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Hunted

Chapter XVIII. The End

Chapter XVIII. The End.

A Few days after the incidents narrated in last chapter, the stage coach drew up at the door of a hotel in the town of Bathurst. It was the close of a warm day in autumn, and the dust that covered the coach and all within it showed the long weary day the travellers had passed in journeying over the Blue Mountains. Among the passengers was a lady, accompanied by three children, who, leaving her luggage to be looked after by the servants, eagerly entered the hotel, and, proceeding to the office, enquired for Mr Melville. There was no visitor bearing that name staying at the hotel; and after pausing for a few minutes, as if in disappointment, the lady gave her name to the clerk as Mrs Melville, and requested that she should be called if anyone enquired for her, and was taken up-stairs with her children and shown to a room.

Three years had passed since we parted from Mrs Dillon at Dinan in Brittany, and though she was herself but little changed, her children showed the years that had passed over their heads. Elsie had grown a tall and graceful girl, fulfilling all the promise of beauty in her childhood, while the manner in which she busied herself in attending to her little brothers, removing their travel-stained clothing and generally putting them in a presentable state, relieving her mother of the trouble of them, showed her to be the same thoughtful considerate child she had always been.

Somewhat disappointed that she had not found her husband waiting to receive her, but consoling herself with the thought that she had arrived before the time he had expected her, and that a day or two could make no material difference now that she was so soon to rejoin him after their long and anxious separation, she was proceeding with her toilet for some time, when there was a knock at the door, and the servant entering handed her a letter, which, she said, had been in the office on her arrival, but which the clerk had neglected to give.

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When the door had closed behind the housemaid, Mrs Dillon, knowing on the instant from whom alone the letter could have come, bastily opened it. It had no signature, and was hurriedly written on a single leaf of note paper. ‘Am discovered; must fly; God help me. Go on to Manson.’ The paper dropped from her hand and she fell to the floor in a faint. Elsie was instantly at her side, and hushing her little brothers who had begun to cry, she proceeded to take such steps as were needed to revive her mother.

After a little, Mrs Dillon returned to consciousness, and was assisted by Elsie to the bed where, covering her face with her hands, she wept in the bitterness of her disappointment. She had had a presentiment that evil would come of her rejoining her husband, and now her worst fears had been realised. Elsie had picked up the letter and handed it to her mother, who, after again glancing at the brief but sorrowful message, handed it back to her child and gently told her to read it. For an instant, Elsie stood as if transfixed, then realising the whole position she threw her arms around her mother's neck and they mingled their tears in silence.

This sudden change in their prospects was the heaviest blow that had fallen on Mrs Dillon since the escape of her husband. Despite her fears of danger attending her coming to the colony, she had expected to meet him, and that buried away in the far bush they might be beyond the chance of recognition. Every hour's journey inland had been confirming this hope, and now at the very moment when she believed their separation to have reached a close, she had learned that the bloodhounds of the law were on his track, and that he was again a fugitive, she knew not whither. The brevity of the letter told her the imminence of the danger in which her husband felt himself to be, but there was nothing to indicate the direction of his flight, if, indeed he had even had the time to form any plans. ‘Am discovered; must fly; God help me. Go on to Manson.’

She had hardly noticed the last words before: ‘Go on to Manson.’ There was no likelihood that he would in circumstances such as those in which he was placed, himself direct his flight to Mr Manson's, but on a reperusal of the note she saw in these words a hint as to where he intended to communicate with her. Indeed apart from such instructions from her husband, she had been very desirous of going there after meeting with her husband, in consequence of the last letter which she had received from Mr Manson, and which had met her on her arrival in Sydney. In it he had urged her to come and see him as soon as she could after reaching the colony, although he added that he hardly expected that he would live to receive her. He had met with a very severe accident, having been thrown from his horse, and received internal injuries of such a nature that but little hopes were entertained by the doctors of his recovery. In these circumstances he urged her in the strongest terms to come to him as speedily as she could, as he had communications to make to her of very great importance. The letter in which the urgent request had been sent her was dated nearly a month before, and now that the instructions of the husband coincided with the request that she had been so anxious to fulfil, the prompt decision she was enabled to make in some degree relieved the anxiety of her position.

