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Chapter XVI.

‘Time's glass is filled with varied sand,
With fleeting joy and transient grief;
We'll turn, and with no sparing hand,
O'er many a strange fantastic leaf;
And fear not but, 'mid many a blot,
There are some pages written fair,
And flowers, that time can wither not
Preserved, still faintly fragrant there.’

Mr. Bailey rode away from the light into darkness again, and it was still dark when he arrived at the station. He found the gate, or rather his horse found it, and he managed to open it, though afterwards he was not very certain whether his invaluable steed had not done that also. He rode through and then halted, for an apparently insoluble problem had assailed his mind. How in the world was he to get down? getting up was as nothing to that. He saw at once he could not do it without assistance, and began to wonder whether he would have to sit on horseback all night, holding another man before him. He might have called Angus, whose sleeping-room he had ridden past; but he objected to being seen, and also questioned, by any of the men.

‘I should have to explain everything to them, page 246 and I've no mind to do so,’ he thought. There was no one to whom he could turn in this strait but Mary Anne, and his experience of Mary Anne reminded him that, like all hard-working women, she slept very soundly. ‘I shall have to smash the window to wake her, and if I do that I shall have Angus out too,’ he reflected,—‘stand then, stand still, my beauty,’—this to his horse, who was beginning to tire of Mr. Bailey and his extraordinary burden.

Seeing that Mary Anne must be aroused at any cost, Mr. Bailey rode his horse close to the window of the room occupied by his wife, and putting his face close to the glass cooied as loudly as he dared. As this did no good he thumped on the side of the house, and immediately Mrs. Bailey demanded, ‘Who are you?’ and also opened the window, being pretty sure who it was.

‘So you're here at last, Sam,’ she said. ‘Where-ever on earth have you been? I sent Angus to look for you; we were getting quite concerned.’

‘No time to talk now, my dear,’ said Mr. Bailey; ‘tell you all afterwards. I'm in a pretty fix here. I want you to help me down.’

‘Help you down!’ said Mrs. Bailey, her voice getting shrill. ‘Why, you've been out then in all this storm, and you're half dead with cramp or rheumatism. I'll call Angus in a minute.’

‘I say, just leave Angus alone,’ commanded Mr. Bailey. ‘I'm all right, but I've got some one here who can no more stand on his feet than a baby.’

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‘Gracious! whatever have you been doing? I'll be out in a minute.’

‘I don't think you need come out,’ said Mr. Bailey, after a moment's thought. ‘Just push up the window as far as it will go, and wheel the sofa underneath; then I'll manage to let him down on it.’

‘Well, did ever one see the like of this!’ exclaimed Mrs. Bailey, as directly the window was opened Mr. Bailey began to push through it something more like a mummy than a living man, only it was swathed in more clothes than ever mummy wore.

‘Let it alone till I've put the horse out,’ commanded Mr. Bailey; get a light and a bed ready in one of the rooms, for he'll want some nursing, I promise you.’

He came in himself by the window, to save further trouble, and then the invalid who had so strangely arrived was carried into another room, and laid in a clean comfortable bed. His eyes were closed, and he hardly seemed to breathe. ‘Who is he?’ said Mrs. Bailey, looking at him with motherly compassion, as she put a soft pillow under his head.

‘I know no more than you do,’ said Mr. Bailey, exhausted with yawns, ‘and I really can't say or do any more till I get some rest.’ And saying this, he dropped into an arm-chair as he was, booted and spurred, and immediately fell into a sleep that lasted till the next day's sun was several degrees above the horizon.

Mrs. Bailey woke him then, or perhaps he might page 248 have slept out the twelve hours. ‘Come and get your breakfast,’ she said. The poor woman was dying of curiosity.

‘That I will!’ said Mr. Bailey. ‘I've had neither bite nor drop since yesterday morning.’

While he had breakfast Mr. Bailey related his adventures, to the great wonder and admiration of Mrs. Bailey. He was a hero in her eyes; and for his part, he, who had always esteemed his Mary Anne as a woman of superior understanding, thought more highly of her mental gifts than ever, when she manufactured a theory from what he had told her which accounted for it all.

