White Hood and Blue Cap: A Christmas Bough with Two Branches
Chapter I
Chapter I.
It was evening—the soft evening of the “Indian summer,” which makes autumn, in inland Otago, the most delightful season of the year. A gentle breeze, fragrant with the delicate odours of sweet-scented grasses, whispered lovingly through the valley. The lower peaks of the mountains were enfolded in a purple haze, save where a westerly ravine admitted a stream of silver light; and their snowy summits were tinged with the roseate splendours of the setting sun—such as Gully and Barraud, and, in a lesser degree, Hodgkins and Huddlestone, have transferred to canvas with remarkable fidelity; but of which the full glory cannot be conceived by those who have never witnessed the reality.
It was evening. The metallic echoes of the smithy were hushed, and the faint clicking of billiard balls, proceeding from the direction of the Maori Hen, denoted that for at least one portion of the community play had temporarily superseded work. Around the door of that hostelry lounged a few men, clay-stained, blue-shirted, with bronzed visages and “bearded like the pard,” smoking short pipes, and comparing notes on the proceedings of the day. In front of the Store a string of weary-looking pack-horses were patiently waiting for their burdens, to be borne on the morrow over rough mountain tracks to yet more remote localities. On the rearward slopes, goats were leisurely browsing: and in the foreground a group of children, guiltless of shoes or stockings, were playing—
“Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only childhood can.”
Now and then a woman flitted from hut to hut, or went down to the water-race which traversed the Terrace for a pail of the clear, cool fluid; and miners trooped past, returning from their “spell” of labour.
Presently there came by two men, both young—under thirty, let us say. One of them was tall, shapely as an Adonis, and muscular as a Hercules, with fair hair and a goodly smiling face, such as women love to look upon and men take kindly to. His companion was of a widely different type. Short of stature, and somewhat ungainly in figure, with straggling beard and hair of no particular colour—hovering, indeed, between black and brown. Yet you could not return the glance of his honest gray eyes for two seconds without instinctively feeling that he was a man to be trusted.
As they plodded silently across the Terrace, there came forth from one of the primitive dwellings I have described—a girl.
Only a girl! That was all. But her appearance effected an instantaneous change in the demeanour of both men—as an electric spark might have done—only more pleasantly.
Over the face of each there passed a smile as they beheld her. But a keen observer would have distinguished betwixt the twain. In the smile of the taller man, whom you will know hereafter as “Handsome George,” the elements of vanity and pleasure were visibly blended. The smile of his companion—mate if you will—who was popularly known by the soubriquet of “Dusky Jim”—betokened pleasure also, but combined with an expression of reverential admiration, such one might bestow on a picture of the Madonna.
In the last sentence the characters of these men are written. He that hath eyes to see, let him see. If you, my reader, are unable to do so, pray close the book, and pass on.
The girl smiled also as she came daintily tripping towards them, clad in light-coloured flowing drapery, page 8 not so long as to conceal her tiny foot and well-formed ankle, nor so loose as to destroy the symmetry of her waist and bust. Her head, sitting well on her shapely neck, was crowned with a glorious wealth of silky golden hair, which shone out with pleasing contrast from beneath and around a little white hood, artistically fabricated, of some fleecy material, suiting well the soft blue eyes which irradiated her countenance. The pretty petite figure, backed by the sombre mountains, seemed as much out of place in that locality as Psyche in Hades; and little wonder was it that not only our two special acquaintances beheld her with pleasure, but also every other miner, as he passed her, turned to look again at the picture.
The girl was the first to speak. “Good evening, George,” she said, or rather cooed; for she had that soft and gentle voice which Shakespeare declares to be “an excellent thing in woman.” “Good evening, George. Did you see my goats as you came along?”
“No,” he replied, “I did not, Miss Mary. Have you lost them?”
“I hope not, indeed,” said Mary, “but they generally come home at sundown, and they have not yet made their appearance.”
One word of explanation. In those remote districts milk producers of the bovine species there were not, and of necessity goats constituted the sole resource of the miners' dairy.
“I am going to look for the silly creatures,” she continued.
Said Dusky Jim, and he spoke very shyly, as one all unused to converse with women, “I think I saw them, Miss Mary, on the Terrace beyond the creek. Perhaps they can't find their way. I think—yes, I'm sure they were yours, for they had little bells on their collars. If you please, I'll go back and fetch them for you.”
“Oh! thank you ever so much, Jim;” and as she said it, she put her little hands together with a gesture of thanksgiving, and beamed upon the poor fellow page 9 with such a pleasant, sunny expression, that his face was literally suffused with blushes. “I am so glad I met you.”