A few days sufficed to complete preparations. She obtained an American waggon, the owner of which was acquainted with the route, and everything being made snug for the trip, Mrs Dillon and her children started on the journey across country to the Murrum-bidgee district, in which Mr Manson's station, of Kurrajong, was situated. After ten days’ journeying through the bush they came to their last camping place, about ten miles distant from their destination. From some bushmen camped at the same place they had the first recent intelligence regarding Mr Manson. He was slowly sinking, if he was not already dead, having never rallied from the accident which he had met with. He was looked on as one of the wealthy men of the colony, his station being the finest on the river, and being very efficiently managed it had always been one of the most successful. Being unmarried, the dying man had no relations near him, and speculation was rife as to what was to become of his magnificent property. Making enquiry Mrs Dillon heard that Tom O'Shea was still with him, and that he occupied a position of much confidence and responsibility in connection with the station, and some even thought that as the dying man had no one to leave his property to, Tom was not unlikely to inherit it all. Nobody seemed to understand the relation existing between the proprietor of the station and the wild Irishman he had brought out with him from Home, but they had an idea, generally, that there was more in it than met the eye. Early in the afternoon of the following day, the waggon drove up to the station; and from the clusters of people hanging around it was evident that some one absorbing event engaged the attention of all. Mrs Dillon and her children had hardly alighted till Tom O'Shea made his appearance, and though subdued by the solemnity of the occasion, he gave a cordial greeting to his old mistress and her children.

‘Yes,’ he replied, to her enquiries after Manson, ‘the masther is just gwine away, peace be to his soul; but oh, Mistress, it's him has been longin’ to see you, and now page 47 I'm afeard he is too far gone to know you, at all at all. He has been asking me twenty times a day if you had come; and he has been ravin all the time about the old masther. He had heard that the ship had arrived, the Hampshire I think it was, and, oh, sure hasn't he been frettin' ever since to see you or the masther, But I'll go and tell him you are come, and see if he is well enough to see you.’

In a few minutes Tom returned and beckoned Mrs Dillon to follow him. Leaving the children standing without, Mrs Dillon entered the house and was led to the sick-room.

Two troopers or orderlies were in the passage leading to the door, and a gentleman, whom she afterwards found to be the police magistrate of the district, received her at the entrance, and conducted her to where the sick man lay.

Mrs Dillon was shocked at the change that had taken place since she last parted with Manson, and the hollow cheeks and awoken eyes and laboured breathing told her that he was not for this world. The medical man of the district and a couple of nurses were by the bedside, waiting as if for the closing scene. Tom O'Shea went forward and standing by the bedside said: ‘Masther, Mrs Dillon has come.’

The sick man feebly turned his head in the direction of the door, and, seeing Mrs Dillon, raised his hand a little off the bedclothes. She took his hand in hers; he raised his head, and his lips moved as if in an effort to speak. She bent over the dying man to catch his words, but, as if exhausted with the effort, his head dropped on the pillow, and he seemed to fall into unconsciousness.

As he continued in this state for some time, Mrs Dillon retired and being shown to a room with her children, she proceeded to put them in order after the journey, awaiting a summons to the sick chamber, whenever the dying man should be able to see her.

After an hour's waiting, Tom O'Shea came to her. ‘The poor masther is gone,’ said he, ‘and the Magistrate has sent me to ask you to see him immediately.’

Mrs Dillon at once returned to the death chamber.

‘Madam,’ said the magistrate, as she entered, ‘you are Mrs Dillon, I believe, and your husband is an innocent man.’

‘Sir!’ said Mrs Dillon, with agitation; ‘I do not quite understand you.’

‘Madam, your husband has been charged with murder. There,’ and he pointed to the dead man, ‘there is the murderer of Captain Lewis.’

‘Oh, sir,’ said Mrs Dillon as she wrung her hands, ‘tell me what is this you mean?’

‘What I mean to tell you, madam, is that this dead man, Thomas Manson, has before his death made deposition on oath to me that his hand it was that shot Captain Lewis; and that your husband, William, Dillon, whereever he is, though found guilty of the crime, had neither part nor knowledge of it.

