diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-0.txt | 11906 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 216744 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-8.txt | 11906 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 216687 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 221609 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710-h/36710-h.htm | 12052 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710.txt | 11906 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36710.zip | bin | 0 -> 216652 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
11 files changed, 47786 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36710-0.txt b/36710-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce1ba01 --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11906 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Black Opal + + +Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard + + + +Release Date: July 12, 2011 [eBook #36710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +E-text prepared by Amy Sisson & Marc D'Hooghe +(http://www.freeliterature.org) + + + +THE BLACK OPAL + +by + +KATHARINE SUSANNAH PRICHARD + +Author of "The Pioneers," "Windlestraws," Etc. + + + + + + + +London: William Heinemann +1921 + + + + +_PART I_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road +over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains. + +Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, +clear blue sky of early spring, except this train of shabby, +dust-covered vehicles. The road, no more than a track of wheels on +shingly earth, wound lazily through paper daisies growing in drifts +beside it, and throwing a white coverlet to the dim, circling horizon. +The faint, dry fragrance of paper daisies was in the air; a native +cuckoo calling. + +The little girl sitting beside Michael Brady in Newton's buggy glanced +behind her now and then. Michael was driving the old black horse from +the coach stables and Newton's bay mare, and Sophie and her father were +sitting beside him on the front seat. In the open back of the buggy +behind them lay a long box with wreaths and bunches of paper daisies and +budda blossoms over it. + +Sophie knew all the people on the road, and to whom the horses and +buggies they had borrowed belonged. Jun Johnson and Charley Heathfield +were riding together in the Afghan storekeeper's sulky with his fat +white pony before them. Anwah Kaked and Mrs. Kaked had the store cart +themselves. Watty and Mrs. Frost were on the coach. Ed. Ventry was +driving them and had put up the second seat for George and Mrs. Woods +and Maggie Grant. Peter Newton and Cash Wilson followed in Newton's +newly varnished black sulky. Sam Nancarrow had given Martha M'Cready a +lift, and Pony-Fence Inglewood was driving Mrs. Archie and Mrs. Ted +Cross in Robb's old heavy buggy, with the shaggy draught mare used for +carting water in the township during the summer, in the shafts. The +Flails' home-made jinker, whose body was painted a dull yellow, came +last of the vehicles on the road. Sophie could just see Arthur Henty and +two or three stockmen from Warria riding through a thin haze of red +dust. But she knew men were walking two abreast behind the vehicles and +horsemen--Bill Grant, Archie and Ted Cross, and a score of miners from +the Three Mile and the Punti rush. At a curve of the road she had seen +Snow-Shoes and Potch straggling along behind the others, the old man +stooping to pick wild flowers by the roadside, and Potch plodding on, +looking straight in front of him. + +Buggies, horses, and people, they had come all the way from her home at +the Old Town. Almost everybody who lived on Fallen Star Ridge was there, +driving, riding, or walking on the road across the plains behind +Michael, her father, and herself. It was all so strange to Sophie; she +felt so strange in the black dress she had on and which Mrs. Grant had +cut down from one of her own. There was a black ribbon on her old yellow +straw hat too, and she had on a pair of black cotton gloves. + +Sophie could not believe her mother was what they called "dead"; that it +was her mother in the box with flowers on just behind her. They had +walked along this very road, singing and gathering wild flowers, and had +waited to watch the sun set, or the moon rise, so often. + +She glanced at her father. He was sitting beside her, a piece of black +stuff on his arm and a strip of the same material round his old felt +hat. The tears poured down his cheeks, and he shook out the large, new, +white handkerchief he had bought at Chassy Robb's store that morning, +and blew his nose every few minutes. He spoke sometimes to Michael; but +Michael did not seem to hear him. Michael sat staring ahead, his face as +though cut in wood. + +Sophie remembered Michael had been with her when Mrs. Grant said.... Her +mind went back over that. + +"She's dead, Michael," Mrs. Grant had said. + +And she had leaned against the window beside her mother's bed, crying. +Michael was on his knees by the bed. Sophie had thought Michael looked +so funny, kneeling like that, with his head in his hands, his great +heavy boots jutting up from the floor. The light, coming in through the +window near the head of the bed, shone on the nails in the soles of his +boots. It was so strange to see these two people whom she knew quite +well, and whom she had only seen doing quite ordinary, everyday things, +behaving like this. Sophie had gazed at her mother who seemed to be +sleeping. Then Mrs. Grant had come to her, her face working, tears +streaming down her cheeks. She had taken her hand and they had gone out +of the room together. Sophie could not remember what Mrs. Grant had said +to her then.... After a little while Mrs. Grant had gone back to the +room where her mother was, and Sophie went out to the lean-to where +Potch was milking the goats. + +She told him what Mrs. Grant had said about her mother, and he stopped +milking. They had gazed at each other with inquiry and bewilderment in +their eyes; then Potch turned his face away as he sat on the +milking-stool, and Sophie knew he was crying. She wondered why other +people had cried so much and she had not cried at all. + +When Potch was taking the bucket of milk across the yard, her father had +come round the corner of the house. His heavy figure with its broad, +stooping shoulders was outlined against the twilight sky. He made for +the door, shouting incoherently. Sophie and Potch stood still as they +saw him. + +Catching sight of them, he had turned and come towards them. + +"We're on opal," he cried; "on opal!" + +There was a feverish light in his eyes; he was trembling with +excitement. + +He had pulled a small, washed oatmeal bag from his pocket, untied the +string, tumbled some stones on to the outstretched palm of his hand, and +held them for Potch to look at. + +"Not a bad bit in the lot.... Look at the fire, there in the black +potch!... And there's green and gold for you. A lovely bit of pattern! +And look at this ... and this!" he cried eagerly, going over the two or +three small knobbies in his hand. + +Potch looked at him dazedly. + +"Didn't they tell you--?" he began. + +Her father had closed his hands over the stones and opal dirt. + +"I'm going in now," he said, thrusting the opals into the bag. + +He had gone towards the house again, shouting: "We're on opal! On opal!" + +Sophie followed him indoors. Mrs. Grant had met her father on the +threshold of the room where her mother was. + +"Why didn't you come when I sent for you?" she asked. + +"I didn't think it could be as bad as you made out--that she was really +dying," Sophie could hear her father saying again. "And we'd just struck +opal, me and Jun, struck it rich. Got two or three stones already--great +stuff, lovely pattern, green and orange, and fire all through the black +potch. And there's more of it! Heaps more where it came from, Jun says. +We're next Watty and George Woods--and no end of good stuff's come out +of that claim." + +Mrs. Grant stared at him as Potch had done. Then she stood back from the +doorway of the room behind her. + +Every gesture of her father's, of Mrs. Grant's, and of Michael's, was +photographed on Sophie's brain. She could see that room again--the quiet +figure on the bed, light golden-brown hair, threaded with silver, lying +in thin plaits beside the face of yellow ivory; bare, thin arms and +hands lying over grey blankets and a counter-pane of faded red twill; +the window still framing a square of twilight sky on which stars were +glittering. Mrs. Grant had brought a candle and put it on the box near +the bed, and the candle light had flared on Mrs. Grant's figure, showing +it, gaunt and accusing, against the shadows of the room. It had showed +Sophie her father, also, between Michael and Mrs. Grant, looking from +one to the other of them, and to the still figure on the bed, with a +dazed, penitent expression.... + +The horses jogged slowly on the long, winding road. Sophie was conscious +of the sunshine, warm and bright, over the plains, the fragrance of +paper daisies in the air; the cuckoos calling in the distance. Her +father snuffled and wiped his eyes and nose with his new handkerchief as +he sat beside her. + +"She was so good, Michael," he said, "too good for this world." + +Michael did not reply. + +"Too good for this world!" Paul murmured again. + +He had said that at least a score of times this morning. Sophie had +heard him say it to people down at the house before they started. She +had never heard him talk of her mother like that before. She looked at +him, sensing vaguely, and resenting the banality. She thought of him as +he had always been with her mother and with her, querulous and +complaining, or noisy and rough when he had been drinking. They had +spent the night in a shed at the back of the house sometimes when he was +like that.... + +And her mother had said: + +"You'll take care of Sophie, Michael?" + +Sophie remembered how she had stood in the doorway of her mother's room, +that afternoon--How long ago was it? Not only a day surely? She had +stood there until her mother had seen her, awed without knowing why, +reluctant to move, afraid almost. Michael had nodded without speaking. + +"As though she were your own child?" + +"So help me, God," Michael said. + +Her-mother's eyes had rested on Michael's face. She had smiled at him. +Sophie did not think she had ever seen her smile like that before, +although her smile had always been like a light on her face. + +"Don't let him take her away," her mother had said after a moment. "I +want her to grow up in this place ... in the quiet ... never to know the +treacherous ... whirlpool ... of life beyond the Ridge." + +Then her mother had seen and called to her. + +Sophie glanced back at the slowly-moving train of vehicles. They had a +dreary, dream-like aspect. She felt as if she were moving in a dream. +Everything she saw, and heard, and did, was invested with unreality; she +had a vague, unfeeling curiosity about everything. + +"You see, Michael," her father was saying when she heard him talking +again, "we'd just got out that big bit when Potch came and said that +Marya ... that Marya.... I couldn't believe it was true ... and there +was the opal! And when I got home in the evening she was gone. My poor +Marya! And I'd brought some of the stones to show her." + +He broke down and wept. "Do you think she knows about the opal, +Michael?" + +Michael did not reply. Sophie looked up at him. The pain of his face, a +sudden passionate grieving that wrung it, translated to her what this +dying of her mother meant. She huddled against Michael; in all her +trouble and bewilderment there seemed nothing to do but to keep close to +Michael. + +And so they came to the gate of a fenced plot which was like a quiet +garden on the plains. Several young coolebahs, and two or three older +trees standing in it, scattered light shade; and a few head-stones and +wooden crosses, painted white or bleached by the weather, showed above +the waving grass and wild flowers. + +Sophie held the reins when Michael got down to open the gate. Then he +took his seat again and they drove in through the gateway. Other people +tied their horses and buggies to the fence outside. + +When all the people who had been driving, riding, or walking on the road +went towards an old coolebah under which the earth had been thrown up +and a grave had been dug, Michael told Sophie to go with her father and +stand beside them. She did so, and dull, grieving eyes were turned to +her; glances of pitiful sympathy. But Snow-Shoes came towards the little +crowd beside the tree, singing. + +He was the last person to come into the cemetery, and everybody stared +at him. An old man in worn white moleskins and cotton shirt, an old +white felt hat on his head, the wrappings of bag and leather, which gave +him his name, on his feet--although snow never fell on the Ridge--he +swung towards them. The flowers he had gathered as he came along, not +otilypaper daisies, but the blue flowers of crowsfoot, gold buttons, and +creamy and lavender, sweet-scented budda blossoms, were done up in a +tight little bunch in his hand. He drew nearer still singing under his +breath, and Sophie realised he was going over and over the fragment of a +song that her mother had loved and used often to sing herself. + +There was a curious smile in his eyes as he came to a standstill beside +her. The leaves of the coolebah were bronze and gold in the sunshine, a +white-tail in its branches reiterating plaintively: "Sweet pretty +creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael, George Woods, Archie Cross, +and Cash Wilson, came towards the tree, their shoulders bowed beneath +the burden they were carrying; but Snow-Shoes smiled at everybody as +though this were really a joyous occasion, and they did not understand. +Only he understood, and smiled because of his secret knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +In a week or two Mrs. Rouminof's name had dropped out of Ridge life +almost as if she had never been part of it. + +At first people talked of her, of Paul, of Sophie, and of Michael. They +gossiped of her looks and manner, of her strange air of serenity and +content, although her life on the Ridge was, they surmised, a hard one, +and different from the life she had come from. But her death caused no +more disturbance than a stone thrown into quiet water, falling to the +bottom, does. No one was surprised, when it was known Paul and Sophie +had gone to live with Michael. Everyone expected Michael would try to +look after them for a while, although they could not imagine where he +was going to find room for them in his small house filled with books. + +It was natural enough that Michael should have taken charge of Sophie +and Rouminof, and that he should have made all arrangements for Mrs. +Rouminof's funeral. If it had been left to Paul to bury his wife, people +agreed, she would not have been buried at all; or, at least, not until +the community insisted. And Michael would have done as much for any +shiftless man. He was next-of-kin to all lonely and helpless men and +women on the Ridge, Michael Brady. + +Every man, woman, or child on the Ridge knew Michael. His lean figure in +shabby blue dungarees, faded shirt, and weathered felt hat, with no more +than a few threads of its band left, was as familiar as any tree, shed, +or dump on the fields. He walked with a slight stoop, a pipe in his +mouth always, his head bent as though he were thinking hard; but there +was no hard thought in his eyes, only meditativeness, and a faint smile +if he were stopped and spoken to unexpectedly. + +"You're a regular 'cyclopædia, Michael," the men said sometimes when he, +had given information on a subject they were discussing. + +"Not me," Michael would reply as often as not. "I just came across that +in a book I was reading the other day." + +Ridge folk were proud of Michael's books, and strangers who saw his +miscellaneous collection--mostly of cheap editions, old school books, +and shilling, sixpenny, and penny publications of literary masterpieces, +poetry, and works on industrial and religious subjects--did not wonder +that it impressed Ridge folk, or that Michael's knowledge of the world +and affairs was what it was. He had tracts, leaflets, and small books on +almost every subject under the sun. Books were regarded as his Weakness, +and, remembering it, some of the men, when they had struck opal and left +the town, occasionally sent a box of any old books they happened to come +across to Michael, knowing that a printed page was a printed page to him +in the long evenings when he lay on the sofa under his window. Michael +himself had spent all the money he could, after satisfying the needs of +his everyday life, on those tracts, pamphlets, and cheap books he +hoarded in his hut on shelves made from wooden boxes and old +fruit-cases. + +But there was nothing of the schoolmaster about him. He rarely gave +information unless he was asked for it. The men appreciated that, +although they were proud of his erudition and books. They knew dimly but +surely that Michael used his books for, not against, themselves; and he +was attached to books and learning, chiefly for what they could do for +them, his mates. In all community discussions his opinion carried +considerable weight. A matter was often talked over with more or less +heat, differences of opinion thrashed out while Michael smoked and +listened, weighing the arguments. He rarely spoke until his view was +asked for. Then in a couple of minutes he would straighten out the +subject of controversy, show what was to be said for and against a +proposition, sum up, and give his conclusions, for or against it. + +Michael Brady, however, was much more the general utility man than +encyclopædia of Fallen Star Ridge. If a traveller--swagman--died on the +road, it was Michael who saw he got a decent burial; Michael who was +sent for if a man had his head smashed in a brawl, or a wife died +unexpectedly. He was the court of final appeal in quarrels and +disagreements between mates; and once when Martha M'Cready was away in +Sydney, he had even brought a baby into the world. He was something of a +dentist, too, honorary dentist to anyone on the Ridge who wanted a tooth +pulled out; and the friend of any man, woman, or child in distress. + +And he did things so quietly, so much as a matter of course, that people +did not notice what he did for them, or for the rest of the Ridge. They +took it for granted he liked doing what he did; that he liked helping +them. It was his sympathy, the sense of his oneness with all their +lives, and his shy, whimsical humour and innate refusal to be anything +more than they were, despite his books and the wisdom with which they +were quite willing to credit him, that gained for Michael the regard of +the people of the Ridge, and made him the unconscious power he was in +the community. + +Of about middle height, and sparely built, Michael was forty-five, or +thereabouts, when Mrs. Rouminof died. He looked older, yet had the +vigour and energy of a much younger man. Crowsfeet had gathered at the +corners of his eyes, and there were the fines beneath them which all +back-country men have from screwing their sight against the brilliant +sunshine of the north-west. But the white of his eyes was as clear as +the shell of a bird's egg, the irises grey, flecked with hazel and +green, luminous, and ringed with fine black lines. When he pushed back +his hat, half a dozen lines from frowning against the glare were on his +forehead too. His thin, black hair, streaked with grey, lay flat across +and close to his head. He had a well-shaped nose and the sensitive +nostrils of a thoroughbred, although Michael himself said he was no +breed to speak of, but plain Australian--and proud of it. His father was +born in the country, and so was his mother. His father had been a +teemster, and his mother a storekeeper's daughter. Michael had wandered +from one mining field to another in his young days. He had worked in +Bendigo and Gippsland; later in Silver Town; and from the Barrier Ranges +had migrated to Chalk Cliffs, and from the Cliffs to Fallen Star Ridge. +He had been one of the first comers to the Ridge when opal was +discovered there. + +The Rouminofs had been on Chalk Cliffs too, and had come to the Ridge in +the early days of the rush. Paul had set up at the Cliffs as an opal +buyer, it was said; but he knew very little about opal. Anybody could +sell him a stone for twice as much as it was worth, and he could never +get a price from other buyers for the stones he bought. He soon lost any +money he possessed, and had drifted and swung with the careless life of +the place. He had worked as a gouger for a while when the blocks were +bought up. Then when the rush to the Ridge started, and most of the men +tramped north to try their luck on the new fields, he went with them; +and Mrs. Rouminof and Sophie followed a little later on Ed. Ventry's +bullock wagon, when Ed. was taking stores to the rush. + +Mrs. Rouminof had lived in a hut at the Old Town even after the township +was moved to the eastern slope of the Ridge. She had learnt a good deal +about opal on the Cliffs, and soon after she came to the Ridge set up a +cutting-wheel, and started cutting and polishing stones. Several of the +men brought her their stones, and after a while she was so good at her +work that she often added a couple of pounds to the value of a stone. +She kept a few goats too, to assure a means of livelihood when there was +no opal about, and she sold goats' milk and butter in the township. She +had never depended on Rouminof to earn a living, which was just as well, +Fallen Star folk agreed, since, as long as they had known him, he had +never done so. For a long time he had drifted between the mines and +Newton's, cadging drinks or borrowing money from anybody who would lend +to him. Sometimes he did odd jobs at Newton's or the mail stables for +the price of a few drinks; but no man who knew him would take up a +claim, or try working a mine with him. + +His first mate on the Ridge had been Pony-Fence Inglewood. They sank a +hole on a likely spot behind the Old Town; but Paul soon got tired of +it. When they had not seen anything but bony potch for a while, Paul +made up his mind there was nothing in the place. Pony-Fence rather liked +it. He was for working a little longer, but to oblige his mate he agreed +to sink again. Soon after they had started, Paul began to appear at the +dump when the morning was half through, or not at all. Or, as often as +not, when he did decide to sling a pick, or dig a bit, he groaned so +about the pains in his back or his head that as often as not Pony-Fence +told him to go home and get the missus to give him something for it. + +The mildest man on the fields, Pony-Fence Inglewood did not discover for +some time what the boys said was correct. There was nothing the matter +with Rum-Enough but a dislike of shifting mullock if he could get anyone +to shift it for him. When he did discover he was doing the work of the +firm, Pony-Fence and Paul had it out with each other, and parted +company. Pony-Fence took a new mate, Bully Bryant, a youngster from +Budda, who was anxious to put any amount of elbow grease into his search +for a fortune, and Paul drifted. He had several mates afterwards, +newcomers to the fields, who wanted someone to work with them, but they +were all of the same opinion about him. + +"Tell Rum-Enough there's a bit of colour about, and he'll work like a +chow," they said; "but if y' don't see anything for a day or two, he +goes as flat as the day before yesterday." + +If he had been working, and happened on a knobby, or a bit of black +potch with a light or two in it, Paul was like a child, crazy with +happiness. He could talk of nothing else. He thought of nothing else. He +slung his pick and shovelled dirt as long as you would let him, with a +devouring impatience, in a frenzy of eagerness. The smallest piece of +stone with no more than sun-flash was sufficient to put him in a state +of frantic excitement. + +Strangers to the Ridge sometimes wanted to know whether Rouminof had +ever had a touch of the sun. But Ridge folk knew he was not mad. He had +the opal fever all right, they said, but he was not mad. + +When Jun Johnson blew along at the end of one summer and could not get +anyone to work with him, he took Paul on. The two chummed up and started +to sink a hole together, and the men made bets as to the chance of their +ever getting ten or a dozen feet below ground; but before long they were +astounded to see the old saw of setting a thief to catch a thief working +true in this instance. If anybody was loafing on the new claim, it was +not Rouminof. He did every bit of his share of the first day's hard pick +work and shovelling. If anybody was slacking, it was Jun rather than +Paul. Jun kept his mate's nose to the grindstone, and worked more +successfully with him than anyone else had ever done. He knew it, too, +and was proud of his achievement. Joking over it at Newton's in the +evening, he would say: + +"Great mate I've got now! Work? Never saw a chow work like him! Work his +fingers to the bone, he would, if I'd let him. It's a great life, a +gouger's, if only you've got the right sort of mate!" + +Ordinarily, of course, mates shared their finds. There was no question +of what partners would get out of the luck of one or the other. But +Jun--he had his own little way of doing business, everybody knew. He had +been on the Ridge before. He and his mate did not have any sensational +luck, but they had saved up two or three packets of opal and taken them +down to Sydney to sell. Old Bill Olsen was his mate then, and, although +Bill had said nothing of the business, the men guessed there had been +something shady about it. Jun had his own story of what happened. He +said the old chap had "got on his ear" in Sydney, and that "a couple of +spielers had rooked him of his stones." But Bill no longer noticed Jun +if they passed each other on the same track on the Ridge, and Jun +pretended to be sore about it. + +"It's dirt," he said, "the old boy treating me as if I had anything to +do with his bad luck losin' those stones!" + +"Why don't you speak to him about it?" somebody asked. + +"Oh, we had it out in Sydney," Jun replied, "and it's no good raking the +whole thing up again. Begones is bygones--that's my motto. But if any +man wants to have a grudge against me, well, let him. It's a free +country. That's all I've got to say. Besides, the poor old cuss isn't +all there, perhaps." + +"Don't you fret," Michael had said, "he's all right. He's got as much +there as you or me, or any of us for that matter." + +"Oh well, you know, Michael," Jun declared. He was not going to quarrel +with Michael Brady. "What you say goes, anyhow!" + +That was how Jun established himself anywhere. He had an easy, +plausible, good-natured way. All the men laughed and drank with him and +gave him grudging admiration, notwithstanding the threads and shreds of +resentments and distrusts which old stories of his dealings, even with +mates, had put in their minds. None of those stories had been proved +against him, his friends said, Charley Heathfield among them. That was a +fact. But there were too many of them to be good for any man's soul, +Ridge men, who took Jun with a grain of salt, thought--Michael Brady, +George Woods, Archie Cross, and Watty Frost among them; but Charley +Heathfield, Michael's mate, had struck up a friendship with Jun since +his return to the Ridge. + +George Woods and the Crosses said it was a case of birds of a feather, +but they did not say that to Michael. They knew Michael had the sort of +affection for Charley that a man has for a dog he has saved from +drowning. + +Charley Heathfield had been down on his luck when he went to the Ridge, +his wife and a small boy with him; and the rush which he had expected to +bring him a couple of hundred pounds' worth of opal at least, if it did +not make his fortune, had left him worse off than it found him--a piece +of debris in its wake. He and Rouminof had put down a shaft together, +and as neither of them, after the first few weeks, did any more work +than they could help, and were drunk or quarrelling half of their time, +nothing came of their efforts. + +Charley, when his wife died, was ill himself, and living in a hut a few +yards from Michael's. She had been a waitress in a city restaurant, and +he had married her, he said, because she could carry ten dishes of hot +soup on one arm and four trays on the other. A tall, stolid, pale-faced +woman, she had hated the back-country and her husband's sense of humour, +and had fretted herself to death rather than endure them. Charley had no +particular opinion of himself or of her. He called his youngster +Potch--"a little bit of Potch," he said, because the kid would never be +anything better than poor opal at the best of times. + +Michael had nursed Charley while he was ill during that winter, and had +taken him in hand when he was well enough to get about again. Charley +was supposed to have weak lungs; but better food, steady habits, and the +fine, dry air of a mild summer set him up wonderfully. Snow-Shoes had +worked with Michael for a long time; he said that he was getting too old +for the everyday toil of the mine, though, when Michael talked of taking +on Charley to work with them. It would suit him all right if Michael +found another mate. Michael and Charley Heathfield had worked together +ever since, and Snow-Shoes had made his living as far as anybody knew by +noodling on the dumps. + +But Charley and Michael had not come on a glimmer of opal worth speaking +of for nearly twelve months. They were hanging on to their claim, hoping +each day they would strike something good. There is a superstition among +the miners that luck often changes when it seems at its worst. Both +Charley and Michael had storekeeper's accounts as long as their arms, +and the men knew if their luck did not change soon, one or the other of +them would have to go over to Warria, or to one of the other stations, +and earn enough money there to keep the other going on the claim. + +They had no doubt it would be Michael who would have to go. Charley was +not fond of work, and would be able to loaf away his time very +pleasantly on the mine, making only a pretence of doing anything, until +Michael returned. They wondered why Michael did not go and get a move +into his affairs at once. Paul and Sophie might have-something to do +with his putting off going, they told each other; Michael was anxious +how Paul and his luck would fare when it was a question of squaring up +with Jun, and as to how the squaring up, when it came, would affect +Sophie. + +Some of them had been concerning themselves on Paul's account also. They +did not like a good deal they had seen of the way Jun was using Paul, +and they had resolved to see he got fair play when it was time for a +settlement of his and Jun's account. George Woods, Watty Frost, and Bill +Grant went along to talk the matter over with Michael one evening, and +found him fixing a shed at the back of the hut which he and Potch had +put up for Sophie and her father, a few yards from Charley Heathfield's, +and in line with Michael's own hut at the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"Paul says he's going away if he gets a good thing out of his and Jun's +find," George Woods said. + +"It'll be a good thing--if he gets a fair deal," Michael replied. + +"He'll get that--if we can fix it," Watty Frost said. + +"Yes," Michael agreed. + +"Can't think why you're taking so much trouble with this place if Paul +and Sophie are going away soon, Michael," George Woods remarked at the +end of their talk. + +"They're not gone yet," Michael said, and went on fastening a sapling +across the brushwood he had laid over the roof of the shed. + +The men laughed. They knew Paul well enough to realise that there was no +betting on what he would or would not do. They understood Michael did +not approve of his plans for Sophie. Nobody did. But what was to be +done? If Paul had the money and got the notion into his head that it +would be a good thing to go away, Sophie and he would probably go away. +But the money would not last, people thought; then Sophie and her father +would come back to the Ridge again, or Michael would go to look for +them. Being set adrift on the world with no one to look after her would +be hard on Sophie, it was agreed, but nobody saw how Rouminof was to be +prevented from taking her away if he wanted to. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The unwritten law of the Ridge was that mates pooled all the opal they +found and shared equally, so that all Jun held was Rouminof's, and all +that he held was Jun's. Ordinarily one man kept the lot, and as Jun was +the better dealer and master spirit, it was natural enough he should +hold the stones, or, at any rate, the best of them. But Rouminof was +like a child with opal. He wanted some of the stones to handle, polish +up a bit, and show round. Jun humoured him a good deal. He gave Paul a +packet of the stuff they had won to carry round himself. He was better +tempered and more easy-going with Rouminof, the men admitted, than most +of them would have been; but they could not believe Jun was going to +deal squarely by him. + +Jun and his mate seemed on the best of terms. Paul followed him about +like a dog, referring to him, quoting him, and taking his word for +everything. And Jun was openly genial with Paul, and talked of the times +they were going to have when they went down to Sydney together to sell +their opal. + +Paul was never tired of showing his stones, and almost every night at +Newton's he spread them out on a table, looked them over, and held them +up to admiration. It was good stuff, but the men who had seen Jun's +package knew that he had kept the best stones. + +For a couple of weeks after they had come on their nest of knobbies, Jun +and Paul had gouged and shovelled dirt enthusiastically; but the wisp +fires, mysteriously and suddenly as they had come, had died out of the +stone they moved. Paul searched frantically. He and Jun worked like +bullocks; but the luck which had flashed on them was withdrawn. Although +they broke new tunnels, went through tons of opal dirt with their hands, +and tracked every trace of black potch through a reef of cement stone in +the mine, not a spark of blue or green light had they seen for over a +week. That was the way of black opal, everybody knew, and knew, too, +that the men who had been on a good patch of fired stone would not work +on a claim, shovelling dirt, long after it disappeared. They would be +off down to Sydney, if no buyer was due to visit the fields, eager to +make the most of the good time their luck and the opal would bring them. +"Opal only brings you bad luck when you don't get enough of it," Ridge +folk say. + +George and Watty had a notion Jun would not stick to the claim much +longer, when they arranged the night at Newton's to settle his and +Paul's account with each other. Michael, the Crosses, Cash Wilson, +Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Bully Bryant, old Bill Olsen, and most +of the staunch Ridge men were in the bar, Charley Heathfield drinking +with Jun, when George Woods strolled over to the table where Rouminof +was showing Sam Nancarrow his stones. Sam was blacksmith, undertaker, +and electoral registrar in Fallen Star, and occasionally did odd +butchering jobs when there was no butcher in the township. He had the +reputation, too, of being one of the best judges of black opal on the +fields. + +Paul was holding up a good-looking knobby so that red, green, and gold +lights glittered through its shining potch as he moved it. + +"That's a nice bit of stone you've got, Rummy!" George exclaimed. + +Paul agreed. "But you should see her by candle light, George!" he said +eagerly. + +He held up the stone again so that it caught the light of a lamp hanging +over the bar where Peter Newton was standing. The eyes of two or three +of the men followed the stone as Paul moved it, and its internal fires +broke in showers of sparks. + +"Look, look!" Paul cried, "now she's showin'!" + +"How much have you got on her?" Sam Nancarrow asked. + +"Jun thinks she'll bring £50 or £60 at least." + +Sam's and George Woods' eyes met: £50 was a liberal estimate of the +stone's value. If Paul got £10 or £15 for it he would be doing well, +they knew. + +"They're nice stones, aren't they?" Paul demanded, sorting over the +opals he had spread out on the table. He held up a piece of green potch +with a sun-flash through it. + +"My oath!" George Woods exclaimed. + +"But where's the big beaut.?" Archie Cross asked, looking over the +stones with George. + +"Oh, Jun's got her," Paul replied. "Jun!" he called, "the boys want to +see the big stone." + +"Right!" Jun swung across to the table. Several of the men by the bar +followed him. "She's all right," he said. + +He sat down, pulled a shabby leather wallet from his pocket, opened it, +and took out a roll of dirty flannel; he undid the flannel carefully, +and spread the stones on the table. There were several pieces of opal in +the packet. The men, who had seen them before separately, uttered soft +oaths of admiration and surprise when they saw all the opals together. +Two knobbies were as big as almonds, and looked like black almonds, +fossilised, with red fire glinting through their green and gold; a large +flat stone had stars of red, green, amethyst, blue and gold shifting +over and melting into each other; and several smaller stones, all good +stuff, showed smouldering fire in depths of green and blue and gold-lit +darkness. + +Jun held the biggest of the opals at arm's length from the light of the +hanging lamp. The men followed his movement, the light washing their +faces as it did the stone. + +"There she goes!" Paul breathed. + +"What have you got on her?" + +"A hundred pounds, or thereabouts." + +"You'll get it easy!" + +Jun put the stone down. He took up another, a smaller piece of opal, of +even finer quality. The stars were strewn over and over each other in +its limpid black pool. + +"Nice pattern," he said. + +"Yes," Watty Frost murmured. + +"She's not as big as the other ... but better pattern," Archie Cross +said. + +"Reckon you'll get £100 for her too, Jun?" + +"Yup!" Jun put down the stone. + +Then he held up each stone in turn, and the men gave it the same level, +appraising glance. There was no envy in their admiration. In every man's +eyes was the same worshipful appreciation of black opal. + +Jun was drunk with his luck. His luck, as much as Newton's beer, was in +his head this night. He had shown his stones before, but never like +this, the strength of his luck. + +"How much do you think there is in your packet, Jun?" Archie Cross +asked. + +Jun stretched his legs under the table. + +"A thou' if there's a penny." + +Archie whistled. + +"And how much do you reckon there is in Rum-Enough's?" George Woods put +the question. + +"Four or five hundred," Jun said; "but we're evens, of course." + +He leaned across the table and winked at George. + +"Oh, I say," Archie protested, "what's the game?" + +They knew Jun wanted them to believe he was joking, humouring Paul. But +that was not what they had arranged this party for. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones, Jun?" + +"What?" + +Jun started and stared about him. It was so unusual for one man to +suggest to another what he ought to do, or that there was anything like +bad faith in his dealings with his mates, that his blood rose. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones?" George repeated, +mildly eyeing him over the bowl of his pipe. + +"Yes," Watty butted in, "Rummy ought to hold a few of the good stones, +Jun. Y' see, you might be run into by rats ... or get knocked out--and +have them shook off you, like Oily did down in Sydney--and it'd be hard +on Rummy, that--" + +"When I want your advice about how me and my mate's going to work +things, I'll ask you," Jun snarled. + +"We don't mind giving it before we're asked, Jun," Watty explained +amiably. + +Archie Cross leaned across the table. "How about giving Paul a couple of +those bits of decent pattern--if you stick to the big stone?" he said. + +"What's the game?" Jun demanded, sitting up angrily. His hand went over +his stones. + +"Wait on, Jun!" Michael said. "We're not thieves here. You don't have to +grab y'r stones." + +Jun looked about him. He saw that men of the Ridge, in the bar, were all +standing round the table. Only Peter Newton was left beside the bar, +although Charley Heathfield, on the outer edge of the crowd, regarded +him with a smile of faint sympathy and cynicism. Paul leaned over the +table before him, and looked from Jun to the men who had fallen in round +the table, a dazed expression broadening on his face. + +"What the hell's the matter?" Jun cried, starting to his feet. "What are +you chaps after? Can't I manage me own affairs and me mate's?" + +The crowd moved a little, closer to him. There was no chance of making a +break for it. + +George Woods laughed. + +"Course you can't, Jun!" he said. "Not on the Ridge, you can't manage +your affairs and your mate's ... your way ... Not without a little +helpful advice from the rest of us.... Sit down!" + +Jun glanced about him again; then, realising the intention on every +face, and something of the purpose at the back of it, he sat down again. + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I see--you believe old Olsen's +story. That's about the strength of it. Never thought ... a kid, or a +chicken, 'd believe that bloody yarn. Well, what's the advice ... boys? +Let's have it, and be done with it!" + +"We'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. We won't say anything about ... +why," George remarked. "But the boys and I was just thinking it might be +as well if you and Rum-Enough sort of shared up the goods now, and then +... if he doesn't want to go to Sydney same time as you, Jun, he can +deal his goods here, or when he does go." + +No one knew better than Jun the insult which all this seemingly +good-natured talking covered. He knew that neither he, nor any other +man, would have dared to suggest that Watty, or George, or Michael, were +not to be trusted to deal for their mates, to the death even. But then +he knew, too, they were to be trusted; that there was not money enough +in the world to buy their loyalty to each other and to their mates, and +that he could measure their suspicion of his good faith by his knowledge +of himself. To play their game as they would have played it was the only +thing for him to do, he recognised. + +"Right!" he said, "I'm more than willing. In fact, I wouldn't have the +thing on me mind--seein' the way you chaps 've taken it. But 'd like to +know which one of you wouldn't 've done what I've done if Rum-Enough was +your mate?" + +Every man was uneasily conscious that Jun was right. Any one of them, if +he had Paul for a mate, would have taken charge of the most valuable +stones, in Paul's interest as well as his own. At the same time, every +man felt pretty sure the thing was a horse of another colour where Jun +was concerned. + +"Which one of us," George Woods inquired, "if a mate'd been set on by a +spieler in Sydney, would've let him stump his way to Brinarra and foot +it out here ... like you let old Olsen?" + +Jun's expression changed; his features blenched, then a flame of blood +rushed over his face. + +"It's a lie," he yelled. "He cleared out--I never saw him afterwards!" + +"Oh well," George said, "we'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. Let's have a +look at that flat stone." + +Jun handed him the stone. + +George held it to the light. + +"Nice bit of opal," he said, letting the light play over it a moment, +then passed it on to Michael and Watty. + +"You keep the big stone, and Paul'll have this," Archie Cross said. + +He put the stone beside Paul's' little heap of gems. + +Jun sat back in his chair: his eyes smouldering as the men went over his +opals, appraising and allotting each one, putting some before Rouminof, +and some back before him. They dealt as judicially with the stones as +though they were a jury of experts, on the case--as they really were. +When their decisions were made, Jun had still rather the better of the +stones, although the division had been as nearly fair as possible. + +Paul was too dazed and amazed to speak. He glanced dubiously from his +stones to Jun, who rolled his opals back in the strip of dirty flannel, +folded it into his leather wallet, and dropped that into his coat +pocket. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. + +Big and swarthy, with eyes which took a deeper colour from the new blue +shirt he had on, Jun stood an inch or so above the other men. + +"Well," he said, "you boys have put it across me to-night. You've made a +mistake ... but I'm not one to bear malice. You done right if you +thought I wasn't going to deal square by Rum-Enough ... but I'll lay you +any money you like I'd 've made more money for him by selling his stones +than he'll make himself--Still, that's your business ... if you want it +that way. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm just where I was--in luck. +And you chaps owe me something.... Come and have a drink." + +Most of the men, who believed Jun was behaving with better grace than +they had expected him to, moved off to have a drink with him. They were +less sure than they had been earlier in the evening that they had done +Rouminof a good turn by giving him possession of his share of the opals. +It was just on the cards, they realised as Jun said, that instead of +doing Rouminof a good turn, if Jun had been going to deal squarely by +him, they had done him a rather bad one. Paul was pretty certain to make +a mess of trading his own stones, and to get about half their value from +an opal-buyer if he insisted on taking them down to Sydney to sell +himself. + +"What'll you do now your fortune's fixed up, Rummy?" George Woods asked, +jokingly, when he and two or three men were left with Paul by the table. + +"I'll get out of this," Paul said. "We'll go down to Sydney--me and +Sophie--and we'll say good-bye to the Ridge for good." + +The men laughed. It was the old song of an outsider who cared nothing +for the life of the Ridge, when he got a couple of hundred pounds' worth +of opal. He thought he was made for life and would never come back to +the Ridge; but he always did when his money was spent. Only Michael, +standing a little behind George Woods, did not smile. + +"But you can't live for ever on three or four hundred quid," Watty Frost +said. + +"No," Paul replied eagerly, "but I can always make a bit playing at +dances, and Sophie's going to be a singer. You wait till people hear her +sing.... Her mother was a singer. She had a beautiful voice. When it +went we came here.... But Sophie can sing as well as her mother. And +she's young. She ought to make a name for herself." + +He wrapped the stones before him in a piece of wadding, touching them +reverently, and folded them into the tin cigarette box Michael had given +him to carry about the first stones Jun had let him have. He was still +mystified over the business of the evening, and why the boys had made +Jun give him the other stones. He had been quite satisfied for Jun to +hold most of the stones, and the best ones, as any man on the Ridge +would be for his mate to take care of their common property. There was a +newspaper lying on the table. He took it, wrapped it carefully about his +precious box, tied a piece of strong string round it, and let the box +down carefully into the big, loose pocket of his shabby coat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Watty and George were well satisfied with their night's work when they +went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said +nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as they were at +what had been done and the way in which it had been done. Michael was +always chary of words, and all night they had noticed that what they +called his "considering cap" had been well drawn over his brows. He +stood smoking beside them and listening abstractedly to what they were +saying. + +"Well, that's fixed him," Watty remarked, glancing back into the room +they had just left. + +Jun was leaning over the bar talking to Newton, the light from the lamp +above, on his red, handsome face, and cutting the bulk of his head and +shoulders from the gloom of the room and the rest of the men about him. +Peter Newton was serving drinks, and Jun laughing and joking +boisterously as he handed them on to the men. + +"He's a clever devil!" George exclaimed. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +"Shouldn't wonder if he didn't clear out by the coach to-morrow," George +said. + +"Nor me," Watty grunted. + +"Well, he won't be taking Paul with him." + +"Not to-morrow." + +"No." + +"But Rummy's going down to town soon as he can get, he says." + +"Yes." + +"Say, Michael, why don't you try scarin' him about losing his stones +like Bill Olsen did?" + +"I have." + +"What does he say?" + +"Says," Michael smiled, "the sharks won't get any of his money or opal." + +Watty snuffed contemptuously by way of exclamation. + +"Well, I'll be getting along," Michael added, and talked away in the +direction of his hut. + +George and Watty watched his spare figure sway down the road between the +rows of huts which formed the Fallen Star township. It was a misty +moonlight night, and the huts stood dark against the sheening screen of +sky, with here and there a glow of light through open doorways, or +small, square window panes. + +"It's on Michael's mind, Rum-Enough's going and taking Sophie with him," +George, said. + +"I don't wonder," Watty replied. "He'll come a cropper, sure as eggs.... +And what's to become of her? Michael 'd go to town with them if he had a +bean--but he hasn't. He's stony, I know." + +Even to his mate he did not say why he knew, and George did not ask, +understanding Watty's silence. It was not very long since George himself +had given Michael a couple of pounds; but he had a very good idea +Michael had little to do with the use of that money. He guessed that he +would have less to do with whatever he got from Watty. + +"Charley's going over to Warria to-morrow, isn't he?" he asked. + +Watty grunted. "About time he did something. Michael's been grafting for +him for a couple of years ... and he'd have gone to the station +himself--only he didn't want to go away till he knew what Paul was going +to do. Been trying pretty hard to persuade him to leave Sophie--till +he's fixed up down town--but you wouldn't believe how obstinate the +idiot is. Thinks he can make a singer of her in no time ... then she'll +keep her old dad till kingdom come." + +Michael's figure was lost to sight between the trees which encroached on +the track beyond the town. Jun was singing in the hotel. His great +rollicking voice came to George and Watty with shouts of laughter. +George, looking back through the open door, saw Rouminof had joined the +crowd round the bar. + +He was drinking as George's glance fell on him. + +"Think he's all right?" Watty asked. + +George did not reply. + +"You don't suppose Jun 'd try to take the stones off of him, do you, +George?" Watty inquired again. "You don't think----?" + +"I don't suppose he'd dare, seein' we've ... let him know how we feel." + +George spoke slowly, as if he were not quite sure of what he was saying. + +"He knows his hide'd suffer if he tried." + +"That's right." + +Archie Cross came from the bar and joined them. + +"He's trying to make up to the boys--he likes people to think he's +Christmas, Jun," he said, "and he just wants 'em to forget that +anything's been said--detrimental to his character like." + +George was inclined to agree with Archie. They went to the form against +the wall of the hotel and sat there smoking for a while; then all three +got up to go home. + +"You don't think we ought to see Rummy home?" Watty inquired +hesitatingly. + +He was ashamed to suggest that Rouminof, drunk, and with four or five +hundred pounds' worth of opal in his pockets, was not as safe as if his +pockets were empty. But Jun had brought a curious unrest into the +community. Watty, or Archie, or George, themselves would have walked +about with the same stuff in their pockets without ever thinking anybody +might try to put a finger on it. + +None of the three looked at each other as they thought over the +proposition. Then Archie spoke: + +"I told Ted," he murmured apologetically, "to keep an eye on Rummy, as +he's coming home. If there's rats about, you never can tell what may +happen. We ain't discovered yet who put it over on Rummy and Jun on the +day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. So I just worded Ted to keep an eye on +the old fool. He comes our track most of the way ... And if he's tight, +he might start sheddin' his stones out along the road--you never can +tell." + +George Woods laughed. The big, genial soul of the man looked out of his +eyes. + +"That's true," he said heartily. + +Archie and he smiled into each other's eyes. They understood very well +what lay behind Archie's words; They could not bring themselves to admit +there was any danger to the sacred principle of Ridge life, that a mate +stands by a mate, in letting Rouminof wander home by himself. He might +be in danger if there were rats about; they would admit that. But rats, +the men who sneaked into other men's mines when they were on good stuff, +and took out their opal during the night, were never Ridge men. They +were new-comers, outsiders, strangers on the rushes, who had not learnt +or assimilated Ridge ideas. + +After a few minutes George turned away. "Well, good-night, Archie," he +said. + +Watty moved after him. + +"'Night!" Archie replied. + +George and Watty went along the road together, and Archie walked off in +the direction Michael had taken. + +But Michael had not gone home. When the trees screened him from sight, +he had struck out across the Ridge, then, turning back on his tracks +behind the town, had made towards the Warria road. He walked, thinking +hard, without noticing where he was going, his mind full of Paul, of +Sophie, and of his promise. + +Now that Paul had his opal, it was clear he would be able to do as he +wished--leave the Ridge and take Sophie with him. For the time being at +least he was out of Jun Johnson's hands--but Michael was sure he would +not stay out of them if he went to Sydney. How to prevent his +going--how, rather, to prevent Sophie going with him---that was +Michael's problem. He did not know what he was going to do. + +He had asked Sophie not to go with her father. He had told her what her +mother had said, and tried to explain to her why her mother had not +wanted her to go away from the Ridge, or to become a public singer. But +Sophie was as excited about her future as her father was. It was natural +she should be, Michael assured himself. She was young, and had heard +wonderful stories of Sydney and the world beyond the Ridge. Sydney was +like the town in a fairy tale to her. + +It was not to be expected, Michael confessed to himself, that Sophie +would choose to stay on Fallen Star Ridge. If she could only be +prevailed upon to put off her departure until she was older and better +able to take care of herself, he would be satisfied. If the worst came +to the worst, and she went to Sydney with her father soon, Michael had +decided to go with them. Peter Newton would give him a couple of pounds +for his books, he believed, and he would find something to do down in +Sydney. His roots were in the Ridge. Michael did not know how he was +going to live away from the mines; but anything seemed better than that +Sophie should be committed to what her mother had called "the +treacherous whirlpool" of life in a great city, with no one but her +father to look after her. + +And her mother had said: + +"Don't let him take her away, Michael." + +Michael believed that Marya Rouminof intended Sophie to choose for +herself whether she would stay on the Ridge or not, when she was old +enough. But now she was little more than a child, sixteen, nearly +seventeen, young for her years in some ways and old in others. Michael +knew her mother had wanted Sophie to grow up on the Ridge and to realise +that all the potentialities of real and deep happiness were there. + +"They say there's got to be a scapegoat in every family, Michael," she +had said once. "Someone has to pay for the happiness of the others. If +all that led to my coming here will mean happiness for Sophie, it will +not have been in vain." + +"That's where you're wrong," Michael had told her. + +"Looking for justice--poetic justice, isn't it, they call it?--in the +working out of things. There isn't any of this poetic justice except by +accident. The natural laws just go rolling on--laying us out under them. +All we can do is set our lives as far as possible in accordance with +them and stand by the consequences as well as we know how." + +"Of course, you're right," she had sighed, "but----" + +It was for that "but" Michael was fighting now. He knew what lay beyond +it--a yearning for her child to fare a little better in the battle of +life than she had. Striding almost unconsciously over the loose, shingly +ground, Michael was not aware what direction his steps were taking until +he saw glimmering white shapes above the grass and herbage of the +plains, and realised that he had walked to the gates of the cemetery. + +With an uncomfortable sense of broken faith, he turned away from the +gate, unable to go in and sit under the tree there, to smoke and think, +as he sometimes did. He had used every argument with Paul to prevent his +taking Sophie away, he knew; but for the first time since Michael and he +had been acquainted with each other, Paul had shown a steady will. He +made up his mind he was "going to shake the dust of the Ridge off his +feet," he said. And that was the end of it. Michael almost wished the +men had let Jun clear out with his stones. That would have settled the +business. But, his instinct of an opal-miner asserting itself, he was +unable to wish Paul the loss of his luck, and Jun what he would have to +be to deprive Paul of it. He walked on chewing the cud of bitter and +troubled reflections. + +"Don't let him take her away!" a voice seemed to cry suddenly after him. + +Michael stopped; he snatched the hat from his head. + +"No!" he said, "he shan't take her away!" + +Startled by the sound of his own voice, the intensity of thinking which +had wrung it from him, dazed by the sudden strength of resolution which +had come over him, he stood, his face turned to the sky. The stars +rained their soft light over him. As he looked up to them, his soul went +from him by force of will. How long he stood like that, he did not know; +but when his eyes found the earth again he looked about him wonderingly. +After a little while he put on his hat and turned away. All the pain and +trouble were taken from his thinking; he was strangely soothed and +comforted. He went back along the road to the town, and, skirting the +trees and the houses on the far side, came again to the track below +Newton's. + +Lights were still shining in the hotel although it was well after +midnight. Michael could hear voices in the clear air. A man was singing +one of Jun's choruses as he went down the road towards the Punti Rush. +Michael kept on his way. He was still wondering what he could do to +prevent Paul taking Sophie away; but he was no longer worried about +it--his brain was calm and clear; his step lighter than it had been for +a long time. + +He heard the voices laughing and calling to each other as he walked on. + +"Old Ted!" he commented to himself, recognising Ted Cross's voice. "He's +blithered!" + +When he came to a fork in the tracks where one went off in the direction +of his, Charley's, and Rouminof's huts, and the other towards the +Crosses', Michael saw Ted Cross lumbering along in the direction of his +own hut. + +"Must 've been saying good-night to Charley and Paul," he thought. A +little farther along the path he saw Charley and Paul, unsteady shadows +ahead of him in the moonlight, and Charley had his arm under Paul's, +helping him home. + +"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he +loved. + +He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, +Charley's even and clear. + +"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. +He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, +and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening. + +Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his +steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's +hand--something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box +wrapped in newspaper, it might have been--and Michael saw Charley drop +it into the pocket of his coat. + +Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep +there on the roadside; but Charley led him on. + +"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there +now." + +Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the +shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back +along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. +He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his +brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had +stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, +notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, +Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened. + +The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood +only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track. + +Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. +He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a +second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would +discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then +Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared. + +When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, +keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his +boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles +beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move +on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood +beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared +pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was +sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer +on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as +if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The +wall creaked as Michael leaned against it. + +"Who's there?" Charley cried sharply. + +He threw a blanket over the box on the bed and started to the door. + +Michael moved round the corner of the house. He heard Potch call +sleepily: + +"That you?" + +Charley growled; + +"Oh, go to sleep, can't you? Aren't you asleep yet?" + +Potch murmured, and there was silence again. + +Michael heard Charley go to the door, look out along the road, and turn +back into the hut. Then Michael moved along the wall to the window. + +Charley was taking down some clothes hanging from nails along the inner +wall. He changed from the clothes he had on into them, picked up his +hat, lying where he had thrown it on the floor beside the bed when he +came in, rolled it up, straightened the brim and dinged the crown to his +liking. Then he picked up the packet of opal, put it in his coat pocket, +and went into the other room. Michael followed to the window which gave +on it. He saw Charley glance at the sofa as though he were contemplating +a stretch, but, thinking better of it, he settled into an easy, +bag-bottomed old chair by the table, pulled a newspaper to him, and +began to read by the guttering light of his candle. + +Michael guessed why Charley had dressed, and why he had chosen to sit +and read rather than go to sleep. It was nearly morning, the first chill +of dawn in the air. The coach left at seven o'clock, and Charley meant +to catch the coach. He had no intention of going to Warria. Michael +began to get a bird's-eye view of the situation. He wondered whether +Charley had ever intended going to Warria. He realised Charley would go +off with the five pound note he had made him, Michael, get from Watty +Frost, as well as with Paul's opals. He began, to see clearly what that +would mean, too--Charley's getting away with Paul's opals. Paul would +not be able to take Sophie away.... + +In the branches of a shrub nearby, a white-tail was crying plaintively: +"Sweet pretty creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael remembered how +it had cried like that on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. + +Whether to go into the hut, tell Charley he knew what he had done, and +demand the return of the opals, or let him get away with them, Michael +had not decided, when Charley's hand went to his pocket, and, as it +closed over the package of opals, a smile of infantile satisfaction +flitted across his face. That smile, criminal in its treachery, enraged +Michael more than the deed itself. The candle Charley had been reading +by guttered out. He stumbled about the room looking for another. After a +while, as if he could not find one, he went back to his chair and +settled into it. The room fell into darkness, lit only by the dim pane +of the window by which Michael was standing. + +Michael's mind seethed with resentment and anger. The thing he had +prayed for, that his brain had ached over, had been arranged. Rouminof +would not be able to take Sophie away. But Michael was too good a Ridge +man not to detest Charley's breach of the good faith of the Ridge. +Charley had been accepted by men of the Ridge as one of themselves--at +least, Michael believed he had. + +George, Watty, the Crosses, and most of the other men would have +confessed to reservations where Charley Heathfield was concerned. But as +long as he had lived as a mate among them, they had been mates to him. +Michael did not want Rouminof to have his stones if having them meant +taking Sophie away, but he did not want him to lose them. He could not +allow Charley to get away with them, with that smile of infantile +satisfaction. If the men knew what he had done there would be little of +that smile left on his face when they had finished with him. Their +methods of dealing with rats were short and severe. And although he +deserved all he got from them, Michael was not able to decide to hand +Charley over to the justice of the men of the Ridge. + +As he hesitated, wondering what to do, the sound of heavy, regular +breathing came to him, and, looking through the window, he saw that +Charley had done the last thing he intended to do--he had fallen asleep +in his chair. + +In a vivid, circling flash, Michael's inspiration came to him. He went +across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the +black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a +bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin--a few +pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an +opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the +rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years--that was all. +Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to +the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had +kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer +in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He +wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he +blew out his candle and went out of doors again. + +He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley's hut. When he +reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether +Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and +regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. +He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was +sleeping. + +He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he +had done what he did. He knew only a sick fear possessed him that +Charley would wake and find him, Michael, barefooted, like a thief in +his house. But he was not a thief, he assured himself. It was not +thieving to take from a thief. + +Charley stirred uneasily. His arm went out; in the dim light Michael saw +it go over the pocket which held the packet of opal; his hand clutch at +it unconsciously. Sweating with fear and the nervous tension he was +under, Michael remained standing in the darkness. He waited, wondering +whether he would throw off Charley's hand and snatch the opal, or +whether he would stand till morning, hesitating, and wondering what to +do, and Charley would wake at last and find him there. He had decided to +wrench Charley's arm from the pocket, when Charley himself flung it out +with a sudden restless movement. + +In an instant, almost mechanically, Michael's hand went to the pocket. +He lifted the packet there and put his own in its place. + +The blood was booming in his ears when he turned to the door. A sense of +triumph unnerved him more than the execution of his inspiration. Charley +muttered and called out in his sleep as Michael passed through the +doorway. + +Then the stars were over him. Michael drew a deep breath of the night +air and crossed to his own hut, the package of opal under his coat. Just +as he was entering he drew back, vaguely alarmed. A movement light as +thistledown seemed to have caught his ear. He thought he had detected a +faint shifting of the shingle nearby. He glanced about with quick +apprehension, went back to Charley's hut, listened, and looked around; +but Charley was still sleeping. Michael walked back to his own hut. +There was no sight or sound of a living thing in the wan, misty +moonlight of the dawn, except the white-tail which was still crying from +a wilga near Charley's hut. + +The package under his coat felt very heavy and alive when he returned to +his own hut. Michael was disturbed by that faint sound he had heard, or +thought he had heard. He persuaded himself he had imagined it, that in +the overwrought state of his sensibilities the sound of his own breath, +and his step on the stones, had surprised and alarmed him. The tin of +opals burned against his body, seeming to scar the skin where it +pressed. Michael sickened at the thought of how what he had done might +look to anyone who had seen him. But he put the thought from him. It was +absurd. He had looked; there was no one about--nothing. He was allowing +his mind to play tricks with him. The success of what he had done made +him seem like a thief. But he was not a thief. The stones were +Rouminof's. He had taken them from Charley for him, and he would not +even look at them. He would keep them for Paul. + +If Charley got away without discovering the change of the packets, as he +probably would, in the early morning and in his excitement to catch the +coach, he would be considered the thief. Rouminof would accuse him; +Charley would know his own guilt. He would not dare to confess what he +had done, even when he found that his package of opal had been changed. +He would not know when it had been changed. He would not know whether it +had been changed, perhaps, before he took it from Rouminof. + +Charley might recognise the stones in that packet he had done up, +Michael realised; but he did not think so. Charley was not much of a +judge of opal. Michael did not think he would remember the few scraps of +sun-flash they had come on together, and Charley had never seen the +mascot he had put into the packet, with a remnant of feeling for the +memory of their working days together. + +Michael did not light the candle when he went into his hut again. He +threw himself down on the bed in his clothes; he knew that he would not +sleep as he lay there. His brain burned and whirled, turning over the +happenings of the night and their consequences, likely and unlikely. The +package of opal lay heavy in his pocket. He took it out and dropped it +into a box of books at the end of the room. + +He did not like what he had done, and yet he was glad he had done it. +When he could see more clearly, he was glad, too, that he had grasped +this opportunity to control circumstances. A reader and dreamer all his +days, he had begun to be doubtful of his own capacity for action. He +could think and plan, but he doubted whether he had strength of will to +carry out purposes he had dreamed a long time over. He was pleased, in +an odd, fierce way, that he had been able to do what he thought should +be done. + +"But I don't want them.... I don't want the cursed stones," he argued +with himself. "I'll give them to him--to Paul, as soon as I know what +ought to be done about Sophie. She's not old enough to go yet--to know +her own mind--what she wants to do. When she's older she can decide for +herself. That's what her mother meant. She didn't mean for always ... +only while she's a little girl. By and by, when she's a woman, Sophie +can decide for herself. Now, she's got to stay here ... that's what I +promised." + +"And Charley," he brooded. "He deserves all that's coming to him ... but +I couldn't give him away. The boys would half kill him if they got their +hands on to him. When will he find out? In the train, perhaps--or not +till he gets to Sydney.... He'll have my fiver, and the stones to go on +with--though they won't bring much. Still, they'll do to go on with.... +Paul'll be a raving lunatic when he knows ... but he can't go--he can't +take Sophie away." + +His brain surged over and over every phrase: his state of mind since he +had seen Charley and Paul on the road together; every argument he had +used with himself. He could not get away from the double sense of +disquiet and satisfaction. + +An hour or two later he heard Charley moving about, then rush off down +the track, sending the loose stones flying under his feet as he ran to +catch the coach. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Watty was winding dirt, standing by the windlass on the top of the dump +over his and his mates' mine, when he saw Paul coming along the track +from the New Town. Paul was breaking into a run at every few yards, and +calling out. Watty threw the mullock from his hide bucket as it came up, +and lowered it again. He wound up another bucket. The creak of the +windlass, and the fall of the stone and earth as he threw them over the +dump, drowned the sound of Rouminof's voice. As he came nearer, Watty +saw that he was gibbering with rage, and crying like a child. + +While he was still some distance away, Watty heard him sobbing and +calling out. + +He stopped work to listen as Paul came to the foot of Michael's dump. +Ted Cross, who was winding dirt on the top of Crosses' mine, stopped to +listen too. Old Olsen got up from where he lay noodling on Jun's and +Paul's claim, and went across to Paul. Snow-Shoes, stretched across the +slope near where Watty was standing, lifted his head, his turning of +earth with a little blunt stick arrested for the moment. + +"They've took me stones!... Took me stones!" Watty heard Paul cry to +Bill Olsen. And as he climbed the slope of Michael's dump he went on +crying: "Took me stones! Took me stones! Charley and Jun! Gone by the +coach! Michael!... They've gone by the coach and took me stones!" + +Over and over again he said the same thing in an incoherent wail and +howl. He went down the shaft of Michael's mine, and Ted Cross came +across from his dump to Watty. + +"Hear what he says, Watty?" he asked. + +"Yes," Watty replied. + +"It gets y'r wind----" + +"If it's true," Watty ventured slowly. + +"Seems to me it's true all right," Ted said. "Charley took him home last +night. I went along with them as far as the turn-off. Paul was a bit on +... and Archie asked me to keep an eye on him.... I was a bit on meself, +too ... but Charley came along with us--so I thought he'd be all +right.... Charley went off by the coach this morning.... Bill Olsen told +me.... And Michael was reck'ning on him goin' to Warria to-day, I know." + +"That's right!" + +"It'll be hard on Michael!" + +Watty's gesture, upward jerk of his chin, and gusty breath, denoted his +agreement on that score. + +Ted went back to his own claim, and Watty slid down the rope with his +next bucket to give his mates the news. It was nearly time to knock off +for the midday meal, and before long men from all the claims were +standing in groups hearing the story from Rouminof himself, or talking +it over together. + +Michael had come up from his mine soon after Paul had gone down to him. +The men had seen him go off down the track to the New Town, his head +bent. They thought they knew why. Michael would feel his mate's +dishonour as though it were his own. He would not be able to believe +that what Paul said was true. He would want to know from Peter Newton +himself if it was a fact that Charley had gone out on the coach with Jun +and two girls who had been at the hotel. + +Women were scarce on the opal fields, and the two girls who had come a +week before to help Mrs. Newton with the work of the hotel had been +having the time of their lives. Charley, Jun Johnson, and two or three +other men, had been shouting drinks for them from the time of their +arrival, and Mrs. Newton had made up her mind to send the girls back to +town by the next coach. Jun had appropriated the younger of the two, a +bright-eyed girl, and the elder, a full-bosomed, florid woman with +straw-coloured hair, had, as the boys said, "taken a fancy to Charley." + +Paul had already told his story once or twice when Cash Wilson, George, +and Watty, went across to where he was standing, with half a dozen of +the men about him. They were listening gravely and smoking over Paul's +recital. There had been ratting epidemics on the Ridge; but robbery of a +mate by a mate had never occurred before. It struck at the fundamental +principle of their life in common. There was no mistaking the grave, +rather than indignant view men of the Ridge took of what Charley had +done. The Ridge code affirmed simply that "a mate stands by a mate." The +men say: "You can't go back on a mate." By those two recognitions they +had run their settlement. Far from all the ordinary institutions of law +and order, they had lived and worked together without need of them, by +appreciation of their relationship to each other as mates and as a +fraternity of mates. No one, who had lived under and seemed to accept +the principle of mateship, had ever before done as Charley had done. + +"But Charley Heathfield was never one of us really," Ted Cross said. "He +was always an outsider." + +"That's right, Ted," George Woods replied. "We only stuck him on +Michael's account." + +Paul told George, Watty, and Cash the story he had been going over all +the morning--how he had gone home with Charley, how he remembered going +along the road with him, and then how he had wakened on the floor of his +own hut in the morning. Sophie was there. She was singing. He had +thought it was her mother. He had called her ... but Sophie had come to +him. And she had abused him. She had called him "a dirty, fat pig," and +told him to get out of the way because she wanted to sweep the floor. + +He sobbed uncontrollably. The men sympathised with him. They knew the +loss of opal came harder on Rouminof than it would have on the rest of +them, because he was so mad about the stuff. They condoned the +abandonment of his grief as natural enough in a foreigner, too; but +after a while it irked them. + +"Take a pull at y'rself, Rummy, can't you?" George Woods said irritably. +"What did Michael say?" + +"Michael?" Paul looked at him, his eyes streaming. + +George nodded. + +"He did not say," Paul replied. "He threw down his pick. He would not +work any more ... and then he went down to Newton's to ask about +Charley." + +Two or three of the men exchanged glances. That was the way they had +expected Michael to take the news. He would not have believed Paul's +story at first. They did not see Michael again that day. In the evening +Peter Newton told them how Michael had come to him, asking if it was +true Charley had gone on the coach with Jun Johnson and the girls. Peter +told Michael, he said, that Charley had gone on the coach, and that he +thought Rouminof's story looked black against Charley. + +"Michael didn't say much," Peter explained, "but I don't think he could +help seeing what I said was true--however much he didn't want to." + +Everybody knew Michael believed in Charley Heathfield. He had thought +the worst that could be said of Charley was that he was a good-natured, +rather shiftless fellow. All the men had responded to an odd attractive +faculty Charley exercised occasionally. He had played it like a woman +for Michael, and Michael had taken him on as a mate and worked with him +when no one else would. And now, the men guessed, that Michael, who had +done more than any of them to make the life of the Ridge what it was, +would feel more deeply and bitterly than any of them that Charley had +gone back on him and on what the Ridge stood for. + +All they imagined Michael was suffering in the grief and bitterness of +spirit which come of misplaced faith, he was suffering. But they could +not imagine the other considerations which had overshadowed grief and +bitterness, the realisation that Sophie's life had been saved from what +looked like early wreckage, and the consciousness that the consequences +of what Charley had done, had fallen, not on Charley, but on himself. +Michael had lived like a child, with an open heart at the disposal of +his mates always; and the sense of Charley's guilt descending on him, +had created a subtle ostracism, a remote alienation from them. + +He could not go to Newton's in the evening and talk things over with the +men as he ordinarily would have. He wandered over the dumps of deserted +rushes at the Old Town, his eyes on the ground or on the distant +horizons. He could still only believe he had done the best thing +possible under the circumstances. If he had let Charlie go away with the +stones, Sophie would have been saved, but Paul would have lost his +stones. As it was, Sophie was saved, and Paul had not lost his stones. +And Michael could not have given Charley away. Charley had been his +mate; they had worked together. The men might suspect, but they could +not convict him of being what he was unless they knew what Michael knew. +Charley had played on the affection, the simplicity of Michael's belief +in him. He had used them, but Michael had still a lingering tenderness +and sympathy for him. It was that which had made him put the one decent +piece of opal he possessed into the parcel he had made up for Charley to +take instead of Paul's stones. It was the first piece of good stuff he +had found on the Ridge, and he had kept it as a mascot--something of a +nest egg. + +Michael wondered at the fate which had sent him along the track just +when Charley had taken Paul's stones. He was perplexed and impatient of +it. There would have been no complication, no conflict and turmoil if +only he had gone along the track a little later, or a little earlier. +But there was no altering what had happened. He had to bear the +responsibility of it. He had to meet the men, encounter the eyes of his +mates as he had never done before, with a reservation from them. If he +could give the stones to Paul at once, Michael knew he would disembarass +himself of any sense of guilt. But he could not do that. He was afraid +if Paul got possession of the opals again he would want to go away and +take Sophie with him. + +Michael thought of taking Watty and George into his confidence, but to +do so would necessitate explanations--explanations which involved +talking of the promise he had made Sophie's mother and all that lay +behind their relationship. He shrank from allowing even the sympathetic +eyes of George and Watty to rest on what for him was wrapped in mystery +and inexplicable reverence. Besides, they both had wives, and Watty was +not permitted to know anything Mrs. Watty did not worm out of him sooner +or later. Michael decided that if he could not keep his own confidence +he could not expect anyone else to keep it. He must take the +responsibility of what he had done, and of maintaining his position in +respect to the opals until Sophie was older--old enough to do as she +wished with her life. + +As he walked, gazing ahead, a hut formed itself out of the distance +before him, and then the dark shapes of bark huts huddled against the +white cliff of dumps at the Three Mile, under a starry sky. A glow came +from the interior of one or two of the houses. A chime of laughter, and +shredded fragments of talking drifted along in the clear air. Michael +felt strangely alone and outcast, hearing them and knowing that he could +not respond to their invitation. + +In any one of those huts a place would be eagerly made for him if he +went into it; eyes would lighten with a smile; warm, kindly greetings +would go to his heart. But the talk would all be of the stealing of +Rouminof's opal, and of Charley and Jun, Michael knew. The people at the +Three Mile would have seen the coach pass. They would be talking about +it, about himself, and the girls who had driven away with Charley and +Jun. + +Turning back, Michael walked again across the flat country towards the +Ridge. He sat for a while on a log near the tank paddock. A drugging +weariness permeated his body and brain, though his brain ticked +ceaselessly. Now and again one or other of Rouminof's opals flashed and +scintillated before him in the darkness, or moved off in starry flight +before his tired gaze. He was vaguely disturbed by the vision of them. + +When he rose and went back towards the town, his feet dragged wearily. +There was a strange lightness at the back of his head, and he wondered +whether he were walking in the fields of heaven, and smiled to think of +that. At least one good thing would come of it all, he told himself over +and over again--Paul could not take Sophie away. + +The houses and stores of the New Town were all in darkness when he +passed along the main street. Newton's was closed. There were no lights +in Rouminof's or Charley's huts as he went to his own door. Then a low +cry caught his ear. He listened, and went to the back door of Charley's +hut. The cry rose again with shuddering gasps for breath. Michael stood +in the doorway, listening. The sound came from the window. He went +towards it, and found Potch lying there on the bunk with his face to the +wall. + +He had not heard Michael enter, and lay moaning brokenly. Michael had +not thought of Potch since the people at Newton's told him that a few +minutes, after the coach had gone Potch had come down to the hotel to +cut wood and do odd jobs in the stable, as he usually did. Mrs. Newton +said he stared at her, aghast, when she told him that his father had +left on the coach. Then he had started off at a run, taking the short +cut across country to the Three Mile. + +Michael put out his hand. He could not endure that crying. + +"Potch!" he said. + +At the sound of his voice, Potch was silent. After a second he struggled +to his feet, and stood facing Michael. + +"He's gone, Michael!" he cried. + +"He might have taken you," Michael said. + +"Taken me!" Potch's exclamation did away with any idea Michael had that +his son was grieving for Charley. "It wasn't that I minded----" + +Michael did not know what to say. Potch continued: + +"As soon as I knew, I went after him--thought I'd catch up the coach at +the Three Mile, and I did. I told him he'd have to come back--or hand +out that money. I saw you give it to him the other night and arrange +about going to Warria.... Mr. Ventry pulled up. But _he_ ... set the +horses going again. I tried to stop them, but the sandy bay let out a +kick and they went on again.... The swine!" + +Michael had never imagined this stolid son of Charley's could show such +fire. He was trembling with rage and indignation. Michael rarely lost +his temper, but the blood rushed to his head in response to Potch's +story. Restraint was second nature with him, though, and he waited until +his own and Potch's fury had ebbed. + +Then he moved to leave the hut. + +"Come along," he said. + +"Michael!" + +There was such breaking unbelief and joy in the cry. Michael turned and +caught the boy's expression. + +"You're coming along with me, Potch," he said. + +Potch still stood regarding him with a dazed expression of worshipful +homage and gratitude. Michael put out his hand, and Potch clasped it. + +"You and me," he said, "we both seem to be in the same boat, Potch.... +Neither of us has got a mate. I'll be wanting someone to work with now. +We'd better be mates." + +They went out of the hut together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos +were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or +thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, saw Michael on the top of his +dump, tossing mullock. + +"Who's Michael working with?" he asked. + +Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant considered, and shook their heads, smoking +thoughtfully. + +Snow-Shoes, where he lay sprawled across the slope of Crosses' dump, +glanced up at them, and the nickering wisp of a smile went through his +bright eyes. The three were standing at the foot of the dump before +separating. + +"Who's Michael got with him?" Pony-Fence inquired, looking at +Snow-Shoes. + +But the old man had turned his eyes back to the dump and was raking the +earth with his stick again, as if he had not heard what was said. No one +was deafer than Snow-Shoes when he did not want to hear. + +Watty watched Michael as he bent over the windlass, his lean, slight +figure cut against the clear azure of the morning sky. + +"It's to be hoped he's got a decent mate this time--that's all," he +said. + +Pony-Fence and Bully were going off to their own claim when Potch came +up on the rope and stood by the windlass while Michael went down into +the mine. + +"Well!" Watty gasped, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!" + +Bully swore sympathetically, and watched Potch set to work. The three +watched him winding and throwing mullock from the hide buckets over the +dump with the jerky energy of a new chum, although Potch had done odd +jobs on the mines for a good many years. He had often taken his father's +turn of winding dirt, and had managed to keep himself by doing all +manner of scavenging in the township since he was quite a little chap, +but no one had taken him on as a mate till now. He was a big fellow, +too, Potch, seventeen or eighteen; and as they looked at him Watty and +Pony-Fence realised it was time someone gave Potch a chance on the +mines, although after the way his father had behaved Michael was about +the last person who might have been expected to give him that +chance--much less take him on as mate. Like father, like son, was one of +those superstitions Ridge folk had not quite got away from, and the men +who saw Potch working on Michael's mine wondered that, having been let +down by the father as badly as Charley had let Michael down, Michael +could still work with Potch, and give him the confidence a mate was +entitled to. But there was no piece of quixotism they did not think +Michael capable of. The very forlornness of Potch's position on the +Ridge, and because he would have to face out and live down the fact of +being Charley Heathfield's son, were recognised as most likely Michael's +reasons for taking Potch on to work with him. + +Watty and Pony-Fence appreciated Michael's move and the point of view it +indicated. They knew men of the Ridge would endorse it and take Potch on +his merits. But being Charley's son, Potch would have to prove those +merits. They knew, too, that what Michael had done would help him to +tide over the first days of shame and difficulty as nothing else could +have, and it would start Potch on a better track in life than his father +had ever given him. + +Bully had already gone off to his claim when Watty and Pony-Fence +separated. Watty broke the news to his mates when he joined them +underground. + +"Who do y' think's Michael's new mate?" he asked. + +George Woods rested on his pick. + +Cash looked up from the corner where he was crouched working a streak of +green-fired stone from the red floor and lower wall of the mine. + +"Potch!" Watty threw out as George and Cash waited for the information. + +George swept the sweat from his forehead with a broad, steady gesture. +"He was bound to do something nobody else'd 've thought of, Michael!" he +said. + +"That's right," Watty replied. "Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant were +saying," he went on, "he's had a pretty hard time, Potch, and it was +about up to somebody to give him a leg-up ... some sort of a start in +life. He may be all right ... on the other hand, there may not be much +to him...." + +"That's right!" Cash muttered, beginning to work again. + +"But I reck'n he's all right, Potch." George swung his pick again. His +blows echoed in the mine as they shattered the hard stone he was working +on. + +Watty crawled off through a drive he was gouging in. + +At midday Michael and Charley had always eaten their lunches in the +shelter where George Woods, Watty, and Cash Wilson ate theirs and +noodled their opal. They wondered whether Michael would join them this +day. He strolled over to the shelter with Potch beside him as Watty and +Cash, with a billy of steaming tea on a stick between them, came from +the open fire built round with stones, a few yards from the mine. + +"Potch and me's mates," Michael explained to George as he sat down and +spread out his lunch, his smile whimsical and serene over the +information. "But we're lookin' for a third to the company. I reck'n a +lot of you chaps' luck is working on three. It's a lucky number, three, +they say." + +Potch sat down beside him on the outer edge of the shelter's scrap of +shade. + +"See you get one not afraid to do a bit of work, next time--that's all I +say," Watty growled. + +The blood oozed slowly over Potch's heavy, quiet face. Nothing more was +said of Charley, but the men who saw his face realised that Potch was +not the insensible youth they had imagined. + +Michael had watched him when they were below ground, and was surprised +at the way Potch set about his work. He had taken up his father's +gouging pick and spider as if he had been used to take them every day, +and he had set to work where Charley had left off. All the morning he +hewed at a face of honeycombed sandstone, his face tense with +concentration of energy, the sweat glistening on it as though it were +oiled under the light of a candle in his spider, stuck in the red earth +above him. Michael himself swung his pick in leisurely fashion, crumbled +dirt, and knocked off for a smoke now and then. + +"Easy does it, Potch," he remarked, watching the boy's steady slogging. +"We've got no reason to bust ourselves in this mine." + +At four o'clock they put their tools back against the wall and went +above ground. Michael fell in with the Crosses, who were noodling two or +three good-looking pieces of opal Archie had taken out during the +afternoon, and Potch streaked away through the scrub in the direction of +the Old Town. + +Michael wondered where he was going. There was a purposeful hunch about +his shoulders as if he had a definite goal in view. Michael had intended +asking his new mate to go down to the New Town and get the meat for +their tea, but he went himself after he had yarned with Archie and Ted +Cross for a while. + +When he returned to the hut, Potch was not there. Michael made a fire, +unwrapped his steak, hung it on a hook over the fire, and spread out the +pannikins, tin plates and knives and forks for his meal, putting a plate +and pannikin for Potch. He was kneeling before the fire giving the steak +a turn when Potch came in. Potch stood in the doorway, looking at +Michael as doubtfully as a stray kitten which did not know whether it +might enter. + +"That you, Potch?" Michael called. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +Michael got up from the fire and carried the grilled steak on a plate to +the table. + +"Well, you were nearly late for dinner," he remarked, as he cut the +steak in half and put a piece on the other plate for Potch. "You better +come along and tuck in now ... there's a great old crowd down at +Nancarrow's this evening. First time for nearly a month he's killed a +beast, and everybody wants a bit of steak. Sam gave me this as a sort of +treat; and it smells good." + +Potch came into the kitchen and sat on the box Michael had drawn up to +the table for him. + +"Been bringing in the goats for Sophie," he jerked out, looking at +Michael as if there were some need of explanation. + +"Oh, that was it, was it?" Michael replied, getting on with his meal. +"Thought you'd flitted!" + +Potch met his smile with a shadowy one. A big, clumsy-looking fellow, +with a dull, colourless face and dingy hair, he sat facing Michael, his +eyes anxious, as though he would like to explain further, but was afraid +to, or could not find words. His eyes were beautiful; but they were his +father's eyes, and Michael recoiled to qualms of misgiving, a faint +distrust, as he looked in them. + +It was Ed. Ventry, however, who gave Potch his first claim to the +respect of men of the Ridge. + +"How's that boy of Charley Heathfield's?" was his first question when +the coach came in from Budda, the following week. + +"All right," Newton said. "Why?" + +"He was near killed," Mr. Ventry replied. "Stopped us up at the Three +Mile that morning I was taking Charley and Jun down. He was all for +Charley stopping ... getting off the coach or something. I didn't get +what it was all about--money Charley'd got from Michael, I think. That's +the worst of bein' a bit hard of hearin' ... and bein' battered about by +that yaller-bay horse I bought at Warria couple of months ago." + +"Potch tried to stop Charley getting away, did he?" Newton asked with +interest. + +"He did," Ed. Ventry declared. "I pulled up, seein' something was wrong +... but what does that god-damned blighter Charley do but give a lurch +and grab me reins. Scared four months' growth out of the horses--and +away they went. I'd a colt I was breakin' in on the off-side--and he +landed Potch one--kicked him right out, I thought. As soon as I could, I +pulled up, but I see Potch making off across the plain, and he didn't +look like he was much hurt.... But it was a plucky thing he did, all +right ... and it's the last time I'll drive Charley Heathfield. I told +him straight. I'd as soon kill a man as not for putting a hand on me +reins, like he done--on me own coach, too!" + +Snow-Shoes had drifted up to them as the coach stopped and Newton went +out to it. He stood beside Peter Newton while Mr. Ventry talked, rolling +tobacco. Snow-Shoes' eyes glimmered from one to the other of them when +Ed. Ventry had given the reason for his inquiry. + +"Potch!" he murmured. "A little bit of potch!" And marched off down the +road, a straight, stately white figure, on the bare track under the +azure of the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"Give y' three," Watty said. + +"Take 'em." George Woods did not turn. He was carefully working round a +brilliantly fired seam through black potch in the shin cracker he had +been breaking through two or three days before. + +It was about lunch time, and Watty had crawled from his drive to the +centre of the mine. Cash was still at work, crouched against a corner of +the alley, a hundred yards or so from George; but he laid down his pick +when he heard Watty's voice, and went towards him. + +"Who d'you think Michael's got as third man?" + +"Snow-Shoes?" + +"No." + +"Old Bill Olsen?" + +Watty could not contain himself to the third guess. + +"Rum-Enough!" he said. + +"He would." George chipped at the stone round his colour. "It was bound +to be a lame dog, anyhow--and it might as well've been Rummy as +anybody." + +"That's right," Cash conceded. + +"Bill Andrews told me," Watty said. "They've just broke through on the +other side of that drive I'm in...." + +"It would be all right," he went on, "if Paul'd work for Michael like he +did for Jun. But is Michael the man to make him? Not by long chalks. +Potch is turning out all right, the boys say.... Michael says he works +like a chow ... has to make him put in the peg ... but they'll both be +havin' Rum-Enough on their hands before long--that's a sure thing." + +Watty's, George's, and Cash's mine was one of the best worked and best +planned on the fields. + +Watty and Cash inspected the streak George was working, and speculated +as to what it would yield. George leaned his pick against the wall, +eager, too, about the chances of what the thread of fire glittering in +the black potch would lead to. But he was proud of the mine as well as +the stone it had produced. It represented the first attempt to work a +claim systematically on the Ridge. George himself had planned and +prospected every inch of it; and before he went above ground for the +midday meal, he glanced about it as usual, affirming his pride and +satisfaction; but his eyes fell on the broken white stone about his +pitch. + +"As soon as we get her out, I'll shift that stuff," he said. + +When they went up for their meal, Michael did not join Watty, George, +and Cash as usual. He spread out his lunch and sat with Paul and Potch +in the shade of some wilgas beside his own mine. He knew that Rouminof +would not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter, and that Paul and +Potch would bring a certain reserve to the discussions of Ridge affairs +which took place there. + +Potch saw Michael's eyes wander to where George was sitting yarning with +his mates. He knew Michael would rather have been over there; and yet +Michael seemed pleased to have got his own mine in working order again. +He talked over ways of developing it with Paul, asking his opinion, and +explaining why he believed the claim was good enough to stick to for a +while longer, although very little valuable stone had come out of it. +Potch wondered why his eyes rested on Paul with that faint smile of +satisfaction. + +The Ridge discussed Michael and his new partnership backwards and forth, +and back again. Michael knew that, and was as amused as the rest of the +Ridge at the company he was keeping. Although he sat with his own mates +at midday, he was as often as not with the crowd under Newton's veranda +in the evening, discussing and settling the affairs of the Ridge and of +the universe. After a while he was more like his old self than he had +been for a long time--since Mrs. Rouminof's death--people said, when +they saw him going about again with a quiet smile and whimsical twist to +his mouth. + +The gossips had talked a good deal about Michael and Mrs. Rouminof, but +neither she nor he had bothered their heads about the gossips. + +Michael and Mrs. Rouminof had often been seen standing and talking +together when she was going home from the New Town with stores, or when +Michael was coming in from his hut. He had usually walked back along the +road with her, she for the most part, if it was in the evening, with no +hat on; he smoking the stubby black pipe that was rarely out of his +mouth. There was something in the way Mrs. Rouminof walked beside +Michael, in the way her hair blew out in tiny strands curling in the +wind and taking stray glints of light, in the way she smiled with a +vague underlying sweetness when she looked at Michael; there was +something in the way Michael slouched and smoked beside Mrs. Rouminof, +too, which made their meeting look more than any mere ordinary talking +and walking home together of two people. That was what Mrs. Watty Frost +said. + +Mrs. Watty believed it was her duty in life to maintain the prejudices +of respectable society in Fallen Star township. She had a constitutional +respect for authority in whatever form it manifested itself. She stood +for washing on Monday, spring-cleaning, keeping herself to herself, and +uncompromising hostility to anything in the shape of a new idea which +threatened the old order of domesticity on the Ridge. And she let +everybody know it. She never went into the one street of the township +even at night without a hat on, and wore gloves whenever she walked +abroad. A little woman, with a mean, sour face, wrinkled like a walnut, +and small, bead-bright eyes, Mrs. Watty was one of those women who are +all energy and have no children to absorb their energies. She put all +her energy into resentment of the Ridge and the conditions Watty had +settled down to so comfortably and happily. She sighed for shops and a +suburb of Sydney, and repeatedly told Watty how nice it would be to have +a little milk shop near Sydney like her father and mother had had. + +But Watty would not hear of the milk shop. He loved the Ridge, and the +milk shop was an evergreen bone of contention between him and his wife. +The only peace he ever got was when Mrs. Watty went away to Sydney for a +holiday, or he went with her, because she would rarely go away without +him. She could not be happy without Watty, people said. She had no one +to growl to and let off her irritation about things in general at, if he +were not there. Watty grew fat, and was always whistling cheerily, +nevertheless. Mrs. Watty cooked like an archangel, he said; and, to give +her her due, the men admitted that although she had never pretended to +approve of the life they led, Mrs. Watty had been a good wife to Watty. + +But everybody, even Mrs. Watty, was as pleased as if a little fortune +had come to them, when, towards the end of their first week, Michael and +his company came on a patch of good stone. Michael struck it, following +the lead he had been working for some time, and, although not wonderful +in colour or quality, the opal cut out at about ten ounces and brought +£3 an ounce. Michael was able to wipe out some of his grocery score, so +was Paul, and Potch had money to burn. + +Paul was very pleased with himself about it. The men began to call him a +mascot and to say he had brought Michael luck, as he had Jun Johnson. +There was no saying how the fortunes of the new partnership might +flourish, if he stuck to it. Paul, responding to the expressions of +goodwill and the inspiration of being on opal, put all his childish and +bullocky energy into working with Michael and Potch. + +He still told everybody who would listen to him the story of the +wonderful stones he had found when he was working with Jun, and how they +had been stolen from him. They grew in number, value, and size every +time he spoke of them. And he wailed over what he had been going to do, +and what selling the stones would have meant to him and to Sophie. But +the partnership was working better than anybody had expected, and people +began to wonder whether, after all, Michael had done so badly for +himself with his brace of dead-beat mates. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +In a few weeks thought of the robbery had ceased greatly to disturb +anybody. Michael settled down to working with his new mates, and the +Ridge accepted the new partnership as the most natural thing in the +world. + +Life on the Ridge is usually as still as an inland lake. The settlement +is just that, a lake of life, in the country of wide plains stretching +westwards for hundreds on hundreds of miles, broken only by shingly +ridges to the sea, and eastwards, through pastoral districts, to the +coastal ranges, and the seaboard with its busy towns, ports, and cities. + +In summer the plains are dead and dry; in a drought, deserts. The great +coolebahs standing with their feet in the river ways are green, and +scatter tattered shade. Their small, round leaves flash like mirrors in +the sun, and when the river water vanishes from about their feet, they +hold themselves in the sandy shallow bed of the rivers as if waiting +with imperturbable faith for the return of the waters. The surface of +the dry earth cracks. There are huge fissures where the water lay in +clayey hollows during the winter and spring. Along the stock routes and +beside the empty water-holes, sheep and cattle lie rotting. Their +carcasses, disembowelled by the crows, put an odour of putrefaction in +the air. The sky burns iron-grey with heat. The dust rises in heavy +reddish mist about stockmen or cattle on the roads. + +But after the rains, in the winter or spring of a good season, the seeds +break sheath in a few hours; they sprout over-night, and a green mantle +is flung over the old earth which a few days before was as dead and dry +as a desert. In a little time the country is a flowering wilderness. +Trefoil, crow's-foot, clover, mallow, and wild mustard riot, tangling +and interweaving. The cattle browse through them lazily; stringing out +across the flowering fields, they look in the distance no more than +droves of mice; their red and black backs alone are visible above the +herbage. In places, wild candytuft in blossom spreads a quilt of palest +lavender in every direction on a wide circling horizon. Darling pea, the +colour of violets and smelling like them, threads through the candytuft +and lies in wedges, magenta and dark purple against the sky-line, a +hundred miles farther on. The sky is a wash of pale, exquisite blue, +which deepens as it rises to the zenith. The herbage glows beneath it, +so clear and pure is the light. + +Farther inland, for miles, bachelor's buttons paint the earth raw gold. +Not a hair's breadth of colour shows on the plains except the dull red +of the road winding through them and the blue of the sky overhead. Paper +daisies fringe the gold, and then they lie, white as snow, for miles, +under the bare blue sky. Sometimes the magenta, purple, lavender, gold +and white of the herbage and wild flowers merge and mingle, and a +tapestry of incomparable beauty--a masterpiece of the Immortals--is +wrought on the bare earth. + +During the spring and early summer of a good season, the air is filled +with the wild, thymey odour of herbs, and the dry, musky fragrance of +paper daisies. The crying of lambs, the baa-ing of ewes, and the piping +of mud-larks--their thin, silvery notes--go through the clear air and +are lost over the flowering land and against the blue sky. + +Winter is rarely more than a season of rains on the Ridge. Cold winds +blow from the inland plains for a week or two. There are nights of frost +and sparkling stars. People shiver and crouch over their fires; but the +days have rarely more than a fresh tang in the air. + +The rains as often as not are followed by floods. After a few days' +steady downpour, the shallow rivers and creeks on the plains overflow, +and their waters stretch out over the plains for thirteen, fourteen, and +sometimes twenty miles. Fords become impassable; bridges are washed +away. Fallen Star Ridge is cut off from the rest of the world until the +flood waters have soaked into the earth, as they do after a few days, +and the coach can take to the road again. + +As spring passes into summer, the warmth of the sunshine loses its +mildness, and settles to a heavy taciturnity. The light, losing its +delicate brilliance, becomes a bared sword-blade striking the eyes. +Everything shrinks from the full gaze and blaze of the sun. Eyes ache, +the brain reels with the glare; mirages dance on the limitless horizons. +The scorched herbage falls into dust; water is drawn off from rivers and +water-holes. All day the air is heavy and still; the sky the colour of +iron. + +Nights are heavy and still as the days, and people turn wearily from the +glow in the east at dawn; but the days go on, for months, one after the +other, hot, breathless, of dazzling radiance, or wrapped in the red haze +of a dust storm. + +Ridge folk take the heat as primitive people do most acts of God, as a +matter of course, with stiff-lipped hardihood, which makes complaint the +manifestation of a poor spirit. They meet their difficulties with a +native humour which gives zest to flagging energies. Their houses, with +roofs whitened to throw off the heat, the dumps of crumbling white clay, +and the iron roofs of the billiard parlour, the hotel, and Watty Frost's +new house at the end of the town, shimmer in the intense light. At a +little distance they seem all quivering and dancing together. + +Men like Michael, the Crosses, George Woods, Watty, and women like +Maggie Grant and Martha M'Cready, who had been on the Ridge a long time, +become inured to the heat. At least, they say that they "do not mind +it." No one hears a growl out of them, even when water is scarce and +flies and mosquitoes a plague. Their good spirits and grit keep the +community going through a trying summer. But even they raise their faces +to heaven when an unexpected shower comes, or autumn rains fall a little +earlier than usual. + +In the early days, before stations were fenced, Bill M'Gaffy, a Warria +shepherd, grazing flocks on the plains, declared he had seen a star fall +on the Ridge. When he went into the station he showed the scraps of marl +and dark metallic stone he had picked up near where the star had fallen, +to James Henty, who had taken up Warria Station. The Ridge lay within +its boundary. James Henty had turned them over curiously, and surmised +that some meteoric stone had fallen on the Ridge. The place had always +been called Fallen Star Ridge after that; but opal was not found there, +and it did not begin to be known as the black opal field until several +years later. + +In the first days of the rush to the Ridge, men of restless, reckless +temperament had foregathered at the Old Town. There had been wild nights +at the shanty. But the wilder spirits soon drifted away to Pigeon Creek +and the sapphire mines, and the sober and more serious of the miners had +settled to life on the new fields. + +The first gathering of huts on the clay pan below the Ridge was known as +the Old Town; but it had been flooded so often, that, after people had +been washed out of their homes, and had been forced to take to the Ridge +for safety two or three times, it was decided to move the site of the +township to the brow of the Ridge, above the range of the flood waters +and near the new rush, where the most important mines on the field +promised to be. + +A year or two ago, a score or so of bark and bag huts were ranged on +either side of the wide, unmade road space overgrown with herbage, and a +smithy, a weather-board hotel with roof of corrugated iron, a billiard +parlour, and a couple of stores, comprised the New Town. A wild cherry +tree, gnarled and ancient, which had been left in the middle of the road +near the hotel, bore the news of the district and public notices, nailed +to it on sheets of paper. A little below the hotel, on the same side, +Chassy Robb's store served as post-office, and the nearest approach to a +medicine shop in the township. Opposite was the Afghan's emporium. And +behind the stores and the miners' huts, everywhere, were the dumps +thrown up from mines and old rushes. + +There was no police station nearer than fifty miles, and although +telegraph now links the New Town with Budda, the railway town, +communication with it for a long time was only by coach once or twice a +week; and even now all the fetching and carrying is done by a four or +six horse-coach and bullock-wagons. The community to all intents and +purposes governs itself according to popular custom and popular opinion, +the seat of government being Newton's big, earthen-floored bar, or the +brushwood shelters near the mines in which the men sit at midday to eat +their lunches and noodle--, go over, snip, and examine--the opal they +have taken out of the mines during the morning. + +They hold their blocks of land by miner's right, and their houses are +their own. They formally recognise that they are citizens of the +Commonwealth and of the State of New South Wales, by voting at elections +and by accepting the Federal postal service. Some few of them, as well +as Newton and the storekeepers, pay income tax as compensation for those +privileges; but beyond that the Ridge lives its own life, and the +enactments of external authority are respected or disregarded as best +pleases it. + +A sober, easy-going crowd, the Ridge miners do not trouble themselves +much about law. They have little need of it. They live in accord with +certain fundamental instincts, on terms of good fellowship with each +other. + +"To go back on a mate," is recognised as the major crime of the Ridge +code. + +Sometimes, during a rush, the wilder spirits who roam from one mining +camp to another in the back-country, drift back, and "hit things up" on +the Ridge, as the men say. But they soon drift away again. Sometimes, if +one of them strikes a good patch of opal and outstays his kind, as often +as not he sinks into the Ridge life, absorbs Ridge ways and ideas, and +is accepted into the fellowship of men of the Ridge. There is no +formality about the acceptance. It just happens naturally, that if a man +identifies himself with the Ridge principle of mateship, and will stand +by it as it will stand by him, he is recognised by Ridge men as one of +themselves. But if his ways and ideas savour of those the Ridge has +broken from, he remains an outsider, whatever good terms he may seem to +be on with everybody. + +Sometimes a rush leaves a shiftless ne'er-do-well or two for the Ridge +to reckon with, but even these rarely disregard the Ridge code. If +claims are ratted it is said there are strangers about, and the miners +deal with rats according to their own ideas of justice. On the last +occasion it was applied, this justice had proved so effectual that there +had been no repetition of the offence. + +Ridge miners find happiness in the sense of being free men. They are +satisfied in their own minds that it is not good for a man to work all +day at any mechanical toil; to use himself or allow anyone else to use +him like a working bullock. A man must have time to think, leisure to +enjoy being alive, they say. Is he alive only to work? To sleep worn out +with toil, and work again? It is not good enough, Ridge men say. They +have agreed between themselves that it is a fair thing to begin work +about 6.30 or 7 o'clock and knock off about four, with a couple of hours +above ground at noon for lunch--a snack of bread and cheese and a cup of +tea. + +At four o'clock they come up from the mines, noodle their opal, put on +their coats, smoke and yarn, and saunter down to the town and their +homes. And it is this leisure end of the day which has given life on the +Ridge its tone of peace and quiet happiness, and has made Ridge miners +the thoughtful, well-informed men most of them are. + +To a man they have decided against allowing any wealthy man or body of +wealthy men forming themselves into a company to buy up the mines, put +the men on a weekly wage, and work them, as the opal blocks at Chalk +Cliffs had been worked. There might be more money in it, there would be +a steadier means of livelihood; but the Ridge miners will not hear of +it. + +"No," they say; "we'll put up with less money--and be our own masters." + +Most of them worked on Chalk Cliffs' opal blocks, and they realised in +the early days of the new field the difference between the conditions +they had lived and worked under on the Cliffs and were living and +working under on the Ridge, where every man was the proprietor of his +own energies, worked as long as he liked, and was entitled to the full +benefit of his labour. They had yarned over these differences of +conditions at midday in the shelters beside the mines, discussed them in +the long evenings at Newton's, and without any committees, documents, or +bond--except the common interest of the individual and of the +fraternity--had come to the conclusion that at all costs they were going +to remain masters of their own mines. + +Common thought and common experience were responsible for that +recognition of economic independence as the first value of their new +life together. Michael Brady had stood for it from the earliest days of +the settlement. He had pointed out that the only things which could give +joy in life, men might have on the Ridge, if they were satisfied to find +their joy in these things, and not look for it in enjoyment of the +superficial luxuries money could provide. Most of the real sources of +joy were every man's inheritance, but conditions of work, which wrung +him of energy and spirit, deprived him of leisure to enjoy them until he +was too weary to do more than sleep or seek the stimulus of alcohol. +Besides, these conditions recruited him with the merest subsistence for +his pains, very often--did not even guarantee that--and denied him the +capacity to appreciate the real sources of joy. But the beauty of the +world, the sky, and the stars, spring, summer, the grass, and the birds, +were for every man, Michael said. Any and every man could have immortal +happiness by hearing a bird sing, by gazing into the blue-dark depths of +the sky on a starry night. No man could sell his joy of these things. No +man could buy them. Love is for all men: no man can buy or sell love. +Pleasure in work, in jolly gatherings with friends, peace at the end of +the day, and satisfaction of his natural hungers, a man might have all +these things on the Ridge, if he were content with essentials. + +Ridge miners' live fearlessly, with the magic of adventure in their +daily lives, the prospect of one day finding the great stone which is +the grail of every opal-miner's quest. They are satisfied if they get +enough opal to make a parcel for a buyer when he puts up for a night or +two at Newton's. A young man who sells good stones usually goes off to +Sydney to discover what life in other parts of the world is like, and to +take a draught of the gay life of cities. A married man gives his wife +and children a trip to the seaside or a holiday in town. But all drift +back to the Ridge when the taste of city life has begun to cloy, or when +all their money is spent. Once an opal miner, always an opal miner, the +Ridge folk say. + +Among the men, only the shiftless and more worthless are not in sympathy +with Ridge ideas, and talk of money and what money will buy as the +things of first value in life. They describe the Fallen Star township as +a God-forsaken hole, and promise each other, as soon as their luck has +turned, they will leave it for ever, and have the time of their lives in +Sydney. + +Women like Maggie Grant share their husband's minds. They read what the +men read, have the men's vision, and hold it with jealous enthusiasm. +Others, women used to the rough and simple existence of the +back-country, are satisfied with the life which gives them a husband, +home, and children. Those who sympathise with Mrs. Watty Frost regard +the men's attitude as more than half cussedness, sheer selfishness or +stick-in-the-mudness; and the more worthy and respectable they are, the +more they fret and fume at the earthen floors and open hearths of the +bark and bagging huts they live in, and pine for all the kick-shaws of +suburban villas. The discontented women are a minority, nevertheless. +Ridge folk as a whole have set their compass and steer the course of +their lives with unconscious philosophy, and yet a profound conviction +as to the rightness of what they are doing. + +And the Ridge, which bears them, stands serenely under blue skies the +year long, rising like a backbone from the plains that stretch for +hundreds of miles on either side. A wide, dusty road crosses the plains. +The huts of the Three Mile and Fallen Star crouch beside it, and +everywhere on the rusty, shingle-strewn slopes of the Ridge, are the +holes and thrown-up heaps of white and raddled clay or broken +sandstone--traces of the search for that "ecstasy in the heart of +gloom," black opal, which the Fallen Star earth holds. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Darling pea was lying in purple and magenta patches through the long +grass on the tank paddock when Sophie went with Ella and Mirry Flail to +gather wild flowers there. + +Wild flowers did not grow anywhere on Fallen Star as they did in the +tank paddock. It was almost a place of faery to children of the Ridge. +The little ones were not allowed to go there by themselves for fear they +might fall into the waterhole which lay like a great square lake in the +middle of it, its steep, well-set-up banks of yellow clay, ruled with +the precision of a diagram in geometry. The water was almost as yellow +as the banks, thick and muddy looking; but it was good water, nothing on +earth the matter with it when you had boiled it and the sediment had +been allowed to settle, everybody on Fallen Star Ridge was prepared to +swear. It had to be drawn up by a pump which was worked by a donkey +engine, Sam Nancarrow, and his old fat roan draught mare, and carted to +the township when rain-water in the iron tanks beside the houses in +Fallen Star gave out. + +During a dry season, or a very hot summer, all hands turned out to roof +the paddock tank with tarpaulins to prevent evaporation as far as +possible and so conserve the township's water supply. On a placard +facing the roadway a "severe penalty" was promised to anyone using it +without permission or making improper use of it. + +Ella and Mirry were gathering sago flower--"wild sweet Alice," as they +called candytuft--yellow eye-bright, tiny pink starry flowers, +bluebells, small lavender daisies, taller white ones, and yellow +daisies, as well as Darling pea; but Sophie picked only long, trailing +stalks of the pea. She had as many as she could hold when she sat down +to arrange them into a tighter bunch. + +Mirry and Ella Flail had always been good friends of Sophie's. Potch and +she had often gone on excursions with them, or to the swamp to cart +water when it was scarce and very dear in the township. And since Potch +had gone to work Sophie had no one to go about with but Mirry and Ella. +She pleased their mother by trying to teach them to read and write, and +they went noodling together, or gathering wild flowers. Sophie was three +or four years older than Mirry, who was the elder of the two Flails; she +felt much older since her mother's death nearly a year ago, and in the +black dress she had worn since then. She was just seventeen, and had put +her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. That made her feel +older, too. But she still liked to go for walks and wanderings with Ella +and Mirry. They knew so much about the birds and flowers, the trees, and +the ways of all the wild creatures: they were such wild creatures +themselves. + +They came running to her, crying excitedly, their hands filled with +flowers, shedding them as they ran. Then, collapsing in the grass beside +Sophie, Mirry rolled over on her back and gazed up into the sky. Ella, +squatting on her thin, sunburnt little sticks of legs, was arranging her +flowers and glancing every now and then at Sophie with shy, loving +glances. + +Sophie wondered why she had nothing of her old joyous zest in their +enterprises together. She used to be as wild and happy as Mirry and Ella +on an afternoon like this. But there was something of the shy, wild +spirit of a primitive people about Mirry and Ella, she remembered, some +of their blood, too. One of their mother's people, it was said, had been +a native of one of the river tribes. + +Mirry had her mother's beautiful dark eyes, almost green in the light, +and freckled with hazel, and her pale, sallow skin. Ella, younger and +shyer, was more like her father. Her skin was not any darker than +Sophie's, and her eyes blue-grey, her features delicate, her hair +golden-brown that glinted in the sun. + +"Sing to us, Sophie," Mirry said. + +Sophie often sang to them when she and Ella and Mirry were out like +this. As she sat with them, dreaming in the sunshine, she sang almost +without any conscious effort; she just put up her chin, and the melodies +poured from her. Hearing her voice, as it ran in ripples and eddies +through the clear, warm air, hung and quivered and danced again, +delighted her. + +Ella and Mirry listened in a trance of awe, reverence, and admiration. +Sophie had a dim vision of them, wide-eyed and still, against the tall +grass and flowers. + +"My! You can sing, Sophie! Can't she, Ella?" + +Ella nodded, gazing at Sophie with eyes of worshipping love. + +"They say you're going away with your father ... and you're going to be +a great singer, Sophie," Mirry said. + +"Yes," Sophie murmured tranquilly, "I am." + +A bevy of black and brown birds flashed past them, flew in a wide +half-circle across the paddock, and alighted on a dead tree beyond the +fence. + +"Look, look!" Mirry started to her feet. "A happy family! I wonder, are +the whole twelve there?" + +She counted the birds, which were calling to each other with little +shrill cries. + +"They're all there!" she announced. "Twelve of them. Mother says in some +parts they call them the twelve apostles. Sing again, Sophie," she +begged. + +Ella smiled at Sophie. Her lips parted as though she would like to have +said that, too; but only her eyes entreated, and she went on putting her +flowers together. + +As she sang, Sophie watched a pair of butterflies, white with black +lines and splashes of yellow and scarlet on their wings, hovering over +the flowered field of the paddock. She was so lost in her singing and +watching the butterflies, and the children were so intent listening to +her, that they did not hear a horseman coming slowly towards them along +the track. As he came up to them, Sophie's rippling notes broke and fell +to earth. Ella saw him first, and was on her feet in an instant. Mirry +and she, their wild instinct asserting itself, darted away and took +cover behind the trunks of the nearest trees. + +Sophie looked after them, wondering whether she would follow them as she +used to; but she felt older and more staid now than she had a year ago. +She stood her ground, as the man, who was leading his horse, came to a +standstill before her. + +She knew him well enough, Arthur Henty, the only son of old Henty of +Warria Station. She had seen him riding behind cattle or sheep on the +roads across the plains for years. Sometimes when Potch and she had met +him riding across the Ridge, or at the swamp, he had stopped to talk to +them. He had been at her mother's funeral, too; but as he stood before +her this afternoon, Sophie seemed to be seeing him for the first time. + +A tall, slightly-built young man, in riding breeches and leggings, a +worn coat, and as weathered a felt hat as any man on the Ridge wore, his +clothes the colour of dust on the roads, he stood before her, smiling +slightly. His face was dark in the shadow of his hat, but the whole of +him, cut against the sunshine, had gilded outlines. And he seemed to be +seeing Sophie for the first time, too. She had jumped up and drawn back +from the track when the Flails ran away. He could not believe that this +tall girl in the black dress was the queer, elfish-like girl he had seen +running about the Ridge, bare-legged, with feet in goat-skin sandals, +and in the cemetery on the Warria road, not much more than a year ago. +Her elfish gaiety had deserted her. It was the black dress gave her face +the warm pallor of ivory, he thought, made her look staider, and as if +the sadness of all it symbolised had not left her. But her eyes, +strange, beautiful eyes, the green and blue of opal, with black rings on +the irises and great black pupils, had still the clear, unconscious gaze +of youth; her lips the sweet, sucking curves of a child's. + +They stood so, smiling and staring at each other, a spell of silence on +each. + +Sophie had dropped half her flowers as she sprang up at the sound of +someone approaching. She had clutched a few in one hand; the rest lay on +the grass about her, her hat beside them. Henty's eyes went to the trees +round which Mirry and Ella were peeping. + +"They're wild birds, aren't they?" he said. + +Sophie smiled. She liked the way his eyes narrowed to slits of sunshine +as he smiled. + +"Are you going to sing, again?" he asked hesitatingly. + +Sophie shook her head. + +"My mother's awfully fond of that stuff," Henty said, looking at the +Darling pea Sophie had in her hand. "We haven't got any near the +homestead. I came into the paddock to get some for her." + +Sophie held out her bunch. + +"Not all of it," he said. + +"I can get more," she said. + +He took the flowers, and his vague smile changed to one of shy and +subtle understanding. Ella and Mirry found courage to join Sophie. + +"Where's Potch?" Henty asked. + +"He's working with Michael," Sophie said. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, and stood before her awkwardly, not knowing what to +talk about. + +He was still thinking how different she was to the little girl he had +seen chasing goats on the Ridge no time before, and wondering what had +changed her so quickly, when Sophie stooped to pick up her hat. Then he +saw her short, dark hair twisted up into a knot at the back of her head. +Feeling intuitively that he was looking at the knot she was so proud of, +Sophie put on her hat quickly. A delicate colour moved on her neck and +cheeks. Arthur Henty found himself looking into her suffused eyes and +smiling at her smile of confusion. + +"Well, we must be going now," Sophie said, a little breathlessly. + +Henty said that he was going into the New Town and would walk along part +of the way with her. He tucked the flowers Sophie had given him into his +saddle-bag, and she and the children turned down the track. Ella, having +found her tongue, chattered eagerly. Arthur Henty strolled beside them, +smoking, his reins over his arm. Mirry wanted to ride his horse. + +"Nobody rides this horse but me," Henty said. "She'd throw you into the +middle of next week." + +"I can ride," Mirry said; "ride like a flea, the boys say." + +She was used to straddling any pony or horse her brothers had in the +yard, and they had a name as the best horse-breakers in the district. + +Henty laughed. "But you couldn't ride Beeswing," he said. "She doesn't +let anybody but me ride her. You can sit on, if you like; she won't mind +that so long as I've got hold of her." + +The stirrup was too high for Mirry to reach, so he picked her up and put +her across the saddle. The mare shivered and shrank under the light +shock of Mirry's landing upon her, but Arthur Henty talked to her and +rubbed her head soothingly. + +"It's all right ... all right, old girl," he muttered. "Think it was one +of those stinging flies? But it isn't, you see. It's only Mirry Flail. +She says she's a flea of a rider. But you'd learn her, wouldn't you, if +you got off with her by yourself?" + +Ella giggled softly, peering at Mirry and Henty and at the beautiful +golden-red chestnut he was leading. Ed. Ventry had put Sophie on his +coach horses sometimes. He had let her go for a scamper with Potch on an +old horse or a likely colt now and then; but she knew she did not ride +well--not as Mirry rode. + +They walked along the dusty road together when they had left the tank +paddock, Mirry chattering from Beeswing's back, Sophie, with Ella +clinging to one hand, on the other side of Henty. But Mirry soon tired +of riding a led horse at a snail's pace. When a sulphur-coloured +butterfly fluttered for a few minutes over a wild tobacco plant, she +slid from the saddle, on the far side, and was off over the plains to +have another look at the butterfly. + +Ella was too shy or too frightened to get on the chestnut, even with +Henty holding her bridle. + +"How about you, Sophie?" Arthur Henty asked. + +Sophie nodded, but before he could help her she had put her foot into +the stirrup and swung into the saddle herself. Beeswing shivered again +to the new, strange weight on her back. Henty held her, muttering +soothingly. They went on again. + +After a while, with a shy glance, and as if to please him, Sophie began +to sing, softly at first, so as not to startle the mare, and then +letting her voice out so that it rippled as easily and naturally as a +bird's. Henty, walking with a hand on the horse's bridle beside her, +heard again the song she had been singing in the tank paddock. + +Ella was supposed to be carrying Sophie's flowers. She did not know she +had dropped nearly half of them, and that they were lying in a trail all +along the dusty road. + +Henty did not speak when Sophie had finished. His pipe had gone out, and +he put it in his pocket. The stillness of her audience of two was so +intense that to escape it Sophie went on singing, and the chestnut did +not flinch. She went quietly to the pace of the song, as though she, +too, were enjoying its rapture and tenderness. + +Then through the clear air came a rattle of wheels and jingle of +harness. Mirry, running towards them from the other side of the road, +called eagerly: + +"It's the coach.... Mr. Ventry's got six horses in, and a man with him!" + +Six horses indicated that a person of some importance was on board the +coach. Henty drew the chestnut to one side as the coach approached. Mr. +Ventry jerked his head in Henty's direction when he passed and saw +Arthur Henty with the Flail children and Sophie. The stranger beside him +eyed, with a faint smile of amusement, the cavalcade, the girl in the +black dress on the fine chestnut horse, the children with the flowers, +and the young man standing beside them. The man on the coach was a +clean-shaved, well-groomed, rather good-looking man of forty, or +thereabouts, and his clothes and appearance proclaimed him a man of the +world beyond the Ridge. His smile and stare annoyed Henty. + +"It's Mr. Armitage," Mirry said. "The young one. He's not as nice as the +old man, my father says--and he doesn't know opal as well--but he gives +a good price." + +They had reached the curve of the road where one arm turns to the town +and the other goes over the plains to Warria. Sophie slipped from the +horse. + +"We'll take the short cut here," she said. + +She stood looking at Arthur Henty for a moment, and in that moment Henty +knew that she had sensed his thought. She had guessed he was afraid of +having looked ridiculous trailing along the road with these children. +Sophie turned away. The young Flails bounded after her. Henty could hear +their laughter when he had ridden out some distance along the road. + +From the slope of a dump Sophie saw him--the chestnut and her rider +loping into the sunset, and, looking after him, she finished her song. + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà , + A fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !" + + Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be, + For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee! + My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee, + And my last breath will be for thee, dear name. + +The long, sweet notes and rippled melody followed Arthur Henty over the +plains in the quiet air of late afternoon. But the afternoon had been +spoilt for him. He was self-conscious and ill at ease about it all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Mr. Armitage is up at Newton's!" Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw +him at his back-door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news. + +"Not the old man?" Michael inquired. + +"No, the young 'un." + +Word was quickly bruited over the fields that the American, one of the +best buyers who came to the Ridge, had arrived by the evening coach. He +invariably had a good deal of money to spend, and gave a better price +than most of the local buyers. + +Dawe P. Armitage had visited Fallen Star Ridge from the first year of +its existence as an opal field, and every year for years after that. But +when he began to complain about aches and pains in his bones, which he +refused to allow anybody to call rheumatism, and was assured he was well +over seventy and that the long rail and sea journey from New York City +to Fallen Star township were getting too much for him, he let his son, +whom he had made a partner in his business, make the journey for him. +John Lincoln Armitage had been going to the Ridge for two or three +years, and although the men liked him well enough, he was not as popular +with them as his father had been. And the old man, John Armitage said, +although he was nearly crippled with rheumatism, still grudged him his +yearly visit to the Ridge, and hated like poison letting anyone else do +his opal-buying. + +Dawe Armitage had bought some of the best black opal found on the Ridge. +He had been a hard man to deal with, but the men had a grudging +admiration for him, a sort of fellow feeling of affection because of his +oneness with them in a passion for black opal. A grim, sturdy old +beggar, there was a certain quality about him, a gruff humour, sheer +doggedness, strength of purpose, and dead honesty within his point of +view, which kept an appreciative and kindly feeling for him in their +hearts. They knew he had preyed on them; but he had done it bluntly, +broadly, and in such an off-with-the-gloves-lads-style, that, after a +good fight over a stone and price, they had sometimes given in to him +for sheer amusement, and to let him have the satisfaction of thinking he +had gained his point. + +Usually he set his price on a stone and would not budge from it. The +gougers knew this, and if their price on a stone was not Dawe +Armitage's, they did not waste breath on argument, except to draw the +old boy and get some diversion from his way of playing them. If a man +had a good stone and did not think anyone else was likely to give him +his figure, sometimes he sold ten minutes before the coach Armitage was +going down to town by, left Newton's. But, three or four times, when a +stone had taken his fancy and a miner was obdurate, the old man, with +his mind's eye full of the stone and the fires in its dazzling jet, had +suddenly sent for it and its owner, paid his price, and pocketed the +stone. He had wrapped up the gem, chuckling in defeat, and rejoicing to +have it at any price. As a rule he made three or four times as much as +he had given for opals he bought on the Ridge, but to Dawe Armitage the +satisfaction of making money on a transaction was nothing like the joy +of putting a coveted treasure into his wallet and driving off from +Fallen Star with it. + +A gem merchant of considerable standing in the United States, Dawe +Armitage's collection of opals was world famous. He had put black opal +on the market, and had been the first to extol the splendour of the +stones found on Fallen Star Ridge. So different they were from the opal +found on Chalk Cliffs, or in any other part of the world, with the fires +in jetty potch rather than in the clear or milky medium people were +accustomed to, that at first timid and conventional souls were disturbed +and repelled by them. "They felt," they said, "that there was something +occultly evil about black opal." They had a curious fear and dread of +the stones as talismans of evil. Dawe Armitage scattered the quakers +like chaff with his scorn. They could not, he said, accept the +magnificent pessimism of black opal. They would not rejoice with pagan +abandonment in the beauty of those fires in black opal, realising that, +like the fires of life, they owed their brilliance, their transcendental +glory, to the dark setting. But every day the opals made worshippers of +sightseers. They mesmerised beholders who came to look at them. + +When the coach rattled to a standstill outside the hotel, Peter Newton +went to the door of the bar. He knew John Armitage by the size and shape +of his dust-covered overalls. Armitage dismounted and pulled off his +gloves. Peter Newton went to meet him. + +Armitage gripped his hand. + +"Mighty glad to see you, Newton," he said, "and glad to see the Ridge +again. How are you all?" + +Newton smiled, giving him greeting in downright Ridge style. + +"Fine," he said. "Glad to see you, Mr. Armitage." + +When he got indoors, Armitage threw off his coat. He and Peter had a +drink together, and then he went to have a wash and brush up before +dinner. Mrs. Newton came from the kitchen; she was pleased to see Mr. +Armitage, she said, and he shook hands with her and made her feel that +he was really quite delighted to see her. She spent a busy hour or so +making the best of her preparations for the evening meal, so that he +might repeat his usual little compliments about her cooking. Armitage +had his dinner in a small private sitting-room, and strolled out +afterwards to the veranda to smoke and yarn with the men. + +He spent the evening with them there, and in the bar, hearing the news +of the Ridge and gossiping genially. He had come all the way from Sydney +the day before, spent the night in the train, and had no head for +business that night, he said. When he yarned with them, Fallen Star men +had a downright sense of liking John Armitage. He was a good sort, they +told each other; they appreciated his way of talking, and laughed over +the stories he told and the rare and racy Americanisms with which he +flavoured his speech for their benefit. + +When he exerted himself to entertain and amuse them, they were as +pleased with him as a pack of women. And John Lincoln Armitage pleased +women, men of the Ridge guessed, the women of his own kind as well as +the women of Fallen Star who had talked to him now and then. His eyes +had a mild caress when they rested on a woman; it was not in the least +offensive, but carried challenge and appeal--a suggestion of sympathy. +He had a thousand little courtesies for women, the deference which comes +naturally to "a man of the world" for a member of "the fair sex." Mrs. +Newton was always flattered and delighted after a talk with him. He +asked her advice about opals he had bought or was going to buy, and, +although he did not make use of it very often, she was always pleased by +his manner of asking. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Archie Cross both +confessed to a partiality for Mr. Armitage, and even Mrs. Watty agreed +that he was "a real nice man"; and when he was in the township Mrs. +Henty and one of the girls usually drove over from the station and took +him back to Warria to stay a day or two before he went back to Sydney on +his return journey to New York. + +Armitage was very keen to know whether there had been any sensational +finds on the Ridge during the year, and all about them. He wanted to +know who had been getting good stuff, and said that he had bought Jun's +stones in Sydney. The men exclaimed at that. + +"I was surprised to hear," John Armitage said, "what happened to the +other parcel. You don't mean to say you think Charley Heathfield----?" + +"We ain't tried him yet," Watty remarked cautiously, "but the evidence +is all against him." + +Rouminof thrust himself forward, eager to tell his story. Realising the +proud position he might have been in this night with the opal-buyer if +he had had his opals, tears gathered in his eyes as he went over it all +again. + +Armitage listened intently. + +"Well, of all the rotten luck!" he exclaimed, when Paul had finished. +"Have another whisky, Rouminof? But what I can't make out," he added, +"is why, if he had the stones, Charley didn't come to me with them.... I +didn't buy anything but Jun's stuff before I came up here ... and he +just said it was half the find he was showing me. Nice bit of pattern in +that big black piece, eh? If Charley had the stones, you'd think he'd +'ve come along to me, or got Jun, or somebody to come along for him...." + +"I don't know about that." George Woods felt for his reasons. "He +wouldn't want you--or anybody else to know he'd got them." + +"That's right," Watty agreed. + +"He's got them all right," Ted Cross declared. "You see, I seen him +taking Rummy home that night--and he cleared out next morning." + +"I guess you boys know best." John Armitage sipped his whisky +thoughtfully. "But I'm mad to get the rest of the stones. Tell you the +truth, the old man hasn't been too pleased with my buying lately ... and +it would put him in no end of a good humour if I could take home with me +another packet of gems like the one I got from Jun. Jun knew I was keen +to get the stones ... and I can't help thinking ... if he knew they were +about, he'd put me in the way of getting them ... or them in my +way--somehow. You don't think ... anybody else could have been on the +job, and ... put it over on Charley, say...." + +His eyes went over the faces of the men lounging against the bar, or +standing in groups about him. Michael was lifting his glass to drink, +and, for the fraction of a second the opal-buyer's glance wavered on his +face before it passed on. + +"Not likely," George Woods said dryly. + +Recognising the disfavour his suggestion raised, Armitage brushed it +aside. + +"I don't think so, of course," he said. + +And although he did not speak to him, or even look at him closely again, +John Armitage was thinking all the evening of the quiver, slight as the +tremor of a moth's wing, on Michael's face, when that inquiry had been +thrown out. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the +men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more +of Dawe Armitage's zest for the business; and, every time they met, +Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and +easy-going with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they +were sure. + +The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood +him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only +perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to +please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He +was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his +last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John +Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, +which had cost £50 in the rough, was not worth £5 when it was cut. A +grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went +through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought +double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a +good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said. + +George Woods and Watty took John Armitage a couple of fine knobbies +during the morning, and the Crosses had shown him a parcel containing +two good green and blue stones with rippled lights; but they had more on +the parcel than Armitage felt inclined to pay, remembering the stormy +scene there had been with the old man over that last stone from Crosses' +mine which had cracked in the cutter's hands. Towards the end of the day +Mr. Armitage came to the conclusion, having gone over the stones the men +brought him, and having bought all he fancied, that there was very +little black opal of first quality about. He was meditating the fact, +leaning back in his chair in the sitting-room Newton had reserved for +him to see the gougers in, some pieces of opal, his scales and +microscope on the table before him, when Michael knocked. + +Absorbed in his reflections, realising there would be little to show for +the trouble and pains of his long journey, and reviewing a slowly +germinating scheme and dream for the better output of opal from Fallen +Star, John Armitage did not at first pay any attention to the knock. + +He had been thinking a good deal of Michael in connection with that +scheme. Michael, he knew, would be his chief opponent, if ever he tried +putting it into effect. When he had outlined his idea and vaguely formed +plans to his father, Dawe Armitage would have nothing to do with them. +He swept them aside uncompromisingly. + +"You don't know what you're up against," he said. "There isn't a man on +the Ridge wouldn't fight like a pole-cat if you tried it on 'em. Give +'em a word of it--and we quit partnership, see? They wouldn't stand for +it--not for a second--and there'd be no more black opal for Armitage and +Son, if they got any idea on the Ridge you'd that sort of notion at the +back of your head." + +But John Armitage refused to give up his idea. He went to it as a dog +goes to a planted bone--gnawed and chewed over it, contemplatively. + +He had made this trip to Fallen Star with little result, and he was sure +a system of working the mines on scientific, up-to-date lines would +ensure the production of more stone. He wanted to talk organisation and +efficiency to men of the Ridge, to point out to them that organisation +and efficiency were of first value in production, not realising Ridge +men considered their methods both organised and efficient within their +means and for their purposes. + +Michael knocked again, and Armitage called: + +"Come in!" When he saw who had come into the room, he rose and greeted +Michael warmly. + +"Oh, it's you, Michael!" he said, with a sense of guilt at the thoughts +Michael had interrupted. "I wondered what on earth had become of you. +The old man gave me no end of messages, and there are a couple of +magazines for you in my grip." + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," Michael replied. + +"Well, I hope you've got some good stuff," Armitage said. + +Michael took the chair opposite to him on the other side of the table. +"I haven't got much," he said. + +"I remember Newton told me you've been having rotten luck." + +"It's looked up lately," Michael said, the flickering wisp of a smile in +his eyes. "The boys say Rummy's a luck-bringer.... He's working with me +now, and we've been getting some nice stone." + +He took a small packet of opal from his pocket and put it on the table. +It was wrapped in newspaper. He unfastened the string, turned back the +cotton-wool in which the pieces of opal were packed, and spread them out +for Armitage to look at. + +Armitage went over the stones. He put them, one by one, under his +microscope, and held them to and from the light. + +"That's a nice bit of colour, Michael," he said, admiring a small piece +of grey potch with a black strain which flashed needling rays of green +and gold. "A little bit more of that, and you'd be all right, eh?" + +Michael nodded. "We're on a streak now," he said. "It ought to work out +all right." + +"I hope it will." Armitage held the piece of opal to the light and moved +it slowly. "Rouminof's working with you now--and Potch, they tell me?" + +Michael nodded. + +"Pretty hard on him, Charley's getting away with his stones like that!" + +John Armitage probed the quiet eyes of the man before him with a swift +glance. + +"You're right there, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. "Harder on Paul than +it would have been on anybody else. He's got the fever pretty bad." + +Armitage laughed, handling a stone thoughtfully. + +"I gave Jun a hundred pounds for his big stone. I'd give the same for +the other--if I could lay my hands on it, though the boys say it wasn't +quite as big, but better pattern." + +"That's right," Michael said. + +Silence lay between them for a moment. + +"What have you got on the lot, Michael?" Armitage asked, picking up the +stones before him and going over them absent-mindedly. + +"A tenner," Michael said. + +Usually a gouger asked several pounds more than he expected to get. John +Armitage knew that; Michael knew he knew it. Armitage played with the +stones, hesitated as though his mind were not made up. There was not +much more than potch and colour in the bundle. He went over the stones +with the glass again. + +"Oh well, Michael," he said, "we're old friends. I won't haggle with +you. Ten pounds--your own valuation." + +He would get twice as much for the parcel, but the price was a good one. +Michael was surprised he had conceded it so easily. + +Armitage pulled out his cheque-book and pushed a box of cigars across +the table. Michael took out his pipe. + +"If you don't mind, Mr. Armitage," he said, "I'm more at home with +this." + +"Please yourself, Michael," Armitage murmured, writing his cheque. + +When Michael had put the cheque in his pocket, Armitage took a cigar, +nipped and lighted it, and leaned back in his chair again. + +"Not much big stuff about, Michael," he remarked, conversationally. + +"George Woods had some good stones," Michael said. + +Armitage was not enthusiastic. "Pretty fair. But the old man will be +better pleased with the stuff I got from Jun Johnson than anything else +this trip.... I'd give a good deal to get the almond-shaped stone in +that other parcel." + +Michael realised Mr. Armitage had said the same thing to him before. He +wondered why he had said it to him--what he was driving at. + +"There were several good stones in Paul's parcel," he said. + +His clear, quiet eyes met John Armitage's curious, inquiring gaze. He +was vaguely discomfited by Armitage's gaze, although he did not flinch +from it. He wondered what Mr. Armitage knew, that he should look like +that. + +"It's been hard on Rouminof," Armitage murmured again. + +Michael agreed. + +"After the boys making Jun shell out, too! It doesn't seem to have been +much use, does it?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"And they say he was going to take that girl of his down to Sydney to +have her trained as a singer. She can sing, too. But her mother, +Michael--I heard her in _Dinorah_ ... when I was a little chap." +Enthusiasm lighted John Armitage's face. "She was wonderful.... The old +man says people were mad about her when she was in New York.... It was +said, you know, she belonged to some aristocratic Russian family, and +ran away with a rascally violinist--Rouminof. Can you believe it? ... +Went on the stage to keep him.... But she couldn't stand the life. Soon +after she was lost sight of.... I've often wondered how she drifted to +Fallen Star. But she liked being here, the old man says." + +Michael nodded. There was silence between them a moment; then Michael +rose to go. The opal-buyer got up too, and flung out his arms, +stretching with relief to be done with his day's work. + +"I've been cooped in here all day," he said. "I'll come along with you, +Michael. I'd like to have a look at the Punti Rush. Can you walk over +there with me?" + +"'Course I can, Mr. Armitage," Michael said heartily. + +They walked out of the hotel and through the town towards the rush, +where half a dozen new claims had been pegged a few weeks before. + +Snow-Shoes passed then going out of the town to his hut, swinging along +the track and gazing before him with the eyes of a seer, his fine old +face set in a dream, serene dignity in every line of his erect and +slowly-moving figure. + +Armitage looked after him. + +"What a great old chap he is, Michael," he exclaimed. "You don't know +anything about him ... who he is, or where he comes from, do you?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"How does he live?" + +"Noodles." + +"He's never brought me any stone." + +"Trades it with the storekeepers--though the boys do say"--Michael +looked with smiling eyes after Snow-Shoes--"he may be a bit of a miser, +loves opal more than the money it brings." + +Armitage's interest deepened. "There are chaps like that. I've heard the +old man talk about a stone getting hold of a man sometimes--mesmerising +him. I believe the old man's a bit like that himself, you know. There +are two or three pieces of opal he's got from Fallen Star nothing on +earth will induce him to part with. We wanted a stone for an Indian +nabob's show tiara--something of that sort--not long ago. I fancied that +big knobby we got from George Woods; do you remember? But the old man +wouldn't part with it; not he! Said he'd see all the nabobs in the world +in--Hades, before they got that opal out of him!" + +Michael laughed. The thought of hard-shelled old Dawe Armitage hoarding +opals tickled him immensely. + +"Fact," Armitage continued. "He's got a couple of stones he's like a kid +over--takes them out, rubs them, and plays with them. And you should +hear him if I try to get them from him.... A packet of crackers isn't in +it with the old man." + +"The boys'd like to hear that," Michael said. + +"There's no doubt about the fascination the stuff exercises," John +Armitage went on. "You people say, once an opal-miner, always an +opal-miner; but I say, once an opal-buyer, always an opal-buyer. I +wasn't keen about this business when I came into it ... but it's got me +all right. I can't see myself coming to this God-forsaken part of the +world of yours for anything but black opal...." + +That expression, whimsical and enigmatic, which was never very far from +them, had grown in Michael's eyes. He began to sense a motive in +Armitage's seemingly casual talk, and to understand why the opal-buyer +was so friendly. + +"The old man tells a story," Armitage continued, "of that robbery up at +Blue Pigeon. You know the yarn I mean ... about sticking up a coach when +there was a good parcel of opal on board. Somebody did the bush-ranging +trick and got away with the opal.... The thief was caught, and the stuff +put for safety in an iron safe at the post office. And sight of the +opals corrupted one of the men in the post office.... He was caught ... +and then a mounted trooper took charge of them. And the stuff bewitched +him, too.... He tried to get away with it...." + +"That's right," Michael murmured serenely. + +Armitage eyed him keenly. He could scarcely believe the story he had got +from Jun, that the second parcel of stones had been exchanged after +Charley got them, or that they had been changed on Paul before Charley +got them from him. + +Michael guessed Armitage was sounding him by talking so much of +Rouminof's stones and the robbery. He wondered what Armitage +knew--whether he knew anything which would attach him, Michael, to +knowledge of what had become of Paul's stones. There was always the +chance that Charley had recognised some of the opal in the parcel +substituted for Paul's, although none of the scraps were significant +enough to be remembered, Michael thought, and Charley was never keen +enough to have taken any notice of the sun-flash and fragments of +coloured potch they had taken out of the mine during the year. The brown +knobby, which Michael had kept for something of a sentimental reason, +because it was the first stone he had found on Fallen Star, Charley had +never seen. + +But, probably, he remarked to himself, Armitage was only trying to get +information from him because he thought that Michael Brady was the most +likely man on the Ridge to know what had become of the stones, or to +guess what might have become of them. + +As they walked and talked, these thoughts were an undercurrent in +Michael's mind. And the undercurrent of John Lincoln Armitage's mind, +through all his amiable and seemingly inconsequential gossip, was not +whether Michael had taken the stones, but why he had, and what had +become of them. + +Armitage could not, at first, bring himself to credit the half-formed +suspicion which that quiver of Michael's face, when he had spoken of +what Jun said, had given him. Yet they were all more or less mad, people +who dealt with opal, he believed. It might not be for the sake of profit +Michael had taken the stones, if he had taken them--there was still a +shadow of doubt in his mind. John Armitage knew that any man on the +Ridge would have knocked him down for harbouring such a thought. Michael +was the little father, the knight without fear and without a stain, of +the Ridge. He reflected that Michael had never brought him much stone. +His father had often talked of Michael Brady and the way he had stuck to +gouging opal with precious little luck for many years. The parcel he had +sold that day was perhaps the best Michael had traded with Armitage and +Son for a long time. John Armitage wondered if any man could work so +long without having found good stuff, without having realised the hopes +which had materialised for so many other men of the Ridge. + +They went over the new rush, inspected "prospects," and yarned with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, who had pegged out a claim there. +But as Armitage and he walked back to the town discussing the outlook of +the new field and the colour and potch some of the men already had to +show, Michael found himself in the undertow of an uneasy imagination. He +protested to himself that he was unnecessarily apprehensive, that all +Armitage was trying to get from him was any information which would +throw light on the disappearance of Paul's stones. And Armitage was +wondering whether Michael might not be an opal miser--whether the +mysterious fires of black opal might not have eaten into his brain as +they had into the brains of good men before him. + +If they had, and if he had found the flaw in Michael's armour, John +Armitage realised that the way to fulfilment of his schemes for buying +the mines and working them on up-to-date lines, was opened up. If +Michael could be proved unfaithful to the law and ideals of Ridge, John +Armitage believed the men's faith in the fabric of their common life +would fall to pieces. He envisaged the eating of moths of doubt and +disappointment into the philosophy of the Ridge, the disintegration of +ideas which had held the men together, and made them stand together in +matters of common interest and service, as one man. He had almost +assured himself that if Michael was not the thief and hoarder of the +lost opals, he at least knew something of them, when a ripple of +laughter and gust of singing were flung into the air not far from them. + +To Armitage it was as though some blithe spirit was mocking the +discovery he thought he had made, and the fruition it promised those +secret hopes of his. + +"It's Sophie," Michael said. + +They had come across the Ridge to the back of the huts. The light was +failing; the sky, from the earth upwards where the sunset had been, the +frail, limpid green of a shallow lagoon, deepening to blue, darker than +indigo. The crescent of a moon, faintly gilded, swung in the sky above +the dark shapes of the huts which stood by the track to the old +Flash-in-the-pan rush. The smoke of sandal-wood fires burning in the +huts was in the air. A goat bell tinkled.... + +Potch and Sophie were talking behind the hut somewhere; their +exclamations, laughter, a phrase or two of the song Sophie was singing +went through the quietness. + +And it was all this he wanted to change! John Armitage caught the +revelation of the moment as he stood to listen to Sophie singing. He +understood as he had never done what the Ridge stood for--association of +people with the earth, their attachment to the primary needs of life, +the joyous flight of youthful spirits, this quiet happiness and peace at +evening when the work of the day was done. + +As he came from the dumps, having said good-night to Michael, he saw +Sophie, a slight, girlish figure, on the track ahead of him. Her dress +flickered and flashed through the trees beside the track; it was a +wraithlike streak in the twilight. She was taking the milk down to +Newton's, and singing to herself as she walked. John Armitage quickened +his steps to overtake her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The visit of an opal-buyer ruffled ever so slightly the still surface of +life on the Ridge. When Armitage had gone, he was talked of for a few +days; the stones he had bought, the prices he had given for them, were +discussed. Some of his sayings, and the stories he had told, were +laughed over. Tricks of speech he had used, tried at first half in fun, +were adopted and dropped into the vernacular of the mines. + +"Sure!" the men said as easily as an American; and sometimes, talking +with each other: "You've got another think coming to you"; or, "See, +you've got your nerve with you!" + +For a night or two Michael went over the books and papers John Armitage +had brought him. At first he just glanced here and there through them, +and then he began to read systematically, and light glimmered in his +windows far into the night. He soaked the contents of two or three +reviews and several newspapers before giving himself to a book on +international finance in which old Armitage had written his name. + +Michael thrilled to the stimulus of the book, the intellectual +excitement of the ideas it brought forth. He lived tumultuously within +the four bare walls of his room, arguing with himself, the author, the +world at large. Wrong and injustice enthroned, he saw in this book +describing the complexities of national and international systems of +finance, the subtle weaving and interweaving of webs of the +money-makers. + +This was not the effect Dawe Armitage had expected his book to have; he +had expected to overawe and daze Michael with its impressive arraignment +of figures and its subtle and bewildering generalisations on credit and +foreign exchange. Michael's mind had cut through the fog raised by the +financier's jargon to the few small facts beneath it all. Neither dazed +nor dazzled, his brain had swung true to the magnetic meridian of his +faith. Far from the book having shown him the folly and futility of any +attempt against the Money Power, as Dawe Armitage, in a moment of +freakish humour had imagined it might, it had filled him with such an +intensity of fury that for a moment he believed he alone could +accomplish the regeneration of the world; that like St. Michael of old +he would go forth and slay the dragon, this chimera which was ravaging +the world, drawing the blood, beauty, and joy of youth, the peace and +wisdom of age; breaking manhood and womanhood with its merciless claws. + +But falling back on a consciousness of self, as with broken wings he +realised he was neither archangel, nor super-man, but Michael Brady, an +ordinary, ill-educated man who read and dreamed a great deal, and gouged +for black opal on Fallen Star Ridge. He was a little bitter, and more +humble, for having entertained that radiant vision of himself. + +John Armitage had been gone from the Ridge some weeks when Michael went +over in his mind every phase and phrase of the talk they had had. His +lips took a slight smile; it crept into his eyes, as he reviewed what he +had said and what John Armitage had said, smoking unconsciously. + +Absorbed in his reading, he had thought little of John Armitage and that +walk to the new rush with him. Occasionally the memory of it had +nickered and glanced through his mind; but he was so obsessed by the +ideas this new reading had stirred, that he went about his everyday jobs +in the mine and in the hut, absent-mindedly, automatically, because they +were things he was in the habit of doing. Potch watched him anxiously; +Rouminof growled to him; Sophie laughed and flitted and sang, before his +eyes; but Michael had been only distantly conscious of what was going on +about him. George Woods and Watty guessed what was the matter; they knew +the symptoms of these reading and brooding bouts Michael was subject to. +The moods wore off when they put questions likely to draw information +and he began to talk out and discuss what he had been reading with them. + +He had talked this one off, when suddenly he remembered how John +Armitage's eyes had dived into his during that walk to the new rush. He +could see Armitage's eyes again, keen grey eyes they were. And his +hands. Michael remembered how Armitage's hands had played over the opals +he had taken to show him. John Lincoln Armitage had the shrewd eyes of +any man who lives by his wits--lawyer, pickpocket, politician, or +financier--he decided; and the fine white hands of a woman. Only Michael +did not know any woman whose hands were as finely shaped and as white as +John Armitage's. Images of his clean-shaven, hot-house face of a city +dweller, slightly burned by his long journey on land and sea, recurred +to him; expressions, gestures, inflections of voice. + +Michael smiled to himself in communion with his thoughts as he went over +the substance of Armitage's conversation, dissecting and shredding it +critically. The more he thought of what Armitage had said, the more he +found himself believing John Armitage had some information which caused +him to think that he, Michael, knew something of the whereabouts of the +stones. He could not convince himself Armitage believed he actually held +the stones, or that he had stolen them. Armitage had certainly given him +an opportunity to sell on the quiet if he had the stones; but his manner +was too tentative, mingled with a subtle respect, to carry the notion of +an overt suggestion of the sort, or the possession of incriminating +knowledge. Then there was the story of the old Cliffs robbery. Michael +wondered why Mr. Armitage had gone over that. On general principles, +doubting the truth of his long run of bad luck--or from curiosity +merely, perhaps. But Michael did not deceive himself that Armitage might +have told the story in order to discover whether there was something of +the miser in him, and whether--if Michael had anything to do with the +taking of Paul's opals--he might prefer to hold rather than sell them. + +Michael was amused at the thought of himself as a miser. He went into +the matter as honestly as he could. He knew the power opal had with him, +the fascination of the search for it, which had brought him from the +Cliffs to the Ridge, and which had held him to the place, although the +life and ideas it had come to represent meant more to him now than black +opal. Still, he was an opal miner, and through all his lean years on the +Ridge he had been upheld by the thought of the stone he would find some +day. + +He had dreamed of that stone. It had haunted his idle thoughts for +years. He had seen it in the dark of the mine, deep in the ruddy earth, +a mirror of jet with fires swarming, red, green, and gold in it. + +Dreams of the great opal he would one day discover had comforted him +when storekeepers were asking for settlement of long-standing accounts. +He did not altogether believe he would find it, that wonderful piece of +black opal; but he dreamed, like a child, of finding it. + +As he thought of it, and of John Armitage, the smile in his eyes +broadened. If Armitage knew of that stone of his dreams, he would +certainly think his surmise was correct and believe that Michael Brady +was a miser. But he had held the dream in a dark and distant corner of +his consciousness; had it out to mood and brood over only at rare and +distant intervals; and no one was aware of its existence. + +Black opal had no more passionate lover than himself, Michael knew. He +trembled with instinctive eagerness, reverence, and delight, when he saw +a piece of beautiful stone; his eyes devoured it. But there was nothing +personal in his love. He might have been high priest of some mysterious +divinity; when she revealed herself he was consumed with adoration. In a +vague, whimsical way Michael realised this of himself, and yet, too, +that if ever he held the stone of his dreams in his hands, he would be +filled with a glorious and flooding sense of accomplishment; an ecstasy +would transport him. It would be beyond all value in money, that stone; +but he would not want to keep it to gaze on alone, he would want to give +it to the world as a thing of consummate beauty, for everybody to enjoy +the sight of and adore. + +No, Michael assured himself, he was not a miser. And, he reflected, he +had not even looked at Paul's stones. For all he knew, the stones Paul +had been showing that night at Newton's might have been removed from the +box before he left Newton's. Someone might have done to Paul what he, +Michael, had done to Charley Heathfield, as Armitage had suggested. +Paul's little tin box was well enough known. He had been opening and +showing his stones at Newton's a long time before the night when Jun had +been induced to divide spoils. It would be just as well, Michael +decided, to see what the box did contain; and he promised himself that +he would open it and look over the stones--some evening. But he was not +inclined to hurry the engagement with himself to do so. + +He had been glad enough to forget that he had anything to do with that +box of Paul's: it still lay among the books where he had thrown it. The +memory of the night on which he had seen Charley taking Paul home, and +of all that had happened afterwards, was blurred in an ugly vision for +him. It had become like the memory of a nightmare. He could scarcely +believe he had done what he had done; yet he knew he had. He drew a deep +breath of relief when he realised everything had worked out well so far. + +Paul was working with him; they had won that little bit of luck to carry +them on; Sophie was growing up healthily, happily, on the Ridge. She was +growing so quickly, too. Within the last few months Michael had noticed +a subtle change in her. There was an indefinable air of a flower +approaching its bloom about her. People were beginning to talk of her +looks. Michael had seen eyes following her admiringly. Sophie walked +with a light, lithe grace; she was slight and straight, not tall really, +but she looked tall in the black dress she still wore and which came to +her ankles. There was less of the eager sprite about her, a suggestion +of some sobering experience in her eyes--the shadow of her mother's +death--which had banished her unthinking and careless childhood. But the +eyes still had the purity and radiance of a child's. And she seemed +happy--the happiest thing on the Ridge, Michael thought. The cadence of +her laughter and a ripple of her singing were never long out of the air +about her father's hut. Wherever she went, people said now: "Sing to us, +Sophie!" + +And she sang, whenever she was asked, without the slightest +self-consciousness, and always those songs from old operas, or some of +the folk-songs her mother had taught her, which were the only songs she +knew. + +Michael had seen a number of neighbours in the township and their wives +and children sitting round in one or other of their homes while Sophie +sang. He had seen a glow of pleasure transfuse people as they listened +to her pure and ringing notes. Singing, Sophie seemed actually to +diffuse happiness, her own joy in the melodies she flung into the air. +Oh, yes, Sophie was happy singing, Michael could permit himself to +believe now. She could make people happy by her singing. He had feared +her singing as a will-o'-the-wisp which would lead her away from him and +the Ridge. But when he heard her enthralling people in the huts with it, +he was not afraid. + +Paul sometimes moaned about the chances she was missing, and that she +could be singing in theatres to great audiences. Sophie herself laughed +at him. She was quite content with the Ridge, it seemed, and to sing to +people on their verandas in the summer evenings or round the fires in +the winter. She might have had greater and finer audiences, the Ridge +folk said, but she could not have had more appreciative ones. + +If she was singing in the town, Michael always went to bring her home, +and he was as pleased as Sophie to hear people say: + +"You're not taking her away yet, Michael? The night's a pup!" or, +"Another ... just one more song, Sophie!" + +And if she had been singing at Newton's, Michael liked to see the men +come to the door of the bar, holding up their glasses, and to hear their +call, as Sophie and he went down the road: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +"Skin off y'r nose!" + +"All the luck!" + +"Best respecks, Sophie!" + +When Sophie did not know what to do with herself all the hours Michael +and Potch and her father were away at the mines, Michael had showed her +how to use her mother's cutting-wheel. He taught her all he knew of +opals, and Sophie was delighted with the idea of learning to cut and +polish gems as her mother had. + +Michael gave her rough stones to practise on, and in no time she learnt +to handle them skilfully. George, Watty, and the Crosses brought her +some gems to face and polish for them, and they were so pleased with her +work that they promised to give her most of their stones to cut and +polish. She had two or three accidents, and was very crestfallen about +them; but Michael declared they were part of the education of an +opal-cutter and would teach her more about her work than anyone could +tell her. + +To Michael those days were of infinite blessedness. They proved again +and again the right of what he had done. At first he was vaguely alarmed +and uneasy when he saw younger men of the Ridge, Roy O'Mara or Bully +Bryant, talking or walking with Sophie, or he saw her laughing and +talking with them. There was something about Sophie's bearing with them +which disturbed him--a subtle, unconscious witchery. Then he explained +it to himself. He guessed that the woman in her was waking, or awake. On +second thoughts he was not jealous or uneasy. It was natural enough the +boys should like Sophie, that she should like them; he recognised the +age-old call of sex in it all. And if Sophie loved and married a man of +the Ridge, the future would be clear, Michael thought. He could give +Paul the opals, and her husband could watch over Sophie and see no harm +came to her if she left the Ridge. + +The uneasiness stirred again, though, one afternoon when he found her +walking from the tank paddock with Arthur Henty beside her. There was a +startled consciousness about them both when Michael joined them and +walked along the road with them. He had seen Sophie talking to Henty in +and about the township before, but it had not occurred to him there was +anything unusual about that. Sophie had gone about as she liked and +talked to whom she liked since she was a child. She was on good terms +with everyone in the countryside. No one knew where she went or what she +did in the long day while the men were at the mines. Because the +carillon of her laughter flew through those quiet days, Michael +instinctively had put up a prayer of thanksgiving. Sophie was happy, he +thought. He did not ask himself why; he was grateful; but a vague +disquiet made itself felt when he remembered how he had found her +walking with Arthur Henty, and the number of times he had seen her +talking to Arthur Henty at Chassy Robb's store, or on the tracks near +the town. + +Fallen Star folk knew Arthur better than any of the Hentys. For years he +had been coming through the township with cattle or sheep, and had put +up at Newton's with stockmen on his way home, or when he was going to an +out-station beyond the Ridge. + +His father, James Henty, had taken up land in the back-country long +before opal was found on Fallen Star Ridge. He had worked half a million +square acres on an arm of the Darling in the days before runs were +fenced, with only a few black shepherds and one white man, old Bill +M'Gaffy, to help him for the first year or two. But, after an era of +extraordinary prosperity, a series of droughts and misfortunes had +overwhelmed the station and thrown it on the tender mercies of the +banks. + +The Hentys lived much as they had always done. They entertained as +usual, and there was no hint of a wolf near the door in the hearty, +good-natured, and liberal hospitality of the homestead. A constitutional +optimism enabled James Henty to believe Warria would ultimately throw +off its debts and the good old days return. Only at the end of a season, +when year after year he found there was no likelihood of being able to +meet even the yearly interest on mortgages, did he lose some of his +sanguine belief in the station's ability to right itself, and become +irritable beyond endurance, blaming any and everyone within hail for the +unsatisfactory estimates. + +But usually Arthur bore the brunt of these outbursts. Arthur Henty had +gone from school to work on the station at the beginning of Warria's +decline from the years of plenty, and had borne the burden and not a +little of the blame for heavy losses during the droughts, without ever +attempting to shift or deny the responsibilities his father put upon +him. + +"It does the old man good to have somebody to go off at," he explained +indifferently to his sister, Elizabeth, when she called him all the +fools under the sun for taking so much blackguarding sitting down. + +Although James Henty's only son and manager of the station under his +father's autocratic rule, Arthur Henty lived and worked among Warria +stockmen as though he were one of them. His clothes were as worn and +heavy with dust as theirs; his hat was as weathered, his hands as +hard--sunburnt and broken with sores when barcoo was in the air. A +quiet, unassuming man, he never came the "Boss" over them. He passed on +the old man's orders, and, for the rest, worked as hard as any man on +the station. + +He had never done anything remarkable that anyone could remember; but +the men he worked with liked him. Everybody rather liked Arthur Henty, +although nobody enthused about him. He had done man's work ever since he +was a boy, with no more than a couple of years' schooling; he had done +it steadily and as well as any other young man in the back-country. But +there was a curious, almost feminine weakness in him somewhere. The men +did not understand it. They thought he was too supine with his father; +that he ought to stand up to him more. + +Arthur Henty preferred being out on the plains with them rather than in +at the home station, the men said. He looked happier when he was with +them; he whistled to them as they lay yarning round the camp-fire before +turning in. They had never heard anything like his whistling. He seemed +to be playing some small, fine, invisible flute as he gave them +old-fashioned airs, ragtime tunes, songs from the comic operas, and +miscellaneous melodies he had heard his sisters singing. No one had +heard him whistling like that at the station. Out on the plains, or in +the bar at Newton's, he was a different man. Once or twice when he had +been drinking, and a glass or two of beer or whisky had got to his head, +he had shown more the spirit that it was thought he possessed--as if, +when the conscious will was relaxed, a submerged self had leapt forth. + +Men who had known him a long time wondered whether time would not +strengthen the fibres of that submerged self; but they had seen Arthur +Henty lose the elastic, hopeful outlook of youth, and sink gradually +into the place assigned him by his father, at first dutifully, then with +an indifference which slowly became apathy. + +Mrs. Henty and the girls exclaimed with dismay and disgust when they +returned to the station after two years in town, and saw how rough and +unkempt-looking Arthur had become. They insisted on his having his hair +and beard cut at once, and that he should manicure his finger-nails. +After he had dressed for dinner and was clipped and shaved, they said he +looked more as if he belonged to them; but he was a shy, awkward boor, +and they did not know what to make of him. In his mother's hands, Arthur +was still a child, though, and she brought him back to the fold of the +family, drew his resistance--an odd, sullen resentment he had acquired +for the niceties of what she called "civilised society"--and made him +amenable to its discipline. + +Elizabeth was twice the man her brother was, James Henty was fond of +declaring. She had all the vigour and dash he would have liked his son +to possess. "My daughter Elizabeth," he said as frequently as possible, +and was always talking of her feats with horses, and the clear-headed +and clever way she went about doing things, and getting her own way on +all and every occasion. + +When the men rounded buck-jumpers into the yards on a Sunday morning, +Elizabeth would ride any Chris Este, the head stockman, let her near; +but Arthur never attempted to ride any of the warrigals. He steered +clear of horse-breaking and rough horses whenever he could, although he +broke and handled his own horses. In a curious way he shared a secret +feeling of his mother's for horses. She had never been able to overcome +an indefinable apprehension of the raw, half-broken horses of the +back-country, although her nerve had carried her through years of +acquaintance with them, innumerable accidents and misadventures, and +hundreds of miles of journeys at their mercy; and Arthur, although he +had lived and worked among horses as long as he could remember, had not +been able to lose something of the same feeling. His sister, suspecting +it, was frankly contemptuous; so was his father. It was the reason of +Henty's low estimate of his son's character generally. And the rumour +that Arthur Henty was shy of tough propositions in horses--"afraid of +horses"--had a good deal to do with the never more than luke-warm +respect men of the station and countryside had for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Sophie often met Arthur Henty on the road just out of the town. Usually +it was going to or coming from the tank paddock, or in the paddock, on +Friday afternoons, when he had been into Budda for the sales or to truck +sheep or cattle. They did not arrange to meet, but Sophie expected to +see Arthur when she went to the tank paddock, and she knew he expected +to find her there. She did not know why she liked being with Arthur +Henty so much, or why they were such golden occasions when she met him. +They did not talk much when they were together. Their eyes met; they +knew each other through their eyes--a something remote from themselves +was always working through their eyes. It drew them together. + +When she was with Arthur Henty, Sophie knew she was filled with an +ineffable gaiety, a thing so delicate and ethereal that as she sang she +seemed to be filling the air with it. And Henty looked at her sometimes +as if he had discovered a new, strange, and beautiful creature, a +butterfly, or gnat, with gauzy, resplendent wings, whose beauty he was +bewildered and overcome by. The last time they had been together he had +longed to draw her to him and kiss her so that the virgin innocence +would leave her eyes; but fear or some conscientious scruple had +restrained him. He had been reluctant to awaken her, to change the +quality of her feeling towards him. He had let her go with a lingering +handclasp. In all their tender intimacy there had been no more of the +love-making of the flesh than the subtle interweavings of instincts and +fibres which this handclasp gave. Ridge folk had seen them walking +together. They had seen that subtle inclination of Sophie's and Arthur's +figures towards each other as they walked--the magnetic, gentle, +irresistible swaying towards each other--and the gossips began to +whisper and nod smilingly when they came across Arthur and Sophie on the +road. Sophie at first went her way unconscious of the whispers and +smiles. Then words were dropped slyly--people teased her about Arthur. +She realised they thought he was her sweetheart. Was he? She began to +wonder and think about it. He must be; she came to the conclusion +happily. Only sweethearts went for walks together as she and Arthur did. + +"My mother says," Mirry Flail remarked one day, "she wouldn't be a bit +surprised to see you marrying Arthur Henty, Sophie, and going over to +live at Warria." + +"Goodness!" Sophie exclaimed, surprised and delighted that anybody +should think such a thing. + +"Marry Arthur Henty and go over and live at Warria." Her mind, like a +delighted little beaver, began to build on the idea. It did not alter +her bearing with Arthur. She was less shy and thoughtful with him, +perhaps; but he did not notice it, and she was carelessly and childishly +content to have found the meaning of why she and Arthur liked meeting +and talking together. People only felt as she and Arthur felt about each +other if they were going to marry and live "happy ever after," she +supposed. + +When Michael was aware of what was being said, and of the foundation +there was for gossip, he was considerably disturbed. He went to talk to +Maggie Grant about it. She, he thought, would know more of what was in +the wind than he did, and be better able to gauge what the consequences +were likely to be to Sophie. + +"I've been bothered about it myself, Michael," she said. "But neither +you nor me can live Sophie's life for her.... I don't see we can do +anything. His crowd'll do all the interfering, if I know anything about +them." + +"I suppose so," Michael agreed. + +"And, as far as I can see, it won't do any good our butting in," Mrs. +Grant continued. "You know Sophie's got a will of her own ... and she's +always had a good deal her own way. I've talked round the thing to her +... and I think she understands." + +"You've always been real good to her, Maggie," Michael said gratefully. + +"As to that"--the lines of Maggie Grant's broad, plain face rucked to +the strength of her feeling--"I've done what I could. But then, I'm fond +of her--fond of her as you are, Michael. That's saying a lot. And you +know what I thought of her mother. But it's no use us thinking we can +buy Sophie's experience for her. She's got to live ... and she's got to +suffer." + +Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no +idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or +that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang +as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch +as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an +insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her +stones to face and fix up. She had acquired such a reputation for making +the most of stones committed to her care that men came from the Three +Mile and from the Punti with opals for her to rough-out and polish. + +Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara were often at Rouminof's in the evening, and +they heard about it when they looked in at Newton's later on, now and +then. + +"You must be striking it pretty good down at the Punti, Bull," Watty +Frost ventured genially one night. "See you takin' stones for Sophie to +fix up pretty near every evenin'." + +"There's some as sees too much," Bully remarked significantly. + +"What you say, you say y'rself, Bull." Watty pulled thoughtfully on his +pipe, but his little blue eyes squinted over his fat, red-grained +cheeks, not in the least abashed. + +"I do," Bull affirmed. "And them as sees too much ... won't see much ... +when I'm through with 'em." + +"Mmm," Watty brooded. "That's a good thing to know, isn't it?" + +He and the rest of the men continued to "sling off," as they said, at +Bully and Roy O'Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless. + +The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of +excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and +the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new +prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on +claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new +field. + +Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show +for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the +fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man +to manage Rummy, the men said. + +Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more +or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with +him for keeping out of the way. + +"Shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't rather have his room than his +company," Watty ventured, "and they just go shares with him so as +things'll be all right for Sophie." + +"That's right!" Pony-Fence agreed. + +The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man's work, going +about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a +youth at anybody's beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the +taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a +man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older +than he was really, and took being Michael's mate very seriously. + +Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that +Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter; but +George and Watty were loth to lose Michael's word from their councils. +They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. +Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a +discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other +shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that +morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael +had invited him to go across to George and Watty's shelter with him, and +after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael's +shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds +which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what +was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty +trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found +Potch's eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent +expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave +interest. + +Some people were staying at Warria during the winter, and when there was +going to be a dance at the station Mrs. Henty wrote to ask Rouminof to +play for it. She could manage the piano music, she said, and if he would +tune his violin for the occasion, they would have a splendid band for +the young people. And, her letter had continued: "We should be so +pleased if your daughter would come with you." + +Sophie was wildly excited at the invitation. She had been to Ridge race +balls for the last two or three years, but she had never even seen +Warria. Her father had played at a Warria ball once, years before, when +she was little; but she and her mother had not gone with him to the +station. She remembered quite well when he came home, how he had told +them of all the wonderful things there had been to eat at the +ball--stuffed chickens and crystallised fruit, iced cakes, and all +manner of sweets. + +Sophie had heard of the Warria homestead since she was a child, of its +orange garden and great, cool rooms. It had loomed like the enchanted +castle of a legend through all her youthful imaginings. And now, as she +remembered what Mirry Flail had said, she was filled with delight and +excitement at the thought of seeing it. + +She wondered whether Arthur had asked his mother to invite her to the +dance. She thought he must have; and with naïve conceit imagined happily +that Arthur's mother must want to know her because she knew that Arthur +liked her. And Arthur's sisters--it would be nice to know them and to +talk to them. She went over and over in her mind the talks she would +have with Polly and Nina, and perhaps Elizabeth Henty, some day. + +A few weeks before the ball she had seen Arthur riding through the +township with his sisters and a girl who was staying at Warria. He had +not seen her, and Sophie was glad, because suddenly she had felt shy and +confused at the thought of talking to him before a lot of people. +Besides, they all looked so jolly, and were having such a good time, +that she would not have known what to say to Arthur, or to his sisters, +just then. + +When she told Mrs. Woods and Martha M'Cready about the invitation, they +smiled and teased her. + +"Oh, that tells a tale!" they said. + +Sophie laughed. She felt silly, and she was blushing, they said. But she +was very happy at having been asked to the ball. For weeks before she +found herself singing "Caro Nome" as she sat at work, went about the +house, or with Potch after the goats in the late afternoon. + +Arthur liked that song better than any other, and its melody had become +mingled and interwoven with all her thoughts of him. + +The twilight was deepening, on the evening a few days before the dance, +when Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara came up to Rouminof's hut, calling +Sophie. She was washing milk tins and tea dishes, and went to the door +singing to herself, a candle throwing a fluttering light before her. + +"Your father sent us along for you, Sophie," Bully explained. "There's a +bit of a celebration on at Newton's to-night, and the boys want you to +sing for them." + +Sophie turned from them, going into the house to put down her candle. + +"All right," she said, pleased at the idea. + +Michael came into the hut through, the back door. From his own room he +had heard Bully calling and then explaining why he and Roy O'Mara were +there. + +"Don't go, Sophie," Michael said. + +"But why, Michael?" Disappointment clouded Sophie's first bright +pleasure that the men had sent for her to sing to them, and her +eagerness to do as they asked. + +"It's not right ... not good for you to sing down there when the boys +'ve been drinking," Michael said, unable to express clearly his +opposition to her singing at Newton's. + +"Don't be a spoil-sport, Michael," the boys at the door called when they +saw he was trying to dissuade Sophie. + +"Come along, Sophie," Roy called. + +She looked from Bully and Roy to Michael, hesitating. Theirs was the +call of youth to youth, of youth to gaiety and adventure. She turned +away from Michael. + +"I'm going, Michael," she said quickly, and swung to the door. Michael +heard her laughing as she went off along the track with Bully and Roy. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage is up?" Roy stopped to call back. + +"No," Michael said. + +"Came up by the coach this evening," Roy said, and ran after Bully and +Sophie. + +It was a rowdy night at Newton's. Shearing was just over at Warria +sheds, and men with cheques to burn were crowding the bar and passages. +Sophie was hailed with cheers as she neared the veranda. Her father +staggered out towards her, waving his arms crazily. Sophie was surprised +when she found the crowd waiting for her. There were so many strangers +in it--rough men with heavy, inflamed faces--hardly one she knew among +them. A murmur and boisterous clamour of voices came from the bar. The +men on the veranda made way for her. + +Her heart quailed when she looked into the big earthen-floored bar, and +saw its crowd of rough-haired, sun-red men, still wearing the clothes +they had been working in, grey flannel shirts and dungarees, +blood-splashed, grimy, and greasy with the "yolk" of fleeces they had +been handling. The smell of sheep and the sweat of long days of shearing +and struggling with restless beasts were in the air, with fumes of rank +tobacco and the flat, stale smell of beer. The hanging lamp over the bar +threw only a dim light through the fog of smoke the men had put up, and +which from the doorway completely obscured Peter Newton where he stood +behind the bar. + +Sophie hung back. + +"I'm not going in there," she said. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage was up?" Roy asked. + +"No," she said. + +He explained how Mr. Armitage had come unexpectedly by the coach that +evening. Sophie saw him among the men on the veranda. + +"I'll sing here," she told Bully and Roy, leaning against a veranda +post. + +She was a little afraid. But she knew she had always pleased Ridge folk +when she sang to them, so she put back her head and sang a song of youth +and youthful happiness she had sung on the veranda at Newton's before. +It did not matter that the words were in Italian, which nobody +understood. The dancing joyousness and laughing music of her notes +carried the men with them. The applause was noisy and enthusiastic. +Sophie laughed, delighted, yet almost afraid of her success. + +Big and broad-shouldered, Bully Bryant stood at a little distance from +her, in front of everybody. Arthur Henty, leaning against the wall near +the door of the bar, smiled softly, foolishly, when she glanced at him. +He had been drinking, too, and was watching, and listening to her, with +the same look in his eyes as Bully. + +Sophie caught the excitement about her. An exhilaration of pleasure +thrilled her. It was crude wine which went to her head, this admiration +and applause of strangers and of the men she had known since she was a +child. There was a wonderful elation in having them beg her to sing. +They looked actually hungry to hear her. She found Arthur Henty's eyes +resting on her with the expression she knew in them. An imp of +recklessness entered her. Her father beat the air as if he were leading +an orchestra, and she threw herself into the Shadow Song, singing with +an abandonment that carried her beyond consciousness of her +surroundings. + +She sang again and again, and always in response to an eager tumult of +cheers, thudding of feet, joggling of glasses, chorus of broken cries: +"En-core, encore, Sophie!" An instinct of mischief and coquetry urging, +she glanced sometimes at Arthur, sometimes at Bully. Then with a glance +at Arthur, and for a last number, she began "Caro Nome," and gave to her +singing all the glamour and tenderness, the wild sweetness, the aria had +come to have for her, because she had sung it so often to Arthur when +they met and were walking along the road together. She was so carried +away by her singing, she did not realise what had happened until +afterwards. + +She only knew that suddenly, roughly, she was grasped and lifted. She +saw Bully's face flaming before her own, gazed with terror and horror +into his eyes. His face was thrown against hers--and obliterated. + +"Are you all right?" someone asked after a moment. + +Awaking from the daze and bewilderment, Sophie looked up. + +John Armitage was standing beside her; Potch nearby. They were on the +outskirts of the crowd on the veranda. + +"Yes," she said. + +The men on the veranda had broken into two parties; one was surging +towards the bar door, the other moving off down the road out of the +town. Michael came towards her. + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," he said. + +"Oh, Potch looked after her. I couldn't get near," John Armitage said. + +An extraordinary quiet took possession of Sophie. When she was going +down the road with Potch and Michael, she said: + +"Did Bully kiss me, Michael?" + +"Yes," he replied. + +"I don't know what happened then?" + +"Arthur Henty knocked him down," Michael said. + +She looked at him with scared eyes. + +"They want to fight it out ... but they're both drunk. The boys are +trying to stop it." + +"Oh, Michael!" Sophie cried on a little gasping breath; and looking into +her eyes he read her contrition, asking forgiveness, understanding all +that he had not been able to explain to her. She did not say, "I'll +never sing there, like that, any more." Her feeling was too deep for +words; but Michael knew she never would. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +"It's what I wore, meself, white muslin, when I went to me first ball," +Mrs. George Woods said, standing off to admire the frock of white muslin +Sophie had on, and which she had just fastened up for her. + +Sophie was admiring her reflection in Mrs. Woods' mirror, a square of +glass which gave no more than her head and shoulders in brilliant +sketchy outlines. She moved, trying to see more of herself and the new +dress. Maggie Grant, who had helped with the making of the dress, was +also gazing at her and at it admiringly. + +When it was a question of Sophie having a dress for the ball at Warria, +Mrs. Grant had spoken to Michael about it. + +"Sophie's got to have a decent dress to go to the station, Michael," she +said. "I'm not going to have people over there laughing at her, and +she's had nothing but her mother's old dresses, cut down--for goodness +knows how long." + +"Will you get it?" Michael inquired anxiously. + +Mrs. Grant nodded. + +"Bessie Woods and I were thinking it might be pinspot muslin, with a bit +of lace on it," she said. "We could get the stuff at Chassy Robb's and +make it up between us." + +"Right!" Michael replied, looking immensely relieved to have the +difficulty disposed of. "Tell Chassy to put it on my book." + +So the pinspot muslin and some cheap creamy lace had been bought. Mrs. +Woods and Sophie settled on a style they found illustrating an +advertisement in a newspaper and which resembled a dress one of the +Henty girls had worn at the race ball the year before. Maggie Grant had +done all the plain sewing and Mrs. Woods the fixing and finishing +touches. They had consulted over and over again about sleeves and the +length of the skirt. The frock had been fitted at least a dozen times. +They had wondered where they would put the lace as a bit of trimming, +and had decided for frills at the elbows and a tucker in the V-shaped +neck of the blouse. They marvelled at their audacity, but felt sure they +had done the right thing when they cut the neck rather lower than they +would have for a dress to be worn in the daytime. + +Martha M'Cready, insisting on having a finger in the pie, had pressed +the dress when it was finished, and she had washed and ironed Mrs. +George Woods' best embroidered petticoat for Sophie to wear with it. + +And now Sophie was dressing in Mrs. Woods' bedroom because it had a +bigger mirror than her own room, and the three women were watching her, +giving little tugs and pats to the dress now and then, measuring it with +appraising glances of conscious pride in their workmanship, and joy at +Sophie's appearance in it. Sophie, her face flushed, her eyes shining, +turned to them every now and then, begging to know whether the skirt was +not a little full here, or a little flat there; and they pinched and +pulled, until it was thought nothing further could be done to improve +it. + +Sophie was anxious about her hair. She had put it in plaits the night +before, and had kept it in them all the morning. Her hair had never been +in plaits before, and she had not liked the look of it when she saw it +all crisp and frizzy, like Mirry Flail's. She had used a wet brush to +get the crinkle out, but there was still a suggestion of it in the heavy +dark wave of her hair when she had done it up as usual. + +"Your hair looks very nice--don't worry any more about it, Sophie," +Martha M'Cready had said. + +"My mother used to say there was nothing nicer for a young girl to wear +than white muslin," Mrs. Woods remarked, "and that sash of your mother's +looks real nice as a belt, Sophie." + +The sash, a broad piece of blue and green silk shot like a piece of poor +opal, Sophie had found in a box of her mother's, and it was wound round +her waist as a belt and tied in a bow at the side. + +"Turn round and let me see if the skirt's quite the same length all +round, Sophie," Mrs. Grant commanded. + +"Yes, Maggie," Bessie Woods exclaimed complacently. "It's quite right." + +Sophie glanced at herself in the glass again. Mrs. Woods had lent her a +pair of opal ear-rings, and Maggie Grant the one piece of finery she +possessed--a round piece of very fine black opal set in a rim of gold, +which Bill had given her when first she came to the Ridge. + +Sophie had on for the first time, too, a necklace she had made herself +of stones the miners had given her at different times. There was a piece +of opal for almost every man on the fields, and she had strung them +together, with a beautiful knobby Potch had made her a present of for +her eighteenth birthday, a few days before, in the centre. + +Just as she had finished dressing, Mrs. Watty Frost called in the +doorway: "Anybody at home?" + +"Come in," Mrs. George Woods replied. + +Mrs. Watty walked into the bedroom. She had a long slender parcel +wrapped in brown paper in her hand, but nobody noticed it at the time. + +"My!" she exclaimed, staring at Sophie; "we are fine, aren't we?" + +Sophie caught up her long, cotton gloves and pirouetted in happy +excitement. + +"Aren't we?" she cried gaily. "Just look at my gloves! Did ever you see +such lovely long gloves, Mrs. Watty? And don't my ear-rings look nice? +But it does feel funny wearing ear-rings, doesn't it? I want to be +shaking my head all the time to make them joggle!" + +She shook her head. The blue and green fires of the stones leapt and +sparkled. Her eyes seemed to catch fire from them. The women exchanged +admiring glances. + +"Where's my handkerchief?" Sophie cried. "Father's late, isn't he? I'm +sure we'll be late! How long will it take to drive over to Warria?--An +hour? Goodness! And it'll be almost time for the dance to begin then! +Oh, don't my shoes look nice, Maggie?" + +She looked down at her feet in the white cotton stockings and white +canvas shoes, with ankle straps, which Maggie Grant had sent into Budda +for. The hem of her skirt came just to her ankles. She played the new +shoes in and out from under it in little dancing steps, and the women +laughed at her, happy in her happiness. + +"But you haven't got a fan, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said. + +"A fan?" Sophie's eyes widened. + +"You should oughter have a fan. In my young days it wasn't considered +decent to go to a ball without a fan," Mrs. Watty remarked grimly. + +"Oh!" Sophie looked from one to the other of her advisers. + +Mrs. George Woods was just going to say that it was a long time since +Mrs. Watty's young days, when Mrs. Watty took the brown paper from the +long, thin parcel she was carrying. + +"I thought most likely you wouldn't have one," she said, "so I brought +this over." + +She unfurled an old-fashioned, long-handled, sandal-wood fan, with birds +and flowers painted on the brown satin screen, and a little row of +feathers along the top. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Grant exchanged +glances that Mrs. Watty should pander to the vanity of an occasion. + +"Mrs. Watty!" Sophie took the fan with a little cry of delight. + +"My, aren't you a grown-up young lady now, Sophie?" Mrs. Woods +exclaimed, as Sophie unfurled the fan. + +"But mind you take care of it, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said, stiffening +against the relaxing atmosphere of goodwill and excitement. "Watty got +it for me last trip he made to sea, before we was married, and I set a +good deal of store by it." + +"Oh, I'll be ever so careful!" Sophie declared. She opened the fan. +"Isn't it pretty?" + +Dropping into a chair, she murmured: "May I--have this dance with you, +Miss Rouminof?" And casting a shy upward glance over her fan, as if +answering for herself, "I don't mind if I do!" + +Martha and Mrs. Woods laughed heartily, recognising Arthur Henty's way +of talking in the voice Sophie had imitated. + +"That's the way to do it, Sophie," Mrs. Woods said; "only you shouldn't +say, 'Don't mind if I do,' but, 'It's a pleasure, I'm sure.'" + +"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Sophie mimed. + +"Is she going to wear the dress over?" Mrs. Watty asked anxiously. + +"Yes," Maggie Grant said. "Bessie's lending her a dust-coat. I don't +think it'll get crushed very much. You see, they won't arrive until it's +nearly time for the dance to begin, and we thought it'd be better for us +to help her to get fixed up. Everybody'll be so busy over at Warria--and +we thought she mightn't be able to get anybody to do up her dress for +her." + +"That's right," Mrs. Watty said. + +There was a rattle of wheels on the rough shingle near the hut. + +"Here's your father, Sophie," Martha called. + +"And Michael and Potch are in the kitchen wanting to have a look at you +before you go, Sophie," Maggie Grant said. + +"Oh!" Sophie took the coat Mrs. Woods was lending her, and went out to +the kitchen with it on her arm. + +Michael and Potch were there. They stared at her. But her radiant face, +the shining eyes, and the little smile which hovered on her mouth, held +their gaze more than the new white dress standing out in slight, stiff +folds all round her. The vision of her--incomparable youth and +loveliness she was to Michael--gripped him so that a moisture of love +and reverence dimmed his eyes.... And Potch just stared and stared at +her. + +Paul was bawling from the buggy outside: + +"Are you ready, Sophie? Sophie, are you ready?" + +Mrs. Woods held the dust-coat. Very carefully Sophie edged herself into +it, and wrapped its nondescript buff-coloured folds over her dress. Then +she put the pink woollen scarf Martha had brought over her head, and +went out to the buggy. Her father was sitting aloft on the front seat, +driving Sam Nancarrow's old roan mare, and looking spruce and well +turned out in a new baggy suit which Michael had arranged for him to get +in order to look more of a credit to Sophie at the ball. + +"See you take good care of her, Paul," Mrs. Grant called after him as +they drove off. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie. + +Paul hummed and talked of the music he was going to play as they went +along. He called to Sam Nancarrow's old nag, quite pleased to be having +a horse to drive as though it belonged to him, and gossiped genially +about this and other balls he had been to. + +Sophie kept remembering what Mrs. Grant and Mrs. George Woods had said, +and how she had looked in those glimpses of herself in the mirror. "I do +look nice! I do look nice!" she assured herself. + +It was wonderful to be going to a ball at Warria. She had never thought +she could look as she did in this new frock, with her necklace, and Mrs. +Woods' ear-rings, and that old sash of her mother's. She was a little +anxious, but very happy and excited. + +She remembered how Arthur had looked at her when she met him on the road +or in the paddock sometimes, She only had on her old black dress then. +He must like her in this new dress, she thought. Her mind had a subtle +recoil from the too great joy of thinking how much more he must like her +in this pretty, new, white frock; she sat in a delicious trance of +happiness. Her father hummed and gossiped. All the stars came out. The +sky was a wonderful blue where it met the horizon, and darkened to +indigo as it climbed to the zenith. + +When they drove from the shadow of the coolebahs which formed an avenue +from the gate of the home paddock to the veranda of the homestead, Ted +Burton, the station book-keeper, a porky, good-natured little man, with +light, twinkling eyes, whose face looked as if it had been sand-papered, +came out to meet them. + +"There you are, Rouminof!" he said. "Glad to see you. We were beginning +to be afraid you weren't coming!" + +Sophie got down from the buggy, and her father drove off to the stables. +Passing the veranda steps with Mr. Burton, she glanced up. Several men +were on the steps. Her eyes went instinctively to Arthur Henty, who was +standing at the foot of them, a yellow puppy fawning at his feet. He did +not look up as Sophie passed, pretending to be occupied with the pup. +But in that fleeting glance her brain had photographed the bruise on his +forehead where it had caught a veranda post when Bully Bryant, having +regained his feet, hit out blindly. + +Potch had told Sophie what happened--she had made him find out in order +to tell her. Arthur and Bully had wanted to fight, but after the first +exchange of blows the men had held them back. Bully was mad drunk, they +said, and would have hammered Henty to pulp. And the next evening Bully +came to Sophie, heavy with shame, and ready to cry for what he had done. + +"If anybody'd 've told me I'd treat you like that, Sophie, I'd 've +killed him," he said. "I'd 've killed him.... You know how I feel about +you--you know how we all feel about you--and for me to have served you +like that--me that'd do anything in the world for you.... But it's no +good trying to say any more. It's no good tryin' to explain. It's got me +down...." + +He sat with his head in his hands for a while, so ashamed and miserable, +that Sophie could not retain her wrath and resentment against him. It +was like having a brother in trouble and doing nothing to help him, to +see Bully like this. + +"It's all right, Bully," she said. "I know ... you weren't yourself ... +and you didn't mean it." + +He started to his feet and came to stand beside her. Sophie put her hand +in his; he gripped it hard, unable to say anything. Then, when he could +control his voice, he said: + +"I went over to see Mr. Henty this morning ... and told him if anybody +else 'd done what I did, I'd 've done what he did." + +Potch had said the men expected Bully would want to fight the thing out +when he was sober, and it was a big thing for him to have done what he +had. The punishing power of Bully's fists was well known, and he had +taken this way of punishing himself. Sophie understood that, She was +grateful and reconciled to him. + +"I'm glad, Bully," she said. "Let's forget all about it." + +So the matter ended. But it all came back to her as she saw the broken +red line on Arthur Henty's forehead. + +She did not know that because of it she was an object of interest to the +crowd on the veranda. News of Arthur Henty's bout with Bully Bryant had +been very soon noised over the whole countryside. Most of the men who +came to the ball from Langi-Eumina and other stations had gleaned varied +and highly-coloured versions, and Arthur had been chaffed and twitted +until he was sore and ashamed of the whole incident. He could not +understand himself--the rush of rage, instinctive and unreasoning, which +had overwhelmed him when he hit out at Bully. + +His mother protested that it was a shame to give Arthur such a bad time +for what was, after all, merely the chivalrous impulse of any decent +young man when a girl was treated lightly in his presence; but the men +and the girls who were staying at the station laughed and teased all the +more for the explanation. They pretended he was a very heroic and +quixotic young man, and asked about Sophie--whether she was pretty, and +whether it was true she sang well. They redoubled their efforts, and +goaded him to a state of sulky silence, when they knew she was coming to +the ball. + +Arthur Henty had been conscious for some time of an undercurrent within +him drawing him to Sophie. He was afraid of, and resented it. He had not +thought of loving her, or marrying her. He had gone to the tank paddock +in the afternoons he knew she would be there, or had looked for her on +the Warria road when she had been to the cemetery, with a sensation of +drifting pleasantly. He had never before felt as he did when he was with +Sophie, that life was a clear and simple thing--pleasant, too; that +nothing could be better than walking over the plains through the limpid +twilight. He had liked to see the fires of opal run in her eyes when she +looked at him; to note the black lines on the outer rim of their +coloured orbs; the black lashes set in silken skin of purest ivory; the +curve of her chin and neck; the lines of her mouth, and the way she +walked; all these things he had loved. But he did not want to have the +responsibility of loving Sophie: he could not contemplate what wanting +to marry her would mean in tempests and turmoil with his family. + +He had thought sometimes of a mediæval knight wandering through +flowering fields with the girl on a horse beside him, in connection with +Sophie and himself. A reproduction of the well-known picture of the +knight and the girl hung in his mother's sitting-room. She had cut it +out of a magazine, and framed it, because it pleased her; and beneath +the picture, in fine print, Arthur had often read: + + "I met a lady in the meads, + Full beautiful--a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild. + + "I set her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long; + For sideways would she lean, and sing + A faery's song." + +As a small boy Arthur had been attracted by the picture, and his mother +had told him its story, and had read him Keats' poem. He had read it +ever so many times since then himself, and after he met Sophie in the +tank paddock that afternoon she had ridden home on his horse, some of +the verses haunted him with the thought of her. One day when they were +sitting by the track and she had been singing to him, he had made a +daisy chain and thrown it over her, murmuring sheepishly, in a caprice +of tenderness: + + "I made a garland for her head, + And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; + She looked at me as she did love + And made sweet moan." + +Sophie had asked about the poem. She had wanted to hear more, and he had +repeated as many verses as he could remember. When he had finished, she +had looked at him "as she did love" indeed, with eyes of sweet +confidence, yet withdrawing from him a little in shy and happy confusion +that he should think of her as anyone like the lady of the meads, who +was "full beautiful--a fairy's child." + +But Arthur did not want to love her; he did not want to marry her. He +did not want to have rows with his father, differences with his mother. +The affair at Newton's had shown him where he was going. + +Sophie was "a fairy's child," he decided. "Her hair as long, her foot +was light, and her eyes were wild"; but he did not want to be "a +wretched wight, alone and palely loitering" on her account; he did not +want to marry her. He would close her eyes with "kisses four," he told +himself, smiling at the precision of the knight of the chronicle; +"kisses four"--no more--and be done with the business. + +Meanwhile, he wished Sophie were not coming to the ball. He would have +given anything to prevent her coming; but he could do nothing. + +He had thought of escaping from the ball by going to the out-station +with the men; but his mother, foreseeing something of his intention, had +given him so much to do at the homestead for her, that he could not go +away. When the buggy with Sophie and her father drove up to the veranda, +there was a chorus of suppressed exclamations among the assembled +guests. + +"Here she is, Art!" + +"Buck up, old chap! None but the brave, etc." + +Sophie did not hear the undertone of laughter and raillery which greeted +her arrival. She was quite unconscious that the people on the veranda +were interested in her at all, as she walked across the courtyard +listening to Mr. Burton's amiable commonplaces. + +When Mr. Burton left her in a small room with chintz-covered chairs and +dressing-table, Sophie took off her old dust-coat and the pink scarf she +had tied over her hair. The mirror was longer than Mrs. Woods'. Her +dress looked very crushed when she saw it reflected. She tried to shake +out the creases. Her hair, too, was flat, and had blown into stringy +ends. A shade of disappointment dimmed the brightness of her mood as she +realised she was not looking nearly as nice as she had when she left the +Ridge. + +Someone said: "May I come in?" and Polly Henty and another girl entered +the room. + +Polly Henty had just left school. She was a round-faced, jolly-looking +girl of about Sophie's own age, and the girl with her was not much +older, pretty and sprightly, an inch or so taller than Polly, and +slight. She had grey eyes, and a fluff of dry-grass coloured hair about +a small, sharp-featured, fresh-complexioned face, neatly powdered. + +Sophie knew something was wrong with her clothes the moment she +encountered the girls' curious and patronising glances as they came into +the room. Their appearance, too, took the skin from her vanity. Polly +had on a frock of silky white crêpe, with no lace or decoration of any +kind, except a small gold locket and chain which she was wearing. But +her dress fell round her in graceful folds, showing her small, +well-rounded bust and hips, and she had on silk stockings and white +satin slippers. The other girl's frock was of pale pink, misty material, +so thin that her shoulders and arms showed through it as though there +were nothing on them. She had pinned a pink rose in her hair, too, so +that its petals just lay against the nape of her neck. Sophie thought +she had never seen anyone look so nice. She had never dreamed of such a +dress. + +"Oh, Miss Rouminof," Polly said; "mother sent me to look for you. We're +just ready to start, and your father wants you to turn over his music +for him." + +Sophie stood up, conscious that her dress was nothing like as pretty as +she had thought it. It stood out stiffly about her: the starched +petticoat crackled as she moved. She knew the lace should not have been +on her sleeves; that her shoes were of canvas, and creaked as she +walked; that her cotton gloves, and even the heavy, old-fashioned fan +she was carrying, were not what they ought to have been. + +"Miss Chelmsford--Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the +girl in the pink dress. + +Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand. + +"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if +just remembering she, too, had a hand. + +Sophie went with Polly and her friend to the veranda, which was screened +in on one side with hessian to form a ball-room. Behind the hessian the +walls were draped with flags, sheaves of paper daisies, and bundles of +Darling pea. Red paper lanterns swung from the roof, threw a rosy glare +over the floor which had been polished until it shone like burnished +metal. + +Polly Henty took Sophie to the piano where Mrs. Henty was playing the +opening bars of a waltz. Paul beside her, his violin under his arm, +stood looking with eager interest over the room where men and girls were +chatting in little groups. + +Mrs. Henty nodded and smiled to Sophie. Her father signalled to her, and +she went to a seat near him. + +Holding her hands over the piano, Mrs. Henty looked to Paul to see if he +were ready. He lifted his violin, tucked it under his chin, drew his +bow, and the piano and violin broke gaily, irregularly, uncertainly, at +first, into a measure which set and kept the couples swaying round the +edge of the ball-room. + +Sophie watched them at first, dazed and interested. Under the glow of +the lanterns, the figures of the dancers looked strange and solemn. Some +of the dancers were moving without any conscious effort, just skimming +the floor like swallows; others were working hard as they danced. Tom +Henderson held Elizabeth Henty as if he never intended to let go of her, +and worked her arm up and down as if it were a semaphore. + +Sophie had always admired Arthur's eldest sister, and she thought +Elizabeth the most beautiful-looking person she had ever seen this +evening. And that pink dress--how pretty it was! What had Polly said her +name was--the girl who wore it? Phyllis ... Phyllis Chelmsford.... +Sophie watched the dress flutter among the dancers some time before she +noticed Miss Chelmsford was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +She watched the couples revolving, dazed, and thinking vaguely about +them, noticing how pretty feet looked in satin slippers with high, +curved heels, wondering why some men danced with stiff knees and others +as if their knees had funny-bones like their elbows. The red light from +the lanterns made the whole scene look unreal; she felt as if she were +dreaming. + +"Sophie!" her father cried sharply. + +She turned his page. Her eyes wandered to Mrs. Henty, who sat with her +back to her. Sophie contemplated the bow of her back in its black frock +with Spanish lace scarf across it, the outline of the black lace on the +wrinkled skin of Mrs. Henty's neck, the loose, upward wave of her crisp +white hair, glinting silverly where the light caught it. Her face was +cobwebbed with wrinkles, but her features remained delicate and fine as +sculpturings in ancient ivory. Her eyes were bright: the sparkle of +youth still leapt in them. Her eyes had a slight smile of secret +sympathy and amusement as they flew over the roomful of people dancing. + +Sophie watched dance after dance, while the music jingled and jangled. + +Presently John Armitage appeared in the doorway with Nina Henty. Sophie +heard him apologising to Mrs. Henty for being late, and explaining that +he had stayed in the back-country a few days longer than usual for the +express purpose of coming to the ball. + +Mrs. Henty replied that it was "better late than never," and a pleasure +to see Mr. Armitage at any time; and then he and Nina joined the throng +of the dancers. + +Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The +disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came +into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely +come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was +dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding +herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the +background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her. + +It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other +people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always +been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the +moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his +way if he wanted a waltz with her. + +As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred +to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had +invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, +left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz +broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the +page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page +himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up +for him. + +After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely +looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would +end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it +would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her +crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty's big, old-fashioned +fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of +them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but +she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in +order to turn over the pages of her father's music more expertly. + +She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been +invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler's little girl +to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, +she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or +speak to her. + +Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly: + +"Come here and let me look at your opals, child." + +Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace. + +"What splendid stones!" she said. + +Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur's, with the same +shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought. + +"Yes," she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty +about the stones. + +Mrs. Henty admired the ear-rings, and looked appreciatively at the big +flat stone in Mrs. Grant's brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention. +She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her. + +Looking into Sophie's face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, +unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a +something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been +considerably disturbed by Arthur's share in the brawl at Newton's. It +was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened +after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of +Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was +not sorry to see what manner of girl she was. + +But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly +uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite +their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have +brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what +Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time +like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good +time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the +mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to +dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have side-tracked her +about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence +which looked from Sophie's eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and +cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt. + +Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the +long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty's hand fell from Sophie's +necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair. + +But Mrs. Henty's thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She +played absent-mindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes. +She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she +protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl. +If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him. + +Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little +annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was +the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in +her hair brushing his cheek. + +"Mother!" Polly called. "For goodness' sake ... what are you dreaming +of?" + +The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty's reverie until Polly +called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm +more briskly. + +After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy +to each, other--at last--and were getting on, she could not afford to +espouse the other girl's cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur +to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old +Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle sales were the envy of +pastoralists on both sides of the Queensland border. Phyllis's +inheritance and the knowledge that the interests of Warria were allied +to those of Andrew Chelmsford of Yuina, would ensure a new lease of hope +and opportunity for Warria.... Whereas it would be worse than awful if +Arthur contemplated anything like marriage with this girl from the +Ridge. + +Mrs. Henty's conscience was uneasy all the same. When the dance was +ended, she called Arthur to her. + +"For goodness' sake, dear, ask that child to dance with you," she said +when he came to her. "She's been sitting here all the evening by +herself." + +"I was just going to," Sophie heard Arthur say. + +He came towards her. + +"Will you have the next dance with me, Sophie?" he asked. + +She did not look at him. + +"No," she said. + +"Oh, I say----" He sat down beside her. "I've had to dance with these +people who are staying with us," he added awkwardly. + +Her eyes turned to him, all the stormy fires of opal running in them. + +"You don't _have_ to dance with me," she said. + +He got up and stood indecisively a moment. + +"Of course not," he said, "but I want to." + +"I don't want to dance with you," Sophie said. + +He turned away from her, went down the ball-room, and out through the +doorway in the hessian wall. Everyone had gone to supper. Mrs. Henty had +left the piano. Paul himself had gone to have some refreshment which was +being served in the dining-room across the courtyard. From the square, +washed with the silver radiance of moonlight which she could see through +the open space in the hessian, came a tinkle of glasses and spoons, +fragments of talking and laughter. Sophie heard a clear, girlish voice +cry: "Oh, Arthur!" + +She clenched her hands; she thought that she was going to cry; but +stiffening against the inclination, she sat fighting down the pain which +was gripping her, and longed for the time to come when she could go home +and be out in the dark, alone. + +John Armitage entered the ball-room as if looking for someone. Glancing +in the direction of the piano, he saw Sophie. + +"There you are, Sophie!" he exclaimed heartily. "And, would you believe +it, I've only just discovered you were here." + +He sat down beside her, and talked lightly, kindly, for a moment. But +Sophie was in no mood for talking. John Armitage had guessed something +of her crisis when he came into the room and found her sitting by +herself. He had seen the affair at Newton's, and knew enough of Fallen +Star gossip to understand how Sophie would resent Arthur Henty's +treatment of her. He could see she was a sorely hurt little creature, +holding herself together, but throbbing with pain and anger. She could +not talk; she could only think of Arthur Henty, whose voice they heard +occasionally out of doors. He was more than jolly after supper. Armitage +had seen him swallow nearly a glassful of raw whisky. His face had gone +a ghastly white after it. Rouminof had been drinking too. He came into +the room unsteadily when Mrs. Henty took her seat at the piano again; +but he played better. + +Armitage's eyes went to her necklace. + +"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said. + +Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me--there's a +stone for every one. This is Michael's!"