They gave all their thoughts to nursing their invalid into health and strength. It was long before they could see any improvement in his state. He was so deplorably weak that the good people almost cried over him at times, and more than once believed he was dying. He was a wearying charge; night and day they waited on him, administering food in such homœpathic doses as he could take, watching and tending incessantly. He slept, or appeared to sleep, most of the time, until it seemed as if he would never awake. Mr. Bailey mourned over this as a sign that he was drifting away from their care. Mrs. Bailey was more acute; she prophesied that he would awake soon with a clear mind.

But one day Mrs. Bailey made a great discovery, and hurriedly sought her husband, with a mysterious look upon her face.

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‘Guess now,’ she cried, ‘who we have here.’

‘Has he told you his name?’ questioned Mr. Bailey.

‘No, I've been thinking for days I knew his face, and now I tell you, I don't care whether he's been drowned or buried or both; it's either Mr. Randall or his double.’

‘Bless me! I believe you're right,’ exclaimed Mr. Bailey, rushing to the bedside, whence he was immediately pulled back again.

‘Don't wake him. You may see the reason of it all now, Bailey. Don't you remember hearing that Mr. Randall had been left a fortune, and that Mr. Godfrey Palmer—horrid man!—was the next heir?’

‘But, Mary Anne!’ cried Mr. Bailey, ‘if this is Mr. Randall, why, then, Mr. Langridge knew it and kept it to himself. That's why he was so shaken when he came back from seeing him, and that's why he left money behind and charged me so particular to look after him. Well, well, we're amongst queer folk, I think.’

‘I'm ashamed of you,’ said Mrs. Bailey, who was partial to Stephen. ‘Why should he hush it up? He was no wiser than you were.’

‘I don't know about that. He was strange, I thought at the time; and why has he gone off for nothing at all, if it wasn't to follow Miss Desmond about?’

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Mrs. Bailey, refusing to be convinced. ‘He wouldn't page 250 think of such a thing. At least not so soon,’ she added.

A day or two after this their patient began to speak to them in a strangely feeble voice, and to ask where he was, and what had happened to him. At first they would not encourage him to talk, and put him off as if he had been a child, but when he had grown a little stronger he insisted, with the irritability of most invalids, on being attended to.

‘I am sure I know you,’ he said, after his eyes had languidly rested on the round pleasant face that was opposite to him, when Mrs. Bailey drew up the blind, and let the sunshine he had not seen for weeks come into the room; ‘I believe you are Mrs. Bailey.’

‘I believe you are right,’ she answered, smiling at him.

‘This is not your house,’ he said, looking round the large room, and as his eye wandered to the window, seeing outside a flat grass paddock that seemed to have no end.

‘This is Mr. Langridge's. We keep the place for him.’

‘Langridge?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, don't you remember young Mr. Langridge? He has this place of his own, and you've been here since you were taken ill.’

‘How did I get here? What has been the matter with me?’ he asked, curiously examining his attenuated fingers.

‘Well, I don't know exactly,’ said Mrs. Bailey.

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‘You don't want to tell me.’

‘I think you're not well enough to talk much.’

‘I feel quite well,’ he said, lifting himself a little, and immediately dropping back again in a manner that belied his words. ‘How long have I been ill?’

‘Oh, ever since’—she had intended to say ‘ever since the wreck,’ but stopped, not liking to remind him of that so soon.

‘Ever since what?’ he insisted.

‘Oh, dear, never mind,’ said Mrs. Bailey.

‘Is that the day of the month?’ he asked next, tossing on his pillow, and trying to get a sight of the newspaper Mrs. Bailey held in her hand. ‘Why, it was March when I was in Melbourne, and I remember nothing since—yes, I remember being on the steamer.’

He was silent for some time, and Mrs. Bailey, not caring to leave him alone for very long, brought her sewing, and opened the window so that the sweet fresh air wafted through the room. Suddenly Randall spoke, with astonishing firmness and clearness of voice compared with his previous efforts.

‘Bring me some paper, if you please, Mrs. Bailey, and pen and ink. I will write a letter.’

‘Deary me, Mr. Randall,’ said his nurse, ‘wait a bit. I'm sure you're not fit to bother yourself with writing.’

‘I shall get them myself some time, if you don't,’ he said, ‘if I can only crawl for them.’

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‘Let me write for you,’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘I sent word to your mother yesterday.’

