for it, that was to go straight out of the country The Gippsland men were the only bushht shut soon

So we paid our bill They thought us a pair of quiet, respectable chaps at that hotel, and never would believe otherwise Peopleto have some friends that can say of you--

'Well, I never knew no harm of him; a better tempered chap couldn't be; and all the time we knowed him he was that particular about his bills and ular He may have had his faults, but we never seen 'em I believe a deal that was said of hi won't ever make me believe it'

These kind of people will stand up for you all the days of your life, and stick to you till the very last moment, nopleasant in it; and it makes you think hu as soood little landlady and her sister was that sorry to lose us, as you'd have thought they was our blood relations As for Jim, every one in the house was fit to cry when he went off, fros and cats upwards Jim never was in no house where everybody didn't seeht a couple of horses, and rode away down to Sale with these chaps that had sold their cattle in Melbourne and was going home It rained all the way, and it was the worst road by chalks we'd ever seen in our lives; but the soil onderful, and the grass was so like it A few thousand acres there would keep more stock than half the country we'd been used to