--she touched each stone as she +named it--"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that." + +Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile. + +"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here +am I--come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of +stuff in your brooch." + +"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed. + +"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my +old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I +always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New +England spinster." + +Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he +looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and +appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it. + +Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was +an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, +of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so +extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in +this out-of-the-way part of the world. + +John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish +treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have +permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying +Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in +distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her +defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her +disappointment of the earlier part of the evening. + +"May I have the next dance, Sophie?" he inquired. + +Sophie glanced up at him. + +"I'm not dancing," she said. + +Her averted face, the quiver of her lips, confirmed him in his +resolution. He took in her dress, the black opals in her ear-rings +swinging against her black hair and white neck. She had never looked +more attractive, he thought, than in this unlovely dress and with the +opals in her ears. The music was beginning for another dance. Across the +room Henty was hovering with a bevy of girls. + +"Why aren't you dancing, Sophie?" John Armitage asked. + +His quiet, friendly tone brought the glitter of tears to her eyes. + +"No one asked me to, until the dance before supper--then I didn't want +to," she said. + +The dance was already in motion. + +"You'll have this one with me, won't you?" + +John Armitage put the question as if he were asking a favour. "Please!" +he insisted. + +Putting her arm on his, Armitage led Sophie among the dancers. He held +her so gently and firmly that she felt as if she were dancing by a will +not her own. She and he glided and flew together; they did not talk, and +when + + +the music stopped, Mr. Armitage took her through the doorway into the +moonlight with the other couples. They walked to the garden where, the +orange trees were in blossom. + +"Oh!" Sophie breathed, her arm still on his, and a little giddy. + +The earth was steeped in purest radiance; the orange blossoms swam like +stars on the dark bushes; their fragrance filled the air. + +Sophie held up her face as if to drink. "Isn't it lovely?" she murmured. + +A black butterfly with white etchings on his wings hovered over an +orange bush they were standing near, as if bewildered by the moonlight +and mistaking it for the light of a strange day. + +Armitage spread his handkerchief on a wooden seat. + +"I thought you'd like it," he said. "Let's sit here--I've put down my +handkerchief because there's a dew, although the air seems so dry." + +When the music began again Sophie got up. + +"Don't let us go in yet," he begged. + +"But----" she demurred. + +"We'll stay here for this, and have the next dance," Armitage said. + +Sophie hesitated. She wondered why Mr. Armitage was being so nice to +her, understanding a little. She smiled into his eyes, dallying with the +temptation. John Armitage had seen women's eyes like that before; then +fall to the appeal of his own. But in Sophie's eyes he found something +he had not seen very often--a will-o'the-wisp of infinite wispishness +which incited him to pursue and to insist, while it eluded and flew from +him. + +When she danced with John Armitage again, Sophie looked up, laughed, and +played her eyes and smiles for him as she had seen Phyllis Chelmsford do +for Arthur. At first, shyly, she had exerted herself to please him, and +Armitage had responded to her tentative efforts; but presently she found +herself enjoying the game. And Armitage was so surprised at the charm +she revealed as she exerted herself to please him, that he responded +with an enthusiasm he had not contemplated. But their mutual success at +this oldest diversion in the world, while it surprised and delighted +them, did not delight their hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Henty were surprised; +then frankly scandalised. Several young men asked Sophie to dance with +them after she had danced with John Armitage. She thanked them, but +refused, saying she did not wish to dance very much. She sat in her +chair by the piano except when she was dancing with Mr. Armitage, or was +in the garden with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +"See Ed. means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal +before starting on his all-night drive into Budda. + +Newton remembered afterwards that John Armitage did not seem as +interested and jolly as usual. Ordinarily he was interested in +everything, and cordial with everybody; but this evening he was quiet +and preoccupied. + +"Hardly had a word to say for himself," Peter Newton said. + +Armitage had watched Ed. bring the old bone-shaking shandrydan he called +a coach up to the hotel, and put a couple of young horses into it. He +had a colt on the wheel he was breaking-in, and a sturdy old dark bay +beside him, a pair of fine rusty bays ahead of them, and a sorrel, and +chestnut youngster in the lead. He had got old Olsen and two men on the +hotel veranda to help him harness-up, and it took them all their time to +get the leaders into the traces. Bags had to be thrown over the heads of +the young horses before anything could be done with them, and it took +three men to hold on to the team until Ed. Ventry got into his seat and +gathered up the reins. Armitage put his valise on the coach and shook +hands all round. He got into his seat beside Ed. and wrapped a tarpaulin +lined with possum skin over his knees. + +"Let her go, Olly," Ed. yelled. + +The men threw off the bags they had been holding over the horses' heads. +The leaders sprang out and swayed; the coach rocked to the shock; the +steady old wheeler leapt forward. The colt under the whip, trying to +throw himself down on the trace, leapt and kicked, but the leaders +dashed forward; the coach lurched and was carried along with a rattle +and clash of gear, Ed. Ventry, the reins wrapped round his hands, +pulling on them, and yelling: + +"I'll warm yer.... Yer lazy, wobblin' old adders--yer! I'll warm yer.... +Yer wobble like a cross-cut saw.... Kim ovah! Kim ovah, there! I'll get +alongside of yer! Kim ovah!" + +Swaying and rocking like a ship in a stormy sea, the coach turned out of +the town. Armitage thought its timbers would be strewn along the road at +any moment; but the young horses, under Mr. Ventry's masterly grip, soon +took the steady pace of the old roadsters; their freshness wore off, and +they were going at a smart, even pace by the time the Three Mile was +reached. + +"Seemed to have something on his mind," Ed. Ventry said afterwards. +"Ordinarily, he's keen to hear all the yarns you can tell him, but that +day he was dead quiet." + +"'Not much doin' on the Ridge just now, Mr. Armitage,' I says. + +"'No, Ed,' he says. + +"'Hardly worth y'r while comin' all the way from America to get all you +got this trip?' + +"'No,' he says. But, by God--if I'd known what he got----" + +It was an all-night trip. Ed. and Mr. Armitage had left the Ridge at six +o'clock and arrived in Budda township about an hour before the morning +train left for Sydney. There was just time for Armitage to breakfast at +the hotel before he went off in the hotel drag to the station. The train +left at half-past six. But Ed. Ventry had taken off his hat and +scratched his grizzled thatch when he saw a young, baldy-faced gelding +in the paddock with the other coach horses that evening. + +"Could've swore I left Baldy at the Ridge," he said to the boy who +looked after the stables at the Budda end of his journey. + +"Thought he was there meself," the lad replied, imitating Ed.'s +perplexed head-scratching. + +At the Ridge, when he made his next trip, they were able to tell Mr. +Ventry how the baldy-face happened to be at Budda when Ed. thought he +was at Fallen Star, although Ed. heard some of the explanation from +Potch and Michael a day or two later. Sophie had ridden the baldy-face +into Budda the night he drove Mr. Armitage to catch the train for +Sydney. No one discovered she had gone until the end of next day. Then +Potch went to Michael. + +"Michael," he said; "she's gone." + +During the evening Paul had been heard calling Sophie. He asked Potch +whether he had seen her. Potch said he had not. But it was nothing +unusual for Sophie to wander off for a day on an excursion with Ella or +Mirry Flail, so neither he nor Michael thought much of not having seen +her all day, until Paul remarked querulously to Potch that he did not +know where Sophie was. Looking into her room Potch saw her bed had not +been slept in, although the room was disordered. He went up to the town, +to Mrs. Newton and to the Flails', to ask whether they had seen anything +of Sophie. Mirry Flail said she had seen her on one of the coach-stable +horses, riding out towards the Three Mile the evening before. Potch knew +instinctively that Sophie had gone away from the moment Paul had spoken +to him. She had lived away from him during the last few months; but +watching her with always anxious, devout eyes, he had known more of her +than anyone else. + +Lying full stretch on his sofa, Michael was reading when Potch came into +the hut. His stricken face communicated the seriousness of his news. +Michael had no reason to ask who the "she" Potch spoke of was: there was +only one woman for whom Potch would look like that. But Michael's mind +was paralysed by the shock of the thing Potch had said. He could neither +stir nor speak. + +"I'm riding into Budda, to find out if she went down by the train," +Potch said. "I think she did, Michael. She's been talking about going to +Sydney ... a good deal lately.... She was asking me about it--day before +yesterday ... but I never thought--I never thought she wanted to go so +soon ... and that she'd go like this. But I think she has gone.... And +she was afraid to tell us--to let you know.... She said you'd made up +your mind you didn't want her to go ... she'd heard her mother tell you +not to let her go, and if ever she was going she wouldn't tell you...." + +Potch's explanation, broken and incoherent as it was, gave Michael's +thought and feeling time to reassert themselves. + +He said: "See if Chassy can lend me his pony, and I'll come with you, +Potch." + +They rode into Budda that night, and inquiry from the station-master +gave them the information they sought. A girl in a black frock had taken +a second-class ticket for Sydney. He did not notice very much what she +was like. She had come to the window by herself; she had no luggage; he +had seen her later sitting in a corner of a second-class compartment by +herself. The boy, a stranger to the district, who had clipped her +ticket, said she was crying when he asked for her ticket. He had asked +why she was crying. She had said she was going away, and she did not +like going away from the back-country. She was going away--to study +singing, she said, but would be coming back some day. + +Michael determined to go to Sydney by the morning train to try to find +Sophie. He went to Ed. Ventry and borrowed five pounds from him. + +"That explains how the baldy-face got here," Ed. said. + +Michael nodded. He could not talk about Sophie. Potch explained why they +wanted the money as well as he could. + +"It's no good trying to bring her back if she doesn't want to come, +Michael," Potch had said before Michael left for Sydney. + +"No," Michael agreed. + +"If you could get her fixed up with somebody to stay with," Potch +suggested; "and see she was all right for money ... it might be the best +thing to do. I've got a bit of dough put by, Michael.... I'll send that +down to you and go over to one of the stations for a while to keep us +goin'--if we want more." + +Michael assented. + +"You might try round and see if you could find Mr. Armitage," Potch +said, just before the train went. "He might have seen something of her." + +"Yes," Michael replied, drearily. + +Potch waited until the train left, and started back to Fallen Star in +the evening. + +A week later a letter came for Michael. It was in Sophie's handwriting. +Potch was beside himself with anxiety and excitement. He wrote to +Michael, care of an opal-buyer they were on good terms with and who +might know where Michael was staying. In the bewilderment of his going, +Potch had not thought to ask Michael where he would live, or where a +letter would find him. + +Michael came back to Fallen Star when he received the letter. He had not +seen Sophie. No one he knew or had spoken to had seen anything of her +after she left the train. Michael handed the letter to Potch as soon as +he got back into the hut. + +Sophie wrote that she had gone away because she wanted to learn to be a +singer, and that she would be on her way to America when they received +it. She explained that she had made up her mind to go quite suddenly, +and she had not wanted Michael to know because she remembered his +promise to her mother. She knew he would not let her go away from the +Ridge if he could help it. She had sold her necklace, she said, and had +got £100 for it, so had plenty of money. Potch and Michael were not to +worry about her. She would be all right, and when she had made a name +for herself as a singer, she would come home to the Ridge to see them. +"Don't be angry, Michael dear," the letter ended, "with your lovingest +Sophie." + +Potch looked at Michael; he wondered whether the thought in his own mind +had reached Michael's. But + +Michael was too dazed and overwhelmed to think at all. + +"There's one thing, Potch," he said; "if she's gone to America, we could +write to Mr. Armitage and ask him to keep an eye on her. And," he added, +"if she's gone to America ... it's just likely she may be on the same +boat as Mr. Armitage, and he'd look after her." + +Potch watched his face. The thought in his mind had not occurred to +Michael, then, he surmised. + +"He'd see she came to no harm." + +"Yes," Potch said. + +But he had seen John Armitage talking to Sophie on the Ridge over near +Snow-Shoes' hut the afternoon after the dance at Warria. He knew Mr. +Armitage had driven Sophie home after the dance, too. Paul had been too +drunk to stand, much less drive. Potch had knocked off early in the mine +to go across to the Three Mile that afternoon. Then it had surprised +Potch to see Sophie sitting and talking to Mr. Armitage as though they +were very good friends; but, beyond a vague, jealous alarm, he had not +attached any importance to it until he knew Sophie had gone down to +Sydney by the same train as Mr. Armitage. She had said she was going to +America, too, and he was going there. Potch had lived all his days on +the Ridge; he knew nothing of the world outside, and its ways, except +what he had learnt from books. But an instinct where Sophie was +concerned had warned him of a link between her going away and John +Armitage. That meeting of theirs came to have an extraordinary +significance in his mind. He had thought out the chances of Sophie's +having gone with Mr. Armitage as far as he could. But Michael had not +associated her going with him, it was clear. It had never occurred to +him that Mr. Armitage could have anything to do with Sophie's going +away. It had not occurred to the rest of the Ridge folk either. + +Paul was distracted. He made as great an outcry about Sophie's going as +he had about losing his stones. No one had thought he was as fond of her +as he appeared to be. He wept and wailed continuously about her having +gone away and left him. He went about begging for money in order to be +able to go to America after Sophie; but no one would lend to him. + +"You wait till Sophie's made a name for herself, Paul," everybody said, +"then she'll send for you." + +"Yes," he assented eagerly. "But I don't want to spend all that time +here on the Ridge: I want to see something of life and the world again." + +Paul got a touch of the sun during the ferment of those weeks, and then, +for two or three days, Michael and Potch had their work cut out nursing +him through the delirium of sun-stroke. + +A week or so later the coach brought unexpected passengers--Jun Johnson +and the bright-eyed girl who had gone down on the coach with him--and +Jun introduced her to the boys at Newton's as his bride. He had been +down in Sydney on his honeymoon, he said, that was all. + +When Michael went into the bar at Newton's the same evening, he found +Jun there, explaining as much to the boys. + +"I know what you chaps think," he was saying when Michael entered. "You +think I put up the checkmate on old Rum-Enough, Charley played. Well, +you're wrong. I didn't know no more about it than you did; and the proof +is--here I am. If I'd 'a' done it, d'y'r think I'd have come back? If +I'd had any share in the business, d'y'r think I'd be showin' me face +round here for a bit? Not much...." + +Silence hung between him and the men. Jun talked through it, warming to +his task with the eloquence of virtue, liking his audience and the stage +he had got all to himself, as an outraged and righteously indignant man. + +"I know you chaps--I know how you feel about things; and quite right, +too! A man that'd go back on a mate like that--why, he's not fit to wipe +your boots on. He ain't fit to be called a man; he ain't fit to be let +run with the rest." + +He continued impressively; "I didn't know no more about that business +than any man-jack of you--no more did Mrs. Jun.... Bygones is +bygones--that's my motto. But I tell you--and that's the strength of +it--I didn't know no more about those stones of Rummy's than any man +here. D'y' believe me?" + +It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. +It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else +Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth. + +"We're all good triers here, Jun," George said, "but we're not as green +as we're painted." + +Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said: + +"Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain't always +been what you might call the clean potato ... but I ain't always been +married, either. Well, I'm married now--married to the best little girl +ever I struck...." + +The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the +men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did +not please Jun was evident. + +"Well, seein' I've taken on family responsibilities," he went on--"Was +you smiling, Watty?" + +"Me? Oh, no, Jun," the offender replied, meekly; "it was only the +stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn't think +so, but I always look as if I was smilin' when I've got the +stummick-ache." + +George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, +taking Watty's explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued +solemnly, playing the reformed blackguard to his own satisfaction. + +"Seein' I've taken on family responsibilities, I want to run straight. I +don't want my kids to think there was anything crook about their dad." + +If he moved no one else, he contrived to feel deeply moved himself at +the prospect of how his unborn children were going to regard him. The +men who had always more or less believed in him managed to convince +themselves that Jun meant what he said. George and Watty realised he had +put up a good case, that he was getting at them in the only way +possible. + +Michael moved out of the crowd round the door towards the bar. Peter +Newton put his daily ration of beer on the bar. + +"'Lo, Michael," Jun said. + +"'Lo, Jun," Michael said. + +"Well," Jun concluded, tossing off his beer; "that's the way it is, +boys. Believe me if y'r like, and if y'r don't like--lump it. + +"But there's one thing more I've got to tell you," he added; "and if you +find what I've been saying hard to believe, you'll find this harder: I +don't believe Charley got those stones of Rummy's." + +"What?" + +The query was like the crack of a whip-lash. There was a restive, +restless movement among the men. + +"I don't believe Charley got those stones either," Jun declared. "'Got,' +I said, not 'took.' All I know is, he was like a sick fish when he +reached Sydney ... and sold all the opal he had with him. He was lively +enough when we started out. I give you that. Maybe he took Rum-Enough's +stones all right; but somebody put it over on him. I thought it might be +Emmy--that yeller-haired tart, you remember, went down with us. She was +a tart, and no mistake. My little girl, now--she was never ... like +that! But Maud says she doesn't think so, because Emmy turned Charley +out neck and crop when she found he'd got no cash. He got mighty little +for the bit of stone he had with him ... I'll take my oath. He came +round to borrow from me a day or two after we arrived. And he was ragin' +mad about something.... If he shook the stones off Rum-Enough, it's my +belief somebody shook them off of him, either in the train or here--or +off of Rummy before he got them...." + +Several of the men muttered and grunted their protest. But Jun held to +his point, and the talk became more general. Jun asked for news of the +fields: what had been done, and who was getting the stuff. Somebody said +John Armitage had been up and had bought a few nice stones from the +Crosses, Pony-Fence, and Bully Bryant. + +"Armitage?" Jun said. "He's always a good man--gives a fair price. He +bought my stones, that last lot ... gave me a hundred pounds for the big +knobby. But it fair took my breath away to hear young Sophie Rouminof +had gone off with him." + +Michael was standing beside him before the words were well out of his +mouth. + +"What did you say?" he demanded. + +"I'm sorry, Michael," Jun replied, after a quick, scared glance at the +faces of the men about him. "But I took it for granted you all knew, of +course. We saw them a good bit together down in Sydney, Maud and me, and +she said she saw Sophie on the _Zealanida_ the day the boat sailed. Maud +was down seeing a friend off, and she saw Sophie and Mr. Armitage on +board. She said--" + +Michael turned heavily, and swung out of the bar. + +Jun looked after him. In the faces of the men he read what a bomb his +news had been among them. + +"I wouldn't have said that for a lot," he said, "if I'd 've thought +Michael didn't know. But, Lord, I thought he knew ... I thought you all +knew." + +In the days which followed, as he wandered over the plains in the late +afternoon and evening, Michael tried to come to some understanding with +himself of what had happened. At first he had been too overcast by the +sense of loss to realise more than that Sophie had gone away. But now, +beyond her going, he could see the failure of his own effort to control +circumstances. He had failed; Sophie had gone; she had left the Ridge. + +"God," he groaned; "with the best intentions in the world, what an awful +mess we make of things!" + +Michael wondered whether it would have been worse for Sophie if she had +gone away with Paul when her mother died. At least, Sophie was older now +and better able to take care of herself. + +He blamed himself because she had gone away as she had, all the same; +the failure of the Ridge to hold her as well as his own failure beat him +to the earth. He had hoped Sophie would care for the things her mother +had cared for. He had tried to explain them to her. But Sophie, he +thought now, had more the restless temperament of her father. He had not +understood her young spirit, its craving for music, laughter, +admiration, and the life that could give them to her. He had thought the +Ridge would be enough for her, as it had been for her mother. + +Michael never thought of Mrs. Rouminof as dead. He thought of her as +though she were living some distance from him, that was all. In the +evening he looked up at the stars, and there was one in which she seemed +to be. Always he felt as if she were looking at him when its mild +radiance fell over him. And now he looked to that star as if trying to +explain and beg forgiveness. + +His heart was sore because Sophie had left him without a word of +affection or any explanation. His fear and anxiety for her gave him no +peace. He sweated in agony with them for a long time, crying to her +mother, praying her to believe he had not failed in his trust through +lack of desire to serve her, but through a fault of understanding. If +she had been near enough to talk to, he knew he could have explained +that the girl was right: neither of them had any right to interfere with +the course of her life. She had to go her own way; to learn joy and +sorrow for herself. + +Too late Michael realised that he had done all the harm in the world by +seeking to make Sophie go his own and her mother's way. He had opposed +the tide of her youth and enthusiasm, instead of sympathising with it; +and by so doing he had made it possible for someone else to sympathise +and help her to go her own way. Opposition had forced her life into +channels which he was afraid would heap sorrows upon her, whereas +identification with her feeling and aspirations might have saved her the +hurt and turmoil he had sought to save her. + +Thought of what he had done to prevent Paul taking Sophie away haunted +Michael. But, after all, he assured himself, he had not stolen from +Paul. Charley had stolen from Paul, and he, Michael, was only holding +Paul's opals until he could give them to Paul when his having them would +not do Sophie any harm.... His having them now could not injure +Sophie.... Michael decided to give Paul the opals and explain how he +came to have them, when the shock of what Jun had said left him. He +tried not to think of that, although a consciousness of it was always +with him.... But Paul was delirious with sun-stroke, he remembered; it +would be foolish to give him the stones just then.... As soon as that +touch of the sun had passed, Michael reflected, he would give Paul the +opals and explain how he came to have them.... + + + + +_PART II_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes +blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms +continued until March. + +Through the heat came the baa-ing of sheep on the plains, moving in +great flocks, weary and thirsty; the blaring of cattle; the harsh crying +of crows following the flocks and waiting to tear the dead flesh from +the bones of spent and drought-stricken beasts. The stock routes were +marked by the bleached bones of cattle and sheep which had fallen by the +road, and the stench of rotting flesh blew with the hot winds and dust +from the plains. + +It was cooler underground than anywhere else during the hot weather. +Fallen Star miners told stockmen and selectors that they had the best of +it in the mines, during the heat. They went to work as soon as it was +dawn, in order to get mullock cleared away and dirt-winding over before +the heat of the day began. + +In the morning, here and there a man was seen on the top of his dump, +handkerchief under his hat, winding dirt, and emptying red sandstone, +shin-cracker, and cement stone from his hide buckets over the slope of +the dump. The creak of the windlass made a small, busy noise in the air. +But the miner standing on the top of his hillock of white crumbled clay, +moving with short, automatic jerks against the sky, or the noodlers +stretched across the slopes of the dumps, turning the rubble thrown up +from the shafts with a piece of wood, were the only outward sign of the +busy underground world of the mines. + +As a son might have, Potch had rearranged the hut and looked after Paul +when Sophie had gone. He had nursed Paul through the fever and delirium +of sun-stroke, and Paul's hut was kept in order as Sophie had left it. +Potch swept the earthen floor and sprinkled it with water every morning; +he washed any dishes Paul left, although Paul had most of his meals with +Potch and Michael. Michael had seen the window of Sophie's room open +sometimes; a piece of muslin on the lower half fluttering out, and once, +in the springtime, he had caught a glimpse of a spray of punti--the +yellow boronia Sophie was so fond of, in a jam-tin on a box cupboard +near the window. Potch had prevailed on Paul to keep one or two of the +goats when he sold most of them soon after Sophie went away, and Potch +saw to it there was always a little milk, and some goat's-milk butter or +cheese for the two huts. + +People at first were surprised at Potch's care of Paul; then they +regarded it as the most natural thing in the world. They believed Potch +Was trying to make up to Paul for what his father had deprived him of. +And after Sophie went away Paul seemed to forget Potch was the son of +his old enemy. He depended on Potch, appealed to, and abused him as if +he were his son, and Potch seemed quite satisfied that it should be so. +He took his service very much as a matter of course, as Paul himself +did. + +A quiet, awkward fellow he was, Potch. For a long time nobody thought +much of him. "Potch," they would say, as his father used to, "a little +bit of potch!" Potch knew what was meant by that. He was Charley +Heathfield's son, and could not be expected to be worth much. He had +rated himself as other people rated him. He was potch, poor opal, stuff +of no particular value, without any fire. And his estimate of himself +was responsible for his keeping away from the boys and younger men of +the Ridge. A habit of shy aloofness had grown with him, although anybody +who wanted help with odd jobs knew where they could get it, and find +eager and willing service. Potch would do anything for anybody with all +the pleasure in the world, whether it were building a fowl-house, +thatching a roof, or helping to run up a hut. + +"He's the only mate worth a straw Michael's had since God knows when, 't +anyrate," Watty said, after Potch had been working with Paul and Michael +for some time. George and Cash agreed with him. + +George and Watty and Cash had "no time," as they said themselves, for +Rouminof; and Potch as a rule stayed in the shelter with Paul when +Michael went over to talk with George and Watty. He was never prouder +than when Michael asked him to go over to George and Watty's shelter. + +At first Potch would sit on the edge of the shelter, leaning against the +brushwood, the sun on his shoulder, as if unworthy to take advantage of +the shelter's shade, further. For a long time he listened, saying +nothing; not listening very intently, apparently, and feeding the birds +with crumbs from his lunch. But Michael saw his eyes light when there +was any misstatement of fact on a subject he had been reading about or +knew something of. + +Soon after Sophie had gone, Michael wrote to Dawe Armitage. He and the +old man had always been on good terms, and Michael had a feeling of real +friendliness for him. But the secret of the sympathy between them was +that they were lovers of the same thing. For both, black opal had a +subtle, inexplicable fascination. + +As briefly as he knew how, Michael told Dawe Armitage how Sophie had +left Fallen Star, and what he had heard. "It's up to you to see no harm +comes to that girl," he wrote. "If it does, you can take my word for it, +there's no man on this field will sell to Armitages." + +Michael knew Mr. Armitage would take his word for it. He knew Dawe +Armitage would realise better than Michael could tell him, that it would +be useless for John Armitage to visit the field the following year. +George Woods had informed Michael that, by common consent, men of the +Ridge had decided not to sell to Armitage for a time; and, in order to +prevent an agent thwarting their purpose, to deal only with known and +rival buyers of the Armitages. Dawe Armitage, Michael guessed, would be +driven to the extremity of promising almost anything to make up for what +his son had done, and to overcome the differences between Armitage and +Son and men of the Ridge. + +When the reply came, Michael showed it to Watty and George. + +"DEAR BRADY," it said, "I need hardly say your letter was a great shock +to me. At first, when I taxed my son with the matter you write of, he +denied all knowledge or responsibility for the young lady. I have since +found she is here in New York, and have seen her. I offered to take her +passage and provide for her to return to the Ridge; but she refuses to +leave this city, and, I believe, is to appear in a musical comedy +production at an early date. Believe me overcome by the misfortune of +this episode, and only anxious to make any reparation in my power. +Knowing the men of the Ridge as I do, I can understand their resentment +of my son's behaviour, and that for a time, at least, business relations +between this house and them cannot be on the old friendly footing. I +need hardly tell you how distressing this state of affairs is to me +personally, and how disastrous the cutting off of supplies is to my +business interests. I can only ask that, as I will, on my part, to the +best of my ability, safeguard the young, lady--whom I will regard as +under my charge--you will, in recognition of our old friendship, perhaps +point out to men of the Ridge that as it is not part of their justice to +visit sins of the fathers upon the children, so I hope it may not be to +visit sins of the children upon the fathers. + +"Yours very truly, + +"DAWE P. ARMITAGE." + +"The old man seems fair broken up," Watty remarked. + +"Depends on how Sophie gets on whether we have anything to do with +Armitage and Son--again," George replied. "If she's all right ... well +... perhaps it'll be all right for them, with us. If she doesn't get on +all right ... they won't neither." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +The summer months passed slowly. The country was like a desert for +hundreds of miles about the Ridge in every direction. The herbage had +crumbled into dust; ironstone and quartz pebbles on the long, low slopes +of the Ridge glistened almost black in the light; and out on the plains, +and on the roads where the pebbles were brushed aside, the dust rose in +tawny and reddish clouds when a breath of wind, or the movement of man +and beast stirred it. The trees, too, were almost black in the light; +the sky, dim, and smoking with heat. + +Paul had not done any work in the mine since he had been laid up with +sun-stroke. When he was able to be about again he went to the shelter to +eat his lunch with Michael and Potch. He was extraordinarily weak for +some time, and a haze the sun-stroke had left hovered over his mind. +Usually, to stem the tide of his incessant questions and gossiping, +Potch gave him some scraps of sun-flash, and colour and potch to noodle, +and he sat and snipped them contentedly while Potch and Michael read or +dozed the hot, still, midday hours away. + +When he had eaten his lunch, Potch tossed his crumbs to the birds which +came about the shelter. He whistled to them for a while and tried to +make friends with them. As often as not Michael sat, legs stretched put +before him, smoking and brooding, as he gazed over the plains; but one +day he found himself in the ruck of troubled thoughts as he watched +Potch with the birds. + +Michael had often watched Potch making friends with the birds, as he lay +on his side dozing or dreaming. He had sat quite still many a day, until +Potch, by throwing crumbs and whistling encouragingly and in imitation +of their own calls, had induced a little crested pigeon, or white-tail, +to come quite close to him. The confidence Potch won from the birds was +a reproach to him. But in a few days now, Michael told himself, he would +be giving Paul his opals. Then Potch would know what perhaps he ought to +have known already. Potch was his mate, Michael reminded himself, and +entitled to know what his partner was doing with opal which was not +their common property. + +When Sophie was at home, Michael had taken Potch more or less for +granted. He had not wished to care for, or believe in, Potch, as he had +his father, fearing a second shock of disillusionment. The compassion +which was instinctive had impelled him to offer the boy his goodwill and +assistance; but a remote distrust and contempt of Charley in his son had +at first tinged his feeling for Potch. Slowly and surely Potch had lived +down that distrust and contempt. Dogged and unassuming, he asked nothing +for himself but the opportunity to serve those he loved, and Michael had +found in their work, in their daily association, in the homage and deep, +mute love Potch gave him, something like balm to the hurts he had taken +from other loves. + +Michael had loved greatly and generously, and had little energy to give +to lesser affections, but he was grateful to Potch for caring for him. +He was drawn to Potch by the knowledge of his devotion. He longed to +tell him about the opals; how he had come to have them, and why he was +holding them; but always there had been an undertow of resistance +tugging at the idea, reluctance to break the seals on the subject in his +mind. Some day he would have to break them, he told himself. + +Paul's illness had made it seem advisable to put off explanation about +the opals for a while. Paul was still weak from the fever following his +touch of the sun, and his brain hazy. As soon as he had his normal wits +again, Michael promised himself he would take the opals to Paul and let +him know how he came to have them. + +All the afternoon, as he worked, Michael was plagued by thought of the +opals. He had no peace with himself for accepting Potch's belief in him, +and for not telling Potch how Paul's opals came into his possession. + +In the evening as he lay on the sofa under the window, reading, the +troubled thinking of his midday reverie became tangled with the printed +words of the page before him. Michael had a flashing vision of the +stones as Paul had held them to the light in Newton's bar. Suddenly it +occurred to him that he had not seen the stones, or looked at the +package the opals were in, since he had thrown them into the box of +books in his room, the night he had taken them from Charley. + +He got up from the sofa and crossed to his bedroom to see whether Paul's +cigarette tin, wrapped in its old newspaper, was still lying among his +books. He plunged is hand among them, and turned his books over until he +found the tin. It looked much as it had the night he threw it into the +box--only the wrappings of newspaper were loose. + +Michael wondered whether all the opals were in the box. He hoped none +had fallen out, or got chipped or cracked as a result of his rough +handling. He untied the string round the tin in order to tie it again +more securely. It might be just as well to see whether the stones were +all right while he was about it, he thought. + +He went back to the sitting-room and drew his chair up to the table. +Slowly, abstractedly, he rolled the newspaper wrappings from the tin; +and the stones rattled together in their bed of wadding as he lifted +them to the table. He picked up one and held it off from the +candle-light. It was the stone Paul had had such pride in--a piece of +opal with a glitter of flaked gold and red fire smouldering through its +black potch like embers of a burning tree through the dark of a starless +night. + +One by one he lifted the stones and moved them before the candle, +letting its yellow ray loose their internal splendour. The colours in +the stones--blue, green, gold, amethyst, and red--melted, sprayed, and +scintillated before him. His blood warmed to their fires. + +"God! it's good stuff!" he breathed, his eyes dark with reverence and +emotion. + +With the tranced interest of a child, he sat there watching the play of +colours in the stones. Opal always exerted this fascination for him. Not +only its beauty, but the mystery of its beauty enthralled him. He had a +sense of dimly grasping great secrets as be gazed into its shining +depths, trying to follow the flow and scintillation of its myriad stars. + +Potch came into the hut, brushing against the doorway. He swung +unsteadily, as though he had been running or walking quickly. + +Michael started from the rapt contemplation he had fallen into; he stood +up. His consciousness swaying earthwards again, he was horrified that +Potch should find him with the opals like this before he had explained +how he came to have them. Confounded with shame and dismay, +instinctively he brushed the stones together and, almost without knowing +what he did, threw the wrappings over them. He felt as if he were really +guilty of the thing Potch might suspect him guilty of: either of being a +miser and hoarding opal from his mate, or of having come by the stones +as he had come by them. One opal, the stone he had first looked at, +tumbled out from the others and lay under the candle-light, winking and +flashing. + +But Potch was disturbed himself; he was breathing heavily; his usually +sombre, quiet face was flushed and quivering with restrained excitement. +He was too preoccupied to notice Michael's movement, or what he was +doing. + +"Snow-Shoes been here?" he asked, breathlessly. + +"No," Michael said. "Why?" + +He stretched out his hand to take the opal which lay winking in the +light and put it among the others. Potch's excitement died out. + +"Oh, nothing," he said, lamely. "I only thought I saw him making this +way." + +The sound of a woman laughing outside the hut broke the silence between +them. Michael lifted his head to listen. + +"Who's that?" he asked; + +Potch did not reply. The blue dark of the night sky, bright with stars, +was blank in the doorway. + +"May I come in?" a woman's voice called. Her figure wavered in the +doorway. Before either Potch or Michael could speak she had come into +the hut. It was Maud, Jun Johnson's wife. She stood there on the +threshold of the room, her loose, dark hair wind-blown, her eyes, +laughing, the red line of her mouth trembling with a smile. Her eyes +went from Michael to Potch, who had turned away. + +"My old nanny's awful bad, Potch," she said. "They say there's no one on +the Ridge knows as much about goats as you. Will you come along and see +what you can do for her?" + +Potch was silent. Michael had never known him take a request for help so +ungraciously. His face was sullen and resentful as his eyes went to +Maud. + +"All right," he said. + +He moved to go out with her. Maud moved too. Then she caught sight-of +the piece of opal lying out from the other stones on the table. + +"My," she cried eagerly, "that's a pretty stone, Michael!" She turned it +back against the light, so that the opal threw out its splintered sparks +of red and gold. + +"Just been noodlin' over some old scraps ... and came across it," +Michael said awkwardly. + +It seemed impossible to explain about the stones to Maud Johnson. He +could not bear the idea of her hearing his account of Paul's opals +before George, Watty, and the rest of the men who were his mates, had. + +"Well to be you, having stuff like that to noodle," Maud said. "Doin' a +bit of dealin' myself. I'll give you a good price for it, Michael." + +"It's goin' into a parcel," he replied. + +"Oh, well, when you want to sell, you might let me know," Maud said. +"Comin', Potch?" + +She swung away with the light, graceful swirl of a dancer. Michael +caught the smile in her eyes, mischievous and mocking as a street +urchin's, as she turned to Potch, and Potch followed her out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Days and months went by, hot and still, with dust-storms and blue skies, +fading to grey. Their happenings were so alike that there was scarcely +any remembering one from the other of them. The twilights and dawns were +clear, with delicate green skies. On still nights the moon rose golden, +flushing the sky before it appeared, as though there were fires beyond +the Ridge. + +Usually in one of the huts a concertina was pulled lazily, and its +wheezing melodies drifted through the quiet air. Everybody missed +Sophie's singing. The summer evenings were long and empty without the +ripple of her laughter and the music of the songs she sang. + +"You miss her these nights, don't you?" Michael said to Potch one very +hot, still night, when the smoke of a mosquito fire in the doorway was +drifting into the room about them. + +Potch was reading, sprawled over the table. His expression changed as he +looked up. It was as though a sudden pain had struck him. + +"Yes," he said. His eyes went to his book again; but he did not read any +more. Presently he pushed back the seat he was sitting on and went out +of doors. + +Michael and Potch were late going down to the claim the morning they +found George and Watty and most of the men who were working that end of +the Ridge collected in a group talking together. No one was working; +even the noodlers, Snow-Shoes and young Flail, were standing round with +the miners. + +"Hullo," Michael said, "something's up!" + +Potch remembered having seen a gathering of the men, like this, only +once before on the fields. + +"Ratting?" he said. + +"Looks like it," Michael agreed. + +"What's up, George?" he asked, as Potch and he joined the men. + +"Rats, Michael," George said, "that's what's up. They've been on our +place and cleaned out a pretty good bit of stuff Watty and me was +working on. They've paid Archie a visit ... and Bully reck'ns his +spider's been walking lately, too." + +Michael and Potch had seen nothing but a few shards of potch and colour +for months. They were not concerned at the thought of a rat's visit to +their claim; but they were as angry and indignant at the news as the men +who had been robbed. In the shelters at midday, the talk was all of the +rats and ratting. The Crosses, Bill Grant, Pony-Fence, Bull Bryant, Roy +O'Mara, Michael, and Potch went to George Woods' shelter to talk the +situation over with George, Watty, and Cash Wilson. The smoke of the +fires Potch and Roy and Bully made to boil the billies drifted towards +them, and the men talked as they ate their lunches, legs stretched out +before them, and leaning against a log George had hauled beside the +shelter. + +George Woods, the best natured, soberest man on the Ridge, was +smouldering with rage at the ratting. + +"I've a good mind to put a bit of dynamite at the bottom of the shaft, +and then, when a rat strikes a match, up he'll go," he said. + +"But," Watty objected, "how'd you feel when you found a dead man in your +claim, George?" + +"Feel?" George burst out. "I wouldn't feel--except he'd got no right to +be there--and perlitely put him on one side." + +"Remember those chaps was up a couple of years ago, George?" Bill Grant +asked, "and helped theirselves when Pony-Fence and me had a bit of luck +up at Rhyll's hill." + +"Remember them?" George growled. + +"They'd go round selling stuff if there was anybody to buy--hang round +the pub all day, and yet had stuff to sell," Watty murmured. + +The men smoked silently for a few minutes. + +"How much did they get, again?" Bully Bryant asked. + +"Couple of months," George said. + +"Police protect criminals--everybody knows that," Snow-Shoes said. + +Sitting on the dump just beyond the shade the shelter cast, he had been +listening to what the men were saying, the sun full blaze on him, his +blue eyes glittering in the shadow of his old felt hat. All eyes turned +to him. The men always listened attentively when Snow-Shoes had anything +to say. + +"If there's a policeman about, and a man starts ratting and is caught, +he gets a couple of months. Well, what does he care? But if there's a +chance of the miners getting hold of him and some rough handling ... he +thinks twice before he rats ... knowing a broken arm or a pain in his +head'll come of it." + +"That's true," George said. "I vote we get this bunch ourselves." + +"Right!" The Crosses and Bully agreed with him. Watty did not like the +idea of the men taking the law into their own hands. He was all for law +and order. His fat, comfortable soul disliked the idea of violence. + +"Seems to me," he said, "it 'd be a good thing to set a trap--catch the +rats--then we'd know where we were." + +Michael nodded. "I'm with Watty," he said. + +"Then we could hand 'em over to the police," Watty said. + +Michael smiled. "Well, after the last batch getting two months, and the +lot of us wasting near on two months gettin' 'em jailed, I reck'n it's +easier to deal with 'em here--But we've got to be sure. They've got to +be caught red-handed, as the sayin' is. It don't do to make mistakes +when we're dealin' out our own justice." + +"That's right, Michael," the men agreed. + +"Well, I reck'n we'd ought to have in the police," Watty remarked +obstinately. + +"The police!" Snow-Shoes stood up as if he had no further patience with +the controversy. "It's like letting hornets build in your house to keep +down flies--to call in the police. The hornets get worse than the +flies." + +He turned on his heel and walked away. His tall, white figure, +straighter than any man's on the Ridge, moved silently, his feet, +wrapped in their moccasins of grass and sacking, making no sound on the +shingly earth. + +Men whose claims had not been nibbled arranged to watch among +themselves, to notice exactly where they put their spiders when they +left the mines in the afternoon, and to set traps for the rats. + +Some of them had their suspicions as to whom the rats might be, because +the field was an old one, and there were not many strangers about. But +when it was known next day that Jun Johnson and his wife had "done a +moonlight flit," it was generally agreed that these suspicions were +confirmed. Maud had made two or three trips to Sydney to sell opal +within the last year, and from what they heard, men of the Ridge had +come to believe she sold more opal than Jun had won, or than she herself +had bought from the gougers. Jun's and Maud's flight was taken not only +as a confession of guilt, but also as an indication that the men's +resolution to deal with rats themselves had been effective in scaring +them away. + +When the storm the ratting had caused died down, life on the Ridge went +its even course again. Several men threw up their claims on the hill +after working without a trace of potch or colour for months, and went to +find jobs on the stations or in the towns nearby. + +The only thing of any importance that happened during those dreary +summer months was Bully Bryant's marriage to Ella Flail, and, although +it took everybody by surprise that little Ella was grown-up enough to be +married, the wedding was celebrated in true Ridge fashion, with a dance +and no end of hearty kindliness to the young couple. + +"Roy O'Mara's got good colour down by the crooked coolebah, Michael," +Potch said one evening, a few days after the wedding, when he and +Michael had finished their tea. He spoke slowly, and as if he had +thought over what he was going to say. + +"Yes?" Michael replied. + +"How about tryin' our luck there?" Potch ventured. + +Michael took the suggestion meditatively. Potch and he had been working +together for several years with very little luck. They had won only a +few pieces of opal good enough to put into a parcel for an opal-buyer +when he came to Fallen Star. But Michael was loth to give up the old +shaft, not only because he believed in it, but because of the work he +and his mates had put into it, and because when they did strike opal +there, the mine would be easily worked. But this was the first time +Potch had made a suggestion of the sort, and Michael felt bound to +consider it. + +"There's a bit of a rush on, Snow-Shoes told me," Potch said. "Crosses +have pegged, and I saw Bill Olsen measurin' out a claim." + +Michael's reluctance to move was evident. + +"I feel sure we'll strike it in the old shaft, sooner or later," he +murmured. + +"Might be sooner by the coolebah," Potch said. + +Michael's eyes lifted to his, the gleam of a smile in them. + +"Very well, we'll pull pegs," he said. + +While stars were still in the high sky and the chill breath of dawn in +the air, men were busy measuring and pegging claims on the hillside +round about the old coolebah. Half a dozen blocks were marked one +hundred feet square before the stars began to fade. + +All the morning men with pegs, picks, and shovels came straggling up the +track from the township and from other workings scattered along the +Ridge. The sound of picks on the hard ground and the cutting down of +scrub broke the limpid stillness. + +Paul came out of his hut as Potch passed it on his way to the coolebah. +Immediately he recognised the significance of the heavy pick Potch was +carrying, and trotted over to him. + +"You goin' to break new ground, Potch?" he asked. Potch nodded. + +"There's a bit of a rush on by the crooked coolebah," he said. "Roy +O'Mara's bottomed on opal there ... got some pretty good colours, and +we're goin' to peg out." + +"A rush?" Paul's eyes brightened. "Roy? Has he got the stuff, Potch?" + +"Not bad." + +As they followed the narrow, winding track through the scrub, Paul +chattered eagerly of the chances of the new rush. + +Roy O'Mara had sunk directly under the coolebah. There were few trees of +any great size on the Ridge, and this one, tall and grey-barked, stood +over the scrub of myalls, oddly bent, like a crippled giant, its great, +bleached trunk swung forward and wrenched back as if in agony. The mound +of white clay under the tree was already a considerable dump--Roy had +been working with a new chum from the Three Mile for something over a +fortnight and had just bottomed on opal. His first day's find was spread +on a bag under the tree. There was nothing of great value in it; but +when Potch and Paul came to it, Paul knelt down and turned over the +pieces of opal on the bag with eager excitement. + +When Michael arrived, Potch had driven in his pegs on a site he had +marked in his mind's eye the evening before, a hundred yards beyond +Roy's claim, up the slope of the hill. Michael took turns with Potch at +slinging the heavy pick; they worked steadily all the morning, the sweat +beading and pouring down their faces. + +There was always some excitement and expectation about sinking a +new hole. Michael had lived so long on the fields, and had sunk +so many shafts, that he took a new sinking with a good deal of +matter-of-factness; but even he had some of the thrilling sense of a +child with a surprise packet when he was breaking earth on a new rush. + +Neither Michael nor Paul had much enthusiasm about the new claim after +the first day or so; but Potch worked indefatigably. All day the thud +and click of picks on the hard earth and cement stone, and the +shovelling of loose earth and gravel, could be heard. In about a +fortnight Potch and Michael came on sandstone and drove into red opal +dirt beneath it. Roy O'Mara, working on his trace of promising black +potch, still had found nothing to justify his hope of an early haul. +Paul, easily disappointed, lost faith in the possibilities of the shaft; +Michael was for giving it further trial, but Potch, too, was in favour +of sinking again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from +the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock +from the drives, Potch said: + +"I'm going to sink another hole, Michael--higher up." + +Michael glanced at him. It was unusual for Potch to put a thing in that +way, without a by-your-leave, or feeler for advice, or permission; but +he was not disturbed by his doing so. + +"Right," he said; "you sink another hole, Potch. I'll stick to this one +for a bit." + +Potch began to break earth again next morning. He chose his site +carefully, to the right of the one he had been working on, and all the +morning he swung his heavy pick and shovelled earth from the shaft he +was making. He worked slowly, doggedly. When he came on sandstone he had +been three weeks on the job. + +"Ought to be near bottoming, Potch," Roy remarked one day towards the +end of the three weeks. + +"Be there to-day," Potch said. + +Paul buzzed about the top of the hole, unable to suppress his +impatience, and calling down the shaft now and then. + +Potch believed so in this claim of his that his belief had raised a +certain amount of expectation. His report, too, was going to make +considerable difference to the field. The Crosses had done pretty well: +they had cut out a pocket worth £400 as a result of their sinking, and +it remained to be seen what Potch's new hole would bring. A good +prospect would make the new field, it was reckoned. + +Potch's prospect was disappointing, however, and of no sensational value +when he did bottom; but after a few days he came on a streak or two of +promising colours, and Michael left the first shaft they had sunk on the +coolebah to work with Potch in the new mine. + +They had been on the new claim, with nothing to show for their pains, +for nearly two months, the afternoon Potch, who had been shifting opal +dirt of a dark strain below the steel band on the south side of the +mine, uttered a low cry. + +"Michael," he called. + +Michael, gouging in a drive a few yards away, knew the meaning of that +joyous vibration in a man's voice. He stumbled out of the drive and went +to Potch. + +Potch Was holding his spider off from a surface of opal his pick had +clipped. It glittered, an eye of jet, with every light and star of red, +green, gold, blue, and amethyst, leaping, dancing, and quivering +together in the red earth of the mine. Michael swore reverently when he +saw it. Potch moved his candle before the chipped corner of the stones +which he had worked round sufficiently to show that a knobby of some +size was embedded in the wall of the mine. + +"Looks a beaut, doesn't she, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael breathed hard. + +"By God----" he murmured. + +Paul, hearing the murmur of their voices, joined them. + +He screamed when he saw the stone. + +"I knew!" he yelled. "I knew we'd strike it here." + +"Well, stand back while I get her out," Potch cried. + +Michael trembled as Potch fitted his spider and began to break the earth +about the opal, working slowly, cautiously, and rubbing the earth away +with his hands. Michael watched him apprehensively, exclaiming with +wonder and admiration as the size of the stone was revealed. + +When Potch had worked it out of its socket, the knobby was found to be +even bigger than they had thought at first. The stroke which located it +had chipped one side so that its quality was laid bare, and the chipped +surface had the blaze and starry splendour of the finest black opal. +Michael and Potch examined the stone, turned it over and over, tremulous +and awed by its size and magnificence. Paul was delirious with +excitement. + +He was first above ground, and broke the news of Potch's find to the men +who were knocking off for the day on other claims. When Michael and +Potch came up, nearly a dozen men were collected about the dump. They +gazed at the stone with oaths and exclamations of amazement and +admiration. + +"You've struck it this time, Potch!" Roy O'Mara said. + +Potch flushed, rubbed the stone on his trousers, licked the chipped +surface, and held it to the sun again. + +"It's the biggest knobby--ever I see," Archie Cross said. + +"Same here," Bill Grant muttered. + +"Wants polishin' up a bit," Michael said, "and then she'll show better." + +As soon as he got home, Potch went into Paul's hut and faced the stone +on Sophie's wheel. Paul and Michael hung over him as he worked; and when +he had cleaned it up and put it on the rouge buffer, they were satisfied +that it fulfilled the promise of its chipped side. Nearly as big as a +hen's egg, clean, hard opal of prismatic fires in sparkling jet, they +agreed that it as the biggest and finest knobby either of them had ever +seen. + +Potch took his luck quietly, although there were repressed emotion and +excitement in his voice as he talked. + +Michael marvelled at the way he went about doing his ordinary little odd +jobs of the evening, when they returned to their own hut. Potch brought +in and milked the goats, set out the pannikins and damper, and made tea. + +When Michael and Potch had finished their meal and put away their +plates, food, and pannikins, Michael picked up the stone from the shelf +where Potch had put it, wrapped in the soft rag of an oatmeal bag. He +threw himself on the sofa under the window and held the opal to the +light, turning it and watching the stars spawn in its firmament of +crystal ebony. Potch pulled a book from his pocket and sprawled across +the table to read. + +Michael regarded him wonderingly. Had the boy no imagination? Did the +magic and mystery of the opal make so little appeal to him? Michael's +eyes went from their reverent and adoring observation of the stone in +his hands, to Potch as he sat stooping over the book on the table before +him. He could not understand why Potch was not fired by the beauty of +the thing he had won, or with pride at having found the biggest knobby +ever taken out of the fields. + +Any other young man would have been beside himself with excitement and +rejoicing. But here was Potch slouched over a dog-eared, paper-covered +book. + +As he gazed at the big opal, a vision of Paul's opals flashed before +him. The consternation and dismay that had made him scarcely conscious +of what he was doing the night Potch found him with them, and Maud +Johnson had come for Potch to go to see her sick goat, overwhelmed him +again. He had not yet given the opals to Paul, he remembered, or +explained to Potch and the rest of the men how he came to have them. + +Any other mate than Potch would have resented his holding opals like +that and saying nothing of them. But there was no resentment in Potch's +bearing to him, Michael had convinced himself. Yet Potch must know about +the stones; he must have seen them. Michael could find no reason for his +silence and the unaltered serenity of the affection in his eyes, except +that Potch had that absolute belief in him which rejects any suggestion +of unworthiness in the object of its belief. + +But since--since he had made up his mind to give the opals to +Paul--since Sophie had gone, and there was no chance of their doing her +any harm; since that night Potch and Maud had seen him, why had he not +given them to Paul? Why had he not told Potch how the opals Potch had +seen him with had come into his possession? Michael put the questions to +himself, hardly daring, and yet knowing, he must search for the answer +in the mysterious no-man's land of his subconsciousness. + +Paul's slow recovery from sun-stroke was a reason for deferring +explanation about the stones and for not giving them back to him, in the +first instance. After Potch and Maud had seen him with the opals, +Michael had intended to go at once to George and Watty and tell them his +story. But the more he had thought of what he had to do, the more +difficult it seemed. He had found himself shrinking from fulfilment of +his intention. Interest in the new claim and the excitement of bottoming +on opal had for a time almost obliterated memory of Paul's opals. + +But he had only put off telling Potch, Michael assured himself; he had +only put off giving the stones back to Paul. There was no motive in this +putting off. It was mental indolence, procrastination, reluctance to +face a difficult and delicate situation: that was all. Having the opals +had worried him to death. It had preyed on his mind so that he was ready +to imagine himself capable of any folly or crime in connection with +them.... He mocked his fears of himself. + +Michael went over all he had done, all that had happened in connection +with the opals, seeking out motives, endeavouring to fathom his own +consciousness and to be honest with himself. + +As if answering an evocation, the opals passed before him in a vision. +He followed their sprayed fires reverently. Then, as if one starry ray +had shed illumination in its passing, a daze of horror and amazement +seized him. He had taken his own rectitude so for granted that he could +not believe he might be guilty of what the light had shown lurking in a +dark corner of his mind. + +Had Paul's stones done that to him? Michael asked himself. Had their +witch fires eaten into his brain? He had heard it said men who were +misers, who hoarded opal, were mesmerised by the lights and colour of +the stuff; they did not want to part with it. Was that what Paul's +stones had done to him? Had they mesmerised him, so that he did not want +to part with them? Michael was aghast at the idea. He could not believe +he had become so besotted in his admiration of black opal that he was +ready to steal--steal from a mate. The opal had never been found, he +assured himself, which could put a spell over his brain to make him do +that. And yet, he realised, the stones themselves had had something to +do with his reluctance to talk of them to Potch, and with the deferring +of his resolution to give them to Paul and let the men know what he had +done. Whenever he had attempted to bring his resolution to talk of them +to the striking-point, he remembered, the opals had swarmed before his +dreaming eyes; his will had weakened as he gazed on them, and he had put +off going to Paul and to Watty and George. + +Stung to action by realisation of what he had been on the brink of, +Michael went to the box of books in his room. He determined to take the +packet of opals to Paul immediately, and go on to tell George and Watty +its history. As he plunged an arm down among the books for the cigarette +tin the opals were packed in, he made up his mind not to look at them +for fear some reason or excuse might hinder the carrying out of his +project. His fingers groped eagerly for the package; he threw out a few +books. + +He had put the tin in a corner of the box, under an old Statesman's +year-book and a couple of paper-covered novels. But it was not there; it +must have slipped, or he had piled books over it, at some time or +another, he thought. He threw out all the books in the box and raked +them over--but he could not find the tin with Paul's opals in. + +He sat back on his haunches, his face lean and ghastly by the +candle-fight. + +"They're gone," he told himself. + +He wondered whether he could have imagined replacing the package in the +box--if there was anywhere else he could have put it, absent-mindedly; +but his eyes returned to the box. He knew he had put the opals there. + +Who could have found them? Potch? His mind turned from the idea. + +Nobody had known of them. Nobody knew just where to put a hand on +them--not even Potch. Who else could have come into the hut, or +suspected the opals were in that box. Paul? He would not have been able +to contain his joy if he had come into possession of any opal worth +speaking of. Who else might suspect him of hoarding opal of any value. +His mind hovered indecisively. Maud? + +Michael remembered the night she had come for Potch and had seen that +gold-and-red-fired stone on the table. His imagination attached itself +to the idea. The more he thought of it, the surer he felt that Maud had +come for the stone she had offered to buy from him. There was nothing to +prevent her walking into the hut and looking for it, any time during the +day when he and Potch were away at the mine. And if she would rat, +Michael thought she would not object to taking stones from a man's hut +either. Of course, it might not be Maud; but he could think of no one +else who knew he had any stone worth having. + +If Maud had taken the stones, Jun would recognise them, Michael knew. By +and by the story would get round, Jun would see to that. And when Jun +told where those opals of Paul's had been found, as he would some +day--Michael could not contemplate the prospect. + +He might tell men of the Ridge his story now and forestall Jun; but it +would sound thin without the opals to verify it, and the opportunity to +restore them to Paul. Michael thought he had sufficient weight with men +of the Ridge to impress them with the truth of what he said; but +knowledge of a subtle undermining of his character, for which possession +of the opals was responsible, gave him such a consciousness of guilt +that he could not face the men without being able to give Paul the +stones and prove he was not as guilty as he felt. + +Overwhelmed and unable to throw off a sense of shame and defeat, Michael +sat on the floor of his room, books thrown out of the box all round him. +He could not understand even now how those stones of Paul's had worked +him to the state of mind they had. He did not even know they had brought +him to the state of mind he imagined they had, or whether his fear of +that state of mind had precipitated it. He realised the effect of the +loss more than the thing itself, as he crouched beside the empty +book-box, foreseeing the consequences to his work and to the Ridge, of +the story Jun would tell--that he, Michael Brady, who had held such high +faiths, and whose allegiance to them had been taken as a matter of +course, was going to be known as a filcher of other men's stones, and +that he who had formulated and inspired the Ridge doctrine was going to +be judged by it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Michael and Potch were finishing their tea when Watty burst in on them. +His colour was up, his small, blue eyes winking and flashing over his +fat, pink cheeks. + +"Who d'y' think's come be motor to-day, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael's movement and the shade of apprehension which crossed his face +were a question. + +"Old man Armitage!" Watty said. "And he's come all the way from New York +to see the big opal, he says." + +There was a rumble of cart wheels, an exclamation and the reverberation +of a broad, slow voice out-of-doors. Watty looked through Michael's +window. + +"Here he is, Michael," he said. "George and Peter are helping him out of +Newton's dog-cart. And Archie Cross and Bill Grant are coming along the +road a bit behind." + +Michael pushed back his seat and pulled the fastenings from his front +door. The front door was more of a decoration and matter of form in the +face of the hut than intended to serve any useful purpose, and the +fastening had never been moved before. + +Potch cleared away the litter of the meal while Michael went out to meet +the old man. He was walking with the help of a stick, his heavy, +colourless face screwed with pain. + +"Grr-rr!" he grunted. "What a fool I was to come to this God-damn place +of yours, George! What? No fool like an old one? Don't know so much +about that.... What else was I to do? Brrr! Oh, there you are, Michael! +Came to see you. Came right away because, from what the boys tell me, +you weren't likely to slip down and call on me." + +"I'd 've come all right if I'd known you wanted to see me, Mr. +Armitage," Michael said. + +The old man went into the hut and, creaking and groaning as though all +his springs needed oiling, seated himself on the sofa, whipped out a +silk handkerchief and wiped his face and head with it. + +"Oh, well," he said, "here I am at last--and mighty glad to get here. +The journey from New York City, where I reside, to this spot on the +globe, don't get any nearer as I grow older. No, sir! Who's that young +man?" + +Mr. Armitage had fixed his eyes on Potch from the moment he came into +the hut. Potch stood to his gaze. + +"That's Potch," Michael said. + +"Potch?" + +The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to +dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was +trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone +he had come to see, were with the man who had found it. + +"Con--gratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "I've +come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours." + +Potch shook hands with him. + +"They tell me it's the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge +earth," the old man continued. "Well, I couldn't rest out there at home +without havin' a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, +and I couldn't get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I'd +never even see it, perhaps, I danged 'em to Hades--doctors, family and +all--took me passage out here. Ran away! That's what I did." He chuckled +with reminiscent glee. "And here I am." + +"Cleared out, did y', Mr. Armitage?" Watty asked. + +"That's it, Watty," old Armitage answered, still chuckling. "Cleared +out.... Family'll be scarrifyin' the States for me. Sent 'em a cable +when I got here to say I'd arrived." + +Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased +with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying +piece of mischief. + +"Tell you, boys," he said, "I felt I couldn't die easy knowing there was +a stone like that about and I'd never clap eyes on it.... Know you +chaps'd pretty well turned me down--me and mine--and I wouldn't get more +than a squint at the stone for my pains. You're such damned independent +beggars! Eh, Michael? That's the old argument, isn't it? How did y' like +those papers I sent you--and that book ... by the foreign devil--what's +his name? Clever, but mad. Y'r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or +whatever y'r call y'rselves nowadays.... But, for God's sake, let me +have a look at the stone now, there's a good fellow." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"You get her, Potch," he said. + +Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in ah old tin, the +great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He +put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on +which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips +twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch's clumsy fingers +fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal +flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it +on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside. + +Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes. + +"My!" he breathed; and again: "My!" Then: "She was worth it, Michael," +fell from him in an awed exclamation. + +He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his +eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He +lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be +afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, +Potch's opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who +was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to +the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny +brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its +infinitesimal stars---red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst--blazing, +splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him. + +The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone +down and mopped his forehead. + +"Well," he said, "I reckon she's the God-damnedest piece of opal I've +ever seen." + +"She is that," Watty declared. + +"What have you got on her, Michael?" Dawe Armitage queried. + +A faint smile touched Michael's mouth. + +"I'm only asking," Armitage remarked apologetically. "I can tell you, +boys, it's a pretty bitter thing for me to be out of the running for a +stone like this. I ain't even bidding, you see--just inquiring, that's +all." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"Well," he said, "it's Potch's first bit of luck, and I reck'n he's got +the say about it." + +The old man looked at Potch. He was a good judge of character. His +chance of getting the stone from Michael was remote; from Potch--a +steady, flat look in the eyes, a stolidity and inflexibility about the +young man, did hot give Dawe Armitage much hope where he was concerned +either. + +"They tell me," Mr. Armitage said, the twinkling of a smile in his eyes +as he realised the metal of his adversary--"they tell me," he repeated, +"you've refused three hundred pounds for her?" + +"That's right," Potch said. + +"How much do you reck'n she's worth?" + +"I don't know." + +"How much have you got on her?" + +Potch looked at Michael. + +"We haven't fixed any price," he said. + +"Four hundred pounds?" Armitage asked. + +Potch's grey eyes lay on his for the fraction of a second. + +"You haven't got money enough to buy that stone, Mr. Armitage," he said, +quietly. + +The old man was crestfallen. Although he pretended that he had no hope +of buying the opal, everybody knew that, hoping against hope, he had not +altogether despaired of being able to prevail against the Ridge +resolution not to sell to Armitage and Son, in this instance. Potch +remarked vaguely that he had to see Paul, and went out of the hut. + +"Oh, well," Dawe Armitage said, "I suppose that settles the matter. +Daresay I was a durned old fool to try the boy--but there you are. Well, +since I can't have her, Michael, see nobody else gets her for less than +my bid." + +The men were sorry for the old man. What Potch had said was rather like +striking a man when he was down, they thought; and they were not too +pleased about it. + +"Potch doesn't seem to fancy sellin' at all for a bit," Michael said. + +"What!" Armitage exclaimed. "He's not a miser--at his age?" + +"It's not that," Michael replied. + +"Oh, well"--the old man's gesture disposed of the matter. He gazed at +the stone entranced again. "But she's the koh-i-noor of opals, sure +enough. But tell me"--he sat back on the sofa for a yarn--"what's the +news of the field? Who's been getting the stuff?" + +The gossip of Jun and the ratting was still the latest news of the +Ridge; but Mr. Armitage appeared to know as much of that as anybody. Ed. +Ventry's boy, who had motored him over from Budda, had told him about +it, he said. He had no opinion of Jun. + +"A bad egg," he said, and began to talk about bygone days on the Ridge. +There was nothing in the world he liked better than smoking and yarning +with men of the Ridge about black opal. + +He was fond of telling his family and their friends, who were too nice +and precise in their manners for his taste, and who thought him a boor +and mad on the subject of black opal, that the happiest times of his +life had been spent on Fallen Star Ridge, "swoppin' lies with the +gougers"; yarning with them about the wonderful stuff they had got, and +other chaps had got, or looking over some of the opal he had bought, or +was going to buy from them. + +"Oh, well," Mr. Armitage said after they had been talking for a long +time, "it's great sitting here yarning with you chaps. Never thought ... +I'd be sitting here like this again...." + +"It's fine to have a yarn with you, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. + +"Thank you, Michael," the old man replied. "But I suppose I must be +putting my old bones to bed.... There's something else I want to talk to +you about though, Michael." + +The men turned to the door, judging from Mr. Armitage's tone that what +he had to say was for Michael alone. + +"I'll just have a look if that bally mare of mine's all right, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said. + +He went to the door, and the rest of the men followed him. + +"Well, Michael," Dawe Armitage said when the men had gone out, "I guess +you know what it is I want to talk to you about." + +Michael jerked his head slightly by way of acknowledgment. + +"That little girl of yours." + +Michael smiled. It always pleased and amused him to hear people talk as +if he and not Paul were Sophie's father. + +"She"--old Armitage leaned back on the sofa, and a shade of perplexity +crossed his face--"I've seen a good deal of her, Michael, and I've tried +to keep an eye on her--but I don't mind admitting to you that a man +needs as many eyes as a centipede has legs to know what's coming to him +where Sophie's concerned. But first of all ... she's well ... and +happy--at least, she appears to be; and she's a great little lady." + +He brooded a moment, and Michael smoked, watching his face as though it +were a page he were trying to read. + +"You know, she's singing at one of the theatres in New York, and they +say she's doing well. She's sought after--made much of. She's got little +old Manhattan at her feet, as they say.... I don't want to gloss over +anything that son of mine may have done--but to put it in a nutshell, +Michael, he's in love with her. He's really in love with her--wants to +marry her, but Sophie won't have him." + +Michael did not speak, and he continued: + +"And there's this to be said for him. She says it. He isn't quite so +much to blame as we first thought. Seems he'd been making love to her... +and did a break before.... He didn't mean to be a blackguard, y' see. +You know what I'm driving at, Michael. He loved the girl and went--She +says when she knew he had gone away, she went after him. Then--well, you +know, Michael ... you've been young ... you've been in love. And in +Sydney ... summer-time ... with the harbour there at your feet.... + +"They were happy enough when they came to America. How they escaped the +emigration authorities, I don't know. They make enough fuss about an old +fogey like me, as if I had a harem up me sleeve. But still, when I found +her they were still happy, and she was having dancing lessons, had made +up her mind to go on the stage, and wouldn't hear of getting married. +Seemed to think it was a kind of barbarous business, gettin' married. +Said her mother had been married--and look what it had brought her to. + +"She's fond of John, too," the old man continued. "But, at present, New +York's a side-show, and she's enjoying it like a child on a holiday from +the country. I've got her living with an old maid cousin of mine.... +Sophie says by and by perhaps she'll marry John, but not yet--not +now--she's having too good a time. She's got all the money she wants ... +all the gaiety and admiration. It's not the sort of life I like for a +woman myself ... but I've done my best, Michael." + +There was something pathetic about the quiver which took the old face +before him. Michael responded to it gratefully. + +"You have that, I believe, Mr. Armitage," he said, "and I'm grateful to +you.". + +"Tell you the truth, Michael," he said, "I'm fond of her. I feel about +her as if she were a piece of live opal--the best bit that fool of a son +of mine ever brought from the Ridge...." + +His face writhed as he got up from the sofa. + +"But I must be going, Michael. Rouminof had a touch of the sun a while +ago, they tell me. Never been quite himself since. Bad business that. +Better go and have a look at him. Yes? Thanks, Michael; thanks. It's a +God-damned business growing old, Michael. Never knew I had so many bones +in me body." + +Leaning heavily on his stick he hobbled to the door. Michael gave him +his arm, and they went to Rouminof's hut. + +Potch had told Paul of Dawe P. Armitage's arrival; that he had come to +the Ridge to see the big opal, and was in Michael's hut. Paul had gone +to bed, but was all eagerness to get up and go to see Mr. Armitage. He +was sitting on his bed, weak and dishevelled-looking, shirt and trousers +on, while Potch was hunting for his boots, when Michael and Mr. Armitage +came into the room. + +After he had asked Paul how he was, and had gossiped with him awhile, +Mr. Armitage produced an illustrated magazine from one of the outer +pockets of his overcoat. + +"Thought you'd like to see these pictures of Sophie, Rouminof," he said. +"She's well, and doing well. The magazine will tell you about that. And +I brought along this." He held out a photograph. "She wouldn't give me a +photograph for you, Michael--said you'd never know her--so I prigged +this from her sitting-room last time I was there." + +Michael glanced at the photographer's card of heavy grey paper, which +Mr. Armitage was holding. He would know Sophie, anyhow and anywhere, he +thought; but he agreed that she was right when, the card in his hands, +he gazed at the elegant, bizarre-looking girl in the photograph. She was +so unlike the Sophie he had known that he closed his eyes on the +picture, pain, and again a dogging sense of failure and defeat filtering +through all his consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul's +hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and +start work again. It was nearly five years since he had got the +sun-stroke which had given him an excuse for loafing, and Michael and +Potch had come to the conclusion that even if it were only to keep him +out of mischief, Paul had to be put to work again. + +Since old Armitage's visit he had been restless and dissatisfied. He was +getting old, and had less energy, even by fits and starts, than he used +to have, they realised, but otherwise he was much the same as he had +been before Sophie went away. For months after Armitage's visit he spent +the greater part of his time on the form in the shade of Newton's +veranda, or in the bar, smoking and yarning to anybody who would yarn +with him about Sophie. His imagination gilded and wove freakish fancies +over what Mr. Armitage had said of her, while he wailed about Sophie's +neglect of him--how she had gone away and left him, her old father, to +do the best he could for himself. His reproaches led him to rambling +reminiscences of his life before he came to the Ridge, and of Sophie's +mother. He brought out his violin, tuned it, and practised Sometimes, +talking of how he would play for Sophie in New York. + +He was rarely sober, and Michael and Potch were afraid of the effect of +so much drinking on his never very steady brain. + +For months they had been trying to induce him to go down to the claim +and start work again; but Paul would not. + +"What's the good," he had said, "Sophie'll be sending for me soon, and +I'll be going to live with her in New York, and she won't want people to +be saying her father is an old miner." + +Michael had too deep a sense of what he owed to Paul to allow him ever +to want. He had provided for him ever since Sophie had left the Ridge; +he was satisfied to go on providing for him; but he was anxious to steer +Paul back to more or less regular ways of living. + +This morning Michael had made up his mind to tempt him to begin work +again by telling him of a splash of colour Potch had come on in the mine +the day before. Michael did not think Paul could resist the lure of that +news. + +Potch had brought Paul home from Newton's the night before, Michael +knew; but Paul was not in the kitchen or in his own room when Michael +went into the hut. + +As he was going out he noticed that the curtain of bagging over the door +of the room which had been Sophie's was thrown back. Michael went +towards it. + +"Paul!" he called. + +No answer coming, he went into the room. Its long quiet and tranquillity +had been disturbed. Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway +thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been +like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but +there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room +about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the +frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the +window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael +remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago. + +He was realising Potch had put them there, and wondering why he had left +the dead stalks in the tin until they were as dry as brown paper, when +his eyes fell on a hat with a long veil, and a dark cloak on the bed. He +gazed at them, his brain shocked into momentary stillness by the +suggestion they conveyed. + +Sophie exclaimed behind him. + +When he turned, Michael saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against +one side of it. Her face was very pale and tired-looking; her eyes gazed +into his, dark and strange. He thought she had been ill. + +"I've come home, Michael," she said. + +Michael could not speak. He stood staring at her. The dumb pain in her +eyes inundated him, as though he were a sensitive medium for the +realisation of pain. It surged through him, mingling with the flood of +his own rejoicing, gratitude, and relief that Sophie had come back to +the Ridge again. + +They stood looking at each other, their eyes telling in that moment what +words could not. Then Michael spoke, sensing her need of some +commonplace, homely sentiment and expression of affection. + +"It's a sight for sore eyes--the sight of you, Sophie," he said. + +"Michael!" + +Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved +to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been +like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own +child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and +tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried, +brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all. + +"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!" + +He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering +tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears +she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came +from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily, +reverently. + +"There, there!" he muttered again and again. + +Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from +him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her +eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him. + +"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said. + +Michael's mouth took its wry twist. + +"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else +on the Ridge'd dare say so." + +"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a +little as she looked at him; her eyes closed. + +Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie +down and drew the coverlet over her. + +"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said. + +Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour +when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and +butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had +fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave, +anxious face as he gazed at her. + +"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired." +She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the +tea and ate the bread and butter. + +"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world," +Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether +it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have +tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice." + +After a while she said: + +"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about +half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before. +That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat +and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how +badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I +didn't come--so I came." + +Then she asked about Potch and her father. + +Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but +that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of +putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down +to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and +Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the +night before. + +"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd +better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye +you've been missing these last two or three days." + +"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her +eyes again. + +They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed. + +"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for +years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the +sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste, +Michael.... It smells like peace, I think." + +"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind +if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more +good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter." + +"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured. + +Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep, +thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was +already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to +the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank +sunshine of the day again. + +He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to +the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for +Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to +look for Paul and send him to her. + +She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew +there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage +had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and +the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine, +with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever +it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake, +devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no +more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her. + +Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into +the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill +near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with +red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the +belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared. + +"Get him?" he asked. + +Michael had almost forgotten Paul. + +"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie. + +"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in +Michael's expression. + +Michael wanted to tell him--this was a big thing for Potch, he knew--and +yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the +throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he +told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch. + +"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said. + +But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He +would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian +of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for +fear of dazzling the beholder. + +The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had +come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of +having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did +not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and +happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like +that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie--Michael must have some good +news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his +own time. + +He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's +steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached +himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch. + +He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of +the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse +him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and +determined to speak. + +Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt +round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the +floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against +the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders. + +"Where was he?" he asked. + +"Who--Paul?" + +Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck. + +"Yes." + +Michael decided he would tell him now. + +"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away." + +Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again. + +"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit +of a business getting him home." + +"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and +stopped to listen. + +There was a muffled rumbling and sound of someone calling in the +distance. It came from Roy O'Mara's drive, on the other side of the +mine. + +"Hullo!" Michael called. + +"That you, Michael?" Roy replied. "I'm comin' through." + +His head appeared through the drive which he had tunnelled to meet +Potch's and Michael's drive on the eastern side of the mine. He crawled +out, shook himself, took out his pipe, and squatted on the floor beside +Michael. + +"Where's Rummy?" Roy asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"You didn't get him down, after all--the boys were taking bets about it +last night." + +"We'll get him yet," Potch said. "The colour'll work like one thing." + +Michael stared ahead of him, smoking as though his thoughts absorbed +him. + +"He was pretty full at Newton's last night," Roy said, "and +talkin'--talkin' about Sophie singing in America, and the great lady she +is now. And how she was goin' to send for him, and he'd be leavin' us +soon, and how sorry we'd all be then." + +"Should've thought you'd about wore out that joke," Michael remarked, +dryly. + +Roy's easy, good-natured voice faltered. + +"Oh, well," he said, "he likes to show off a bit, and it don't hurt us, +Michael." + +"That's right," Michael returned; "but Potch was out half the night +bringing him home. You chaps might remember Paul's our proposition when +you're having a bit of fun out of him." + +Potch turned back to his work. + +"Right, Michael," Roy said. And then, after a moment, having decided +that both Michael's and Potch's demeanours were too calm for them to +have heard what he had, as if savouring the effect of his news, he +added: + +"But perhaps we won't have many more chances-seein' Rummy 'll be going +to America before long, perhaps----" + +Michael, looking at Roy through his tobacco smoke, realised that he knew +about Sophie's having come home. His glance travelled to Potch, who was +slogging at the cement stone again. + +"Saw old Ventry on me way down to the mine," Roy said, "and he said he'd +a passenger on the coach last night.... Who do you think it was?" + +Michael dared not look at Potch. + +"He said," Roy murmured slowly, "it was Sophie." + +They knew that Potch's pick had stopped. Michael had seen a tremor +traverse the length of his bared back; but Potch did not turn. He stood +with his face away from them, immobile. His body dripped with sweat and +seemed to be oiled by the garish light of the candle which outlined his +head, gilded his splendid arms and torso against the red earth of the +mine, and threw long shadows into the darkness, shrouding the workings +behind him. Then his pick smashed into the cement stone with a force +which sent sharp, white chips flying in every direction. + +When Roy crawled away through the tunnel to his own quarters, Potch +swung round from the face he was working on, his eyes blazing. + +"Is it true?" he gasped. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +After a moment he added: "I found her in the hut this morning just +before I came away. I been tryin' all these blasted hours to tell you, +Potch ... but every time I tried, it got me by the neck, and I had to +wait until I found me voice." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, +its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous +green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, when Sophie went +out of the hut to meet Potch. + +The smell of sandal-wood burning on the fireplace in the kitchen she had +just left, was in the air. Such soothing its fragrance had for her! And +on the shingly soil, between the old dumps cast up a little distance +from the huts, in every direction, the paper daisies were lying, white +as driven snow in the wan light. Sophie went to the goat-pen, strung +round with a light, crooked fence, a few yards from the back of the +house. + +As she leaned against the fence she could hear the tinkling of a +goat-bell in the distance. The fragrances, the twilight, and the quiet +were balm to her bruised senses. The note of a bell sounded nearer. +Potch was bringing the goats in. + +Sophie went to the shed and stood near it, so that she might see him +before he saw her. A kid in the shed bleated as the note of the bell +became harsher and nearer. Sophie heard the answering cry of the nanny +among the three or four goats coming down to the yard along a narrow +track from a fringe of trees beyond the dumps. Then she saw Potch's +figure emerge from the trees. + +He drove the goats into the yard where two sticks of the fence were +down, put up the rails, and went to the shed for a milking bucket. He +came back into the yard, pulled a little tan-and-white nanny beside a +low box on which he sat to milk, and the squirt and song of milk in the +pail began. Sophie wondered what Potch was thinking of as he sat there +milking. She remembered the night--Potch had been sitting just like +that--when she told him her mother was dead. As she remembered, she saw +again every flicker and gesture of his, the play of light on his broad, +heavy face and head, with its shock of fairish hair; how his face had +puckered up and looked ugly and childish as he began to cry; how, after +a while, he had wiped his eyes and nose on his shirt-sleeve, and gone on +with the milking again, crying and sniffling in a subdued way. + +There was a deep note of loving them in his voice, rough and burred +though it was, as Potch spoke to the goats. Two of them came when he +called. + +When he had nearly finished milking, Sophie moved away from the screen +of the shed. She went along to the fence and stood where he could see +her when he looked up. + +The light had faded, and stars were glimmering in the luminous green of +the sky when Potch, as he released the last goat, pushed back the box he +had been sitting on, got up, took his bucket by the handle, and, looking +towards the fence, saw Sophie standing there. At first he seemed to +think she was a figure of his imagination, he stood so still gazing at +her. He had often thought of her, leaning against the rails there, +smiling at him like that. Then he remembered Sophie had come home; that +it was really Sophie herself by the fence as he had dreamed of seeing +her. But her face was wan and ethereal in the half-light; it floated +before him as if it were a drowned face in the still, thin air. + +"She's very like my old white nanny, Potch," Sophie said, her eyes +glancing from Potch to the goat he had just let go and which had +followed him across the yard. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"She might almost be Annie Laurie's daughter," Sophie said. + +"She's her grand-daughter," Potch replied. + +He put the bucket down at the rails and stooped to get through them. +Before he took up the bucket again he stood looking at her as though to +assure himself that it was really Sophie in the flesh who was waiting +for him by the fence. Then he took up the bucket, and they walked across +to Michael's hut together. + +Potch dared scarcely glance at her when he realised that Sophie was +really walking beside him--Sophie herself--although her eyes and her +voice were not the eyes and voice of the Sophie he had known. And he had +so often dreamed of her walking beside him that the dream seemed almost +more real than the thing which had come to pass. + +Sophie went with him to the lean-to, where the milk-dishes stood on a +bench under the window outside Michael's hut. She watched Potch while he +strained the milk and poured it into big, flat dishes on a bench under +the window. + +Paul came to the door of their own hut. He called her. Sophie could hear +voices exclaiming and talking to Paul and Michael. She supposed that the +people her father had said were coming from New Town to see her had +arrived. She dreaded going into the room where they all were, although +she knew that she must go. + +"Are you coming, Potch?" she asked. + +His eyes went from her to his hands. + +"I'll get cleaned up a bit first," he said, "then I'll come." + +The content in his eyes as they rested on her was transferred to Sophie. +It completed what the fragrances, those first minutes in the quiet and +twilight had done for her. It gave her a sense of having come to haven +after a tempestuous journey on the high seas beyond the reef of the +Ridge, and of having cast anchor in the lee of a kindly and sheltering +land. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged +insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung +in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George +Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the +kitchen. + +"Here she is," Paul said. + +Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her. + +"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called: + +"H'llo, Sophie!" + +And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!" + +Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie +warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump +and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and +rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again. +The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of +so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness. + +"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than +Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!" + +"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me +that scared of you--saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be +tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a +minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own +little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms +round you--not for the life of me." + +She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in +them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too. + +"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway. + +And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the +room. + +"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!" + +Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie. + +"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get +her to wait till this evening to come along." + +"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly. + +"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you +and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a +word about it!" + +The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost, +the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door. + +"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of +pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they +came to her. + +She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was +surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they +had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was +full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him +the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other +woman on the Ridge--Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a +blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had +done as long as Sophie could remember. + +Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call. +Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes +spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant. + +"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply. + +"Thank you, Bill," she replied. + +Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night, +Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but +he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat +outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did +not know whether he would go into the room or not. + +Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff, +gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow +flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But +there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had +done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a +triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it, +those who saw him knew. + +"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him. + +"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said. + +The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that +although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no +one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. + +He held the flowers out to her. + +"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her +nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a +perfume!" + +Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to +sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had +gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men. + +He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make +him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and +he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the +talk Paul's voice was raised querulously: + +"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's +happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you +caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd +go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been +with you...." + +Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling +with a hearty guffaw. + +"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of +this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and +me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son, +just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch: + +"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-" + +All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a +way which meant much more than the words--singing from their hearts, +every man and woman of them. + +Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of +washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night +to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would +walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said +good-night. + +"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant +said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let +Sophie get to bed early. + +"I will," Sophie replied. + +Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and +George followed them. + +"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods +said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this +field since you went away." + +Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes. + +"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily. + + +"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck." + +"So he has," George Woods agreed. + +"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said. + +"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to +show it to me to-night." + +"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"--he +turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses--"I reck'n we'll have to stay for +this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring +her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too +much of a good thing." + +"Right," Potch replied. + +He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room. + +"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said, +"and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it, +Michael?" + +"Four hundred," Michael said. + +"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked. + +Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering. + +"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I +daresay he'll be letting her go soon." + +He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that +Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie +the stone before selling it. + +Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph +and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin, +skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and +emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on +the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red, +weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old +penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening--a thirsting, +eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin, +lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which +he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool. + +Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The +emotion in the room made itself felt through her. + +"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said. + +Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in +a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table. +Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the +flame of the candle. + +"Oh!" + +Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of +them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel +opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm. + +The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered +exclamations went up: + +"Now, she's showin'!" + +"God, look at her now!" + +Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a +world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering +and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty +pool of the stone. + +"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous. + +Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of +miraculous and mysterious beauty. + +"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie." + +Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and +emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on +them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of +glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a +moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have +left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes +wide.... + +After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael +lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, +Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were +caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor +near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered +stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst--out across the earthen +floor. + +Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them +up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of +those stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst. + +She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to +think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and +that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only +for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal +specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her +hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was +saying. + +When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting +on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At +first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to +listen; tried to understand what he was saying. + +"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking. + +Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt +beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze. +Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently: + +"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I +was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't +want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you liked with, really. +That was what I meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think +of it any more. I don't want to think of it any more." + +"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... +somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal--that I bring people bad +luck like opal...." + +"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you +get through opal is when you can't get enough of it--so the only bad +luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of +you." + +"Potch!" + +Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The +forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which +she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and +exclamation. + +On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being +throbbed. + +"Don't think of it any more," he begged. + +"But it was your luck--your wonderful opal--and ... I broke it, Potch. I +spoilt your luck." + +"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to +assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie. +Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it.... +This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because +you're here that I can't think of anything else." + +Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion +of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured +over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung +so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying +abstractedly, wearily. + +There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch. +His instincts, sensitive as the antennæ of an insect, wavered over her, +trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded +him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense +of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to +comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to +him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!" + +Later she said: + +"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ... +not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all +the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I +thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like +I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful +here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left +it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it +was before...." + +"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to +read her thought. + +"But look what I've done," she said. + +Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him +moving his restraint. + +"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our +hearts--just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George +and the rest of them." + +"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark +thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like +any of you think." + +Potch's grip on her hand tightened. + +"You're you--and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said. + +Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and +Michael I knew would--but the others ... I thought they'd remember ... +and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"--a smile showed faintly in +her eyes--"I thought she'd see to that." + +"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's +valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty +was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night." + +"Was he?" + +Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us +here ... we--we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again." + +Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance. + +"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...." + +"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he +might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had +cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress. +"But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't +bother you ... I want just to stand by--and help you all I know how." + +"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of +loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one +sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been +hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were +here." + +Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been +engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed +and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she +looked at him; her face was grave and still. + +"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else, +once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so +tired." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great +opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which +Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her +eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, +inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would +put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath +from them in the lingering kiss she gave. + +When she had laid her head back on his shoulder sometimes, closing her +eyes, an expression of infinite rest coming over her face, Potch had +gazed at it, wondering what world of thought lay beneath that still, +sleep-like mask as, it rested on his shoulder; what thought or emotion +set a nerve quivering beneath her skin, as the water of some still pool +quivers when an insect stirs beneath it. + +Sophie had no tricks of sex with Potch. She went to him sometimes when +ghosts of her mind were driving her before them. She went to him because +she was sure that she could go to him, whatever her reasons for going. +With Potch there was no need for explanations. + +His quiet strength of body and mind had something to do with the rest +and assurance which his very presence gave her. It was like being a baby +and lying in a cradle again to have his arm about her; no harm or ill +could reach her behind the barrier they raised, Sophie thought. She knew +Potch loved her with all the passion of a virile man as well as with a +love like the ocean into which all her misdeeds of commission and +omission might be dropped. And she had as intimate and sympathetic a +knowledge of Potch as he had of her. Sophie thought that nothing he +might do could make her care less, or be less appreciative of him. She +loved him, she said, with a love of the tenderest affection. If it +lacked an irresistible impulse, she thought it was because she had lost +the power to love in that way; but she hoped some day she would love +Potch as he loved her--without reservations. For the time being she +loved him gratefully; her gratitude was as immense as his love. + +Potch divined as much; Sophie had not tried to tell him how she felt +about him, but he understood, perhaps better than she could tell him. +His humility was equal to any demand she could make of him. He had not +sufficient belief in himself or his worth to believe that Sophie could +ever love him as he loved her: he did not expect it. The only way for +him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is +to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for +life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it. + +Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; +but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched +itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages +which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them. + +The days were blessed and peaceful to Sophie, too; but she, also, was +afraid that something might happen to disturb them. She wanted to marry +Potch in order to secure them, and to live and work with him on the +Ridge. She wanted to live the life of any other woman on the Ridge with +her mate. Life looked so straight and simple that way. She could see it +stretching before her into the years. Her hands would be full of real +things. She would be living a life of service and usefulness, in +accordance with the ideal the Ridge had set itself, and which Michael +had preached with the zeal of a latter-day saint. She believed her life +would shape itself to this future; but sometimes a wraith in the +back-country of her mind rose shrieking: "Never! Never!" + +It threw her into the outer darkness of despair, that cry, but she had +learned to exorcise its influence by going to Potch and lifting her lips +for him to kiss. + +"What is it?" he asked one day, vaguely aware of the meaning of the +movement. + +Before the reverence and worship of his eyes the wraith fled. Sophie +took his face between her hands. + +"Oh, my dear," she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, "I do love +you ... and I will love you, more and more." + +"You don't have to worry about that," Potch said. "I love you enough for +both of us.... Just think of me"--he lifted her hand and kissed the back +of it gently--"like this--your hand--a sort of third hand." + +When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see +Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. +Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books +Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually +towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking +the Rouminofs' first home--near where they had played when they were +children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the +dumps. + +They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off +sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of +them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind +of their voices. + +They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had +happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a +good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to +avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie +returned to them, perplexed by his reticence. + +"I don't understand, Potch," she said on one occasion. "You found out +that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went +over to Jun's ... and told them you were going to tell the boys.... They +must have known you would tell. Maud----" + +Potch's expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, +arrested her thought. + +"Maud----" she murmured again. "I see," she added, "it was just +Maud----" + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"That explains a good deal." Sophie's eyes were on the distant horizon +of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained +like rose coral, lying on the earth about her. + +"What does it explain?" Potch asked. + +"Why," Sophie said, "for one thing--how you grew up. You've changed +since I went away, Potch, you know...." + +His smile showed a moment. + +"I'm older." + +"Older, graver, harder ... and kinder, though you always had a genius +for kindness, Potch.... But Maud----" + +Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile +thoughtfully. + +"I understand," she said. + +Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes. + +"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said. + +"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men--because of her." + +"That's right," Potch agreed. + +"And--you don't now?" + +"No." + +"I saw her--Maud--in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said +slowly. "She was selling opal...." + +"Did she show you the stones?" + +"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said. + +"Michael?" Potch's face clouded. + +"She didn't show them to me, but I know who saw them all--he bought +them--Mr. Armitage." + +"The old man?" + +"No, John." + +After a minute Sophie said: + +"Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, +too.... Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose--but was +there anything more than that?" + +"It's hard to say." Potch spoke reluctantly. "There's nothing more than +a bit of guesswork in my mind ... and I suppose it's the same with +Michael. I haven't said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn't to +me, so it's better not to mention it." + +"There's a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away," Sophie +remarked musingly. + +"The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers' church, and Mrs. +Watty's veranda?" + +"I don't mean that," Sophie said. "It's the people and things ... you, +for instance, and Michael----" + +"Michael?" Potch exclaimed. "He's wearing the same old clothes, the same +old hat." + +Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey. + +"He's different somehow ... I don't quite know how," she said. "There's +a look about him--his eyes--a disappointed look, Potch.... It hurt him +when I went away, I know. But now--it's not that...." + +As Potch did not reply, Sophie's eyes questioned him earnestly. + +"Has anything happened," she asked, "to make Michael look like that?" + +"I ... don't know," Potch replied. + +Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed: + +"There is something, Potch! I don't want to know what it is if you can't +tell me. I'm only worried about Michael.... I'd always thought he had +the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks----Oh, I can't bear to +see him look as he does.... And he seems to have lost interest in +things--the life here--everything." + +"Yes," Potch admitted. + +"Only tell me," Sophie urged, "is this that's bothering Michael likely +to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?" + +Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to +answer the question. Then he said slowly: + +"I ... don't know. I really don't know anything, Sophie. I happened to +find out--by accident--that Michael's pretty worried about something. I +don't rightly know what, or why. That's all." + +The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to +the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the +sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. +She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the +cutting-wheel which had been her mother's, cleared and cleaned up the +room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and +polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the +wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael +was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her +several small stones to face and polish for him. + +Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, +Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and +in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before +she left the Ridge, but it was a long time before Sophie went about as +she used to. After a while, however, she got into the way of walking +over to see Maggie Grant or Martha M'Cready in the afternoon, +occasionally; but she never talked to them of her life away from the +Ridge; they never spoke of it to her. + +Only one thing had disturbed her slightly--seeing Arthur Henty one +evening as she and Martha were coming from the Three Mile. + +He had come towards them, with a couple of stockmen, driving a mob of +cattle. Dust rose at the heels of the cattle and horses; the cattle +moved slowly; and the sun was setting in the faces of the men behind the +cattle. Sophie did not know who they were until a man on a chestnut +horse stared at her. His face was almost hidden by his beard; but after +the first glance she recognised Arthur Henty. They passed as people do +in a dream, Sophie and Martha back from the road, the men riding off the +cattle, Arthur with the stockmen and cattle which a cloud of dust +enveloped immediately. The dark trees by the roadside swayed, dipped in +the gold of the sunset, when they had passed. The image of Arthur Henty +riding like that in the dust behind the cattle, his face gilded by the +light of the setting sun, came to Sophie again and again. She was a +little disturbed by it; but it was only natural that she should be, she +thought. She had not seen Arthur since the night of the ball, and so +much had happened to both their lives since then. + +She saw him once or twice in the township afterwards. He had stared at +her; Sophie had bowed and smiled, but they had not spoken. Later, she +had seen him lounging on the veranda at Newton's, or hanging his bridle +over the pegs outside Ezra Smith's billiard saloon, and neither her +brain nor pulse had quickened at the sight of him. She was pleased and +reassured. She did not think of him after that, and went on her way +quietly, happily, more deeply content in her life with Michael and +Potch. + +As her natural vigour returned, she grew to a fuller appreciation of +that life; health and a normal poise of body and soul brought the faint +light of happiness to her eyes. Michael heard her laughing as she teased +Paul sometimes, and Potch thrilled to the rippled cadenza of Sophie's +laughter. + +"It's good to hear that again," Michael said to him one day, hearing it +fly from Rouminof's hut. + +Potch's glance, as his head moved in assent, was eloquent beyond words. + +Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. +Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, +calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way +the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected +her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her +unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be +splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy +fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race +meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road +opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star +to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, +constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll +the track. + +A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one +side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the +trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually +drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs +was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been +fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous +muster of the show horses of the district--rough-haired nags, piebald +and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous +reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; +Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet +nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina +stallion Black Harry. + +People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was +held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's. +Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not +stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than +railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many +of them as were needed were run up for the occasion. + +Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every +horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, +and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange +horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, +Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical +warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the +enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the +course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were +gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next +day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest +pitch. + +Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to +go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and +children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of +an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, +and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it +was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs. +Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still +maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, +so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money. + +Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to +the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and +Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see +all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she +said--people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns. +Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to +mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was +at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut. + +Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway. + +"Are you there, Martha?" she called. + + +"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!" + +Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was +full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and +freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from +above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as +Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face. + +"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on +an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was +at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down. +I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go +over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full +over there--with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a +crowd at the races, Sophie." + +Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the +brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch +of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back +to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with +great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, +broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other +hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw +its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, +scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks' +houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for +Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies +into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, +giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, +healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, +Sophie exclaimed to herself. + +Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, +and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did +not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said +Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie +knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could +dance like a two-year-old. + +"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I +suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America." + +"I'm not going," Sophie said, + +"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed +wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball--the +first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course +you're going, Sophie!" + +Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open +doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon +was nearly over. + +"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say? +And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you +there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress +extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's +brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with +her...." + +Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naïve and genial admiration of what +Martha had said. + +"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron +flashing vigorously. "It just won't be--the ball--and everything looking +as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge. +Everybody'll be that disappointed----" + +"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried. + +"I don't think; I know." + +A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes. + +"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither." + +"Potch?" + +"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy--and going to +marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, +Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking. + +"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since +you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're +goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: +'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she +goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.' +That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...." + +Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was +amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to +think that Potch was not a good enough match for her. + +"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're +all coming over from Warria--Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs. +Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and +most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...." + +She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no +flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as +she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon +sky. + +"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse +theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine +dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, +Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think +they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ... +we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But +Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see +her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'" + +As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had +years before. She could see the people in it--figures swaying down the +long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford--their +faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, +herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her +father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the +rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt +indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to +think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and +now. + +"I'd give anything for you to be there--looking your best," Martha +continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you +weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...." + +"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me--as he used to be," Sophie murmured. + +Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one +knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an +American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read +and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put +her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off +her kitchen. + +"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the +paper. + +She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph +on its page. + +"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human +understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has +had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from +comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and +musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith +of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she +goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang. +Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and +have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no +better reason, it is said, than that she is _écœœuré_ of us and our +life--the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario +informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for +a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms. +And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like +one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little +Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more." + +The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes. + +"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak +when she had finished reading. + +"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me +_écœœuré_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there, +Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd +never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for +me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't +even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just +a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without +meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go +away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing +any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to +come home.... And I came." + +Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck. + +"My lamb," she whispered. + +Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare +arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously. + +"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said. + +"All right, dearie!" + +Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another +iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. +She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with +a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress. + +"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said. + +"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a +swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't +you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, +Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair +dying to wear them." + +Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line +beside a newly-starched petticoat. + +"You will, won't you?