‘No, I'll write it myself,’ obstinately said the invalid, ‘then they will know I am quite well.’

‘Quite well!’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘However, you shall just try, Mr. Randall.’

She brought writing materials, and then he tried to sit up and scrawl some kind of a letter. But the pen wriggled about in his hand as if it had life, and though it left traces of its progress on the paper they were more like some secret cypher than plain letters of the alphabet. Or when, by extraordinary care and firmness of will, he did make a letter, it was such a feeble, broken-backed thing, and with its comrades had such a strong tendency to run into one corner of the paper, or to hook itself on to some unmeaning blot or long trailing scribble, that he himself did not know when he had done with a word or when he should begin another. ‘There!’ he said, worn out before two sentences were finished. ‘I can't! Take it away; you're right; I'm not fit for it or anything else.’

Mr. Bailey came to sit with him in the afternoon. His wife, who knew him to be more indulgent than prudent in his nursing, cautioned him not to allow Randall to talk much, nor to tell him anything that was likely to disturb his mind. Mr. Bailey was of the opinion that the best way of putting off undesirable questions, or preventing Randall from exhausting himself with conversation, was to do all the talking page 253 himself. He caught at the first question with avidity, it being a harmless one.

‘I can't make out why you and Mrs. Bailey are here by yourselves,’ Randall said. ‘Where are all the children? It is very quiet.’

‘If ours were here you'd hear them soon enough,’ said Mr. Bailey. ‘Yes, we are by ourselves; we're “without encumbrance,” as they say in advertisements.’

‘But what have you done with them?’

‘Well, we haven't massacred the innocents,’ said Mr. Bailey; ‘they're all alive yet; but you'll remember how hard put to it we was to bring them up. It seems to be this way; those who have most children have least to give them. My brother, now, who is pretty comfortable, has none, and has always cast an envious eye on ours. I believe he'd have taken the whole seven if he could have got them. We were regularly starved. You know what kind of a place ours was; we couldn't have ploughed it, unless we'd first cut down the gully sides and torn out the stumps with steam-engines. We was blocked up with timber. Things got worse and worse, till that year you went away I dreaded the winter coming on. I don't know whether there really is less money about in winter than in summer; but it's a fact that one season is twice as hard as the other to pull through. I got desponding, and began to dream of money night after night; of enormous fortunes, and gold-mines, and millionhairs, and such- page 254 like. I'd got into my old Mammon-worshipping state of mind, and nothing but money would suit me. Well, one day I borrowed the paper, and as I read it through—for in the bush, you know, we read every bit of a newspaper—I came to the column of Wanteds. “Now,” I thought, “here's a power of people wanted, men, women, and children, does no one want us?” So I lit upon one which began, “Wanted, a man and his wife without encumbrance.” The man was to have experience of station work and the woman was to keep house. “I'll back Mary Anne against the colony for house management,” I thought, “and haven't I spent a number of years on a sheep station before I was married?” Mr. Langridge, who advertised, knew me so well I felt sure of getting it if I asked. But without encumbrance—there was the rub!’

‘I should think so,’ said Randall.

‘But I cast my eye on the Wanteds again, and I saw all the way down such as this:—“Wanted, a smart active boy,” or, “Wanted, a respectable girl.” “Well,” I said, “why not ours? I can testify they're smart and active, and respectable too, as they ought to be, with their bringing up. They'll have to work somewhere; they'd better work for themselves than all hang on with me to a barren hillside, and hack at logs that would tire out a giant.” I told my thoughts to Mary Anne; and, as is the way of women, she made a great outcry, mostly because it was a new idea. She didn't like to “scatter,” she page 255 said. “When you've no money to scatter,” I said, “you'd better scatter in search of it.” Then she made much of leaving the children. Of course that stuck in my throat bad enough; but I'd convinced myself it was for their good as well as ours. “We can trust our children anywhere,” I said, “and as for the two who are not old enough to take care of themselves, there's my brother, he's been bothering us ever since they were babies, to give them to him; he may have them now, while we can look round ourselves. Show me another way,” said I, “to get a hundred a year clear, and keep the children, and I'll go in for it.” I brought her round to my way of thinking at last; and we'd no difficulty in dividing ourselves among the people who wanted helps. My brother was glad enough to take our youngest; so there, you see, we were: no encumbrance at all. It was hard on us, though, and it seemed queer for an old married couple to start off by themselves and look after a place, as if they'd never had chick nor child. You should have heard old Mr. Langridge roar with laughter when we said we were without encumbrance. But he engaged us though, and sent us here with Mr. Stephen. Now, Mr. Randall, just look at the results. We've all of us—children as well as ourselves—money out at interest. Mary Anne and I save nearly all we get; for we've only our clothes to provide, and one doesn't want many, whatever fine ladies may think. Perhaps a year or two more will make us able to come together again; for one page 256 wearies for one's boys and girls. We'll get a farm somewhere that's level, I hope, and has more soil than timber on it. I don't know, though, whether my brother won't keep those children we lent him altogether; for he's always harping on it, and it won't be like losing them after all. Yes; we've got on well, and we ought to be thankful. I know I'm glad we're here for one thing, to take care of you just now.’