“Yes, Jim,” said George, approvingly; “That's right. You go and get Miss Mary's goats, and I'll wait at Ned's hut till you come back.”
And Jim went.
Ned Austin was Mary's brother. He had been out in the colonies some years, when his father and mother sickened and died, within a few months of each other. Then he bethought him of the little sister whom he had played with on the paternal hearth in the happy days of childhood; and he sent home the necessary funds to bring her out. He had his reward when he met and kissed the handsome girl, of seventeen summers, whom he had only remembered as a pale-faced and somewhat scraggy child, in short frocks, eight years before. He felt proud of his new acquisition, and not without cause. She was a sister of whom any brother might excusably feel proud; for she was as good as she was handsome. She made her first appearance on the Terrace about three months prior to the date of the events I am narrating, and made no small sensation amongst the miners, many of whom would, metaphorically, have given their eyes out of their heads for a gentle word or a kind glance from her. But the saucy little beauty was very reserved after her fashion, and held herself aloof from ordinary intercourse; wherefore her female neighbours averred that she was a vain “stuck-up thing;” and the men smiled and stroked their beards, and said that they guessed “Miss Mary” knew what she was about. Her brother, naturally reticent, discouraged almost all and every approach towards anything beyond mere acquaintanceship; but George Gifford and Jim Trevanna happened to be his mates—working in the same claim indeed—and thus there occurred frequent opportunities, which Handsome George, who was quite conscious of his good looks, had certainly not neglected. Jim, on such occasions, generally played the mute's part, page 10 smoking his cutty-pipe in solemn silence, and furtively admiring the trim damsel, as she flitted about the hut, or bent over her sewing. George was a special favourite with Ned Austin, as with many others; but Jim—well, in mining parlance he was generally regarded as a good-natured “duffer.”
But let us return to our muttons, or rather our goats. When Jim reached the bank of the creek, he could not help looking back. (Ah! that fatal propensity of looking back. Will the lesson taught by the fate of Lot's wife never have any salutary effect upon the children of Adam?) A strange pang smote him, as he saw Handsome George and Mary strolling along, chatting and laughing in friendly companionship.
“I wish she cared half as much for me as she does for her goats,” he muttered. “But there—what's the good? I know I ain't the sort of man that a girl like that would care for; Handsome George is the fellow for the like of her. Ah! why didn't God make me better looking, when he was about it?,”
Forgive his irreverence, my friends. It was a curious question, and one not easily to be answered. What saith Dogberry?— “Reading and writing come by nature; but to be well-favoured is the gift of Fortune.” And Fortune is a capricious goddess, who, rather than Justice, should be represented as being blind; whereas Justice should be very open-eyed, properly to fulfil her functions.
The vagrant goats gave their pursuer some trouble. They were inclined to be perverse and frolicsome, and led Jim a weary dance before he succeeded in capturing them. By the time he had done so, twilight had set in. As he returned, leading one with each hand, he had to pass the “Maori Hen,” at the door of which stood a woman. You could not see what she was like by the uncertain light, except that she was young and dark-haired. But her voice was singularly rich and mellow.
“Eh! Jim,” she said, “how long have thee been a goat-tender?”
page 11“They are not mine,” he replied, “They belong to Mary Austin. She lost them—confound the wretches—and I've had a smartish hunt after them.”
The woman stepped forward with a resolute stride, and stood before him. “Tell me, where is George?” she demanded.
“Why, he is up at Ned's hut, waiting for me; that is, if he hasn't got tired, and gone home.”
“Ah! George is very often at Ned's now, isn't he—since that sister of his came up here?”
“I don't know, Bessie. Good night!” and he attempted to pass on, but in vain.
“Tell me,” she said, with a voice imperative, “Is it true that he is courting that girl?”
“I don't know,” he replied, “and I don't want to know. You had better ask him yourself.”
“Thou poor fool!” exclaimed the woman, scornfully. “Thou'rt only fit to fetch and carry. Thou'rt out hunting goats for ‘Miss Mary’—oh! yes, I know —it is always ‘Miss’ Mary—(words cannot convey any idea of the bitterness which she threw into the phrase)—while thy mate is making love to her. Don't tell me. It is true, and thou knows it.”
“I don't know anything about it,” persisted Jim. “Please let me get along. I want to get rid of these confounded animals.”
She moved so as to allow him to pass, but remained standing on the track, eagerly watching, until the two men came forth from Ned Austin's hut, and disappeared in the opposite direction.
“Yes,” she said; “I will see him myself. Better for thee, my Handsome George, that thou had never been born than play the fool with me, for that baby.”