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +"I don't think so, Martha." + +Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a +moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A +couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, +giggling cries. + +She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to +Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the +pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran +down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to +the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted +ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the +ball was in the air. + +Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge +balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of +hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced. +She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the +music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the +boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you +could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up +so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced. + +Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice, +eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter +of a girl's laughter--they were all in the air now as they had been +then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, +and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a +good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to +them--they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? +Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with +all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her? + +Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face, +trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it +what Sophie was thinking. + +"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged. + +Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light +in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed +her. + +"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?" + +"Course you could, darling," Martha said. + +Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she +stood off from her. + +"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing--and to be young +again, Martha?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood +along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. +At a little distance the big building showed dark and ungainly against +the sky. Its double doors were open, and a wash of dull, golden light +came out from it into the twilight, with the noise of people laughing +and talking. + +"It's like old times, isn't it, Potch"--Sophie's fingers closed over +Potch's arm--"to be going to a Ridge dance?" + +There was a faint, sweet stirring which the wind makes in the trees +within her, Sophie realised. It was strange and delightful to feel alive +again, and alive with the first freshness, innocence, and vague +happiness of a girl. + +Potch looked down on her, smiling. He was filled with pride to have her +beside him like this, to think they would go into the hall together, and +that people would say to each other when they saw them: "There's Sophie +and Potch!" + +That using of their names side by side was a source of infinite content +to Potch. He loved people to say: "When are you and Sophie coming over +to see us, Potch?" or, "Would you mind telling Sophie, Potch?" and give +him a message for Sophie. And this would be the first time they had +appeared at an assembly of Ridge folk together. + +He walked with his head held straight and high, and his eyes shone when +he went down the hall with Sophie. What did it matter if they called him +Potch, the Ridge folk, "a little bit of potch," he thought, Sophie was +going to be Mrs. Heathfield. + +"Here's Sophie and Potch," he heard people say, as he had thought they +would, and his heart welled with happiness and pride. + +Nearly everybody had arrived when they went into the hall; the first +dance was just beginning. Branches of budda, fleeced with creamy and +lavender blossom, had been stuck through the supports of the hall. Flags +and pennants of all the colours in the rainbow, strung on a line +together, were stretched at the end of the platform. On the platform +Mrs. Newton was sitting at the piano. Paul had his music-stand near her, +and behind him an old man from the Three Mile was nervously fingering +and blowing on a black and silver-mounted flute. Women and girls and a +few of the older men were seated on forms against the walls. Several +young mothers had babies in their arms, and children of all ages were +standing about, or sitting beside their parents. By common consent, +Ridge folk had taken one side of the hall, and station folk the upper +end of the other side. + +Sophie's first glance found Martha, her white dress stiff and +immaculate, her face with its plump, rosy cheeks turned towards her, her +eyes smiling and expectant. Martha beamed at her; Sophie smiled back, +and, her glance travelling on, found Maggie and Bill Grant, Mrs. George +Woods and two of her little girls; Mrs. Watty, in a black dress, its +high neck fastened by a brooch, with three opals in, Watty had given +her; and Watty, genial and chirrupy as usual, but afraid to appear as if +he were promising himself too much of a good time. + +Warria, Langi-Eumina, and Darrawingee folk had foregathered; the girls +and men laughed and chattered in little groups; the older people talked, +sitting against the wall or leaning towards each other. Mrs. Henty +looked much as she had done five years before; James Henty not a day +older; but Mrs. Tom Henderson, who had been Elizabeth Henty, had +developed a sedate and matronly appearance. Polly was not as plump and +jolly as she had been--a little puzzled and apprehensive expression +flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of +discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a +slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an +expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent. + +The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul +scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a +bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge +loved. Roy O'Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: "Take y'r +partners for a waltz!" Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment +were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. +There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the +polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way +of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and +pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing +with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first +dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael--no one on the Ridge +was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with +neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a +threepenny piece! + +Sophie smiled at Martha's happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing +with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to +the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton's, he +had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which +had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with +unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised +the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose +litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. +Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical +fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other. + +Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. +Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. +The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did. + +His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy +ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of +rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the +flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through +the crowd. + +"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said. + +"But I do mean it, Sophie," he said. + +As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he +did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything--with a dead +earnestness. + +After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round +Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances +as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened +to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they +didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance +with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie +Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell +Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the +opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing. + +"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie +whispered. + +"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should +have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking +so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!" + +Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was +claiming her for a polka mazurka. + +The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. +Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw +Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as +Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them. + +"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and +Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few +weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added. + +"Why has he come?" Michael asked. + +"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out +whether the men will do business with him again." + +Michael's gesture implied it was useless to talk of that. + +Sophie continued: "But you know what I said, Michael. I can't be happy +until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the +men here.... You must do that for me, Michael. They know I'm going to +marry Potch ... and if they see there's no ill feeling between John +Armitage and me, they'll believe I was more to blame than he was--if +it's a question of blame.... I want you and Potch to stand by me in +this, Michael." + +Potch's eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and +sure. But Michael showed no relenting. + +Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in +the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had +circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had +created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and +indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach +to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie. + +She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had +met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them +than playing a game they had learned to play rather well. + +Sophie said: "It is you really?" + +He took the hand she held to him. "But you knew I was coming? You had my +letter?" + +"Of course ... but----" + +"And my word is my bond." + +The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage's voice, and the +perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised +people who were near them. + +Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded +Armitage with grave, quiet eyes. + +"Good evening, Michael! Evening, Potch!" Armitage said. + +Michael did not reply; but Potch said: + +"Evening, Mr. Armitage!" And Sophie covered the trail of his words, and +Michael's silence, with questions as to the sort of journey Armitage had +made; a flying commentary on the ball, the races, and the weather. +Michael moved away as the next dance was beginning. + +"Is this my dance, Sophie?" Armitage inquired. + +Sophie shook her head, smiling. + +"No," she said. + +"Which is my dance?" The challenge had yielded to a note of appeal. + +Sophie met that appeal with a smile, baffling, but of kindly +understanding. + +"The next one." + +She danced with Potch, appreciating his quiet strength, the reserve +force she felt in him, the sense that this man was hers to lean on, hold +to, or move as she wished. + +"It's awfully good to have you, Potch," she murmured, glancing up at +him. + +"Sophie!" + +His declarations were always just that murmuring of her name with a love +and gratitude beyond words. + +While she was dancing with Potch, Sophie saw Armitage go to the Hentys; +he stood talking with them, and then danced the last bars of the waltz +with Polly Henty. + +When she was dancing with Armitage, Sophie discovered Arthur Henty +leaning against the wall near the door, looking over the dancers with an +odd, glowering expression. He had been drinking heavily of late, she had +heard. Sophie wondered whether he was watching her, and whether he was +connecting this night with that night at Warria, which had brought about +all there had been between herself and John Armitage--even this dancing +with him at a Ridge ball, after they had been lovers, and were no longer +anything but very good friends. She knew people were following her +dancing with John Armitage with interest. Some of them were scandalised +that he should have come to the Ridge, and that they should be meeting +on such friendly terms. She could see the Warria party watching her +dancing with John Armitage, Mrs. Arthur Henty looking like a pastel +drawing against the wall, and Polly, her pleasant face and plump figure +blurred against the grey background of the corrugated iron wall. + +Armitage talked, amiably, easily, about nothing in particular, as they +danced. Sophie enjoyed the harmonious rhythm and languor of their +movement together. The black, misty folds of her gown drifted out and +about them. It was delightful to be drifting idly to music like this +with John, all their old differences, disagreements, and love-making +forgotten, or leaving just a delicate aroma of subtle and intimate +sympathy. The old admiration and affection were in John Armitage's eyes. +It was like playing in the sunshine after a long winter, to be laughing +and dancing under them again. And those stiff, disapproving faces by the +wall spurred Sophie to further laughter--a reckless gaiety. + +"You look like a butterfly just out of its chrysalis, and ... trying its +wings in the sun, Sophie," Armitage said. + +"I feel ... just like that," Sophie said. + +After that Armitage had eyes for no one but her. He danced with two or +three other people. Sophie saw him steering Martha through a set of +quadrilles; but he hovered about her between the dances. She danced with +George Woods and Watty, with the Moffats of Langi-Eumina, and some of +the men from Darrawingee. Men of the station families were rather in awe +of, and had a good deal of curiosity about this Fallen Star girl who had +"gone the pace," in their vernacular, and of whose career in the gay +world on the other side of the earth they had heard spicy gossip. Sophie +guessed that had something to do with their fluttering about her. But +she had learned to play inconsequently with the admiration of young men +like these; she did so without thinking about it. Once or twice she +caught Potch's gaze, perplexed and inquiring, fixed on her. She smiled +to reassure him; but, unconsciously, she had drawn an eddy of the +younger men in the room about her, and when she was not dancing she was +talking with them, laughingly, fielding their crude witticisms, and +enjoying the game as much as she had ever done. + +As she was coming from a dance with Roy O'Mara she passed Arthur Henty +where he stood by the door. The reek of whisky about him assailed Sophie +as she passed. She glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. He swung +over to her where she had gone to sit beside Martha M'Cready. + +"You're going to dance with me?" he asked, a husky uncertainty in his +voice. + +"No," Sophie said, looking away from him. + +"Yes." + +The low growl, savage and insistent, brought her eyes to his. Dark and +sunbright, they were, but with pain and hunger in their depths. The +unspoken truth between them, the truth which their wills had thwarted, +spoke through their eyes. It would not be denied. + +"There's going to be an extra after supper," he said. + +"Very well." + +What happened then was remote from her. Sophie did not remember what she +had said or done, until she was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +How long was it since that night at Warria? Was she waiting for him as +she had waited then? But there were all those long years between. +Memories brilliant and tempestuous flickered before her. Then she was +dancing with Arthur. + +He had come to her quite ordinarily; they had walked down the room a few +paces; then he had taken her hand in his, and they had swung out among +the dancers. He did not seem drunk now. Sophie wondered at his steadier +poise as she moved away with him. The butterfly joy of fluttering in +sunshine was leaving her, she knew, as she went with him. She made an +effort to recapture it. Looking up at him, she tried to talk lightly, +indifferently, and to laugh, but it was no good. Arthur did not bother +to reply to anything she said; he rested his eyes in hers, possessing +himself of her behind her gaze. Sophie's laughter failed. The +inalienable, unalterable attraction of each to the other which they had +read long before in each other's eyes was still there, after all the +years and the dark and troubled times they had been through. + +Sophie wondered whether Arthur was thinking of those times when they had +walked together on the Ridge tracks. She wondered whether he was +remembering little things he had said ... she had said ... the afternoon +he had recited: + + "I met a lady in the meads + Full beautiful, a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild." + +Sophie wished she had not begun to think back. She wished she had not +danced with Arthur. People looking after her wondered why she was not +laughing; why suddenly her good spirits had died down. She was tired and +wanted to cry.... She hoped she would not cry; but she did not like +dancing with Arthur Henty before all these people. It was like dancing +on a grave. + +Henty's grip tightened. Sophie's face had become childish and pitiful, +working with the distress which she could not suppress. His hand on hers +comforted her. Their hands loved and clung; they comforted each other, +every fibre finding its mate, twined and entwined; all the little nests +of nerves were throbbing and crooning to each other. + +Were they dancing, or drifting through space as they would drift when +they were dead, as perhaps they had drifted through time? Sophie +wondered. The noises of the ball-room broke in on her wondering--voices, +shouting, and laughter; the little cries of girls and the heavy +exclamations of men, the music enwrapping them.... + +Sophie longed for the deep, straight glance of his eyes; yet she dared +not look up. Arthur's will, working against hers, demanded the +surrender. Through all her body, imperiously, his demand communicated +itself. Her gaze went to him, and flew off again. + +As they danced, Arthur seemed to be taking her into deep water. She was +afraid of getting out of her depth ... but he held her carefully. His +grasp, was strong and his eyes hungry. Sophie could not escape that +hungry look of his eyes. She told herself that she would not look up; +she would not see it. They moved unsteadily; his breath, hot and +smelling of whisky, fanned her. She sickened under it, loathing the +smell of whisky and the rank tobacco he had been smoking. His grasp +tightened. She was afraid of him--afraid of all the long, old dreams he +might revive. Her step faltered, his arm trembled against her. And those +hungry, hungry eyes.... She could not see them; she would not. + +A clamour of tiny voices rose within her and dinned in her ears. She +could hear the clamour of tiny voices going on in Henty, too; his voices +were drowning her voices. She looked up to him begging him to silence +them ... begging, but unable to beg, terrified and quailing to the +implacable in him--the stark passion and tragedy which were in his face. +She was helpless before them. + +Arthur had given her his arm before the open door; they had moved a +little distance from the door. Darkness was about them. There was no +hesitancy, no moment of consideration. As two waves meeting in mid-ocean +fall to each other, they met, and were lost in the oblivion of a close +embrace. The first violence of their movement, failing, brought +consciousness of time and place. They were standing in the slight shadow +of some trees just beyond the light of the hall. A purring of music came +to them in far-away murmurs, and strange, distant ejaculations, and +laughter. + +Sophie tried to withdraw from the arms which held her. + +"No, no," she breathed; but Henty drew her to him again. + +He murmured into her hair, and then from her lips again took a full +draught of her being, lingeringly, as though he would drain its last +essence. + +A shadow loomed heavy and shapeless over them. It fell on them. Sophie +was thrown back. Dazed, and as if she were falling through space, for a +moment she did not realise what had happened. Then, there in the dark, +she knew men were grappling silently. The intensity of the struggle +paralysed her; she could see nothing but heavy, rolling shapes; hear +nothing but stertorous breathing and the snorting grunts as of enraged +animals. A cry, as if someone were hurt, broke the fear which had +stupefied her. + +She called Michael. + +Two or three men came running from the hall. The struggling figures were +on their feet again; they swung from the shadow. Sophie had an instant's +vision of a hideous, distorted face she scarcely recognised as Potch's +... she saw Henty on the ground and Potch crouched over him. Then the +surrounding darkness swallowed her. She knew she was dragged away from +where she had been standing; she seemed to have been dragged through +darkness for hours. When she wakened she could see only those heavy, +quiet figures, struggling and grappling through the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Sophie went into the shed where her cutting-wheel was soon after eight +o'clock next morning. She took up a packet of small stones George Woods +had left with her and set to work on them. + +The wheel was in a line with the window, and she sat on the wooden chair +before it, so that the light fell over her left shoulder. On the bench +which ran out from the wheel were a spirit lamp and the trays of rough +opal; on the other side of the bench the polishing buffers were arranged +one against the other. A hand-basin, the water in it raddled with rouge, +stood on the table behind her, and a white china jug of fresh water +beside it. + +Sophie lighted the spirit lamp, gathered up a handful of the slender +sticks about the size of pen-holders which Potch had prepared for her, +melted her sealing-wax over the flame of the lamp, drew the saucer of +George's opals to her, and fastened a score of small stones to the +heated wax on the ends of the sticks. She blew out the lamp. + +She was working in order not to think; she worked for awhile without +thinking, details of the opal-cutting following each other in the +routine they had made for themselves. + +The plague of her thoughts grew as she worked. From being nebulæ of a +state of mind which she could not allow herself to contemplate, such +darkness of despair there was in it, they evolved to tiny pictures which +presented themselves singly and in panorama, flitting and flickering +incoherently, incongruously. + +Sophie could see the hall as she had the night before. She seemed to be +able to see everything at once and in detail--its polished floors, +flowering boughs, and flags, the people sitting against the iron walls +in their best clothes ... Mrs. Watty, Watty and George, Ella and Bully +... Bully holding the baby ... the two little Woods' girls in their +white embroidered muslin dresses, with pink ribbons tied round their +heads.... Cash Wilson dancing solemnly in carpet slippers; Mrs. Newton +at the piano ... the prim way her fat little hands pranced sedately up +and down over the keys.... Paul enjoying his own music ... getting a +little bit wild over it, and working his right leg and knee as though he +had an orchestra to keep going somehow.... Mrs. Newton refusing to be +coaxed into anything like enthusiasm, but trying to keep up with him, +nevertheless.... Mrs. Henty, Polly, Elizabeth ... Mrs. Arthur ... the +Langi-Eumina party ... the Moffats ... Potch, Michael ... John Armitage. + +Images of New York flashed across these pictures of the night before. +Sophie visualised the city as she had first seen it. A fairy city it had +seemed to her with its sky-flung lights, thronged thoroughfares, and +jangling bells. She saw a square of tall, flat-faced buildings before a +park of leafless trees; shimmering streets on a wet night, near the New +Theatre and the Little Opera House; a supper-party after the theatre ... +gilded walls, Byzantian hangings, women with bare shoulders flashing +satin from slight, elegant limbs, or emerging with jewel-strung necks +from swathings of mist-like tulle, the men beside them ... a haze of +cigarette smoke over it all ... tinkle of laughter, a sweet, sleepy +stirring of music somewhere ... light of golden wine in wide, +shallow-bowled glasses, with tall, fragile stems ... lipping and sway of +tides against the hull of a yacht on quiet water ... a man's face, heavy +and swinish, peering into her own.... + +Then again, Mrs. Watty against the wall of the Ridge ball-room, stiff +and disapproving-looking in her high-necked black dress ... Michael +dancing with Martha ... Martha's pink stockings ... and the way she had +danced, lightly, delightedly, her feet encased in white canvas shoes. +Sophie had worn white canvas shoes at the Warria ball, she remembered. +Pictures of that night crowded on her, of Phyllis Chelmsford and Arthur +... Arthur.... + +Her thought stopped there. Arthur ... what did it all mean? She saw +again the fixed, flat figures she had seen against the wall when she was +dancing with Arthur--the corpse-like faces.... Why had everybody died +when she was dancing with Arthur Henty? Sophie remembered that people +had looked very much as usual when she went out to dance with Arthur; +then when she looked at them again, they all seemed to be +dead--drowned--and sitting round the hall in clear, still water, like +the figures she had seen in mummy cases in foreign museums. Only she and +Arthur were alive in that roomful of dead people. They had come from +years before and were going to years beyond. It had been dark before she +realised this; then they had been caught up into a light, transcending +all consciousness of light; in which they had seemed no more than atoms +of light adrift on the tide of the ages. Then the light had gone.... + +They were out of doors when she recognised time and place again. Sophie +had seen the hall crouched heavy and dark under a starry sky, its +windows, yellow eyes.... She was conscious of trees about her ... the +note of a goat-bell not far away ... and Arthur.... They had kissed, and +then in the darkness that terror and fear--those struggling shapes ... +figures of a nightmare ... light on Potch's hair.... She heard her own +cry, winging eerie and shrill through the darkness. + +With a sudden desperate effort Sophie threw off the plague of these +thoughts and small mind-pictures; she turned to the cutting-wheel again. +It whirred as she bent over it. + +"Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" the wheel purred. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her brain throbbed as she tried not to listen or hear that song of the +wheel; "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!" the blood murmured and droned in her +head. + +Her hand holding an opal to the wheel trembled, the opal skidded and was +scratched. + +"Oh, God," Sophie moaned, "don't let me think of him any more. Don't let +me...." + +A mirror on the wall opposite reflected her face. Sophie wondered +whether that was her face she saw in the mirror: the face in the mirror +was strangely old, withered and wan. She closed her eyes on the sight of +it. It confronted her again when she opened them. The eyes of the face +in the mirror were heavy and dark with a darkness of mind she could not +fathom. + +Sophie got up from her chair before the cutting-wheel. She went to the +window and stood looking through its small open space at the bare earth +beyond the hut. A few slight, sketchy trees, and the broken earth and +scattered mounds of old dumps were thrown up under a fall of clear, +exquisite sky, of a blue so pure, so fine, that there was balm just in +looking at it. For a moment she plunged into it, the tragic chaos of her +mind obliterated. + +With new courage from that moment's absorption of peaceful beauty, she +went back to the wheel, the resolution which had taken her to it twice +before that morning urging her. She sat down and began to work, took up +the piece of opal she had scratched, examined it closely, wondering how +the flaw could be rectified, if it could be rectified. + +The wheel, set going, raised its droning whirr. Sophie held her mind to +the stone. She was pleased after a while. "That's all right," she told +herself. "If only you don't think.... If only you keep working like this +and don't think of Arthur." + +It was Arthur she did not want to think of. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" +the wheel mocked. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her head went into her hands. She was moaning and crying again. "Don't +let me think of him any more ... if only I needn't think of him any +more...." + +She began to work again. There was nothing to do but persist in trying +to work, she thought. If she kept to it, perhaps in the end the routine +would take her; she would become absorbed in the mechanism of what she +was doing. + +A shadow was thrown before her. In the mirror Sophie saw that John +Armitage was standing in the doorway. Her feet ceased to work the +treadles of the cutting-wheel; her hands fell to her lap; she waited for +him to come into the room. He walked past her to the window, and stood +with his back to it, facing her. Her eyes went to him. She let him take +what impression he might from her face, her defences were down; vaguely, +perhaps, she hoped he would read something of her mind in her face, that +he would need no explanation of what she had no words to express. + +There had been a smile of faint cynicism in his eyes as he looked +towards her; it evaporated as she surrendered to the inquisition of his +gaze. + +"Well?" he inquired gravely. + +"Well?" she replied as gravely. + +They studied each other quietly. + +John Armitage had changed very little since she had first seen him. His +clean-shaven face was harder, a little more firmly set perhaps; the +indecision had gone from it; it had lost some of its amiable mobility. +He looked much more a man of the world he was living in--a business man, +whose intelligence and energies had been trained in its service--but his +eyes still had their subtle knowledge and sympathy, his individuality +the attraction it had first had for her. + +He was wearing the loose, well-cut tweeds he travelled in, and had taken +off his hat. It lay on the window-sill beside him, and Sophie saw that +there was more silver in his hair where it was brushed back from his +ears than there used to be. His eyes surveyed her as if she were written +in an argot or dialect which puzzled him; his hands drifted and moved +before her as he smoked a cigarette. His hands emphasised the difference +between John Lincoln Armitage and men of the Ridge. Sophie thought of +Potch's hands, and of Michael's, and the smile Michael might have had +for Armitage's hands curved her lips. + +Armitage, taking that smile for a lessening of the tension of her mood, +said: + +"You'd much better put on your bonnet and shawl, and come home with me, +Sophie. We can be married en route, or in Sydney if you like.... You +know how pleased the old man'll be. And, as for me----" + +Sophie's gaze swept past him, fretted lines deepening on her forehead. + +Armitage threw away his cigarette, abandoning his assumption of familiar +friendliness with the action, and went to her side. Sophie rose to meet +him. + +"Look here, Sophie," he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking +into her eyes, "let's have done with all this neurotic rot.... You're +the only woman in the world for me. I don't know why you left me. I +don't care.... Come home ... let's get married ... and see whether we +can't make a better thing of it...." + +Sophie had turned her eyes from his. + +"When I've said that before, you wouldn't have anything to do with it," +he continued. "You had a notion I was saying it because I ought--thought +I had to, or the old man had talked me into it.... It wasn't true even +then. I came here to say it ... so that you would believe I--want it, +and I want you--more than anything on earth, Sophie." + +There was no response, only an overshadowing of troubled thought in +Sophie's face. + +"Is there anything love or money can give you, girl, that I'm not eager +to give you?" Armitage demanded. "What is it you want?... Do you know +what you want?" + +Sophie did not reply, and her silence exasperated him. + +Taking her face in his hands, Armitage scrutinised it as though he must +read there what her silence held from him. + +He realised how wan and weary-looking it was. Shadows beneath her eyes +fell far down her cheeks, her lips lay together with a new, strange +sternness. But he could not think of that yet. His male egoism could +only consider its own situation, fight imperiously in its own defence. + +"You want something I can't give you?" + +His eyes held her for the fraction of a second; then, the pain of +knowledge gripping him, his hands fell from her face. He turned away. + +"Which is it ... Potch or--the other?" He spoke with cruel bitterness. +"It's always a case of 'which' with you--isn't it?" + +"That's just it," Sophie said. + +He glanced at her, surprised to hear a note of the same bitterness in +her voice. + +"I didn't mean that, Sophie," he said. "You know I didn't." + +She smiled. + +"It's true all the same." + +"Tell me"--he turned to her--"I wish you would. You never have--why you +left New York ... and gave up singing ... everything there, and came +here." + +Sophie dropped into her chair again. + +"But you know." + +"Who could know anything of you, Sophie?" + +She moved the stones on the bench absent-mindedly. At length she said: + +"You remember our big row about Adler, when I was going to the supper on +his yacht?" + +Armitage exclaimed with a gesture of protest. + +"I know," Sophie said, "you were angry ... you didn't mean what you +said. But you were right all the same. You said I had let the life I was +leading go to my head--that I was utterly demoralised by it.... I was +angry; but it was true. You know the people I was going about with...." + +"I did my best to get you away from them," Armitage said. + +Sophie nodded. "But I hadn't had enough then ... of the beautiful places +and things I found myself in the midst of ... and of all the admiration +that came my way. What a queer crowd they were--Kalin, that Greek boy +who was singing with me in _Eurydice_, Ina Barres, the Countess, Mrs. +Youille-Bailey, Adler, and the rest of them.... They seemed to have run +the gamut of all natural experiences and to be interested only in what +was unnatural, bizarre, macabre.... Adler in that crowd was almost a +relief. I liked his--honest Rabelaisianism, if you like.... I hadn't the +slightest intention of more than amusing myself with him ... but he, +evidently, did not intend to be merely a source of amusement to me. The +supper on the yacht.... I kept my head for a while, not long, and +then----" + +"Then?" Armitage queried. + +"That's why I came home," Sophie said. "I was so sick with the shock and +shame of it all ... so sick and ashamed I couldn't sing any more. I +wouldn't. My voice died.... I deserved what happened. I'd been playing +for it ... taking the wine, the music, Adler's love-making ... and +expecting to escape the taint of it all.... Afterwards I saw where I was +going ... what that life was making of me...." + +"I don't know how you came to have anything to do with such a rotten +lot," Armitage cried, sweating under a white heat of rage. + +"Oh, they're just people of means and leisure who like to patronise +successful young dancers and singers for their own amusement," Sophie +said. + +"Because you fell in with a set of ultraæsthetics and degenerates, is no +reason to suppose all our people of means and leisure are like them," +Armitage declared hotly. + +"I don't," Sophie said; "what I felt, when I began to think about it, +was that they were just the natural consequences of all the easy, +luxurious living I'd seen--the extreme of the pole if you like. I saw +the other when I went to live in a slum settlement in Chicago." + +"You did?" Armitage exclaimed incredulously. + +"When I got over the shock of--my awakening," she went on slowly, "I +began to remember things Michael had said. That's why I went to Chicago +... and worked in a clothing factory for a while.... I saw there why +Adler's a millionaire, and heard from girls in a Youille-Bailey-M'Gill +factory why Connie Youille-Bailey has money to burn...." + +"Old Youille-Bailey had fingers in a dozen pies, and he left her all +he'd got," Armitage said. + +"But people down in the district where most of their money is made are +living like bugs under a rotten log," Sophie exclaimed wearily. "They're +made to live like that ... in order that people like William P. Adler +and Mrs. Youille-Bailey ... may live as they do." + +Armitage's expression of mild cynicism yielded to one of concerned +attentiveness. But he was concerned with the bearing on Sophie of what +she had to say, and not at all with its relation to conditions of +existence. + +"After all, life only goes on by its interests," she went on musingly; +"and Mrs. Youille-Bailey's not altogether to blame for what she is. When +people are bored, they've got to get interest or die; and if faculties +which ought to be spent in useful or creative work aren't spent in that +work, they find outlet in the silly energies a selfish and artificial +life breeds...." + +"I admit," Armitage said, trying to veer her thoughts from the abstract +to the personal issue, "that you went the pace. I couldn't keep up with +it--not with Adler and his mob! But there's no need to go back to that +sort of life. We could live as quietly as you like." + +Sophie shook her head. "I want to live here," she said. "I want to work +with my hands ... feel myself in the swim of the world's life ... going +with the great stream; and I want to help Michael here." + +Armitage sat back against the window-sill regarding her steadily. + +"If I could help you to do a great deal for the Ridge," he said; "if I +were to settle here and spend all the money I've got in developing this +place.--There's nothing innately immoral about a water-supply or +electric power, I suppose, or in giving people decent houses to live in. +And it would mean that for Fallen Star, if the scheme I have in mind is +put into action. And if it is ... and I build a house here and were to +live here most of my time ... would you marry me then, Sophie?" + +Sophie gazed at him, her eyes widening to a scarcely believable vision. + +"Do you mean you'd give up all your money to do that for the Ridge?" she +asked. + +"Not quite that," he replied. "But the scheme would work out like that. +I mean, it would provide more comfort and convenience for everybody on +the Ridge--a more assured means of livelihood." + +"You don't mean to buy up the mines?" + +"Just that," he said. + +"But the men wouldn't agree...." + +"I don't know so much about that. It would depend on a few----" + +"Michael would never consent." + +"As a matter of fact"--John Armitage returned Sophie's gaze +tranquilly--"I know something about Michael--some information came into +my hands recently, although I've always vaguely suspected it--which will +make his consent much more likely than you would have imagined.... If it +does not, giving the information I hold to men of the Ridge will so +destroy their faith and confidence in Michael that what he may say or do +will not matter." + +Sophie's bewilderment and dismay constrained him. Then he continued: + +"You see, quite apart from you, my dear, it has always been a sort of +dream of mine--ambition, if you like--to make a going concern of this +place--to do for Fallen Star what other men I know have done for +no-count, out-of-the-way towns and countries where natural resources or +possibilities of investment warranted it.... I've talked the thing over +with the old man, and with Andy M'Intosh, an old friend of mine, who is +one of the ablest engineers in the States.... He's willing to throw in +his lot with me.... Roughly, we've drawn up plans for conservation of +flood waters and winter rains, which will alter the whole character of +this country.... The old man at first was opposed--said the miners would +never stand it; but since we've been out with the Ridge men, he's +changed his mind rather. I mean, that when he knew some of the men would +be willing to stand by us--and I have means of knowing they would--he +was ready to agree. And when I told him Michael might be reckoned a +traitor to his own creed----" + +"It's not true," Sophie cried, her faith afire. "It couldn't be! ... If +everybody in the world told me, I wouldn't believe it!" + +Armitage took a cigarette-case from his vest pocket, opened it, and +selected a cigarette. + +"I'm not asking you to believe me," he said. "I'm only explaining the +position to you because you're concerned in it. And for God's sake don't +let us be melodramatic about it, Sophie. I'm not a villain. I don't feel +in the least like one. This is entirely a business affair.... I see my +way to a profitable investment--incidentally fulfilment of a scheme I've +been working out for a good many years. + +"Michael would oppose the syndicate for all he's worth if it weren't for +this trump card of mine," Armitage went on. "He's got a Utopian dream +about the place.... I see it as an up-to-date mining town, with all the +advantages which science and money can bring to the development of its +resources. His dream against mine--that's what it amounts to.... Well, +it's a fair thing, isn't it, if I know that Michael is false to the +things he says he stands for--and he stands in the way of my scheme--to +let the men know he's false? ... They will fall away from the ideas he +stands for as they will from Michael; two or three may take the ideas +sans Michael ... but they will be in the minority.... The way will be +clear for reorganisation then." + +Not for an instant did Sophie believe that Michael had been a traitor to +his own creed--false to the things he stood for, as John Armitage +said,--although she thought he may have done something to give Armitage +reason for thinking so. + +"I'll see Michael to-morrow, and have it out with him," John Armitage +said. "I shall tell him what I know ... and also my plans. If he will +work with me----" + +Sophie looked up, her smile glimmering. + +"If he will work with me," Armitage repeated, knowing she realised all +that would mean in the way of surrender for Michael, "nothing need be +said which will undermine Michael's influence with men of the Ridge. I +know he can make things a great deal easier by using his influence with +them--by bending their thoughts in the direction of my proposition, +suggesting that, after all, they have given their system a trial and it +has not worked out as satisfactorily as might have been expected.... +I'll make all the concessions possible, you may be sure--give it a +profit-sharing basis even, so that the transaction won't look like the +thing they are prejudiced against. But if Michael refuses...." + +"He will...." + +"I am going to ask the men to meet me in the hall, at the end of the +month, to lay before them a proposition for the more effective working +of the mines. I shall put my proposition before them, and if Michael +refuses to work with me, I shall be forced to give them proofs of his +unworthiness of their respect...." + +"They won't believe you." + +"There will be the proofs, and Michael will not--he cannot--deny them." + +"You'll tell him what you are going to do?" + +"Certainly." + +Sophie realised how far Armitage was from understanding the religious +intensity and simplicity with which Ridge folk worked for the way of +life they believed to be the right one, and what the break-up of that +belief would mean to those who had served it in the unpretentious, +unprotesting fashion of honest, downright people. To him the Ridge stood +for messy sentimentalism, Utopian idealism. And there was money in the +place: there was money to be made by putting money into it--by working +the mines and prospecting the country as the men without capital could +not. + +John Armitage was ready to admit--Sophie had heard him admitting in +controversy--that the Fallen Star mines which the miners themselves +controlled were as well worked and as well managed within their means as +any he had ever come across; that the miners themselves were a sober and +industrious crowd. What capital could do for them and for the Fallen +Star community by way of increasing its output and furthering its +activities was what he saw. And the only security he could have for +putting his capital into working the mines was ownership of them. +Ownership would give him the right to organise the workers, and to claim +interest for his investment from their toil, or the product of their +toil. + +The Ridge declaration of independence had made it clear that people of +Fallen Star did not want increased output, the comforts and conveniences +which capital could give them, unless they were provided from the common +fund of the community. Ultimately, it was hoped the common fund would +provide them, but until it did Ridge men had announced their willingness +to do without improvements for the sake of being masters of their own +mines. If it was a question of barter, they were for the pride and +dignity of being free men and doing without the comforts and +conveniences of modern life. Sophie felt sure Armitage underestimated +the feeling of the majority of men of the Ridge toward the Ridge idea, +and that most of them would stand by it, even if for some mysterious +reason Michael lost status with them. But she was dismayed at the test +the strength of that feeling was to be put to, and at the mysterious +shame which threatened Michael. She could not believe Michael had ever +done anything to merit it. Michael could never be less than Michael to +her--the soul of honour, the knight without fear, against whom no +reproach could be levelled. + +Armitage spoke again. + +"You see," he said, "you could still have all those things you spoke of, +under my scheme--the long, quiet days; life that is broad and simple; +the hearth; home, children--all that sort of thing ... and even time for +any of the little social reform schemes you fancied...." + +Sophie found herself confronted with the fundamental difference of +their outlook again. He talked as if the ideas which meant so much +to her and to people of the Ridge were the notions of headstrong +children--whimsical and interesting notions, perhaps, but mistaken, of +course. He was inclined to make every allowance for them. + +"The only little social reform I'd have any time for," she murmured, +"would be the overthrowing of your scheme for ownership of the mines." + +John Armitage was frankly surprised to find that she held so firmly to +the core of the Ridge idea, and amused by the uncompromising hostility +of her attitude. Sophie herself had not thought she was so attached to +the Ridge life and its purposes, until there was this suggestion of +destroying them. + +"Then"--he stood up suddenly--"whether I succeed or whether I +don't--whether the scheme goes my way or not--won't make any difference +to you--to us." + +"It will make this difference," Sophie said. "I'm heart and soul in the +life here, I've told you. And if you do as you say you're going to ... +instead of thinking of you in the old, good, friendly way, I'll have to +think of you as the enemy of all that is of most value to me." + +"You mean," John Armitage cried, his voice broken by the anger and +chagrin which rushed over him, "you mean you're going to take on +Henty--that's what's at the back of all this." + +"I mean," Sophie said steadily, her eyes clear green and cool in his, +"that I'm going to marry Potch, and if Michael and all the rest of the +men of the Ridge go over to you and your scheme, we'll fight it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"Are you there, Potch?" Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael's hut, a +wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her. + +Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in +his hands. + +"He's not here," he said. + +His voice was as distant as though he were talking to a stranger. He had +been trying to read, but his mind refused to concern itself with +anything except the night before, and the consequences of it. His eyes +had followed a trail of words; but he had been unable to take any +meaning from them. Sophie! His mind hung aghast at the exclamation of +her. She was the storm-centre. His thoughts moved in a whirlwind about +her. He did not understand how she could have worn that dress showing +her shoulders and so much of her bared breast. It had surprised, +confused, and alarmed him to see Sophie looking as she did in that +photograph Dawe Armitage had brought to the Ridge. The innocence and +sheer joyousness of her laughter had reassured him, but, as the evening +wore on, she seemed to become intoxicated with her own gaiety. + +Michael had watched her dancing with vague disquiet. To him, dancing was +rather a matter of concern to keep step and to avoid knocking against +anyone--a serious business. He did not get any particular pleasure out +of it; and Sophie's delight in rhythmic movement and giving of her whole +being to a waltz, amazed him. When Armitage came, her manner had +changed. It had lost some of its abstract joyousness. It was as if she +were playing up to him.... She had been much more of his world than of +the world of the Ridge; had displayed a thousand little airs and +superficial graces, all the gay, light manner of that other world. When +she was dancing with Arthur Henty, Michael had seen the sudden drooping +and overcasting of her gaiety. He thought she was tired, and that Potch +should take her home. The old gossip about Arthur Henty had faded from +his memory; not the faintest recollection of it occurred to him as he +had seen Sophie and Arthur Henty dancing together. + +Then Sophie's cry, eerie and shrill in the night air, had reached him. +He had seen Potch and Arthur Henty at grips. He had not imagined that +such fury could exist in Potch. Other men had come. They dragged Potch +away from Henty.... Henty had fallen.... Potch would have killed him if +they had not dragged him away.... Henty was carried in an unconscious +condition to Newton's. Armitage had taken Sophie home. Michael went with +Potch. + +Michael did not know exactly what had occurred. He could only +imagine.... Sophie had been behaving in that gay, light manner of the +other world: he had seen her at it all the evening. Potch had not +understood, he believed; it had goaded him to a state of mind in which +he was not responsible for what he did. + +Sophie was conscious of Michael's aloofness from her as she stood in the +doorway; it wavered as his eyes held and communed with hers. The night +before he had not been able to realise that the girl in the black dress, +which had seemed to him almost indecent, was Sophie. He kept seeing her +in her everyday white cotton frock--as she sat at work at her +cutting-wheel, or went about the hut--and now that she stood before him +in white again, he could scarcely believe that the black dress and +happenings of the ball were not an hallucination. But there was a prayer +in her eyes which came of the night before. She would not have looked at +him so if there had been no night before; her lips would not have +quivered in that way, as if she were sorry and would like to explain, +but could not. + +Potch had staggered home beside Michael, swaying and muttering as though +he were drunk. But he was not drunk, except with rage and grief, Michael +knew. He had lain on his bunk like a log all night, muttering and +groaning. Michael had sat in a chair in the next room, trying to +understand the madness which had overwhelmed Potch. + +In the morning, he realised that work and the normal order of their +working days were the only things to restore Potch's mental balance. He +roused him earlier than usual. + +"We'd better get down and clear out some of the mullock," he said. "The +gouges are fair choked up. There'll be no doing anything if we don't get +a move on with it." + +Potch had stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then he got up, changed his +clothes, and they had gone down to the mine together. His face was +swollen and discoloured, his lip broken, one eye almost hidden beneath a +purple and blue swelling which had risen on the upper part of his left +cheek. He had dragged his hat over his face, and walked with his head +down; they had not spoken all the morning. Potch had swung his pick +stolidly. All day his eyes had not met Michael's as they usually did, in +that glance of love and comradeship which united them whenever their +eyes met. + +In the afternoon, when they stopped work and went to the top of the +mine, Potch had said: + +"Think I'll clear out--go away somewhere for awhile, Michael." + +From his attitude, averted head and drooping shoulders, Michael got the +unendurable agony of his mind, his pain and shame. He did not reply, and +Potch had walked away from him striking out in a south-easterly +direction across the Ridge. Michael had not seen him since then. And now +it was early evening, the moon up and silvering the plains with the +light of her young crescent. + +"He says--Potch says ... he's going away," Michael said to Sophie. + +Her eyes widened. Her thought would not utter itself, but Michael knew +it. Potch leaving the Ridge! The Ridge without Potch! It was impossible. +Their minds would not accept the idea. + +Sophie turned away from the door. Her white dress fluttered in the +moonlight. Michael could see it moving across the bare, shingly ground +at the back of the hut. He thought that Sophie was going to look for +Potch. He had not told her the direction in which Potch had gone. He +wondered whether she would find him. She might know where to look for +him. Michael wondered whether Potch haunted particular places as he +himself did, when his soul was out of its depths in misery. + +Instinctively Sophie went to the old playground she and Potch had made +on the slope of the Ridge behind the Old Town. + +She found him lying there, stretched across the shingly earth. He lay so +still that she thought he might be asleep. Then she went to him and +knelt beside him. + +"Potch!" she said. + +He moved as if to escape her touch. The desolation of spirit which had +brought him to the earth like that overwhelmed Sophie. She crouched +beside him. + +"Potch," she cried. "Potch!" + +Potch did not move or reply. + +"I can't live ... if you won't forgive me, Potch," Sophie said. + +He stirred. "Don't talk like that," he muttered. + +After a little time he sat up and turned his face to her. The dim light +of-the young moon showed it swollen and discoloured, a hideous and comic +mask of the tragedy which consumed him. + +"That's the sort of man I am," Potch said, his voice harsh and unsteady. +"I didn't know ... I didn't know I was like that. It came over me all of +a sudden, when I saw you and--him. I didn't know any more until Michael +was talking to me. I wouldn't've done it if I'd known, Sophie.... But I +didn't know.... I just saw him--and you, and I had to put out the sight +of it ... I had to get it out of my eyes... what I saw.... That's all I +know. Michael says I didn't kill him ... but I meant to ... that's what +I started to do." + +Sophie's face withered under her distress. + +"Don't say that, Potch," she begged. + +"But I do," he said. "I must.... I can't make out ... how it was ... I +felt like that. I thought I'd see things like you saw them always, stand +by you. Now I don't know.... I'm not to be trusted----" + +"I'd trust you always, and in anything, Potch," Sophie said. + +"You can't say that--now." + +"It's now ... I want to say it more than ever," she continued. "I can't +explain ... what I did ... any more than you can what you did, Potch. +But I'm to blame for what you did ... and yet ... I can't see that I'm +altogether to blame. I didn't want what happened--to happen ... any more +than you." + +She wanted to explain to Potch--to herself also. But she could not see +clearly, or understand how the threads of her intentions and deeds had +become so crossed and tangled. It was not easy to explain. + +"You remember that ball at Warria I went to with father," she said at +last. "I thought a lot of Arthur Henty then.... I thought I was in love +with him. People teased me about him. They thought he was in love with +me, too.... And then over there at the ball something happened that +changed everything. I thought he was ashamed of me ... he didn't ask me +to dance with him like he did at the Ridge balls.... He danced with +other girls ... and nobody asked me to dance except Mr. Armitage, I +wanted to go away from the Ridge and learn to look like those girls +Arthur had danced with ... so that he would not be ashamed of me.... +Afterwards I thought I'd forgotten and didn't care for him any more.... +Last night he was not ashamed of me.... It was funny. I felt that the +Warria people were envying me last night, and I had envied them at the +other ball.... I didn't want to dance with Arthur ... but I did ... and, +somehow, then--it was as if we had gone back to the time before the ball +at Warria...." + +A heavy, brooding silence hung between them. Sophie broke it. + +"Michael says you're going away?" + +"Yes," Potch replied. + +Sophie shifted the pebbles on the earth about her abstractedly. + +"Don't leave me, Potch," she cried, scattering the pebbles suddenly. "I +don't know what will become of me if you go away.... I wanted us to get +married and settle down." + +Potch turned to her. + +"You don't mean that?" + +"I do," Sophie said, all her strength of will and spirit in the words. +"I'm afraid of myself, Potch ... afraid of drifting." + +Potch's arms went round her. "Sophie!" he sobbed. But even as he held +her he was conscious of something in her which did not fuse with him. + +"But you love him!" he said. + +Sophie's eyes did not fail from his. + +"I do," she said, "but I don't want to. I wish I didn't." + +His hands fell from her. "Why," he asked, "why do you say you'll marry +me, if you ... if----" + +Despair and desperation were in the restive movement of Sophie's hands. + +"I'm afraid of him," she said, "of the power of my love for him ... and +there's no future that way. With you there is a future. I can work with +you and Michael for the Ridge.... You know I do care for you too, Potch +dear, and I want to have the sort of life that keeps a woman faithful +... to mend your clothes, cook your meals, and----" + +Potch quivered to the suggestions she had evoked. He saw Sophie in a +thousand tender associations--their home, the quiet course their lives +might have together. He loved her enough for both, he told himself. + +His conscience was not clear that he should take this happiness the gods +offered him, even for the moment. And yet--he could not turn from it. +Sophie had said she needed him; she wanted the home they would have +together; all that their life in common would mean. And by and by--he +stirred to the afterthought of her "and"--she wanted the children who +might come to them.... Potch knew what Sophie meant when she said that +she cared for him. Whatever else happened he knew he had her tenderest +affection. She kissed him familiarly and with tenderness. It was not as +Maud had kissed him, with passion, a soul-dying yearning. He drove the +thought off. Maud was Maud, and Sophie Sophie; Maud's most passionate +kisses had never distilled the magic for him that the slightest brush of +Sophie's dress or fingers had. + +Sophie took his hand. + +"Potch," she said, "if you love me--if you want me to marry you, let us +settle the thing this way.... I want to marry you.... I want to be your +loving and faithful wife.... I'll try to be.... I don't want to think of +anyone but you.... You may make me forget--if we are married, and get on +well together. I hope you will----" + +Potch took her into his arms, an inarticulate murmur breaking his +voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Potch had looked towards Michael's hut before he went into his own, next +evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael +had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking to the mine, Potch +said: + +"He's back; did you know?" + +Michael guessed whom Potch was speaking of. "Saw him ... as I was +walking out along the Warria road yesterday afternoon," he said; "and +then at Newton's.... He looks ill." + +Potch did not reply. They did not speak of Charley again, and yet as +they worked they thought of no one else, and of nothing but the +difficulties his coming would bring into their lives. For Potch, his +father's return meant the revival of an old shame. He had been accepted +on his merits by the Ridge; he had made people forget he was Charley +Heathfield's son, and now Charley was back Potch had no hope of anything +but the old situation where his father was concerned, the old drag and +the old fear. The thought of it was more disconcerting than ever, now +too, because Sophie would have to share the sort of atmosphere Charley +would put about them. + +And Michael was dulled by the weight of the fate which threatened him. +Every day the consciousness of it weighed more heavily. He wondered +whether his mind would remain clear and steady enough to interpret his +resolve. For him, Charley's coming, and the enmity he had gauged in his +glance the night before, were last straws of misfortune. + +John Armitage had put the proposition he outlined for Sophie, to +Michael, the night before he left for Sydney. He had told Michael what +he knew, and what he suspected in connection with Rouminof's opals. +Michael had neither defended himself nor denied Armitage's accusation. +He had ignored any reference to Paul's opals, and had made his position +of uncompromising hostility to Armitage's proposition clear from the +outset. There had not been a shadow of hesitation in his decision to +oppose the Armitages' scheme for buying up the mines. At whatever cost, +he believed he had no choice but to stand by the ideas and ideals on +which the life of the Ridge was established and had grown. + +John Armitage, because of his preconceived notion of the guilty +conscience Michael was suffering from, was disappointed that the action +of Michael's mind had been as direct to the poles of his faith as it had +been. He realised Sophie was right: Michael would not go back on the +Ridge or the Ridge code; but the Ridge might go back on him. Armitage +assured himself he had a good hand to play, and he explained his +position quite frankly to Michael. If Michael would not work with him, +he, John Armitage, must work against Michael. He would prefer not to do +so, he said. He described to several men, separately, what the proposals +of the Armitage Syndicate amounted to, in order that they might think +over, weigh, and discuss them. He was going down to Sydney for a few +weeks, and when he came back he would call a meeting and lay his +proposition before the men. He hoped by then Michael would have +reconsidered his decision. If he had not, Armitage made it clear that, +much as he would regret having to, he would nevertheless do all in his +power to destroy any influence Michael might have with men of the Ridge +which might militate against their acceptance of the scheme for +reorganisation of the mines he had to lay before them. Michael +understood what that meant. John Armitage would accuse him of having +stolen Paul's opals, and he would have to answer the accusation before +men of the Ridge. + +His mind hovered about the thought of Maud Johnson. + +He could not conceive how John Armitage had come to the knowledge he +possessed, unless Maud, whom he was aware Armitage had bought stones +from in America, had not showed or sold them to him. But Armitage +believed Michael still had, and was hoarding the stones. That was the +strange part of it all. How could Armitage declare he had one of the +stones, and yet believe Michael was holding the rest? Unless Maud had +taken that one stone from the table the night she came to see Potch? +Michael could not remember having seen the stone after she went. He +could not remember having put it back in the box. It only just occurred +to him she might only have taken the stone that night. Jun had probably +recognised the stone, and she had told Armitage what Jun had said about +it. Jun might have gone to the hut for the rest of the stones, but then +Maud would not have told Armitage they were still on the Ridge. Maud +would be sure to know if Jun had got the stones on his own account, +Michael thought. + +His brain went over and over again what John Armitage had said, +querying, exclaiming, explaining, and enlarging on fragments of their +talk. Armitage declared he had evidence to prove Michael Brady had +stolen Rouminof's stones. He might have proof that he had had possession +of them for a while, Michael believed. But if Armitage was under the +impression he still had the opals, his information was incomplete at +least, and Michael treasured a vague hope that the proof which he might +adduce, would be as faulty. + +But more important than the bringing home to him of responsibility for +the lost opals, and the "unmasking" to eyes of men of the Ridge which +Armitage had promised him, was the bearing it would have on the +proposition which was to be put before them. Michael realised that there +was a good deal of truth in what Armitage had said. A section of the +younger miners, men who had settled on the new rushes, and one or two of +the older men who had grown away from the Ridge idea, would probably be +willing enough to fall in with and work under Armitage's scheme. George, +Watty, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Cash Wilson, and most of the +older men were against it, and some of the younger ones, too; but Archie +and Ted Cross were inclined to waver, although they had always been +staunch for the Ridge principle, and with them was a substantial +following from the Punti, Three Mile, and other rushes. + +A disintegrating influence was at work, Michael recognised. It had been +active for some time. Since Potch's finding of the big stone, scarcely +any stone worth speaking of had been unearthed on the fields, and that +meant long store accounts, and anxious and hard times for most of the +gougers. + +The settlement had weathered seasons of dearth, and had existed on the +merest traces of precious opal before; but this one had lasted longer, +and had tried everybody's patience and capacity for endurance to the +last degree. Murmurs of the need for money to prospect the field and +open up new workings were heard. Criticisms of the ideas which would +keep out money and money-owners who might be persuaded to invest their +money to prospect and open up new workings on Fallen Star, crept into +the murmurings, and had been circulating for some months. Bat M'Ginnis, +a tall, lean, herring-gutted Irishman, with big ears, pointed like a +bat's, was generally considered author of the criticisms and abettor of +the murmurings. He had sunk on the Coolebah and drifted to the Punti +rush soon after. On the Punti, it was known, he had expatiated on the +need for business men and business methods to run the mines and make the +most of the resources of the Ridge. + +M'Ginnis was a good agent for Armitage, before Armitage's proposition +was heard of. Michael wondered now whether he was perhaps an agent of +Armitage's, and had been sent to the Ridge to prepare the way for John +Armitage's scheme. When he came to think of it, Michael remembered he +had heard men exclaim that Bat never seemed short of money himself, +although if he had to live on what his claim produced he would have been +as hard up as most of them. Michael wondered whether Charley's +home-coming was a coincidence likewise, or whether Armitage had laid his +plans more carefully than might have been imagined. + +Michael saw no way out for himself. He could not accept Armitage's bribe +of silence as to his share in the disappearance of Paul's opals, in +order to urge men of the Ridge to agree to the Armitages' proposition +for buying up the mines. If he could have, he realised, he would carry +perhaps a majority of men of the Ridge with him; and those he cared most +for would stand by the Ridge idea whether he deserted it or not, he +believed. He would only fall in their esteem; they would despise him; +and he would despise himself if he betrayed the idea on which he had +staked so much, and the realisation of which he would have died to +preserve. But there was no question of betraying the Ridge idea, or of +being false to the teaching of his whole life. He was not even tempted +by the terms Armitage offered for his co-operation. He was glad to think +no terms Armitage could offer would tempt him from his allegiance to the +principle which was the corner-stone of life on the Ridge. + +But he asked himself what the men would think of him when they heard +Armitage's story; what Sophie would think, and Potch. He turned in agony +from the thought that Sophie and Potch would believe him guilty of the +thing he seemed to be guilty of. Anything seemed easier to bear than the +loss of their love and faith, and the faith of men of the Ridge he had +worked with and been in close sympathy with for so long--Watty and +George, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant and Cash Wilson. Would he have +to leave the Ridge when they knew? Would they cold-shoulder him out of +their lives? His imagination had centred for so long about the thing he +had done that the guilt of it was magnified out of all proportion to the +degree of his culpability. He did not accuse himself in the initial act. +He had done what seemed to him the only thing to do, in good faith; the +opals had nothing to do with it. He did not understand yet how they had +got an ascendancy over him; how when he had intended just to look at +them, to see they were well packed, he had been seduced into that trance +of worshipful admiration. + +Why he had not returned the stones to Paul as soon as Sophie had left +the Ridge, Michael could not entirely explain to himself. He went over +and over the excuses he had made to himself, seeing in them evidence of +the subtle witchery the stones had exercised over him. But as soon as he +was aware of the danger of delay, he tried to assure himself, and the +appearance it must have, he had determined to get rid of the stones. + +Would the men believe he had wanted to give the stones to Paul--even +that he had done what he had done for the reasons he would put before +them? George and Watty and some of the others would believe him--but the +rest? Michael could not hope that the majority would believe his story. +They would want to know if at first he had kept the stones to prevent +Sophie leaving the Ridge, why he had not given them to Paul as soon as +she had gone. Michael knew he could only explain to them as he had to +himself. He had intended to; he had delayed doing so; and then, when he +went to find the stones to give them to Paul, they were no longer where +he had left them. It was a thin story--a poor explanation. But that was +the truth of the situation as far as he knew it. There was nothing more +to be said or thought on the subject. He put it away from him with an +impulse of impatience, desperate and weary. + +When Potch returned from the mine that afternoon; he went into Michael's +hut before going home. Michael himself he had seen strike out westwards +in the direction of the swamp soon after he came above ground. Potch +expected to see his father where he was; he had seen him so often before +on Michael's sofa under the window. Charley glanced up from the +newspaper he was reading as Potch came into the room. + +"Well, son," he said, "the prodigal father's returned, and quite ready +for a fatted calf." + +Potch stood staring at him. Light from the window bathed the thin, +yellow face on the faded cushions of Michael's couch, limning the sharp +nose with its curiously scenting expression, all the hungry, shrewd +femininity and weakness of the face, and the smile of triumphant malice +which glided in and out of the eyes. Michael was right, Potch realised; +Charley was ill; but he had no pity for the man who lay there and smiled +like that. + +"You can't stay here," he said. "Michael's coming." + +Charley smiled imperturbably. + +"Can't I?" he said. "You see. Besides ... I want to see Michael. That's +what I'm here for." + +Potch growled inarticulately. He went to the hearth, gathered the +half-burnt sticks together to make a fire. He would have given anything +to get Charley out of the hut before Michael returned; but he did not +know how to manage it. If Charley thought he wanted him to go, nothing +would move him, Potch knew. + +"What do you want to see Michael about?" he asked. + +"Nice, affectionate son you are," Charley murmured. "Suppose you know +you are my son--and heir?" + +"Worse luck," Potch muttered, watching the flame he had kindled over the +dry chips and sticks. + +"You might've done worse," Charley replied, watching his son with a +slight, derisive smile. "I might've done worse myself in the way of a +son to support me in my old age." + +"I'm not going to do that." + +Charley laughed. "Aren't you?" he queried. "You might be very glad +to--on terms I could suggest. And you're a fine, husky chap to do it, +Potch, my lad.... They tell me you've married Rouminof's girl, and she's +chucked the singing racket. Rum go, that! She could sing, too.... People +I know told me they'd seen her in America in some revue stunt there, and +she was just the thing. Went the pace a bit, eh? Oh, well, there's +nothing like matrimony to sober a woman down--take the devil out of +her." + +Potch's resentment surged; but before he could utter it, his father's +pleasantries were flipping lightly, cynically. + +"By the way, I saw a friend of yours in Sydney couple of months ago. Oh, +well, several perhaps. Might have been a year.... Maud! There's a fine +woman, Potch. And she told me she was awfully gone on you once. Eh, +what?... And now you're a married man. And to think of my becoming a +grandfather. Help!" + +Potch sprang to his feet, goaded to fury by the jeering, amiable voice. + +"Shut up," he yelled, "shut up, or----" + +The doorway darkened. Potch saw Charley's face light with an expression +of curious satisfaction and triumph. He turned and discovered that +Michael was standing in the doorway. Irresolute and flinching, he stood +there gazing at Charley, a strange expression of fear and loathing in +his eyes. + +"You can clear out now, son," Charley remarked, putting an emphasis on +the "son" calculated to enrage Potch. "I want to talk to Michael." + +Potch looked at Michael. It was his intention to stand by Michael if, +and for as long as, Michael needed him. + +"It's all right, Potch," Michael said; but his eyes did not go to +Potch's as they usually did. There was a strange, grave quality of +aloofness about Michael. Potch hesitated, studying his face; but Michael +dismissed him with a glance, and Potch went out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree +or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; +only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of trees drew a +blurred line between earth and sky. + +Potch and Sophie lay out on the plains, on their backs in the dried +herbage, watching the sunset--the play of light on the wide sweep of the +sky--silently, as if they were listening to great music. + +They had been married some days before in Budda township, and were +living in Potch's hut. + +Sophie and Potch had often wandered over the plains in the evening and +watched the sunset; but never before had they come to the sense of +understanding and completeness they attained this evening. The days had +been long and peaceful since they were living together, an anodyne to +Sophie, soothing all the restless turmoil of her soul and body. She had +ceased to desire happiness; she was grateful for this lull of all her +powers of sense and thought, and eager to love and to serve Potch as he +did her. She believed her life had found its haven; that if she kept in +tune with the fundamentals of love and service, she could maintain a +consciousness of peace and rightness with the world which would make +living something more than a weary longing for death. + +All the days were holy days to Potch since Sophie and he had been +married. He looked at her as if she were Undine making toast and tea, +cooking, washing dishes, or sweeping and tidying up his hut. He followed +her every movement with a worshipful, reverent gaze. + +Soon after Sophie's return, Potch had gone to live in the hut which he +and his father had occupied in the old days. He had put a veranda of +boughs to the front of it, and had washed the roof and walls with +carbide to lessen the heat in summer. He had turned out the rooms and +put up shelves, trying to furnish the place a little for Sophie; but she +had not wanted it altered at all. She had cleared the cupboard, put +clean paper on the shelves, and had arranged Potch's books on them +herself. + +Sophie loved the austerity of her home when she went to live in it--its +earthen floor, bare walls, unvarnished furniture, the couch under the +window, the curtains of unbleached linen she had hemstitched herself, +the row of shining syrup-tins in which she kept tea, sugar, and coffee +on shelves near the fireplace, the big earthenware jar for flowers, and +a couple of jugs which Snow-Shoes had made for her and baked in an oven +of his own contrivance. She had a quiet satisfaction in doing all the +cleaning up and tidying to keep her house in the order she liked, so +that her eyes could rest on any part of it and take pleasure from the +sense of beauty in ordinary and commonplace things. + +But the hut was small and its arrangements so simple that an hour or two +after Potch had gone to the mines Sophie went to the shed into which he +had moved her cutting-wheel, and busied herself facing and polishing the +stones which some of the men brought her as usual. She knew her work +pleased them. She was as skilful at showing a stone to all its advantage +as any cutter on the Ridge, and nothing delighted her more than when +Watty or George or one of the Crosses exclaimed with satisfaction at a +piece of work she had done. + +In the afternoon sometimes she went down to the New Town to talk with +Maggie Grant, Mrs. Woods, or Martha. She was understudying Martha, too, +when anyone was sick in the town, and needed nursing or a helping hand. +Martha had her hands full when Mrs. Ted Cross's fourth baby was born. +There were five babies in the township at the time, and Sophie went to +Crosses' every morning to fix up the house and look after the children +and Mrs. Ted before Martha arrived. When Martha found the Crosses' +washing gaily flapping on the line one morning towards midday, she +protested in her own vigorous fashion. + +"I ain't going to have you blackleggin' on me, Mrs. Heathfield," she +said. "And what's more, if I find you doin' it again, I'll tell Potch. +It's all right for me to be goin' round doing other people's odd jobs; +but I don't hold with you doin' 'em--so there! If folks wants babies, +well, it's their look-out--and mine. But I don't see what you've got to +do with it, coming round makin' your hands look anyhow." + +"You just sit down, and I'll make you a cup of tea, Mother M'Cready," +Sophie said by way of reply, and gently pushed Martha into the most +comfortable chair in the room. "You look done up ... and you're going on +to see Ella and Mrs. Inglewood, I suppose." + +Martha nodded. She watched Sophie with troubled, loving eyes. She was +really very tired, and glad to be able to sit and rest for a moment. It +gave her a welling tenderness and gratitude to have Sophie concerned for +her tiredness, and fuss about her like this. Martha was so accustomed to +caring for everybody on the Ridge, and she was so strong, good-natured, +and vigorous, very few people thought of her ever being weary or +dispirited. But as she bustled into the kitchen, blocking out the light, +Sophie saw that Martha's fat, jolly face under the shadow of her +sun-hat, was not as happy-looking as usual. Sophie guessed the weariness +which had overtaken her, and that she was "poorly" or "out-of-sorts," as +Martha would have said herself, if she could have been made to admit +such a thing. + +"It's all very well to give folks a helping hand," Martha continued, +"but I'm not going to have you doin' their washin' while I'm about." + +Sophie put a cup of tea and slice of bread and syrup down beside her. + +"There! You drink that cup of tea, and tell me what you think of it," +she said. + +"But, Sophie," Martha protested. "It's stone silly for you to be doing +things like Cross's washing. You're not strong enough, and I won't have +it." + +"Won't you?" + +Sophie put her arms around Martha's neck from behind her chair. She +pressed her face against the creases of Martha's sunburnt neck and +kissed it. + +Martha gurgled happily under the pressure of Sophie's young arms, the +childish impulse of that hugging. She turned her face back and kissed +Sophie. + +"Oh, my lamb! My dearie lamb!" she murmured. + +She recognised Sophie's need for common and kindly service to the people +of the Ridge. She knew what that service had meant to her at one time, +and was willing to let Sophie share her ministry so long as her health +was equal to it. + +Mrs. Watty, and the women who took their views from her, thought that +Sophie was giving herself a great deal of unnecessary and laborious work +as a sort of penance. They had withdrawn all countenance from her after +the disaster of the ball, although they regarded her marriage to Potch +as an endeavour to reinstate herself in their good graces. Mrs. Watty +had been scandalised by the dress she had worn at the ball, by the way +she had danced, and her behaviour generally. But Sophie was quite +unconcerned as to what Mrs. Watty and her friends thought: she did not +go out of her way either to avoid or placate them. + +When she went to the Crosses' to take charge of the children and look +after the house while Mrs. Cross was ill, the gossips had exclaimed +together. And when it was known that Sophie had taken on herself odds +and ends of sewing for other women of the township who had large +families and rather more to do than they knew how to get through, they +declared that they did not know what to make of it, or of Sophie and her +moods and misdemeanours. + +Potch heard of what Sophie was doing from the people she helped. When he +came home in the evening she was nearly always in the kitchen getting +tea for him; but if she was not, she came in soon after he got home, and +he knew that one of these little tasks she had undertaken for people in +the town had kept her longer than she expected. Usually he hung in the +doorway, waiting for her to come and meet him, to hold up her face to be +kissed, eyes sweet with affection and the tender familiarity of their +association. Those offered kisses of hers were the treasure of these +dream-like days to Potch. + +He had always loved Sophie. He had thought that his love had reached the +limit of loving a long time before, but since they had been married and +were living, day after day, together, he had become no more than a +loving of her. He went about his work as usual, performed all the other +functions of his life mechanically, scrupulously, but it was always with +a subconscious knowledge of Sophie and of their life together. + +"You're tired," he said one night when Sophie lifted her face to his, +his eyes strained on her with infinite concern. + +"Dear Potch," she said; and she had put back the hair from his forehead +with a gesture tender and pitiful. + +Her glance and gesture were always tender and pitiful. Potch realised +it. He knew that he worshipped and she accepted his worship. He was +content--not quite content, perhaps--but he assured himself it was +enough for him that it should be so. + +He had never taken Sophie in his arms without an overwhelming sense of +reverence and worship. There was no passionate need, no spontaneity, no +leaping flame in the caresses she had given him, in that kiss of the +evening, and the slight, girlish gestures of affection and tenderness +she gave as she passed him at meals, or when they were reading or +walking together. + +As they lay on the plains this evening they had been thinking of their +life together. They had talked of it in low, brooding murmurs. The +immensity of the silence soaked into them. They had taken into +themselves the faint, musky fragrance of the withered herbage and the +paper daisies. They had gazed among the stars for hours. When it was +time to go home, Sophie sat up. + +"I love to lie against the earth like this," she said. + +"We seem to get back to the beginning of things. You and I are no more +than specks of dust on the plains ... under the skies, Potch ... and yet +the whole world is within us...." + +"Yes," Potch said, and the silence streamed between them again. + +"I'll never forget," Sophie continued dreamily, "hearing a negro talk +once about what they call 'the negro problem' in America. He was an +ordinary thick-set, curly-haired, coarse-featured negro to look +at--Booker Washington--but he talked some of the clearest, straightest +stuff I've ever heard. + +"One thing he said has always stayed in my mind: 'Keep close to the +earth.' It was not good, he said, to walk on asphalted paths too +long.... He was describing what Western civilisation had done for the +negroes--a primitive people.... Anyone could see how they had +degenerated under it. And it's always seemed to me that what was true +for the negroes ... is true for us, too.... It's good to keep close to +the earth." + +"Keep close to the earth?" Potch mused. + +"In tune with the fundamentals, all the great things of loving and +working--our eyes on the stars." + +"The stars?" + +"The objects of our faith and service." + +They were silent again for a while. Then Sophie said: + +"You ..." she hesitated, remembering what she had told John +Armitage--"you and I would fight for the Ridge principle, even if all +the others accepted Mr. Armitage's offer, wouldn't we, Potch?" + +"Of course," Potch said. + +"And Michael?" + +"Michael?" His eyes questioned her in the dim light because of the +hesitation in her question. "Why do you say that? Michael would be the +last man on earth to have anything to do with Armitage's scheme." + +"He comes back to put the proposition to the men definitely in a few +days, doesn't he?" Sophie asked. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"Have you talked to Michael about it?" + +"To tell you the truth, Sophie," Potch replied slowly, +conscience-stricken that he had given the subject so little +consideration, "I took it for granted there could only be one answer to +the whole thing.... I haven't thought of it. I've only thought of you +the last week or so. I haven't talked to Michael; I haven't even heard +what the men were saying at midday.... But, of course, there's only one +answer." + +"I've tried to talk to Michael, but he won't discuss it with me," Sophie +said. + +Potch stared at her. + +"You don't mean," he said--"you can't think--" + +"Oh," she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I know John Armitage is +holding something over Michael ... and if it's true what he says, it'll +break Michael, and it'll go very badly against the Ridge." + +"You can't tell me what it is?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +Potch got up; his face settled into grave and fighting lines. Sophie, +too, rose from the ground. They went towards the track where the three +huts stood facing the scattered dumps of the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"I want to see Michael," Potch said, when they approached the huts. +"I'll be in, in a couple of minutes." + +Sophie went on to their own home, and Potch, swerving from her, walked +across to the back door of Michael's hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders +hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut. + +"You can't bluff me," Potch heard him say. "You may throw dust in the +eyes of the men here, but you can't bluff me.... It was you did for +me.... It was you put it over on me--took those stones." + +"Well, you tell the boys," Potch heard Michael say. + +His voice was as unconcerned as though it were not anything of +importance they were discussing. Potch found relief in the sound of it, +but its unconcern drove Charley to fury. + +"You know I took them from Paul," he shouted. "You know--I can see it in +your eyes ... and you took them from me. When ... how ... I don't +know.... You must 've sneaked into the house when I dozed off for a bit, +and put a parcel of your own rotten stuff in their place.... How do I +know? Well, I'll tell you...." + +He settled back on the sofa. "I hung on to the best stone in the +lot--clear brown potch with good flame in it--hopin' it would give me a +clue some day to the man who'd done that trick on me. But I couldn't +place the stone; I'd never seen it on you, and Jun had never seen it +either. I was dead stony when I sold it to Maud ... and I told her why +I'd been keeping it, seeing she was in the show at the start off. She +sold the stone to Armitage in America, and first thing the old man said +when he saw it was: 'Why, that's Michael's mascot!'" + +"Remembered when you'd got it, he said," Charley continued, taking +Michael's interest with gratified malice. "First stone you'd come on, on +Fallen Star, and you wouldn't sell--kept her for luck.... Old Armitage +wouldn't have anything to do with the stone then--didn't believe Maud's +story.... But John Lincoln got it. He told me...." + +"I see," Michael murmured. + +"Don't mind telling you I'm here to play Armitage's game," Charley said. + +Michael nodded. "Well, what about it?" + +"This about it," Charley exclaimed irritably, his excitement and +impatience rising under Michael's calmness. "You're done on the Ridge +when this story gets around. What I've got to say is ... you took the +opals. You've got 'em. You're done for here. But you could have a good +life somewhere else. Clear out, and----" + +"We'll go halves, eh?" Michael queried. + +"That's it," Charley assented. "I'll clear out and say nothing--although +I've told Rummy enough already to give him his suspicions. Still, +suspicions are only suspicions--nothing more. When I came here I didn't +even mean to give you this chance.... But 'Life is sweet, brother!' +There's still a few pubs down in Sydney, and a woman or two. I wouldn't +go out with such a grouch against things in general if I had a flash in +the pan first.... And it'd suit you all right, Michael.... With this +scheme of Armitage's in the wind----" + +"And suppose I haven't got the stones?" Michael inquired. + +Charley half rose from the sofa, his thin hands grasping the table. + +"It's a lie!" he shrieked, shivering with impotent fury. "You know it +is.... What have you done with 'em then? What have you done with those +stones--that's what I want to know!" + +"You haven't got much breath," Michael said; "you'd better save it." + +"I'll use all I've got to down you, if you don't come to light," Charley +cried. "I'll do it, see if I don't." + +Potch walked across to his father. He had heard Charley abusing and +threatening Michael before without being able to make out what it was +all about. He had thought it bluff and something in the nature of a +try-on; but he had determined to put a stop to it. + +"No, you won't!" he said. + +"Won't I?" Charley turned on his son. + +"No." Potch's tone was steady and decisive. + +Charley looked towards Michael again. + +"Well ... what are you going to do about it?" + +"I've told you," Michael said. "Nothing." + +"Did y' hear what I've been calling your saint?" Charley cried, turning +to Potch. "I'm calling him what everybody on the fields'd be calling him +if they knew." + +Michael's gaze wavered as it went to Potch. + +"A thief," Charley continued, whipping himself into a frenzy. "That's +what he is--a dirty, low-down thief! I'm the ordinary, decent sort ... +get the credit for what I am ... and pay for it, by God! But he--he +doesn't pay. I bag all the disgrace ... and he walks off with the +goods--Rouminof's stones." + +Potch did not look at Michael. What Charley had said did not seem to +shock or surprise him. + +"I've made a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition," Charley went on +more quietly. "I've told him ... if he'll go halves----" + +"Guess again," Potch sneered. + +Charley swung to his feet, a volley of expletives swept from him. + +"I've told Rummy to get the law on his side," he cried shrilly, "and +he's going to. There's one little bit of proof I've got that'll help +him, and----" + +"You'll get jail yourself over it," Potch said. + +"Don't mind if I do," Charley shouted, and poured his rage and +disappointment into a flood of such filthy abuse that Potch took him by +the shoulders. + +"Shut your mouth," he said. "D'y' hear?... Shut your mouth!" + +Charley continued to rave, and Potch, gripping his shoulders, ran him +out of the hut. + +Michael heard them talking in Potch's hut--Charley yelling, threatening, +and cursing. A fit of coughing seized him. Then there was silence--a +hurrying to and fro in the hut. Michael heard Sophie go to the tank, and +carry water into the house, and guessed that Charley's paroxysm and +coughing had brought on the hemorrhage he had had two or three times +since his return to the Ridge. + +A little later Potch came to him. + +"He's had a bleeding, Michael," Potch said; "a pretty bad one, and he's +weak as a kitten. But just before it came on I told him I'd let him have +a pound a week, somehow, if he goes down to Sydney at once.... But if +ever he shows his face in the Ridge again ... or says a word more about +you ... I've promised he'll never get another penny out of me.... He can +die where and how he likes ... I'm through with him...." + +Michael had been sitting beside his fire, staring into it. He had +dropped into a chair and had not moved since Potch and Charley left the +hut. + +"Do you believe what he said, Potch?" he asked. + +Michael felt Potch's eyes on his face; he raised his eyes to meet them. +There was no lie in the clear depths of Potch's eyes. + +"I've known for a long time," Potch said. + +Michael's gaze held him--the swimming misery of it; then, as if +overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it +fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before +Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had +penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and +desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come +to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given +him while they had been mates. + +"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason." + +Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that +unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith. + +He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his +hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently--unable +to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet +overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as +affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned +enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had. + +"It was for Sophie," he said. + +"I intended to give them back to Paul--when she was old enough to go +away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I +don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of +me, somehow--for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give +them back to him--kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my +mind and went to get them, they were gone." + +Potch nodded thoughtfully. + +"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ... +that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me.... +The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it +means something--that somebody must have been near and seen and heard. +Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was +no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I +think--knew I had the stones...." + +"Maud?" + +Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You +remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At +any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects--I don't know which it is +really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's +parcel--a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't +like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney; +and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel +in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead +to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the +stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and----" + +"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch +said. + +"That's what I think," Michael agreed. + +They brooded over the situation for a while. + +"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in +them. + +"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told +her." + +"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said. + +They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away. + +"There's nothing to be done?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done, +Potch," he said. + +They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and +Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her +face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness. + +"Michael, dear!" she whispered. + +Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she +was of his spirit, as he held her then. + +He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on +him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the +moment was beyond words. + +Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to +Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in +himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to +be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told +him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a +star--a thing of miraculous joy and beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together +before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his +proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group +formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction. +M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were +prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not +go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following--and the group about +them was by far the largest--which was asserting an open mind until it +heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with +them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than +against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge +since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared +at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of +Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old +spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and +Watty Frost. + +"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the +numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say. +I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many." + +"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here. +Want to know the strength of them--and him." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought +Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'--all +that.... But they've swallowed it--swallowed it all down. They say----" + +George nodded gloomily. "This blasted talkin' about Michael's done more +harm than anything." + +"That's right," Pony-Fence said. "What's the strength of it, George?" + +"Damned if I know!" + +"Where's Michael to-night?" + +Their eyes wandered over the scattered groups of the miners. Michael was +not among them. + +"Is he coming?" Pony-Fence asked. + +George shrugged his shoulders; the wrinkles of his forehead lifted, +expressing his ignorance and the doubt which had come into his thinking +of Michael. + +"Does he know what's being said?" Pony-Fence asked. + +"He knows all right. I told Potch, and asked him to let Michael know +about it." + +"What did he say?" + +"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this +business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or +two. It might have got him down what's being said--he might be so sore +about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and +paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something.... +It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, +about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it +is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course--but +it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's +done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've----" + +"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they +had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to +say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand--what's the game--and +the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; +and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about +those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them +afterwards." + +When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form +and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained +somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the +fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat +near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American +engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a +little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but +Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was. + +Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be +chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he +took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water +bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, +the American engineer, on the other. + +His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and +chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be +regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan. + +John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of +another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night. +Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was +filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred +the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the +benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or +worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats. +Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the +weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid +through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and +intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say. + +Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr. +Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to +report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the +United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural +resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, +flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the +Armitage Syndicate. + +Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt +features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up +in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not +words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the +substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and +hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting +against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, +although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had +not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he +would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to +assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition +Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He +himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot +with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave +them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of +the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the +success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might +mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great +deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for +mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of +the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the +advantages that would entail. + +The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's +manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the +situation, although he gave very little information they had not already +possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and +confronted the men again. + +He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward +business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; +but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As +their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the +disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for +both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he +proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the +resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an +expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and +prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw +possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he +promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had +outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous +township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity +in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all +manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of +communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased +production would ensure. + +In a nutshell Armitage's scheme amounted to an offer to buy up the mines +for £30,000 and put the men on a wage, allowing every man a percentage +of 20 per cent. profit on all stones over a certain standard and size. +The men would be asked to elect their own manager, who would be expected +to see that engineering and development designs were carried out, but +otherwise the normal routine of work in the mines would be observed. Mr. +Armitage explained that he hoped to occupy the position of general +manager in the company himself, and engaged it to observe the union +rates of hours and wages as they were accepted by miners and mining +companies throughout the country. + +When he had finished speaking there was no doubt in anyone's mind that +John Lincoln Armitage had made a very pleasant picture of what life on +the Ridge might be if success attended the scheme of the Armitage +Syndicate, as John Armitage seemed to believe it would. Men who had been +driven to consider Armitage's offer from their first hearing of it, +because of the lean years the Ridge was passing through, were almost +persuaded by his final exposition. + +George Woods stood up. + +George's strength was in his equable temper, in his downright honesty +and sincerity, and in the steady common-sense with which he reviewed +situations and men. + +He realised the impression Armitage's statement of his scheme, and its +bearing on the life of the Ridge, had made. It did not affect his own +position, but he feared its influence on men who had been wavering +between prospects of the old and of the new order of things for Fallen +Star. In their hands, he could see now, the fate of all that Fallen Star +had stood for so long, would lie. + +"Well," he said, "we've got to thank you for puttin' the thing to us as +clear and as square as you have, Mr. Armitage. It gives every man here a +chance to see just what you're drivin' at. But I might say here and now +... I've got no time for it ... neither me nor my mates.... It'll save +time and finish the business of this meeting if there's no beatin' about +the bush and we understand each other right away. It sounds all +right--your scheme--nice and easy. Looks as if there was more for us to +get out of it than to lose by it.... I don't say it wouldn't mean easier +times ... more money ... all that sort of thing. We haven't had the +easiest of times here sometimes, and this scheme of yours comes ... just +when we're in the worst that's ever knocked us. But speakin' for myself, +and"--his glance round the hall was an appeal to that principle the +Ridge stood for-"the most of my mates, we'd rather have the hard times +and be our own masters. That's what we've always said on the Ridge.... +Your scheme 'd be all right if we didn't feel like that; I suppose. But +we do ... and as far as I'm concerned, we won't touch it. It's no go. + +"We're obliged to you for putting the thing to us. We recognise you +could have gone another way about getting control here. You may---buy up +a few of the mines perhaps, and try to squeeze the rest of us out. Not +that I think the boys'd stand for the experiment." + +"They wouldn't," Bill Grant called. + +"I'm glad to hear that," George said. He tried to point out that if +Fallen Star miners accepted Armitage's offer they would be shouldering +conditions which would take from their work the freedom and interest +that had made their life in common what it had been on the Ridge. He +asked whether a weekly Wage to tide them over years of misfortune would +compensate for loss of the sense of being free men; he wanted to know +how they'd feel if they won a nest of knobbies worth £400 or £500 and +got no more out of them than the weekly wage. The percentage on big +stones was only a bluff to encourage men to hand over big stones, George +said. And that, beyond the word being used pretty frequently in Mr. +Armitage's argument and documents, was all the profit-sharing he could +see in Mr. Armitage's scheme. He reminded the men, too, that under their +own system, in a day they could make a fortune. And all there was for +them under Mr. Armitage's system was three or four pounds a week--and +not a bit of potch, nor a penny in the quart pot for their old age. + +"We own these mines. Every man here owns his mine," George said; "that's +worth more to us just now than engineers and prospecting parties.... +Well have them on our own account directly, when the luck turns and +there's money about again.... For the present we'll hang on to what +we've got, thank you, Mr. Armitage." + +He sat down, and a guffaw of laughter rolled over his last words. + +"Anybody else got anything to say?" Peter Newton inquired. + +M'Ginnis stood up. + +He had heard a good deal of talk about men of the Ridge being free, he +said, but all it amounted to was their being free to starve, as far as +he could see. He didn't see that the men's ownership of the mines meant +much more than that--the freedom to starve. It was all very well for +them to swank round about being masters of their own mines; any fool +could be master of a rubbish heap if he was keen enough on the rubbish +heap. But as far as he was concerned, M'Ginnis declared, he didn't see +the point. What they wanted was capital, and Mr. Armitage had +volunteered it on what were more than ordinarily generous terms.... + +It was all very well for a few shell-backs who, because they had been on +the place in the early days, thought they had some royal prerogative to +it, to cut up rusty when their ideas were challenged. But their ideas +had been given a chance; and how had they worked out? It was all very +well to say that if a man was master of his own mine he stood a chance +of being a millionaire at a minute's notice; but how many of them were +millionaires? As a matter of fact, not a man on the Ridge had a penny to +bless himself with at that moment, and it was sheer madness to turn down +this offer of Mr. Armitage's. For his part he was for it, and, what was +more, there was a big body of the men in the hall for it. + +"If it's put to the vote whether people want to take on or turn down Mr. +Armitage's scheme, we'll soon see which way the cat's jumping," M'Ginnis +said. "People'd have the nause to see which side their bread's buttered +on--not be led by the nose by a few fools and dreamers. For my part, I +don't see why----" + +"You're not paid to," a voice called from the back of the hall. + +"I don't see why," M'Ginnis repeated stolidly, ignoring the +interruption, "the ideas of three or four men should be allowed to rule +the roost. What's wanted on the Ridge is a little more horse sense----" + +Impatient and derisive exclamations were hurled at him; men sitting near +M'Ginnis shouted back at the interrupters. It looked as if the meeting +were going to break up in uproar, confusion, and fighting all round. +Peter Newton knocked on the table and shouted himself hoarse trying to +restore order. The voices of George, Watty, and Pony-Fence Inglewood +were heard howling over the din: + +"Let him alone." + +"Let's hear what he's got to say." + +Then M'Ginnis continued his description of the advantages to be gained +by the acceptance of Mr. Armitage's offer. + +"And," he wound up, "there's the women and children to think of." At the +back of the hall somebody laughed. "Laugh if you like"--M'Ginnis worked +himself into a passion of virtuous indignation--"but I don't see there's +anything to laugh at when I say remember what those things are goin' to +mean to the women and children of this town--what a few of the +advantages of civilisation----" + +"Disadvantages!" the same voice called. + +"--Comforts and conveniences of civilisation are goin' to mean to the +women and children of this God-forsaken hole," M'Ginnis cried furiously. +"If I had a wife and kids, d'ye think I'd have any time for this +high-falutin' flap-doodle of yours about bread and fat? Not much. The +best in the country wouldn't be too good for them--and it's not good +enough for the women and children of Fallen Star. That's what I've got +to say--and that's what any decent man would say if he could see +straight. I'm an ordinary, plain, practical man myself ... and I ask you +chaps who've been lettin' your legs be pulled pretty freely---and +starvin' to be masters of your own dumps--to look at this business like +ordinary, plain, practical men, who've got their heads screwed on the +right way, and not throw away the chance of a lifetime to make Fallen +Star the sort of township it ought to be. If there's some men here want +to starve to be masters of their own dumps, let 'em, I say: it's a free +country. But there's no need for the rest of us to starve with 'em." + +He sat down, and again it seemed that the pendulum had swung in favour +of Armitage and his Scheme. + +"What's Michael got to say about it?" a man from the Three Mile asked. +And several voices called: "Yes; what's Michael got to say?" + +For a moment there was silence--a silence of apprehension. George Woods +and the men who knew, or had been disturbed by the stories they had +heard of a secret treaty between Michael and John Armitage, recognised +in that moment the power of Michael's influence; that what Michael was +going to say would sway the men of the Ridge as it had always done, +either for or against the standing order of life on the Ridge on which +they had staked so much. His mates could not doubt Michael, and yet +there was fear in the waiting silence. + +Those who had heard Michael was not the man they thought he was, waited +anxiously for his movement, the sound of his voice. Charley Heathfield +waited, crouched in a corner near the platform, where everyone could see +him, Rouminof beside him. They were standing there together as if there +was not room for them in the body of the hall, and their eyes were fixed +on the place where Michael sat--Charley's eager and cruel as a cat's on +its victim, Rouminof's alight with the fires of his consuming +excitement. + +Then Michael got up from his seat, took off his hat; and his glance, +those deep-set eyes of his, travelled the hall, skimming the heads and +faces of the men in it, with their faint, whimsical smile. + +"All I've got to say," he said, "George Woods has said. There's nothing +in Mr. Armitage's scheme for Fallen Star.... It looks all right, but it +isn't; it's all wrong. The thing this place has stood for is ownership +of the mines by the men who work them. Mr. Armitage 'll give us anything +but that--he offers us every inducement but that ... and you know how +the thing worked out on the Cliffs. If the mines are worth so much to +him, they're worth as much, or more, to us. + +"Boiled down, all the scheme amounts to is an offer to buy up the +mines--at a 'fair valuation'--put us on wages and an eight-hour day. All +the rest, about making a flourishing and, up-to-date town of Fallen +Star, might or mightn't come true. P'raps it would. I can't say. All I +say is, it's being used to gild the pill we're asked to swallow--buyin' +up of the mines. There's nothing sure about all this talk of electricity +and water laid on; it's just gilding. And supposing the new conditions +did put more money about--did bring the comforts and conveniences of +civilisation to Fallen Star--like M'Ginnis says--what good would they be +to the people, women and children, too, if the men sold themselves like +a team of bullocks to work the mines? It wouldn't matter to them any +more whether they brought up knobbies or mullock; they'd have their +wages--like bullocks have their hay. It's because our work's had +interest; it's because we've been our own bosses, life's been as good as +it has on Fallen Star all these years. If a man hasn't got interest in +his work he's got to get it somewhere. How did we get it on the Cliffs +when the mines were bought up? Drinking and gambling ... and how did +that work out for the women and children? But it was stone silly of +M'Ginnis to talk of women and children here. We know that old +hitting-below-the-belt gag of sweating employers too well to be taken in +by it. By and by, if you took on the Armitage scheme, and there was a +strike in the mines, he'd be saying that to you: 'Remember the women and +children.'" + +Colour flamed in Michael's face, and he continued with more heat than +there had yet been in his voice. + +"The time's coming when the man who talks 'women and children' to defeat +their own interests will be treated like the skunk--the low-down, +thieving swine he is. Do we say anything's too good for our women and +children? Not much. But we want to give them real things--the real +things of life and happiness--not only flashy clothes and fixings. If we +give our women and children the mines as we've held them, and the record +of a clean fight for them, we'll be giving them something very much +bigger than anything Mr. Armitage can offer us in exchange for them. The +things we've stood for are better than anything he's got to offer. We've +got here what they're fighting for all over the world ... it's bigger +than ourselves. + +"M'Ginnis says he's heard a lot of 'the freedom to starve on the +Ridge'--it's more than I have, it's a sure thing if he wants to starve, +nobody'd stop him...." + +A wave of laughter passed over the hall. + +"But most of us here haven't any fancy for starving, and what's more, +nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don't say that we haven't had +hard times, that we haven't gone on short commons--we have; but we +haven't starved, and we're not going to.... + +"This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have +been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we're +down, in a way; but the slump'll pass. There've been slumps before, and +they've passed.... Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn't be so keen on +getting hold of the mines. + +"And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to +me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or +syndicate ever made could. Didn't old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once +that he didn't know a better conducted or more industrious mining +community than this one. 'Why d'y' think that is?' I asked him. He said +he didn't know. I said, 'You don't think the way the men feel about +their work's got anything to do with it?' 