‘Bailey,’ said Mrs. Bailey, coming into the room, ‘how you do talk! I've heard nothing but clatter, clatter. Much rest you give Mr. Randall. Somebody's coming; you had better see who it is.’

Bailey went to the door, and could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Mr. Godfrey Palmer, graceful and self-possessed as ever.

‘My good Bailey, how are you?’ was his greeting.

Mr. Bailey was blind to the seductive attractions of the slim white hand which was offered to him. He came out, shut the door, and stood with his back against it.

‘Your hospitality is somewhat cold,’ said Godfrey Palmer, with a slight smile.

‘I like to keep out vermin,’ said Mr. Bailey. ‘If there's anything to be said, let's say it in the field, where maybe the fresh air will neutralise the poison you have about you.’

‘All right. You are sarcastic: the reason why, I cannot tell. I only came to ask after that interesting person, Mr. Bailey. I heard a strange report that page 257 he had got into your charge, by some means, and I felt as if I should like to be certain of its truth, and to know whether he were recovering. I am still riveted to this spot by the bonds of friendship.’

‘Oh, you want to know if he's recovering, do you?’ said Mr. Bailey. ‘Very kind of you, very kind indeed, Mr. Palmer.

‘Well, is there anything surprising in that?’ asked Mr. Godfrey Palmer, who did not know what to make of Mr. Bailey's manner.

‘Perhaps not, seeing as it comes from you,’ answered Mr. Bailey. ‘Nothing would surprise me from that quarter. You'll be glad to hear he's doing well, now that he's out of the sphere of your friendship.’

‘You're rather obfuscated, aren't you, Mr. Bailey? or I must be very dull. I can't understand your dark sayings.’

‘I'll make something clear to you. Look here; I won't have you prowling about the place. You have the impudence to come and ask after the health of a man who would be buried now if you'd had your way.’

‘What has got into the poor fellow's brain?’ queried Mr. Palmer, with a comical expression on his face. ‘Strong beer, whiskey, or what? You are wandering, Mr. Bailey. You are an enigma to me.’

‘I don't know what an enigma is, Mr. Palmer; but I know what I am now; I'm master here while my master's away, and if you don't leave of your own page 258 accord, two of our men will turn you off the place. The bonds of friendship may be pretty strong, but I guess they'll have to give way in such a case.’

‘So you're master here, Bailey,’ said Mr. Godfrey Palmer mockingly. ‘Verily, it looks like it. You're dressed in a little brief authority, so you're putting on airs. Perhaps your master won't be pleased when he finds whom you've smuggled into his house. He mayn't quite approve of your success in the body-snatching business, though it was cleverly done, Bailey—very.’

Mr. Bailey was one of the mildest and meekest of men. Bad-tempered he could not be; angry he had seldom been, except with wrong-doing, and things that were hateful and mean. As a boy, he had disdained to fight with other boys; as a man, he would rather have seen his hand fall helpless at his side than have laid it unkindly on a fellow-creature. But now, suddenly his face darkened, his fist clenched, his right arm was extended, and simultaneously Mr. Godfrey Palmer plunged madly backwards, and sank among the tussocks.

Mr. Bailey stood speechless for a moment, amazed at what he had done. It had only seemed a little tap, yet here was a man bigger than himself in-gloriously overthrown, his hat crushed beneath him, and his feet some inches higher than his head. ‘Are you hurt?’ he said, actually feeling a little frightened.