‘Oh sir,’ cried Mrs Dillon, ‘are you speaking the truth to me, or are you only mocking at my misery? Oh sir, I have had years of unspeakable suffering; my husband has been flying like a wild beast before the hunters, even now he is fleeing for his life. I do not know where. Oh sir, do not mock me, do not trifle with me; are you speaking the truth that my husband is freed from the charge of murder?’

‘Madam, I am a gentleman and a soldier, and I do not mock at suffering. What I say is true, and you can read for yourself. There is the deposition on oath of Thomas Manson, signed by his own hand—perhaps you may know his handwriting—in which he acknowledges to the guilt of having slain and killed Captain Lewis, the agent of Lord Errington. Read for yourself.’

Mrs Dillon took up the document. Her head swam, and her eyes filled with tears; she could not read it but she saw the opening words, she saw the signature, and she knew the writing. She handed it back to the magistrate, and as she turned away she said, ‘May the Lord forgive him,’ and left the room.

In a few days advertisements were in all the principal papers of the colony addressed to William Dillon, alias William Melville, narrating the circumstances of the confession, and inviting him to report himself to the the Police Magistrate of the district whose name was appended to the advertisement; and within a week thereafter, a traveller dusty, weary and worn as after a long journey by forced marchas, cantered up to the homestead of the Kurrajoug station. His arrival was instantly announced, and in a few moments William Dillon and his wife were clasped in each other's arms, with their children clinging around them, all rejoicing together after the long night of separation and sorrow. But it was not as a mere wandering stranger that William Dillon was welcomed to the homestead, for, after the funeral of the late proprietor, his will had been read by the lawyers in the presence of the assembled people, bequeathing everything to William Dillon, and that night the heights around were all ablaze with bonfires, welcoming the arrival of the new owner of Kurrajong. The confession of Thomas Manson and details of the whole of the circumstances were brought under the attention of the Governor of the colony, and by succeeding mail a free pardon from the Crown was transmitted to Sydney for presentation to William Dillon; while any claim that might have been established for the forfeiture to the Crown of the murderer's property was waived in favour of the man who had suffered so long and so bitterly for another's crime.

* * *

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About a year after the incidents just narrated, a handsome travelling carriage with liveried servants drew up at the gate of what was once William Dillon's farm in the west of Ireland. From it descended a lady and gentleman accompanied by a fair girl with flaxen curls and two sturdy handsome boys. They walked slowly down the avenue, carefully noting everything as they passed. The little plantation was there, though the trees were taller, and beyond them was the blue lake, plaoidly sparkling in the sunlight, and still further away the grim moorland heights on which the evicted tenants had camped; and here were the ruins of the cottage still black and crumbling as on that night of sore distress when husband and wife had here said farewell.

They had been visiting all the seenes connected with the great trouble of years ago. They had passed and paused at the mile stone on Knockmore hill, where Mr Dillon had sat awaiting the coach, where he saw the flash of the gun in the distance that killed Captain Lewis. They had visited the Court-house and stood in the dock, and looked out of the window through which the prisoner had escaped. They had driven away up the road by which he ran; and here was the stone wall, and here had been the snow wreath in which he had been concealed; and there before them were the hills and valleys—then covered in snow, now bathed in summer sunshine—over which he had fled for dear life with the trooper in pursuit, on to those gloomy heights in the distance where he had come upon the miserable encampment of the evicted tenants.

They passed down that mountain road and Mr Dillon showed them the spot where for weeks he had lain in the shough under the wretched shelter-shed with Tom O'Shea and his mother.

And now last of all they had come to visit all that remained of their once dearly loved cottage home.

They showed the children where Elsie and her little brothers had been laid in a corner of the smoking ruins for shelter from the pitiless cold; where the father and mother had leant broken-hearted over them as they slept where mother clipped the curl from Elsie's hair, and father had taken it away with him to his wanderings.

The memories were very sad, and they turned away with chastened feelings. But the shadows had for ever passed from their path; the clouds had now rolled by, and the days of their mourning were ended.

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