'Damn it, Michael,' he said, +'I don't want to think so.' + +"And I happen to know"--Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, +who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and +crossed under his chin--"that the old man is opposed even now to this +scheme because he thinks he won't get as much black opal out of us as he +does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and +what taking over of the mines did for opal--and the men--there. This +scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea.... + +"He's put it to you. You've heard what it is. All I've got to say now +is, don't touch it. Don't have anything to do with it.... It'll break us +... the spirit of the men here ... and it'll break what we've been +working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don't let us +see which side our bread's buttered on, as Mr. M'Ginnis says. Let us say +like we always have--like we've been proud to say: 'We'll eat bread and +fat, but we'll be our own masters!'" + +"We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!" the men who +were with Michael roared. + +He sat down amid cheers. George and Watty turned in their seats to beam +at him, filled with rejoicing. + +Armitage rose from his chair and shifted his papers as though he had not +quite decided what he intended to say. + +"I'm not going to ask this meeting for a decision," he began. + +"You can have it!" Bully Bryant yelled. + +"There's a bit of a rush at Blue Pigeon Creek, and I'm going on up +there," John Armitage continued. "I'm due in Sydney at the end of the +month--that is, a month from this date--and I'll run up then for your +answer to the proposition which has been laid before you. I have said +all there is to say about it, except that, notwithstanding anything +which may have been asserted to the contrary, I hope you will give your +gravest consideration to an enterprise, I am convinced, would be in the +best interests of this town and of the people of Fallen Star Ridge. I +think, however, you ought to know----" + +"That Michael Brady's a liar and a thief!" Charley cried, springing from +his corner as if loosed from some invisible leash. "If you believe him, +you're believing a liar and a thief. Mr. Armitage knows ... I know ... +and Paul knows----" + +"Throw him out." + +"He's mad!" + +The cries rose in a tumult of angry voices. When they were at their +height M'Ginnis was seen on his feet and waving his arms. + +"Let him say what he's got to!" he shouted. "You chaps know as well as I +do what's been going the rounds, and we might as well have it out now. +If it's not true, Michael'd rather have the strength of it, and give you +his answer ... and if there is anything in it, we've got a right to +know." + +"That's right!" some of the men near him chorused. + +Newton looked towards George, and George towards Michael. + +"Might as well have it," Michael said. + +Charley, who had been hustled against the wall by Potch and Bully +Bryant, was loosed. He moved a few steps forward so that everyone could +see him, and breathlessly, shivering, in a frenzy of triumphant malice, +told his story. Rouminof, carried away by excitement, edged alongside +him, chiming into what he was saying with exclamations and chippings of +corroboration. + +When Charley had finished talking and had fallen back exhausted, +Armitage left his chair as if to continue what he had been going to say +when Charley took the floor. Instead, he hesitated, and, feeling his way +through the silence of consternation and dismay which had stricken +everybody, said uncertainly: + +"Much as I regret having to do so, I consider it my duty to state that +Charley Heathfield's story, as far as I know it, is substantially +correct. Some time ago I was sold a stone in New York. As soon as he saw +it, my father said, 'Why, that's Michael's mascot.' I asked him if he +were sure, and he declared that he could not be mistaken about the +stone.... + +"I told him the story I had got with it. Charley has already told you. +That stone came from a parcel Charley supposed contained Rouminof's +opals--the one Paul got when Jun Johnson and he had a run of luck +together. The parcel did not contain Rouminof's opals, and had been +exchanged for the parcel which did, either while Rouminof and Charley +were going home together or after he had taken them from Rouminof. My +father refused to believe that Michael Brady had anything to do with the +business. I made further inquiries, and satisfied myself that the man +who had always seemed to me the soul of honour and a pattern of the +altruistic virtues, I must confess, was responsible for placing that +stone in the parcel Charley took down to Sydney ... and also that +Michael had possession of Rouminof's opals. Mrs. Johnson will swear she +saw Rouminof's stones on the table of Michael Brady's hut one evening +nearly two years ago. + +"I approached Michael myself to try to discover more of the stones. He +denied all knowledge of them. But now, before you all, and because it +seems to me an outrageous thing for people to ruin themselves on account +of their belief in a man who is utterly unworthy of it, I accuse Michael +Brady of having stolen Rouminof's opals. If he has anything to say, now +is the time to say it." + +What Armitage said seemed to have paralysed everybody. The silence was +heavier, more dismayed than it had been a few minutes before. Nobody +spoke nobody moved. Michael's friends sat with hunched shoulders, not +looking at each other, their gaze fixed ahead of them, or on the place +where Michael was sitting, waiting to see his face and to hear the first +sound of his voice. Potch, who had gone to hold his father back when +Charley had made his attack on Michael, stood against the wall, his eyes +on Michael, his face illumined by the fire of his faith. His glance +swept the crowd as if he would consign it to perdition for its doubt and +humiliation of Michael. The silence was invaded by a stir of movement, +the shuffle of feet. People began to mutter and whisper together. Still +Michael did not move. George Woods turned round to him. + +"For God's sake speak, Michael," he said. Michael did not move. + +Then from the back of the hall marched Snow-Shoes. Tall and stately, he +strode up the narrow passage between the rows of seats wedged close +together. People watched him with an abstract curiosity, their minds +under the shadow of the accusation against Michael, waiting only to hear +what he would say to it. When Snow-Shoes reached the top of the hall he +turned and faced the men He held up a narrow package wrapped in +newspaper and before them all handed it to Rouminof, who was still +hovering near the edge of the platform. + +"Your stones," he said. "I took them." And in the same stately, measured +fashion he had entered, he walked out of the hall again. + +Cheers resounded, cheers on cheers, until the roof rang. There was no +hearing anything beyond cheers and cries for Michael. People crushed +round him shaking his hand, clinging to him, tears in their eyes. When +order was achieved again, it was found that Paul was on the platform +going over the stones with Armitage, Newton looking on. Paul was +laughing and crying; he had forgotten Charley, forgotten everything but +his joy in fingering his lost gems. + +When there was a lull in the tempest of excitement and applause, +Armitage spoke. + +"I've got to apologise to you, Michael," he said. "I do most +contritely.... I don't yet understand--but the facts are, the opals are +here, and Mr. Riley has said--" + +Michael stood up. His mouth moved and twisted as though he were going to +speak before his voice was heard. When it was, it sounded harsh and as +if only a great effort of will drove it from him. + +"I want to say," he said, "I did take those stones ... not from Paul ... +but from Charley." + +His words went through the heavy quiet slowly, a vibration of his +suffering on every one of them. He told how he had seen Charley and Paul +going home together, and how he had seen Charley take the package of +opals from Rouminof's pocket and put them in his own. + +"I didn't want the stones," Michael cried, "I didn't ever want them for +myself.... It was for Paul I took them back, but I didn't want him to +have them just then...." + +Haltingly, with the same deadly earnestness, he went over the promise he +had made to Sophie's mother, and why he did not want Paul to have the +stones and to use them to take Sophie away from the Ridge. But she had +gone soon after, and what he had done was of no use. When he explained +why he had not then, at once, returned the opals he did not spare +himself. + +Paul had had sun-stroke; but Michael confessed that from the first night +he had opened the parcel and had gone over the stones, he had been +reluctant to part with them; he had found himself deferring returning +them to Paul, making excuses for not doing so. He could not explain the +thing to himself even.... He had not looked at the opals except once +again, and then it was to see whether, in putting them away hurriedly +the first time, any had tumbled out of the tin among his books. Then +Potch and Maud had seen him. Afterwards he realised where he was +drifting--how the stones were getting hold of him--and in a panic, +knowing what that meant, he had gone for the parcel intending to take it +to Paul at once and tell him how he, Michael, came to have anything to +do with his opals, just as he was telling them. But the parcel was gone. + +Michael said he could not think who had found it and taken it away; but +now it was clear. Probably Snow-Shoes had known all the time he had the +stones. The more he thought of it, the more Michael believed it must +have been so. He remembered the slight stir on the shingly soil as he +came from the hut on the night he had taken the opals from Charley. It +was just that slight sound Snow-Shoes' moccasins made on the shingle. +Exclamations and odd queries Snow-Shoes had launched from time to time +came back to Michael. He had no doubt, he said, that Mr. Riley had taken +the stones to do just what he had done--and because he feared the +influence possession of them was having on him, Michael, since they +should have been returned to Paul long ago. + +"That's the truth, as far as I know it," Michael said. "There's been +attempts made to injure ... the Ridge, our way of doing things here, +because of me, and because of those stones.... What happened to me +doesn't matter. What happens to the Ridge and the mines does matter. I +done wrong. I know I done wrong holding those stones. I'd give anything +now if I--if I'd given them to Paul when Sophie went away. But I didn't +... and I'll stand by anything the men who've been my mates care to say +or do about that. Only don't let the Ridge, and our way of doing things +here, get hurt through me. That's bigger--it means more than any man. +Don't let it! ... I'd ask George to call a meeting, and get the boys to +say what they think about all this--and where I stand." + +Michael put on his hat, dragged it down over his eyes, and walked out of +the hall. + +When the slow fall of his footsteps no longer sounded on the wooden +floor, George Woods rose from his place on the front bench. He turned +and faced the men. The smoke from their smouldering pipes had created +such a fog that he could see only the bulk of those on the near rows of +forms. With the exception of M'Ginnis and half a dozen Punti men who had +the far end of one of the front seats, the mass of men in the hall, who +a few moments before had been cheering for Michael, were as inert as +blown balloons. Depression was in every line of their heavy, squatted +shapes and unlighted countenances. + +"Well," George said, "it's been a bit of a shock what we've just heard. +It wasn't easy what Michael's just done ... and Snow-Shoes, if he'd +wanted it, had provided the get-out. But Michael he wouldn't have it.... +At whatever cost to himself, he wanted you to have the truth and to +stand by the Ridge ... he'd stand by it at any cost.... If there's a +doubt in anyone's mind as to what he is, what he's just done proves +Michael. I don't say, as he says himself, that it wouldn't have been +better if he had handed the stones over to Paul when Sophie went away +... but after all, what does that amount to as far as Michael's +concerned? We've got his record, every one of us, his life here. Does +anybody know a mean or selfish thing he's ever done, Michael?" + +No one spoke, and George went on: + +"Michael's asked for trial by his mates--and we've got to give it to +him, if it's only to clear up the whole of this business and be done +with it.... I move we meet here to-morrow night to settle the thing." + +There was a rumbling murmur, and staccato exclamations of assent. Men in +back seats moved to the door; others surged after them. Armitage and his +proposals were forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +When Michael got back to his hut he found Martha there. + +"Oh, Michael," she said, "a dreadful thing has happened." + +Michael stared at her, unable to understand what she said. It seemed to +him all the terrible things that could happen had happened that evening. + +"While you were away Arthur Henty came here to see Sophie," Martha said. +"She hasn't been feeling well ... and I came up to have a look at her. +She's been doing too much lately. Things haven't been too right between +her and Potch, either, and that's her way of taking it out of herself. +Arthur was here when I got here, Michael, and--you never heard anything +like the way he went on...." + +Michael had fallen wearily into his chair while she was talking. + +Martha continued, knowing that the sooner she got rid of her story the +better it would be for both of them. + +"It's an old story, of course, this about Arthur Henty and Sophie.... +When he was ill after the ball he talked a good bit about her.... He +always has ... to me. I was with his mother when he was born ... and +he's always called me Mother M'Cready like the rest of you. He told me +long ago he'd always been fond of Sophie.... He didn't know at first, he +said. He was a fool; he didn't like being teased about her.... Then she +went away.... He doesn't seem to know why he got married except that his +people wanted him to. + +"After the ball he'd made up his mind they were going away together, +Sophie and he. But while he was ill ... before he was able to get around +again, Sophie married Potch. Then he went mad, stark, starin' mad, and +started drinking. He's been drinking hard ever since.... And to-night +when he came, he just went over to Sophie.... She was lying on the couch +under the window, Michael.... He said, I've got a horse for you outside. +Sophie didn't seem to realise what he meant at first. Then she did. I +don't know how he guessed she wouldn't go ... but the next minute he was +on his knees beside her ... and you never heard anything like it, +Michael--the way he went on, sobbing and crying out--I never want to +hear anything like it again.... I couldn't 've stood it meself.... I'd +'ve done anything in the world if a man'd gone on to me like that. And +Sophie ... she put her arms round him, and mothered him like.... Then +she began to cry too.... And there they were, both crying and sayin' how +much they loved each other ... how much they'd always loved each +other.... + +"It fair broke me up, Michael.... I didn't know what to do. They didn't +seem to notice me.... Then he said again they'd go away together, and +begin life all over again. Sophie tried to tell him it was too late to +think of that.... They both had responsibilities they'd ought to stand +by.... Hers was the Ridge and the Ridge life, she said.... He didn't +understand.... He only understood he wanted her to go away with him, and +she wouldn't go...." + +Michael was so spent in body and mind that what Martha was saying did +not at first make any impression on his mind. She seemed to be telling +him a long and dolorous tale of something which had happened a long time +ago, to people he had once known. In a waking nightmare, realisation +that it was Sophie she was talking of dawned on him. + +"He tried to make her," Martha was saying when he began to listen +intently. "He said he'd been weak and a fool all his days. But he wasn't +any more. He was strong now. He knew what he wanted, and he meant to +have it.... Sophie was his, he said. Nothing in the world would ever +make her anything but his. She knew it, and he knew it.... And Sophie +hid her face in her hands. He took her hands away from her face and +dragged her to her feet. He asked her if he was her mate. + +"She said 'Yes.' + +"'Then you've got to come with me,' he said. + +"But she wouldn't go, Michael. She tried to explain it was the +Ridge--what the Ridge stood for--she must stay to work for. She'd sworn +to, she said. He cursed the Ridge and all of us, Michael. He said that +he wouldn't let her go on living with Potch--be his wife. That he'd kill +her, and himself, and Potch, rather than let her.... I never heard a man +go on like he did, Michael. I never want to again. Half the time he was +raging mad, then crying like a child. But in the end he said, quite +quietly: + +"'Will you come with me, Sophie?' + +"And she said, quiet like that, too, 'No.' + +"He went out of the hut.... I heard him ride away. Sophie cried after +him. She put out her arms ... but she couldn't speak. And if you had +seen her face, Michael----She just stood there against the wall, +listening to the hoof-beats.... When we couldn't hear them any more, she +stood there listening just the same. I went to her and tried to--to +waken her--she seemed to have gone off into a sort of trance, +Michael.... After a while she did wake; but she looked at me as if she +didn't know me. She walked about for a bit, she walked round the table, +and then she went out as though she were goin' for a walk. I told her +not to go far ... not to be long ... but I don't think she heard me.... +I watched her walking out towards the old rush.... And she isn't back +yet...." + +"It's too much," Michael muttered. + +He sat with his head buried in his hands. + +"What's to be done about it?" he asked at last. + +Martha shook her head. + +"I don't know. Sophie'll go through with her part, I suppose ... as her +mother did." + +Michael's face quivered. + +"He's such an outsider," he groaned. "Sophie'd never give up the things +we stand for here, now she understands them." + +"That's just it," Martha said. "She doesn't want to--but there's +something stronger than herself draggin' at her ... it's something +that's been in all the women she's come of--the feeling a woman's got +for the man who's her mate. Sophie married Potch, it's my belief, to get +away from this man. She wanted to chain herself to us and her life here. +She wants to stay with us.... She was kept up at first by ideas of duty +and sacrifice, and serving something more than her own happiness. But +love's like murder, Michael--it must out, and it's a good thing it +must...." + +"And what about Potch?" Michael asked. + +"Potch?" Martha smiled. "The dear lad ... he'll stand up to things. +There are people like that--and there're people like Arthur Henty who +can't stand up to things. It's not their fault they're made that way ... +and they go under when they have too much to bear." + +"Curse him," Michael groaned. "I wish he'd kept out of our lives." + +"So do I," Martha said; "but he hasn't." + +Potch came in. He looked from Martha to Michael. + +"Where's Sophie?" he asked. + +"She ... went out for a walk, a while ago," Martha said. + +At first Martha believed Potch knew what had happened. In his eyes there +was an awe and horror which communicated itself to Martha and Michael, +and held them dumb. + +"Henty has shot himself down in the tank paddock," he said at length. + +Martha uttered a low wail. Michael looked at Potch, waiting to hear +further. + +"Some of the boys going home to the Three Mile heard the shot, and went +over," Potch said. "I wanted to tell Sophie myself.... They were looking +for you in the town, Martha." + +"Oh!" Martha got up and went to the door. + +"He's at Newton's," Potch said. "Which way did Sophie go?" + +"She went towards the Old Town, Potch," Martha said. + +The chestnut Arthur Henty had brought for Sophie, still standing with +reins over a post of the goat-pen, whinnied when he saw them at the door +of the hut. Potch looked at him as if he were wondering why the horse +was there--a vague perplexity defined itself through the troubled +abstraction of his gaze. His eyes went to Martha as if asking her how +the horse came to be there; but she did not offer any explanation. She +went off down the track to Newton's, and he struck out towards the Old +Town. + +Potch wandered over the plains looking for Sophie. She was not in any of +her usual haunts. He wandered, looking for her, calling her, wondering +what this news would mean to her. Vaguely, instinctively he knew. Prom +the time of their marriage nothing had been said between them of Arthur +Henty. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he called. + +The stars were swarming points of silver fire in the blue-black sky. He +wandered, calling still. Desolation overwhelmed him because he could not +find Sophie; because she was in none of the places they had spent so +much time in together. It was significant that she should not be in any +of them, he felt. He could not bear to think she was eluding him, and +yet that was what she had done all her life. She had been with him, +smiling, elfish and tender one moment, and gone the next. She had always +been elusive. For a long time a presentiment of desolation and disaster +had overshadowed him. Again and again he had been able to draw breath of +relief and assure himself that the indefinable dread which was always +with him was a chimera of his too absorbing, too anxious love. But the +fear, instinctive, prophetic, begotten by consciousness of the slight +grasp he had of her, had remained. + +That morning even, before he had gone off to work, she had taken his +face in her hands. He had seen tenderness and an infinite gentleness in +her eyes. + +"Dear Potch," she had said, and kissed him. + +She had withdrawn from him before the faint chill which her words and +the light pressure of her lips diffused, had left him. And now he was +wandering over the plains looking for her, calling her.... He had done +so before.... Sophie liked to wander off like this by herself. Sometimes +he had found her in a place where they often sat together; sometimes she +had been in the hut before him; sometimes she had come in a long time +after him, wearily, a strange, remote expression on her face, as if long +gazing at the stars or into the darkness which overhung the plains had +deprived her of some earthliness. + +He did not know how long he walked over the plains and along the Ridge, +looking for her, his soul in that cry: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +He wandered for hours before he went back to the hut, and saw Michael +coming out to meet him. + +"She knows, Potch," Michael said. + +Potch waited for him to continue. + +"Says nobody told her.... She heard the shot ... and knew," Michael +said. + +Potch exclaimed brokenly. He asked how Sophie was. Michael said she had +come in and had lain down on the sofa as though she were very tired. She +had been lying there ever since, so still that Michael was alarmed. He +had called Paul and sent him to find Martha. Sophie had not cried at +all, Michael said. + +She was lying on the sofa under the window, her hair thrown back from +her face when Potch went into the hut. He closed his eyes against the +sight of her face; he could not see Sophie in the grip of such pain. He +knelt beside her. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he murmured, the inarticulate prayer of his love and +anguish in those words. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was +informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it. +The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the the night before, +but the crowd had none of the elastic excitement and fighting spirit, +the antagonisms and enthusiasms, which had gone off from it in wave-like +vibrations the night before. News of Arthur Henty's death had left +everybody aghast, and awakened realisation of the abysses which even a +life that seemed to move easily could contain. The shock of it was on +everybody; the solemnity it had created in the air. + +George Woods, elected spokesman for the men, and Roy O'Mara deputed to +take notes of the meeting because he was reckoned to be a good penman, +sat at a table on the platform. Michael took a chair just below the +platform, facing the men. He was there to answer questions. No one had +asked him to be present, but it was the custom when men of the Ridge +were holding an inquiry of the sort for the man or men concerned to have +seats in front of the platform, and Michael had gone to sit there as +soon as the men were in their places. + +"This isn't like any other inquiry we've had on the Ridge," George Woods +said. "You chaps know how I feel about it--I told you last night. But +Michael was for it, and I take it he's come here to answer any questions +... and to clear this thing up once and for all.... He's put his case to +you. He says he'll stand by what you say--the judgment of his mates." + +Anxious to spare Michael another recital of what had happened, he went +on: + +"There's no need for Michael to repeat what he said last night. If +there's any man here wasn't in the hall, these are the facts." + +He repeated the story Michael had told, steadily, clearly, and +impartially. + +"If there's any man wants to ask a question on those facts, he can do it +now." + +George sat down, and M'Ginnis was on his feet the same instant; his +bat-like ears twitching, his shoulders hunched, his whole tall, thin +frame strung to the pitch of nervous animosity. + +"I want to know," he said, "what reason there is for believing a word of +it. Michael Brady's as good as admitted he's been fooling you for +goodness knows how long, and I don't see----" + +"Y' soon will, y'r bleedin', blasted, fly-blown fool," Bully Bryant +roared, rising and pushing back his sleeves. + +"Sit down, Bull," George Woods called. + +"The question is," he added, "what reason is there for believing what +Michael says?" + +"His word's enough," somebody called. + +"Some of us think so," George said. "But there's some don't. Is there +anyone else can say, Michael?" + +Michael shook his head. He thought of Snow-Shoes, but the old man had +refused to be present at the inquiry or to have anything to do with it. +He had pretended to be deaf when he was asked anything about Paul's +opals. And Michael, who could only surmise that Snow-Shoes' reasons for +having taken the stones in a measure resembled his own when he took them +from Paul, would not have him put to the torture of questioning. + +George had said: "It might make a lot of difference to Michael if you'd +come along, Mr. Riley." + +But Snow-Shoes had marched off from him as if he had not heard anyone +speak, his blue eyes fixed on that invisible goal he was always gazing +at and going towards. + +George had not seen him come into the hall; but when he was needed, his +tall figure, white clad and straight as a dead tree, rose at the back of +the hall. + +"It's true," he said. "I wanted to be sure of Michael; I shadowed him. I +saw him with the stones when he says. I did not see him with them any +other time." + +He sat down again; his eyes, which had flashed, resumed their steady, +distant stare; his features relapsed into their mask of impassivity. + +M'Ginnis sprang to his feet again. + +"That's all very well," he cried, sticking to his question. "But it's +not my idea of evidence. It wouldn't stand in any law court in the +country. Snow-Shoes----" + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Half a dozen voices growled. + +Because of the respect and affection they had for him, and because of a +certain aloof dignity he had with them, no man on the Ridge ever +addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. They resented M'Ginnis +calling him "Snow-Shoes" to his face, and guessed that he had been going +to say something which would reflect on Snow-Shoes' reliability as a +witness. They admitted his eccentricity; but they would not admit that +his mental peculiarities amounted to more than that. Above all, they +were not going to have his feelings hurt by this outsider from the Punti +rush. + +Broad-shouldered, square and solid, Bill Grant towered above the men +about him. "This doesn't pretend to be a court of law, Mister M'Ginnis," +he remarked, with an irony and emphasis which never failed of their mark +when he used them, although he rarely did, and only once or twice had +been heard to speak, at any gathering. "It's an inquiry by men of the +Ridge into the doings of one of their mates. What they want to know is +the rights of this business ... and what you consider evidence doesn't +matter. It's what the men in this hall consider evidence matters. And, +what's more, I don't see why you're butting into our affairs so much: +you're not one of us--you're a newcomer. You've only been a year or so +in the place ... and this concerns only men of the Ridge, who stand +by the Ridge ways of doing things.... Michael's here to be judged +by his mates ... not by you and your sort.... If you'd the brain +of a louse, you'd understand--this isn't a question of law, but of +principle--honour, if you like to call it that." + +"Does the meeting consider the question answered?" George Woods inquired +when Bill Grant sat down. + +"Yes!" + +A chorus of voices intoned the answer. + +"If you believe Michael's story, there's nothing more to be said," +George continued. "Does any man want to ask Michael a question?" + +No one replied for a moment. Then M'Ginnis exclaimed incoherently. + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Men cried out all over the hall. + +"That's all, I think, Michael," George said, looking down to where +Michael sat before the platform; and Michael, pulling his hat further +over his eyes, went out of the hall. + +It was the custom for men of the Ridge to talk over the subject of their +inquiry together after the man or men with whom the meeting was +concerned had left the hall, before giving their verdict. + +When Michael had gone, George Woods said: + +"The boys would like to hear what you've got to say, I think, Archie." + +He looked at Archie Cross. "You and Michael haven't been seein' eye to +eye lately, and if there's any other side in this business, it's the +side that lost confidence in Michael when we were fed-up with all that +whispering. You know Michael, and you're a good Ridge man, though you +were ready to take on Armitage's scheme. The boys'd like to hear what +you've got to say, I'm sure." + +Archie Cross stood up; he rolled his hat in his hands. His face, hacked +out of a piece of dull flesh, sun-reddened, moved convulsively; his hair +was roughed-up from it; his small, sombre eyes went with straight +lightnings to the men in the hall about him. + +"It's true--what George says," he said after a pause, as if it were +difficult for him to express his thought. "I haven't been seein' eye to +eye with Michael lately ... and I listened to all the dirty gossip that +mob"--he glanced towards M'Ginnis and the men with him--"put round about +him. It was part that ... and part listening to their talk about money +invested here making all the difference to Fallen Star ... and the +children growing up ... and gettin' scared and worried about seein' them +through ... made me go agin you boys lately, and let that lot get hold +of me.... But this business about Michael's shown me where I am. +Michael's stood for one thing all through--the Ridge and the hanging on +to the mines for us.... He's been a better Ridge man than I have.... And +I want to say ... as far as I'm concerned, Michael's proved himself.... +I don't reck'n hanging on to opals was anything ... no more does Ted. +It's the sort of thing a chap like Michael'd do absent-minded ... not +noticin' what he was doin'; but when he did notice--and got scared +thinkin' where he was gettin' to, and what it might look like, he +couldn't get rid of 'em quick, enough. That's what I think, and that's +what Ted thinks, too. He hasn't got the gift of the gab, Ted, or he'd +say so himself.... If there's goin' to be opposition to Michael, it's +not comin' from us.... And we've made up our minds we stand by the +Ridge." + +"Good old Archie!" somebody shouted. + +"What have you got to say, Roy?" George Woods faced his secretary who +had been scratching diligently throughout the meeting. "You've been more +with the M'Ginnis lot, too, than with us, lately." + +Roy flushed and sprang to his feet. + +"I'm in the same boat with Archie and Ted," he said. "Except about the +family ... mine isn't so big yet as it might be. But it's a fact, I +funked, not having had much luck lately.... But if ever I go back on the +Ridge again ... may the lot of you go back on me." + +Exclamations of approbation and goodwill reverberated as Roy subsided +into his chair again. + +"That's all there is to be said on the subject, I think," George Woods +remarked. + +"Michael wanted his mates to know what he had done--and why he had done +it. He's asked for judgment from his mates.... If he'd wanted to go back +on us he could have done it; he could have done it quite easy. Armitage +would have shut up on his suspicions about the stones. Charley could +have been bought. Michael need never 've faced all this as far as I can +see ... but he decided to face it rather than give up all we've been +fightin' for here. He'd rather take all the dirt we care to sling at him +than anything they could give him ... and that's why M'Ginnis has been +up against him like he has. Michael has queered his pitch, and most of +us have a notion that M'Ginnis has been here to do Armitage's work ... +work up discontent and ill-feeling amongst us, and split our ranks; and +he came very near doing it. If Michael hadn't 've stood by us, like he's +always done, we'd have the Armitage Syndicate on our backs by now." + +"To tell you the truth, boys," George went on, after a moment's +hesitation, and then as if the impulse to speak a secret thought were +too strong for him, "I've always thought Michael was too good. And if +those stones did get hold of him for a couple of weeks, like he says, +all it proves, as far as I can see, is that Michael isn't any plaster +saint, but a man like the rest of us." + +"That's right!" Watty called, and several men shouted after him. + +Pony-Fence moved out from the crowd he was sitting with. + +"I vote this meeting records a motion of confidence in Michael Brady," +he said. "And when we call Michael in again we'd ought to make it clear +to him ... that so far from its being a question of not having as much +confidence in him as we had before--we've got more. Michael's stood by +his mates if ever a man did.... He's come to us ... he's given himself +up to us. He'll stand by what we say or do about him. And what are we +goin' to do? Are we goin' to turn him down ... read him a bit of a +lecture and tell him to go home and be a good boy and not do it another +time ... or are we going to let him know once and for all what we think +of him?" + +Exclamations of agreement went up in a rabble of voices. + +Bully Bryant rose from one of the back forms with a grin which +illuminated the building. + +"I'll second that motion," he said, pushing back the sleeve on his left +arm. "And his own mother won't know the man who says a word against +it--when I've done with him." + +Watty was sent to bring Michael back to the meeting. They walked to the +end of the hall together; and George Woods told Michael as quietly as he +could for his own agitation, and the joy which, welling in him, impeded +his speech, that men of the Ridge found nothing to censure in what he +had done. His mates believed in him; they stood by him. They were +prepared to stand by him as he had stood by the Ridge always. The +meeting wished to record a vote of confidence.... + +Cheers roared to the roof. Michael, shaken by the storm of his emotion +and gratitude, stood before the crowd in the hall with bowed head. When +the storm was quieter in him, he lifted his head and looked out to the +men, his eyes shining with tears. + +He could not speak; old mates closed round to shake hands with him +before the meeting broke up. Every man grasped and wrung his hand, +saying: + +"Good luck! Good luck to you, Michael!" Or just grasped his hand and +smiled with that assurance of fellowship and goodwill which meant more +to Michael than anything else in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +It was one of those clear days of late spring, the sky exquisitely blue, +the cuckoos calling, the paper daisies in blossom, their fragrance in +the air; they lay across the plains, through the herbage, white to the +dim, circling horizon. + +Horses and vehicles were tied up outside the grey palings of the +cemetery on the Warria road. All the horses and shabby, or new and +brightly-painted carts, sulkies, and buggies of Fallen Star and the +Three Mile were there; and buggies from Warria, Langi-Eumina, and the +river stations as well. Saddle horses, ranged along one side of the +fence, reins over the stakes, whinnied and snapped at each other. + +The crowd of people standing in the tall grass and herbage on the other +side of the fence was just breaking up when Sophie and Potch appeared, +coming over the plains from the direction of the tank paddock, Sophie +riding the chestnut Arthur Henty had left behind her house, and Potch +walking beside the horse's head. Sophie had been gathering Darling pea, +and had a great sheaf in one hand. Potch was carrying some, too: he had +picked up the flowers Sophie let fall, and had a little bunch of them. +She was riding astride and gazing before her, her eyes wide with a +vision beyond the distant horizon. The wind, a light breeze breathing +now and then, blew her hair out in wisps from her bare head. + +All the men of Warria were in the sombre crowd in the cemetery. Old +Henty, red-eyed and broken by the end of his only son, whom he found he +had cared for now that he was dead; the stockmen, boundary-riders, +servants, fencers, shearers from Darrawingee sheds who, a few weeks +before had been on the Warria board, and men from other stations near +enough to have heard of Arthur Henty's death. None of the Henty women +were there; but women of the Ridge, who were accustomed to pay last +respects as their menfolk did, were with their husbands as usual. They +would have thought it unnatural and unkind not to follow Arthur Henty to +his resting-place; not to go as friends would to say good-bye to a +friend who is making a long journey. And there was more than the +ordinary reason for being present at Arthur Henty's funeral. He was +leaving them under a cloud, circumstances which might be interpreted +unkindly, and it was necessary to be present to express sympathy with +him and sorrow at his going. That was the way they regarded it. + +Martha had driven with Sam Nancarrow, as she always did to functions of +the sort. No one remembered having seen Martha take a thing so to heart +as she did Arthur Henty's death. She was utterly shaken by it, and could +not restrain her tears. They coursed down her cheeks all the time she +was in that quiet place on the plains; her great, motherly bosom rose +and fell with the tide of her grief. She tried to subdue it, but every +now and then the sound of her crying could be heard, and in the end Sam +took her, sobbing uncontrollably, back to his buggy. + +People knew she had seen further into the cause of Arthur Henty's death +than they had, and they understood that was why she Was so upset. +Besides, Martha had always confessed to a soft corner for Arthur Henty: +she had been with his mother when he was born, had nursed him during a +hot summer and through several slight illnesses since then. And Arthur +had been fond of her too. He had always called her Mother M'Cready as +the Ridge folk did. Old Mr. Henty had driven over to see Martha the +night before, to hear all she knew of what had happened, and Ridge folk +had gathered something of the story from her broken exclamations and the +reproaches with which she covered herself. + +She cried out over and over again that she could not have believed +Arthur would shoot himself--that he was the sort of man to do such a +thing--and blamed herself for not having foreseen what had occurred. She +had never seen him like he was that night--so strong, so much a man, so +full of life and love for Sophie. He had begged Sophie to go with him as +though his life depended on it--and it had. + +If she had been a woman, and Sophie, and had loved him, Martha said, she +would have had to go with him. She could never have withstood his +pleading.... But Sophie had been good to him; she had been gentle--only +she wouldn't go. Neither Sophie nor she believed, of course, he would do +as he said--but he had. + +Martha could not forgive herself that she had done nothing to soothe or +pacify Arthur; that she had said nothing, given him neither kindly word +nor gesture. But she had been so upset, so carried away. She had not +known what to do or say. She abused and blackguarded herself; but she +had sensed enough of the utter loneliness and darkness of Henty's mind +to realise that most likely she could have done nothing against it. He +would have brushed her aside had she attempted to influence him; he +would not have heard what, she said. She would have been as helpless as +any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly +engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of +pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of +self-defence, as Mother M'Cready saw it, Arthur Henty's end, and that +was all there was to it. + +As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together +in wonderment, awe--almost fear. + +James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking +to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. +Although he would have been the last to forgive Sophie if she had done +as Arthur wished, even to save his life, old Henty had to have a +whipping-post, and he eased his own sense of responsibility for what had +blighted his son's life, by blaming Sophie for it. He assured himself, +his family and friends, that she, and she alone, was responsible for +Arthur's death. She had played with Arthur; she had always played with +him, old Henty said. She had driven him to distraction with her +wiles--and this was the end of it all. + +Sophie rode into the cemetery: she rode to where the broken earth was; +but she did not dismount. The horse came to a standstill beside it, and +she sat on him, her eyes closed. Potch stood bare-headed and bowed +beside her. He put the flowers he had picked up as Sophie let them fall, +on the grave. Sophie thrust the long, purple trails she was carrying +into the saddle-bag where Arthur had put the flowers she gave him that +first day their eyes met and drank the love potion of each others' +being. + +People were already on the road, horses and buggies, dark, ant-like +trains on the flowering plains, moving slowly in the direction of Warria +and of Fallen Star, when Sophie and Potch turned away from the cemetery. + +The shadow of what had happened was heavy over everybody as they drove +home. Arthur Henty had been well enough liked, and he had had much more +to do with Fallen Star than most of the station people. He had gone +about so much with his men they had almost ceased to think of him as not +one of themselves. He was less the "Boss" than any man in the +back-country. They recognised that, and yet he was the "Boss." He had +lived like a half-caste, drifting between two races and belonging to +neither. The people he had been born among cold-shouldered him because +he had acquired the manners and habits of thought of men he lived and +worked with; the men he had lived and worked with distrusted and +disliked in him just those tag-ends of refinement, and odd graces which +belonged to the crowd he had come to them from. + +The station hands, his work-mates--if he had any--had had a slightly +contemptuous feeling for him. They liked him--they were always saying +they liked him--but it was clear they never had any great opinion of +him. As a boy, when he began to work with them, to cover his shyness and +nervousness, he had been silent and boorish; and he had never had the +courage of his opinions--courage for anything, it was suspected. It had +always been hinted that he shirked any jobs where danger was to be +expected. + +The stockmen told each other they would miss him, all the same. They +would miss that wonderful whistling of his from the camp fires; and they +were appalled at what he had done to himself. "The last man," Charley +Este said, "the last man you'd ever 've thought would 've come to that!" +Most of them believed they had misjudged Arthur Henty--that, after, all, +he had had courage of a sort. A man must have courage to blow out his +light, they said. And they were sorry. Every man in the crowd was heavy +with sorrow. + +Ridge people gossiped pitifully, sentimentally, to each other as they +drove home. Most of the women believed in the strength and fidelity of +the old love between Sophie and Arthur Henty. But straight-dealing and +honest themselves, they had no conception of the tricks complex +personalities play each other; they did not understand how two people +who had really cared for each other could have gone so astray from the +natural impulse of their lives. + +They recalled the dance at Warria, and how they had teased Sophie when +they thought she was going to marry Arthur Henty, and how happy and +pleased she had looked about it. How different both their lives would +have been if Sophie and Arthur had been true to that instinct of the +mate for the mate, they reflected; and sighed at the futility of the +thought. They realised in Arthur Henty's drinking and rough ways of +late, all his unhappiness. They imagined that they knew why he had +become the uncouth-looking man he had. They remembered him a slight, shy +youth, with sun-bright, freckled eyes; then a man, lithe, graceful, and +good to look at, with his face a clear, fine bronze, his hair taking a +glint of copper in the sun. When he danced with them at the Ridge balls, +that occasionally flashing, delightful way of his had made them realise +why Sophie was in love with him. They remembered how he had looked at +Sophie; how his eyes had followed her. They had heard of the Warria +dance, and knew Arthur Henty had not behaved well to Sophie at it. They +had been angry at the time. Then Sophie had gone away ... and a little +later he had married. + +His marriage had not been a success. Mrs. Arthur Henty had spent most of +her time in Sydney; she was rarely seen on the Ridge now. So women of +the Ridge, who had known Arthur Henty, went over all they knew of him +until that night at the race ball when he and Sophie had met again. And +then his end in the tank paddock brought them back to exclamations of +dismay and grief at the mystery of it all. + +As she left the cemetery, Sophie began to sing, listlessly, dreamily at +first. No one had heard her sing since her return to the Ridge. But her +voice flew out over the plains, through the wide, clear air now, with +the pure melody it had when she was a girl: + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà , + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !" + +Ella Bryant, driving home beside Bully, knew Sophie was singing as she +had sung to Arthur Henty years before, when they were coming home from +the tank paddock together. She wondered why Sophie was riding the horse +Arthur had brought for her; why she had ridden him to the funeral; and +why she was singing that song. + +Sophie sang on: + + "Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà , + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !" + +Looking back, people saw Potch walking beside her as Joseph walked +beside Mary when they went down to Nazareth. + +"It's hard on Potch," somebody said. + +"Yes," it was agreed; "it's hard on Potch." + +The buggies, carts, sulkies, and horsemen moving in opposite directions +on the long, curving road over the plains grew dim in the distance. + +The notes of Sophie's singing, with its undying tenderness triumphing +over life and death, flowed fainter and fainter. + +When she and Potch came to the town again, the light was fading. Through +the green, limpid veil of the sky, stars were glittering; huts of the +township were darkening under the gathering shadow of night. A breath of +sandal-wood burning on kitchen hearths came to Sophie and Potch like a +greeting. The notes of a goat-bell clanking dully sounded from beyond +the dumps. There were lights in a few of the huts; a warm, friendly +murmur of voices went up from them. For weeks troubled and disturbed +thinking, arguments, and conflicting ideas, had created a depressed and +unrestful atmosphere in every home in Fallen Star. But to-night it was +different. The temptations, allurements and debris of Armitage's scheme +had been swept from the minds--even of those who had been ready to +accept it. Hope and pride in the purpose of the Ridge had been restored +by Michael's vindication and by reaffirmation of the principle he and +all staunch men of the Ridge stood for as the mainstay of their life in +common. Thought of Arthur Henty's death, which had oppressed people +during the day, seemed to have been put aside now that they had seen him +laid to rest, and had returned to their homes again. + +Voices were heard exclaiming with the light cadence and rhythm of joy. +The crisis which had come near to shattering the Ridge scheme of things, +and all that it stood for, had ended by drawing dissenting factions of +the community into closer sympathy and more intimate relationship. In +everybody's mind were the hope and enthusiasm of a new endeavour. As +they went through the town again, neither Sophie nor Potch were +conscious of them for the sorrow which had soaked into their lives. But +these things were in the air they breathed, and sooner or later would +claim them from all personal suffering; faith and loving service fill +all their future--the long twilight of their days. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +******* This file should be named 36710-0.txt or 36710-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/7/1/36710 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/36710-0.zip b/36710-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b90068 --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-0.zip diff --git a/36710-8.txt b/36710-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2e8e5d --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11906 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Black Opal + + +Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard + + + +Release Date: July 12, 2011 [eBook #36710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +E-text prepared by Amy Sisson & Marc D'Hooghe +(http://www.freeliterature.org) + + + +THE BLACK OPAL + +by + +KATHARINE SUSANNAH PRICHARD + +Author of "The Pioneers," "Windlestraws," Etc. + + + + + + + +London: William Heinemann +1921 + + + + +_PART I_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road +over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains. + +Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, +clear blue sky of early spring, except this train of shabby, +dust-covered vehicles. The road, no more than a track of wheels on +shingly earth, wound lazily through paper daisies growing in drifts +beside it, and throwing a white coverlet to the dim, circling horizon. +The faint, dry fragrance of paper daisies was in the air; a native +cuckoo calling. + +The little girl sitting beside Michael Brady in Newton's buggy glanced +behind her now and then. Michael was driving the old black horse from +the coach stables and Newton's bay mare, and Sophie and her father were +sitting beside him on the front seat. In the open back of the buggy +behind them lay a long box with wreaths and bunches of paper daisies and +budda blossoms over it. + +Sophie knew all the people on the road, and to whom the horses and +buggies they had borrowed belonged. Jun Johnson and Charley Heathfield +were riding together in the Afghan storekeeper's sulky with his fat +white pony before them. Anwah Kaked and Mrs. Kaked had the store cart +themselves. Watty and Mrs. Frost were on the coach. Ed. Ventry was +driving them and had put up the second seat for George and Mrs. Woods +and Maggie Grant. Peter Newton and Cash Wilson followed in Newton's +newly varnished black sulky. Sam Nancarrow had given Martha M'Cready a +lift, and Pony-Fence Inglewood was driving Mrs. Archie and Mrs. Ted +Cross in Robb's old heavy buggy, with the shaggy draught mare used for +carting water in the township during the summer, in the shafts. The +Flails' home-made jinker, whose body was painted a dull yellow, came +last of the vehicles on the road. Sophie could just see Arthur Henty and +two or three stockmen from Warria riding through a thin haze of red +dust. But she knew men were walking two abreast behind the vehicles and +horsemen--Bill Grant, Archie and Ted Cross, and a score of miners from +the Three Mile and the Punti rush. At a curve of the road she had seen +Snow-Shoes and Potch straggling along behind the others, the old man +stooping to pick wild flowers by the roadside, and Potch plodding on, +looking straight in front of him. + +Buggies, horses, and people, they had come all the way from her home at +the Old Town. Almost everybody who lived on Fallen Star Ridge was there, +driving, riding, or walking on the road across the plains behind +Michael, her father, and herself. It was all so strange to Sophie; she +felt so strange in the black dress she had on and which Mrs. Grant had +cut down from one of her own. There was a black ribbon on her old yellow +straw hat too, and she had on a pair of black cotton gloves. + +Sophie could not believe her mother was what they called "dead"; that it +was her mother in the box with flowers on just behind her. They had +walked along this very road, singing and gathering wild flowers, and had +waited to watch the sun set, or the moon rise, so often. + +She glanced at her father. He was sitting beside her, a piece of black +stuff on his arm and a strip of the same material round his old felt +hat. The tears poured down his cheeks, and he shook out the large, new, +white handkerchief he had bought at Chassy Robb's store that morning, +and blew his nose every few minutes. He spoke sometimes to Michael; but +Michael did not seem to hear him. Michael sat staring ahead, his face as +though cut in wood. + +Sophie remembered Michael had been with her when Mrs. Grant said.... Her +mind went back over that. + +"She's dead, Michael," Mrs. Grant had said. + +And she had leaned against the window beside her mother's bed, crying. +Michael was on his knees by the bed. Sophie had thought Michael looked +so funny, kneeling like that, with his head in his hands, his great +heavy boots jutting up from the floor. The light, coming in through the +window near the head of the bed, shone on the nails in the soles of his +boots. It was so strange to see these two people whom she knew quite +well, and whom she had only seen doing quite ordinary, everyday things, +behaving like this. Sophie had gazed at her mother who seemed to be +sleeping. Then Mrs. Grant had come to her, her face working, tears +streaming down her cheeks. She had taken her hand and they had gone out +of the room together. Sophie could not remember what Mrs. Grant had said +to her then.... After a little while Mrs. Grant had gone back to the +room where her mother was, and Sophie went out to the lean-to where +Potch was milking the goats. + +She told him what Mrs. Grant had said about her mother, and he stopped +milking. They had gazed at each other with inquiry and bewilderment in +their eyes; then Potch turned his face away as he sat on the +milking-stool, and Sophie knew he was crying. She wondered why other +people had cried so much and she had not cried at all. + +When Potch was taking the bucket of milk across the yard, her father had +come round the corner of the house. His heavy figure with its broad, +stooping shoulders was outlined against the twilight sky. He made for +the door, shouting incoherently. Sophie and Potch stood still as they +saw him. + +Catching sight of them, he had turned and come towards them. + +"We're on opal," he cried; "on opal!" + +There was a feverish light in his eyes; he was trembling with +excitement. + +He had pulled a small, washed oatmeal bag from his pocket, untied the +string, tumbled some stones on to the outstretched palm of his hand, and +held them for Potch to look at. + +"Not a bad bit in the lot.... Look at the fire, there in the black +potch!... And there's green and gold for you. A lovely bit of pattern! +And look at this ... and this!" he cried eagerly, going over the two or +three small knobbies in his hand. + +Potch looked at him dazedly. + +"Didn't they tell you--?" he began. + +Her father had closed his hands over the stones and opal dirt. + +"I'm going in now," he said, thrusting the opals into the bag. + +He had gone towards the house again, shouting: "We're on opal! On opal!" + +Sophie followed him indoors. Mrs. Grant had met her father on the +threshold of the room where her mother was. + +"Why didn't you come when I sent for you?" she asked. + +"I didn't think it could be as bad as you made out--that she was really +dying," Sophie could hear her father saying again. "And we'd just struck +opal, me and Jun, struck it rich. Got two or three stones already--great +stuff, lovely pattern, green and orange, and fire all through the black +potch. And there's more of it! Heaps more where it came from, Jun says. +We're next Watty and George Woods--and no end of good stuff's come out +of that claim." + +Mrs. Grant stared at him as Potch had done. Then she stood back from the +doorway of the room behind her. + +Every gesture of her father's, of Mrs. Grant's, and of Michael's, was +photographed on Sophie's brain. She could see that room again--the quiet +figure on the bed, light golden-brown hair, threaded with silver, lying +in thin plaits beside the face of yellow ivory; bare, thin arms and +hands lying over grey blankets and a counter-pane of faded red twill; +the window still framing a square of twilight sky on which stars were +glittering. Mrs. Grant had brought a candle and put it on the box near +the bed, and the candle light had flared on Mrs. Grant's figure, showing +it, gaunt and accusing, against the shadows of the room. It had showed +Sophie her father, also, between Michael and Mrs. Grant, looking from +one to the other of them, and to the still figure on the bed, with a +dazed, penitent expression.... + +The horses jogged slowly on the long, winding road. Sophie was conscious +of the sunshine, warm and bright, over the plains, the fragrance of +paper daisies in the air; the cuckoos calling in the distance. Her +father snuffled and wiped his eyes and nose with his new handkerchief as +he sat beside her. + +"She was so good, Michael," he said, "too good for this world." + +Michael did not reply. + +"Too good for this world!" Paul murmured again. + +He had said that at least a score of times this morning. Sophie had +heard him say it to people down at the house before they started. She +had never heard him talk of her mother like that before. She looked at +him, sensing vaguely, and resenting the banality. She thought of him as +he had always been with her mother and with her, querulous and +complaining, or noisy and rough when he had been drinking. They had +spent the night in a shed at the back of the house sometimes when he was +like that.... + +And her mother had said: + +"You'll take care of Sophie, Michael?" + +Sophie remembered how she had stood in the doorway of her mother's room, +that afternoon--How long ago was it? Not only a day surely? She had +stood there until her mother had seen her, awed without knowing why, +reluctant to move, afraid almost. Michael had nodded without speaking. + +"As though she were your own child?" + +"So help me, God," Michael said. + +Her-mother's eyes had rested on Michael's face. She had smiled at him. +Sophie did not think she had ever seen her smile like that before, +although her smile had always been like a light on her face. + +"Don't let him take her away," her mother had said after a moment. "I +want her to grow up in this place ... in the quiet ... never to know the +treacherous ... whirlpool ... of life beyond the Ridge." + +Then her mother had seen and called to her. + +Sophie glanced back at the slowly-moving train of vehicles. They had a +dreary, dream-like aspect. She felt as if she were moving in a dream. +Everything she saw, and heard, and did, was invested with unreality; she +had a vague, unfeeling curiosity about everything. + +"You see, Michael," her father was saying when she heard him talking +again, "we'd just got out that big bit when Potch came and said that +Marya ... that Marya.... I couldn't believe it was true ... and there +was the opal! And when I got home in the evening she was gone. My poor +Marya! And I'd brought some of the stones to show her." + +He broke down and wept. "Do you think she knows about the opal, +Michael?" + +Michael did not reply. Sophie looked up at him. The pain of his face, a +sudden passionate grieving that wrung it, translated to her what this +dying of her mother meant. She huddled against Michael; in all her +trouble and bewilderment there seemed nothing to do but to keep close to +Michael. + +And so they came to the gate of a fenced plot which was like a quiet +garden on the plains. Several young coolebahs, and two or three older +trees standing in it, scattered light shade; and a few head-stones and +wooden crosses, painted white or bleached by the weather, showed above +the waving grass and wild flowers. + +Sophie held the reins when Michael got down to open the gate. Then he +took his seat again and they drove in through the gateway. Other people +tied their horses and buggies to the fence outside. + +When all the people who had been driving, riding, or walking on the road +went towards an old coolebah under which the earth had been thrown up +and a grave had been dug, Michael told Sophie to go with her father and +stand beside them. She did so, and dull, grieving eyes were turned to +her; glances of pitiful sympathy. But Snow-Shoes came towards the little +crowd beside the tree, singing. + +He was the last person to come into the cemetery, and everybody stared +at him. An old man in worn white moleskins and cotton shirt, an old +white felt hat on his head, the wrappings of bag and leather, which gave +him his name, on his feet--although snow never fell on the Ridge--he +swung towards them. The flowers he had gathered as he came along, not +otilypaper daisies, but the blue flowers of crowsfoot, gold buttons, and +creamy and lavender, sweet-scented budda blossoms, were done up in a +tight little bunch in his hand. He drew nearer still singing under his +breath, and Sophie realised he was going over and over the fragment of a +song that her mother had loved and used often to sing herself. + +There was a curious smile in his eyes as he came to a standstill beside +her. The leaves of the coolebah were bronze and gold in the sunshine, a +white-tail in its branches reiterating plaintively: "Sweet pretty +creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael, George Woods, Archie Cross, +and Cash Wilson, came towards the tree, their shoulders bowed beneath +the burden they were carrying; but Snow-Shoes smiled at everybody as +though this were really a joyous occasion, and they did not understand. +Only he understood, and smiled because of his secret knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +In a week or two Mrs. Rouminof's name had dropped out of Ridge life +almost as if she had never been part of it. + +At first people talked of her, of Paul, of Sophie, and of Michael. They +gossiped of her looks and manner, of her strange air of serenity and +content, although her life on the Ridge was, they surmised, a hard one, +and different from the life she had come from. But her death caused no +more disturbance than a stone thrown into quiet water, falling to the +bottom, does. No one was surprised, when it was known Paul and Sophie +had gone to live with Michael. Everyone expected Michael would try to +look after them for a while, although they could not imagine where he +was going to find room for them in his small house filled with books. + +It was natural enough that Michael should have taken charge of Sophie +and Rouminof, and that he should have made all arrangements for Mrs. +Rouminof's funeral. If it had been left to Paul to bury his wife, people +agreed, she would not have been buried at all; or, at least, not until +the community insisted. And Michael would have done as much for any +shiftless man. He was next-of-kin to all lonely and helpless men and +women on the Ridge, Michael Brady. + +Every man, woman, or child on the Ridge knew Michael. His lean figure in +shabby blue dungarees, faded shirt, and weathered felt hat, with no more +than a few threads of its band left, was as familiar as any tree, shed, +or dump on the fields. He walked with a slight stoop, a pipe in his +mouth always, his head bent as though he were thinking hard; but there +was no hard thought in his eyes, only meditativeness, and a faint smile +if he were stopped and spoken to unexpectedly. + +"You're a regular 'cyclopædia, Michael," the men said sometimes when he, +had given information on a subject they were discussing. + +"Not me," Michael would reply as often as not. "I just came across that +in a book I was reading the other day." + +Ridge folk were proud of Michael's books, and strangers who saw his +miscellaneous collection--mostly of cheap editions, old school books, +and shilling, sixpenny, and penny publications of literary masterpieces, +poetry, and works on industrial and religious subjects--did not wonder +that it impressed Ridge folk, or that Michael's knowledge of the world +and affairs was what it was. He had tracts, leaflets, and small books on +almost every subject under the sun. Books were regarded as his Weakness, +and, remembering it, some of the men, when they had struck opal and left +the town, occasionally sent a box of any old books they happened to come +across to Michael, knowing that a printed page was a printed page to him +in the long evenings when he lay on the sofa under his window. Michael +himself had spent all the money he could, after satisfying the needs of +his everyday life, on those tracts, pamphlets, and cheap books he +hoarded in his hut on shelves made from wooden boxes and old +fruit-cases. + +But there was nothing of the schoolmaster about him. He rarely gave +information unless he was asked for it. The men appreciated that, +although they were proud of his erudition and books. They knew dimly but +surely that Michael used his books for, not against, themselves; and he +was attached to books and learning, chiefly for what they could do for +them, his mates. In all community discussions his opinion carried +considerable weight. A matter was often talked over with more or less +heat, differences of opinion thrashed out while Michael smoked and +listened, weighing the arguments. He rarely spoke until his view was +asked for. Then in a couple of minutes he would straighten out the +subject of controversy, show what was to be said for and against a +proposition, sum up, and give his conclusions, for or against it. + +Michael Brady, however, was much more the general utility man than +encyclopædia of Fallen Star Ridge. If a traveller--swagman--died on the +road, it was Michael who saw he got a decent burial; Michael who was +sent for if a man had his head smashed in a brawl, or a wife died +unexpectedly. He was the court of final appeal in quarrels and +disagreements between mates; and once when Martha M'Cready was away in +Sydney, he had even brought a baby into the world. He was something of a +dentist, too, honorary dentist to anyone on the Ridge who wanted a tooth +pulled out; and the friend of any man, woman, or child in distress. + +And he did things so quietly, so much as a matter of course, that people +did not notice what he did for them, or for the rest of the Ridge. They +took it for granted he liked doing what he did; that he liked helping +them. It was his sympathy, the sense of his oneness with all their +lives, and his shy, whimsical humour and innate refusal to be anything +more than they were, despite his books and the wisdom with which they +were quite willing to credit him, that gained for Michael the regard of +the people of the Ridge, and made him the unconscious power he was in +the community. + +Of about middle height, and sparely built, Michael was forty-five, or +thereabouts, when Mrs. Rouminof died. He looked older, yet had the +vigour and energy of a much younger man. Crowsfeet had gathered at the +corners of his eyes, and there were the fines beneath them which all +back-country men have from screwing their sight against the brilliant +sunshine of the north-west. But the white of his eyes was as clear as +the shell of a bird's egg, the irises grey, flecked with hazel and +green, luminous, and ringed with fine black lines. When he pushed back +his hat, half a dozen lines from frowning against the glare were on his +forehead too. His thin, black hair, streaked with grey, lay flat across +and close to his head. He had a well-shaped nose and the sensitive +nostrils of a thoroughbred, although Michael himself said he was no +breed to speak of, but plain Australian--and proud of it. His father was +born in the country, and so was his mother. His father had been a +teemster, and his mother a storekeeper's daughter. Michael had wandered +from one mining field to another in his young days. He had worked in +Bendigo and Gippsland; later in Silver Town; and from the Barrier Ranges +had migrated to Chalk Cliffs, and from the Cliffs to Fallen Star Ridge. +He had been one of the first comers to the Ridge when opal was +discovered there. + +The Rouminofs had been on Chalk Cliffs too, and had come to the Ridge in +the early days of the rush. Paul had set up at the Cliffs as an opal +buyer, it was said; but he knew very little about opal. Anybody could +sell him a stone for twice as much as it was worth, and he could never +get a price from other buyers for the stones he bought. He soon lost any +money he possessed, and had drifted and swung with the careless life of +the place. He had worked as a gouger for a while when the blocks were +bought up. Then when the rush to the Ridge started, and most of the men +tramped north to try their luck on the new fields, he went with them; +and Mrs. Rouminof and Sophie followed a little later on Ed. Ventry's +bullock wagon, when Ed. was taking stores to the rush. + +Mrs. Rouminof had lived in a hut at the Old Town even after the township +was moved to the eastern slope of the Ridge. She had learnt a good deal +about opal on the Cliffs, and soon after she came to the Ridge set up a +cutting-wheel, and started cutting and polishing stones. Several of the +men brought her their stones, and after a while she was so good at her +work that she often added a couple of pounds to the value of a stone. +She kept a few goats too, to assure a means of livelihood when there was +no opal about, and she sold goats' milk and butter in the township. She +had never depended on Rouminof to earn a living, which was just as well, +Fallen Star folk agreed, since, as long as they had known him, he had +never done so. For a long time he had drifted between the mines and +Newton's, cadging drinks or borrowing money from anybody who would lend +to him. Sometimes he did odd jobs at Newton's or the mail stables for +the price of a few drinks; but no man who knew him would take up a +claim, or try working a mine with him. + +His first mate on the Ridge had been Pony-Fence Inglewood. They sank a +hole on a likely spot behind the Old Town; but Paul soon got tired of +it. When they had not seen anything but bony potch for a while, Paul +made up his mind there was nothing in the place. Pony-Fence rather liked +it. He was for working a little longer, but to oblige his mate he agreed +to sink again. Soon after they had started, Paul began to appear at the +dump when the morning was half through, or not at all. Or, as often as +not, when he did decide to sling a pick, or dig a bit, he groaned so +about the pains in his back or his head that as often as not Pony-Fence +told him to go home and get the missus to give him something for it. + +The mildest man on the fields, Pony-Fence Inglewood did not discover for +some time what the boys said was correct. There was nothing the matter +with Rum-Enough but a dislike of shifting mullock if he could get anyone +to shift it for him. When he did discover he was doing the work of the +firm, Pony-Fence and Paul had it out with each other, and parted +company. Pony-Fence took a new mate, Bully Bryant, a youngster from +Budda, who was anxious to put any amount of elbow grease into his search +for a fortune, and Paul drifted. He had several mates afterwards, +newcomers to the fields, who wanted someone to work with them, but they +were all of the same opinion about him. + +"Tell Rum-Enough there's a bit of colour about, and he'll work like a +chow," they said; "but if y' don't see anything for a day or two, he +goes as flat as the day before yesterday." + +If he had been working, and happened on a knobby, or a bit of black +potch with a light or two in it, Paul was like a child, crazy with +happiness. He could talk of nothing else. He thought of nothing else. He +slung his pick and shovelled dirt as long as you would let him, with a +devouring impatience, in a frenzy of eagerness. The smallest piece of +stone with no more than sun-flash was sufficient to put him in a state +of frantic excitement. + +Strangers to the Ridge sometimes wanted to know whether Rouminof had +ever had a touch of the sun. But Ridge folk knew he was not mad. He had +the opal fever all right, they said, but he was not mad. + +When Jun Johnson blew along at the end of one summer and could not get +anyone to work with him, he took Paul on. The two chummed up and started +to sink a hole together, and the men made bets as to the chance of their +ever getting ten or a dozen feet below ground; but before long they were +astounded to see the old saw of setting a thief to catch a thief working +true in this instance. If anybody was loafing on the new claim, it was +not Rouminof. He did every bit of his share of the first day's hard pick +work and shovelling. If anybody was slacking, it was Jun rather than +Paul. Jun kept his mate's nose to the grindstone, and worked more +successfully with him than anyone else had ever done. He knew it, too, +and was proud of his achievement. Joking over it at Newton's in the +evening, he would say: + +"Great mate I've got now! Work? Never saw a chow work like him! Work his +fingers to the bone, he would, if I'd let him. It's a great life, a +gouger's, if only you've got the right sort of mate!" + +Ordinarily, of course, mates shared their finds. There was no question +of what partners would get out of the luck of one or the other. But +Jun--he had his own little way of doing business, everybody knew. He had +been on the Ridge before. He and his mate did not have any sensational +luck, but they had saved up two or three packets of opal and taken them +down to Sydney to sell. Old Bill Olsen was his mate then, and, although +Bill had said nothing of the business, the men guessed there had been +something shady about it. Jun had his own story of what happened. He +said the old chap had "got on his ear" in Sydney, and that "a couple of +spielers had rooked him of his stones." But Bill no longer noticed Jun +if they passed each other on the same track on the Ridge, and Jun +pretended to be sore about it. + +"It's dirt," he said, "the old boy treating me as if I had anything to +do with his bad luck losin' those stones!" + +"Why don't you speak to him about it?" somebody asked. + +"Oh, we had it out in Sydney," Jun replied, "and it's no good raking the +whole thing up again. Begones is bygones--that's my motto. But if any +man wants to have a grudge against me, well, let him. It's a free +country. That's all I've got to say. Besides, the poor old cuss isn't +all there, perhaps." + +"Don't you fret," Michael had said, "he's all right. He's got as much +there as you or me, or any of us for that matter." + +"Oh well, you know, Michael," Jun declared. He was not going to quarrel +with Michael Brady. "What you say goes, anyhow!" + +That was how Jun established himself anywhere. He had an easy, +plausible, good-natured way. All the men laughed and drank with him and +gave him grudging admiration, notwithstanding the threads and shreds of +resentments and distrusts which old stories of his dealings, even with +mates, had put in their minds. None of those stories had been proved +against him, his friends said, Charley Heathfield among them. That was a +fact. But there were too many of them to be good for any man's soul, +Ridge men, who took Jun with a grain of salt, thought--Michael Brady, +George Woods, Archie Cross, and Watty Frost among them; but Charley +Heathfield, Michael's mate, had struck up a friendship with Jun since +his return to the Ridge. + +George Woods and the Crosses said it was a case of birds of a feather, +but they did not say that to Michael. They knew Michael had the sort of +affection for Charley that a man has for a dog he has saved from +drowning. + +Charley Heathfield had been down on his luck when he went to the Ridge, +his wife and a small boy with him; and the rush which he had expected to +bring him a couple of hundred pounds' worth of opal at least, if it did +not make his fortune, had left him worse off than it found him--a piece +of debris in its wake. He and Rouminof had put down a shaft together, +and as neither of them, after the first few weeks, did any more work +than they could help, and were drunk or quarrelling half of their time, +nothing came of their efforts. + +Charley, when his wife died, was ill himself, and living in a hut a few +yards from Michael's. She had been a waitress in a city restaurant, and +he had married her, he said, because she could carry ten dishes of hot +soup on one arm and four trays on the other. A tall, stolid, pale-faced +woman, she had hated the back-country and her husband's sense of humour, +and had fretted herself to death rather than endure them. Charley had no +particular opinion of himself or of her. He called his youngster +Potch--"a little bit of Potch," he said, because the kid would never be +anything better than poor opal at the best of times. + +Michael had nursed Charley while he was ill during that winter, and had +taken him in hand when he was well enough to get about again. Charley +was supposed to have weak lungs; but better food, steady habits, and the +fine, dry air of a mild summer set him up wonderfully. Snow-Shoes had +worked with Michael for a long time; he said that he was getting too old +for the everyday toil of the mine, though, when Michael talked of taking +on Charley to work with them. It would suit him all right if Michael +found another mate. Michael and Charley Heathfield had worked together +ever since, and Snow-Shoes had made his living as far as anybody knew by +noodling on the dumps. + +But Charley and Michael had not come on a glimmer of opal worth speaking +of for nearly twelve months. They were hanging on to their claim, hoping +each day they would strike something good. There is a superstition among +the miners that luck often changes when it seems at its worst. Both +Charley and Michael had storekeeper's accounts as long as their arms, +and the men knew if their luck did not change soon, one or the other of +them would have to go over to Warria, or to one of the other stations, +and earn enough money there to keep the other going on the claim. + +They had no doubt it would be Michael who would have to go. Charley was +not fond of work, and would be able to loaf away his time very +pleasantly on the mine, making only a pretence of doing anything, until +Michael returned. They wondered why Michael did not go and get a move +into his affairs at once. Paul and Sophie might have-something to do +with his putting off going, they told each other; Michael was anxious +how Paul and his luck would fare when it was a question of squaring up +with Jun, and as to how the squaring up, when it came, would affect +Sophie. + +Some of them had been concerning themselves on Paul's account also. They +did not like a good deal they had seen of the way Jun was using Paul, +and they had resolved to see he got fair play when it was time for a +settlement of his and Jun's account. George Woods, Watty Frost, and Bill +Grant went along to talk the matter over with Michael one evening, and +found him fixing a shed at the back of the hut which he and Potch had +put up for Sophie and her father, a few yards from Charley Heathfield's, +and in line with Michael's own hut at the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"Paul says he's going away if he gets a good thing out of his and Jun's +find," George Woods said. + +"It'll be a good thing--if he gets a fair deal," Michael replied. + +"He'll get that--if we can fix it," Watty Frost said. + +"Yes," Michael agreed. + +"Can't think why you're taking so much trouble with this place if Paul +and Sophie are going away soon, Michael," George Woods remarked at the +end of their talk. + +"They're not gone yet," Michael said, and went on fastening a sapling +across the brushwood he had laid over the roof of the shed. + +The men laughed. They knew Paul well enough to realise that there was no +betting on what he would or would not do. They understood Michael did +not approve of his plans for Sophie. Nobody did. But what was to be +done? If Paul had the money and got the notion into his head that it +would be a good thing to go away, Sophie and he would probably go away. +But the money would not last, people thought; then Sophie and her father +would come back to the Ridge again, or Michael would go to look for +them. Being set adrift on the world with no one to look after her would +be hard on Sophie, it was agreed, but nobody saw how Rouminof was to be +prevented from taking her away if he wanted to. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The unwritten law of the Ridge was that mates pooled all the opal they +found and shared equally, so that all Jun held was Rouminof's, and all +that he held was Jun's. Ordinarily one man kept the lot, and as Jun was +the better dealer and master spirit, it was natural enough he should +hold the stones, or, at any rate, the best of them. But Rouminof was +like a child with opal. He wanted some of the stones to handle, polish +up a bit, and show round. Jun humoured him a good deal. He gave Paul a +packet of the stuff they had won to carry round himself. He was better +tempered and more easy-going with Rouminof, the men admitted, than most +of them would have been; but they could not believe Jun was going to +deal squarely by him. + +Jun and his mate seemed on the best of terms. Paul followed him about +like a dog, referring to him, quoting him, and taking his word for +everything. And Jun was openly genial with Paul, and talked of the times +they were going to have when they went down to Sydney together to sell +their opal. + +Paul was never tired of showing his stones, and almost every night at +Newton's he spread them out on a table, looked them over, and held them +up to admiration. It was good stuff, but the men who had seen Jun's +package knew that he had kept the best stones. + +For a couple of weeks after they had come on their nest of knobbies, Jun +and Paul had gouged and shovelled dirt enthusiastically; but the wisp +fires, mysteriously and suddenly as they had come, had died out of the +stone they moved. Paul searched frantically. He and Jun worked like +bullocks; but the luck which had flashed on them was withdrawn. Although +they broke new tunnels, went through tons of opal dirt with their hands, +and tracked every trace of black potch through a reef of cement stone in +the mine, not a spark of blue or green light had they seen for over a +week. That was the way of black opal, everybody knew, and knew, too, +that the men who had been on a good patch of fired stone would not work +on a claim, shovelling dirt, long after it disappeared. They would be +off down to Sydney, if no buyer was due to visit the fields, eager to +make the most of the good time their luck and the opal would bring them. +"Opal only brings you bad luck when you don't get enough of it," Ridge +folk say. + +George and Watty had a notion Jun would not stick to the claim much +longer, when they arranged the night at Newton's to settle his and +Paul's account with each other. Michael, the Crosses, Cash Wilson, +Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Bully Bryant, old Bill Olsen, and most +of the staunch Ridge men were in the bar, Charley Heathfield drinking +with Jun, when George Woods strolled over to the table where Rouminof +was showing Sam Nancarrow his stones. Sam was blacksmith, undertaker, +and electoral registrar in Fallen Star, and occasionally did odd +butchering jobs when there was no butcher in the township. He had the +reputation, too, of being one of the best judges of black opal on the +fields. + +Paul was holding up a good-looking knobby so that red, green, and gold +lights glittered through its shining potch as he moved it. + +"That's a nice bit of stone you've got, Rummy!" George exclaimed. + +Paul agreed. "But you should see her by candle light, George!" he said +eagerly. + +He held up the stone again so that it caught the light of a lamp hanging +over the bar where Peter Newton was standing. The eyes of two or three +of the men followed the stone as Paul moved it, and its internal fires +broke in showers of sparks. + +"Look, look!" Paul cried, "now she's showin'!" + +"How much have you got on her?" Sam Nancarrow asked. + +"Jun thinks she'll bring £50 or £60 at least." + +Sam's and George Woods' eyes met: £50 was a liberal estimate of the +stone's value. If Paul got £10 or £15 for it he would be doing well, +they knew. + +"They're nice stones, aren't they?" Paul demanded, sorting over the +opals he had spread out on the table. He held up a piece of green potch +with a sun-flash through it. + +"My oath!" George Woods exclaimed. + +"But where's the big beaut.?" Archie Cross asked, looking over the +stones with George. + +"Oh, Jun's got her," Paul replied. "Jun!" he called, "the boys want to +see the big stone." + +"Right!" Jun swung across to the table. Several of the men by the bar +followed him. "She's all right," he said. + +He sat down, pulled a shabby leather wallet from his pocket, opened it, +and took out a roll of dirty flannel; he undid the flannel carefully, +and spread the stones on the table. There were several pieces of opal in +the packet. The men, who had seen them before separately, uttered soft +oaths of admiration and surprise when they saw all the opals together. +Two knobbies were as big as almonds, and looked like black almonds, +fossilised, with red fire glinting through their green and gold; a large +flat stone had stars of red, green, amethyst, blue and gold shifting +over and melting into each other; and several smaller stones, all good +stuff, showed smouldering fire in depths of green and blue and gold-lit +darkness. + +Jun held the biggest of the opals at arm's length from the light of the +hanging lamp. The men followed his movement, the light washing their +faces as it did the stone. + +"There she goes!" Paul breathed. + +"What have you got on her?" + +"A hundred pounds, or thereabouts." + +"You'll get it easy!" + +Jun put the stone down. He took up another, a smaller piece of opal, of +even finer quality. The stars were strewn over and over each other in +its limpid black pool. + +"Nice pattern," he said. + +"Yes," Watty Frost murmured. + +"She's not as big as the other ... but better pattern," Archie Cross +said. + +"Reckon you'll get £100 for her too, Jun?" + +"Yup!" Jun put down the stone. + +Then he held up each stone in turn, and the men gave it the same level, +appraising glance. There was no envy in their admiration. In every man's +eyes was the same worshipful appreciation of black opal. + +Jun was drunk with his luck. His luck, as much as Newton's beer, was in +his head this night. He had shown his stones before, but never like +this, the strength of his luck. + +"How much do you think there is in your packet, Jun?" Archie Cross +asked. + +Jun stretched his legs under the table. + +"A thou' if there's a penny." + +Archie whistled. + +"And how much do you reckon there is in Rum-Enough's?" George Woods put +the question. + +"Four or five hundred," Jun said; "but we're evens, of course." + +He leaned across the table and winked at George. + +"Oh, I say," Archie protested, "what's the game?" + +They knew Jun wanted them to believe he was joking, humouring Paul. But +that was not what they had arranged this party for. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones, Jun?" + +"What?" + +Jun started and stared about him. It was so unusual for one man to +suggest to another what he ought to do, or that there was anything like +bad faith in his dealings with his mates, that his blood rose. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones?" George repeated, +mildly eyeing him over the bowl of his pipe. + +"Yes," Watty butted in, "Rummy ought to hold a few of the good stones, +Jun. Y' see, you might be run into by rats ... or get knocked out--and +have them shook off you, like Oily did down in Sydney--and it'd be hard +on Rummy, that--" + +"When I want your advice about how me and my mate's going to work +things, I'll ask you," Jun snarled. + +"We don't mind giving it before we're asked, Jun," Watty explained +amiably. + +Archie Cross leaned across the table. "How about giving Paul a couple of +those bits of decent pattern--if you stick to the big stone?" he said. + +"What's the game?" Jun demanded, sitting up angrily. His hand went over +his stones. + +"Wait on, Jun!" Michael said. "We're not thieves here. You don't have to +grab y'r stones." + +Jun looked about him. He saw that men of the Ridge, in the bar, were all +standing round the table. Only Peter Newton was left beside the bar, +although Charley Heathfield, on the outer edge of the crowd, regarded +him with a smile of faint sympathy and cynicism. Paul leaned over the +table before him, and looked from Jun to the men who had fallen in round +the table, a dazed expression broadening on his face. + +"What the hell's the matter?" Jun cried, starting to his feet. "What are +you chaps after? Can't I manage me own affairs and me mate's?" + +The crowd moved a little, closer to him. There was no chance of making a +break for it. + +George Woods laughed. + +"Course you can't, Jun!" he said. "Not on the Ridge, you can't manage +your affairs and your mate's ... your way ... Not without a little +helpful advice from the rest of us.... Sit down!" + +Jun glanced about him again; then, realising the intention on every +face, and something of the purpose at the back of it, he sat down again. + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I see--you believe old Olsen's +story. That's about the strength of it. Never thought ... a kid, or a +chicken, 'd believe that bloody yarn. Well, what's the advice ... boys? +Let's have it, and be done with it!" + +"We'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. We won't say anything about ... +why," George remarked. "But the boys and I was just thinking it might be +as well if you and Rum-Enough sort of shared up the goods now, and then +... if he doesn't want to go to Sydney same time as you, Jun, he can +deal his goods here, or when he does go." + +No one knew better than Jun the insult which all this seemingly +good-natured talking covered. He knew that neither he, nor any other +man, would have dared to suggest that Watty, or George, or Michael, were +not to be trusted to deal for their mates, to the death even. But then +he knew, too, they were to be trusted; that there was not money enough +in the world to buy their loyalty to each other and to their mates, and +that he could measure their suspicion of his good faith by his knowledge +of himself. To play their game as they would have played it was the only +thing for him to do, he recognised. + +"Right!" he said, "I'm more than willing. In fact, I wouldn't have the +thing on me mind--seein' the way you chaps 've taken it. But 'd like to +know which one of you wouldn't 've done what I've done if Rum-Enough was +your mate?" + +Every man was uneasily conscious that Jun was right. Any one of them, if +he had Paul for a mate, would have taken charge of the most valuable +stones, in Paul's interest as well as his own. At the same time, every +man felt pretty sure the thing was a horse of another colour where Jun +was concerned. + +"Which one of us," George Woods inquired, "if a mate'd been set on by a +spieler in Sydney, would've let him stump his way to Brinarra and foot +it out here ... like you let old Olsen?" + +Jun's expression changed; his features blenched, then a flame of blood +rushed over his face. + +"It's a lie," he yelled. "He cleared out--I never saw him afterwards!" + +"Oh well," George said, "we'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. Let's have a +look at that flat stone." + +Jun handed him the stone. + +George held it to the light. + +"Nice bit of opal," he said, letting the light play over it a moment, +then passed it on to Michael and Watty. + +"You keep the big stone, and Paul'll have this," Archie Cross said. + +He put the stone beside Paul's' little heap of gems. + +Jun sat back in his chair: his eyes smouldering as the men went over his +opals, appraising and allotting each one, putting some before Rouminof, +and some back before him. They dealt as judicially with the stones as +though they were a jury of experts, on the case--as they really were. +When their decisions were made, Jun had still rather the better of the +stones, although the division had been as nearly fair as possible. + +Paul was too dazed and amazed to speak. He glanced dubiously from his +stones to Jun, who rolled his opals back in the strip of dirty flannel, +folded it into his leather wallet, and dropped that into his coat +pocket. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. + +Big and swarthy, with eyes which took a deeper colour from the new blue +shirt he had on, Jun stood an inch or so above the other men. + +"Well," he said, "you boys have put it across me to-night. You've made a +mistake ... but I'm not one to bear malice. You done right if you +thought I wasn't going to deal square by Rum-Enough ... but I'll lay you +any money you like I'd 've made more money for him by selling his stones +than he'll make himself--Still, that's your business ... if you want it +that way. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm just where I was--in luck. +And you chaps owe me something.... Come and have a drink." + +Most of the men, who believed Jun was behaving with better grace than +they had expected him to, moved off to have a drink with him. They were +less sure than they had been earlier in the evening that they had done +Rouminof a good turn by giving him possession of his share of the opals. +It was just on the cards, they realised as Jun said, that instead of +doing Rouminof a good turn, if Jun had been going to deal squarely by +him, they had done him a rather bad one. Paul was pretty certain to make +a mess of trading his own stones, and to get about half their value from +an opal-buyer if he insisted on taking them down to Sydney to sell +himself. + +"What'll you do now your fortune's fixed up, Rummy?" George Woods asked, +jokingly, when he and two or three men were left with Paul by the table. + +"I'll get out of this," Paul said. "We'll go down to Sydney--me and +Sophie--and we'll say good-bye to the Ridge for good." + +The men laughed. It was the old song of an outsider who cared nothing +for the life of the Ridge, when he got a couple of hundred pounds' worth +of opal. He thought he was made for life and would never come back to +the Ridge; but he always did when his money was spent. Only Michael, +standing a little behind George Woods, did not smile. + +"But you can't live for ever on three or four hundred quid," Watty Frost +said. + +"No," Paul replied eagerly, "but I can always make a bit playing at +dances, and Sophie's going to be a singer. You wait till people hear her +sing.... Her mother was a singer. She had a beautiful voice. When it +went we came here.... But Sophie can sing as well as her mother. And +she's young. She ought to make a name for herself." + +He wrapped the stones before him in a piece of wadding, touching them +reverently, and folded them into the tin cigarette box Michael had given +him to carry about the first stones Jun had let him have. He was still +mystified over the business of the evening, and why the boys had made +Jun give him the other stones. He had been quite satisfied for Jun to +hold most of the stones, and the best ones, as any man on the Ridge +would be for his mate to take care of their common property. There was a +newspaper lying on the table. He took it, wrapped it carefully about his +precious box, tied a piece of strong string round it, and let the box +down carefully into the big, loose pocket of his shabby coat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Watty and George were well satisfied with their night's work when they +went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said +nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as they were at +what had been done and the way in which it had been done. Michael was +always chary of words, and all night they had noticed that what they +called his "considering cap" had been well drawn over his brows. He +stood smoking beside them and listening abstractedly to what they were +saying. + +"Well, that's fixed him," Watty remarked, glancing back into the room +they had just left. + +Jun was leaning over the bar talking to Newton, the light from the lamp +above, on his red, handsome face, and cutting the bulk of his head and +shoulders from the gloom of the room and the rest of the men about him. +Peter Newton was serving drinks, and Jun laughing and joking +boisterously as he handed them on to the men. + +"He's a clever devil!" George exclaimed. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +"Shouldn't wonder if he didn't clear out by the coach to-morrow," George +said. + +"Nor me," Watty grunted. + +"Well, he won't be taking Paul with him." + +"Not to-morrow." + +"No." + +"But Rummy's going down to town soon as he can get, he says." + +"Yes." + +"Say, Michael, why don't you try scarin' him about losing his stones +like Bill Olsen did?" + +"I have." + +"What does he say?" + +"Says," Michael smiled, "the sharks won't get any of his money or opal." + +Watty snuffed contemptuously by way of exclamation. + +"Well, I'll be getting along," Michael added, and talked away in the +direction of his hut. + +George and Watty watched his spare figure sway down the road between the +rows of huts which formed the Fallen Star township. It was a misty +moonlight night, and the huts stood dark against the sheening screen of +sky, with here and there a glow of light through open doorways, or +small, square window panes. + +"It's on Michael's mind, Rum-Enough's going and taking Sophie with him," +George, said. + +"I don't wonder," Watty replied. "He'll come a cropper, sure as eggs.... +And what's to become of her? Michael 'd go to town with them if he had a +bean--but he hasn't. He's stony, I know." + +Even to his mate he did not say why he knew, and George did not ask, +understanding Watty's silence. It was not very long since George himself +had given Michael a couple of pounds; but he had a very good idea +Michael had little to do with the use of that money. He guessed that he +would have less to do with whatever he got from Watty. + +"Charley's going over to Warria to-morrow, isn't he?" he asked. + +Watty grunted. "About time he did something. Michael's been grafting for +him for a couple of years ... and he'd have gone to the station +himself--only he didn't want to go away till he knew what Paul was going +to do. Been trying pretty hard to persuade him to leave Sophie--till +he's fixed up down town--but you wouldn't believe how obstinate the +idiot is. Thinks he can make a singer of her in no time ... then she'll +keep her old dad till kingdom come." + +Michael's figure was lost to sight between the trees which encroached on +the track beyond the town. Jun was singing in the hotel. His great +rollicking voice came to George and Watty with shouts of laughter. +George, looking back through the open door, saw Rouminof had joined the +crowd round the bar. + +He was drinking as George's glance fell on him. + +"Think he's all right?" Watty asked. + +George did not reply. + +"You don't suppose Jun 'd try to take the stones off of him, do you, +George?" Watty inquired again. "You don't think----?" + +"I don't suppose he'd dare, seein' we've ... let him know how we feel." + +George spoke slowly, as if he were not quite sure of what he was saying. + +"He knows his hide'd suffer if he tried." + +"That's right." + +Archie Cross came from the bar and joined them. + +"He's trying to make up to the boys--he likes people to think he's +Christmas, Jun," he said, "and he just wants 'em to forget that +anything's been said--detrimental to his character like." + +George was inclined to agree with Archie. They went to the form against +the wall of the hotel and sat there smoking for a while; then all three +got up to go home. + +"You don't think we ought to see Rummy home?" Watty inquired +hesitatingly. + +He was ashamed to suggest that Rouminof, drunk, and with four or five +hundred pounds' worth of opal in his pockets, was not as safe as if his +pockets were empty. But Jun had brought a curious unrest into the +community. Watty, or Archie, or George, themselves would have walked +about with the same stuff in their pockets without ever thinking anybody +might try to put a finger on it. + +None of the three looked at each other as they thought over the +proposition. Then Archie spoke: + +"I told Ted," he murmured apologetically, "to keep an eye on Rummy, as +he's coming home. If there's rats about, you never can tell what may +happen. We ain't discovered yet who put it over on Rummy and Jun on the +day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. So I just worded Ted to keep an eye on +the old fool. He comes our track most of the way ... And if he's tight, +he might start sheddin' his stones out along the road--you never can +tell." + +George Woods laughed. The big, genial soul of the man looked out of his +eyes. + +"That's true," he said heartily. + +Archie and he smiled into each other's eyes. They understood very well +what lay behind Archie's words; They could not bring themselves to admit +there was any danger to the sacred principle of Ridge life, that a mate +stands by a mate, in letting Rouminof wander home by himself. He might +be in danger if there were rats about; they would admit that. But rats, +the men who sneaked into other men's mines when they were on good stuff, +and took out their opal during the night, were never Ridge men. They +were new-comers, outsiders, strangers on the rushes, who had not learnt +or assimilated Ridge ideas. + +After a few minutes George turned away. "Well, good-night, Archie," he +said. + +Watty moved after him. + +"'Night!" Archie replied. + +George and Watty went along the road together, and Archie walked off in +the direction Michael had taken. + +But Michael had not gone home. When the trees screened him from sight, +he had struck out across the Ridge, then, turning back on his tracks +behind the town, had made towards the Warria road. He walked, thinking +hard, without noticing where he was going, his mind full of Paul, of +Sophie, and of his promise. + +Now that Paul had his opal, it was clear he would be able to do as he +wished--leave the Ridge and take Sophie with him. For the time being at +least he was out of Jun Johnson's hands--but Michael was sure he would +not stay out of them if he went to Sydney. How to prevent his +going--how, rather, to prevent Sophie going with him---that was +Michael's problem. He did not know what he was going to do. + +He had asked Sophie not to go with her father. He had told her what her +mother had said, and tried to explain to her why her mother had not +wanted her to go away from the Ridge, or to become a public singer. But +Sophie was as excited about her future as her father was. It was natural +she should be, Michael assured himself. She was young, and had heard +wonderful stories of Sydney and the world beyond the Ridge. Sydney was +like the town in a fairy tale to her. + +It was not to be expected, Michael confessed to himself, that Sophie +would choose to stay on Fallen Star Ridge. If she could only be +prevailed upon to put off her departure until she was older and better +able to take care of herself, he would be satisfied. If the worst came +to the worst, and she went to Sydney with her father soon, Michael had +decided to go with them. Peter Newton would give him a couple of pounds +for his books, he believed, and he would find something to do down in +Sydney. His roots were in the Ridge. Michael did not know how he was +going to live away from the mines; but anything seemed better than that +Sophie should be committed to what her mother had called "the +treacherous whirlpool" of life in a great city, with no one but her +father to look after her. + +And her mother had said: + +"Don't let him take her away, Michael." + +Michael believed that Marya Rouminof intended Sophie to choose for +herself whether she would stay on the Ridge or not, when she was old +enough. But now she was little more than a child, sixteen, nearly +seventeen, young for her years in some ways and old in others. Michael +knew her mother had wanted Sophie to grow up on the Ridge and to realise +that all the potentialities of real and deep happiness were there. + +"They say there's got to be a scapegoat in every family, Michael," she +had said once. "Someone has to pay for the happiness of the others. If +all that led to my coming here will mean happiness for Sophie, it will +not have been in vain." + +"That's where you're wrong," Michael had told her. + +"Looking for justice--poetic justice, isn't it, they call it?--in the +working out of things. There isn't any of this poetic justice except by +accident. The natural laws just go rolling on--laying us out under them. +All we can do is set our lives as far as possible in accordance with +them and stand by the consequences as well as we know how." + +"Of course, you're right," she had sighed, "but----" + +It was for that "but" Michael was fighting now. He knew what lay beyond +it--a yearning for her child to fare a little better in the battle of +life than she had. Striding almost unconsciously over the loose, shingly +ground, Michael was not aware what direction his steps were taking until +he saw glimmering white shapes above the grass and herbage of the +plains, and realised that he had walked to the gates of the cemetery. + +With an uncomfortable sense of broken faith, he turned away from the +gate, unable to go in and sit under the tree there, to smoke and think, +as he sometimes did. He had used every argument with Paul to prevent his +taking Sophie away, he knew; but for the first time since Michael and he +had been acquainted with each other, Paul had shown a steady will. He +made up his mind he was "going to shake the dust of the Ridge off his +feet," he said. And that was the end of it. Michael almost wished the +men had let Jun clear out with his stones. That would have settled the +business. But, his instinct of an opal-miner asserting itself, he was +unable to wish Paul the loss of his luck, and Jun what he would have to +be to deprive Paul of it. He walked on chewing the cud of bitter and +troubled reflections. + +"Don't let him take her away!" a voice seemed to cry suddenly after him. + +Michael stopped; he snatched the hat from his head. + +"No!" he said, "he shan't take her away!" + +Startled by the sound of his own voice, the intensity of thinking which +had wrung it from him, dazed by the sudden strength of resolution which +had come over him, he stood, his face turned to the sky. The stars +rained their soft light over him. As he looked up to them, his soul went +from him by force of will. How long he stood like that, he did not know; +but when his eyes found the earth again he looked about him wonderingly. +After a little while he put on his hat and turned away. All the pain and +trouble were taken from his thinking; he was strangely soothed and +comforted. He went back along the road to the town, and, skirting the +trees and the houses on the far side, came again to the track below +Newton's. + +Lights were still shining in the hotel although it was well after +midnight. Michael could hear voices in the clear air. A man was singing +one of Jun's choruses as he went down the road towards the Punti Rush. +Michael kept on his way. He was still wondering what he could do to +prevent Paul taking Sophie away; but he was no longer worried about +it--his brain was calm and clear; his step lighter than it had been for +a long time. + +He heard the voices laughing and calling to each other as he walked on. + +"Old Ted!" he commented to himself, recognising Ted Cross's voice. "He's +blithered!" + +When he came to a fork in the tracks where one went off in the direction +of his, Charley's, and Rouminof's huts, and the other towards the +Crosses', Michael saw Ted Cross lumbering along in the direction of his +own hut. + +"Must 've been saying good-night to Charley and Paul," he thought. A +little farther along the path he saw Charley and Paul, unsteady shadows +ahead of him in the moonlight, and Charley had his arm under Paul's, +helping him home. + +"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he +loved. + +He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, +Charley's even and clear. + +"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. +He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, +and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening. + +Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his +steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's +hand--something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box +wrapped in newspaper, it might have been--and Michael saw Charley drop +it into the pocket of his coat. + +Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep +there on the roadside; but Charley led him on. + +"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there +now." + +Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the +shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back +along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. +He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his +brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had +stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, +notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, +Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened. + +The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood +only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track. + +Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. +He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a +second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would +discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then +Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared. + +When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, +keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his +boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles +beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move +on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood +beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared +pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was +sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer +on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as +if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The +wall creaked as Michael leaned against it. + +"Who's there?" Charley cried sharply. + +He threw a blanket over the box on the bed and started to the door. + +Michael moved round the corner of the house. He heard Potch call +sleepily: + +"That you?" + +Charley growled; + +"Oh, go to sleep, can't you? Aren't you asleep yet?" + +Potch murmured, and there was silence again. + +Michael heard Charley go to the door, look out along the road, and turn +back into the hut. Then Michael moved along the wall to the window. + +Charley was taking down some clothes hanging from nails along the inner +wall. He changed from the clothes he had on into them, picked up his +hat, lying where he had thrown it on the floor beside the bed when he +came in, rolled it up, straightened the brim and dinged the crown to his +liking. Then he picked up the packet of opal, put it in his coat pocket, +and went into the other room. Michael followed to the window which gave +on it. He saw Charley glance at the sofa as though he were contemplating +a stretch, but, thinking better of it, he settled into an easy, +bag-bottomed old chair by the table, pulled a newspaper to him, and +began to read by the guttering light of his candle. + +Michael guessed why Charley had dressed, and why he had chosen to sit +and read rather than go to sleep. It was nearly morning, the first chill +of dawn in the air. The coach left at seven o'clock, and Charley meant +to catch the coach. He had no intention of going to Warria. Michael +began to get a bird's-eye view of the situation. He wondered whether +Charley had ever intended going to Warria. He realised Charley would go +off with the five pound note he had made him, Michael, get from Watty +Frost, as well as with Paul's opals. He began, to see clearly what that +would mean, too--Charley's getting away with Paul's opals. Paul would +not be able to take Sophie away.... + +In the branches of a shrub nearby, a white-tail was crying plaintively: +"Sweet pretty creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael remembered how +it had cried like that on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. + +Whether to go into the hut, tell Charley he knew what he had done, and +demand the return of the opals, or let him get away with them, Michael +had not decided, when Charley's hand went to his pocket, and, as it +closed over the package of opals, a smile of infantile satisfaction +flitted across his face. That smile, criminal in its treachery, enraged +Michael more than the deed itself. The candle Charley had been reading +by guttered out. He stumbled about the room looking for another. After a +while, as if he could not find one, he went back to his chair and +settled into it. The room fell into darkness, lit only by the dim pane +of the window by which Michael was standing. + +Michael's mind seethed with resentment and anger. The thing he had +prayed for, that his brain had ached over, had been arranged. Rouminof +would not be able to take Sophie away. But Michael was too good a Ridge +man not to detest Charley's breach of the good faith of the Ridge. +Charley had been accepted by men of the Ridge as one of themselves--at +least, Michael believed he had. + +George, Watty, the Crosses, and most of the other men would have +confessed to reservations where Charley Heathfield was concerned. But as +long as he had lived as a mate among them, they had been mates to him. +Michael did not want Rouminof to have his stones if having them meant +taking Sophie away, but he did not want him to lose them. He could not +allow Charley to get away with them, with that smile of infantile +satisfaction. If the men knew what he had done there would be little of +that smile left on his face when they had finished with him. Their +methods of dealing with rats were short and severe. And although he +deserved all he got from them, Michael was not able to decide to hand +Charley over to the justice of the men of the Ridge. + +As he hesitated, wondering what to do, the sound of heavy, regular +breathing came to him, and, looking through the window, he saw that +Charley had done the last thing he intended to do--he had fallen asleep +in his chair. + +In a vivid, circling flash, Michael's inspiration came to him. He went +across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the +black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a +bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin--a few +pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an +opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the +rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years--that was all. +Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to +the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had +kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer +in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He +wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he +blew out his candle and went out of doors again. + +He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley's hut. When he +reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether +Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and +regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. +He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was +sleeping. + +He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he +had done what he did. He knew only a sick fear possessed him that +Charley would wake and find him, Michael, barefooted, like a thief in +his house. But he was not a thief, he assured himself. It was not +thieving to take from a thief. + +Charley stirred uneasily. His arm went out; in the dim light Michael saw +it go over the pocket which held the packet of opal; his hand clutch at +it unconsciously. Sweating with fear and the nervous tension he was +under, Michael remained standing in the darkness. He waited, wondering +whether he would throw off Charley's hand and snatch the opal, or +whether he would stand till morning, hesitating, and wondering what to +do, and Charley would wake at last and find him there. He had decided to +wrench Charley's arm from the pocket, when Charley himself flung it out +with a sudden restless movement. + +In an instant, almost mechanically, Michael's hand went to the pocket. +He lifted the packet there and put his own in its place. + +The blood was booming in his ears when he turned to the door. A sense of +triumph unnerved him more than the execution of his inspiration. Charley +muttered and called out in his sleep as Michael passed through the +doorway. + +Then the stars were over him. Michael drew a deep breath of the night +air and crossed to his own hut, the package of opal under his coat. Just +as he was entering he drew back, vaguely alarmed. A movement light as +thistledown seemed to have caught his ear. He thought he had detected a +faint shifting of the shingle nearby. He glanced about with quick +apprehension, went back to Charley's hut, listened, and looked around; +but Charley was still sleeping. Michael walked back to his own hut. +There was no sight or sound of a living thing in the wan, misty +moonlight of the dawn, except the white-tail which was still crying from +a wilga near Charley's hut. + +The package under his coat felt very heavy and alive when he returned to +his own hut. Michael was disturbed by that faint sound he had heard, or +thought he had heard. He persuaded himself he had imagined it, that in +the overwrought state of his sensibilities the sound of his own breath, +and his step on the stones, had surprised and alarmed him. The tin of +opals burned against his body, seeming to scar the skin where it +pressed. Michael sickened at the thought of how what he had done might +look to anyone who had seen him. But he put the thought from him. It was +absurd. He had looked; there was no one about--nothing. He was allowing +his mind to play tricks with him. The success of what he had done made +him seem like a thief. But he was not a thief. The stones were +Rouminof's. He had taken them from Charley for him, and he would not +even look at them. He would keep them for Paul. + +If Charley got away without discovering the change of the packets, as he +probably would, in the early morning and in his excitement to catch the +coach, he would be considered the thief. Rouminof would accuse him; +Charley would know his own guilt. He would not dare to confess what he +had done, even when he found that his package of opal had been changed. +He would not know when it had been changed. He would not know whether it +had been changed, perhaps, before he took it from Rouminof. + +Charley might recognise the stones in that packet he had done up, +Michael realised; but he did not think so. Charley was not much of a +judge of opal. Michael did not think he would remember the few scraps of +sun-flash they had come on together, and Charley had never seen the +mascot he had put into the packet, with a remnant of feeling for the +memory of their working days together. + +Michael did not light the candle when he went into his hut again. He +threw himself down on the bed in his clothes; he knew that he would not +sleep as he lay there. His brain burned and whirled, turning over the +happenings of the night and their consequences, likely and unlikely. The +package of opal lay heavy in his pocket. He took it out and dropped it +into a box of books at the end of the room. + +He did not like what he had done, and yet he was glad he had done it. +When he could see more clearly, he was glad, too, that he had grasped +this opportunity to control circumstances. A reader and dreamer all his +days, he had begun to be doubtful of his own capacity for action. He +could think and plan, but he doubted whether he had strength of will to +carry out purposes he had dreamed a long time over. He was pleased, in +an odd, fierce way, that he had been able to do what he thought should +be done. + +"But I don't want them.... I don't want the cursed stones," he argued +with himself. "I'll give them to him--to Paul, as soon as I know what +ought to be done about Sophie. She's not old enough to go yet--to know +her own mind--what she wants to do. When she's older she can decide for +herself. That's what her mother meant. She didn't mean for always ... +only while she's a little girl. By and by, when she's a woman, Sophie +can decide for herself. Now, she's got to stay here ... that's what I +promised." + +"And Charley," he brooded. "He deserves all that's coming to him ... but +I couldn't give him away. The boys would half kill him if they got their +hands on to him. When will he find out? In the train, perhaps--or not +till he gets to Sydney.... He'll have my fiver, and the stones to go on +with--though they won't bring much. Still, they'll do to go on with.... +Paul'll be a raving lunatic when he knows ... but he can't go--he can't +take Sophie away." + +His brain surged over and over every phrase: his state of mind since he +had seen Charley and Paul on the road together; every argument he had +used with himself. He could not get away from the double sense of +disquiet and satisfaction. + +An hour or two later he heard Charley moving about, then rush off down +the track, sending the loose stones flying under his feet as he ran to +catch the coach. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Watty was winding dirt, standing by the windlass on the top of the dump +over his and his mates' mine, when he saw Paul coming along the track +from the New Town. Paul was breaking into a run at every few yards, and +calling out. Watty threw the mullock from his hide bucket as it came up, +and lowered it again. He wound up another bucket. The creak of the +windlass, and the fall of the stone and earth as he threw them over the +dump, drowned the sound of Rouminof's voice. As he came nearer, Watty +saw that he was gibbering with rage, and crying like a child. + +While he was still some distance away, Watty heard him sobbing and +calling out. + +He stopped work to listen as Paul came to the foot of Michael's dump. +Ted Cross, who was winding dirt on the top of Crosses' mine, stopped to +listen too. Old Olsen got up from where he lay noodling on Jun's and +Paul's claim, and went across to Paul. Snow-Shoes, stretched across the +slope near where Watty was standing, lifted his head, his turning of +earth with a little blunt stick arrested for the moment. + +"They've took me stones!... Took me stones!" Watty heard Paul cry to +Bill Olsen. And as he climbed the slope of Michael's dump he went on +crying: "Took me stones! Took me stones! Charley and Jun! Gone by the +coach! Michael!... They've gone by the coach and took me stones!" + +Over and over again he said the same thing in an incoherent wail and +howl. He went down the shaft of Michael's mine, and Ted Cross came +across from his dump to Watty. + +"Hear what he says, Watty?" he asked. + +"Yes," Watty replied. + +"It gets y'r wind----" + +"If it's true," Watty ventured slowly. + +"Seems to me it's true all right," Ted said. "Charley took him home last +night. I went along with them as far as the turn-off. Paul was a bit on +... and Archie asked me to keep an eye on him.... I was a bit on meself, +too ... but Charley came along with us--so I thought he'd be all +right.... Charley went off by the coach this morning.... Bill Olsen told +me.... And Michael was reck'ning on him goin' to Warria to-day, I know." + +"That's right!" + +"It'll be hard on Michael!" + +Watty's gesture, upward jerk of his chin, and gusty breath, denoted his +agreement on that score. + +Ted went back to his own claim, and Watty slid down the rope with his +next bucket to give his mates the news. It was nearly time to knock off +for the midday meal, and before long men from all the claims were +standing in groups hearing the story from Rouminof himself, or talking +it over together. + +Michael had come up from his mine soon after Paul had gone down to him. +The men had seen him go off down the track to the New Town, his head +bent. They thought they knew why. Michael would feel his mate's +dishonour as though it were his own. He would not be able to believe +that what Paul said was true. He would want to know from Peter Newton +himself if it was a fact that Charley had gone out on the coach with Jun +and two girls who had been at the hotel. + +Women were scarce on the opal fields, and the two girls who had come a +week before to help Mrs. Newton with the work of the hotel had been +having the time of their lives. Charley, Jun Johnson, and two or three +other men, had been shouting drinks for them from the time of their +arrival, and Mrs. Newton had made up her mind to send the girls back to +town by the next coach. Jun had appropriated the younger of the two, a +bright-eyed girl, and the elder, a full-bosomed, florid woman with +straw-coloured hair, had, as the boys said, "taken a fancy to Charley." + +Paul had already told his story once or twice when Cash Wilson, George, +and Watty, went across to where he was standing, with half a dozen of +the men about him. They were listening gravely and smoking over Paul's +recital. There had been ratting epidemics on the Ridge; but robbery of a +mate by a mate had never occurred before. It struck at the fundamental +principle of their life in common. There was no mistaking the grave, +rather than indignant view men of the Ridge took of what Charley had +done. The Ridge code affirmed simply that "a mate stands by a mate." The +men say: "You can't go back on a mate." By those two recognitions they +had run their settlement. Far from all the ordinary institutions of law +and order, they had lived and worked together without need of them, by +appreciation of their relationship to each other as mates and as a +fraternity of mates. No one, who had lived under and seemed to accept +the principle of mateship, had ever before done as Charley had done. + +"But Charley Heathfield was never one of us really," Ted Cross said. "He +was always an outsider." + +"That's right, Ted," George Woods replied. "We only stuck him on +Michael's account." + +Paul told George, Watty, and Cash the story he had been going over all +the morning--how he had gone home with Charley, how he remembered going +along the road with him, and then how he had wakened on the floor of his +own hut in the morning. Sophie was there. She was singing. He had +thought it was her mother. He had called her ... but Sophie had come to +him. And she had abused him. She had called him "a dirty, fat pig," and +told him to get out of the way because she wanted to sweep the floor. + +He sobbed uncontrollably. The men sympathised with him. They knew the +loss of opal came harder on Rouminof than it would have on the rest of +them, because he was so mad about the stuff. They condoned the +abandonment of his grief as natural enough in a foreigner, too; but +after a while it irked them. + +"Take a pull at y'rself, Rummy, can't you?" George Woods said irritably. +"What did Michael say?" + +"Michael?" Paul looked at him, his eyes streaming. + +George nodded. + +"He did not say," Paul replied. "He threw down his pick. He would not +work any more ... and then he went down to Newton's to ask about +Charley." + +Two or three of the men exchanged glances. That was the way they had +expected Michael to take the news. He would not have believed Paul's +story at first. They did not see Michael again that day. In the evening +Peter Newton told them how Michael had come to him, asking if it was +true Charley had gone on the coach with Jun Johnson and the girls. Peter +told Michael, he said, that Charley had gone on the coach, and that he +thought Rouminof's story looked black against Charley. + +"Michael didn't say much," Peter explained, "but I don't think he could +help seeing what I said was true--however much he didn't want to." + +Everybody knew Michael believed in Charley Heathfield. He had thought +the worst that could be said of Charley was that he was a good-natured, +rather shiftless fellow. All the men had responded to an odd attractive +faculty Charley exercised occasionally. He had played it like a woman +for Michael, and Michael had taken him on as a mate and worked with him +when no one else would. And now, the men guessed, that Michael, who had +done more than any of them to make the life of the Ridge what it was, +would feel more deeply and bitterly than any of them that Charley had +gone back on him and on what the Ridge stood for. + +All they imagined Michael was suffering in the grief and bitterness of +spirit which come of misplaced faith, he was suffering. But they could +not imagine the other considerations which had overshadowed grief and +bitterness, the realisation that Sophie's life had been saved from what +looked like early wreckage, and the consciousness that the consequences +of what Charley had done, had fallen, not on Charley, but on himself. +Michael had lived like a child, with an open heart at the disposal of +his mates always; and the sense of Charley's guilt descending on him, +had created a subtle ostracism, a remote alienation from them. + +He could not go to Newton's in the evening and talk things over with the +men as he ordinarily would have. He wandered over the dumps of deserted +rushes at the Old Town, his eyes on the ground or on the distant +horizons. He could still only believe he had done the best thing +possible under the circumstances. If he had let Charlie go away with the +stones, Sophie would have been saved, but Paul would have lost his +stones. As it was, Sophie was saved, and Paul had not lost his stones. +And Michael could not have given Charley away. Charley had been his +mate; they had worked together. The men might suspect, but they could +not convict him of being what he was unless they knew what Michael knew. +Charley had played on the affection, the simplicity of Michael's belief +in him. He had used them, but Michael had still a lingering tenderness +and sympathy for him. It was that which had made him put the one decent +piece of opal he possessed into the parcel he had made up for Charley to +take instead of Paul's stones. It was the first piece of good stuff he +had found on the Ridge, and he had kept it as a mascot--something of a +nest egg. + +Michael wondered at the fate which had sent him along the track just +when Charley had taken Paul's stones. He was perplexed and impatient of +it. There would have been no complication, no conflict and turmoil if +only he had gone along the track a little later, or a little earlier. +But there was no altering what had happened. He had to bear the +responsibility of it. He had to meet the men, encounter the eyes of his +mates as he had never done before, with a reservation from them. If he +could give the stones to Paul at once, Michael knew he would disembarass +himself of any sense of guilt. But he could not do that. He was afraid +if Paul got possession of the opals again he would want to go away and +take Sophie with him. + +Michael thought of taking Watty and George into his confidence, but to +do so would necessitate explanations--explanations which involved +talking of the promise he had made Sophie's mother and all that lay +behind their relationship. He shrank from allowing even the sympathetic +eyes of George and Watty to rest on what for him was wrapped in mystery +and inexplicable reverence. Besides, they both had wives, and Watty was +not permitted to know anything Mrs. Watty did not worm out of him sooner +or later. Michael decided that if he could not keep his own confidence +he could not expect anyone else to keep it. He must take the +responsibility of what he had done, and of maintaining his position in +respect to the opals until Sophie was older--old enough to do as she +wished with her life. + +As he walked, gazing ahead, a hut formed itself out of the distance +before him, and then the dark shapes of bark huts huddled against the +white cliff of dumps at the Three Mile, under a starry sky. A glow came +from the interior of one or two of the houses. A chime of laughter, and +shredded fragments of talking drifted along in the clear air. Michael +felt strangely alone and outcast, hearing them and knowing that he could +not respond to their invitation. + +In any one of those huts a place would be eagerly made for him if he +went into it; eyes would lighten with a smile; warm, kindly greetings +would go to his heart. But the talk would all be of the stealing of +Rouminof's opal, and of Charley and Jun, Michael knew. The people at the +Three Mile would have seen the coach pass. They would be talking about +it, about himself, and the girls who had driven away with Charley and +Jun. + +Turning back, Michael walked again across the flat country towards the +Ridge. He sat for a while on a log near the tank paddock. A drugging +weariness permeated his body and brain, though his brain ticked +ceaselessly. Now and again one or other of Rouminof's opals flashed and +scintillated before him in the darkness, or moved off in starry flight +before his tired gaze. He was vaguely disturbed by the vision of them. + +When he rose and went back towards the town, his feet dragged wearily. +There was a strange lightness at the back of his head, and he wondered +whether he were walking in the fields of heaven, and smiled to think of +that. At least one good thing would come of it all, he told himself over +and over again--Paul could not take Sophie away. + +The houses and stores of the New Town were all in darkness when he +passed along the main street. Newton's was closed. There were no lights +in Rouminof's or Charley's huts as he went to his own door. Then a low +cry caught his ear. He listened, and went to the back door of Charley's +hut. The cry rose again with shuddering gasps for breath. Michael stood +in the doorway, listening. The sound came from the window. He went +towards it, and found Potch lying there on the bunk with his face to the +wall. + +He had not heard Michael enter, and lay moaning brokenly. Michael had +not thought of Potch since the people at Newton's told him that a few +minutes, after the coach had gone Potch had come down to the hotel to +cut wood and do odd jobs in the stable, as he usually did. Mrs. Newton +said he stared at her, aghast, when she told him that his father had +left on the coach. Then he had started off at a run, taking the short +cut across country to the Three Mile. + +Michael put out his hand. He could not endure that crying. + +"Potch!" he said. + +At the sound of his voice, Potch was silent. After a second he struggled +to his feet, and stood facing Michael. + +"He's gone, Michael!" he cried. + +"He might have taken you," Michael said. + +"Taken me!" Potch's exclamation did away with any idea Michael had that +his son was grieving for Charley. "It wasn't that I minded----" + +Michael did not know what to say. Potch continued: + +"As soon as I knew, I went after him--thought I'd catch up the coach at +the Three Mile, and I did. I told him he'd have to come back--or hand +out that money. I saw you give it to him the other night and arrange +about going to Warria.... Mr. Ventry pulled up. But _he_ ... set the +horses going again. I tried to stop them, but the sandy bay let out a +kick and they went on again.... The swine!" + +Michael had never imagined this stolid son of Charley's could show such +fire. He was trembling with rage and indignation. Michael rarely lost +his temper, but the blood rushed to his head in response to Potch's +story. Restraint was second nature with him, though, and he waited until +his own and Potch's fury had ebbed. + +Then he moved to leave the hut. + +"Come along," he said. + +"Michael!" + +There was such breaking unbelief and joy in the cry. Michael turned and +caught the boy's expression. + +"You're coming along with me, Potch," he said. + +Potch still stood regarding him with a dazed expression of worshipful +homage and gratitude. Michael put out his hand, and Potch clasped it. + +"You and me," he said, "we both seem to be in the same boat, Potch.... +Neither of us has got a mate. I'll be wanting someone to work with now. +We'd better be mates." + +They went out of the hut together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos +were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or +thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, saw Michael on the top of his +dump, tossing mullock. + +"Who's Michael working with?" he asked. + +Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant considered, and shook their heads, smoking +thoughtfully. + +Snow-Shoes, where he lay sprawled across the slope of Crosses' dump, +glanced up at them, and the nickering wisp of a smile went through his +bright eyes. The three were standing at the foot of the dump before +separating. + +"Who's Michael got with him?" Pony-Fence inquired, looking at +Snow-Shoes. + +But the old man had turned his eyes back to the dump and was raking the +earth with his stick again, as if he had not heard what was said. No one +was deafer than Snow-Shoes when he did not want to hear. + +Watty watched Michael as he bent over the windlass, his lean, slight +figure cut against the clear azure of the morning sky. + +"It's to be hoped he's got a decent mate this time--that's all," he +said. + +Pony-Fence and Bully were going off to their own claim when Potch came +up on the rope and stood by the windlass while Michael went down into +the mine. + +"Well!" Watty gasped, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!" + +Bully swore sympathetically, and watched Potch set to work. The three +watched him winding and throwing mullock from the hide buckets over the +dump with the jerky energy of a new chum, although Potch had done odd +jobs on the mines for a good many years. He had often taken his father's +turn of winding dirt, and had managed to keep himself by doing all +manner of scavenging in the township since he was quite a little chap, +but no one had taken him on as a mate till now. He was a big fellow, +too, Potch, seventeen or eighteen; and as they looked at him Watty and +Pony-Fence realised it was time someone gave Potch a chance on the +mines, although after the way his father had behaved Michael was about +the last person who might have been expected to give him that +chance--much less take him on as mate. Like father, like son, was one of +those superstitions Ridge folk had not quite got away from, and the men +who saw Potch working on Michael's mine wondered that, having been let +down by the father as badly as Charley had let Michael down, Michael +could still work with Potch, and give him the confidence a mate was +entitled to. But there was no piece of quixotism they did not think +Michael capable of. The very forlornness of Potch's position on the +Ridge, and because he would have to face out and live down the fact of +being Charley Heathfield's son, were recognised as most likely Michael's +reasons for taking Potch on to work with him. + +Watty and Pony-Fence appreciated Michael's move and the point of view it +indicated. They knew men of the Ridge would endorse it and take Potch on +his merits. But being Charley's son, Potch would have to prove those +merits. They knew, too, that what Michael had done would help him to +tide over the first days of shame and difficulty as nothing else could +have, and it would start Potch on a better track in life than his father +had ever given him. + +Bully had already gone off to his claim when Watty and Pony-Fence +separated. Watty broke the news to his mates when he joined them +underground. + +"Who do y' think's Michael's new mate?" he asked. + +George Woods rested on his pick. + +Cash looked up from the corner where he was crouched working a streak of +green-fired stone from the red floor and lower wall of the mine. + +"Potch!" Watty threw out as George and Cash waited for the information. + +George swept the sweat from his forehead with a broad, steady gesture. +"He was bound to do something nobody else'd 've thought of, Michael!" he +said. + +"That's right," Watty replied. "Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant were +saying," he went on, "he's had a pretty hard time, Potch, and it was +about up to somebody to give him a leg-up ... some sort of a start in +life. He may be all right ... on the other hand, there may not be much +to him...." + +"That's right!" Cash muttered, beginning to work again. + +"But I reck'n he's all right, Potch." George swung his pick again. His +blows echoed in the mine as they shattered the hard stone he was working +on. + +Watty crawled off through a drive he was gouging in. + +At midday Michael and Charley had always eaten their lunches in the +shelter where George Woods, Watty, and Cash Wilson ate theirs and +noodled their opal. They wondered whether Michael would join them this +day. He strolled over to the shelter with Potch beside him as Watty and +Cash, with a billy of steaming tea on a stick between them, came from +the open fire built round with stones, a few yards from the mine. + +"Potch and me's mates," Michael explained to George as he sat down and +spread out his lunch, his smile whimsical and serene over the +information. "But we're lookin' for a third to the company. I reck'n a +lot of you chaps' luck is working on three. It's a lucky number, three, +they say." + +Potch sat down beside him on the outer edge of the shelter's scrap of +shade. + +"See you get one not afraid to do a bit of work, next time--that's all I +say," Watty growled. + +The blood oozed slowly over Potch's heavy, quiet face. Nothing more was +said of Charley, but the men who saw his face realised that Potch was +not the insensible youth they had imagined. + +Michael had watched him when they were below ground, and was surprised +at the way Potch set about his work. He had taken up his father's +gouging pick and spider as if he had been used to take them every day, +and he had set to work where Charley had left off. All the morning he +hewed at a face of honeycombed sandstone, his face tense with +concentration of energy, the sweat glistening on it as though it were +oiled under the light of a candle in his spider, stuck in the red earth +above him. Michael himself swung his pick in leisurely fashion, crumbled +dirt, and knocked off for a smoke now and then. + +"Easy does it, Potch," he remarked, watching the boy's steady slogging. +"We've got no reason to bust ourselves in this mine." + +At four o'clock they put their tools back against the wall and went +above ground. Michael fell in with the Crosses, who were noodling two or +three good-looking pieces of opal Archie had taken out during the +afternoon, and Potch streaked away through the scrub in the direction of +the Old Town. + +Michael wondered where he was going. There was a purposeful hunch about +his shoulders as if he had a definite goal in view. Michael had intended +asking his new mate to go down to the New Town and get the meat for +their tea, but he went himself after he had yarned with Archie and Ted +Cross for a while. + +When he returned to the hut, Potch was not there. Michael made a fire, +unwrapped his steak, hung it on a hook over the fire, and spread out the +pannikins, tin plates and knives and forks for his meal, putting a plate +and pannikin for Potch. He was kneeling before the fire giving the steak +a turn when Potch came in. Potch stood in the doorway, looking at +Michael as doubtfully as a stray kitten which did not know whether it +might enter. + +"That you, Potch?" Michael called. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +Michael got up from the fire and carried the grilled steak on a plate to +the table. + +"Well, you were nearly late for dinner," he remarked, as he cut the +steak in half and put a piece on the other plate for Potch. "You better +come along and tuck in now ... there's a great old crowd down at +Nancarrow's this evening. First time for nearly a month he's killed a +beast, and everybody wants a bit of steak. Sam gave me this as a sort of +treat; and it smells good." + +Potch came into the kitchen and sat on the box Michael had drawn up to +the table for him. + +"Been bringing in the goats for Sophie," he jerked out, looking at +Michael as if there were some need of explanation. + +"Oh, that was it, was it?" Michael replied, getting on with his meal. +"Thought you'd flitted!" + +Potch met his smile with a shadowy one. A big, clumsy-looking fellow, +with a dull, colourless face and dingy hair, he sat facing Michael, his +eyes anxious, as though he would like to explain further, but was afraid +to, or could not find words. His eyes were beautiful; but they were his +father's eyes, and Michael recoiled to qualms of misgiving, a faint +distrust, as he looked in them. + +It was Ed. Ventry, however, who gave Potch his first claim to the +respect of men of the Ridge. + +"How's that boy of Charley Heathfield's?" was his first question when +the coach came in from Budda, the following week. + +"All right," Newton said. "Why?" + +"He was near killed," Mr. Ventry replied. "Stopped us up at the Three +Mile that morning I was taking Charley and Jun down. He was all for +Charley stopping ... getting off the coach or something. I didn't get +what it was all about--money Charley'd got from Michael, I think. That's +the worst of bein' a bit hard of hearin' ... and bein' battered about by +that yaller-bay horse I bought at Warria couple of months ago." + +"Potch tried to stop Charley getting away, did he?" Newton asked with +interest. + +"He did," Ed. Ventry declared. "I pulled up, seein' something was wrong +... but what does that god-damned blighter Charley do but give a lurch +and grab me reins. Scared four months' growth out of the horses--and +away they went. I'd a colt I was breakin' in on the off-side--and he +landed Potch one--kicked him right out, I thought. As soon as I could, I +pulled up, but I see Potch making off across the plain, and he didn't +look like he was much hurt.... But it was a plucky thing he did, all +right ... and it's the last time I'll drive Charley Heathfield. I told +him straight. I'd as soon kill a man as not for putting a hand on me +reins, like he done--on me own coach, too!" + +Snow-Shoes had drifted up to them as the coach stopped and Newton went +out to it. He stood beside Peter Newton while Mr. Ventry talked, rolling +tobacco. Snow-Shoes' eyes glimmered from one to the other of them when +Ed. Ventry had given the reason for his inquiry. + +"Potch!" he murmured. "A little bit of potch!" And marched off down the +road, a straight, stately white figure, on the bare track under the +azure of the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"Give y' three," Watty said. + +"Take 'em." George Woods did not turn. He was carefully working round a +brilliantly fired seam through black potch in the shin cracker he had +been breaking through two or three days before. + +It was about lunch time, and Watty had crawled from his drive to the +centre of the mine. Cash was still at work, crouched against a corner of +the alley, a hundred yards or so from George; but he laid down his pick +when he heard Watty's voice, and went towards him. + +"Who d'you think Michael's got as third man?" + +"Snow-Shoes?" + +"No." + +"Old Bill Olsen?" + +Watty could not contain himself to the third guess. + +"Rum-Enough!" he said. + +"He would." George chipped at the stone round his colour. "It was bound +to be a lame dog, anyhow--and it might as well've been Rummy as +anybody." + +"That's right," Cash conceded. + +"Bill Andrews told me," Watty said. "They've just broke through on the +other side of that drive I'm in...." + +"It would be all right," he went on, "if Paul'd work for Michael like he +did for Jun. But is Michael the man to make him? Not by long chalks. +Potch is turning out all right, the boys say.... Michael says he works +like a chow ... has to make him put in the peg ... but they'll both be +havin' Rum-Enough on their hands before long--that's a sure thing." + +Watty's, George's, and Cash's mine was one of the best worked and best +planned on the fields. + +Watty and Cash inspected the streak George was working, and speculated +as to what it would yield. George leaned his pick against the wall, +eager, too, about the chances of what the thread of fire glittering in +the black potch would lead to. But he was proud of the mine as well as +the stone it had produced. It represented the first attempt to work a +claim systematically on the Ridge. George himself had planned and +prospected every inch of it; and before he went above ground for the +midday meal, he glanced about it as usual, affirming his pride and +satisfaction; but his eyes fell on the broken white stone about his +pitch. + +"As soon as we get her out, I'll shift that stuff," he said. + +When they went up for their meal, Michael did not join Watty, George, +and Cash as usual. He spread out his lunch and sat with Paul and Potch +in the shade of some wilgas beside his own mine. He knew that Rouminof +would not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter, and that Paul and +Potch would bring a certain reserve to the discussions of Ridge affairs +which took place there. + +Potch saw Michael's eyes wander to where George was sitting yarning with +his mates. He knew Michael would rather have been over there; and yet +Michael seemed pleased to have got his own mine in working order again. +He talked over ways of developing it with Paul, asking his opinion, and +explaining why he believed the claim was good enough to stick to for a +while longer, although very little valuable stone had come out of it. +Potch wondered why his eyes rested on Paul with that faint smile of +satisfaction. + +The Ridge discussed Michael and his new partnership backwards and forth, +and back again. Michael knew that, and was as amused as the rest of the +Ridge at the company he was keeping. Although he sat with his own mates +at midday, he was as often as not with the crowd under Newton's veranda +in the evening, discussing and settling the affairs of the Ridge and of +the universe. After a while he was more like his old self than he had +been for a long time--since Mrs. Rouminof's death--people said, when +they saw him going about again with a quiet smile and whimsical twist to +his mouth. + +The gossips had talked a good deal about Michael and Mrs. Rouminof, but +neither she nor he had bothered their heads about the gossips. + +Michael and Mrs. Rouminof had often been seen standing and talking +together when she was going home from the New Town with stores, or when +Michael was coming in from his hut. He had usually walked back along the +road with her, she for the most part, if it was in the evening, with no +hat on; he smoking the stubby black pipe that was rarely out of his +mouth. There was something in the way Mrs. Rouminof walked beside +Michael, in the way her hair blew out in tiny strands curling in the +wind and taking stray glints of light, in the way she smiled with a +vague underlying sweetness when she looked at Michael; there was +something in the way Michael slouched and smoked beside Mrs. Rouminof, +too, which made their meeting look more than any mere ordinary talking +and walking home together of two people. That was what Mrs. Watty Frost +said. + +Mrs. Watty believed it was her duty in life to maintain the prejudices +of respectable society in Fallen Star township. She had a constitutional +respect for authority in whatever form it manifested itself. She stood +for washing on Monday, spring-cleaning, keeping herself to herself, and +uncompromising hostility to anything in the shape of a new idea which +threatened the old order of domesticity on the Ridge. And she let +everybody know it. She never went into the one street of the township +even at night without a hat on, and wore gloves whenever she walked +abroad. A little woman, with a mean, sour face, wrinkled like a walnut, +and small, bead-bright eyes, Mrs. Watty was one of those women who are +all energy and have no children to absorb their energies. She put all +her energy into resentment of the Ridge and the conditions Watty had +settled down to so comfortably and happily. She sighed for shops and a +suburb of Sydney, and repeatedly told Watty how nice it would be to have +a little milk shop near Sydney like her father and mother had had. + +But Watty would not hear of the milk shop. He loved the Ridge, and the +milk shop was an evergreen bone of contention between him and his wife. +The only peace he ever got was when Mrs. Watty went away to Sydney for a +holiday, or he went with her, because she would rarely go away without +him. She could not be happy without Watty, people said. She had no one +to growl to and let off her irritation about things in general at, if he +were not there. Watty grew fat, and was always whistling cheerily, +nevertheless. Mrs. Watty cooked like an archangel, he said; and, to give +her her due, the men admitted that although she had never pretended to +approve of the life they led, Mrs. Watty had been a good wife to Watty. + +But everybody, even Mrs. Watty, was as pleased as if a little fortune +had come to them, when, towards the end of their first week, Michael and +his company came on a patch of good stone. Michael struck it, following +the lead he had been working for some time, and, although not wonderful +in colour or quality, the opal cut out at about ten ounces and brought +£3 an ounce. Michael was able to wipe out some of his grocery score, so +was Paul, and Potch had money to burn. + +Paul was very pleased with himself about it. The men began to call him a +mascot and to say he had brought Michael luck, as he had Jun Johnson. +There was no saying how the fortunes of the new partnership might +flourish, if he stuck to it. Paul, responding to the expressions of +goodwill and the inspiration of being on opal, put all his childish and +bullocky energy into working with Michael and Potch. + +He still told everybody who would listen to him the story of the +wonderful stones he had found when he was working with Jun, and how they +had been stolen from him. They grew in number, value, and size every +time he spoke of them. And he wailed over what he had been going to do, +and what selling the stones would have meant to him and to Sophie. But +the partnership was working better than anybody had expected, and people +began to wonder whether, after all, Michael had done so badly for +himself with his brace of dead-beat mates. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +In a few weeks thought of the robbery had ceased greatly to disturb +anybody. Michael settled down to working with his new mates, and the +Ridge accepted the new partnership as the most natural thing in the +world. + +Life on the Ridge is usually as still as an inland lake. The settlement +is just that, a lake of life, in the country of wide plains stretching +westwards for hundreds on hundreds of miles, broken only by shingly +ridges to the sea, and eastwards, through pastoral districts, to the +coastal ranges, and the seaboard with its busy towns, ports, and cities. + +In summer the plains are dead and dry; in a drought, deserts. The great +coolebahs standing with their feet in the river ways are green, and +scatter tattered shade. Their small, round leaves flash like mirrors in +the sun, and when the river water vanishes from about their feet, they +hold themselves in the sandy shallow bed of the rivers as if waiting +with imperturbable faith for the return of the waters. The surface of +the dry earth cracks. There are huge fissures where the water lay in +clayey hollows during the winter and spring. Along the stock routes and +beside the empty water-holes, sheep and cattle lie rotting. Their +carcasses, disembowelled by the crows, put an odour of putrefaction in +the air. The sky burns iron-grey with heat. The dust rises in heavy +reddish mist about stockmen or cattle on the roads. + +But after the rains, in the winter or spring of a good season, the seeds +break sheath in a few hours; they sprout over-night, and a green mantle +is flung over the old earth which a few days before was as dead and dry +as a desert. In a little time the country is a flowering wilderness. +Trefoil, crow's-foot, clover, mallow, and wild mustard riot, tangling +and interweaving. The cattle browse through them lazily; stringing out +across the flowering fields, they look in the distance no more than +droves of mice; their red and black backs alone are visible above the +herbage. In places, wild candytuft in blossom spreads a quilt of palest +lavender in every direction on a wide circling horizon. Darling pea, the +colour of violets and smelling like them, threads through the candytuft +and lies in wedges, magenta and dark purple against the sky-line, a +hundred miles farther on. The sky is a wash of pale, exquisite blue, +which deepens as it rises to the zenith. The herbage glows beneath it, +so clear and pure is the light. + +Farther inland, for miles, bachelor's buttons paint the earth raw gold. +Not a hair's breadth of colour shows on the plains except the dull red +of the road winding through them and the blue of the sky overhead. Paper +daisies fringe the gold, and then they lie, white as snow, for miles, +under the bare blue sky. Sometimes the magenta, purple, lavender, gold +and white of the herbage and wild flowers merge and mingle, and a +tapestry of incomparable beauty--a masterpiece of the Immortals--is +wrought on the bare earth. + +During the spring and early summer of a good season, the air is filled +with the wild, thymey odour of herbs, and the dry, musky fragrance of +paper daisies. The crying of lambs, the baa-ing of ewes, and the piping +of mud-larks--their thin, silvery notes--go through the clear air and +are lost over the flowering land and against the blue sky. + +Winter is rarely more than a season of rains on the Ridge. Cold winds +blow from the inland plains for a week or two. There are nights of frost +and sparkling stars. People shiver and crouch over their fires; but the +days have rarely more than a fresh tang in the air. + +The rains as often as not are followed by floods. After a few days' +steady downpour, the shallow rivers and creeks on the plains overflow, +and their waters stretch out over the plains for thirteen, fourteen, and +sometimes twenty miles. Fords become impassable; bridges are washed +away. Fallen Star Ridge is cut off from the rest of the world until the +flood waters have soaked into the earth, as they do after a few days, +and the coach can take to the road again. + +As spring passes into summer, the warmth of the sunshine loses its +mildness, and settles to a heavy taciturnity. The light, losing its +delicate brilliance, becomes a bared sword-blade striking the eyes. +Everything shrinks from the full gaze and blaze of the sun. Eyes ache, +the brain reels with the glare; mirages dance on the limitless horizons. +The scorched herbage falls into dust; water is drawn off from rivers and +water-holes. All day the air is heavy and still; the sky the colour of +iron. + +Nights are heavy and still as the days, and people turn wearily from the +glow in the east at dawn; but the days go on, for months, one after the +other, hot, breathless, of dazzling radiance, or wrapped in the red haze +of a dust storm. + +Ridge folk take the heat as primitive people do most acts of God, as a +matter of course, with stiff-lipped hardihood, which makes complaint the +manifestation of a poor spirit. They meet their difficulties with a +native humour which gives zest to flagging energies. Their houses, with +roofs whitened to throw off the heat, the dumps of crumbling white clay, +and the iron roofs of the billiard parlour, the hotel, and Watty Frost's +new house at the end of the town, shimmer in the intense light. At a +little distance they seem all quivering and dancing together. + +Men like Michael, the Crosses, George Woods, Watty, and women like +Maggie Grant and Martha M'Cready, who had been on the Ridge a long time, +become inured to the heat. At least, they say that they "do not mind +it." No one hears a growl out of them, even when water is scarce and +flies and mosquitoes a plague. Their good spirits and grit keep the +community going through a trying summer. But even they raise their faces +to heaven when an unexpected shower comes, or autumn rains fall a little +earlier than usual. + +In the early days, before stations were fenced, Bill M'Gaffy, a Warria +shepherd, grazing flocks on the plains, declared he had seen a star fall +on the Ridge. When he went into the station he showed the scraps of marl +and dark metallic stone he had picked up near where the star had fallen, +to James Henty, who had taken up Warria Station. The Ridge lay within +its boundary. James Henty had turned them over curiously, and surmised +that some meteoric stone had fallen on the Ridge. The place had always +been called Fallen Star Ridge after that; but opal was not found there, +and it did not begin to be known as the black opal field until several +years later. + +In the first days of the rush to the Ridge, men of restless, reckless +temperament had foregathered at the Old Town. There had been wild nights +at the shanty. But the wilder spirits soon drifted away to Pigeon Creek +and the sapphire mines, and the sober and more serious of the miners had +settled to life on the new fields. + +The first gathering of huts on the clay pan below the Ridge was known as +the Old Town; but it had been flooded so often, that, after people had +been washed out of their homes, and had been forced to take to the Ridge +for safety two or three times, it was decided to move the site of the +township to the brow of the Ridge, above the range of the flood waters +and near the new rush, where the most important mines on the field +promised to be. + +A year or two ago, a score or so of bark and bag huts were ranged on +either side of the wide, unmade road space overgrown with herbage, and a +smithy, a weather-board hotel with roof of corrugated iron, a billiard +parlour, and a couple of stores, comprised the New Town. A wild cherry +tree, gnarled and ancient, which had been left in the middle of the road +near the hotel, bore the news of the district and public notices, nailed +to it on sheets of paper. A little below the hotel, on the same side, +Chassy Robb's store served as post-office, and the nearest approach to a +medicine shop in the township. Opposite was the Afghan's emporium. And +behind the stores and the miners' huts, everywhere, were the dumps +thrown up from mines and old rushes. + +There was no police station nearer than fifty miles, and although +telegraph now links the New Town with Budda, the railway town, +communication with it for a long time was only by coach once or twice a +week; and even now all the fetching and carrying is done by a four or +six horse-coach and bullock-wagons. The community to all intents and +purposes governs itself according to popular custom and popular opinion, +the seat of government being Newton's big, earthen-floored bar, or the +brushwood shelters near the mines in which the men sit at midday to eat +their lunches and noodle--, go over, snip, and examine--the opal they +have taken out of the mines during the morning. + +They hold their blocks of land by miner's right, and their houses are +their own. They formally recognise that they are citizens of the +Commonwealth and of the State of New South Wales, by voting at elections +and by accepting the Federal postal service. Some few of them, as well +as Newton and the storekeepers, pay income tax as compensation for those +privileges; but beyond that the Ridge lives its own life, and the +enactments of external authority are respected or disregarded as best +pleases it. + +A sober, easy-going crowd, the Ridge miners do not trouble themselves +much about law. They have little need of it. They live in accord with +certain fundamental instincts, on terms of good fellowship with each +other. + +"To go back on a mate," is recognised as the major crime of the Ridge +code. + +Sometimes, during a rush, the wilder spirits who roam from one mining +camp to another in the back-country, drift back, and "hit things up" on +the Ridge, as the men say. But they soon drift away again. Sometimes, if +one of them strikes a good patch of opal and outstays his kind, as often +as not he sinks into the Ridge life, absorbs Ridge ways and ideas, and +is accepted into the fellowship of men of the Ridge. There is no +formality about the acceptance. It just happens naturally, that if a man +identifies himself with the Ridge principle of mateship, and will stand +by it as it will stand by him, he is recognised by Ridge men as one of +themselves. But if his ways and ideas savour of those the Ridge has +broken from, he remains an outsider, whatever good terms he may seem to +be on with everybody. + +Sometimes a rush leaves a shiftless ne'er-do-well or two for the Ridge +to reckon with, but even these rarely disregard the Ridge code. If +claims are ratted it is said there are strangers about, and the miners +deal with rats according to their own ideas of justice. On the last +occasion it was applied, this justice had proved so effectual that there +had been no repetition of the offence. + +Ridge miners find happiness in the sense of being free men. They are +satisfied in their own minds that it is not good for a man to work all +day at any mechanical toil; to use himself or allow anyone else to use +him like a working bullock. A man must have time to think, leisure to +enjoy being alive, they say. Is he alive only to work? To sleep worn out +with toil, and work again? It is not good enough, Ridge men say. They +have agreed between themselves that it is a fair thing to begin work +about 6.30 or 7 o'clock and knock off about four, with a couple of hours +above ground at noon for lunch--a snack of bread and cheese and a cup of +tea. + +At four o'clock they come up from the mines, noodle their opal, put on +their coats, smoke and yarn, and saunter down to the town and their +homes. And it is this leisure end of the day which has given life on the +Ridge its tone of peace and quiet happiness, and has made Ridge miners +the thoughtful, well-informed men most of them are. + +To a man they have decided against allowing any wealthy man or body of +wealthy men forming themselves into a company to buy up the mines, put +the men on a weekly wage, and work them, as the opal blocks at Chalk +Cliffs had been worked. There might be more money in it, there would be +a steadier means of livelihood; but the Ridge miners will not hear of +it. + +"No," they say; "we'll put up with less money--and be our own masters." + +Most of them worked on Chalk Cliffs' opal blocks, and they realised in +the early days of the new field the difference between the conditions +they had lived and worked under on the Cliffs and were living and +working under on the Ridge, where every man was the proprietor of his +own energies, worked as long as he liked, and was entitled to the full +benefit of his labour. They had yarned over these differences of +conditions at midday in the shelters beside the mines, discussed them in +the long evenings at Newton's, and without any committees, documents, or +bond--except the common interest of the individual and of the +fraternity--had come to the conclusion that at all costs they were going +to remain masters of their own mines. + +Common thought and common experience were responsible for that +recognition of economic independence as the first value of their new +life together. Michael Brady had stood for it from the earliest days of +the settlement. He had pointed out that the only things which could give +joy in life, men might have on the Ridge, if they were satisfied to find +their joy in these things, and not look for it in enjoyment of the +superficial luxuries money could provide. Most of the real sources of +joy were every man's inheritance, but conditions of work, which wrung +him of energy and spirit, deprived him of leisure to enjoy them until he +was too weary to do more than sleep or seek the stimulus of alcohol. +Besides, these conditions recruited him with the merest subsistence for +his pains, very often--did not even guarantee that--and denied him the +capacity to appreciate the real sources of joy. But the beauty of the +world, the sky, and the stars, spring, summer, the grass, and the birds, +were for every man, Michael said. Any and every man could have immortal +happiness by hearing a bird sing, by gazing into the blue-dark depths of +the sky on a starry night. No man could sell his joy of these things. No +man could buy them. Love is for all men: no man can buy or sell love. +Pleasure in work, in jolly gatherings with friends, peace at the end of +the day, and satisfaction of his natural hungers, a man might have all +these things on the Ridge, if he were content with essentials. + +Ridge miners' live fearlessly, with the magic of adventure in their +daily lives, the prospect of one day finding the great stone which is +the grail of every opal-miner's quest. They are satisfied if they get +enough opal to make a parcel for a buyer when he puts up for a night or +two at Newton's. A young man who sells good stones usually goes off to +Sydney to discover what life in other parts of the world is like, and to +take a draught of the gay life of cities. A married man gives his wife +and children a trip to the seaside or a holiday in town. But all drift +back to the Ridge when the taste of city life has begun to cloy, or when +all their money is spent. Once an opal miner, always an opal miner, the +Ridge folk say. + +Among the men, only the shiftless and more worthless are not in sympathy +with Ridge ideas, and talk of money and what money will buy as the +things of first value in life. They describe the Fallen Star township as +a God-forsaken hole, and promise each other, as soon as their luck has +turned, they will leave it for ever, and have the time of their lives in +Sydney. + +Women like Maggie Grant share their husband's minds. They read what the +men read, have the men's vision, and hold it with jealous enthusiasm. +Others, women used to the rough and simple existence of the +back-country, are satisfied with the life which gives them a husband, +home, and children. Those who sympathise with Mrs. Watty Frost regard +the men's attitude as more than half cussedness, sheer selfishness or +stick-in-the-mudness; and the more worthy and respectable they are, the +more they fret and fume at the earthen floors and open hearths of the +bark and bagging huts they live in, and pine for all the kick-shaws of +suburban villas. The discontented women are a minority, nevertheless. +Ridge folk as a whole have set their compass and steer the course of +their lives with unconscious philosophy, and yet a profound conviction +as to the rightness of what they are doing. + +And the Ridge, which bears them, stands serenely under blue skies the +year long, rising like a backbone from the plains that stretch for +hundreds of miles on either side. A wide, dusty road crosses the plains. +The huts of the Three Mile and Fallen Star crouch beside it, and +everywhere on the rusty, shingle-strewn slopes of the Ridge, are the +holes and thrown-up heaps of white and raddled clay or broken +sandstone--traces of the search for that "ecstasy in the heart of +gloom," black opal, which the Fallen Star earth holds. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Darling pea was lying in purple and magenta patches through the long +grass on the tank paddock when Sophie went with Ella and Mirry Flail to +gather wild flowers there. + +Wild flowers did not grow anywhere on Fallen Star as they did in the +tank paddock. It was almost a place of faery to children of the Ridge. +The little ones were not allowed to go there by themselves for fear they +might fall into the waterhole which lay like a great square lake in the +middle of it, its steep, well-set-up banks of yellow clay, ruled with +the precision of a diagram in geometry. The water was almost as yellow +as the banks, thick and muddy looking; but it was good water, nothing on +earth the matter with it when you had boiled it and the sediment had +been allowed to settle, everybody on Fallen Star Ridge was prepared to +swear. It had to be drawn up by a pump which was worked by a donkey +engine, Sam Nancarrow, and his old fat roan draught mare, and carted to +the township when rain-water in the iron tanks beside the houses in +Fallen Star gave out. + +During a dry season, or a very hot summer, all hands turned out to roof +the paddock tank with tarpaulins to prevent evaporation as far as +possible and so conserve the township's water supply. On a placard +facing the roadway a "severe penalty" was promised to anyone using it +without permission or making improper use of it. + +Ella and Mirry were gathering sago flower--"wild sweet Alice," as they +called candytuft--yellow eye-bright, tiny pink starry flowers, +bluebells, small lavender daisies, taller white ones, and yellow +daisies, as well as Darling pea; but Sophie picked only long, trailing +stalks of the pea. She had as many as she could hold when she sat down +to arrange them into a tighter bunch. + +Mirry and Ella Flail had always been good friends of Sophie's. Potch and +she had often gone on excursions with them, or to the swamp to cart +water when it was scarce and very dear in the township. And since Potch +had gone to work Sophie had no one to go about with but Mirry and Ella. +She pleased their mother by trying to teach them to read and write, and +they went noodling together, or gathering wild flowers. Sophie was three +or four years older than Mirry, who was the elder of the two Flails; she +felt much older since her mother's death nearly a year ago, and in the +black dress she had worn since then. She was just seventeen, and had put +her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. That made her feel +older, too. But she still liked to go for walks and wanderings with Ella +and Mirry. They knew so much about the birds and flowers, the trees, and +the ways of all the wild creatures: they were such wild creatures +themselves. + +They came running to her, crying excitedly, their hands filled with +flowers, shedding them as they ran. Then, collapsing in the grass beside +Sophie, Mirry rolled over on her back and gazed up into the sky. Ella, +squatting on her thin, sunburnt little sticks of legs, was arranging her +flowers and glancing every now and then at Sophie with shy, loving +glances. + +Sophie wondered why she had nothing of her old joyous zest in their +enterprises together. She used to be as wild and happy as Mirry and Ella +on an afternoon like this. But there was something of the shy, wild +spirit of a primitive people about Mirry and Ella, she remembered, some +of their blood, too. One of their mother's people, it was said, had been +a native of one of the river tribes. + +Mirry had her mother's beautiful dark eyes, almost green in the light, +and freckled with hazel, and her pale, sallow skin. Ella, younger and +shyer, was more like her father. Her skin was not any darker than +Sophie's, and her eyes blue-grey, her features delicate, her hair +golden-brown that glinted in the sun. + +"Sing to us, Sophie," Mirry said. + +Sophie often sang to them when she and Ella and Mirry were out like +this. As she sat with them, dreaming in the sunshine, she sang almost +without any conscious effort; she just put up her chin, and the melodies +poured from her. Hearing her voice, as it ran in ripples and eddies +through the clear, warm air, hung and quivered and danced again, +delighted her. + +Ella and Mirry listened in a trance of awe, reverence, and admiration. +Sophie had a dim vision of them, wide-eyed and still, against the tall +grass and flowers. + +"My! You can sing, Sophie! Can't she, Ella?" + +Ella nodded, gazing at Sophie with eyes of worshipping love. + +"They say you're going away with your father ... and you're going to be +a great singer, Sophie," Mirry said. + +"Yes," Sophie murmured tranquilly, "I am." + +A bevy of black and brown birds flashed past them, flew in a wide +half-circle across the paddock, and alighted on a dead tree beyond the +fence. + +"Look, look!" Mirry started to her feet. "A happy family! I wonder, are +the whole twelve there?" + +She counted the birds, which were calling to each other with little +shrill cries. + +"They're all there!" she announced. "Twelve of them. Mother says in some +parts they call them the twelve apostles. Sing again, Sophie," she +begged. + +Ella smiled at Sophie. Her lips parted as though she would like to have +said that, too; but only her eyes entreated, and she went on putting her +flowers together. + +As she sang, Sophie watched a pair of butterflies, white with black +lines and splashes of yellow and scarlet on their wings, hovering over +the flowered field of the paddock. She was so lost in her singing and +watching the butterflies, and the children were so intent listening to +her, that they did not hear a horseman coming slowly towards them along +the track. As he came up to them, Sophie's rippling notes broke and fell +to earth. Ella saw him first, and was on her feet in an instant. Mirry +and she, their wild instinct asserting itself, darted away and took +cover behind the trunks of the nearest trees. + +Sophie looked after them, wondering whether she would follow them as she +used to; but she felt older and more staid now than she had a year ago. +She stood her ground, as the man, who was leading his horse, came to a +standstill before her. + +She knew him well enough, Arthur Henty, the only son of old Henty of +Warria Station. She had seen him riding behind cattle or sheep on the +roads across the plains for years. Sometimes when Potch and she had met +him riding across the Ridge, or at the swamp, he had stopped to talk to +them. He had been at her mother's funeral, too; but as he stood before +her this afternoon, Sophie seemed to be seeing him for the first time. + +A tall, slightly-built young man, in riding breeches and leggings, a +worn coat, and as weathered a felt hat as any man on the Ridge wore, his +clothes the colour of dust on the roads, he stood before her, smiling +slightly. His face was dark in the shadow of his hat, but the whole of +him, cut against the sunshine, had gilded outlines. And he seemed to be +seeing Sophie for the first time, too. She had jumped up and drawn back +from the track when the Flails ran away. He could not believe that this +tall girl in the black dress was the queer, elfish-like girl he had seen +running about the Ridge, bare-legged, with feet in goat-skin sandals, +and in the cemetery on the Warria road, not much more than a year ago. +Her elfish gaiety had deserted her. It was the black dress gave her face +the warm pallor of ivory, he thought, made her look staider, and as if +the sadness of all it symbolised had not left her. But her eyes, +strange, beautiful eyes, the green and blue of opal, with black rings on +the irises and great black pupils, had still the clear, unconscious gaze +of youth; her lips the sweet, sucking curves of a child's. + +They stood so, smiling and staring at each other, a spell of silence on +each. + +Sophie had dropped half her flowers as she sprang up at the sound of +someone approaching. She had clutched a few in one hand; the rest lay on +the grass about her, her hat beside them. Henty's eyes went to the trees +round which Mirry and Ella were peeping. + +"They're wild birds, aren't they?" he said. + +Sophie smiled. She liked the way his eyes narrowed to slits of sunshine +as he smiled. + +"Are you going to sing, again?" he asked hesitatingly. + +Sophie shook her head. + +"My mother's awfully fond of that stuff," Henty said, looking at the +Darling pea Sophie had in her hand. "We haven't got any near the +homestead. I came into the paddock to get some for her." + +Sophie held out her bunch. + +"Not all of it," he said. + +"I can get more," she said. + +He took the flowers, and his vague smile changed to one of shy and +subtle understanding. Ella and Mirry found courage to join Sophie. + +"Where's Potch?" Henty asked. + +"He's working with Michael," Sophie said. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, and stood before her awkwardly, not knowing what to +talk about. + +He was still thinking how different she was to the little girl he had +seen chasing goats on the Ridge no time before, and wondering what had +changed her so quickly, when Sophie stooped to pick up her hat. Then he +saw her short, dark hair twisted up into a knot at the back of her head. +Feeling intuitively that he was looking at the knot she was so proud of, +Sophie put on her hat quickly. A delicate colour moved on her neck and +cheeks. Arthur Henty found himself looking into her suffused eyes and +smiling at her smile of confusion. + +"Well, we must be going now," Sophie said, a little breathlessly. + +Henty said that he was going into the New Town and would walk along part +of the way with her. He tucked the flowers Sophie had given him into his +saddle-bag, and she and the children turned down the track. Ella, having +found her tongue, chattered eagerly. Arthur Henty strolled beside them, +smoking, his reins over his arm. Mirry wanted to ride his horse. + +"Nobody rides this horse but me," Henty said. "She'd throw you into the +middle of next week." + +"I can ride," Mirry said; "ride like a flea, the boys say." + +She was used to straddling any pony or horse her brothers had in the +yard, and they had a name as the best horse-breakers in the district. + +Henty laughed. "But you couldn't ride Beeswing," he said. "She doesn't +let anybody but me ride her. You can sit on, if you like; she won't mind +that so long as I've got hold of her." + +The stirrup was too high for Mirry to reach, so he picked her up and put +her across the saddle. The mare shivered and shrank under the light +shock of Mirry's landing upon her, but Arthur Henty talked to her and +rubbed her head soothingly. + +"It's all right ... all right, old girl," he muttered. "Think it was one +of those stinging flies? But it isn't, you see. It's only Mirry Flail. +She says she's a flea of a rider. But you'd learn her, wouldn't you, if +you got off with her by yourself?" + +Ella giggled softly, peering at Mirry and Henty and at the beautiful +golden-red chestnut he was leading. Ed. Ventry had put Sophie on his +coach horses sometimes. He had let her go for a scamper with Potch on an +old horse or a likely colt now and then; but she knew she did not ride +well--not as Mirry rode. + +They walked along the dusty road together when they had left the tank +paddock, Mirry chattering from Beeswing's back, Sophie, with Ella +clinging to one hand, on the other side of Henty. But Mirry soon tired +of riding a led horse at a snail's pace. When a sulphur-coloured +butterfly fluttered for a few minutes over a wild tobacco plant, she +slid from the saddle, on the far side, and was off over the plains to +have another look at the butterfly. + +Ella was too shy or too frightened to get on the chestnut, even with +Henty holding her bridle. + +"How about you, Sophie?" Arthur Henty asked. + +Sophie nodded, but before he could help her she had put her foot into +the stirrup and swung into the saddle herself. Beeswing shivered again +to the new, strange weight on her back. Henty held her, muttering +soothingly. They went on again. + +After a while, with a shy glance, and as if to please him, Sophie began +to sing, softly at first, so as not to startle the mare, and then +letting her voice out so that it rippled as easily and naturally as a +bird's. Henty, walking with a hand on the horse's bridle beside her, +heard again the song she had been singing in the tank paddock. + +Ella was supposed to be carrying Sophie's flowers. She did not know she +had dropped nearly half of them, and that they were lying in a trail all +along the dusty road. + +Henty did not speak when Sophie had finished. His pipe had gone out, and +he put it in his pocket. The stillness of her audience of two was so +intense that to escape it Sophie went on singing, and the chestnut did +not flinch. She went quietly to the pace of the song, as though she, +too, were enjoying its rapture and tenderness. + +Then through the clear air came a rattle of wheels and jingle of +harness. Mirry, running towards them from the other side of the road, +called eagerly: + +"It's the coach.... Mr. Ventry's got six horses in, and a man with him!" + +Six horses indicated that a person of some importance was on board the +coach. Henty drew the chestnut to one side as the coach approached. Mr. +Ventry jerked his head in Henty's direction when he passed and saw +Arthur Henty with the Flail children and Sophie. The stranger beside him +eyed, with a faint smile of amusement, the cavalcade, the girl in the +black dress on the fine chestnut horse, the children with the flowers, +and the young man standing beside them. The man on the coach was a +clean-shaved, well-groomed, rather good-looking man of forty, or +thereabouts, and his clothes and appearance proclaimed him a man of the +world beyond the Ridge. His smile and stare annoyed Henty. + +"It's Mr. Armitage," Mirry said. "The young one. He's not as nice as the +old man, my father says--and he doesn't know opal as well--but he gives +a good price." + +They had reached the curve of the road where one arm turns to the town +and the other goes over the plains to Warria. Sophie slipped from the +horse. + +"We'll take the short cut here," she said. + +She stood looking at Arthur Henty for a moment, and in that moment Henty +knew that she had sensed his thought. She had guessed he was afraid of +having looked ridiculous trailing along the road with these children. +Sophie turned away. The young Flails bounded after her. Henty could hear +their laughter when he had ridden out some distance along the road. + +From the slope of a dump Sophie saw him--the chestnut and her rider +loping into the sunset, and, looking after him, she finished her song. + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà, + A fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà!" + + Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be, + For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee! + My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee, + And my last breath will be for thee, dear name. + +The long, sweet notes and rippled melody followed Arthur Henty over the +plains in the quiet air of late afternoon. But the afternoon had been +spoilt for him. He was self-conscious and ill at ease about it all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Mr. Armitage is up at Newton's!" Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw +him at his back-door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news. + +"Not the old man?" Michael inquired. + +"No, the young 'un." + +Word was quickly bruited over the fields that the American, one of the +best buyers who came to the Ridge, had arrived by the evening coach. He +invariably had a good deal of money to spend, and gave a better price +than most of the local buyers. + +Dawe P. Armitage had visited Fallen Star Ridge from the first year of +its existence as an opal field, and every year for years after that. But +when he began to complain about aches and pains in his bones, which he +refused to allow anybody to call rheumatism, and was assured he was well +over seventy and that the long rail and sea journey from New York City +to Fallen Star township were getting too much for him, he let his son, +whom he had made a partner in his business, make the journey for him. +John Lincoln Armitage had been going to the Ridge for two or three +years, and although the men liked him well enough, he was not as popular +with them as his father had been. And the old man, John Armitage said, +although he was nearly crippled with rheumatism, still grudged him his +yearly visit to the Ridge, and hated like poison letting anyone else do +his opal-buying. + +Dawe Armitage had bought some of the best black opal found on the Ridge. +He had been a hard man to deal with, but the men had a grudging +admiration for him, a sort of fellow feeling of affection because of his +oneness with them in a passion for black opal. A grim, sturdy old +beggar, there was a certain quality about him, a gruff humour, sheer +doggedness, strength of purpose, and dead honesty within his point of +view, which kept an appreciative and kindly feeling for him in their +hearts. They knew he had preyed on them; but he had done it bluntly, +broadly, and in such an off-with-the-gloves-lads-style, that, after a +good fight over a stone and price, they had sometimes given in to him +for sheer amusement, and to let him have the satisfaction of thinking he +had gained his point. + +Usually he set his price on a stone and would not budge from it. The +gougers knew this, and if their price on a stone was not Dawe +Armitage's, they did not waste breath on argument, except to draw the +old boy and get some diversion from his way of playing them. If a man +had a good stone and did not think anyone else was likely to give him +his figure, sometimes he sold ten minutes before the coach Armitage was +going down to town by, left Newton's. But, three or four times, when a +stone had taken his fancy and a miner was obdurate, the old man, with +his mind's eye full of the stone and the fires in its dazzling jet, had +suddenly sent for it and its owner, paid his price, and pocketed the +stone. He had wrapped up the gem, chuckling in defeat, and rejoicing to +have it at any price. As a rule he made three or four times as much as +he had given for opals he bought on the Ridge, but to Dawe Armitage the +satisfaction of making money on a transaction was nothing like the joy +of putting a coveted treasure into his wallet and driving off from +Fallen Star with it. + +A gem merchant of considerable standing in the United States, Dawe +Armitage's collection of opals was world famous. He had put black opal +on the market, and had been the first to extol the splendour of the +stones found on Fallen Star Ridge. So different they were from the opal +found on Chalk Cliffs, or in any other part of the world, with the fires +in jetty potch rather than in the clear or milky medium people were +accustomed to, that at first timid and conventional souls were disturbed +and repelled by them. "They felt," they said, "that there was something +occultly evil about black opal." They had a curious fear and dread of +the stones as talismans of evil. Dawe Armitage scattered the quakers +like chaff with his scorn. They could not, he said, accept the +magnificent pessimism of black opal. They would not rejoice with pagan +abandonment in the beauty of those fires in black opal, realising that, +like the fires of life, they owed their brilliance, their transcendental +glory, to the dark setting. But every day the opals made worshippers of +sightseers. They mesmerised beholders who came to look at them. + +When the coach rattled to a standstill outside the hotel, Peter Newton +went to the door of the bar. He knew John Armitage by the size and shape +of his dust-covered overalls. Armitage dismounted and pulled off his +gloves. Peter Newton went to meet him. + +Armitage gripped his hand. + +"Mighty glad to see you, Newton," he said, "and glad to see the Ridge +again. How are you all?" + +Newton smiled, giving him greeting in downright Ridge style. + +"Fine," he said. "Glad to see you, Mr. Armitage." + +When he got indoors, Armitage threw off his coat. He and Peter had a +drink together, and then he went to have a wash and brush up before +dinner. Mrs. Newton came from the kitchen; she was pleased to see Mr. +Armitage, she said, and he shook hands with her and made her feel that +he was really quite delighted to see her. She spent a busy hour or so +making the best of her preparations for the evening meal, so that he +might repeat his usual little compliments about her cooking. Armitage +had his dinner in a small private sitting-room, and strolled out +afterwards to the veranda to smoke and yarn with the men. + +He spent the evening with them there, and in the bar, hearing the news +of the Ridge and gossiping genially. He had come all the way from Sydney +the day before, spent the night in the train, and had no head for +business that night, he said. When he yarned with them, Fallen Star men +had a downright sense of liking John Armitage. He was a good sort, they +told each other; they appreciated his way of talking, and laughed over +the stories he told and the rare and racy Americanisms with which he +flavoured his speech for their benefit. + +When he exerted himself to entertain and amuse them, they were as +pleased with him as a pack of women. And John Lincoln Armitage pleased +women, men of the Ridge guessed, the women of his own kind as well as +the women of Fallen Star who had talked to him now and then. His eyes +had a mild caress when they rested on a woman; it was not in the least +offensive, but carried challenge and appeal--a suggestion of sympathy. +He had a thousand little courtesies for women, the deference which comes +naturally to "a man of the world" for a member of "the fair sex." Mrs. +Newton was always flattered and delighted after a talk with him. He +asked her advice about opals he had bought or was going to buy, and, +although he did not make use of it very often, she was always pleased by +his manner of asking. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Archie Cross both +confessed to a partiality for Mr. Armitage, and even Mrs. Watty agreed +that he was "a real nice man"; and when he was in the township Mrs. +Henty and one of the girls usually drove over from the station and took +him back to Warria to stay a day or two before he went back to Sydney on +his return journey to New York. + +Armitage was very keen to know whether there had been any sensational +finds on the Ridge during the year, and all about them. He wanted to +know who had been getting good stuff, and said that he had bought Jun's +stones in Sydney. The men exclaimed at that. + +"I was surprised to hear," John Armitage said, "what happened to the +other parcel. You don't mean to say you think Charley Heathfield----?" + +"We ain't tried him yet," Watty remarked cautiously, "but the evidence +is all against him." + +Rouminof thrust himself forward, eager to tell his story. Realising the +proud position he might have been in this night with the opal-buyer if +he had had his opals, tears gathered in his eyes as he went over it all +again. + +Armitage listened intently. + +"Well, of all the rotten luck!" he exclaimed, when Paul had finished. +"Have another whisky, Rouminof? But what I can't make out," he added, +"is why, if he had the stones, Charley didn't come to me with them.... I +didn't buy anything but Jun's stuff before I came up here ... and he +just said it was half the find he was showing me. Nice bit of pattern in +that big black piece, eh? If Charley had the stones, you'd think he'd +'ve come along to me, or got Jun, or somebody to come along for him...." + +"I don't know about that." George Woods felt for his reasons. "He +wouldn't want you--or anybody else to know he'd got them." + +"That's right," Watty agreed. + +"He's got them all right," Ted Cross declared. "You see, I seen him +taking Rummy home that night--and he cleared out next morning." + +"I guess you boys know best." John Armitage sipped his whisky +thoughtfully. "But I'm mad to get the rest of the stones. Tell you the +truth, the old man hasn't been too pleased with my buying lately ... and +it would put him in no end of a good humour if I could take home with me +another packet of gems like the one I got from Jun. Jun knew I was keen +to get the stones ... and I can't help thinking ... if he knew they were +about, he'd put me in the way of getting them ... or them in my +way--somehow. You don't think ... anybody else could have been on the +job, and ... put it over on Charley, say...." + +His eyes went over the faces of the men lounging against the bar, or +standing in groups about him. Michael was lifting his glass to drink, +and, for the fraction of a second the opal-buyer's glance wavered on his +face before it passed on. + +"Not likely," George Woods said dryly. + +Recognising the disfavour his suggestion raised, Armitage brushed it +aside. + +"I don't think so, of course," he said. + +And although he did not speak to him, or even look at him closely again, +John Armitage was thinking all the evening of the quiver, slight as the +tremor of a moth's wing, on Michael's face, when that inquiry had been +thrown out. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the +men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more +of Dawe Armitage's zest for the business; and, every time they met, +Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and +easy-going with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they +were sure. + +The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood +him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only +perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to +please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He +was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his +last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John +Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, +which had cost £50 in the rough, was not worth £5 when it was cut. A +grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went +through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought +double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a +good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said. + +George Woods and Watty took John Armitage a couple of fine knobbies +during the morning, and the Crosses had shown him a parcel containing +two good green and blue stones with rippled lights; but they had more on +the parcel than Armitage felt inclined to pay, remembering the stormy +scene there had been with the old man over that last stone from Crosses' +mine which had cracked in the cutter's hands. Towards the end of the day +Mr. Armitage came to the conclusion, having gone over the stones the men +brought him, and having bought all he fancied, that there was very +little black opal of first quality about. He was meditating the fact, +leaning back in his chair in the sitting-room Newton had reserved for +him to see the gougers in, some pieces of opal, his scales and +microscope on the table before him, when Michael knocked. + +Absorbed in his reflections, realising there would be little to show for +the trouble and pains of his long journey, and reviewing a slowly +germinating scheme and dream for the better output of opal from Fallen +Star, John Armitage did not at first pay any attention to the knock. + +He had been thinking a good deal of Michael in connection with that +scheme. Michael, he knew, would be his chief opponent, if ever he tried +putting it into effect. When he had outlined his idea and vaguely formed +plans to his father, Dawe Armitage would have nothing to do with them. +He swept them aside uncompromisingly. + +"You don't know what you're up against," he said. "There isn't a man on +the Ridge wouldn't fight like a pole-cat if you tried it on 'em. Give +'em a word of it--and we quit partnership, see? They wouldn't stand for +it--not for a second--and there'd be no more black opal for Armitage and +Son, if they got any idea on the Ridge you'd that sort of notion at the +back of your head." + +But John Armitage refused to give up his idea. He went to it as a dog +goes to a planted bone--gnawed and chewed over it, contemplatively. + +He had made this trip to Fallen Star with little result, and he was sure +a system of working the mines on scientific, up-to-date lines would +ensure the production of more stone. He wanted to talk organisation and +efficiency to men of the Ridge, to point out to them that organisation +and efficiency were of first value in production, not realising Ridge +men considered their methods both organised and efficient within their +means and for their purposes. + +Michael knocked again, and Armitage called: + +"Come in!" When he saw who had come into the room, he rose and greeted +Michael warmly. + +"Oh, it's you, Michael!" he said, with a sense of guilt at the thoughts +Michael had interrupted. "I wondered what on earth had become of you. +The old man gave me no end of messages, and there are a couple of +magazines for you in my grip." + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," Michael replied. + +"Well, I hope you've got some good stuff," Armitage said. + +Michael took the chair opposite to him on the other side of the table. +"I haven't got much," he said. + +"I remember Newton told me you've been having rotten luck." + +"It's looked up lately," Michael said, the flickering wisp of a smile in +his eyes. "The boys say Rummy's a luck-bringer.... He's working with me +now, and we've been getting some nice stone." + +He took a small packet of opal from his pocket and put it on the table. +It was wrapped in newspaper. He unfastened the string, turned back the +cotton-wool in which the pieces of opal were packed, and spread them out +for Armitage to look at. + +Armitage went over the stones. He put them, one by one, under his +microscope, and held them to and from the light. + +"That's a nice bit of colour, Michael," he said, admiring a small piece +of grey potch with a black strain which flashed needling rays of green +and gold. "A little bit more of that, and you'd be all right, eh?" + +Michael nodded. "We're on a streak now," he said. "It ought to work out +all right." + +"I hope it will." Armitage held the piece of opal to the light and moved +it slowly. "Rouminof's working with you now--and Potch, they tell me?" + +Michael nodded. + +"Pretty hard on him, Charley's getting away with his stones like that!" + +John Armitage probed the quiet eyes of the man before him with a swift +glance. + +"You're right there, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. "Harder on Paul than +it would have been on anybody else. He's got the fever pretty bad." + +Armitage laughed, handling a stone thoughtfully. + +"I gave Jun a hundred pounds for his big stone. I'd give the same for +the other--if I could lay my hands on it, though the boys say it wasn't +quite as big, but better pattern." + +"That's right," Michael said. + +Silence lay between them for a moment. + +"What have you got on the lot, Michael?" Armitage asked, picking up the +stones before him and going over them absent-mindedly. + +"A tenner," Michael said. + +Usually a gouger asked several pounds more than he expected to get. John +Armitage knew that; Michael knew he knew it. Armitage played with the +stones, hesitated as though his mind were not made up. There was not +much more than potch and colour in the bundle. He went over the stones +with the glass again. + +"Oh well, Michael," he said, "we're old friends. I won't haggle with +you. Ten pounds--your own valuation." + +He would get twice as much for the parcel, but the price was a good one. +Michael was surprised he had conceded it so easily. + +Armitage pulled out his cheque-book and pushed a box of cigars across +the table. Michael took out his pipe. + +"If you don't mind, Mr. Armitage," he said, "I'm more at home with +this." + +"Please yourself, Michael," Armitage murmured, writing his cheque. + +When Michael had put the cheque in his pocket, Armitage took a cigar, +nipped and lighted it, and leaned back in his chair again. + +"Not much big stuff about, Michael," he remarked, conversationally. + +"George Woods had some good stones," Michael said. + +Armitage was not enthusiastic. "Pretty fair. But the old man will be +better pleased with the stuff I got from Jun Johnson than anything else +this trip.... I'd give a good deal to get the almond-shaped stone in +that other parcel." + +Michael realised Mr. Armitage had said the same thing to him before. He +wondered why he had said it to him--what he was driving at. + +"There were several good stones in Paul's parcel," he said. + +His clear, quiet eyes met John Armitage's curious, inquiring gaze. He +was vaguely discomfited by Armitage's gaze, although he did not flinch +from it. He wondered what Mr. Armitage knew, that he should look like +that. + +"It's been hard on Rouminof," Armitage murmured again. + +Michael agreed. + +"After the boys making Jun shell out, too! It doesn't seem to have been +much use, does it?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"And they say he was going to take that girl of his down to Sydney to +have her trained as a singer. She can sing, too. But her mother, +Michael--I heard her in _Dinorah_ ... when I was a little chap." +Enthusiasm lighted John Armitage's face. "She was wonderful.... The old +man says people were mad about her when she was in New York.... It was +said, you know, she belonged to some aristocratic Russian family, and +ran away with a rascally violinist--Rouminof. Can you believe it? ... +Went on the stage to keep him.... But she couldn't stand the life. Soon +after she was lost sight of.... I've often wondered how she drifted to +Fallen Star. But she liked being here, the old man says." + +Michael nodded. There was silence between them a moment; then Michael +rose to go. The opal-buyer got up too, and flung out his arms, +stretching with relief to be done with his day's work. + +"I've been cooped in here all day," he said. "I'll come along with you, +Michael. I'd like to have a look at the Punti Rush. Can you walk over +there with me?" + +"'Course I can, Mr. Armitage," Michael said heartily. + +They walked out of the hotel and through the town towards the rush, +where half a dozen new claims had been pegged a few weeks before. + +Snow-Shoes passed then going out of the town to his hut, swinging along +the track and gazing before him with the eyes of a seer, his fine old +face set in a dream, serene dignity in every line of his erect and +slowly-moving figure. + +Armitage looked after him. + +"What a great old chap he is, Michael," he exclaimed. "You don't know +anything about him ... who he is, or where he comes from, do you?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"How does he live?" + +"Noodles." + +"He's never brought me any stone." + +"Trades it with the storekeepers--though the boys do say"--Michael +looked with smiling eyes after Snow-Shoes--"he may be a bit of a miser, +loves opal more than the money it brings." + +Armitage's interest deepened. "There are chaps like that. I've heard the +old man talk about a stone getting hold of a man sometimes--mesmerising +him. I believe the old man's a bit like that himself, you know. There +are two or three pieces of opal he's got from Fallen Star nothing on +earth will induce him to part with. We wanted a stone for an Indian +nabob's show tiara--something of that sort--not long ago. I fancied that +big knobby we got from George Woods; do you remember? But the old man +wouldn't part with it; not he! Said he'd see all the nabobs in the world +in--Hades, before they got that opal out of him!" + +Michael laughed. The thought of hard-shelled old Dawe Armitage hoarding +opals tickled him immensely. + +"Fact," Armitage continued. "He's got a couple of stones he's like a kid +over--takes them out, rubs them, and plays with them. And you should +hear him if I try to get them from him.... A packet of crackers isn't in +it with the old man." + +"The boys'd like to hear that," Michael said. + +"There's no doubt about the fascination the stuff exercises," John +Armitage went on. "You people say, once an opal-miner, always an +opal-miner; but I say, once an opal-buyer, always an opal-buyer. I +wasn't keen about this business when I came into it ... but it's got me +all right. I can't see myself coming to this God-forsaken part of the +world of yours for anything but black opal...." + +That expression, whimsical and enigmatic, which was never very far from +them, had grown in Michael's eyes. He began to sense a motive in +Armitage's seemingly casual talk, and to understand why the opal-buyer +was so friendly. + +"The old man tells a story," Armitage continued, "of that robbery up at +Blue Pigeon. You know the yarn I mean ... about sticking up a coach when +there was a good parcel of opal on board. Somebody did the bush-ranging +trick and got away with the opal.... The thief was caught, and the stuff +put for safety in an iron safe at the post office. And sight of the +opals corrupted one of the men in the post office.... He was caught ... +and then a mounted trooper took charge of them. And the stuff bewitched +him, too.... He tried to get away with it...." + +"That's right," Michael murmured serenely. + +Armitage eyed him keenly. He could scarcely believe the story he had got +from Jun, that the second parcel of stones had been exchanged after +Charley got them, or that they had been changed on Paul before Charley +got them from him. + +Michael guessed Armitage was sounding him by talking so much of +Rouminof's stones and the robbery. He wondered what Armitage +knew--whether he knew anything which would attach him, Michael, to +knowledge of what had become of Paul's stones. There was always the +chance that Charley had recognised some of the opal in the parcel +substituted for Paul's, although none of the scraps were significant +enough to be remembered, Michael thought, and Charley was never keen +enough to have taken any notice of the sun-flash and fragments of +coloured potch they had taken out of the mine during the year. The brown +knobby, which Michael had kept for something of a sentimental reason, +because it was the first stone he had found on Fallen Star, Charley had +never seen. + +But, probably, he remarked to himself, Armitage was only trying to get +information from him because he thought that Michael Brady was the most +likely man on the Ridge to know what had become of the stones, or to +guess what might have become of them. + +As they walked and talked, these thoughts were an undercurrent in +Michael's mind. And the undercurrent of John Lincoln Armitage's mind, +through all his amiable and seemingly inconsequential gossip, was not +whether Michael had taken the stones, but why he had, and what had +become of them. + +Armitage could not, at first, bring himself to credit the half-formed +suspicion which that quiver of Michael's face, when he had spoken of +what Jun said, had given him. Yet they were all more or less mad, people +who dealt with opal, he believed. It might not be for the sake of profit +Michael had taken the stones, if he had taken them--there was still a +shadow of doubt in his mind. John Armitage knew that any man on the +Ridge would have knocked him down for harbouring such a thought. Michael +was the little father, the knight without fear and without a stain, of +the Ridge. He reflected that Michael had never brought him much stone. +His father had often talked of Michael Brady and the way he had stuck to +gouging opal with precious little luck for many years. The parcel he had +sold that day was perhaps the best Michael had traded with Armitage and +Son for a long time. John Armitage wondered if any man could work so +long without having found good stuff, without having realised the hopes +which had materialised for so many other men of the Ridge. + +They went over the new rush, inspected "prospects," and yarned with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, who had pegged out a claim there. +But as Armitage and he walked back to the town discussing the outlook of +the new field and the colour and potch some of the men already had to +show, Michael found himself in the undertow of an uneasy imagination. He +protested to himself that he was unnecessarily apprehensive, that all +Armitage was trying to get from him was any information which would +throw light on the disappearance of Paul's stones. And Armitage was +wondering whether Michael might not be an opal miser--whether the +mysterious fires of black opal might not have eaten into his brain as +they had into the brains of good men before him. + +If they had, and if he had found the flaw in Michael's armour, John +Armitage realised that the way to fulfilment of his schemes for buying +the mines and working them on up-to-date lines, was opened up. If +Michael could be proved unfaithful to the law and ideals of Ridge, John +Armitage believed the men's faith in the fabric of their common life +would fall to pieces. He envisaged the eating of moths of doubt and +disappointment into the philosophy of the Ridge, the disintegration of +ideas which had held the men together, and made them stand together in +matters of common interest and service, as one man. He had almost +assured himself that if Michael was not the thief and hoarder of the +lost opals, he at least knew something of them, when a ripple of +laughter and gust of singing were flung into the air not far from them. + +To Armitage it was as though some blithe spirit was mocking the +discovery he thought he had made, and the fruition it promised those +secret hopes of his. + +"It's Sophie," Michael said. + +They had come across the Ridge to the back of the huts. The light was +failing; the sky, from the earth upwards where the sunset had been, the +frail, limpid green of a shallow lagoon, deepening to blue, darker than +indigo. The crescent of a moon, faintly gilded, swung in the sky above +the dark shapes of the huts which stood by the track to the old +Flash-in-the-pan rush. The smoke of sandal-wood fires burning in the +huts was in the air. A goat bell tinkled.... + +Potch and Sophie were talking behind the hut somewhere; their +exclamations, laughter, a phrase or two of the song Sophie was singing +went through the quietness. + +And it was all this he wanted to change! John Armitage caught the +revelation of the moment as he stood to listen to Sophie singing. He +understood as he had never done what the Ridge stood for--association of +people with the earth, their attachment to the primary needs of life, +the joyous flight of youthful spirits, this quiet happiness and peace at +evening when the work of the day was done. + +As he came from the dumps, having said good-night to Michael, he saw +Sophie, a slight, girlish figure, on the track ahead of him. Her dress +flickered and flashed through the trees beside the track; it was a +wraithlike streak in the twilight. She was taking the milk down to +Newton's, and singing to herself as she walked. John Armitage quickened +his steps to overtake her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The visit of an opal-buyer ruffled ever so slightly the still surface of +life on the Ridge. When Armitage had gone, he was talked of for a few +days; the stones he had bought, the prices he had given for them, were +discussed. Some of his sayings, and the stories he had told, were +laughed over. Tricks of speech he had used, tried at first half in fun, +were adopted and dropped into the vernacular of the mines. + +"Sure!" the men said as easily as an American; and sometimes, talking +with each other: "You've got another think coming to you"; or, "See, +you've got your nerve with you!" + +For a night or two Michael went over the books and papers John Armitage +had brought him. At first he just glanced here and there through them, +and then he began to read systematically, and light glimmered in his +windows far into the night. He soaked the contents of two or three +reviews and several newspapers before giving himself to a book on +international finance in which old Armitage had written his name. + +Michael thrilled to the stimulus of the book, the intellectual +excitement of the ideas it brought forth. He lived tumultuously within +the four bare walls of his room, arguing with himself, the author, the +world at large. Wrong and injustice enthroned, he saw in this book +describing the complexities of national and international systems of +finance, the subtle weaving and interweaving of webs of the +money-makers. + +This was not the effect Dawe Armitage had expected his book to have; he +had expected to overawe and daze Michael with its impressive arraignment +of figures and its subtle and bewildering generalisations on credit and +foreign exchange. Michael's mind had cut through the fog raised by the +financier's jargon to the few small facts beneath it all. Neither dazed +nor dazzled, his brain had swung true to the magnetic meridian of his +faith. Far from the book having shown him the folly and futility of any +attempt against the Money Power, as Dawe Armitage, in a moment of +freakish humour had imagined it might, it had filled him with such an +intensity of fury that for a moment he believed he alone could +accomplish the regeneration of the world; that like St. Michael of old +he would go forth and slay the dragon, this chimera which was ravaging +the world, drawing the blood, beauty, and joy of youth, the peace and +wisdom of age; breaking manhood and womanhood with its merciless claws. + +But falling back on a consciousness of self, as with broken wings he +realised he was neither archangel, nor super-man, but Michael Brady, an +ordinary, ill-educated man who read and dreamed a great deal, and gouged +for black opal on Fallen Star Ridge. He was a little bitter, and more +humble, for having entertained that radiant vision of himself. + +John Armitage had been gone from the Ridge some weeks when Michael went +over in his mind every phase and phrase of the talk they had had. His +lips took a slight smile; it crept into his eyes, as he reviewed what he +had said and what John Armitage had said, smoking unconsciously. + +Absorbed in his reading, he had thought little of John Armitage and that +walk to the new rush with him. Occasionally the memory of it had +nickered and glanced through his mind; but he was so obsessed by the +ideas this new reading had stirred, that he went about his everyday jobs +in the mine and in the hut, absent-mindedly, automatically, because they +were things he was in the habit of doing. Potch watched him anxiously; +Rouminof growled to him; Sophie laughed and flitted and sang, before his +eyes; but Michael had been only distantly conscious of what was going on +about him. George Woods and Watty guessed what was the matter; they knew +the symptoms of these reading and brooding bouts Michael was subject to. +The moods wore off when they put questions likely to draw information +and he began to talk out and discuss what he had been reading with them. + +He had talked this one off, when suddenly he remembered how John +Armitage's eyes had dived into his during that walk to the new rush. He +could see Armitage's eyes again, keen grey eyes they were. And his +hands. Michael remembered how Armitage's hands had played over the opals +he had taken to show him. John Lincoln Armitage had the shrewd eyes of +any man who lives by his wits--lawyer, pickpocket, politician, or +financier--he decided; and the fine white hands of a woman. Only Michael +did not know any woman whose hands were as finely shaped and as white as +John Armitage's. Images of his clean-shaven, hot-house face of a city +dweller, slightly burned by his long journey on land and sea, recurred +to him; expressions, gestures, inflections of voice. + +Michael smiled to himself in communion with his thoughts as he went over +the substance of Armitage's conversation, dissecting and shredding it +critically. The more he thought of what Armitage had said, the more he +found himself believing John Armitage had some information which caused +him to think that he, Michael, knew something of the whereabouts of the +stones. He could not convince himself Armitage believed he actually held +the stones, or that he had stolen them. Armitage had certainly given him +an opportunity to sell on the quiet if he had the stones; but his manner +was too tentative, mingled with a subtle respect, to carry the notion of +an overt suggestion of the sort, or the possession of incriminating +knowledge. Then there was the story of the old Cliffs robbery. Michael +wondered why Mr. Armitage had gone over that. On general principles, +doubting the truth of his long run of bad luck--or from curiosity +merely, perhaps. But Michael did not deceive himself that Armitage might +have told the story in order to discover whether there was something of +the miser in him, and whether--if Michael had anything to do with the +taking of Paul's opals--he might prefer to hold rather than sell them. + +Michael was amused at the thought of himself as a miser. He went into +the matter as honestly as he could. He knew the power opal had with him, +the fascination of the search for it, which had brought him from the +Cliffs to the Ridge, and which had held him to the place, although the +life and ideas it had come to represent meant more to him now than black +opal. Still, he was an opal miner, and through all his lean years on the +Ridge he had been upheld by the thought of the stone he would find some +day. + +He had dreamed of that stone. It had haunted his idle thoughts for +years. He had seen it in the dark of the mine, deep in the ruddy earth, +a mirror of jet with fires swarming, red, green, and gold in it. + +Dreams of the great opal he would one day discover had comforted him +when storekeepers were asking for settlement of long-standing accounts. +He did not altogether believe he would find it, that wonderful piece of +black opal; but he dreamed, like a child, of finding it. + +As he thought of it, and of John Armitage, the smile in his eyes +broadened. If Armitage knew of that stone of his dreams, he would +certainly think his surmise was correct and believe that Michael Brady +was a miser. But he had held the dream in a dark and distant corner of +his consciousness; had it out to mood and brood over only at rare and +distant intervals; and no one was aware of its existence. + +Black opal had no more passionate lover than himself, Michael knew. He +trembled with instinctive eagerness, reverence, and delight, when he saw +a piece of beautiful stone; his eyes devoured it. But there was nothing +personal in his love. He might have been high priest of some mysterious +divinity; when she revealed herself he was consumed with adoration. In a +vague, whimsical way Michael realised this of himself, and yet, too, +that if ever he held the stone of his dreams in his hands, he would be +filled with a glorious and flooding sense of accomplishment; an ecstasy +would transport him. It would be beyond all value in money, that stone; +but he would not want to keep it to gaze on alone, he would want to give +it to the world as a thing of consummate beauty, for everybody to enjoy +the sight of and adore. + +No, Michael assured himself, he was not a miser. And, he reflected, he +had not even looked at Paul's stones. For all he knew, the stones Paul +had been showing that night at Newton's might have been removed from the +box before he left Newton's. Someone might have done to Paul what he, +Michael, had done to Charley Heathfield, as Armitage had suggested. +Paul's little tin box was well enough known. He had been opening and +showing his stones at Newton's a long time before the night when Jun had +been induced to divide spoils. It would be just as well, Michael +decided, to see what the box did contain; and he promised himself that +he would open it and look over the stones--some evening. But he was not +inclined to hurry the engagement with himself to do so. + +He had been glad enough to forget that he had anything to do with that +box of Paul's: it still lay among the books where he had thrown it. The +memory of the night on which he had seen Charley taking Paul home, and +of all that had happened afterwards, was blurred in an ugly vision for +him. It had become like the memory of a nightmare. He could scarcely +believe he had done what he had done; yet he knew he had. He drew a deep +breath of relief when he realised everything had worked out well so far. + +Paul was working with him; they had won that little bit of luck to carry +them on; Sophie was growing up healthily, happily, on the Ridge. She was +growing so quickly, too. Within the last few months Michael had noticed +a subtle change in her. There was an indefinable air of a flower +approaching its bloom about her. People were beginning to talk of her +looks. Michael had seen eyes following her admiringly. Sophie walked +with a light, lithe grace; she was slight and straight, not tall really, +but she looked tall in the black dress she still wore and which came to +her ankles. There was less of the eager sprite about her, a suggestion +of some sobering experience in her eyes--the shadow of her mother's +death--which had banished her unthinking and careless childhood. But the +eyes still had the purity and radiance of a child's. And she seemed +happy--the happiest thing on the Ridge, Michael thought. The cadence of +her laughter and a ripple of her singing were never long out of the air +about her father's hut. Wherever she went, people said now: "Sing to us, +Sophie!" + +And she sang, whenever she was asked, without the slightest +self-consciousness, and always those songs from old operas, or some of +the folk-songs her mother had taught her, which were the only songs she +knew. + +Michael had seen a number of neighbours in the township and their wives +and children sitting round in one or other of their homes while Sophie +sang. He had seen a glow of pleasure transfuse people as they listened +to her pure and ringing notes. Singing, Sophie seemed actually to +diffuse happiness, her own joy in the melodies she flung into the air. +Oh, yes, Sophie was happy singing, Michael could permit himself to +believe now. She could make people happy by her singing. He had feared +her singing as a will-o'-the-wisp which would lead her away from him and +the Ridge. But when he heard her enthralling people in the huts with it, +he was not afraid. + +Paul sometimes moaned about the chances she was missing, and that she +could be singing in theatres to great audiences. Sophie herself laughed +at him. She was quite content with the Ridge, it seemed, and to sing to +people on their verandas in the summer evenings or round the fires in +the winter. She might have had greater and finer audiences, the Ridge +folk said, but she could not have had more appreciative ones. + +If she was singing in the town, Michael always went to bring her home, +and he was as pleased as Sophie to hear people say: + +"You're not taking her away yet, Michael? The night's a pup!" or, +"Another ... just one more song, Sophie!" + +And if she had been singing at Newton's, Michael liked to see the men +come to the door of the bar, holding up their glasses, and to hear their +call, as Sophie and he went down the road: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +"Skin off y'r nose!" + +"All the luck!" + +"Best respecks, Sophie!" + +When Sophie did not know what to do with herself all the hours Michael +and Potch and her father were away at the mines, Michael had showed her +how to use her mother's cutting-wheel. He taught her all he knew of +opals, and Sophie was delighted with the idea of learning to cut and +polish gems as her mother had. + +Michael gave her rough stones to practise on, and in no time she learnt +to handle them skilfully. George, Watty, and the Crosses brought her +some gems to face and polish for them, and they were so pleased with her +work that they promised to give her most of their stones to cut and +polish. She had two or three accidents, and was very crestfallen about +them; but Michael declared they were part of the education of an +opal-cutter and would teach her more about her work than anyone could +tell her. + +To Michael those days were of infinite blessedness. They proved again +and again the right of what he had done. At first he was vaguely alarmed +and uneasy when he saw younger men of the Ridge, Roy O'Mara or Bully +Bryant, talking or walking with Sophie, or he saw her laughing and +talking with them. There was something about Sophie's bearing with them +which disturbed him--a subtle, unconscious witchery. Then he explained +it to himself. He guessed that the woman in her was waking, or awake. On +second thoughts he was not jealous or uneasy. It was natural enough the +boys should like Sophie, that she should like them; he recognised the +age-old call of sex in it all. And if Sophie loved and married a man of +the Ridge, the future would be clear, Michael thought. He could give +Paul the opals, and her husband could watch over Sophie and see no harm +came to her if she left the Ridge. + +The uneasiness stirred again, though, one afternoon when he found her +walking from the tank paddock with Arthur Henty beside her. There was a +startled consciousness about them both when Michael joined them and +walked along the road with them. He had seen Sophie talking to Henty in +and about the township before, but it had not occurred to him there was +anything unusual about that. Sophie had gone about as she liked and +talked to whom she liked since she was a child. She was on good terms +with everyone in the countryside. No one knew where she went or what she +did in the long day while the men were at the mines. Because the +carillon of her laughter flew through those quiet days, Michael +instinctively had put up a prayer of thanksgiving. Sophie was happy, he +thought. He did not ask himself why; he was grateful; but a vague +disquiet made itself felt when he remembered how he had found her +walking with Arthur Henty, and the number of times he had seen her +talking to Arthur Henty at Chassy Robb's store, or on the tracks near +the town. + +Fallen Star folk knew Arthur better than any of the Hentys. For years he +had been coming through the township with cattle or sheep, and had put +up at Newton's with stockmen on his way home, or when he was going to an +out-station beyond the Ridge. + +His father, James Henty, had taken up land in the back-country long +before opal was found on Fallen Star Ridge. He had worked half a million +square acres on an arm of the Darling in the days before runs were +fenced, with only a few black shepherds and one white man, old Bill +M'Gaffy, to help him for the first year or two. But, after an era of +extraordinary prosperity, a series of droughts and misfortunes had +overwhelmed the station and thrown it on the tender mercies of the +banks. + +The Hentys lived much as they had always done. They entertained as +usual, and there was no hint of a wolf near the door in the hearty, +good-natured, and liberal hospitality of the homestead. A constitutional +optimism enabled James Henty to believe Warria would ultimately throw +off its debts and the good old days return. Only at the end of a season, +when year after year he found there was no likelihood of being able to +meet even the yearly interest on mortgages, did he lose some of his +sanguine belief in the station's ability to right itself, and become +irritable beyond endurance, blaming any and everyone within hail for the +unsatisfactory estimates. + +But usually Arthur bore the brunt of these outbursts. Arthur Henty had +gone from school to work on the station at the beginning of Warria's +decline from the years of plenty, and had borne the burden and not a +little of the blame for heavy losses during the droughts, without ever +attempting to shift or deny the responsibilities his father put upon +him. + +"It does the old man good to have somebody to go off at," he explained +indifferently to his sister, Elizabeth, when she called him all the +fools under the sun for taking so much blackguarding sitting down. + +Although James Henty's only son and manager of the station under his +father's autocratic rule, Arthur Henty lived and worked among Warria +stockmen as though he were one of them. His clothes were as worn and +heavy with dust as theirs; his hat was as weathered, his hands as +hard--sunburnt and broken with sores when barcoo was in the air. A +quiet, unassuming man, he never came the "Boss" over them. He passed on +the old man's orders, and, for the rest, worked as hard as any man on +the station. + +He had never done anything remarkable that anyone could remember; but +the men he worked with liked him. Everybody rather liked Arthur Henty, +although nobody enthused about him. He had done man's work ever since he +was a boy, with no more than a couple of years' schooling; he had done +it steadily and as well as any other young man in the back-country. But +there was a curious, almost feminine weakness in him somewhere. The men +did not understand it. They thought he was too supine with his father; +that he ought to stand up to him more. + +Arthur Henty preferred being out on the plains with them rather than in +at the home station, the men said. He looked happier when he was with +them; he whistled to them as they lay yarning round the camp-fire before +turning in. They had never heard anything like his whistling. He seemed +to be playing some small, fine, invisible flute as he gave them +old-fashioned airs, ragtime tunes, songs from the comic operas, and +miscellaneous melodies he had heard his sisters singing. No one had +heard him whistling like that at the station. Out on the plains, or in +the bar at Newton's, he was a different man. Once or twice when he had +been drinking, and a glass or two of beer or whisky had got to his head, +he had shown more the spirit that it was thought he possessed--as if, +when the conscious will was relaxed, a submerged self had leapt forth. + +Men who had known him a long time wondered whether time would not +strengthen the fibres of that submerged self; but they had seen Arthur +Henty lose the elastic, hopeful outlook of youth, and sink gradually +into the place assigned him by his father, at first dutifully, then with +an indifference which slowly became apathy. + +Mrs. Henty and the girls exclaimed with dismay and disgust when they +returned to the station after two years in town, and saw how rough and +unkempt-looking Arthur had become. They insisted on his having his hair +and beard cut at once, and that he should manicure his finger-nails. +After he had dressed for dinner and was clipped and shaved, they said he +looked more as if he belonged to them; but he was a shy, awkward boor, +and they did not know what to make of him. In his mother's hands, Arthur +was still a child, though, and she brought him back to the fold of the +family, drew his resistance--an odd, sullen resentment he had acquired +for the niceties of what she called "civilised society"--and made him +amenable to its discipline. + +Elizabeth was twice the man her brother was, James Henty was fond of +declaring. She had all the vigour and dash he would have liked his son +to possess. "My daughter Elizabeth," he said as frequently as possible, +and was always talking of her feats with horses, and the clear-headed +and clever way she went about doing things, and getting her own way on +all and every occasion. + +When the men rounded buck-jumpers into the yards on a Sunday morning, +Elizabeth would ride any Chris Este, the head stockman, let her near; +but Arthur never attempted to ride any of the warrigals. He steered +clear of horse-breaking and rough horses whenever he could, although he +broke and handled his own horses. In a curious way he shared a secret +feeling of his mother's for horses. She had never been able to overcome +an indefinable apprehension of the raw, half-broken horses of the +back-country, although her nerve had carried her through years of +acquaintance with them, innumerable accidents and misadventures, and +hundreds of miles of journeys at their mercy; and Arthur, although he +had lived and worked among horses as long as he could remember, had not +been able to lose something of the same feeling. His sister, suspecting +it, was frankly contemptuous; so was his father. It was the reason of +Henty's low estimate of his son's character generally. And the rumour +that Arthur Henty was shy of tough propositions in horses--"afraid of +horses"--had a good deal to do with the never more than luke-warm +respect men of the station and countryside had for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Sophie often met Arthur Henty on the road just out of the town. Usually +it was going to or coming from the tank paddock, or in the paddock, on +Friday afternoons, when he had been into Budda for the sales or to truck +sheep or cattle. They did not arrange to meet, but Sophie expected to +see Arthur when she went to the tank paddock, and she knew he expected +to find her there. She did not know why she liked being with Arthur +Henty so much, or why they were such golden occasions when she met him. +They did not talk much when they were together. Their eyes met; they +knew each other through their eyes--a something remote from themselves +was always working through their eyes. It drew them together. + +When she was with Arthur Henty, Sophie knew she was filled with an +ineffable gaiety, a thing so delicate and ethereal that as she sang she +seemed to be filling the air with it. And Henty looked at her sometimes +as if he had discovered a new, strange, and beautiful creature, a +butterfly, or gnat, with gauzy, resplendent wings, whose beauty he was +bewildered and overcome by. The last time they had been together he had +longed to draw her to him and kiss her so that the virgin innocence +would leave her eyes; but fear or some conscientious scruple had +restrained him. He had been reluctant to awaken her, to change the +quality of her feeling towards him. He had let her go with a lingering +handclasp. In all their tender intimacy there had been no more of the +love-making of the flesh than the subtle interweavings of instincts and +fibres which this handclasp gave. Ridge folk had seen them walking +together. They had seen that subtle inclination of Sophie's and Arthur's +figures towards each other as they walked--the magnetic, gentle, +irresistible swaying towards each other--and the gossips began to +whisper and nod smilingly when they came across Arthur and Sophie on the +road. Sophie at first went her way unconscious of the whispers and +smiles. Then words were dropped slyly--people teased her about Arthur. +She realised they thought he was her sweetheart. Was he? She began to +wonder and think about it. He must be; she came to the conclusion +happily. Only sweethearts went for walks together as she and Arthur did. + +"My mother says," Mirry Flail remarked one day, "she wouldn't be a bit +surprised to see you marrying Arthur Henty, Sophie, and going over to +live at Warria." + +"Goodness!" Sophie exclaimed, surprised and delighted that anybody +should think such a thing. + +"Marry Arthur Henty and go over and live at Warria." Her mind, like a +delighted little beaver, began to build on the idea. It did not alter +her bearing with Arthur. She was less shy and thoughtful with him, +perhaps; but he did not notice it, and she was carelessly and childishly +content to have found the meaning of why she and Arthur liked meeting +and talking together. People only felt as she and Arthur felt about each +other if they were going to marry and live "happy ever after," she +supposed. + +When Michael was aware of what was being said, and of the foundation +there was for gossip, he was considerably disturbed. He went to talk to +Maggie Grant about it. She, he thought, would know more of what was in +the wind than he did, and be better able to gauge what the consequences +were likely to be to Sophie. + +"I've been bothered about it myself, Michael," she said. "But neither +you nor me can live Sophie's life for her.... I don't see we can do +anything. His crowd'll do all the interfering, if I know anything about +them." + +"I suppose so," Michael agreed. + +"And, as far as I can see, it won't do any good our butting in," Mrs. +Grant continued. "You know Sophie's got a will of her own ... and she's +always had a good deal her own way. I've talked round the thing to her +... and I think she understands." + +"You've always been real good to her, Maggie," Michael said gratefully. + +"As to that"--the lines of Maggie Grant's broad, plain face rucked to +the strength of her feeling--"I've done what I could. But then, I'm fond +of her--fond of her as you are, Michael. That's saying a lot. And you +know what I thought of her mother. But it's no use us thinking we can +buy Sophie's experience for her. She's got to live ... and she's got to +suffer." + +Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no +idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or +that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang +as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch +as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an +insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her +stones to face and fix up. She had acquired such a reputation for making +the most of stones committed to her care that men came from the Three +Mile and from the Punti with opals for her to rough-out and polish. + +Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara were often at Rouminof's in the evening, and +they heard about it when they looked in at Newton's later on, now and +then. + +"You must be striking it pretty good down at the Punti, Bull," Watty +Frost ventured genially one night. "See you takin' stones for Sophie to +fix up pretty near every evenin'." + +"There's some as sees too much," Bully remarked significantly. + +"What you say, you say y'rself, Bull." Watty pulled thoughtfully on his +pipe, but his little blue eyes squinted over his fat, red-grained +cheeks, not in the least abashed. + +"I do," Bull affirmed. "And them as sees too much ... won't see much ... +when I'm through with 'em." + +"Mmm," Watty brooded. "That's a good thing to know, isn't it?" + +He and the rest of the men continued to "sling off," as they said, at +Bully and Roy O'Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless. + +The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of +excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and +the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new +prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on +claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new +field. + +Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show +for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the +fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man +to manage Rummy, the men said. + +Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more +or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with +him for keeping out of the way. + +"Shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't rather have his room than his +company," Watty ventured, "and they just go shares with him so as +things'll be all right for Sophie." + +"That's right!" Pony-Fence agreed. + +The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man's work, going +about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a +youth at anybody's beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the +taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a +man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older +than he was really, and took being Michael's mate very seriously. + +Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that +Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter; but +George and Watty were loth to lose Michael's word from their councils. +They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. +Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a +discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other +shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that +morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael +had invited him to go across to George and Watty's shelter with him, and +after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael's +shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds +which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what +was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty +trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found +Potch's eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent +expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave +interest. + +Some people were staying at Warria during the winter, and when there was +going to be a dance at the station Mrs. Henty wrote to ask Rouminof to +play for it. She could manage the piano music, she said, and if he would +tune his violin for the occasion, they would have a splendid band for +the young people. And, her letter had continued: "We should be so +pleased if your daughter would come with you." + +Sophie was wildly excited at the invitation. She had been to Ridge race +balls for the last two or three years, but she had never even seen +Warria. Her father had played at a Warria ball once, years before, when +she was little; but she and her mother had not gone with him to the +station. She remembered quite well when he came home, how he had told +them of all the wonderful things there had been to eat at the +ball--stuffed chickens and crystallised fruit, iced cakes, and all +manner of sweets. + +Sophie had heard of the Warria homestead since she was a child, of its +orange garden and great, cool rooms. It had loomed like the enchanted +castle of a legend through all her youthful imaginings. And now, as she +remembered what Mirry Flail had said, she was filled with delight and +excitement at the thought of seeing it. + +She wondered whether Arthur had asked his mother to invite her to the +dance. She thought he must have; and with naïve conceit imagined happily +that Arthur's mother must want to know her because she knew that Arthur +liked her. And Arthur's sisters--it would be nice to know them and to +talk to them. She went over and over in her mind the talks she would +have with Polly and Nina, and perhaps Elizabeth Henty, some day. + +A few weeks before the ball she had seen Arthur riding through the +township with his sisters and a girl who was staying at Warria. He had +not seen her, and Sophie was glad, because suddenly she had felt shy and +confused at the thought of talking to him before a lot of people. +Besides, they all looked so jolly, and were having such a good time, +that she would not have known what to say to Arthur, or to his sisters, +just then. + +When she told Mrs. Woods and Martha M'Cready about the invitation, they +smiled and teased her. + +"Oh, that tells a tale!" they said. + +Sophie laughed. She felt silly, and she was blushing, they said. But she +was very happy at having been asked to the ball. For weeks before she +found herself singing "Caro Nome" as she sat at work, went about the +house, or with Potch after the goats in the late afternoon. + +Arthur liked that song better than any other, and its melody had become +mingled and interwoven with all her thoughts of him. + +The twilight was deepening, on the evening a few days before the dance, +when Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara came up to Rouminof's hut, calling +Sophie. She was washing milk tins and tea dishes, and went to the door +singing to herself, a candle throwing a fluttering light before her. + +"Your father sent us along for you, Sophie," Bully explained. "There's a +bit of a celebration on at Newton's to-night, and the boys want you to +sing for them." + +Sophie turned from them, going into the house to put down her candle. + +"All right," she said, pleased at the idea. + +Michael came into the hut through, the back door. From his own room he +had heard Bully calling and then explaining why he and Roy O'Mara were +there. + +"Don't go, Sophie," Michael said. + +"But why, Michael?" Disappointment clouded Sophie's first bright +pleasure that the men had sent for her to sing to them, and her +eagerness to do as they asked. + +"It's not right ... not good for you to sing down there when the boys +'ve been drinking," Michael said, unable to express clearly his +opposition to her singing at Newton's. + +"Don't be a spoil-sport, Michael," the boys at the door called when they +saw he was trying to dissuade Sophie. + +"Come along, Sophie," Roy called. + +She looked from Bully and Roy to Michael, hesitating. Theirs was the +call of youth to youth, of youth to gaiety and adventure. She turned +away from Michael. + +"I'm going, Michael," she said quickly, and swung to the door. Michael +heard her laughing as she went off along the track with Bully and Roy. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage is up?" Roy stopped to call back. + +"No," Michael said. + +"Came up by the coach this evening," Roy said, and ran after Bully and +Sophie. + +It was a rowdy night at Newton's. Shearing was just over at Warria +sheds, and men with cheques to burn were crowding the bar and passages. +Sophie was hailed with cheers as she neared the veranda. Her father +staggered out towards her, waving his arms crazily. Sophie was surprised +when she found the crowd waiting for her. There were so many strangers +in it--rough men with heavy, inflamed faces--hardly one she knew among +them. A murmur and boisterous clamour of voices came from the bar. The +men on the veranda made way for her. + +Her heart quailed when she looked into the big earthen-floored bar, and +saw its crowd of rough-haired, sun-red men, still wearing the clothes +they had been working in, grey flannel shirts and dungarees, +blood-splashed, grimy, and greasy with the "yolk" of fleeces they had +been handling. The smell of sheep and the sweat of long days of shearing +and struggling with restless beasts were in the air, with fumes of rank +tobacco and the flat, stale smell of beer. The hanging lamp over the bar +threw only a dim light through the fog of smoke the men had put up, and +which from the doorway completely obscured Peter Newton where he stood +behind the bar. + +Sophie hung back. + +"I'm not going in there," she said. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage was up?" Roy asked. + +"No," she said. + +He explained how Mr. Armitage had come unexpectedly by the coach that +evening. Sophie saw him among the men on the veranda. + +"I'll sing here," she told Bully and Roy, leaning against a veranda +post. + +She was a little afraid. But she knew she had always pleased Ridge folk +when she sang to them, so she put back her head and sang a song of youth +and youthful happiness she had sung on the veranda at Newton's before. +It did not matter that the words were in Italian, which nobody +understood. The dancing joyousness and laughing music of her notes +carried the men with them. The applause was noisy and enthusiastic. +Sophie laughed, delighted, yet almost afraid of her success. + +Big and broad-shouldered, Bully Bryant stood at a little distance from +her, in front of everybody. Arthur Henty, leaning against the wall near +the door of the bar, smiled softly, foolishly, when she glanced at him. +He had been drinking, too, and was watching, and listening to her, with +the same look in his eyes as Bully. + +Sophie caught the excitement about her. An exhilaration of pleasure +thrilled her. It was crude wine which went to her head, this admiration +and applause of strangers and of the men she had known since she was a +child. There was a wonderful elation in having them beg her to sing. +They looked actually hungry to hear her. She found Arthur Henty's eyes +resting on her with the expression she knew in them. An imp of +recklessness entered her. Her father beat the air as if he were leading +an orchestra, and she threw herself into the Shadow Song, singing with +an abandonment that carried her beyond consciousness of her +surroundings. + +She sang again and again, and always in response to an eager tumult of +cheers, thudding of feet, joggling of glasses, chorus of broken cries: +"En-core, encore, Sophie!" An instinct of mischief and coquetry urging, +she glanced sometimes at Arthur, sometimes at Bully. Then with a glance +at Arthur, and for a last number, she began "Caro Nome," and gave to her +singing all the glamour and tenderness, the wild sweetness, the aria had +come to have for her, because she had sung it so often to Arthur when +they met and were walking along the road together. She was so carried +away by her singing, she did not realise what had happened until +afterwards. + +She only knew that suddenly, roughly, she was grasped and lifted. She +saw Bully's face flaming before her own, gazed with terror and horror +into his eyes. His face was thrown against hers--and obliterated. + +"Are you all right?" someone asked after a moment. + +Awaking from the daze and bewilderment, Sophie looked up. + +John Armitage was standing beside her; Potch nearby. They were on the +outskirts of the crowd on the veranda. + +"Yes," she said. + +The men on the veranda had broken into two parties; one was surging +towards the bar door, the other moving off down the road out of the +town. Michael came towards her. + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," he said. + +"Oh, Potch looked after her. I couldn't get near," John Armitage said. + +An extraordinary quiet took possession of Sophie. When she was going +down the road with Potch and Michael, she said: + +"Did Bully kiss me, Michael?" + +"Yes," he replied. + +"I don't know what happened then?" + +"Arthur Henty knocked him down," Michael said. + +She looked at him with scared eyes. + +"They want to fight it out ... but they're both drunk. The boys are +trying to stop it." + +"Oh, Michael!" Sophie cried on a little gasping breath; and looking into +her eyes he read her contrition, asking forgiveness, understanding all +that he had not been able to explain to her. She did not say, "I'll +never sing there, like that, any more." Her feeling was too deep for +words; but Michael knew she never would. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +"It's what I wore, meself, white muslin, when I went to me first ball," +Mrs. George Woods said, standing off to admire the frock of white muslin +Sophie had on, and which she had just fastened up for her. + +Sophie was admiring her reflection in Mrs. Woods' mirror, a square of +glass which gave no more than her head and shoulders in brilliant +sketchy outlines. She moved, trying to see more of herself and the new +dress. Maggie Grant, who had helped with the making of the dress, was +also gazing at her and at it admiringly. + +When it was a question of Sophie having a dress for the ball at Warria, +Mrs. Grant had spoken to Michael about it. + +"Sophie's got to have a decent dress to go to the station, Michael," she +said. "I'm not going to have people over there laughing at her, and +she's had nothing but her mother's old dresses, cut down--for goodness +knows how long." + +"Will you get it?" Michael inquired anxiously. + +Mrs. Grant nodded. + +"Bessie Woods and I were thinking it might be pinspot muslin, with a bit +of lace on it," she said. "We could get the stuff at Chassy Robb's and +make it up between us." + +"Right!" Michael replied, looking immensely relieved to have the +difficulty disposed of. "Tell Chassy to put it on my book." + +So the pinspot muslin and some cheap creamy lace had been bought. Mrs. +Woods and Sophie settled on a style they found illustrating an +advertisement in a newspaper and which resembled a dress one of the +Henty girls had worn at the race ball the year before. Maggie Grant had +done all the plain sewing and Mrs. Woods the fixing and finishing +touches. They had consulted over and over again about sleeves and the +length of the skirt. The frock had been fitted at least a dozen times. +They had wondered where they would put the lace as a bit of trimming, +and had decided for frills at the elbows and a tucker in the V-shaped +neck of the blouse. They marvelled at their audacity, but felt sure they +had done the right thing when they cut the neck rather lower than they +would have for a dress to be worn in the daytime. + +Martha M'Cready, insisting on having a finger in the pie, had pressed +the dress when it was finished, and she had washed and ironed Mrs. +George Woods' best embroidered petticoat for Sophie to wear with it. + +And now Sophie was dressing in Mrs. Woods' bedroom because it had a +bigger mirror than her own room, and the three women were watching her, +giving little tugs and pats to the dress now and then, measuring it with +appraising glances of conscious pride in their workmanship, and joy at +Sophie's appearance in it. Sophie, her face flushed, her eyes shining, +turned to them every now and then, begging to know whether the skirt was +not a little full here, or a little flat there; and they pinched and +pulled, until it was thought nothing further could be done to improve +it. + +Sophie was anxious about her hair. She had put it in plaits the night +before, and had kept it in them all the morning. Her hair had never been +in plaits before, and she had not liked the look of it when she saw it +all crisp and frizzy, like Mirry Flail's. She had used a wet brush to +get the crinkle out, but there was still a suggestion of it in the heavy +dark wave of her hair when she had done it up as usual. + +"Your hair looks very nice--don't worry any more about it, Sophie," +Martha M'Cready had said. + +"My mother used to say there was nothing nicer for a young girl to wear +than white muslin," Mrs. Woods remarked, "and that sash of your mother's +looks real nice as a belt, Sophie." + +The sash, a broad piece of blue and green silk shot like a piece of poor +opal, Sophie had found in a box of her mother's, and it was wound round +her waist as a belt and tied in a bow at the side. + +"Turn round and let me see if the skirt's quite the same length all +round, Sophie," Mrs. Grant commanded. + +"Yes, Maggie," Bessie Woods exclaimed complacently. "It's quite right." + +Sophie glanced at herself in the glass again. Mrs. Woods had lent her a +pair of opal ear-rings, and Maggie Grant the one piece of finery she +possessed--a round piece of very fine black opal set in a rim of gold, +which Bill had given her when first she came to the Ridge. + +Sophie had on for the first time, too, a necklace she had made herself +of stones the miners had given her at different times. There was a piece +of opal for almost every man on the fields, and she had strung them +together, with a beautiful knobby Potch had made her a present of for +her eighteenth birthday, a few days before, in the centre. + +Just as she had finished dressing, Mrs. Watty Frost called in the +doorway: "Anybody at home?" + +"Come in," Mrs. George Woods replied. + +Mrs. Watty walked into the bedroom. She had a long slender parcel +wrapped in brown paper in her hand, but nobody noticed it at the time. + +"My!" she exclaimed, staring at Sophie; "we are fine, aren't we?" + +Sophie caught up her long, cotton gloves and pirouetted in happy +excitement. + +"Aren't we?" she cried gaily. "Just look at my gloves! Did ever you see +such lovely long gloves, Mrs. Watty? And don't my ear-rings look nice? +But it does feel funny wearing ear-rings, doesn't it? I want to be +shaking my head all the time to make them joggle!" + +She shook her head. The blue and green fires of the stones leapt and +sparkled. Her eyes seemed to catch fire from them. The women exchanged +admiring glances. + +"Where's my handkerchief?" Sophie cried. "Father's late, isn't he? I'm +sure we'll be late! How long will it take to drive over to Warria?