I

Up on Latterdale, bullock teams—eighteen bullocks to a big stick on this country—were hauling out timber for the new mill Bob Beverley had opened at Trienna, and Humphrey, whose heart ached as royal blackwood and stringy-bark gave their lovely lives up, rode slowly out of the dark gully rich with its scents of bleeding sap and torn leafy earth and straining animals, toward another sacrilege. The stretch of black wattle along the hill was to be barked for Gamaliel Thompson's tannery in Launceston; and to Humphrey, measuring, assessing, figuring out the amount to be contracted for, this killing of the native bush was like the murder of children.

"Civilization! Lord, why can't we work with Nature instead of against her?" he said aloud, thrusting his battered felt hat back from his hot face and bared throat. He looked down the hill where tall wattle groves and close scrub wattle that had once been scarfs of gold now stood already barked and naked in the clear twilight. Fire was at work there, sending up thin tongues ruddy against the coming night, smouldering in the dying hearts, spiralling away in soft grey feathers to the quiet sky. "Destruction, I call it," said Humphrey bitterly, thinking of the last argument he had had with William, which like all the others, had ended in defeat. William was going to plough that murdered hill and lay it down in rye. Humphrey would merely have thinned the groves and let ewes lamb there in the warm shadows.

"There's no disease on this virgin country, and lambs dropped here would stand the climate perfectly," he had said. "Only such a little of the run is above the winter line."

"Do you dare imagine that you know better than your father?" William had retorted, pulling his sandy whiskers. "I won't allow any but dry sheep on Latterdale."

So he sent up merino hoggets with foot-rot, and old rams with scab to infect the clean soil. Gloomily Humphrey watched the page 267dark shapes moving on their knees down the slope…. If only I had money to buy the place and marry Maria! he thought. But that was one of the dreams which would never come true, it seemed. He finished his figures and next day took them in to Launceston to set them before Gamaliel, whose big loose body was to be seen all day at the desk, where, every one said, he was making money hand over fist. Mab worked for him now, when he worked anywhere. Mab, said Gamaliel, was going for him to New Zealand to see about hides. "There is no scab in New Zealand," he said.

"There needn't be so much in Tasmania if people had sense," returned Humphrey, with a sigh, and went off to spend the night with Brevis, who, now in the office of Shone, Mathews & Shone, was already feeling his way.

"I shall set up for myself soon," said Brevis, and Humphrey believed him. Brevis gave people the feeling that nothing, except himself, would ever deny him anything. He moved about in a velvet smoking-jacket which somehow seemed just as appropriate as his rooms did. They were not rooms like Mab's, all whips and spurs and hunting pictures and pretty girls tacked up anyhow. Nor like Humphrey's, with the wattle-and-daub walls painstakingly papered with London Graphics and a little daguerreotype of Maria over the bed. Nor like Noll Comyn's, with no pictures at all, but wonderful china and heaps of cushions.

Brevis's rooms were like himself, restrained, yet curiously emphatic. There was a small gilt icon on the mantel; a Dutch sabot for cigar butts; a youth's head in discoloured marble lying on a black cushion; a few grave landscapes; a lively bronze faun in the corner where the firelight caught it, and a large Mona Lisa. Humphrey had not seen her before. He called her wicked, with Brevis smoking at his elbow.

"No two men ever see her the same, any more than they do other women. Talking of women, are you going to let Mrs. Beverley devour Maria entirely, Humphs?"

"God! I don't want to!" Humphrey talked about this to every one, and never got any satisfaction. "But what can I do? Since Beverley died Maria has felt that she must stay and comfort her mother."

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"He's been dead some years, hasn't he?"

"Nearly three. But Mrs. Beverley——"

"I know. I've heard it. People say her devotion to his memory is so beautiful. So like our dear Queen," mimicked Brevis. "That's what keeps the old lady going. That's what keeps her shut up with the old chap's picture and Maria and herself all wound up together in the same black crêpe. Force of suggestion. The finest and most damnable power on earth. She's a sociable woman naturally, and fond of bright colours."