‘Oh, dear, no!’ said Mr. Godfrey Palmer, whose complexion, however had a somewhat sickly hue. page 259 ‘Not at all.’ He rose, and shook the broken grass stalks and leaves from his coat. ‘Your friendship is oppressive, Mr. Bailey.’

‘Take care it doesn't oppress you again,’ retorted Mr. Bailey, whose mild blue eyes glittered yet with unwonted fire. ‘Are you going, or are you not? D'ye see the high road there? If you're not on it in ten minutes, I'll have you carried, but you shall go.’

‘I'm almost inclined to wait to be carried,’ said Mr. Godfrey Palmer, furbishing up his hat, ‘I feel so bruised and battered.’ But he did not wait; he prudently withdrew before the expiration of the ten minutes. ‘Farewell, kind Bailey,’ he cried; ‘though your hand has been heavy upon me I respect your principles.’

Mr. Bailey drew a long breath of relief, and hastened to tell Mrs. Bailey of the little engagement. He was much elated with his victory.

‘You should have seen him go down all in a heap, Mary Anne,’ he chuckled; ‘and when he was down he looked so common and mean and contemptible, I almost felt ashamed of having touched him. Ha! I'd like to tell Mr. Randall of our scrimmage.’

‘If you do you'll be very foolish; you'll have to tell him all then. Better not disturb his mind with such things. He oughtn't to know them, or be reminded of what he's forgotten, till he's stronger.’

‘Then I mustn't be with him much,’ said Mr. Bailey, ‘for he's getting very particular in his page 260 questionings. He'll have the whole lot from me as soon as he begins to ask how he came here and what's happened since.’

‘You're not obliged to tell him everything he wants to know,’ returned Mrs. Bailey. She judiciously satisfied Randall's desire to know all that had taken place during his illness by telling him a part.

At last the weary time was near its end. He was so far recovered that his nurses thought he might venture to leave his room. They dressed him in some of Stephen's clothes (Bailey's, from their shortness, being altogether out of the question), and leaning on an arm of each, and almost surprised to find that he could walk, he was led into the sitting-room. Just as they had brought him to the haven of an arm-chair Bailey, who had directed an idle glance towards the window, gave an exclamation of joy. ‘Well, here's a sight I'm right glad of! Mary Anne, here's the master.’

‘And not before time,’ said his wife, as, leaving Randall, both hurried to receive Stephen.

There was a cloud upon his brow, he looked wearied and anxious, and, though he spoke with his usual kindness, there was that in his manner which did not encourage them to ask why he had tarried so long.

Somewhat to their surprise his first question was about the invalid who, when he left home, had been in the Doctor's charge.

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‘Is he there yet?’ he asked, with an eager anxiety which the others could not understand.

‘Oh, no, sir,’ said Bailey; ‘he's——’

‘What?’ interrupted Stephen, faltering over his words in a strange way. ‘You don't mean——surely he is not——’ He seemed unable to finish the sentence.

‘Dead, sir?’ said Bailey, supplying the blank. ‘I'm thankful to say he's likely to live as long as most of us. He's here in your house; that's what I meant to say.’

Stephen gave some indistinct ejaculation, apparently one of thankfulness. ‘I am very glad,’ he said.

‘And who do you think he's turned out to be?’ cried Mrs. Bailey.

‘How can I guess?’ said Stephen, with an uneasy laugh.

‘My word, you'll be astonished,’ said Mr. Bailey.

But he was so little astonished at the news that Mrs. Bailey began to be suspicious; it looked very much as if he had known it before.

‘Just like you two good souls,’ he said. ‘You did right to bring him here. I ought to have done it myself.’

Mrs. Bailey looked at him with innocent wonder, and he could not help changing colour, which did not tend to allay her rising suspicions.

‘I expect Mrs. Randall never got my letter,’ she said, ‘or you would have known all this before. She page 262 has never answered me. I thought she might be coming instead of writing.’

‘Mrs. Randall—how should I know about your letter?’ replied Stephen. ‘I suppose you addressed it to Mr. Wishart's, and none of the family are at home: I don't know where they are now, but I don't think they've gone home yet.’

