The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 51

They told us all the news as we rode with them to the drays, where sat Mrs. Buckley,--a n.o.ble, happy matron, laughing at her son, as he toddled about busy gathering sticks for the fire. Beside her sat Mary, looking sad and worn, with her child on her lap, and poor old Miss Thornton, glancing uneasily round.

Mary sprang up, burst into hysterical weeping. I saw how his big heart yearned to comfort his old sweetheart in her distress, as he took the child of his rival to his bosom.

"Is n.o.body going to notice me or my boy, I wonder?" said Mrs. Buckley.

"Come here immediately, Mr. Stockbridge, before we quarrel."

Soon we were all restored to our equanimity, and laying plans for future meetings.

Next morning, with many hearty farewells, and having promised to spend Christmastide with them, I turned my horse homewards, and went my solitary way. Jim was going on with them to see them settled.

_IV.--Father and Son_

There is a long period of dull prosperity coming to our friends. Go on two years. See Baroona, the Buckley's place, now. That hut where we spent the pleasant Christmas-day is degraded into the kitchen, for a new house is built--a long, low house, with deep, cool verandas all round, already festooned with pa.s.sion flowers, and young grape-vines.

Mary and Miss Thornton had stayed with the Buckleys till good Cousin Tom had got a house ready for them--a charming house covered with creepers, and backed by huts, sheep-yards, and all the usual concomitants of a flouris.h.i.+ng Australian sheep-station. This is Toonarbin, where Mary Hawker is living with her son Charles as happy and uninteresting an existence as ever fell to the lot of a handsome woman yet. The old dark days seem like a bad dream. She had heard of her husband's re-conviction and life sentence--finally death, and George Hawker is as one who has never lived.

So sixteen years rolled peacefully away, until Tom Troubridge returned from a journey up country with news of a great gang of bushrangers being "out." He had actually sat hob-n.o.b with the captain in a public house, without knowing it. But his servant, William Lee, an ex-convict, knew him, and told them that the great Captain Tonan, with whose crimes the whole country was ringing, was George Hawker himself. Mary's terrible fear that father and son might meet made her ill and delirious for weeks; Tom and his trusty servant kept watch, then heard from a pa.s.sing cattle-dealer that the gang had been "utterly obliterated" by Captain Desborough, the chief of police--but the captain had escaped.

Things went on quietly for two months, and no one thought about bushrangers--but Mary, at her watch up at the lonely forest station-- till one morning Lee's body was found dead in his hut, with a pistol lying near with "G. Hawker" scratched upon it. A messenger was sent post haste to fetch Desborough and his troopers, who came, declared the country in a state of siege, and kept us all staying at Major Buckley's.

We were sitting merrily over our wine one day, when hasty steps came through the house. The bushrangers had attacked a station not far off, killed the owner, and were now riding towards Captain Brentford's, the major's nearest neighbour and old friend. Captain Desborough rose with deadly wrath in his face. The laughing Irishman was gone, and a stern, gloomy man stood in his place. But the villains had done their work of destruction before we reached Garoopm, and gone off to the mountains.

"We shall have them in the morning," said Desborough. "More particularly as they have in their drunken madness hampered themselves in the mountains."

We started before daybreak; each man of us armed with swords and pistols, and every man knew the use of his weapons well.

As we entered the mouth of the glen to which we were bound, one of the most beautiful gullies I have ever seen, I turned to the man beside me.

Conceive my horror at finding it was Charles Hawker! I said fiercely, "Get back, Charles! Go home! You don't know what you're doing, lad."

He defied me. I was speaking to him again when there came a puff of smoke from the rocks overhead, and down I went, head over heels. A bullet grazed my thigh, and killed my horse; so that during the fight that followed, I was sitting on a rock very sick and very stupid.

"They've set a watch," said Captain Desborough. "They'll fight us now; they can't help it, thank G.o.d!"

Then, under the beetling crags, the bushrangers turned like hunted wolves, and stood at bay. Now the fight became general and confused. All about among the ferns and flowers men fought, and fired, and cursed.

Shots were cracking on all sides, and two riderless horses were galloping about neighing.

Desborough fought neither against small nor great, but only against one man--George Hawker. Him he had sworn he would bring home, alive or dead.

He caught sight of his quarry, and instantly made towards him. As soon as Hawker saw he was recognised, he made to the left, trying to reach the only practicable way back to the mountains. They fired at one another without effect. As the ground got more open, Desborough was aware of one who came charging recklessly up alongside of him, and recognised Charley Hawker. He had had no hint of the relations.h.i.+p.