Humphrey was staggered. He had been brought up to an almost Chinese veneration for his elders.

"B-but what can I do?" he repeated helplessly.

"Marry Maria out of hand and take her to Latterdale. That would bring your father to heel and make him treat you like a human being. And it would do Mrs. Beverley the greatest possible service. You'd have her in colours for the christening of your first child."

Humphrey's legs weakened. A faintness of desire, of longing came over him. He sat on a stool with his head in his hands, and from the sofa where he lay full length Brevis watched him curiously. Psychological reactions! Lord! how men gave themselves away! Poor old Humphs, the too decent fool!

"If we don't make life for ourselves, the gods won't do it for us, Humphs."

"B-but I … but Maria wouldn't."

"I think," said Brevis deliberately, "a man can persuade a woman to anything if he gives his mind to it. That's what we're for."

"You might. I couldn't. I … I've tried."

"Well, think it over. Think it over. I hate waste, and you two were born to give solidity to the somewhat erratic colonial tradition. Keep step, carry the torch, all that sort of thing."

Humphrey saw his bright eyes, his lazy smile in the flickering firelight, and turned suddenly shy. So very wise, Brevis sounded. Bland, passionless, experienced. He wondered if Brevis had ever loved a woman, ever persuaded her. He said hastily: "I hear that Snow's Gang tied up old Tolmie, down the Tamar, last night. Wonder if we'll ever catch him."

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Brevis's smile deepened at the clumsy transition. He watched the light dancing on the prick-ears, the sharp grin of the faun. "Snow—if it is Snow, which apparently no one is certain about—is something rather special in the way of bush-rangers, I think."

"Is he? How do you mean?"

"Well, he has a policy, as I figure it. The definite mocking of man. He don't hamstring horses or leave cattle and sheep slaughtered all over the place, as many of the others did. And he don't kill men … yet. He just catches 'em where he can, trusses 'em up in undignified attitudes, and sets 'em where they can see their belongings burn. A destructive devil with a fine sense of humour. I wonder how many good old buildings have gone up in smoke since he got tired of being a shepherd at Tane Hall."

"We lost Clent wool-shed about a month ago, you know. And they tied old James Sorley up to watch Bredon coach-house burn. Gad! I'll never forget finding him squatted against the piggery with his nose to his knees! I never heard old James curse before," said Humphrey, beginning to chuckle. "His feelings were really hurt, and he was almost afraid to go back to town. Our most eminent councillor! He has offered a huge reward, but the police don't seem able to do anything."

"They're not dealing with an ordinary man and they think they are. That's the trouble. And usually the gangs grew too unwieldly and one of them would peach for the reward. This man has the sense to keep to his original three. And the person sheltering him—probably only one—apparently can't be bought."

"They came to Lovely Corners one night," said Humphrey. "Joe heard the dogs bark and went out with a lantern. And Aunt Ellen ran after him and flung it over the fence. Then she had hysterics in the barnyard and the fellows made off."

"Miss Merrick threw the lantern away?" Brevis sat up, staring through his pipe smoke. "Why did she do that?"

"Oh, no one knows why she does anything." Humphrey was not interested in Ellen. He talked of the difficulty of getting the new wool-shed finished before shearing, but Brevis did not listen. His mind, always avid for ideas, was hard at work. Mab Comyn was so interested in Snow that he got him out of Port Arthur. Ellen Merrick was so interested that she had made a public page 270spectacle of herself in order to give him warning. If Brevis could discover their reasons he would know, probably, what Snow was aiming at; for that the fellow would stop at burning outbuildings and making men laughing-stocks Brevis did not believe. The vanity of man does not work that way. Having attracted the attention of the whole colony and even Australia, Snow would undoubtedly proceed to heroics, demoniacs of some kind.

Brevis stood up, yawning, stretching until Humphrey thought of a graceful black cat. "Bed, Humphs. I'm bathing at dawn in the Cataract Basin with Mab and Gamaliel. You coming?"