‘Oh, I beg pardon, sir,’ said Mrs. Bailey, seeing he was annoyed by her remark. ‘I thought you had been with them.’

‘No, not lately,’ said Stephen, colouring still deeper at the thought that his servants had discerned his folly. ‘You and Bailey have been very good to nurse him so well,’ he added, still thinking of Randall.

‘Why, dear me, sir, what else could we do?’ said Mrs. Bailey, more puzzled than ever by his manner. ‘Any one would have done the same.’

‘Some one didn't,’ said Stephen, half to himself.

‘Would you like to see him?’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘He's sitting up to-day.’

‘Oh, no, no; not now,’ Stephen answered hurriedly, and went out.

‘He knew then,’ was the reflection of his house-keeper. ‘Oh, the deceitfulness of men in things like this! And never told them!’

No, he had never got so far as that during the time he had spent with his friends in Dunedin. Though he had soon repented of his fault, he had never had the moral courage to acknowledge it. Sometimes the sight of the mourning which Maud page 263 and Mrs. Randall wore, or sometimes a word in remembrance of the one whom they believed to be dead (for they could bear to speak of him now) had touched him so that he was enraged with himself because he could not tell them what would have turned their mourning into joy. But every day made this more difficult, until it became well-nigh impossible. What! tell her he had deceived her for the meanest, most selfish purpose, and then, as a necessary consequence, lose her esteem for ever? Now at least he had her friendship; but if she knew how little he deserved it what would he be in her eyes? It came to this at last—he was so uncomfortable in her company and Mrs. Randall's—continually reproached by their friendliness and unsuspecting confidence—that voluntarily he tore himself away from the happiness he had schemed for. Mr. Wishart pressed him to accompany them on their journey; they were going to several places before returning home. It was the very thing Stephen had desired; but he would not allow himself to have it. ‘No, I won't practise falsehood any longer,’ he thought; so excusing himself, he stayed behind in Dunedin. It was some time before he could make up his mind to go home. He was afraid of the man whom he had left lying ill in his shepherd's hut; afraid to look him in the face if he should be alive; and much more afraid to find him dead. Oh, surely he had not wished that; never, never! If that had happened, could he ever forgive page 264 himself? could he ever be certain that, removed to a more comfortable place, with every possible attention, and with the tender care of those whose heart would be in his recovery, the sick man whom he had ridden away from, ignored as a stranger and left to his fate, might not have been saved? He no longer wanted him out of the way; no, it was his wish that he might live.

He came home determined to do what was right, which meant in this case doing all in his power for his invalid guest. There was nothing he would not do to ensure his recovery or win his friendship. And though he had set himself a hard task, to be friendly to a man whom he had never liked, in the end he was surprised into some kind of regard for him. But they were only learning to know each other when Randall began to get better in good earnest and was impatient to go away. He had been hidden too long; it was high time those who still wore mourning for him should know that he had not died. The letters which had been sent must have failed to reach them while they were absent from home travelling about, and now it was of no use to write; a letter would not find them any sooner than himself; nor would he startle them with a telegram. He would go and tell them he was alive.

So one morning he said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Bailey. These old and tried friends, who had nursed him so devotedly, were almost ashamed page 265 of being thanked. ‘It was not much to speak of,’ Mr. Bailey diffidently said. ‘It is so much I shall remember it all my life,’ Randall answered, as he shook hands with them. There were tears in their eyes. Good people! however far he might wander he would never find kinder hearts than theirs.

Stephen drove him to the railway station, thirty miles away, because it had been determined that he would travel more comfortably in the buggy than in the lumbering and crowded coach. He did not leave him at the station either. As he had gone down with Maud and Mrs. Randall to Dunedin, with all kinds of foolish hopes and unreal visions in his mind, so he went down with Randall, as the last kindness he could show him. He could not help feeling a little saddened, as he returned to his lonely desolate place; and as our way is, when things have gone as we would not have them, sketched out a long vista of years before him, all alike in their monotonous solitude, and none brighter than the gloomy present. He came home; how quiet it seemed, how far from the rest of the world! Again he sat alone at his meals as of old, with a book propped up before him, and only his dog's meek brown eyes resting upon him. But a dog is faithful if he is nothing more, and faithfulness is the better part of friendship.