"Good lad," he said; "come on. I must have that fellow before us. He's the arch-devil of the lot. We must have him!"

"We'll have him safe enough!" said Charles. "Push to the left, captain, and we shall get him among these fallen rocks."

They pushed forwards, and soon succeeded in bringing him to bay. Alas, too well!

He reined up when he saw escape was impossible, and awaited their coming. Desborough's horse received a bullet in the chest, and down went horse and man together. But Charles pushed on till within ten yards of the bushranger, and levelled his pistol to fire.

For an instant father and son glared on one another as the father made his aim more deadly. The bullet sped, and the poor boy tumbled from his saddle, clutching wildly at the gra.s.s and flowers--shot through the chest. Then, ere Desborough had disentangled himself from his fallen horse, George Hawker rode off laughing--out through the upper rock walls into the presence of the broad snow-line that rolled above his head in endless lofty tiers, and made for the broader valley which stretched beyond.

There was no pursuit, he thought. How could there be? Who knew of this route but he and his mates? No creature was stirring, but he must onwards--onwards, across the snow. Twilight, and then night, and still the snow but half pa.s.sed. Strange ghosts and fancies crowd in upon him thick and fast.

Morning, and the pale ghosts have departed. He reached the gully where his refuge lay, utterly dispirited, just as the sun was setting. He turned a sharp angle round an abrupt cliff. He saw a horseman within ten yards of him--Captain Desborough, holding a pistol to his head! Hungry, cold, desperate, unarmed--his pistols had gone with his horse over a precipice--he threw up his arms, and was instantly chained fast to Desborough's saddle, only to be loosed, he knew, by the gallows.

Without a word on either side they began their terrible journey. They had gone two or three miles before Hawker said: "That young fellow I shot when you were after me, is he dead?"

"By this time," said Desborough. "He was dying as I came away."

"Would you mind stopping for a moment, captain? Now tell me who was he?"

"Mr. Charles Hawker, son of Mrs. Hawker, of Toonarbin."

Desborough told me his wild, despairing cry rang in his ears for years afterwards.

One wild, dreary day in spring, Major Buckley and I were admitted to the condemned cell in the gaol in Sydney. Before us was a kind of bed place.

On it lay a man with his face buried in the pillow. I advanced towards him, but the governor held me back.

"My G.o.d, sir," he said, "take care! Don't, as you value your life, go within length of his chain."

The handsome head was raised, and my eyes met George Hawker's. I could not see the fierce, desperate villain who had kept our country-side in terror so long; I could only see the handsome, curly-headed boy who used to play with James Stockbridge and myself in Drumston churchyard! And, seeing him, and him only, I sat down beside him, and put my arm round his neck.

I don't want to be instructed in my duty. My duty as a magistrate was to stand at the farther end of the cell, and give this hardened criminal a moral lecture. But I only hung there, with my arm round his neck, and said, "Oh, George, George!" like a fool.

He put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the face, and said, after a time, "What! Hamlyn? Old Jeff Hamlyn! Jeff, old boy, I'm to be hung to-morrow."

"I know it," I said. "And I came to ask if I could do anything for you."

"Anything you like, old Jeff," he said, with a laugh, "so long as you don't get me reprieved. I've murdered my own son, Jeff. Do you know that?"

I answered, "Yes, I know that, George; but you did not know who he was."

"He came at me to take my life," said Hawker. "And I tell you, if I had guessed who he was, I'd have blown my brains out to save him from the crime of killing me."

The major came forward, and held out his hand to George Hawker, and asked him to forgive him; he had been his enemy since they first met.

"Let me tell you, major, I feel more kind and hearty towards you and Hamlyn for coming to me like this than I've felt towards any man this twenty years. Time's up, I see. I ain't so much of a coward, am I, Jeff?

Good-bye, old lad, good-bye!"

That was the last we saw of him; the next morning he was executed with four of his comrades.

After all this, we old folks taking up our residence at Baroona had agreed to make common house of it. We were very dull at first, but I remember many pleasant evenings, when we played whist; and Mary Hawker, in her widow's weeds, sat sewing by the fireside contentedly enough.

But one evening next spring in stalked Tom Troubridge; and, in short, he took her off with him, and they were married. And I think I never saw a couple more sincerely attached than she and her husband.