--An +hour? Goodness! And it'll be almost time for the dance to begin then! +Oh, don't my shoes look nice, Maggie?" + +She looked down at her feet in the white cotton stockings and white +canvas shoes, with ankle straps, which Maggie Grant had sent into Budda +for. The hem of her skirt came just to her ankles. She played the new +shoes in and out from under it in little dancing steps, and the women +laughed at her, happy in her happiness. + +"But you haven't got a fan, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said. + +"A fan?" Sophie's eyes widened. + +"You should oughter have a fan. In my young days it wasn't considered +decent to go to a ball without a fan," Mrs. Watty remarked grimly. + +"Oh!" Sophie looked from one to the other of her advisers. + +Mrs. George Woods was just going to say that it was a long time since +Mrs. Watty's young days, when Mrs. Watty took the brown paper from the +long, thin parcel she was carrying. + +"I thought most likely you wouldn't have one," she said, "so I brought +this over." + +She unfurled an old-fashioned, long-handled, sandal-wood fan, with birds +and flowers painted on the brown satin screen, and a little row of +feathers along the top. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Grant exchanged +glances that Mrs. Watty should pander to the vanity of an occasion. + +"Mrs. Watty!" Sophie took the fan with a little cry of delight. + +"My, aren't you a grown-up young lady now, Sophie?" Mrs. Woods +exclaimed, as Sophie unfurled the fan. + +"But mind you take care of it, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said, stiffening +against the relaxing atmosphere of goodwill and excitement. "Watty got +it for me last trip he made to sea, before we was married, and I set a +good deal of store by it." + +"Oh, I'll be ever so careful!" Sophie declared. She opened the fan. +"Isn't it pretty?" + +Dropping into a chair, she murmured: "May I--have this dance with you, +Miss Rouminof?" And casting a shy upward glance over her fan, as if +answering for herself, "I don't mind if I do!" + +Martha and Mrs. Woods laughed heartily, recognising Arthur Henty's way +of talking in the voice Sophie had imitated. + +"That's the way to do it, Sophie," Mrs. Woods said; "only you shouldn't +say, 'Don't mind if I do,' but, 'It's a pleasure, I'm sure.'" + +"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Sophie mimed. + +"Is she going to wear the dress over?" Mrs. Watty asked anxiously. + +"Yes," Maggie Grant said. "Bessie's lending her a dust-coat. I don't +think it'll get crushed very much. You see, they won't arrive until it's +nearly time for the dance to begin, and we thought it'd be better for us +to help her to get fixed up. Everybody'll be so busy over at Warria--and +we thought she mightn't be able to get anybody to do up her dress for +her." + +"That's right," Mrs. Watty said. + +There was a rattle of wheels on the rough shingle near the hut. + +"Here's your father, Sophie," Martha called. + +"And Michael and Potch are in the kitchen wanting to have a look at you +before you go, Sophie," Maggie Grant said. + +"Oh!" Sophie took the coat Mrs. Woods was lending her, and went out to +the kitchen with it on her arm. + +Michael and Potch were there. They stared at her. But her radiant face, +the shining eyes, and the little smile which hovered on her mouth, held +their gaze more than the new white dress standing out in slight, stiff +folds all round her. The vision of her--incomparable youth and +loveliness she was to Michael--gripped him so that a moisture of love +and reverence dimmed his eyes.... And Potch just stared and stared at +her. + +Paul was bawling from the buggy outside: + +"Are you ready, Sophie? Sophie, are you ready?" + +Mrs. Woods held the dust-coat. Very carefully Sophie edged herself into +it, and wrapped its nondescript buff-coloured folds over her dress. Then +she put the pink woollen scarf Martha had brought over her head, and +went out to the buggy. Her father was sitting aloft on the front seat, +driving Sam Nancarrow's old roan mare, and looking spruce and well +turned out in a new baggy suit which Michael had arranged for him to get +in order to look more of a credit to Sophie at the ball. + +"See you take good care of her, Paul," Mrs. Grant called after him as +they drove off. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie. + +Paul hummed and talked of the music he was going to play as they went +along. He called to Sam Nancarrow's old nag, quite pleased to be having +a horse to drive as though it belonged to him, and gossiped genially +about this and other balls he had been to. + +Sophie kept remembering what Mrs. Grant and Mrs. George Woods had said, +and how she had looked in those glimpses of herself in the mirror. "I do +look nice! I do look nice!" she assured herself. + +It was wonderful to be going to a ball at Warria. She had never thought +she could look as she did in this new frock, with her necklace, and Mrs. +Woods' ear-rings, and that old sash of her mother's. She was a little +anxious, but very happy and excited. + +She remembered how Arthur had looked at her when she met him on the road +or in the paddock sometimes, She only had on her old black dress then. +He must like her in this new dress, she thought. Her mind had a subtle +recoil from the too great joy of thinking how much more he must like her +in this pretty, new, white frock; she sat in a delicious trance of +happiness. Her father hummed and gossiped. All the stars came out. The +sky was a wonderful blue where it met the horizon, and darkened to +indigo as it climbed to the zenith. + +When they drove from the shadow of the coolebahs which formed an avenue +from the gate of the home paddock to the veranda of the homestead, Ted +Burton, the station book-keeper, a porky, good-natured little man, with +light, twinkling eyes, whose face looked as if it had been sand-papered, +came out to meet them. + +"There you are, Rouminof!" he said. "Glad to see you. We were beginning +to be afraid you weren't coming!" + +Sophie got down from the buggy, and her father drove off to the stables. +Passing the veranda steps with Mr. Burton, she glanced up. Several men +were on the steps. Her eyes went instinctively to Arthur Henty, who was +standing at the foot of them, a yellow puppy fawning at his feet. He did +not look up as Sophie passed, pretending to be occupied with the pup. +But in that fleeting glance her brain had photographed the bruise on his +forehead where it had caught a veranda post when Bully Bryant, having +regained his feet, hit out blindly. + +Potch had told Sophie what happened--she had made him find out in order +to tell her. Arthur and Bully had wanted to fight, but after the first +exchange of blows the men had held them back. Bully was mad drunk, they +said, and would have hammered Henty to pulp. And the next evening Bully +came to Sophie, heavy with shame, and ready to cry for what he had done. + +"If anybody'd 've told me I'd treat you like that, Sophie, I'd 've +killed him," he said. "I'd 've killed him.... You know how I feel about +you--you know how we all feel about you--and for me to have served you +like that--me that'd do anything in the world for you.... But it's no +good trying to say any more. It's no good tryin' to explain. It's got me +down...." + +He sat with his head in his hands for a while, so ashamed and miserable, +that Sophie could not retain her wrath and resentment against him. It +was like having a brother in trouble and doing nothing to help him, to +see Bully like this. + +"It's all right, Bully," she said. "I know ... you weren't yourself ... +and you didn't mean it." + +He started to his feet and came to stand beside her. Sophie put her hand +in his; he gripped it hard, unable to say anything. Then, when he could +control his voice, he said: + +"I went over to see Mr. Henty this morning ... and told him if anybody +else 'd done what I did, I'd 've done what he did." + +Potch had said the men expected Bully would want to fight the thing out +when he was sober, and it was a big thing for him to have done what he +had. The punishing power of Bully's fists was well known, and he had +taken this way of punishing himself. Sophie understood that, She was +grateful and reconciled to him. + +"I'm glad, Bully," she said. "Let's forget all about it." + +So the matter ended. But it all came back to her as she saw the broken +red line on Arthur Henty's forehead. + +She did not know that because of it she was an object of interest to the +crowd on the veranda. News of Arthur Henty's bout with Bully Bryant had +been very soon noised over the whole countryside. Most of the men who +came to the ball from Langi-Eumina and other stations had gleaned varied +and highly-coloured versions, and Arthur had been chaffed and twitted +until he was sore and ashamed of the whole incident. He could not +understand himself--the rush of rage, instinctive and unreasoning, which +had overwhelmed him when he hit out at Bully. + +His mother protested that it was a shame to give Arthur such a bad time +for what was, after all, merely the chivalrous impulse of any decent +young man when a girl was treated lightly in his presence; but the men +and the girls who were staying at the station laughed and teased all the +more for the explanation. They pretended he was a very heroic and +quixotic young man, and asked about Sophie--whether she was pretty, and +whether it was true she sang well. They redoubled their efforts, and +goaded him to a state of sulky silence, when they knew she was coming to +the ball. + +Arthur Henty had been conscious for some time of an undercurrent within +him drawing him to Sophie. He was afraid of, and resented it. He had not +thought of loving her, or marrying her. He had gone to the tank paddock +in the afternoons he knew she would be there, or had looked for her on +the Warria road when she had been to the cemetery, with a sensation of +drifting pleasantly. He had never before felt as he did when he was with +Sophie, that life was a clear and simple thing--pleasant, too; that +nothing could be better than walking over the plains through the limpid +twilight. He had liked to see the fires of opal run in her eyes when she +looked at him; to note the black lines on the outer rim of their +coloured orbs; the black lashes set in silken skin of purest ivory; the +curve of her chin and neck; the lines of her mouth, and the way she +walked; all these things he had loved. But he did not want to have the +responsibility of loving Sophie: he could not contemplate what wanting +to marry her would mean in tempests and turmoil with his family. + +He had thought sometimes of a mediæval knight wandering through +flowering fields with the girl on a horse beside him, in connection with +Sophie and himself. A reproduction of the well-known picture of the +knight and the girl hung in his mother's sitting-room. She had cut it +out of a magazine, and framed it, because it pleased her; and beneath +the picture, in fine print, Arthur had often read: + + "I met a lady in the meads, + Full beautiful--a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild. + + "I set her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long; + For sideways would she lean, and sing + A faery's song." + +As a small boy Arthur had been attracted by the picture, and his mother +had told him its story, and had read him Keats' poem. He had read it +ever so many times since then himself, and after he met Sophie in the +tank paddock that afternoon she had ridden home on his horse, some of +the verses haunted him with the thought of her. One day when they were +sitting by the track and she had been singing to him, he had made a +daisy chain and thrown it over her, murmuring sheepishly, in a caprice +of tenderness: + + "I made a garland for her head, + And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; + She looked at me as she did love + And made sweet moan." + +Sophie had asked about the poem. She had wanted to hear more, and he had +repeated as many verses as he could remember. When he had finished, she +had looked at him "as she did love" indeed, with eyes of sweet +confidence, yet withdrawing from him a little in shy and happy confusion +that he should think of her as anyone like the lady of the meads, who +was "full beautiful--a fairy's child." + +But Arthur did not want to love her; he did not want to marry her. He +did not want to have rows with his father, differences with his mother. +The affair at Newton's had shown him where he was going. + +Sophie was "a fairy's child," he decided. "Her hair as long, her foot +was light, and her eyes were wild"; but he did not want to be "a +wretched wight, alone and palely loitering" on her account; he did not +want to marry her. He would close her eyes with "kisses four," he told +himself, smiling at the precision of the knight of the chronicle; +"kisses four"--no more--and be done with the business. + +Meanwhile, he wished Sophie were not coming to the ball. He would have +given anything to prevent her coming; but he could do nothing. + +He had thought of escaping from the ball by going to the out-station +with the men; but his mother, foreseeing something of his intention, had +given him so much to do at the homestead for her, that he could not go +away. When the buggy with Sophie and her father drove up to the veranda, +there was a chorus of suppressed exclamations among the assembled +guests. + +"Here she is, Art!" + +"Buck up, old chap! None but the brave, etc." + +Sophie did not hear the undertone of laughter and raillery which greeted +her arrival. She was quite unconscious that the people on the veranda +were interested in her at all, as she walked across the courtyard +listening to Mr. Burton's amiable commonplaces. + +When Mr. Burton left her in a small room with chintz-covered chairs and +dressing-table, Sophie took off her old dust-coat and the pink scarf she +had tied over her hair. The mirror was longer than Mrs. Woods'. Her +dress looked very crushed when she saw it reflected. She tried to shake +out the creases. Her hair, too, was flat, and had blown into stringy +ends. A shade of disappointment dimmed the brightness of her mood as she +realised she was not looking nearly as nice as she had when she left the +Ridge. + +Someone said: "May I come in?" and Polly Henty and another girl entered +the room. + +Polly Henty had just left school. She was a round-faced, jolly-looking +girl of about Sophie's own age, and the girl with her was not much +older, pretty and sprightly, an inch or so taller than Polly, and +slight. She had grey eyes, and a fluff of dry-grass coloured hair about +a small, sharp-featured, fresh-complexioned face, neatly powdered. + +Sophie knew something was wrong with her clothes the moment she +encountered the girls' curious and patronising glances as they came into +the room. Their appearance, too, took the skin from her vanity. Polly +had on a frock of silky white crêpe, with no lace or decoration of any +kind, except a small gold locket and chain which she was wearing. But +her dress fell round her in graceful folds, showing her small, +well-rounded bust and hips, and she had on silk stockings and white +satin slippers. The other girl's frock was of pale pink, misty material, +so thin that her shoulders and arms showed through it as though there +were nothing on them. She had pinned a pink rose in her hair, too, so +that its petals just lay against the nape of her neck. Sophie thought +she had never seen anyone look so nice. She had never dreamed of such a +dress. + +"Oh, Miss Rouminof," Polly said; "mother sent me to look for you. We're +just ready to start, and your father wants you to turn over his music +for him." + +Sophie stood up, conscious that her dress was nothing like as pretty as +she had thought it. It stood out stiffly about her: the starched +petticoat crackled as she moved. She knew the lace should not have been +on her sleeves; that her shoes were of canvas, and creaked as she +walked; that her cotton gloves, and even the heavy, old-fashioned fan +she was carrying, were not what they ought to have been. + +"Miss Chelmsford--Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the +girl in the pink dress. + +Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand. + +"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if +just remembering she, too, had a hand. + +Sophie went with Polly and her friend to the veranda, which was screened +in on one side with hessian to form a ball-room. Behind the hessian the +walls were draped with flags, sheaves of paper daisies, and bundles of +Darling pea. Red paper lanterns swung from the roof, threw a rosy glare +over the floor which had been polished until it shone like burnished +metal. + +Polly Henty took Sophie to the piano where Mrs. Henty was playing the +opening bars of a waltz. Paul beside her, his violin under his arm, +stood looking with eager interest over the room where men and girls were +chatting in little groups. + +Mrs. Henty nodded and smiled to Sophie. Her father signalled to her, and +she went to a seat near him. + +Holding her hands over the piano, Mrs. Henty looked to Paul to see if he +were ready. He lifted his violin, tucked it under his chin, drew his +bow, and the piano and violin broke gaily, irregularly, uncertainly, at +first, into a measure which set and kept the couples swaying round the +edge of the ball-room. + +Sophie watched them at first, dazed and interested. Under the glow of +the lanterns, the figures of the dancers looked strange and solemn. Some +of the dancers were moving without any conscious effort, just skimming +the floor like swallows; others were working hard as they danced. Tom +Henderson held Elizabeth Henty as if he never intended to let go of her, +and worked her arm up and down as if it were a semaphore. + +Sophie had always admired Arthur's eldest sister, and she thought +Elizabeth the most beautiful-looking person she had ever seen this +evening. And that pink dress--how pretty it was! What had Polly said her +name was--the girl who wore it? Phyllis ... Phyllis Chelmsford.... +Sophie watched the dress flutter among the dancers some time before she +noticed Miss Chelmsford was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +She watched the couples revolving, dazed, and thinking vaguely about +them, noticing how pretty feet looked in satin slippers with high, +curved heels, wondering why some men danced with stiff knees and others +as if their knees had funny-bones like their elbows. The red light from +the lanterns made the whole scene look unreal; she felt as if she were +dreaming. + +"Sophie!" her father cried sharply. + +She turned his page. Her eyes wandered to Mrs. Henty, who sat with her +back to her. Sophie contemplated the bow of her back in its black frock +with Spanish lace scarf across it, the outline of the black lace on the +wrinkled skin of Mrs. Henty's neck, the loose, upward wave of her crisp +white hair, glinting silverly where the light caught it. Her face was +cobwebbed with wrinkles, but her features remained delicate and fine as +sculpturings in ancient ivory. Her eyes were bright: the sparkle of +youth still leapt in them. Her eyes had a slight smile of secret +sympathy and amusement as they flew over the roomful of people dancing. + +Sophie watched dance after dance, while the music jingled and jangled. + +Presently John Armitage appeared in the doorway with Nina Henty. Sophie +heard him apologising to Mrs. Henty for being late, and explaining that +he had stayed in the back-country a few days longer than usual for the +express purpose of coming to the ball. + +Mrs. Henty replied that it was "better late than never," and a pleasure +to see Mr. Armitage at any time; and then he and Nina joined the throng +of the dancers. + +Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The +disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came +into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely +come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was +dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding +herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the +background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her. + +It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other +people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always +been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the +moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his +way if he wanted a waltz with her. + +As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred +to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had +invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, +left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz +broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the +page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page +himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up +for him. + +After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely +looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would +end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it +would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her +crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty's big, old-fashioned +fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of +them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but +she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in +order to turn over the pages of her father's music more expertly. + +She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been +invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler's little girl +to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, +she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or +speak to her. + +Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly: + +"Come here and let me look at your opals, child." + +Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace. + +"What splendid stones!" she said. + +Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur's, with the same +shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought. + +"Yes," she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty +about the stones. + +Mrs. Henty admired the ear-rings, and looked appreciatively at the big +flat stone in Mrs. Grant's brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention. +She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her. + +Looking into Sophie's face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, +unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a +something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been +considerably disturbed by Arthur's share in the brawl at Newton's. It +was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened +after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of +Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was +not sorry to see what manner of girl she was. + +But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly +uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite +their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have +brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what +Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time +like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good +time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the +mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to +dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have side-tracked her +about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence +which looked from Sophie's eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and +cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt. + +Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the +long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty's hand fell from Sophie's +necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair. + +But Mrs. Henty's thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She +played absent-mindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes. +She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she +protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl. +If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him. + +Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little +annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was +the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in +her hair brushing his cheek. + +"Mother!" Polly called. "For goodness' sake ... what are you dreaming +of?" + +The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty's reverie until Polly +called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm +more briskly. + +After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy +to each, other--at last--and were getting on, she could not afford to +espouse the other girl's cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur +to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old +Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle sales were the envy of +pastoralists on both sides of the Queensland border. Phyllis's +inheritance and the knowledge that the interests of Warria were allied +to those of Andrew Chelmsford of Yuina, would ensure a new lease of hope +and opportunity for Warria.... Whereas it would be worse than awful if +Arthur contemplated anything like marriage with this girl from the +Ridge. + +Mrs. Henty's conscience was uneasy all the same. When the dance was +ended, she called Arthur to her. + +"For goodness' sake, dear, ask that child to dance with you," she said +when he came to her. "She's been sitting here all the evening by +herself." + +"I was just going to," Sophie heard Arthur say. + +He came towards her. + +"Will you have the next dance with me, Sophie?" he asked. + +She did not look at him. + +"No," she said. + +"Oh, I say----" He sat down beside her. "I've had to dance with these +people who are staying with us," he added awkwardly. + +Her eyes turned to him, all the stormy fires of opal running in them. + +"You don't _have_ to dance with me," she said. + +He got up and stood indecisively a moment. + +"Of course not," he said, "but I want to." + +"I don't want to dance with you," Sophie said. + +He turned away from her, went down the ball-room, and out through the +doorway in the hessian wall. Everyone had gone to supper. Mrs. Henty had +left the piano. Paul himself had gone to have some refreshment which was +being served in the dining-room across the courtyard. From the square, +washed with the silver radiance of moonlight which she could see through +the open space in the hessian, came a tinkle of glasses and spoons, +fragments of talking and laughter. Sophie heard a clear, girlish voice +cry: "Oh, Arthur!" + +She clenched her hands; she thought that she was going to cry; but +stiffening against the inclination, she sat fighting down the pain which +was gripping her, and longed for the time to come when she could go home +and be out in the dark, alone. + +John Armitage entered the ball-room as if looking for someone. Glancing +in the direction of the piano, he saw Sophie. + +"There you are, Sophie!" he exclaimed heartily. "And, would you believe +it, I've only just discovered you were here." + +He sat down beside her, and talked lightly, kindly, for a moment. But +Sophie was in no mood for talking. John Armitage had guessed something +of her crisis when he came into the room and found her sitting by +herself. He had seen the affair at Newton's, and knew enough of Fallen +Star gossip to understand how Sophie would resent Arthur Henty's +treatment of her. He could see she was a sorely hurt little creature, +holding herself together, but throbbing with pain and anger. She could +not talk; she could only think of Arthur Henty, whose voice they heard +occasionally out of doors. He was more than jolly after supper. Armitage +had seen him swallow nearly a glassful of raw whisky. His face had gone +a ghastly white after it. Rouminof had been drinking too. He came into +the room unsteadily when Mrs. Henty took her seat at the piano again; +but he played better. + +Armitage's eyes went to her necklace. + +"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said. + +Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me--there's a +stone for every one. This is Michael's!"--she touched each stone as she +named it--"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that." + +Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile. + +"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here +am I--come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of +stuff in your brooch." + +"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed. + +"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my +old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I +always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New +England spinster." + +Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he +looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and +appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it. + +Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was +an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, +of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so +extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in +this out-of-the-way part of the world. + +John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish +treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have +permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying +Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in +distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her +defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her +disappointment of the earlier part of the evening. + +"May I have the next dance, Sophie?" he inquired. + +Sophie glanced up at him. + +"I'm not dancing," she said. + +Her averted face, the quiver of her lips, confirmed him in his +resolution. He took in her dress, the black opals in her ear-rings +swinging against her black hair and white neck. She had never looked +more attractive, he thought, than in this unlovely dress and with the +opals in her ears. The music was beginning for another dance. Across the +room Henty was hovering with a bevy of girls. + +"Why aren't you dancing, Sophie?" John Armitage asked. + +His quiet, friendly tone brought the glitter of tears to her eyes. + +"No one asked me to, until the dance before supper--then I didn't want +to," she said. + +The dance was already in motion. + +"You'll have this one with me, won't you?" + +John Armitage put the question as if he were asking a favour. "Please!" +he insisted. + +Putting her arm on his, Armitage led Sophie among the dancers. He held +her so gently and firmly that she felt as if she were dancing by a will +not her own. She and he glided and flew together; they did not talk, and +when + + +the music stopped, Mr. Armitage took her through the doorway into the +moonlight with the other couples. They walked to the garden where, the +orange trees were in blossom. + +"Oh!" Sophie breathed, her arm still on his, and a little giddy. + +The earth was steeped in purest radiance; the orange blossoms swam like +stars on the dark bushes; their fragrance filled the air. + +Sophie held up her face as if to drink. "Isn't it lovely?" she murmured. + +A black butterfly with white etchings on his wings hovered over an +orange bush they were standing near, as if bewildered by the moonlight +and mistaking it for the light of a strange day. + +Armitage spread his handkerchief on a wooden seat. + +"I thought you'd like it," he said. "Let's sit here--I've put down my +handkerchief because there's a dew, although the air seems so dry." + +When the music began again Sophie got up. + +"Don't let us go in yet," he begged. + +"But----" she demurred. + +"We'll stay here for this, and have the next dance," Armitage said. + +Sophie hesitated. She wondered why Mr. Armitage was being so nice to +her, understanding a little. She smiled into his eyes, dallying with the +temptation. John Armitage had seen women's eyes like that before; then +fall to the appeal of his own. But in Sophie's eyes he found something +he had not seen very often--a will-o'the-wisp of infinite wispishness +which incited him to pursue and to insist, while it eluded and flew from +him. + +When she danced with John Armitage again, Sophie looked up, laughed, and +played her eyes and smiles for him as she had seen Phyllis Chelmsford do +for Arthur. At first, shyly, she had exerted herself to please him, and +Armitage had responded to her tentative efforts; but presently she found +herself enjoying the game. And Armitage was so surprised at the charm +she revealed as she exerted herself to please him, that he responded +with an enthusiasm he had not contemplated. But their mutual success at +this oldest diversion in the world, while it surprised and delighted +them, did not delight their hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Henty were surprised; +then frankly scandalised. Several young men asked Sophie to dance with +them after she had danced with John Armitage. She thanked them, but +refused, saying she did not wish to dance very much. She sat in her +chair by the piano except when she was dancing with Mr. Armitage, or was +in the garden with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +"See Ed. means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal +before starting on his all-night drive into Budda. + +Newton remembered afterwards that John Armitage did not seem as +interested and jolly as usual. Ordinarily he was interested in +everything, and cordial with everybody; but this evening he was quiet +and preoccupied. + +"Hardly had a word to say for himself," Peter Newton said. + +Armitage had watched Ed. bring the old bone-shaking shandrydan he called +a coach up to the hotel, and put a couple of young horses into it. He +had a colt on the wheel he was breaking-in, and a sturdy old dark bay +beside him, a pair of fine rusty bays ahead of them, and a sorrel, and +chestnut youngster in the lead. He had got old Olsen and two men on the +hotel veranda to help him harness-up, and it took them all their time to +get the leaders into the traces. Bags had to be thrown over the heads of +the young horses before anything could be done with them, and it took +three men to hold on to the team until Ed. Ventry got into his seat and +gathered up the reins. Armitage put his valise on the coach and shook +hands all round. He got into his seat beside Ed. and wrapped a tarpaulin +lined with possum skin over his knees. + +"Let her go, Olly," Ed. yelled. + +The men threw off the bags they had been holding over the horses' heads. +The leaders sprang out and swayed; the coach rocked to the shock; the +steady old wheeler leapt forward. The colt under the whip, trying to +throw himself down on the trace, leapt and kicked, but the leaders +dashed forward; the coach lurched and was carried along with a rattle +and clash of gear, Ed. Ventry, the reins wrapped round his hands, +pulling on them, and yelling: + +"I'll warm yer.... Yer lazy, wobblin' old adders--yer! I'll warm yer.... +Yer wobble like a cross-cut saw.... Kim ovah! Kim ovah, there! I'll get +alongside of yer! Kim ovah!" + +Swaying and rocking like a ship in a stormy sea, the coach turned out of +the town. Armitage thought its timbers would be strewn along the road at +any moment; but the young horses, under Mr. Ventry's masterly grip, soon +took the steady pace of the old roadsters; their freshness wore off, and +they were going at a smart, even pace by the time the Three Mile was +reached. + +"Seemed to have something on his mind," Ed. Ventry said afterwards. +"Ordinarily, he's keen to hear all the yarns you can tell him, but that +day he was dead quiet." + +"'Not much doin' on the Ridge just now, Mr. Armitage,' I says. + +"'No, Ed,' he says. + +"'Hardly worth y'r while comin' all the way from America to get all you +got this trip?' + +"'No,' he says. But, by God--if I'd known what he got----" + +It was an all-night trip. Ed. and Mr. Armitage had left the Ridge at six +o'clock and arrived in Budda township about an hour before the morning +train left for Sydney. There was just time for Armitage to breakfast at +the hotel before he went off in the hotel drag to the station. The train +left at half-past six. But Ed. Ventry had taken off his hat and +scratched his grizzled thatch when he saw a young, baldy-faced gelding +in the paddock with the other coach horses that evening. + +"Could've swore I left Baldy at the Ridge," he said to the boy who +looked after the stables at the Budda end of his journey. + +"Thought he was there meself," the lad replied, imitating Ed.'s +perplexed head-scratching. + +At the Ridge, when he made his next trip, they were able to tell Mr. +Ventry how the baldy-face happened to be at Budda when Ed. thought he +was at Fallen Star, although Ed. heard some of the explanation from +Potch and Michael a day or two later. Sophie had ridden the baldy-face +into Budda the night he drove Mr. Armitage to catch the train for +Sydney. No one discovered she had gone until the end of next day. Then +Potch went to Michael. + +"Michael," he said; "she's gone." + +During the evening Paul had been heard calling Sophie. He asked Potch +whether he had seen her. Potch said he had not. But it was nothing +unusual for Sophie to wander off for a day on an excursion with Ella or +Mirry Flail, so neither he nor Michael thought much of not having seen +her all day, until Paul remarked querulously to Potch that he did not +know where Sophie was. Looking into her room Potch saw her bed had not +been slept in, although the room was disordered. He went up to the town, +to Mrs. Newton and to the Flails', to ask whether they had seen anything +of Sophie. Mirry Flail said she had seen her on one of the coach-stable +horses, riding out towards the Three Mile the evening before. Potch knew +instinctively that Sophie had gone away from the moment Paul had spoken +to him. She had lived away from him during the last few months; but +watching her with always anxious, devout eyes, he had known more of her +than anyone else. + +Lying full stretch on his sofa, Michael was reading when Potch came into +the hut. His stricken face communicated the seriousness of his news. +Michael had no reason to ask who the "she" Potch spoke of was: there was +only one woman for whom Potch would look like that. But Michael's mind +was paralysed by the shock of the thing Potch had said. He could neither +stir nor speak. + +"I'm riding into Budda, to find out if she went down by the train," +Potch said. "I think she did, Michael. She's been talking about going to +Sydney ... a good deal lately.... She was asking me about it--day before +yesterday ... but I never thought--I never thought she wanted to go so +soon ... and that she'd go like this. But I think she has gone.... And +she was afraid to tell us--to let you know.... She said you'd made up +your mind you didn't want her to go ... she'd heard her mother tell you +not to let her go, and if ever she was going she wouldn't tell you...." + +Potch's explanation, broken and incoherent as it was, gave Michael's +thought and feeling time to reassert themselves. + +He said: "See if Chassy can lend me his pony, and I'll come with you, +Potch." + +They rode into Budda that night, and inquiry from the station-master +gave them the information they sought. A girl in a black frock had taken +a second-class ticket for Sydney. He did not notice very much what she +was like. She had come to the window by herself; she had no luggage; he +had seen her later sitting in a corner of a second-class compartment by +herself. The boy, a stranger to the district, who had clipped her +ticket, said she was crying when he asked for her ticket. He had asked +why she was crying. She had said she was going away, and she did not +like going away from the back-country. She was going away--to study +singing, she said, but would be coming back some day. + +Michael determined to go to Sydney by the morning train to try to find +Sophie. He went to Ed. Ventry and borrowed five pounds from him. + +"That explains how the baldy-face got here," Ed. said. + +Michael nodded. He could not talk about Sophie. Potch explained why they +wanted the money as well as he could. + +"It's no good trying to bring her back if she doesn't want to come, +Michael," Potch had said before Michael left for Sydney. + +"No," Michael agreed. + +"If you could get her fixed up with somebody to stay with," Potch +suggested; "and see she was all right for money ... it might be the best +thing to do. I've got a bit of dough put by, Michael.... I'll send that +down to you and go over to one of the stations for a while to keep us +goin'--if we want more." + +Michael assented. + +"You might try round and see if you could find Mr. Armitage," Potch +said, just before the train went. "He might have seen something of her." + +"Yes," Michael replied, drearily. + +Potch waited until the train left, and started back to Fallen Star in +the evening. + +A week later a letter came for Michael. It was in Sophie's handwriting. +Potch was beside himself with anxiety and excitement. He wrote to +Michael, care of an opal-buyer they were on good terms with and who +might know where Michael was staying. In the bewilderment of his going, +Potch had not thought to ask Michael where he would live, or where a +letter would find him. + +Michael came back to Fallen Star when he received the letter. He had not +seen Sophie. No one he knew or had spoken to had seen anything of her +after she left the train. Michael handed the letter to Potch as soon as +he got back into the hut. + +Sophie wrote that she had gone away because she wanted to learn to be a +singer, and that she would be on her way to America when they received +it. She explained that she had made up her mind to go quite suddenly, +and she had not wanted Michael to know because she remembered his +promise to her mother. She knew he would not let her go away from the +Ridge if he could help it. She had sold her necklace, she said, and had +got £100 for it, so had plenty of money. Potch and Michael were not to +worry about her. She would be all right, and when she had made a name +for herself as a singer, she would come home to the Ridge to see them. +"Don't be angry, Michael dear," the letter ended, "with your lovingest +Sophie." + +Potch looked at Michael; he wondered whether the thought in his own mind +had reached Michael's. But + +Michael was too dazed and overwhelmed to think at all. + +"There's one thing, Potch," he said; "if she's gone to America, we could +write to Mr. Armitage and ask him to keep an eye on her. And," he added, +"if she's gone to America ... it's just likely she may be on the same +boat as Mr. Armitage, and he'd look after her." + +Potch watched his face. The thought in his mind had not occurred to +Michael, then, he surmised. + +"He'd see she came to no harm." + +"Yes," Potch said. + +But he had seen John Armitage talking to Sophie on the Ridge over near +Snow-Shoes' hut the afternoon after the dance at Warria. He knew Mr. +Armitage had driven Sophie home after the dance, too. Paul had been too +drunk to stand, much less drive. Potch had knocked off early in the mine +to go across to the Three Mile that afternoon. Then it had surprised +Potch to see Sophie sitting and talking to Mr. Armitage as though they +were very good friends; but, beyond a vague, jealous alarm, he had not +attached any importance to it until he knew Sophie had gone down to +Sydney by the same train as Mr. Armitage. She had said she was going to +America, too, and he was going there. Potch had lived all his days on +the Ridge; he knew nothing of the world outside, and its ways, except +what he had learnt from books. But an instinct where Sophie was +concerned had warned him of a link between her going away and John +Armitage. That meeting of theirs came to have an extraordinary +significance in his mind. He had thought out the chances of Sophie's +having gone with Mr. Armitage as far as he could. But Michael had not +associated her going with him, it was clear. It had never occurred to +him that Mr. Armitage could have anything to do with Sophie's going +away. It had not occurred to the rest of the Ridge folk either. + +Paul was distracted. He made as great an outcry about Sophie's going as +he had about losing his stones. No one had thought he was as fond of her +as he appeared to be. He wept and wailed continuously about her having +gone away and left him. He went about begging for money in order to be +able to go to America after Sophie; but no one would lend to him. + +"You wait till Sophie's made a name for herself, Paul," everybody said, +"then she'll send for you." + +"Yes," he assented eagerly. "But I don't want to spend all that time +here on the Ridge: I want to see something of life and the world again." + +Paul got a touch of the sun during the ferment of those weeks, and then, +for two or three days, Michael and Potch had their work cut out nursing +him through the delirium of sun-stroke. + +A week or so later the coach brought unexpected passengers--Jun Johnson +and the bright-eyed girl who had gone down on the coach with him--and +Jun introduced her to the boys at Newton's as his bride. He had been +down in Sydney on his honeymoon, he said, that was all. + +When Michael went into the bar at Newton's the same evening, he found +Jun there, explaining as much to the boys. + +"I know what you chaps think," he was saying when Michael entered. "You +think I put up the checkmate on old Rum-Enough, Charley played. Well, +you're wrong. I didn't know no more about it than you did; and the proof +is--here I am. If I'd 'a' done it, d'y'r think I'd have come back? If +I'd had any share in the business, d'y'r think I'd be showin' me face +round here for a bit? Not much...." + +Silence hung between him and the men. Jun talked through it, warming to +his task with the eloquence of virtue, liking his audience and the stage +he had got all to himself, as an outraged and righteously indignant man. + +"I know you chaps--I know how you feel about things; and quite right, +too! A man that'd go back on a mate like that--why, he's not fit to wipe +your boots on. He ain't fit to be called a man; he ain't fit to be let +run with the rest." + +He continued impressively; "I didn't know no more about that business +than any man-jack of you--no more did Mrs. Jun.... Bygones is +bygones--that's my motto. But I tell you--and that's the strength of +it--I didn't know no more about those stones of Rummy's than any man +here. D'y' believe me?" + +It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. +It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else +Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth. + +"We're all good triers here, Jun," George said, "but we're not as green +as we're painted." + +Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said: + +"Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain't always +been what you might call the clean potato ... but I ain't always been +married, either. Well, I'm married now--married to the best little girl +ever I struck...." + +The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the +men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did +not please Jun was evident. + +"Well, seein' I've taken on family responsibilities," he went on--"Was +you smiling, Watty?" + +"Me? Oh, no, Jun," the offender replied, meekly; "it was only the +stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn't think +so, but I always look as if I was smilin' when I've got the +stummick-ache." + +George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, +taking Watty's explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued +solemnly, playing the reformed blackguard to his own satisfaction. + +"Seein' I've taken on family responsibilities, I want to run straight. I +don't want my kids to think there was anything crook about their dad." + +If he moved no one else, he contrived to feel deeply moved himself at +the prospect of how his unborn children were going to regard him. The +men who had always more or less believed in him managed to convince +themselves that Jun meant what he said. George and Watty realised he had +put up a good case, that he was getting at them in the only way +possible. + +Michael moved out of the crowd round the door towards the bar. Peter +Newton put his daily ration of beer on the bar. + +"'Lo, Michael," Jun said. + +"'Lo, Jun," Michael said. + +"Well," Jun concluded, tossing off his beer; "that's the way it is, +boys. Believe me if y'r like, and if y'r don't like--lump it. + +"But there's one thing more I've got to tell you," he added; "and if you +find what I've been saying hard to believe, you'll find this harder: I +don't believe Charley got those stones of Rummy's." + +"What?" + +The query was like the crack of a whip-lash. There was a restive, +restless movement among the men. + +"I don't believe Charley got those stones either," Jun declared. "'Got,' +I said, not 'took.' All I know is, he was like a sick fish when he +reached Sydney ... and sold all the opal he had with him. He was lively +enough when we started out. I give you that. Maybe he took Rum-Enough's +stones all right; but somebody put it over on him. I thought it might be +Emmy--that yeller-haired tart, you remember, went down with us. She was +a tart, and no mistake. My little girl, now--she was never ... like +that! But Maud says she doesn't think so, because Emmy turned Charley +out neck and crop when she found he'd got no cash. He got mighty little +for the bit of stone he had with him ... I'll take my oath. He came +round to borrow from me a day or two after we arrived. And he was ragin' +mad about something.... If he shook the stones off Rum-Enough, it's my +belief somebody shook them off of him, either in the train or here--or +off of Rummy before he got them...." + +Several of the men muttered and grunted their protest. But Jun held to +his point, and the talk became more general. Jun asked for news of the +fields: what had been done, and who was getting the stuff. Somebody said +John Armitage had been up and had bought a few nice stones from the +Crosses, Pony-Fence, and Bully Bryant. + +"Armitage?" Jun said. "He's always a good man--gives a fair price. He +bought my stones, that last lot ... gave me a hundred pounds for the big +knobby. But it fair took my breath away to hear young Sophie Rouminof +had gone off with him." + +Michael was standing beside him before the words were well out of his +mouth. + +"What did you say?" he demanded. + +"I'm sorry, Michael," Jun replied, after a quick, scared glance at the +faces of the men about him. "But I took it for granted you all knew, of +course. We saw them a good bit together down in Sydney, Maud and me, and +she said she saw Sophie on the _Zealanida_ the day the boat sailed. Maud +was down seeing a friend off, and she saw Sophie and Mr. Armitage on +board. She said--" + +Michael turned heavily, and swung out of the bar. + +Jun looked after him. In the faces of the men he read what a bomb his +news had been among them. + +"I wouldn't have said that for a lot," he said, "if I'd 've thought +Michael didn't know. But, Lord, I thought he knew ... I thought you all +knew." + +In the days which followed, as he wandered over the plains in the late +afternoon and evening, Michael tried to come to some understanding with +himself of what had happened. At first he had been too overcast by the +sense of loss to realise more than that Sophie had gone away. But now, +beyond her going, he could see the failure of his own effort to control +circumstances. He had failed; Sophie had gone; she had left the Ridge. + +"God," he groaned; "with the best intentions in the world, what an awful +mess we make of things!" + +Michael wondered whether it would have been worse for Sophie if she had +gone away with Paul when her mother died. At least, Sophie was older now +and better able to take care of herself. + +He blamed himself because she had gone away as she had, all the same; +the failure of the Ridge to hold her as well as his own failure beat him +to the earth. He had hoped Sophie would care for the things her mother +had cared for. He had tried to explain them to her. But Sophie, he +thought now, had more the restless temperament of her father. He had not +understood her young spirit, its craving for music, laughter, +admiration, and the life that could give them to her. He had thought the +Ridge would be enough for her, as it had been for her mother. + +Michael never thought of Mrs. Rouminof as dead. He thought of her as +though she were living some distance from him, that was all. In the +evening he looked up at the stars, and there was one in which she seemed +to be. Always he felt as if she were looking at him when its mild +radiance fell over him. And now he looked to that star as if trying to +explain and beg forgiveness. + +His heart was sore because Sophie had left him without a word of +affection or any explanation. His fear and anxiety for her gave him no +peace. He sweated in agony with them for a long time, crying to her +mother, praying her to believe he had not failed in his trust through +lack of desire to serve her, but through a fault of understanding. If +she had been near enough to talk to, he knew he could have explained +that the girl was right: neither of them had any right to interfere with +the course of her life. She had to go her own way; to learn joy and +sorrow for herself. + +Too late Michael realised that he had done all the harm in the world by +seeking to make Sophie go his own and her mother's way. He had opposed +the tide of her youth and enthusiasm, instead of sympathising with it; +and by so doing he had made it possible for someone else to sympathise +and help her to go her own way. Opposition had forced her life into +channels which he was afraid would heap sorrows upon her, whereas +identification with her feeling and aspirations might have saved her the +hurt and turmoil he had sought to save her. + +Thought of what he had done to prevent Paul taking Sophie away haunted +Michael. But, after all, he assured himself, he had not stolen from +Paul. Charley had stolen from Paul, and he, Michael, was only holding +Paul's opals until he could give them to Paul when his having them would +not do Sophie any harm.... His having them now could not injure +Sophie.... Michael decided to give Paul the opals and explain how he +came to have them, when the shock of what Jun had said left him. He +tried not to think of that, although a consciousness of it was always +with him.... But Paul was delirious with sun-stroke, he remembered; it +would be foolish to give him the stones just then.... As soon as that +touch of the sun had passed, Michael reflected, he would give Paul the +opals and explain how he came to have them.... + + + + +_PART II_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes +blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms +continued until March. + +Through the heat came the baa-ing of sheep on the plains, moving in +great flocks, weary and thirsty; the blaring of cattle; the harsh crying +of crows following the flocks and waiting to tear the dead flesh from +the bones of spent and drought-stricken beasts. The stock routes were +marked by the bleached bones of cattle and sheep which had fallen by the +road, and the stench of rotting flesh blew with the hot winds and dust +from the plains. + +It was cooler underground than anywhere else during the hot weather. +Fallen Star miners told stockmen and selectors that they had the best of +it in the mines, during the heat. They went to work as soon as it was +dawn, in order to get mullock cleared away and dirt-winding over before +the heat of the day began. + +In the morning, here and there a man was seen on the top of his dump, +handkerchief under his hat, winding dirt, and emptying red sandstone, +shin-cracker, and cement stone from his hide buckets over the slope of +the dump. The creak of the windlass made a small, busy noise in the air. +But the miner standing on the top of his hillock of white crumbled clay, +moving with short, automatic jerks against the sky, or the noodlers +stretched across the slopes of the dumps, turning the rubble thrown up +from the shafts with a piece of wood, were the only outward sign of the +busy underground world of the mines. + +As a son might have, Potch had rearranged the hut and looked after Paul +when Sophie had gone. He had nursed Paul through the fever and delirium +of sun-stroke, and Paul's hut was kept in order as Sophie had left it. +Potch swept the earthen floor and sprinkled it with water every morning; +he washed any dishes Paul left, although Paul had most of his meals with +Potch and Michael. Michael had seen the window of Sophie's room open +sometimes; a piece of muslin on the lower half fluttering out, and once, +in the springtime, he had caught a glimpse of a spray of punti--the +yellow boronia Sophie was so fond of, in a jam-tin on a box cupboard +near the window. Potch had prevailed on Paul to keep one or two of the +goats when he sold most of them soon after Sophie went away, and Potch +saw to it there was always a little milk, and some goat's-milk butter or +cheese for the two huts. + +People at first were surprised at Potch's care of Paul; then they +regarded it as the most natural thing in the world. They believed Potch +Was trying to make up to Paul for what his father had deprived him of. +And after Sophie went away Paul seemed to forget Potch was the son of +his old enemy. He depended on Potch, appealed to, and abused him as if +he were his son, and Potch seemed quite satisfied that it should be so. +He took his service very much as a matter of course, as Paul himself +did. + +A quiet, awkward fellow he was, Potch. For a long time nobody thought +much of him. "Potch," they would say, as his father used to, "a little +bit of potch!" Potch knew what was meant by that. He was Charley +Heathfield's son, and could not be expected to be worth much. He had +rated himself as other people rated him. He was potch, poor opal, stuff +of no particular value, without any fire. And his estimate of himself +was responsible for his keeping away from the boys and younger men of +the Ridge. A habit of shy aloofness had grown with him, although anybody +who wanted help with odd jobs knew where they could get it, and find +eager and willing service. Potch would do anything for anybody with all +the pleasure in the world, whether it were building a fowl-house, +thatching a roof, or helping to run up a hut. + +"He's the only mate worth a straw Michael's had since God knows when, 't +anyrate," Watty said, after Potch had been working with Paul and Michael +for some time. George and Cash agreed with him. + +George and Watty and Cash had "no time," as they said themselves, for +Rouminof; and Potch as a rule stayed in the shelter with Paul when +Michael went over to talk with George and Watty. He was never prouder +than when Michael asked him to go over to George and Watty's shelter. + +At first Potch would sit on the edge of the shelter, leaning against the +brushwood, the sun on his shoulder, as if unworthy to take advantage of +the shelter's shade, further. For a long time he listened, saying +nothing; not listening very intently, apparently, and feeding the birds +with crumbs from his lunch. But Michael saw his eyes light when there +was any misstatement of fact on a subject he had been reading about or +knew something of. + +Soon after Sophie had gone, Michael wrote to Dawe Armitage. He and the +old man had always been on good terms, and Michael had a feeling of real +friendliness for him. But the secret of the sympathy between them was +that they were lovers of the same thing. For both, black opal had a +subtle, inexplicable fascination. + +As briefly as he knew how, Michael told Dawe Armitage how Sophie had +left Fallen Star, and what he had heard. "It's up to you to see no harm +comes to that girl," he wrote. "If it does, you can take my word for it, +there's no man on this field will sell to Armitages." + +Michael knew Mr. Armitage would take his word for it. He knew Dawe +Armitage would realise better than Michael could tell him, that it would +be useless for John Armitage to visit the field the following year. +George Woods had informed Michael that, by common consent, men of the +Ridge had decided not to sell to Armitage for a time; and, in order to +prevent an agent thwarting their purpose, to deal only with known and +rival buyers of the Armitages. Dawe Armitage, Michael guessed, would be +driven to the extremity of promising almost anything to make up for what +his son had done, and to overcome the differences between Armitage and +Son and men of the Ridge. + +When the reply came, Michael showed it to Watty and George. + +"DEAR BRADY," it said, "I need hardly say your letter was a great shock +to me. At first, when I taxed my son with the matter you write of, he +denied all knowledge or responsibility for the young lady. I have since +found she is here in New York, and have seen her. I offered to take her +passage and provide for her to return to the Ridge; but she refuses to +leave this city, and, I believe, is to appear in a musical comedy +production at an early date. Believe me overcome by the misfortune of +this episode, and only anxious to make any reparation in my power. +Knowing the men of the Ridge as I do, I can understand their resentment +of my son's behaviour, and that for a time, at least, business relations +between this house and them cannot be on the old friendly footing. I +need hardly tell you how distressing this state of affairs is to me +personally, and how disastrous the cutting off of supplies is to my +business interests. I can only ask that, as I will, on my part, to the +best of my ability, safeguard the young, lady--whom I will regard as +under my charge--you will, in recognition of our old friendship, perhaps +point out to men of the Ridge that as it is not part of their justice to +visit sins of the fathers upon the children, so I hope it may not be to +visit sins of the children upon the fathers. + +"Yours very truly, + +"DAWE P. ARMITAGE." + +"The old man seems fair broken up," Watty remarked. + +"Depends on how Sophie gets on whether we have anything to do with +Armitage and Son--again," George replied. "If she's all right ... well +... perhaps it'll be all right for them, with us. If she doesn't get on +all right ... they won't neither." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +The summer months passed slowly. The country was like a desert for +hundreds of miles about the Ridge in every direction. The herbage had +crumbled into dust; ironstone and quartz pebbles on the long, low slopes +of the Ridge glistened almost black in the light; and out on the plains, +and on the roads where the pebbles were brushed aside, the dust rose in +tawny and reddish clouds when a breath of wind, or the movement of man +and beast stirred it. The trees, too, were almost black in the light; +the sky, dim, and smoking with heat. + +Paul had not done any work in the mine since he had been laid up with +sun-stroke. When he was able to be about again he went to the shelter to +eat his lunch with Michael and Potch. He was extraordinarily weak for +some time, and a haze the sun-stroke had left hovered over his mind. +Usually, to stem the tide of his incessant questions and gossiping, +Potch gave him some scraps of sun-flash, and colour and potch to noodle, +and he sat and snipped them contentedly while Potch and Michael read or +dozed the hot, still, midday hours away. + +When he had eaten his lunch, Potch tossed his crumbs to the birds which +came about the shelter. He whistled to them for a while and tried to +make friends with them. As often as not Michael sat, legs stretched put +before him, smoking and brooding, as he gazed over the plains; but one +day he found himself in the ruck of troubled thoughts as he watched +Potch with the birds. + +Michael had often watched Potch making friends with the birds, as he lay +on his side dozing or dreaming. He had sat quite still many a day, until +Potch, by throwing crumbs and whistling encouragingly and in imitation +of their own calls, had induced a little crested pigeon, or white-tail, +to come quite close to him. The confidence Potch won from the birds was +a reproach to him. But in a few days now, Michael told himself, he would +be giving Paul his opals. Then Potch would know what perhaps he ought to +have known already. Potch was his mate, Michael reminded himself, and +entitled to know what his partner was doing with opal which was not +their common property. + +When Sophie was at home, Michael had taken Potch more or less for +granted. He had not wished to care for, or believe in, Potch, as he had +his father, fearing a second shock of disillusionment. The compassion +which was instinctive had impelled him to offer the boy his goodwill and +assistance; but a remote distrust and contempt of Charley in his son had +at first tinged his feeling for Potch. Slowly and surely Potch had lived +down that distrust and contempt. Dogged and unassuming, he asked nothing +for himself but the opportunity to serve those he loved, and Michael had +found in their work, in their daily association, in the homage and deep, +mute love Potch gave him, something like balm to the hurts he had taken +from other loves. + +Michael had loved greatly and generously, and had little energy to give +to lesser affections, but he was grateful to Potch for caring for him. +He was drawn to Potch by the knowledge of his devotion. He longed to +tell him about the opals; how he had come to have them, and why he was +holding them; but always there had been an undertow of resistance +tugging at the idea, reluctance to break the seals on the subject in his +mind. Some day he would have to break them, he told himself. + +Paul's illness had made it seem advisable to put off explanation about +the opals for a while. Paul was still weak from the fever following his +touch of the sun, and his brain hazy. As soon as he had his normal wits +again, Michael promised himself he would take the opals to Paul and let +him know how he came to have them. + +All the afternoon, as he worked, Michael was plagued by thought of the +opals. He had no peace with himself for accepting Potch's belief in him, +and for not telling Potch how Paul's opals came into his possession. + +In the evening as he lay on the sofa under the window, reading, the +troubled thinking of his midday reverie became tangled with the printed +words of the page before him. Michael had a flashing vision of the +stones as Paul had held them to the light in Newton's bar. Suddenly it +occurred to him that he had not seen the stones, or looked at the +package the opals were in, since he had thrown them into the box of +books in his room, the night he had taken them from Charley. + +He got up from the sofa and crossed to his bedroom to see whether Paul's +cigarette tin, wrapped in its old newspaper, was still lying among his +books. He plunged is hand among them, and turned his books over until he +found the tin. It looked much as it had the night he threw it into the +box--only the wrappings of newspaper were loose. + +Michael wondered whether all the opals were in the box. He hoped none +had fallen out, or got chipped or cracked as a result of his rough +handling. He untied the string round the tin in order to tie it again +more securely. It might be just as well to see whether the stones were +all right while he was about it, he thought. + +He went back to the sitting-room and drew his chair up to the table. +Slowly, abstractedly, he rolled the newspaper wrappings from the tin; +and the stones rattled together in their bed of wadding as he lifted +them to the table. He picked up one and held it off from the +candle-light. It was the stone Paul had had such pride in--a piece of +opal with a glitter of flaked gold and red fire smouldering through its +black potch like embers of a burning tree through the dark of a starless +night. + +One by one he lifted the stones and moved them before the candle, +letting its yellow ray loose their internal splendour. The colours in +the stones--blue, green, gold, amethyst, and red--melted, sprayed, and +scintillated before him. His blood warmed to their fires. + +"God! it's good stuff!" he breathed, his eyes dark with reverence and +emotion. + +With the tranced interest of a child, he sat there watching the play of +colours in the stones. Opal always exerted this fascination for him. Not +only its beauty, but the mystery of its beauty enthralled him. He had a +sense of dimly grasping great secrets as be gazed into its shining +depths, trying to follow the flow and scintillation of its myriad stars. + +Potch came into the hut, brushing against the doorway. He swung +unsteadily, as though he had been running or walking quickly. + +Michael started from the rapt contemplation he had fallen into; he stood +up. His consciousness swaying earthwards again, he was horrified that +Potch should find him with the opals like this before he had explained +how he came to have them. Confounded with shame and dismay, +instinctively he brushed the stones together and, almost without knowing +what he did, threw the wrappings over them. He felt as if he were really +guilty of the thing Potch might suspect him guilty of: either of being a +miser and hoarding opal from his mate, or of having come by the stones +as he had come by them. One opal, the stone he had first looked at, +tumbled out from the others and lay under the candle-light, winking and +flashing. + +But Potch was disturbed himself; he was breathing heavily; his usually +sombre, quiet face was flushed and quivering with restrained excitement. +He was too preoccupied to notice Michael's movement, or what he was +doing. + +"Snow-Shoes been here?" he asked, breathlessly. + +"No," Michael said. "Why?" + +He stretched out his hand to take the opal which lay winking in the +light and put it among the others. Potch's excitement died out. + +"Oh, nothing," he said, lamely. "I only thought I saw him making this +way." + +The sound of a woman laughing outside the hut broke the silence between +them. Michael lifted his head to listen. + +"Who's that?" he asked; + +Potch did not reply. The blue dark of the night sky, bright with stars, +was blank in the doorway. + +"May I come in?" a woman's voice called. Her figure wavered in the +doorway. Before either Potch or Michael could speak she had come into +the hut. It was Maud, Jun Johnson's wife. She stood there on the +threshold of the room, her loose, dark hair wind-blown, her eyes, +laughing, the red line of her mouth trembling with a smile. Her eyes +went from Michael to Potch, who had turned away. + +"My old nanny's awful bad, Potch," she said. "They say there's no one on +the Ridge knows as much about goats as you. Will you come along and see +what you can do for her?" + +Potch was silent. Michael had never known him take a request for help so +ungraciously. His face was sullen and resentful as his eyes went to +Maud. + +"All right," he said. + +He moved to go out with her. Maud moved too. Then she caught sight-of +the piece of opal lying out from the other stones on the table. + +"My," she cried eagerly, "that's a pretty stone, Michael!" She turned it +back against the light, so that the opal threw out its splintered sparks +of red and gold. + +"Just been noodlin' over some old scraps ... and came across it," +Michael said awkwardly. + +It seemed impossible to explain about the stones to Maud Johnson. He +could not bear the idea of her hearing his account of Paul's opals +before George, Watty, and the rest of the men who were his mates, had. + +"Well to be you, having stuff like that to noodle," Maud said. "Doin' a +bit of dealin' myself. I'll give you a good price for it, Michael." + +"It's goin' into a parcel," he replied. + +"Oh, well, when you want to sell, you might let me know," Maud said. +"Comin', Potch?" + +She swung away with the light, graceful swirl of a dancer. Michael +caught the smile in her eyes, mischievous and mocking as a street +urchin's, as she turned to Potch, and Potch followed her out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Days and months went by, hot and still, with dust-storms and blue skies, +fading to grey. Their happenings were so alike that there was scarcely +any remembering one from the other of them. The twilights and dawns were +clear, with delicate green skies. On still nights the moon rose golden, +flushing the sky before it appeared, as though there were fires beyond +the Ridge. + +Usually in one of the huts a concertina was pulled lazily, and its +wheezing melodies drifted through the quiet air. Everybody missed +Sophie's singing. The summer evenings were long and empty without the +ripple of her laughter and the music of the songs she sang. + +"You miss her these nights, don't you?" Michael said to Potch one very +hot, still night, when the smoke of a mosquito fire in the doorway was +drifting into the room about them. + +Potch was reading, sprawled over the table. His expression changed as he +looked up. It was as though a sudden pain had struck him. + +"Yes," he said. His eyes went to his book again; but he did not read any +more. Presently he pushed back the seat he was sitting on and went out +of doors. + +Michael and Potch were late going down to the claim the morning they +found George and Watty and most of the men who were working that end of +the Ridge collected in a group talking together. No one was working; +even the noodlers, Snow-Shoes and young Flail, were standing round with +the miners. + +"Hullo," Michael said, "something's up!" + +Potch remembered having seen a gathering of the men, like this, only +once before on the fields. + +"Ratting?" he said. + +"Looks like it," Michael agreed. + +"What's up, George?" he asked, as Potch and he joined the men. + +"Rats, Michael," George said, "that's what's up. They've been on our +place and cleaned out a pretty good bit of stuff Watty and me was +working on. They've paid Archie a visit ... and Bully reck'ns his +spider's been walking lately, too." + +Michael and Potch had seen nothing but a few shards of potch and colour +for months. They were not concerned at the thought of a rat's visit to +their claim; but they were as angry and indignant at the news as the men +who had been robbed. In the shelters at midday, the talk was all of the +rats and ratting. The Crosses, Bill Grant, Pony-Fence, Bull Bryant, Roy +O'Mara, Michael, and Potch went to George Woods' shelter to talk the +situation over with George, Watty, and Cash Wilson. The smoke of the +fires Potch and Roy and Bully made to boil the billies drifted towards +them, and the men talked as they ate their lunches, legs stretched out +before them, and leaning against a log George had hauled beside the +shelter. + +George Woods, the best natured, soberest man on the Ridge, was +smouldering with rage at the ratting. + +"I've a good mind to put a bit of dynamite at the bottom of the shaft, +and then, when a rat strikes a match, up he'll go," he said. + +"But," Watty objected, "how'd you feel when you found a dead man in your +claim, George?" + +"Feel?" George burst out. "I wouldn't feel--except he'd got no right to +be there--and perlitely put him on one side." + +"Remember those chaps was up a couple of years ago, George?" Bill Grant +asked, "and helped theirselves when Pony-Fence and me had a bit of luck +up at Rhyll's hill." + +"Remember them?" George growled. + +"They'd go round selling stuff if there was anybody to buy--hang round +the pub all day, and yet had stuff to sell," Watty murmured. + +The men smoked silently for a few minutes. + +"How much did they get, again?" Bully Bryant asked. + +"Couple of months," George said. + +"Police protect criminals--everybody knows that," Snow-Shoes said. + +Sitting on the dump just beyond the shade the shelter cast, he had been +listening to what the men were saying, the sun full blaze on him, his +blue eyes glittering in the shadow of his old felt hat. All eyes turned +to him. The men always listened attentively when Snow-Shoes had anything +to say. + +"If there's a policeman about, and a man starts ratting and is caught, +he gets a couple of months. Well, what does he care? But if there's a +chance of the miners getting hold of him and some rough handling ... he +thinks twice before he rats ... knowing a broken arm or a pain in his +head'll come of it." + +"That's true," George said. "I vote we get this bunch ourselves." + +"Right!" The Crosses and Bully agreed with him. Watty did not like the +idea of the men taking the law into their own hands. He was all for law +and order. His fat, comfortable soul disliked the idea of violence. + +"Seems to me," he said, "it 'd be a good thing to set a trap--catch the +rats--then we'd know where we were." + +Michael nodded. "I'm with Watty," he said. + +"Then we could hand 'em over to the police," Watty said. + +Michael smiled. "Well, after the last batch getting two months, and the +lot of us wasting near on two months gettin' 'em jailed, I reck'n it's +easier to deal with 'em here--But we've got to be sure. They've got to +be caught red-handed, as the sayin' is. It don't do to make mistakes +when we're dealin' out our own justice." + +"That's right, Michael," the men agreed. + +"Well, I reck'n we'd ought to have in the police," Watty remarked +obstinately. + +"The police!" Snow-Shoes stood up as if he had no further patience with +the controversy. "It's like letting hornets build in your house to keep +down flies--to call in the police. The hornets get worse than the +flies." + +He turned on his heel and walked away. His tall, white figure, +straighter than any man's on the Ridge, moved silently, his feet, +wrapped in their moccasins of grass and sacking, making no sound on the +shingly earth. + +Men whose claims had not been nibbled arranged to watch among +themselves, to notice exactly where they put their spiders when they +left the mines in the afternoon, and to set traps for the rats. + +Some of them had their suspicions as to whom the rats might be, because +the field was an old one, and there were not many strangers about. But +when it was known next day that Jun Johnson and his wife had "done a +moonlight flit," it was generally agreed that these suspicions were +confirmed. Maud had made two or three trips to Sydney to sell opal +within the last year, and from what they heard, men of the Ridge had +come to believe she sold more opal than Jun had won, or than she herself +had bought from the gougers. Jun's and Maud's flight was taken not only +as a confession of guilt, but also as an indication that the men's +resolution to deal with rats themselves had been effective in scaring +them away. + +When the storm the ratting had caused died down, life on the Ridge went +its even course again. Several men threw up their claims on the hill +after working without a trace of potch or colour for months, and went to +find jobs on the stations or in the towns nearby. + +The only thing of any importance that happened during those dreary +summer months was Bully Bryant's marriage to Ella Flail, and, although +it took everybody by surprise that little Ella was grown-up enough to be +married, the wedding was celebrated in true Ridge fashion, with a dance +and no end of hearty kindliness to the young couple. + +"Roy O'Mara's got good colour down by the crooked coolebah, Michael," +Potch said one evening, a few days after the wedding, when he and +Michael had finished their tea. He spoke slowly, and as if he had +thought over what he was going to say. + +"Yes?" Michael replied. + +"How about tryin' our luck there?" Potch ventured. + +Michael took the suggestion meditatively. Potch and he had been working +together for several years with very little luck. They had won only a +few pieces of opal good enough to put into a parcel for an opal-buyer +when he came to Fallen Star. But Michael was loth to give up the old +shaft, not only because he believed in it, but because of the work he +and his mates had put into it, and because when they did strike opal +there, the mine would be easily worked. But this was the first time +Potch had made a suggestion of the sort, and Michael felt bound to +consider it. + +"There's a bit of a rush on, Snow-Shoes told me," Potch said. "Crosses +have pegged, and I saw Bill Olsen measurin' out a claim." + +Michael's reluctance to move was evident. + +"I feel sure we'll strike it in the old shaft, sooner or later," he +murmured. + +"Might be sooner by the coolebah," Potch said. + +Michael's eyes lifted to his, the gleam of a smile in them. + +"Very well, we'll pull pegs," he said. + +While stars were still in the high sky and the chill breath of dawn in +the air, men were busy measuring and pegging claims on the hillside +round about the old coolebah. Half a dozen blocks were marked one +hundred feet square before the stars began to fade. + +All the morning men with pegs, picks, and shovels came straggling up the +track from the township and from other workings scattered along the +Ridge. The sound of picks on the hard ground and the cutting down of +scrub broke the limpid stillness. + +Paul came out of his hut as Potch passed it on his way to the coolebah. +Immediately he recognised the significance of the heavy pick Potch was +carrying, and trotted over to him. + +"You goin' to break new ground, Potch?" he asked. Potch nodded. + +"There's a bit of a rush on by the crooked coolebah," he said. "Roy +O'Mara's bottomed on opal there ... got some pretty good colours, and +we're goin' to peg out." + +"A rush?" Paul's eyes brightened. "Roy? Has he got the stuff, Potch?" + +"Not bad." + +As they followed the narrow, winding track through the scrub, Paul +chattered eagerly of the chances of the new rush. + +Roy O'Mara had sunk directly under the coolebah. There were few trees of +any great size on the Ridge, and this one, tall and grey-barked, stood +over the scrub of myalls, oddly bent, like a crippled giant, its great, +bleached trunk swung forward and wrenched back as if in agony. The mound +of white clay under the tree was already a considerable dump--Roy had +been working with a new chum from the Three Mile for something over a +fortnight and had just bottomed on opal. His first day's find was spread +on a bag under the tree. There was nothing of great value in it; but +when Potch and Paul came to it, Paul knelt down and turned over the +pieces of opal on the bag with eager excitement. + +When Michael arrived, Potch had driven in his pegs on a site he had +marked in his mind's eye the evening before, a hundred yards beyond +Roy's claim, up the slope of the hill. Michael took turns with Potch at +slinging the heavy pick; they worked steadily all the morning, the sweat +beading and pouring down their faces. + +There was always some excitement and expectation about sinking a +new hole. Michael had lived so long on the fields, and had sunk +so many shafts, that he took a new sinking with a good deal of +matter-of-factness; but even he had some of the thrilling sense of a +child with a surprise packet when he was breaking earth on a new rush. + +Neither Michael nor Paul had much enthusiasm about the new claim after +the first day or so; but Potch worked indefatigably. All day the thud +and click of picks on the hard earth and cement stone, and the +shovelling of loose earth and gravel, could be heard. In about a +fortnight Potch and Michael came on sandstone and drove into red opal +dirt beneath it. Roy O'Mara, working on his trace of promising black +potch, still had found nothing to justify his hope of an early haul. +Paul, easily disappointed, lost faith in the possibilities of the shaft; +Michael was for giving it further trial, but Potch, too, was in favour +of sinking again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from +the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock +from the drives, Potch said: + +"I'm going to sink another hole, Michael--higher up." + +Michael glanced at him. It was unusual for Potch to put a thing in that +way, without a by-your-leave, or feeler for advice, or permission; but +he was not disturbed by his doing so. + +"Right," he said; "you sink another hole, Potch. I'll stick to this one +for a bit." + +Potch began to break earth again next morning. He chose his site +carefully, to the right of the one he had been working on, and all the +morning he swung his heavy pick and shovelled earth from the shaft he +was making. He worked slowly, doggedly. When he came on sandstone he had +been three weeks on the job. + +"Ought to be near bottoming, Potch," Roy remarked one day towards the +end of the three weeks. + +"Be there to-day," Potch said. + +Paul buzzed about the top of the hole, unable to suppress his +impatience, and calling down the shaft now and then. + +Potch believed so in this claim of his that his belief had raised a +certain amount of expectation. His report, too, was going to make +considerable difference to the field. The Crosses had done pretty well: +they had cut out a pocket worth £400 as a result of their sinking, and +it remained to be seen what Potch's new hole would bring. A good +prospect would make the new field, it was reckoned. + +Potch's prospect was disappointing, however, and of no sensational value +when he did bottom; but after a few days he came on a streak or two of +promising colours, and Michael left the first shaft they had sunk on the +coolebah to work with Potch in the new mine. + +They had been on the new claim, with nothing to show for their pains, +for nearly two months, the afternoon Potch, who had been shifting opal +dirt of a dark strain below the steel band on the south side of the +mine, uttered a low cry. + +"Michael," he called. + +Michael, gouging in a drive a few yards away, knew the meaning of that +joyous vibration in a man's voice. He stumbled out of the drive and went +to Potch. + +Potch Was holding his spider off from a surface of opal his pick had +clipped. It glittered, an eye of jet, with every light and star of red, +green, gold, blue, and amethyst, leaping, dancing, and quivering +together in the red earth of the mine. Michael swore reverently when he +saw it. Potch moved his candle before the chipped corner of the stones +which he had worked round sufficiently to show that a knobby of some +size was embedded in the wall of the mine. + +"Looks a beaut, doesn't she, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael breathed hard. + +"By God----" he murmured. + +Paul, hearing the murmur of their voices, joined them. + +He screamed when he saw the stone. + +"I knew!" he yelled. "I knew we'd strike it here." + +"Well, stand back while I get her out," Potch cried. + +Michael trembled as Potch fitted his spider and began to break the earth +about the opal, working slowly, cautiously, and rubbing the earth away +with his hands. Michael watched him apprehensively, exclaiming with +wonder and admiration as the size of the stone was revealed. + +When Potch had worked it out of its socket, the knobby was found to be +even bigger than they had thought at first. The stroke which located it +had chipped one side so that its quality was laid bare, and the chipped +surface had the blaze and starry splendour of the finest black opal. +Michael and Potch examined the stone, turned it over and over, tremulous +and awed by its size and magnificence. Paul was delirious with +excitement. + +He was first above ground, and broke the news of Potch's find to the men +who were knocking off for the day on other claims. When Michael and +Potch came up, nearly a dozen men were collected about the dump. They +gazed at the stone with oaths and exclamations of amazement and +admiration. + +"You've struck it this time, Potch!" Roy O'Mara said. + +Potch flushed, rubbed the stone on his trousers, licked the chipped +surface, and held it to the sun again. + +"It's the biggest knobby--ever I see," Archie Cross said. + +"Same here," Bill Grant muttered. + +"Wants polishin' up a bit," Michael said, "and then she'll show better." + +As soon as he got home, Potch went into Paul's hut and faced the stone +on Sophie's wheel. Paul and Michael hung over him as he worked; and when +he had cleaned it up and put it on the rouge buffer, they were satisfied +that it fulfilled the promise of its chipped side. Nearly as big as a +hen's egg, clean, hard opal of prismatic fires in sparkling jet, they +agreed that it as the biggest and finest knobby either of them had ever +seen. + +Potch took his luck quietly, although there were repressed emotion and +excitement in his voice as he talked. + +Michael marvelled at the way he went about doing his ordinary little odd +jobs of the evening, when they returned to their own hut. Potch brought +in and milked the goats, set out the pannikins and damper, and made tea. + +When Michael and Potch had finished their meal and put away their +plates, food, and pannikins, Michael picked up the stone from the shelf +where Potch had put it, wrapped in the soft rag of an oatmeal bag. He +threw himself on the sofa under the window and held the opal to the +light, turning it and watching the stars spawn in its firmament of +crystal ebony. Potch pulled a book from his pocket and sprawled across +the table to read. + +Michael regarded him wonderingly. Had the boy no imagination? Did the +magic and mystery of the opal make so little appeal to him? Michael's +eyes went from their reverent and adoring observation of the stone in +his hands, to Potch as he sat stooping over the book on the table before +him. He could not understand why Potch was not fired by the beauty of +the thing he had won, or with pride at having found the biggest knobby +ever taken out of the fields. + +Any other young man would have been beside himself with excitement and +rejoicing. But here was Potch slouched over a dog-eared, paper-covered +book. + +As he gazed at the big opal, a vision of Paul's opals flashed before +him. The consternation and dismay that had made him scarcely conscious +of what he was doing the night Potch found him with them, and Maud +Johnson had come for Potch to go to see her sick goat, overwhelmed him +again. He had not yet given the opals to Paul, he remembered, or +explained to Potch and the rest of the men how he came to have them. + +Any other mate than Potch would have resented his holding opals like +that and saying nothing of them. But there was no resentment in Potch's +bearing to him, Michael had convinced himself. Yet Potch must know about +the stones; he must have seen them. Michael could find no reason for his +silence and the unaltered serenity of the affection in his eyes, except +that Potch had that absolute belief in him which rejects any suggestion +of unworthiness in the object of its belief. + +But since--since he had made up his mind to give the opals to +Paul--since Sophie had gone, and there was no chance of their doing her +any harm; since that night Potch and Maud had seen him, why had he not +given them to Paul? Why had he not told Potch how the opals Potch had +seen him with had come into his possession? Michael put the questions to +himself, hardly daring, and yet knowing, he must search for the answer +in the mysterious no-man's land of his subconsciousness. + +Paul's slow recovery from sun-stroke was a reason for deferring +explanation about the stones and for not giving them back to him, in the +first instance. After Potch and Maud had seen him with the opals, +Michael had intended to go at once to George and Watty and tell them his +story. But the more he had thought of what he had to do, the more +difficult it seemed. He had found himself shrinking from fulfilment of +his intention. Interest in the new claim and the excitement of bottoming +on opal had for a time almost obliterated memory of Paul's opals. + +But he had only put off telling Potch, Michael assured himself; he had +only put off giving the stones back to Paul. There was no motive in this +putting off. It was mental indolence, procrastination, reluctance to +face a difficult and delicate situation: that was all. Having the opals +had worried him to death. It had preyed on his mind so that he was ready +to imagine himself capable of any folly or crime in connection with +them.... He mocked his fears of himself. + +Michael went over all he had done, all that had happened in connection +with the opals, seeking out motives, endeavouring to fathom his own +consciousness and to be honest with himself. + +As if answering an evocation, the opals passed before him in a vision. +He followed their sprayed fires reverently. Then, as if one starry ray +had shed illumination in its passing, a daze of horror and amazement +seized him. He had taken his own rectitude so for granted that he could +not believe he might be guilty of what the light had shown lurking in a +dark corner of his mind. + +Had Paul's stones done that to him? Michael asked himself. Had their +witch fires eaten into his brain? He had heard it said men who were +misers, who hoarded opal, were mesmerised by the lights and colour of +the stuff; they did not want to part with it. Was that what Paul's +stones had done to him? Had they mesmerised him, so that he did not want +to part with them? Michael was aghast at the idea. He could not believe +he had become so besotted in his admiration of black opal that he was +ready to steal--steal from a mate. The opal had never been found, he +assured himself, which could put a spell over his brain to make him do +that. And yet, he realised, the stones themselves had had something to +do with his reluctance to talk of them to Potch, and with the deferring +of his resolution to give them to Paul and let the men know what he had +done. Whenever he had attempted to bring his resolution to talk of them +to the striking-point, he remembered, the opals had swarmed before his +dreaming eyes; his will had weakened as he gazed on them, and he had put +off going to Paul and to Watty and George. + +Stung to action by realisation of what he had been on the brink of, +Michael went to the box of books in his room. He determined to take the +packet of opals to Paul immediately, and go on to tell George and Watty +its history. As he plunged an arm down among the books for the cigarette +tin the opals were packed in, he made up his mind not to look at them +for fear some reason or excuse might hinder the carrying out of his +project. His fingers groped eagerly for the package; he threw out a few +books. + +He had put the tin in a corner of the box, under an old Statesman's +year-book and a couple of paper-covered novels. But it was not there; it +must have slipped, or he had piled books over it, at some time or +another, he thought. He threw out all the books in the box and raked +them over--but he could not find the tin with Paul's opals in. + +He sat back on his haunches, his face lean and ghastly by the +candle-fight. + +"They're gone," he told himself. + +He wondered whether he could have imagined replacing the package in the +box--if there was anywhere else he could have put it, absent-mindedly; +but his eyes returned to the box. He knew he had put the opals there. + +Who could have found them? Potch? His mind turned from the idea. + +Nobody had known of them. Nobody knew just where to put a hand on +them--not even Potch. Who else could have come into the hut, or +suspected the opals were in that box. Paul? He would not have been able +to contain his joy if he had come into possession of any opal worth +speaking of. Who else might suspect him of hoarding opal of any value. +His mind hovered indecisively. Maud? + +Michael remembered the night she had come for Potch and had seen that +gold-and-red-fired stone on the table. His imagination attached itself +to the idea. The more he thought of it, the surer he felt that Maud had +come for the stone she had offered to buy from him. There was nothing to +prevent her walking into the hut and looking for it, any time during the +day when he and Potch were away at the mine. And if she would rat, +Michael thought she would not object to taking stones from a man's hut +either. Of course, it might not be Maud; but he could think of no one +else who knew he had any stone worth having. + +If Maud had taken the stones, Jun would recognise them, Michael knew. By +and by the story would get round, Jun would see to that. And when Jun +told where those opals of Paul's had been found, as he would some +day--Michael could not contemplate the prospect. + +He might tell men of the Ridge his story now and forestall Jun; but it +would sound thin without the opals to verify it, and the opportunity to +restore them to Paul. Michael thought he had sufficient weight with men +of the Ridge to impress them with the truth of what he said; but +knowledge of a subtle undermining of his character, for which possession +of the opals was responsible, gave him such a consciousness of guilt +that he could not face the men without being able to give Paul the +stones and prove he was not as guilty as he felt. + +Overwhelmed and unable to throw off a sense of shame and defeat, Michael +sat on the floor of his room, books thrown out of the box all round him. +He could not understand even now how those stones of Paul's had worked +him to the state of mind they had. He did not even know they had brought +him to the state of mind he imagined they had, or whether his fear of +that state of mind had precipitated it. He realised the effect of the +loss more than the thing itself, as he crouched beside the empty +book-box, foreseeing the consequences to his work and to the Ridge, of +the story Jun would tell--that he, Michael Brady, who had held such high +faiths, and whose allegiance to them had been taken as a matter of +course, was going to be known as a filcher of other men's stones, and +that he who had formulated and inspired the Ridge doctrine was going to +be judged by it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Michael and Potch were finishing their tea when Watty burst in on them. +His colour was up, his small, blue eyes winking and flashing over his +fat, pink cheeks. + +"Who d'y' think's come be motor to-day, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael's movement and the shade of apprehension which crossed his face +were a question. + +"Old man Armitage!" Watty said. "And he's come all the way from New York +to see the big opal, he says." + +There was a rumble of cart wheels, an exclamation and the reverberation +of a broad, slow voice out-of-doors. Watty looked through Michael's +window. + +"Here he is, Michael," he said. "George and Peter are helping him out of +Newton's dog-cart. And Archie Cross and Bill Grant are coming along the +road a bit behind." + +Michael pushed back his seat and pulled the fastenings from his front +door. The front door was more of a decoration and matter of form in the +face of the hut than intended to serve any useful purpose, and the +fastening had never been moved before. + +Potch cleared away the litter of the meal while Michael went out to meet +the old man. He was walking with the help of a stick, his heavy, +colourless face screwed with pain. + +"Grr-rr!" he grunted. "What a fool I was to come to this God-damn place +of yours, George! What? No fool like an old one? Don't know so much +about that.... What else was I to do? Brrr! Oh, there you are, Michael! +Came to see you. Came right away because, from what the boys tell me, +you weren't likely to slip down and call on me." + +"I'd 've come all right if I'd known you wanted to see me, Mr. +Armitage," Michael said. + +The old man went into the hut and, creaking and groaning as though all +his springs needed oiling, seated himself on the sofa, whipped out a +silk handkerchief and wiped his face and head with it. + +"Oh, well," he said, "here I am at last--and mighty glad to get here. +The journey from New York City, where I reside, to this spot on the +globe, don't get any nearer as I grow older. No, sir! Who's that young +man?" + +Mr. Armitage had fixed his eyes on Potch from the moment he came into +the hut. Potch stood to his gaze. + +"That's Potch," Michael said. + +"Potch?" + +The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to +dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was +trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone +he had come to see, were with the man who had found it. + +"Con--gratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "I've +come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours." + +Potch shook hands with him. + +"They tell me it's the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge +earth," the old man continued. "Well, I couldn't rest out there at home +without havin' a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, +and I couldn't get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I'd +never even see it, perhaps, I danged 'em to Hades--doctors, family and +all--took me passage out here. Ran away! That's what I did." He chuckled +with reminiscent glee. "And here I am." + +"Cleared out, did y', Mr. Armitage?" Watty asked. + +"That's it, Watty," old Armitage answered, still chuckling. "Cleared +out.... Family'll be scarrifyin' the States for me. Sent 'em a cable +when I got here to say I'd arrived." + +Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased +with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying +piece of mischief. + +"Tell you, boys," he said, "I felt I couldn't die easy knowing there was +a stone like that about and I'd never clap eyes on it.... Know you +chaps'd pretty well turned me down--me and mine--and I wouldn't get more +than a squint at the stone for my pains. You're such damned independent +beggars! Eh, Michael? That's the old argument, isn't it? How did y' like +those papers I sent you--and that book ... by the foreign devil--what's +his name? Clever, but mad. Y'r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or +whatever y'r call y'rselves nowadays.... But, for God's sake, let me +have a look at the stone now, there's a good fellow." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"You get her, Potch," he said. + +Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in ah old tin, the +great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He +put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on +which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips +twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch's clumsy fingers +fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal +flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it +on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside. + +Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes. + +"My!" he breathed; and again: "My!" Then: "She was worth it, Michael," +fell from him in an awed exclamation. + +He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his +eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He +lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be +afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, +Potch's opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who +was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to +the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny +brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its +infinitesimal stars---red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst--blazing, +splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him. + +The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone +down and mopped his forehead. + +"Well," he said, "I reckon she's the God-damnedest piece of opal I've +ever seen." + +"She is that," Watty declared. + +"What have you got on her, Michael?" Dawe Armitage queried. + +A faint smile touched Michael's mouth. + +"I'm only asking," Armitage remarked apologetically. "I can tell you, +boys, it's a pretty bitter thing for me to be out of the running for a +stone like this. I ain't even bidding, you see--just inquiring, that's +all." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"Well," he said, "it's Potch's first bit of luck, and I reck'n he's got +the say about it." + +The old man looked at Potch. He was a good judge of character. His +chance of getting the stone from Michael was remote; from Potch--a +steady, flat look in the eyes, a stolidity and inflexibility about the +young man, did hot give Dawe Armitage much hope where he was concerned +either. + +"They tell me," Mr. Armitage said, the twinkling of a smile in his eyes +as he realised the metal of his adversary--"they tell me," he repeated, +"you've refused three hundred pounds for her?" + +"That's right," Potch said. + +"How much do you reck'n she's worth?" + +"I don't know." + +"How much have you got on her?" + +Potch looked at Michael. + +"We haven't fixed any price," he said. + +"Four hundred pounds?" Armitage asked. + +Potch's grey eyes lay on his for the fraction of a second. + +"You haven't got money enough to buy that stone, Mr. Armitage," he said, +quietly. + +The old man was crestfallen. Although he pretended that he had no hope +of buying the opal, everybody knew that, hoping against hope, he had not +altogether despaired of being able to prevail against the Ridge +resolution not to sell to Armitage and Son, in this instance. Potch +remarked vaguely that he had to see Paul, and went out of the hut. + +"Oh, well," Dawe Armitage said, "I suppose that settles the matter. +Daresay I was a durned old fool to try the boy--but there you are. Well, +since I can't have her, Michael, see nobody else gets her for less than +my bid." + +The men were sorry for the old man. What Potch had said was rather like +striking a man when he was down, they thought; and they were not too +pleased about it. + +"Potch doesn't seem to fancy sellin' at all for a bit," Michael said. + +"What!" Armitage exclaimed. "He's not a miser--at his age?" + +"It's not that," Michael replied. + +"Oh, well"--the old man's gesture disposed of the matter. He gazed at +the stone entranced again. "But she's the koh-i-noor of opals, sure +enough. But tell me"--he sat back on the sofa for a yarn--"what's the +news of the field? Who's been getting the stuff?" + +The gossip of Jun and the ratting was still the latest news of the +Ridge; but Mr. Armitage appeared to know as much of that as anybody. Ed. +Ventry's boy, who had motored him over from Budda, had told him about +it, he said. He had no opinion of Jun. + +"A bad egg," he said, and began to talk about bygone days on the Ridge. +There was nothing in the world he liked better than smoking and yarning +with men of the Ridge about black opal. + +He was fond of telling his family and their friends, who were too nice +and precise in their manners for his taste, and who thought him a boor +and mad on the subject of black opal, that the happiest times of his +life had been spent on Fallen Star Ridge, "swoppin' lies with the +gougers"; yarning with them about the wonderful stuff they had got, and +other chaps had got, or looking over some of the opal he had bought, or +was going to buy from them. + +"Oh, well," Mr. Armitage said after they had been talking for a long +time, "it's great sitting here yarning with you chaps. Never thought ... +I'd be sitting here like this again...." + +"It's fine to have a yarn with you, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. + +"Thank you, Michael," the old man replied. "But I suppose I must be +putting my old bones to bed.... There's something else I want to talk to +you about though, Michael." + +The men turned to the door, judging from Mr. Armitage's tone that what +he had to say was for Michael alone. + +"I'll just have a look if that bally mare of mine's all right, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said. + +He went to the door, and the rest of the men followed him. + +"Well, Michael," Dawe Armitage said when the men had gone out, "I guess +you know what it is I want to talk to you about." + +Michael jerked his head slightly by way of acknowledgment. + +"That little girl of yours." + +Michael smiled. It always pleased and amused him to hear people talk as +if he and not Paul were Sophie's father. + +"She"--old Armitage leaned back on the sofa, and a shade of perplexity +crossed his face--"I've seen a good deal of her, Michael, and I've tried +to keep an eye on her--but I don't mind admitting to you that a man +needs as many eyes as a centipede has legs to know what's coming to him +where Sophie's concerned. But first of all ... she's well ... and +happy--at least, she appears to be; and she's a great little lady." + +He brooded a moment, and Michael smoked, watching his face as though it +were a page he were trying to read. + +"You know, she's singing at one of the theatres in New York, and they +say she's doing well. She's sought after--made much of. She's got little +old Manhattan at her feet, as they say.... I don't want to gloss over +anything that son of mine may have done--but to put it in a nutshell, +Michael, he's in love with her. He's really in love with her--wants to +marry her, but Sophie won't have him." + +Michael did not speak, and he continued: + +"And there's this to be said for him. She says it. He isn't quite so +much to blame as we first thought. Seems he'd been making love to her... +and did a break before.... He didn't mean to be a blackguard, y' see. +You know what I'm driving at, Michael. He loved the girl and went--She +says when she knew he had gone away, she went after him. Then--well, you +know, Michael ... you've been young ... you've been in love. And in +Sydney ... summer-time ... with the harbour there at your feet.... + +"They were happy enough when they came to America. How they escaped the +emigration authorities, I don't know. They make enough fuss about an old +fogey like me, as if I had a harem up me sleeve. But still, when I found +her they were still happy, and she was having dancing lessons, had made +up her mind to go on the stage, and wouldn't hear of getting married. +Seemed to think it was a kind of barbarous business, gettin' married. +Said her mother had been married--and look what it had brought her to. + +"She's fond of John, too," the old man continued. "But, at present, New +York's a side-show, and she's enjoying it like a child on a holiday from +the country. I've got her living with an old maid cousin of mine.... +Sophie says by and by perhaps she'll marry John, but not yet--not +now--she's having too good a time. She's got all the money she wants ... +all the gaiety and admiration. It's not the sort of life I like for a +woman myself ... but I've done my best, Michael." + +There was something pathetic about the quiver which took the old face +before him. Michael responded to it gratefully. + +"You have that, I believe, Mr. Armitage," he said, "and I'm grateful to +you.". + +"Tell you the truth, Michael," he said, "I'm fond of her. I feel about +her as if she were a piece of live opal--the best bit that fool of a son +of mine ever brought from the Ridge...." + +His face writhed as he got up from the sofa. + +"But I must be going, Michael. Rouminof had a touch of the sun a while +ago, they tell me. Never been quite himself since. Bad business that. +Better go and have a look at him. Yes? Thanks, Michael; thanks. It's a +God-damned business growing old, Michael. Never knew I had so many bones +in me body." + +Leaning heavily on his stick he hobbled to the door. Michael gave him +his arm, and they went to Rouminof's hut. + +Potch had told Paul of Dawe P. Armitage's arrival; that he had come to +the Ridge to see the big opal, and was in Michael's hut. Paul had gone +to bed, but was all eagerness to get up and go to see Mr. Armitage. He +was sitting on his bed, weak and dishevelled-looking, shirt and trousers +on, while Potch was hunting for his boots, when Michael and Mr. Armitage +came into the room. + +After he had asked Paul how he was, and had gossiped with him awhile, +Mr. Armitage produced an illustrated magazine from one of the outer +pockets of his overcoat. + +"Thought you'd like to see these pictures of Sophie, Rouminof," he said. +"She's well, and doing well. The magazine will tell you about that. And +I brought along this." He held out a photograph. "She wouldn't give me a +photograph for you, Michael--said you'd never know her--so I prigged +this from her sitting-room last time I was there." + +Michael glanced at the photographer's card of heavy grey paper, which +Mr. Armitage was holding. He would know Sophie, anyhow and anywhere, he +thought; but he agreed that she was right when, the card in his hands, +he gazed at the elegant, bizarre-looking girl in the photograph. She was +so unlike the Sophie he had known that he closed his eyes on the +picture, pain, and again a dogging sense of failure and defeat filtering +through all his consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul's +hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and +start work again. It was nearly five years since he had got the +sun-stroke which had given him an excuse for loafing, and Michael and +Potch had come to the conclusion that even if it were only to keep him +out of mischief, Paul had to be put to work again. + +Since old Armitage's visit he had been restless and dissatisfied. He was +getting old, and had less energy, even by fits and starts, than he used +to have, they realised, but otherwise he was much the same as he had +been before Sophie went away. For months after Armitage's visit he spent +the greater part of his time on the form in the shade of Newton's +veranda, or in the bar, smoking and yarning to anybody who would yarn +with him about Sophie. His imagination gilded and wove freakish fancies +over what Mr. Armitage had said of her, while he wailed about Sophie's +neglect of him--how she had gone away and left him, her old father, to +do the best he could for himself. His reproaches led him to rambling +reminiscences of his life before he came to the Ridge, and of Sophie's +mother. He brought out his violin, tuned it, and practised Sometimes, +talking of how he would play for Sophie in New York. + +He was rarely sober, and Michael and Potch were afraid of the effect of +so much drinking on his never very steady brain. + +For months they had been trying to induce him to go down to the claim +and start work again; but Paul would not. + +"What's the good," he had said, "Sophie'll be sending for me soon, and +I'll be going to live with her in New York, and she won't want people to +be saying her father is an old miner." + +Michael had too deep a sense of what he owed to Paul to allow him ever +to want. He had provided for him ever since Sophie had left the Ridge; +he was satisfied to go on providing for him; but he was anxious to steer +Paul back to more or less regular ways of living. + +This morning Michael had made up his mind to tempt him to begin work +again by telling him of a splash of colour Potch had come on in the mine +the day before. Michael did not think Paul could resist the lure of that +news. + +Potch had brought Paul home from Newton's the night before, Michael +knew; but Paul was not in the kitchen or in his own room when Michael +went into the hut. + +As he was going out he noticed that the curtain of bagging over the door +of the room which had been Sophie's was thrown back. Michael went +towards it. + +"Paul!" he called. + +No answer coming, he went into the room. Its long quiet and tranquillity +had been disturbed. Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway +thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been +like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but +there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room +about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the +frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the +window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael +remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago. + +He was realising Potch had put them there, and wondering why he had left +the dead stalks in the tin until they were as dry as brown paper, when +his eyes fell on a hat with a long veil, and a dark cloak on the bed. He +gazed at them, his brain shocked into momentary stillness by the +suggestion they conveyed. + +Sophie exclaimed behind him. + +When he turned, Michael saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against +one side of it. Her face was very pale and tired-looking; her eyes gazed +into his, dark and strange. He thought she had been ill. + +"I've come home, Michael," she said. + +Michael could not speak. He stood staring at her. The dumb pain in her +eyes inundated him, as though he were a sensitive medium for the +realisation of pain. It surged through him, mingling with the flood of +his own rejoicing, gratitude, and relief that Sophie had come back to +the Ridge again. + +They stood looking at each other, their eyes telling in that moment what +words could not. Then Michael spoke, sensing her need of some +commonplace, homely sentiment and expression of affection. + +"It's a sight for sore eyes--the sight of you, Sophie," he said. + +"Michael!" + +Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved +to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been +like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own +child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and +tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried, +brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all. + +"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!" + +He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering +tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears +she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came +from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily, +reverently. + +"There, there!" he muttered again and again. + +Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from +him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her +eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him. + +"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said. + +Michael's mouth took its wry twist. + +"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else +on the Ridge'd dare say so." + +"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a +little as she looked at him; her eyes closed. + +Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie +down and drew the coverlet over her. + +"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said. + +Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour +when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and +butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had +fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave, +anxious face as he gazed at her. + +"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired." +She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the +tea and ate the bread and butter. + +"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world," +Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether +it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have +tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice." + +After a while she said: + +"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about +half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before. +That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat +and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how +badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I +didn't come--so I came." + +Then she asked about Potch and her father. + +Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but +that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of +putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down +to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and +Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the +night before. + +"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd +better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye +you've been missing these last two or three days." + +"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her +eyes again. + +They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed. + +"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for +years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the +sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste, +Michael.... It smells like peace, I think." + +"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind +if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more +good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter." + +"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured. + +Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep, +thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was +already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to +the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank +sunshine of the day again. + +He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to +the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for +Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to +look for Paul and send him to her. + +She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew +there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage +had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and +the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine, +with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever +it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake, +devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no +more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her. + +Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into +the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill +near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with +red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the +belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared. + +"Get him?" he asked. + +Michael had almost forgotten Paul. + +"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie. + +"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in +Michael's expression. + +Michael wanted to tell him--this was a big thing for Potch, he knew--and +yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the +throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he +told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch. + +"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said. + +But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He +would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian +of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for +fear of dazzling the beholder. + +The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had +come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of +having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did +not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and +happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like +that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie--Michael must have some good +news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his +own time. + +He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's +steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached +himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch. + +He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of +the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse +him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and +determined to speak. + +Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt +round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the +floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against +the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders. + +"Where was he?" he asked. + +"Who--Paul?" + +Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck. + +"Yes." + +Michael decided he would tell him now. + +"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away." + +Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again. + +"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit +of a business getting him home." + +"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and +stopped to listen. + +There was a muffled rumbling and sound of someone calling in the +distance. It came from Roy O'Mara's drive, on the other side of the +mine. + +"Hullo!" Michael called. + +"That you, Michael?" Roy replied. "I'm comin' through." + +His head appeared through the drive which he had tunnelled to meet +Potch's and Michael's drive on the eastern side of the mine. He crawled +out, shook himself, took out his pipe, and squatted on the floor beside +Michael. + +"Where's Rummy?" Roy asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"You didn't get him down, after all--the boys were taking bets about it +last night." + +"We'll get him yet," Potch said. "The colour'll work like one thing." + +Michael stared ahead of him, smoking as though his thoughts absorbed +him. + +"He was pretty full at Newton's last night," Roy said, "and +talkin'--talkin' about Sophie singing in America, and the great lady she +is now. And how she was goin' to send for him, and he'd be leavin' us +soon, and how sorry we'd all be then." + +"Should've thought you'd about wore out that joke," Michael remarked, +dryly. + +Roy's easy, good-natured voice faltered. + +"Oh, well," he said, "he likes to show off a bit, and it don't hurt us, +Michael." + +"That's right," Michael returned; "but Potch was out half the night +bringing him home. You chaps might remember Paul's our proposition when +you're having a bit of fun out of him." + +Potch turned back to his work. + +"Right, Michael," Roy said. And then, after a moment, having decided +that both Michael's and Potch's demeanours were too calm for them to +have heard what he had, as if savouring the effect of his news, he +added: + +"But perhaps we won't have many more chances-seein' Rummy 'll be going +to America before long, perhaps----" + +Michael, looking at Roy through his tobacco smoke, realised that he knew +about Sophie's having come home. His glance travelled to Potch, who was +slogging at the cement stone again. + +"Saw old Ventry on me way down to the mine," Roy said, "and he said he'd +a passenger on the coach last night.... Who do you think it was?" + +Michael dared not look at Potch. + +"He said," Roy murmured slowly, "it was Sophie." + +They knew that Potch's pick had stopped. Michael had seen a tremor +traverse the length of his bared back; but Potch did not turn. He stood +with his face away from them, immobile. His body dripped with sweat and +seemed to be oiled by the garish light of the candle which outlined his +head, gilded his splendid arms and torso against the red earth of the +mine, and threw long shadows into the darkness, shrouding the workings +behind him. Then his pick smashed into the cement stone with a force +which sent sharp, white chips flying in every direction. + +When Roy crawled away through the tunnel to his own quarters, Potch +swung round from the face he was working on, his eyes blazing. + +"Is it true?" he gasped. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +After a moment he added: "I found her in the hut this morning just +before I came away. I been tryin' all these blasted hours to tell you, +Potch ... but every time I tried, it got me by the neck, and I had to +wait until I found me voice." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, +its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous +green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, when Sophie went +out of the hut to meet Potch. + +The smell of sandal-wood burning on the fireplace in the kitchen she had +just left, was in the air. Such soothing its fragrance had for her! And +on the shingly soil, between the old dumps cast up a little distance +from the huts, in every direction, the paper daisies were lying, white +as driven snow in the wan light. Sophie went to the goat-pen, strung +round with a light, crooked fence, a few yards from the back of the +house. + +As she leaned against the fence she could hear the tinkling of a +goat-bell in the distance. The fragrances, the twilight, and the quiet +were balm to her bruised senses. The note of a bell sounded nearer. +Potch was bringing the goats in. + +Sophie went to the shed and stood near it, so that she might see him +before he saw her. A kid in the shed bleated as the note of the bell +became harsher and nearer. Sophie heard the answering cry of the nanny +among the three or four goats coming down to the yard along a narrow +track from a fringe of trees beyond the dumps. Then she saw Potch's +figure emerge from the trees. + +He drove the goats into the yard where two sticks of the fence were +down, put up the rails, and went to the shed for a milking bucket. He +came back into the yard, pulled a little tan-and-white nanny beside a +low box on which he sat to milk, and the squirt and song of milk in the +pail began. Sophie wondered what Potch was thinking of as he sat there +milking. She remembered the night--Potch had been sitting just like +that--when she told him her mother was dead. As she remembered, she saw +again every flicker and gesture of his, the play of light on his broad, +heavy face and head, with its shock of fairish hair; how his face had +puckered up and looked ugly and childish as he began to cry; how, after +a while, he had wiped his eyes and nose on his shirt-sleeve, and gone on +with the milking again, crying and sniffling in a subdued way. + +There was a deep note of loving them in his voice, rough and burred +though it was, as Potch spoke to the goats. Two of them came when he +called. + +When he had nearly finished milking, Sophie moved away from the screen +of the shed. She went along to the fence and stood where he could see +her when he looked up. + +The light had faded, and stars were glimmering in the luminous green of +the sky when Potch, as he released the last goat, pushed back the box he +had been sitting on, got up, took his bucket by the handle, and, looking +towards the fence, saw Sophie standing there. At first he seemed to +think she was a figure of his imagination, he stood so still gazing at +her. He had often thought of her, leaning against the rails there, +smiling at him like that. Then he remembered Sophie had come home; that +it was really Sophie herself by the fence as he had dreamed of seeing +her. But her face was wan and ethereal in the half-light; it floated +before him as if it were a drowned face in the still, thin air. + +"She's very like my old white nanny, Potch," Sophie said, her eyes +glancing from Potch to the goat he had just let go and which had +followed him across the yard. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"She might almost be Annie Laurie's daughter," Sophie said. + +"She's her grand-daughter," Potch replied. + +He put the bucket down at the rails and stooped to get through them. +Before he took up the bucket again he stood looking at her as though to +assure himself that it was really Sophie in the flesh who was waiting +for him by the fence. Then he took up the bucket, and they walked across +to Michael's hut together. + +Potch dared scarcely glance at her when he realised that Sophie was +really walking beside him--Sophie herself--although her eyes and her +voice were not the eyes and voice of the Sophie he had known. And he had +so often dreamed of her walking beside him that the dream seemed almost +more real than the thing which had come to pass. + +Sophie went with him to the lean-to, where the milk-dishes stood on a +bench under the window outside Michael's hut. She watched Potch while he +strained the milk and poured it into big, flat dishes on a bench under +the window. + +Paul came to the door of their own hut. He called her. Sophie could hear +voices exclaiming and talking to Paul and Michael. She supposed that the +people her father had said were coming from New Town to see her had +arrived. She dreaded going into the room where they all were, although +she knew that she must go. + +"Are you coming, Potch?" she asked. + +His eyes went from her to his hands. + +"I'll get cleaned up a bit first," he said, "then I'll come." + +The content in his eyes as they rested on her was transferred to Sophie. +It completed what the fragrances, those first minutes in the quiet and +twilight had done for her. It gave her a sense of having come to haven +after a tempestuous journey on the high seas beyond the reef of the +Ridge, and of having cast anchor in the lee of a kindly and sheltering +land. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged +insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung +in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George +Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the +kitchen. + +"Here she is," Paul said. + +Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her. + +"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called: + +"H'llo, Sophie!" + +And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!" + +Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie +warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump +and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and +rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again. +The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of +so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness. + +"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than +Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!" + +"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me +that scared of you--saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be +tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a +minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own +little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms +round you--not for the life of me." + +She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in +them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too. + +"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway. + +And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the +room. + +"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!" + +Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie. + +"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get +her to wait till this evening to come along." + +"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly. + +"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you +and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a +word about it!" + +The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost, +the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door. + +"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of +pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they +came to her. + +She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was +surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they +had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was +full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him +the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other +woman on the Ridge--Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a +blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had +done as long as Sophie could remember. + +Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call. +Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes +spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant. + +"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply. + +"Thank you, Bill," she replied. + +Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night, +Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but +he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat +outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did +not know whether he would go into the room or not. + +Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff, +gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow +flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But +there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had +done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a +triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it, +those who saw him knew. + +"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him. + +"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said. + +The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that +although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no +one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. + +He held the flowers out to her. + +"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her +nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a +perfume!" + +Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to +sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had +gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men. + +He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make +him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and +he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the +talk Paul's voice was raised querulously: + +"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's +happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you +caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd +go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been +with you...." + +Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling +with a hearty guffaw. + +"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of +this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and +me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son, +just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch: + +"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-" + +All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a +way which meant much more than the words--singing from their hearts, +every man and woman of them. + +Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of +washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night +to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would +walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said +good-night. + +"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant +said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let +Sophie get to bed early. + +"I will," Sophie replied. + +Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and +George followed them. + +"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods +said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this +field since you went away." + +Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes. + +"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily. + + +"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck." + +"So he has," George Woods agreed. + +"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said. + +"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to +show it to me to-night." + +"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"--he +turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses--"I reck'n we'll have to stay for +this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring +her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too +much of a good thing." + +"Right," Potch replied. + +He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room. + +"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said, +"and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it, +Michael?" + +"Four hundred," Michael said. + +"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked. + +Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering. + +"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I +daresay he'll be letting her go soon." + +He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that +Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie +the stone before selling it. + +Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph +and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin, +skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and +emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on +the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red, +weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old +penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening--a thirsting, +eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin, +lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which +he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool. + +Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The +emotion in the room made itself felt through her. + +"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said. + +Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in +a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table. +Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the +flame of the candle. + +"Oh!" + +Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of +them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel +opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm. + +The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered +exclamations went up: + +"Now, she's showin'!" + +"God, look at her now!" + +Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a +world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering +and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty +pool of the stone. + +"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous. + +Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of +miraculous and mysterious beauty. + +"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie." + +Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and +emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on +them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of +glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a +moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have +left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes +wide.... + +After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael +lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, +Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were +caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor +near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered +stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst--out across the earthen +floor. + +Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them +up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of +those stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst. + +She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to +think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and +that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only +for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal +specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her +hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was +saying. + +When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting +on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At +first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to +listen; tried to understand what he was saying. + +"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking. + +Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt +beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze. +Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently: + +"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I +was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't +want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you liked with, really. +That was what I meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think +of it any more. I don't want to think of it any more." + +"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... +somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal--that I bring people bad +luck like opal...." + +"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you +get through opal is when you can't get enough of it--so the only bad +luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of +you." + +"Potch!" + +Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The +forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which +she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and +exclamation. + +On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being +throbbed. + +"Don't think of it any more," he begged. + +"But it was your luck--your wonderful opal--and ... I broke it, Potch. I +spoilt your luck." + +"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to +assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie. +Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it.... +This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because +you're here that I can't think of anything else." + +Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion +of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured +over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung +so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying +abstractedly, wearily. + +There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch. +His instincts, sensitive as the antennæ of an insect, wavered over her, +trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded +him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense +of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to +comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to +him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!" + +Later she said: + +"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ... +not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all +the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I +thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like +I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful +here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left +it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it +was before...." + +"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to +read her thought. + +"But look what I've done," she said. + +Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him +moving his restraint. + +"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our +hearts--just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George +and the rest of them." + +"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark +thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like +any of you think." + +Potch's grip on her hand tightened. + +"You're you--and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said. + +Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and +Michael I knew would--but the others ... I thought they'd remember ... +and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"--a smile showed faintly in +her eyes--"I thought she'd see to that." + +"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's +valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty +was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night." + +"Was he?" + +Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us +here ... we--we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again." + +Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance. + +"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...." + +"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he +might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had +cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress. +"But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't +bother you ... I want just to stand by--and help you all I know how." + +"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of +loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one +sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been +hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were +here." + +Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been +engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed +and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she +looked at him; her face was grave and still. + +"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else, +once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so +tired." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great +opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which +Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her +eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, +inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would +put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath +from them in the lingering kiss she gave. + +When she had laid her head back on his shoulder sometimes, closing her +eyes, an expression of infinite rest coming over her face, Potch had +gazed at it, wondering what world of thought lay beneath that still, +sleep-like mask as, it rested on his shoulder; what thought or emotion +set a nerve quivering beneath her skin, as the water of some still pool +quivers when an insect stirs beneath it. + +Sophie had no tricks of sex with Potch. She went to him sometimes when +ghosts of her mind were driving her before them. She went to him because +she was sure that she could go to him, whatever her reasons for going. +With Potch there was no need for explanations. + +His quiet strength of body and mind had something to do with the rest +and assurance which his very presence gave her. It was like being a baby +and lying in a cradle again to have his arm about her; no harm or ill +could reach her behind the barrier they raised, Sophie thought. She knew +Potch loved her with all the passion of a virile man as well as with a +love like the ocean into which all her misdeeds of commission and +omission might be dropped. And she had as intimate and sympathetic a +knowledge of Potch as he had of her. Sophie thought that nothing he +might do could make her care less, or be less appreciative of him. She +loved him, she said, with a love of the tenderest affection. If it +lacked an irresistible impulse, she thought it was because she had lost +the power to love in that way; but she hoped some day she would love +Potch as he loved her--without reservations. For the time being she +loved him gratefully; her gratitude was as immense as his love. + +Potch divined as much; Sophie had not tried to tell him how she felt +about him, but he understood, perhaps better than she could tell him. +His humility was equal to any demand she could make of him. He had not +sufficient belief in himself or his worth to believe that Sophie could +ever love him as he loved her: he did not expect it. The only way for +him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is +to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for +life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it. + +Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; +but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched +itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages +which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them. + +The days were blessed and peaceful to Sophie, too; but she, also, was +afraid that something might happen to disturb them. She wanted to marry +Potch in order to secure them, and to live and work with him on the +Ridge. She wanted to live the life of any other woman on the Ridge with +her mate. Life looked so straight and simple that way. She could see it +stretching before her into the years. Her hands would be full of real +things. She would be living a life of service and usefulness, in +accordance with the ideal the Ridge had set itself, and which Michael +had preached with the zeal of a latter-day saint. She believed her life +would shape itself to this future; but sometimes a wraith in the +back-country of her mind rose shrieking: "Never! Never!" + +It threw her into the outer darkness of despair, that cry, but she had +learned to exorcise its influence by going to Potch and lifting her lips +for him to kiss. + +"What is it?" he asked one day, vaguely aware of the meaning of the +movement. + +Before the reverence and worship of his eyes the wraith fled. Sophie +took his face between her hands. + +"Oh, my dear," she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, "I do love +you ... and I will love you, more and more." + +"You don't have to worry about that," Potch said. "I love you enough for +both of us.... Just think of me"--he lifted her hand and kissed the back +of it gently--"like this--your hand--a sort of third hand." + +When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see +Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. +Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books +Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually +towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking +the Rouminofs' first home--near where they had played when they were +children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the +dumps. + +They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off +sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of +them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind +of their voices. + +They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had +happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a +good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to +avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie +returned to them, perplexed by his reticence. + +"I don't understand, Potch," she said on one occasion. "You found out +that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went +over to Jun's ... and told them you were going to tell the boys.... They +must have known you would tell. Maud----" + +Potch's expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, +arrested her thought. + +"Maud----" she murmured again. "I see," she added, "it was just +Maud----" + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"That explains a good deal." Sophie's eyes were on the distant horizon +of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained +like rose coral, lying on the earth about her. + +"What does it explain?" Potch asked. + +"Why," Sophie said, "for one thing--how you grew up. You've changed +since I went away, Potch, you know...." + +His smile showed a moment. + +"I'm older." + +"Older, graver, harder ... and kinder, though you always had a genius +for kindness, Potch.... But Maud----" + +Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile +thoughtfully. + +"I understand," she said. + +Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes. + +"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said. + +"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men--because of her." + +"That's right," Potch agreed. + +"And--you don't now?" + +"No." + +"I saw her--Maud--in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said +slowly. "She was selling opal...." + +"Did she show you the stones?" + +"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said. + +"Michael?" Potch's face clouded. + +"She didn't show them to me, but I know who saw them all--he bought +them--Mr. Armitage." + +"The old man?" + +"No, John." + +After a minute Sophie said: + +"Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, +too.... Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose--but was +there anything more than that?" + +"It's hard to say." Potch spoke reluctantly. "There's nothing more than +a bit of guesswork in my mind ... and I suppose it's the same with +Michael. I haven't said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn't to +me, so it's better not to mention it." + +"There's a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away," Sophie +remarked musingly. + +"The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers' church, and Mrs. +Watty's veranda?" + +"I don't mean that," Sophie said. "It's the people and things ... you, +for instance, and Michael----" + +"Michael?" Potch exclaimed. "He's wearing the same old clothes, the same +old hat." + +Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey. + +"He's different somehow ... I don't quite know how," she said. "There's +a look about him--his eyes--a disappointed look, Potch.... It hurt him +when I went away, I know. But now--it's not that...." + +As Potch did not reply, Sophie's eyes questioned him earnestly. + +"Has anything happened," she asked, "to make Michael look like that?" + +"I ... don't know," Potch replied. + +Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed: + +"There is something, Potch! I don't want to know what it is if you can't +tell me. I'm only worried about Michael.... I'd always thought he had +the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks----Oh, I can't bear to +see him look as he does.... And he seems to have lost interest in +things--the life here--everything." + +"Yes," Potch admitted. + +"Only tell me," Sophie urged, "is this that's bothering Michael likely +to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?" + +Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to +answer the question. Then he said slowly: + +"I ... don't know. I really don't know anything, Sophie. I happened to +find out--by accident--that Michael's pretty worried about something. I +don't rightly know what, or why. That's all." + +The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to +the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the +sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. +She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the +cutting-wheel which had been her mother's, cleared and cleaned up the +room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and +polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the +wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael +was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her +several small stones to face and polish for him. + +Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, +Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and +in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before +she left the Ridge, but it was a long time before Sophie went about as +she used to. After a while, however, she got into the way of walking +over to see Maggie Grant or Martha M'Cready in the afternoon, +occasionally; but she never talked to them of her life away from the +Ridge; they never spoke of it to her. + +Only one thing had disturbed her slightly--seeing Arthur Henty one +evening as she and Martha were coming from the Three Mile. + +He had come towards them, with a couple of stockmen, driving a mob of +cattle. Dust rose at the heels of the cattle and horses; the cattle +moved slowly; and the sun was setting in the faces of the men behind the +cattle. Sophie did not know who they were until a man on a chestnut +horse stared at her. His face was almost hidden by his beard; but after +the first glance she recognised Arthur Henty. They passed as people do +in a dream, Sophie and Martha back from the road, the men riding off the +cattle, Arthur with the stockmen and cattle which a cloud of dust +enveloped immediately. The dark trees by the roadside swayed, dipped in +the gold of the sunset, when they had passed. The image of Arthur Henty +riding like that in the dust behind the cattle, his face gilded by the +light of the setting sun, came to Sophie again and again. She was a +little disturbed by it; but it was only natural that she should be, she +thought. She had not seen Arthur since the night of the ball, and so +much had happened to both their lives since then. + +She saw him once or twice in the township afterwards. He had stared at +her; Sophie had bowed and smiled, but they had not spoken. Later, she +had seen him lounging on the veranda at Newton's, or hanging his bridle +over the pegs outside Ezra Smith's billiard saloon, and neither her +brain nor pulse had quickened at the sight of him. She was pleased and +reassured. She did not think of him after that, and went on her way +quietly, happily, more deeply content in her life with Michael and +Potch. + +As her natural vigour returned, she grew to a fuller appreciation of +that life; health and a normal poise of body and soul brought the faint +light of happiness to her eyes. Michael heard her laughing as she teased +Paul sometimes, and Potch thrilled to the rippled cadenza of Sophie's +laughter. + +"It's good to hear that again," Michael said to him one day, hearing it +fly from Rouminof's hut. + +Potch's glance, as his head moved in assent, was eloquent beyond words. + +Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. +Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, +calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way +the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected +her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her +unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be +splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy +fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race +meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road +opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star +to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, +constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll +the track. + +A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one +side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the +trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually +drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs +was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been +fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous +muster of the show horses of the district--rough-haired nags, piebald +and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous +reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; +Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet +nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina +stallion Black Harry. + +People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was +held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's. +Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not +stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than +railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many +of them as were needed were run up for the occasion. + +Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every +horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, +and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange +horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, +Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical +warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the +enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the +course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were +gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next +day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest +pitch. + +Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to +go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and +children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of +an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, +and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it +was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs. +Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still +maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, +so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money. + +Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to +the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and +Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see +all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she +said--people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns. +Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to +mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was +at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut. + +Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway. + +"Are you there, Martha?" she called. + + +"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!" + +Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was +full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and +freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from +above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as +Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face. + +"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on +an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was +at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down. +I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go +over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full +over there--with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a +crowd at the races, Sophie." + +Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the +brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch +of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back +to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with +great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, +broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other +hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw +its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, +scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks' +houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for +Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies +into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, +giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, +healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, +Sophie exclaimed to herself. + +Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, +and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did +not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said +Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie +knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could +dance like a two-year-old. + +"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I +suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America." + +"I'm not going," Sophie said, + +"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed +wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball--the +first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course +you're going, Sophie!" + +Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open +doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon +was nearly over. + +"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say? +And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you +there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress +extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's +brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with +her...." + +Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naïve and genial admiration of what +Martha had said. + +"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron +flashing vigorously. "It just won't be--the ball--and everything looking +as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge. +Everybody'll be that disappointed----" + +"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried. + +"I don't think; I know." + +A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes. + +"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither." + +"Potch?" + +"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy--and going to +marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, +Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking. + +"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since +you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're +goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: +'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she +goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.' +That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...." + +Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was +amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to +think that Potch was not a good enough match for her. + +"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're +all coming over from Warria--Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs. +Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and +most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...." + +She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no +flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as +she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon +sky. + +"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse +theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine +dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, +Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think +they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ... +we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But +Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see +her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'" + +As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had +years before. She could see the people in it--figures swaying down the +long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford--their +faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, +herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her +father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the +rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt +indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to +think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and +now. + +"I'd give anything for you to be there--looking your best," Martha +continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you +weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...." + +"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me--as he used to be," Sophie murmured. + +Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one +knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an +American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read +and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put +her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off +her kitchen. + +"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the +paper. + +She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph +on its page. + +"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human +understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has +had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from +comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and +musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith +of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she +goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang. +Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and +have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no +better reason, it is said, than that she is _écoeoeuré_ of us and our +life--the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario +informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for +a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms. +And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like +one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little +Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more." + +The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes. + +"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak +when she had finished reading. + +"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me +_écoeoeuré_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there, +Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd +never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for +me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't +even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just +a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without +meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go +away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing +any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to +come home.... And I came." + +Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck. + +"My lamb," she whispered. + +Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare +arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously. + +"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said. + +"All right, dearie!" + +Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another +iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. +She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with +a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress. + +"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said. + +"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a +swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't +you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, +Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair +dying to wear them." + +Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line +beside a newly-starched petticoat. + +"You will, won't you?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +"I don't think so, Martha." + +Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a +moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A +couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, +giggling cries. + +She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to +Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the +pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran +down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to +the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted +ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the +ball was in the air. + +Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge +balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of +hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced. +She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the +music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the +boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you +could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up +so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced. + +Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice, +eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter +of a girl's laughter--they were all in the air now as they had been +then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, +and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a +good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to +them--they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? +Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with +all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her? + +Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face, +trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it +what Sophie was thinking. + +"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged. + +Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light +in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed +her. + +"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?" + +"Course you could, darling," Martha said. + +Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she +stood off from her. + +"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing--and to be young +again, Martha?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood +along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. +At a little distance the big building showed dark and ungainly against +the sky. Its double doors were open, and a wash of dull, golden light +came out from it into the twilight, with the noise of people laughing +and talking. + +"It's like old times, isn't it, Potch"--Sophie's fingers closed over +Potch's arm--"to be going to a Ridge dance?" + +There was a faint, sweet stirring which the wind makes in the trees +within her, Sophie realised. It was strange and delightful to feel alive +again, and alive with the first freshness, innocence, and vague +happiness of a girl. + +Potch looked down on her, smiling. He was filled with pride to have her +beside him like this, to think they would go into the hall together, and +that people would say to each other when they saw them: "There's Sophie +and Potch!" + +That using of their names side by side was a source of infinite content +to Potch. He loved people to say: "When are you and Sophie coming over +to see us, Potch?" or, "Would you mind telling Sophie, Potch?" and give +him a message for Sophie. And this would be the first time they had +appeared at an assembly of Ridge folk together. + +He walked with his head held straight and high, and his eyes shone when +he went down the hall with Sophie. What did it matter if they called him +Potch, the Ridge folk, "a little bit of potch," he thought, Sophie was +going to be Mrs. Heathfield. + +"Here's Sophie and Potch," he heard people say, as he had thought they +would, and his heart welled with happiness and pride. + +Nearly everybody had arrived when they went into the hall; the first +dance was just beginning. Branches of budda, fleeced with creamy and +lavender blossom, had been stuck through the supports of the hall. Flags +and pennants of all the colours in the rainbow, strung on a line +together, were stretched at the end of the platform. On the platform +Mrs. Newton was sitting at the piano. Paul had his music-stand near her, +and behind him an old man from the Three Mile was nervously fingering +and blowing on a black and silver-mounted flute. Women and girls and a +few of the older men were seated on forms against the walls. Several +young mothers had babies in their arms, and children of all ages were +standing about, or sitting beside their parents. By common consent, +Ridge folk had taken one side of the hall, and station folk the upper +end of the other side. + +Sophie's first glance found Martha, her white dress stiff and +immaculate, her face with its plump, rosy cheeks turned towards her, her +eyes smiling and expectant. Martha beamed at her; Sophie smiled back, +and, her glance travelling on, found Maggie and Bill Grant, Mrs. George +Woods and two of her little girls; Mrs. Watty, in a black dress, its +high neck fastened by a brooch, with three opals in, Watty had given +her; and Watty, genial and chirrupy as usual, but afraid to appear as if +he were promising himself too much of a good time. + +Warria, Langi-Eumina, and Darrawingee folk had foregathered; the girls +and men laughed and chattered in little groups; the older people talked, +sitting against the wall or leaning towards each other. Mrs. Henty +looked much as she had done five years before; James Henty not a day +older; but Mrs. Tom Henderson, who had been Elizabeth Henty, had +developed a sedate and matronly appearance. Polly was not as plump and +jolly as she had been--a little puzzled and apprehensive expression +flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of +discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a +slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an +expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent. + +The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul +scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a +bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge +loved. Roy O'Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: "Take y'r +partners for a waltz!" Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment +were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. +There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the +polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way +of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and +pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing +with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first +dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael--no one on the Ridge +was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with +neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a +threepenny piece! + +Sophie smiled at Martha's happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing +with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to +the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton's, he +had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which +had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with +unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised +the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose +litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. +Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical +fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other. + +Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. +Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. +The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did. + +His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy +ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of +rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the +flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through +the crowd. + +"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said. + +"But I do mean it, Sophie," he said. + +As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he +did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything--with a dead +earnestness. + +After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round +Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances +as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened +to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they +didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance +with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie +Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell +Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the +opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing. + +"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie +whispered. + +"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should +have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking +so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!" + +Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was +claiming her for a polka mazurka. + +The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. +Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw +Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as +Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them. + +"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and +Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few +weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added. + +"Why has he come?" Michael asked. + +"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out +whether the men will do business with him again." + +Michael's gesture implied it was useless to talk of that. + +Sophie continued: "But you know what I said, Michael. I can't be happy +until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the +men here.... You must do that for me, Michael. They know I'm going to +marry Potch ... and if they see there's no ill feeling between John +Armitage and me, they'll believe I was more to blame than he was--if +it's a question of blame.... I want you and Potch to stand by me in +this, Michael." + +Potch's eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and +sure. But Michael showed no relenting. + +Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in +the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had +circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had +created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and +indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach +to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie. + +She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had +met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them +than playing a game they had learned to play rather well. + +Sophie said: "It is you really?" + +He took the hand she held to him. "But you knew I was coming? You had my +letter?" + +"Of course ... but----" + +"And my word is my bond." + +The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage's voice, and the +perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised +people who were near them. + +Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded +Armitage with grave, quiet eyes. + +"Good evening, Michael! Evening, Potch!" Armitage said. + +Michael did not reply; but Potch said: + +"Evening, Mr. Armitage!" And Sophie covered the trail of his words, and +Michael's silence, with questions as to the sort of journey Armitage had +made; a flying commentary on the ball, the races, and the weather. +Michael moved away as the next dance was beginning. + +"Is this my dance, Sophie?" Armitage inquired. + +Sophie shook her head, smiling. + +"No," she said. + +"Which is my dance?" The challenge had yielded to a note of appeal. + +Sophie met that appeal with a smile, baffling, but of kindly +understanding. + +"The next one." + +She danced with Potch, appreciating his quiet strength, the reserve +force she felt in him, the sense that this man was hers to lean on, hold +to, or move as she wished. + +"It's awfully good to have you, Potch," she murmured, glancing up at +him. + +"Sophie!" + +His declarations were always just that murmuring of her name with a love +and gratitude beyond words. + +While she was dancing with Potch, Sophie saw Armitage go to the Hentys; +he stood talking with them, and then danced the last bars of the waltz +with Polly Henty. + +When she was dancing with Armitage, Sophie discovered Arthur Henty +leaning against the wall near the door, looking over the dancers with an +odd, glowering expression. He had been drinking heavily of late, she had +heard. Sophie wondered whether he was watching her, and whether he was +connecting this night with that night at Warria, which had brought about +all there had been between herself and John Armitage--even this dancing +with him at a Ridge ball, after they had been lovers, and were no longer +anything but very good friends. She knew people were following her +dancing with John Armitage with interest. Some of them were scandalised +that he should have come to the Ridge, and that they should be meeting +on such friendly terms. She could see the Warria party watching her +dancing with John Armitage, Mrs. Arthur Henty looking like a pastel +drawing against the wall, and Polly, her pleasant face and plump figure +blurred against the grey background of the corrugated iron wall. + +Armitage talked, amiably, easily, about nothing in particular, as they +danced. Sophie enjoyed the harmonious rhythm and languor of their +movement together. The black, misty folds of her gown drifted out and +about them. It was delightful to be drifting idly to music like this +with John, all their old differences, disagreements, and love-making +forgotten, or leaving just a delicate aroma of subtle and intimate +sympathy. The old admiration and affection were in John Armitage's eyes. +It was like playing in the sunshine after a long winter, to be laughing +and dancing under them again. And those stiff, disapproving faces by the +wall spurred Sophie to further laughter--a reckless gaiety. + +"You look like a butterfly just out of its chrysalis, and ... trying its +wings in the sun, Sophie," Armitage said. + +"I feel ... just like that," Sophie said. + +After that Armitage had eyes for no one but her. He danced with two or +three other people. Sophie saw him steering Martha through a set of +quadrilles; but he hovered about her between the dances. She danced with +George Woods and Watty, with the Moffats of Langi-Eumina, and some of +the men from Darrawingee. Men of the station families were rather in awe +of, and had a good deal of curiosity about this Fallen Star girl who had +"gone the pace," in their vernacular, and of whose career in the gay +world on the other side of the earth they had heard spicy gossip. Sophie +guessed that had something to do with their fluttering about her. But +she had learned to play inconsequently with the admiration of young men +like these; she did so without thinking about it. Once or twice she +caught Potch's gaze, perplexed and inquiring, fixed on her. She smiled +to reassure him; but, unconsciously, she had drawn an eddy of the +younger men in the room about her, and when she was not dancing she was +talking with them, laughingly, fielding their crude witticisms, and +enjoying the game as much as she had ever done. + +As she was coming from a dance with Roy O'Mara she passed Arthur Henty +where he stood by the door. The reek of whisky about him assailed Sophie +as she passed. She glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. He swung +over to her where she had gone to sit beside Martha M'Cready. + +"You're going to dance with me?" he asked, a husky uncertainty in his +voice. + +"No," Sophie said, looking away from him. + +"Yes." + +The low growl, savage and insistent, brought her eyes to his. Dark and +sunbright, they were, but with pain and hunger in their depths. The +unspoken truth between them, the truth which their wills had thwarted, +spoke through their eyes. It would not be denied. + +"There's going to be an extra after supper," he said. + +"Very well." + +What happened then was remote from her. Sophie did not remember what she +had said or done, until she was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +How long was it since that night at Warria? Was she waiting for him as +she had waited then? But there were all those long years between. +Memories brilliant and tempestuous flickered before her. Then she was +dancing with Arthur. + +He had come to her quite ordinarily; they had walked down the room a few +paces; then he had taken her hand in his, and they had swung out among +the dancers. He did not seem drunk now. Sophie wondered at his steadier +poise as she moved away with him. The butterfly joy of fluttering in +sunshine was leaving her, she knew, as she went with him. She made an +effort to recapture it. Looking up at him, she tried to talk lightly, +indifferently, and to laugh, but it was no good. Arthur did not bother +to reply to anything she said; he rested his eyes in hers, possessing +himself of her behind her gaze. Sophie's laughter failed. The +inalienable, unalterable attraction of each to the other which they had +read long before in each other's eyes was still there, after all the +years and the dark and troubled times they had been through. + +Sophie wondered whether Arthur was thinking of those times when they had +walked together on the Ridge tracks. She wondered whether he was +remembering little things he had said ... she had said ... the afternoon +he had recited: + + "I met a lady in the meads + Full beautiful, a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild." + +Sophie wished she had not begun to think back. She wished she had not +danced with Arthur. People looking after her wondered why she was not +laughing; why suddenly her good spirits had died down. She was tired and +wanted to cry.... She hoped she would not cry; but she did not like +dancing with Arthur Henty before all these people. It was like dancing +on a grave. + +Henty's grip tightened. Sophie's face had become childish and pitiful, +working with the distress which she could not suppress. His hand on hers +comforted her. Their hands loved and clung; they comforted each other, +every fibre finding its mate, twined and entwined; all the little nests +of nerves were throbbing and crooning to each other. + +Were they dancing, or drifting through space as they would drift when +they were dead, as perhaps they had drifted through time? Sophie +wondered. The noises of the ball-room broke in on her wondering--voices, +shouting, and laughter; the little cries of girls and the heavy +exclamations of men, the music enwrapping them.... + +Sophie longed for the deep, straight glance of his eyes; yet she dared +not look up. Arthur's will, working against hers, demanded the +surrender. Through all her body, imperiously, his demand communicated +itself. Her gaze went to him, and flew off again. + +As they danced, Arthur seemed to be taking her into deep water. She was +afraid of getting out of her depth ... but he held her carefully. His +grasp, was strong and his eyes hungry. Sophie could not escape that +hungry look of his eyes. She told herself that she would not look up; +she would not see it. They moved unsteadily; his breath, hot and +smelling of whisky, fanned her. She sickened under it, loathing the +smell of whisky and the rank tobacco he had been smoking. His grasp +tightened. She was afraid of him--afraid of all the long, old dreams he +might revive. Her step faltered, his arm trembled against her. And those +hungry, hungry eyes.... She could not see them; she would not. + +A clamour of tiny voices rose within her and dinned in her ears. She +could hear the clamour of tiny voices going on in Henty, too; his voices +were drowning her voices. She looked up to him begging him to silence +them ... begging, but unable to beg, terrified and quailing to the +implacable in him--the stark passion and tragedy which were in his face. +She was helpless before them. + +Arthur had given her his arm before the open door; they had moved a +little distance from the door. Darkness was about them. There was no +hesitancy, no moment of consideration. As two waves meeting in mid-ocean +fall to each other, they met, and were lost in the oblivion of a close +embrace. The first violence of their movement, failing, brought +consciousness of time and place. They were standing in the slight shadow +of some trees just beyond the light of the hall. A purring of music came +to them in far-away murmurs, and strange, distant ejaculations, and +laughter. + +Sophie tried to withdraw from the arms which held her. + +"No, no," she breathed; but Henty drew her to him again. + +He murmured into her hair, and then from her lips again took a full +draught of her being, lingeringly, as though he would drain its last +essence. + +A shadow loomed heavy and shapeless over them. It fell on them. Sophie +was thrown back. Dazed, and as if she were falling through space, for a +moment she did not realise what had happened. Then, there in the dark, +she knew men were grappling silently. The intensity of the struggle +paralysed her; she could see nothing but heavy, rolling shapes; hear +nothing but stertorous breathing and the snorting grunts as of enraged +animals. A cry, as if someone were hurt, broke the fear which had +stupefied her. + +She called Michael. + +Two or three men came running from the hall. The struggling figures were +on their feet again; they swung from the shadow. Sophie had an instant's +vision of a hideous, distorted face she scarcely recognised as Potch's +... she saw Henty on the ground and Potch crouched over him. Then the +surrounding darkness swallowed her. She knew she was dragged away from +where she had been standing; she seemed to have been dragged through +darkness for hours. When she wakened she could see only those heavy, +quiet figures, struggling and grappling through the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Sophie went into the shed where her cutting-wheel was soon after eight +o'clock next morning. She took up a packet of small stones George Woods +had left with her and set to work on them. + +The wheel was in a line with the window, and she sat on the wooden chair +before it, so that the light fell over her left shoulder. On the bench +which ran out from the wheel were a spirit lamp and the trays of rough +opal; on the other side of the bench the polishing buffers were arranged +one against the other. A hand-basin, the water in it raddled with rouge, +stood on the table behind her, and a white china jug of fresh water +beside it. + +Sophie lighted the spirit lamp, gathered up a handful of the slender +sticks about the size of pen-holders which Potch had prepared for her, +melted her sealing-wax over the flame of the lamp, drew the saucer of +George's opals to her, and fastened a score of small stones to the +heated wax on the ends of the sticks. She blew out the lamp. + +She was working in order not to think; she worked for awhile without +thinking, details of the opal-cutting following each other in the +routine they had made for themselves. + +The plague of her thoughts grew as she worked. From being nebulæ of a +state of mind which she could not allow herself to contemplate, such +darkness of despair there was in it, they evolved to tiny pictures which +presented themselves singly and in panorama, flitting and flickering +incoherently, incongruously. + +Sophie could see the hall as she had the night before. She seemed to be +able to see everything at once and in detail--its polished floors, +flowering boughs, and flags, the people sitting against the iron walls +in their best clothes ... Mrs. Watty, Watty and George, Ella and Bully +... Bully holding the baby ... the two little Woods' girls in their +white embroidered muslin dresses, with pink ribbons tied round their +heads.... Cash Wilson dancing solemnly in carpet slippers; Mrs. Newton +at the piano ... the prim way her fat little hands pranced sedately up +and down over the keys.... Paul enjoying his own music ... getting a +little bit wild over it, and working his right leg and knee as though he +had an orchestra to keep going somehow.... Mrs. Newton refusing to be +coaxed into anything like enthusiasm, but trying to keep up with him, +nevertheless.... Mrs. Henty, Polly, Elizabeth ... Mrs. Arthur ... the +Langi-Eumina party ... the Moffats ... Potch, Michael ... John Armitage. + +Images of New York flashed across these pictures of the night before. +Sophie visualised the city as she had first seen it. A fairy city it had +seemed to her with its sky-flung lights, thronged thoroughfares, and +jangling bells. She saw a square of tall, flat-faced buildings before a +park of leafless trees; shimmering streets on a wet night, near the New +Theatre and the Little Opera House; a supper-party after the theatre ... +gilded walls, Byzantian hangings, women with bare shoulders flashing +satin from slight, elegant limbs, or emerging with jewel-strung necks +from swathings of mist-like tulle, the men beside them ... a haze of +cigarette smoke over it all ... tinkle of laughter, a sweet, sleepy +stirring of music somewhere ... light of golden wine in wide, +shallow-bowled glasses, with tall, fragile stems ... lipping and sway of +tides against the hull of a yacht on quiet water ... a man's face, heavy +and swinish, peering into her own.... + +Then again, Mrs. Watty against the wall of the Ridge ball-room, stiff +and disapproving-looking in her high-necked black dress ... Michael +dancing with Martha ... Martha's pink stockings ... and the way she had +danced, lightly, delightedly, her feet encased in white canvas shoes. +Sophie had worn white canvas shoes at the Warria ball, she remembered. +Pictures of that night crowded on her, of Phyllis Chelmsford and Arthur +... Arthur.... + +Her thought stopped there. Arthur ... what did it all mean? She saw +again the fixed, flat figures she had seen against the wall when she was +dancing with Arthur--the corpse-like faces.... Why had everybody died +when she was dancing with Arthur Henty? Sophie remembered that people +had looked very much as usual when she went out to dance with Arthur; +then when she looked at them again, they all seemed to be +dead--drowned--and sitting round the hall in clear, still water, like +the figures she had seen in mummy cases in foreign museums. Only she and +Arthur were alive in that roomful of dead people. They had come from +years before and were going to years beyond. It had been dark before she +realised this; then they had been caught up into a light, transcending +all consciousness of light; in which they had seemed no more than atoms +of light adrift on the tide of the ages. Then the light had gone.... + +They were out of doors when she recognised time and place again. Sophie +had seen the hall crouched heavy and dark under a starry sky, its +windows, yellow eyes.... She was conscious of trees about her ... the +note of a goat-bell not far away ... and Arthur.... They had kissed, and +then in the darkness that terror and fear--those struggling shapes ... +figures of a nightmare ... light on Potch's hair.... She heard her own +cry, winging eerie and shrill through the darkness. + +With a sudden desperate effort Sophie threw off the plague of these +thoughts and small mind-pictures; she turned to the cutting-wheel again. +It whirred as she bent over it. + +"Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" the wheel purred. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her brain throbbed as she tried not to listen or hear that song of the +wheel; "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!" the blood murmured and droned in her +head. + +Her hand holding an opal to the wheel trembled, the opal skidded and was +scratched. + +"Oh, God," Sophie moaned, "don't let me think of him any more. Don't let +me...." + +A mirror on the wall opposite reflected her face. Sophie wondered +whether that was her face she saw in the mirror: the face in the mirror +was strangely old, withered and wan. She closed her eyes on the sight of +it. It confronted her again when she opened them. The eyes of the face +in the mirror were heavy and dark with a darkness of mind she could not +fathom. + +Sophie got up from her chair before the cutting-wheel. She went to the +window and stood looking through its small open space at the bare earth +beyond the hut. A few slight, sketchy trees, and the broken earth and +scattered mounds of old dumps were thrown up under a fall of clear, +exquisite sky, of a blue so pure, so fine, that there was balm just in +looking at it. For a moment she plunged into it, the tragic chaos of her +mind obliterated. + +With new courage from that moment's absorption of peaceful beauty, she +went back to the wheel, the resolution which had taken her to it twice +before that morning urging her. She sat down and began to work, took up +the piece of opal she had scratched, examined it closely, wondering how +the flaw could be rectified, if it could be rectified. + +The wheel, set going, raised its droning whirr. Sophie held her mind to +the stone. She was pleased after a while. "That's all right," she told +herself. "If only you don't think.... If only you keep working like this +and don't think of Arthur." + +It was Arthur she did not want to think of. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" +the wheel mocked. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her head went into her hands. She was moaning and crying again. "Don't +let me think of him any more ... if only I needn't think of him any +more...." + +She began to work again. There was nothing to do but persist in trying +to work, she thought. If she kept to it, perhaps in the end the routine +would take her; she would become absorbed in the mechanism of what she +was doing. + +A shadow was thrown before her. In the mirror Sophie saw that John +Armitage was standing in the doorway. Her feet ceased to work the +treadles of the cutting-wheel; her hands fell to her lap; she waited for +him to come into the room. He walked past her to the window, and stood +with his back to it, facing her. Her eyes went to him. She let him take +what impression he might from her face, her defences were down; vaguely, +perhaps, she hoped he would read something of her mind in her face, that +he would need no explanation of what she had no words to express. + +There had been a smile of faint cynicism in his eyes as he looked +towards her; it evaporated as she surrendered to the inquisition of his +gaze. + +"Well?" he inquired gravely. + +"Well?" she replied as gravely. + +They studied each other quietly. + +John Armitage had changed very little since she had first seen him. His +clean-shaven face was harder, a little more firmly set perhaps; the +indecision had gone from it; it had lost some of its amiable mobility. +He looked much more a man of the world he was living in--a business man, +whose intelligence and energies had been trained in its service--but his +eyes still had their subtle knowledge and sympathy, his individuality +the attraction it had first had for her. + +He was wearing the loose, well-cut tweeds he travelled in, and had taken +off his hat. It lay on the window-sill beside him, and Sophie saw that +there was more silver in his hair where it was brushed back from his +ears than there used to be. His eyes surveyed her as if she were written +in an argot or dialect which puzzled him; his hands drifted and moved +before her as he smoked a cigarette. His hands emphasised the difference +between John Lincoln Armitage and men of the Ridge. Sophie thought of +Potch's hands, and of Michael's, and the smile Michael might have had +for Armitage's hands curved her lips. + +Armitage, taking that smile for a lessening of the tension of her mood, +said: + +"You'd much better put on your bonnet and shawl, and come home with me, +Sophie. We can be married en route, or in Sydney if you like.... You +know how pleased the old man'll be. And, as for me----" + +Sophie's gaze swept past him, fretted lines deepening on her forehead. + +Armitage threw away his cigarette, abandoning his assumption of familiar +friendliness with the action, and went to her side. Sophie rose to meet +him. + +"Look here, Sophie," he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking +into her eyes, "let's have done with all this neurotic rot.... You're +the only woman in the world for me. I don't know why you left me. I +don't care.... Come home ... let's get married ... and see whether we +can't make a better thing of it...." + +Sophie had turned her eyes from his. + +"When I've said that before, you wouldn't have anything to do with it," +he continued. "You had a notion I was saying it because I ought--thought +I had to, or the old man had talked me into it.... It wasn't true even +then. I came here to say it ... so that you would believe I--want it, +and I want you--more than anything on earth, Sophie." + +There was no response, only an overshadowing of troubled thought in +Sophie's face. + +"Is there anything love or money can give you, girl, that I'm not eager +to give you?" Armitage demanded. "What is it you want?... Do you know +what you want?" + +Sophie did not reply, and her silence exasperated him. + +Taking her face in his hands, Armitage scrutinised it as though he must +read there what her silence held from him. + +He realised how wan and weary-looking it was. Shadows beneath her eyes +fell far down her cheeks, her lips lay together with a new, strange +sternness. But he could not think of that yet. His male egoism could +only consider its own situation, fight imperiously in its own defence. + +"You want something I can't give you?" + +His eyes held her for the fraction of a second; then, the pain of +knowledge gripping him, his hands fell from her face. He turned away. + +"Which is it ... Potch or--the other?" He spoke with cruel bitterness. +"It's always a case of 'which' with you--isn't it?" + +"That's just it," Sophie said. + +He glanced at her, surprised to hear a note of the same bitterness in +her voice. + +"I didn't mean that, Sophie," he said. "You know I didn't." + +She smiled. + +"It's true all the same." + +"Tell me"--he turned to her--"I wish you would. You never have--why you +left New York ... and gave up singing ... everything there, and came +here." + +Sophie dropped into her chair again. + +"But you know." + +"Who could know anything of you, Sophie?" + +She moved the stones on the bench absent-mindedly. At length she said: + +"You remember our big row about Adler, when I was going to the supper on +his yacht?" + +Armitage exclaimed with a gesture of protest. + +"I know," Sophie said, "you were angry ... you didn't mean what you +said. But you were right all the same. You said I had let the life I was +leading go to my head--that I was utterly demoralised by it.... I was +angry; but it was true. You know the people I was going about with...." + +"I did my best to get you away from them," Armitage said. + +Sophie nodded. "But I hadn't had enough then ... of the beautiful places +and things I found myself in the midst of ... and of all the admiration +that came my way. What a queer crowd they were--Kalin, that Greek boy +who was singing with me in _Eurydice_, Ina Barres, the Countess, Mrs. +Youille-Bailey, Adler, and the rest of them.... They seemed to have run +the gamut of all natural experiences and to be interested only in what +was unnatural, bizarre, macabre.... Adler in that crowd was almost a +relief. I liked his--honest Rabelaisianism, if you like.... I hadn't the +slightest intention of more than amusing myself with him ... but he, +evidently, did not intend to be merely a source of amusement to me. The +supper on the yacht.... I kept my head for a while, not long, and +then----" + +"Then?" Armitage queried. + +"That's why I came home," Sophie said. "I was so sick with the shock and +shame of it all ... so sick and ashamed I couldn't sing any more. I +wouldn't. My voice died.... I deserved what happened. I'd been playing +for it ... taking the wine, the music, Adler's love-making ... and +expecting to escape the taint of it all.... Afterwards I saw where I was +going ... what that life was making of me...." + +"I don't know how you came to have anything to do with such a rotten +lot," Armitage cried, sweating under a white heat of rage. + +"Oh, they're just people of means and leisure who like to patronise +successful young dancers and singers for their own amusement," Sophie +said. + +"Because you fell in with a set of ultraæsthetics and degenerates, is no +reason to suppose all our people of means and leisure are like them," +Armitage declared hotly. + +"I don't," Sophie said; "what I felt, when I began to think about it, +was that they were just the natural consequences of all the easy, +luxurious living I'd seen--the extreme of the pole if you like. I saw +the other when I went to live in a slum settlement in Chicago." + +"You did?" Armitage exclaimed incredulously. + +"When I got over the shock of--my awakening," she went on slowly, "I +began to remember things Michael had said. That's why I went to Chicago +... and worked in a clothing factory for a while.... I saw there why +Adler's a millionaire, and heard from girls in a Youille-Bailey-M'Gill +factory why Connie Youille-Bailey has money to burn...." + +"Old Youille-Bailey had fingers in a dozen pies, and he left her all +he'd got," Armitage said. + +"But people down in the district where most of their money is made are +living like bugs under a rotten log," Sophie exclaimed wearily. "They're +made to live like that ... in order that people like William P. Adler +and Mrs. Youille-Bailey ... may live as they do." + +Armitage's expression of mild cynicism yielded to one of concerned +attentiveness. But he was concerned with the bearing on Sophie of what +she had to say, and not at all with its relation to conditions of +existence. + +"After all, life only goes on by its interests," she went on musingly; +"and Mrs. Youille-Bailey's not altogether to blame for what she is. When +people are bored, they've got to get interest or die; and if faculties +which ought to be spent in useful or creative work aren't spent in that +work, they find outlet in the silly energies a selfish and artificial +life breeds...." + +"I admit," Armitage said, trying to veer her thoughts from the abstract +to the personal issue, "that you went the pace. I couldn't keep up with +it--not with Adler and his mob! But there's no need to go back to that +sort of life. We could live as quietly as you like." + +Sophie shook her head. "I want to live here," she said. "I want to work +with my hands ... feel myself in the swim of the world's life ... going +with the great stream; and I want to help Michael here." + +Armitage sat back against the window-sill regarding her steadily. + +"If I could help you to do a great deal for the Ridge," he said; "if I +were to settle here and spend all the money I've got in developing this +place.--There's nothing innately immoral about a water-supply or +electric power, I suppose, or in giving people decent houses to live in. +And it would mean that for Fallen Star, if the scheme I have in mind is +put into action. And if it is ... and I build a house here and were to +live here most of my time ... would you marry me then, Sophie?" + +Sophie gazed at him, her eyes widening to a scarcely believable vision. + +"Do you mean you'd give up all your money to do that for the Ridge?" she +asked. + +"Not quite that," he replied. "But the scheme would work out like that. +I mean, it would provide more comfort and convenience for everybody on +the Ridge--a more assured means of livelihood." + +"You don't mean to buy up the mines?" + +"Just that," he said. + +"But the men wouldn't agree...." + +"I don't know so much about that. It would depend on a few----" + +"Michael would never consent." + +"As a matter of fact"--John Armitage returned Sophie's gaze +tranquilly--"I know something about Michael--some information came into +my hands recently, although I've always vaguely suspected it--which will +make his consent much more likely than you would have imagined.... If it +does not, giving the information I hold to men of the Ridge will so +destroy their faith and confidence in Michael that what he may say or do +will not matter." + +Sophie's bewilderment and dismay constrained him. Then he continued: + +"You see, quite apart from you, my dear, it has always been a sort of +dream of mine--ambition, if you like--to make a going concern of this +place--to do for Fallen Star what other men I know have done for +no-count, out-of-the-way towns and countries where natural resources or +possibilities of investment warranted it.... I've talked the thing over +with the old man, and with Andy M'Intosh, an old friend of mine, who is +one of the ablest engineers in the States.... He's willing to throw in +his lot with me.... Roughly, we've drawn up plans for conservation of +flood waters and winter rains, which will alter the whole character of +this country.... The old man at first was opposed--said the miners would +never stand it; but since we've been out with the Ridge men, he's +changed his mind rather. I mean, that when he knew some of the men would +be willing to stand by us--and I have means of knowing they would--he +was ready to agree. And when I told him Michael might be reckoned a +traitor to his own creed----" + +"It's not true," Sophie cried, her faith afire. "It couldn't be! ... If +everybody in the world told me, I wouldn't believe it!" + +Armitage took a cigarette-case from his vest pocket, opened it, and +selected a cigarette. + +"I'm not asking you to believe me," he said. "I'm only explaining the +position to you because you're concerned in it. And for God's sake don't +let us be melodramatic about it, Sophie. I'm not a villain. I don't feel +in the least like one. This is entirely a business affair.... I see my +way to a profitable investment--incidentally fulfilment of a scheme I've +been working out for a good many years. + +"Michael would oppose the syndicate for all he's worth if it weren't for +this trump card of mine," Armitage went on. "He's got a Utopian dream +about the place.... I see it as an up-to-date mining town, with all the +advantages which science and money can bring to the development of its +resources. His dream against mine--that's what it amounts to.... Well, +it's a fair thing, isn't it, if I know that Michael is false to the +things he says he stands for--and he stands in the way of my scheme--to +let the men know he's false? ... They will fall away from the ideas he +stands for as they will from Michael; two or three may take the ideas +sans Michael ... but they will be in the minority.... The way will be +clear for reorganisation then." + +Not for an instant did Sophie believe that Michael had been a traitor to +his own creed--false to the things he stood for, as John Armitage +said,--although she thought he may have done something to give Armitage +reason for thinking so. + +"I'll see Michael to-morrow, and have it out with him," John Armitage +said. "I shall tell him what I know ... and also my plans. If he will +work with me----" + +Sophie looked up, her smile glimmering. + +"If he will work with me," Armitage repeated, knowing she realised all +that would mean in the way of surrender for Michael, "nothing need be +said which will undermine Michael's influence with men of the Ridge. I +know he can make things a great deal easier by using his influence with +them--by bending their thoughts in the direction of my proposition, +suggesting that, after all, they have given their system a trial and it +has not worked out as satisfactorily as might have been expected.... +I'll make all the concessions possible, you may be sure--give it a +profit-sharing basis even, so that the transaction won't look like the +thing they are prejudiced against. But if Michael refuses...." + +"He will...." + +"I am going to ask the men to meet me in the hall, at the end of the +month, to lay before them a proposition for the more effective working +of the mines. I shall put my proposition before them, and if Michael +refuses to work with me, I shall be forced to give them proofs of his +unworthiness of their respect...." + +"They won't believe you." + +"There will be the proofs, and Michael will not--he cannot--deny them." + +"You'll tell him what you are going to do?" + +"Certainly." + +Sophie realised how far Armitage was from understanding the religious +intensity and simplicity with which Ridge folk worked for the way of +life they believed to be the right one, and what the break-up of that +belief would mean to those who had served it in the unpretentious, +unprotesting fashion of honest, downright people. To him the Ridge stood +for messy sentimentalism, Utopian idealism. And there was money in the +place: there was money to be made by putting money into it--by working +the mines and prospecting the country as the men without capital could +not. + +John Armitage was ready to admit--Sophie had heard him admitting in +controversy--that the Fallen Star mines which the miners themselves +controlled were as well worked and as well managed within their means as +any he had ever come across; that the miners themselves were a sober and +industrious crowd. What capital could do for them and for the Fallen +Star community by way of increasing its output and furthering its +activities was what he saw. And the only security he could have for +putting his capital into working the mines was ownership of them. +Ownership would give him the right to organise the workers, and to claim +interest for his investment from their toil, or the product of their +toil. + +The Ridge declaration of independence had made it clear that people of +Fallen Star did not want increased output, the comforts and conveniences +which capital could give them, unless they were provided from the common +fund of the community. Ultimately, it was hoped the common fund would +provide them, but until it did Ridge men had announced their willingness +to do without improvements for the sake of being masters of their own +mines. If it was a question of barter, they were for the pride and +dignity of being free men and doing without the comforts and +conveniences of modern life. Sophie felt sure Armitage underestimated +the feeling of the majority of men of the Ridge toward the Ridge idea, +and that most of them would stand by it, even if for some mysterious +reason Michael lost status with them. But she was dismayed at the test +the strength of that feeling was to be put to, and at the mysterious +shame which threatened Michael. She could not believe Michael had ever +done anything to merit it. Michael could never be less than Michael to +her--the soul of honour, the knight without fear, against whom no +reproach could be levelled. + +Armitage spoke again. + +"You see," he said, "you could still have all those things you spoke of, +under my scheme--the long, quiet days; life that is broad and simple; +the hearth; home, children--all that sort of thing ... and even time for +any of the little social reform schemes you fancied...." + +Sophie found herself confronted with the fundamental difference of +their outlook again. He talked as if the ideas which meant so much +to her and to people of the Ridge were the notions of headstrong +children--whimsical and interesting notions, perhaps, but mistaken, of +course. He was inclined to make every allowance for them. + +"The only little social reform I'd have any time for," she murmured, +"would be the overthrowing of your scheme for ownership of the mines." + +John Armitage was frankly surprised to find that she held so firmly to +the core of the Ridge idea, and amused by the uncompromising hostility +of her attitude. Sophie herself had not thought she was so attached to +the Ridge life and its purposes, until there was this suggestion of +destroying them. + +"Then"--he stood up suddenly--"whether I succeed or whether I +don't--whether the scheme goes my way or not--won't make any difference +to you--to us." + +"It will make this difference," Sophie said. "I'm heart and soul in the +life here, I've told you. And if you do as you say you're going to ... +instead of thinking of you in the old, good, friendly way, I'll have to +think of you as the enemy of all that is of most value to me." + +"You mean," John Armitage cried, his voice broken by the anger and +chagrin which rushed over him, "you mean you're going to take on +Henty--that's what's at the back of all this." + +"I mean," Sophie said steadily, her eyes clear green and cool in his, +"that I'm going to marry Potch, and if Michael and all the rest of the +men of the Ridge go over to you and your scheme, we'll fight it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"Are you there, Potch?" Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael's hut, a +wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her. + +Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in +his hands. + +"He's not here," he said. + +His voice was as distant as though he were talking to a stranger. He had +been trying to read, but his mind refused to concern itself with +anything except the night before, and the consequences of it. His eyes +had followed a trail of words; but he had been unable to take any +meaning from them. Sophie! His mind hung aghast at the exclamation of +her. She was the storm-centre. His thoughts moved in a whirlwind about +her. He did not understand how she could have worn that dress showing +her shoulders and so much of her bared breast. It had surprised, +confused, and alarmed him to see Sophie looking as she did in that +photograph Dawe Armitage had brought to the Ridge. The innocence and +sheer joyousness of her laughter had reassured him, but, as the evening +wore on, she seemed to become intoxicated with her own gaiety. + +Michael had watched her dancing with vague disquiet. To him, dancing was +rather a matter of concern to keep step and to avoid knocking against +anyone--a serious business. He did not get any particular pleasure out +of it; and Sophie's delight in rhythmic movement and giving of her whole +being to a waltz, amazed him. When Armitage came, her manner had +changed. It had lost some of its abstract joyousness. It was as if she +were playing up to him.... She had been much more of his world than of +the world of the Ridge; had displayed a thousand little airs and +superficial graces, all the gay, light manner of that other world. When +she was dancing with Arthur Henty, Michael had seen the sudden drooping +and overcasting of her gaiety. He thought she was tired, and that Potch +should take her home. The old gossip about Arthur Henty had faded from +his memory; not the faintest recollection of it occurred to him as he +had seen Sophie and Arthur Henty dancing together. + +Then Sophie's cry, eerie and shrill in the night air, had reached him. +He had seen Potch and Arthur Henty at grips. He had not imagined that +such fury could exist in Potch. Other men had come. They dragged Potch +away from Henty.... Henty had fallen.... Potch would have killed him if +they had not dragged him away.... Henty was carried in an unconscious +condition to Newton's. Armitage had taken Sophie home. Michael went with +Potch. + +Michael did not know exactly what had occurred. He could only +imagine.... Sophie had been behaving in that gay, light manner of the +other world: he had seen her at it all the evening. Potch had not +understood, he believed; it had goaded him to a state of mind in which +he was not responsible for what he did. + +Sophie was conscious of Michael's aloofness from her as she stood in the +doorway; it wavered as his eyes held and communed with hers. The night +before he had not been able to realise that the girl in the black dress, +which had seemed to him almost indecent, was Sophie. He kept seeing her +in her everyday white cotton frock--as she sat at work at her +cutting-wheel, or went about the hut--and now that she stood before him +in white again, he could scarcely believe that the black dress and +happenings of the ball were not an hallucination. But there was a prayer +in her eyes which came of the night before. She would not have looked at +him so if there had been no night before; her lips would not have +quivered in that way, as if she were sorry and would like to explain, +but could not. + +Potch had staggered home beside Michael, swaying and muttering as though +he were drunk. But he was not drunk, except with rage and grief, Michael +knew. He had lain on his bunk like a log all night, muttering and +groaning. Michael had sat in a chair in the next room, trying to +understand the madness which had overwhelmed Potch. + +In the morning, he realised that work and the normal order of their +working days were the only things to restore Potch's mental balance. He +roused him earlier than usual. + +"We'd better get down and clear out some of the mullock," he said. "The +gouges are fair choked up. There'll be no doing anything if we don't get +a move on with it." + +Potch had stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then he got up, changed his +clothes, and they had gone down to the mine together. His face was +swollen and discoloured, his lip broken, one eye almost hidden beneath a +purple and blue swelling which had risen on the upper part of his left +cheek. He had dragged his hat over his face, and walked with his head +down; they had not spoken all the morning. Potch had swung his pick +stolidly. All day his eyes had not met Michael's as they usually did, in +that glance of love and comradeship which united them whenever their +eyes met. + +In the afternoon, when they stopped work and went to the top of the +mine, Potch had said: + +"Think I'll clear out--go away somewhere for awhile, Michael." + +From his attitude, averted head and drooping shoulders, Michael got the +unendurable agony of his mind, his pain and shame. He did not reply, and +Potch had walked away from him striking out in a south-easterly +direction across the Ridge. Michael had not seen him since then. And now +it was early evening, the moon up and silvering the plains with the +light of her young crescent. + +"He says--Potch says ... he's going away," Michael said to Sophie. + +Her eyes widened. Her thought would not utter itself, but Michael knew +it. Potch leaving the Ridge! The Ridge without Potch! It was impossible. +Their minds would not accept the idea. + +Sophie turned away from the door. Her white dress fluttered in the +moonlight. Michael could see it moving across the bare, shingly ground +at the back of the hut. He thought that Sophie was going to look for +Potch. He had not told her the direction in which Potch had gone. He +wondered whether she would find him. She might know where to look for +him. Michael wondered whether Potch haunted particular places as he +himself did, when his soul was out of its depths in misery. + +Instinctively Sophie went to the old playground she and Potch had made +on the slope of the Ridge behind the Old Town. + +She found him lying there, stretched across the shingly earth. He lay so +still that she thought he might be asleep. Then she went to him and +knelt beside him. + +"Potch!" she said. + +He moved as if to escape her touch. The desolation of spirit which had +brought him to the earth like that overwhelmed Sophie. She crouched +beside him. + +"Potch," she cried. "Potch!" + +Potch did not move or reply. + +"I can't live ... if you won't forgive me, Potch," Sophie said. + +He stirred. "Don't talk like that," he muttered. + +After a little time he sat up and turned his face to her. The dim light +of-the young moon showed it swollen and discoloured, a hideous and comic +mask of the tragedy which consumed him. + +"That's the sort of man I am," Potch said, his voice harsh and unsteady. +"I didn't know ... I didn't know I was like that. It came over me all of +a sudden, when I saw you and--him. I didn't know any more until Michael +was talking to me. I wouldn't've done it if I'd known, Sophie.... But I +didn't know.... I just saw him--and you, and I had to put out the sight +of it ... I had to get it out of my eyes... what I saw.... That's all I +know. Michael says I didn't kill him ... but I meant to ... that's what +I started to do." + +Sophie's face withered under her distress. + +"Don't say that, Potch," she begged. + +"But I do," he said. "I must.... I can't make out ... how it was ... I +felt like that. I thought I'd see things like you saw them always, stand +by you. Now I don't know.... I'm not to be trusted----" + +"I'd trust you always, and in anything, Potch," Sophie said. + +"You can't say that--now." + +"It's now ... I want to say it more than ever," she continued. "I can't +explain ... what I did ... any more than you can what you did, Potch. +But I'm to blame for what you did ... and yet ... I can't see that I'm +altogether to blame. I didn't want what happened--to happen ... any more +than you." + +She wanted to explain to Potch--to herself also. But she could not see +clearly, or understand how the threads of her intentions and deeds had +become so crossed and tangled. It was not easy to explain. + +"You remember that ball at Warria I went to with father," she said at +last. "I thought a lot of Arthur Henty then.... I thought I was in love +with him. People teased me about him. They thought he was in love with +me, too.... And then over there at the ball something happened that +changed everything. I thought he was ashamed of me ... he didn't ask me +to dance with him like he did at the Ridge balls.... He danced with +other girls ... and nobody asked me to dance except Mr. Armitage, I +wanted to go away from the Ridge and learn to look like those girls +Arthur had danced with ... so that he would not be ashamed of me.... +Afterwards I thought I'd forgotten and didn't care for him any more.... +Last night he was not ashamed of me.... It was funny. I felt that the +Warria people were envying me last night, and I had envied them at the +other ball.... I didn't want to dance with Arthur ... but I did ... and, +somehow, then--it was as if we had gone back to the time before the ball +at Warria...." + +A heavy, brooding silence hung between them. Sophie broke it. + +"Michael says you're going away?" + +"Yes," Potch replied. + +Sophie shifted the pebbles on the earth about her abstractedly. + +"Don't leave me, Potch," she cried, scattering the pebbles suddenly. "I +don't know what will become of me if you go away.... I wanted us to get +married and settle down." + +Potch turned to her. + +"You don't mean that?" + +"I do," Sophie said, all her strength of will and spirit in the words. +"I'm afraid of myself, Potch ... afraid of drifting." + +Potch's arms went round her. "Sophie!" he sobbed. But even as he held +her he was conscious of something in her which did not fuse with him. + +"But you love him!" he said. + +Sophie's eyes did not fail from his. + +"I do," she said, "but I don't want to. I wish I didn't." + +His hands fell from her. "Why," he asked, "why do you say you'll marry +me, if you ... if----" + +Despair and desperation were in the restive movement of Sophie's hands. + +"I'm afraid of him," she said, "of the power of my love for him ... and +there's no future that way. With you there is a future. I can work with +you and Michael for the Ridge.... You know I do care for you too, Potch +dear, and I want to have the sort of life that keeps a woman faithful +... to mend your clothes, cook your meals, and----" + +Potch quivered to the suggestions she had evoked. He saw Sophie in a +thousand tender associations--their home, the quiet course their lives +might have together. He loved her enough for both, he told himself. + +His conscience was not clear that he should take this happiness the gods +offered him, even for the moment. And yet--he could not turn from it. +Sophie had said she needed him; she wanted the home they would have +together; all that their life in common would mean. And by and by--he +stirred to the afterthought of her "and"--she wanted the children who +might come to them.... Potch knew what Sophie meant when she said that +she cared for him. Whatever else happened he knew he had her tenderest +affection. She kissed him familiarly and with tenderness. It was not as +Maud had kissed him, with passion, a soul-dying yearning. He drove the +thought off. Maud was Maud, and Sophie Sophie; Maud's most passionate +kisses had never distilled the magic for him that the slightest brush of +Sophie's dress or fingers had. + +Sophie took his hand. + +"Potch," she said, "if you love me--if you want me to marry you, let us +settle the thing this way.... I want to marry you.... I want to be your +loving and faithful wife.... I'll try to be.... I don't want to think of +anyone but you.... You may make me forget--if we are married, and get on +well together. I hope you will----" + +Potch took her into his arms, an inarticulate murmur breaking his +voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Potch had looked towards Michael's hut before he went into his own, next +evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael +had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking to the mine, Potch +said: + +"He's back; did you know?" + +Michael guessed whom Potch was speaking of. "Saw him ... as I was +walking out along the Warria road yesterday afternoon," he said; "and +then at Newton's.... He looks ill." + +Potch did not reply. They did not speak of Charley again, and yet as +they worked they thought of no one else, and of nothing but the +difficulties his coming would bring into their lives. For Potch, his +father's return meant the revival of an old shame. He had been accepted +on his merits by the Ridge; he had made people forget he was Charley +Heathfield's son, and now Charley was back Potch had no hope of anything +but the old situation where his father was concerned, the old drag and +the old fear. The thought of it was more disconcerting than ever, now +too, because Sophie would have to share the sort of atmosphere Charley +would put about them. + +And Michael was dulled by the weight of the fate which threatened him. +Every day the consciousness of it weighed more heavily. He wondered +whether his mind would remain clear and steady enough to interpret his +resolve. For him, Charley's coming, and the enmity he had gauged in his +glance the night before, were last straws of misfortune. + +John Armitage had put the proposition he outlined for Sophie, to +Michael, the night before he left for Sydney. He had told Michael what +he knew, and what he suspected in connection with Rouminof's opals. +Michael had neither defended himself nor denied Armitage's accusation. +He had ignored any reference to Paul's opals, and had made his position +of uncompromising hostility to Armitage's proposition clear from the +outset. There had not been a shadow of hesitation in his decision to +oppose the Armitages' scheme for buying up the mines. At whatever cost, +he believed he had no choice but to stand by the ideas and ideals on +which the life of the Ridge was established and had grown. + +John Armitage, because of his preconceived notion of the guilty +conscience Michael was suffering from, was disappointed that the action +of Michael's mind had been as direct to the poles of his faith as it had +been. He realised Sophie was right: Michael would not go back on the +Ridge or the Ridge code; but the Ridge might go back on him. Armitage +assured himself he had a good hand to play, and he explained his +position quite frankly to Michael. If Michael would not work with him, +he, John Armitage, must work against Michael. He would prefer not to do +so, he said. He described to several men, separately, what the proposals +of the Armitage Syndicate amounted to, in order that they might think +over, weigh, and discuss them. He was going down to Sydney for a few +weeks, and when he came back he would call a meeting and lay his +proposition before the men. He hoped by then Michael would have +reconsidered his decision. If he had not, Armitage made it clear that, +much as he would regret having to, he would nevertheless do all in his +power to destroy any influence Michael might have with men of the Ridge +which might militate against their acceptance of the scheme for +reorganisation of the mines he had to lay before them. Michael +understood what that meant. John Armitage would accuse him of having +stolen Paul's opals, and he would have to answer the accusation before +men of the Ridge. + +His mind hovered about the thought of Maud Johnson. + +He could not conceive how John Armitage had come to the knowledge he +possessed, unless Maud, whom he was aware Armitage had bought stones +from in America, had not showed or sold them to him. But Armitage +believed Michael still had, and was hoarding the stones. That was the +strange part of it all. How could Armitage declare he had one of the +stones, and yet believe Michael was holding the rest? Unless Maud had +taken that one stone from the table the night she came to see Potch? +Michael could not remember having seen the stone after she went. He +could not remember having put it back in the box. It only just occurred +to him she might only have taken the stone that night. Jun had probably +recognised the stone, and she had told Armitage what Jun had said about +it. Jun might have gone to the hut for the rest of the stones, but then +Maud would not have told Armitage they were still on the Ridge. Maud +would be sure to know if Jun had got the stones on his own account, +Michael thought. + +His brain went over and over again what John Armitage had said, +querying, exclaiming, explaining, and enlarging on fragments of their +talk. Armitage declared he had evidence to prove Michael Brady had +stolen Rouminof's stones. He might have proof that he had had possession +of them for a while, Michael believed. But if Armitage was under the +impression he still had the opals, his information was incomplete at +least, and Michael treasured a vague hope that the proof which he might +adduce, would be as faulty. + +But more important than the bringing home to him of responsibility for +the lost opals, and the "unmasking" to eyes of men of the Ridge which +Armitage had promised him, was the bearing it would have on the +proposition which was to be put before them. Michael realised that there +was a good deal of truth in what Armitage had said. A section of the +younger miners, men who had settled on the new rushes, and one or two of +the older men who had grown away from the Ridge idea, would probably be +willing enough to fall in with and work under Armitage's scheme. George, +Watty, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Cash Wilson, and most of the +older men were against it, and some of the younger ones, too; but Archie +and Ted Cross were inclined to waver, although they had always been +staunch for the Ridge principle, and with them was a substantial +following from the Punti, Three Mile, and other rushes. + +A disintegrating influence was at work, Michael recognised. It had been +active for some time. Since Potch's finding of the big stone, scarcely +any stone worth speaking of had been unearthed on the fields, and that +meant long store accounts, and anxious and hard times for most of the +gougers. + +The settlement had weathered seasons of dearth, and had existed on the +merest traces of precious opal before; but this one had lasted longer, +and had tried everybody's patience and capacity for endurance to the +last degree. Murmurs of the need for money to prospect the field and +open up new workings were heard. Criticisms of the ideas which would +keep out money and money-owners who might be persuaded to invest their +money to prospect and open up new workings on Fallen Star, crept into +the murmurings, and had been circulating for some months. Bat M'Ginnis, +a tall, lean, herring-gutted Irishman, with big ears, pointed like a +bat's, was generally considered author of the criticisms and abettor of +the murmurings. He had sunk on the Coolebah and drifted to the Punti +rush soon after. On the Punti, it was known, he had expatiated on the +need for business men and business methods to run the mines and make the +most of the resources of the Ridge. + +M'Ginnis was a good agent for Armitage, before Armitage's proposition +was heard of. Michael wondered now whether he was perhaps an agent of +Armitage's, and had been sent to the Ridge to prepare the way for John +Armitage's scheme. When he came to think of it, Michael remembered he +had heard men exclaim that Bat never seemed short of money himself, +although if he had to live on what his claim produced he would have been +as hard up as most of them. Michael wondered whether Charley's +home-coming was a coincidence likewise, or whether Armitage had laid his +plans more carefully than might have been imagined. + +Michael saw no way out for himself. He could not accept Armitage's bribe +of silence as to his share in the disappearance of Paul's opals, in +order to urge men of the Ridge to agree to the Armitages' proposition +for buying up the mines. If he could have, he realised, he would carry +perhaps a majority of men of the Ridge with him; and those he cared most +for would stand by the Ridge idea whether he deserted it or not, he +believed. He would only fall in their esteem; they would despise him; +and he would despise himself if he betrayed the idea on which he had +staked so much, and the realisation of which he would have died to +preserve. But there was no question of betraying the Ridge idea, or of +being false to the teaching of his whole life. He was not even tempted +by the terms Armitage offered for his co-operation. He was glad to think +no terms Armitage could offer would tempt him from his allegiance to the +principle which was the corner-stone of life on the Ridge. + +But he asked himself what the men would think of him when they heard +Armitage's story; what Sophie would think, and Potch. He turned in agony +from the thought that Sophie and Potch would believe him guilty of the +thing he seemed to be guilty of. Anything seemed easier to bear than the +loss of their love and faith, and the faith of men of the Ridge he had +worked with and been in close sympathy with for so long--Watty and +George, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant and Cash Wilson. Would he have +to leave the Ridge when they knew? Would they cold-shoulder him out of +their lives? His imagination had centred for so long about the thing he +had done that the guilt of it was magnified out of all proportion to the +degree of his culpability. He did not accuse himself in the initial act. +He had done what seemed to him the only thing to do, in good faith; the +opals had nothing to do with it. He did not understand yet how they had +got an ascendancy over him; how when he had intended just to look at +them, to see they were well packed, he had been seduced into that trance +of worshipful admiration. + +Why he had not returned the stones to Paul as soon as Sophie had left +the Ridge, Michael could not entirely explain to himself. He went over +and over the excuses he had made to himself, seeing in them evidence of +the subtle witchery the stones had exercised over him. But as soon as he +was aware of the danger of delay, he tried to assure himself, and the +appearance it must have, he had determined to get rid of the stones. + +Would the men believe he had wanted to give the stones to Paul--even +that he had done what he had done for the reasons he would put before +them? George and Watty and some of the others would believe him--but the +rest? Michael could not hope that the majority would believe his story. +They would want to know if at first he had kept the stones to prevent +Sophie leaving the Ridge, why he had not given them to Paul as soon as +she had gone. Michael knew he could only explain to them as he had to +himself. He had intended to; he had delayed doing so; and then, when he +went to find the stones to give them to Paul, they were no longer where +he had left them. It was a thin story--a poor explanation. But that was +the truth of the situation as far as he knew it. There was nothing more +to be said or thought on the subject. He put it away from him with an +impulse of impatience, desperate and weary. + +When Potch returned from the mine that afternoon; he went into Michael's +hut before going home. Michael himself he had seen strike out westwards +in the direction of the swamp soon after he came above ground. Potch +expected to see his father where he was; he had seen him so often before +on Michael's sofa under the window. Charley glanced up from the +newspaper he was reading as Potch came into the room. + +"Well, son," he said, "the prodigal father's returned, and quite ready +for a fatted calf." + +Potch stood staring at him. Light from the window bathed the thin, +yellow face on the faded cushions of Michael's couch, limning the sharp +nose with its curiously scenting expression, all the hungry, shrewd +femininity and weakness of the face, and the smile of triumphant malice +which glided in and out of the eyes. Michael was right, Potch realised; +Charley was ill; but he had no pity for the man who lay there and smiled +like that. + +"You can't stay here," he said. "Michael's coming." + +Charley smiled imperturbably. + +"Can't I?" he said. "You see. Besides ... I want to see Michael. That's +what I'm here for." + +Potch growled inarticulately. He went to the hearth, gathered the +half-burnt sticks together to make a fire. He would have given anything +to get Charley out of the hut before Michael returned; but he did not +know how to manage it. If Charley thought he wanted him to go, nothing +would move him, Potch knew. + +"What do you want to see Michael about?" he asked. + +"Nice, affectionate son you are," Charley murmured. "Suppose you know +you are my son--and heir?" + +"Worse luck," Potch muttered, watching the flame he had kindled over the +dry chips and sticks. + +"You might've done worse," Charley replied, watching his son with a +slight, derisive smile. "I might've done worse myself in the way of a +son to support me in my old age." + +"I'm not going to do that." + +Charley laughed. "Aren't you?" he queried. "You might be very glad +to--on terms I could suggest. And you're a fine, husky chap to do it, +Potch, my lad.... They tell me you've married Rouminof's girl, and she's +chucked the singing racket. Rum go, that! She could sing, too.... People +I know told me they'd seen her in America in some revue stunt there, and +she was just the thing. Went the pace a bit, eh? Oh, well, there's +nothing like matrimony to sober a woman down--take the devil out of +her." + +Potch's resentment surged; but before he could utter it, his father's +pleasantries were flipping lightly, cynically. + +"By the way, I saw a friend of yours in Sydney couple of months ago. Oh, +well, several perhaps. Might have been a year.... Maud! There's a fine +woman, Potch. And she told me she was awfully gone on you once. Eh, +what?... And now you're a married man. And to think of my becoming a +grandfather. Help!" + +Potch sprang to his feet, goaded to fury by the jeering, amiable voice. + +"Shut up," he yelled, "shut up, or----" + +The doorway darkened. Potch saw Charley's face light with an expression +of curious satisfaction and triumph. He turned and discovered that +Michael was standing in the doorway. Irresolute and flinching, he stood +there gazing at Charley, a strange expression of fear and loathing in +his eyes. + +"You can clear out now, son," Charley remarked, putting an emphasis on +the "son" calculated to enrage Potch. "I want to talk to Michael." + +Potch looked at Michael. It was his intention to stand by Michael if, +and for as long as, Michael needed him. + +"It's all right, Potch," Michael said; but his eyes did not go to +Potch's as they usually did. There was a strange, grave quality of +aloofness about Michael. Potch hesitated, studying his face; but Michael +dismissed him with a glance, and Potch went out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree +or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; +only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of trees drew a +blurred line between earth and sky. + +Potch and Sophie lay out on the plains, on their backs in the dried +herbage, watching the sunset--the play of light on the wide sweep of the +sky--silently, as if they were listening to great music. + +They had been married some days before in Budda township, and were +living in Potch's hut. + +Sophie and Potch had often wandered over the plains in the evening and +watched the sunset; but never before had they come to the sense of +understanding and completeness they attained this evening. The days had +been long and peaceful since they were living together, an anodyne to +Sophie, soothing all the restless turmoil of her soul and body. She had +ceased to desire happiness; she was grateful for this lull of all her +powers of sense and thought, and eager to love and to serve Potch as he +did her. She believed her life had found its haven; that if she kept in +tune with the fundamentals of love and service, she could maintain a +consciousness of peace and rightness with the world which would make +living something more than a weary longing for death. + +All the days were holy days to Potch since Sophie and he had been +married. He looked at her as if she were Undine making toast and tea, +cooking, washing dishes, or sweeping and tidying up his hut. He followed +her every movement with a worshipful, reverent gaze. + +Soon after Sophie's return, Potch had gone to live in the hut which he +and his father had occupied in the old days. He had put a veranda of +boughs to the front of it, and had washed the roof and walls with +carbide to lessen the heat in summer. He had turned out the rooms and +put up shelves, trying to furnish the place a little for Sophie; but she +had not wanted it altered at all. She had cleared the cupboard, put +clean paper on the shelves, and had arranged Potch's books on them +herself. + +Sophie loved the austerity of her home when she went to live in it--its +earthen floor, bare walls, unvarnished furniture, the couch under the +window, the curtains of unbleached linen she had hemstitched herself, +the row of shining syrup-tins in which she kept tea, sugar, and coffee +on shelves near the fireplace, the big earthenware jar for flowers, and +a couple of jugs which Snow-Shoes had made for her and baked in an oven +of his own contrivance. She had a quiet satisfaction in doing all the +cleaning up and tidying to keep her house in the order she liked, so +that her eyes could rest on any part of it and take pleasure from the +sense of beauty in ordinary and commonplace things. + +But the hut was small and its arrangements so simple that an hour or two +after Potch had gone to the mines Sophie went to the shed into which he +had moved her cutting-wheel, and busied herself facing and polishing the +stones which some of the men brought her as usual. She knew her work +pleased them. She was as skilful at showing a stone to all its advantage +as any cutter on the Ridge, and nothing delighted her more than when +Watty or George or one of the Crosses exclaimed with satisfaction at a +piece of work she had done. + +In the afternoon sometimes she went down to the New Town to talk with +Maggie Grant, Mrs. Woods, or Martha. She was understudying Martha, too, +when anyone was sick in the town, and needed nursing or a helping hand. +Martha had her hands full when Mrs. Ted Cross's fourth baby was born. +There were five babies in the township at the time, and Sophie went to +Crosses' every morning to fix up the house and look after the children +and Mrs. Ted before Martha arrived. When Martha found the Crosses' +washing gaily flapping on the line one morning towards midday, she +protested in her own vigorous fashion. + +"I ain't going to have you blackleggin' on me, Mrs. Heathfield," she +said. "And what's more, if I find you doin' it again, I'll tell Potch. +It's all right for me to be goin' round doing other people's odd jobs; +but I don't hold with you doin' 'em--so there! If folks wants babies, +well, it's their look-out--and mine. But I don't see what you've got to +do with it, coming round makin' your hands look anyhow." + +"You just sit down, and I'll make you a cup of tea, Mother M'Cready," +Sophie said by way of reply, and gently pushed Martha into the most +comfortable chair in the room. "You look done up ... and you're going on +to see Ella and Mrs. Inglewood, I suppose." + +Martha nodded. She watched Sophie with troubled, loving eyes. She was +really very tired, and glad to be able to sit and rest for a moment. It +gave her a welling tenderness and gratitude to have Sophie concerned for +her tiredness, and fuss about her like this. Martha was so accustomed to +caring for everybody on the Ridge, and she was so strong, good-natured, +and vigorous, very few people thought of her ever being weary or +dispirited. But as she bustled into the kitchen, blocking out the light, +Sophie saw that Martha's fat, jolly face under the shadow of her +sun-hat, was not as happy-looking as usual. Sophie guessed the weariness +which had overtaken her, and that she was "poorly" or "out-of-sorts," as +Martha would have said herself, if she could have been made to admit +such a thing. + +"It's all very well to give folks a helping hand," Martha continued, +"but I'm not going to have you doin' their washin' while I'm about." + +Sophie put a cup of tea and slice of bread and syrup down beside her. + +"There! You drink that cup of tea, and tell me what you think of it," +she said. + +"But, Sophie," Martha protested. "It's stone silly for you to be doing +things like Cross's washing. You're not strong enough, and I won't have +it." + +"Won't you?" + +Sophie put her arms around Martha's neck from behind her chair. She +pressed her face against the creases of Martha's sunburnt neck and +kissed it. + +Martha gurgled happily under the pressure of Sophie's young arms, the +childish impulse of that hugging. She turned her face back and kissed +Sophie. + +"Oh, my lamb! My dearie lamb!" she murmured. + +She recognised Sophie's need for common and kindly service to the people +of the Ridge. She knew what that service had meant to her at one time, +and was willing to let Sophie share her ministry so long as her health +was equal to it. + +Mrs. Watty, and the women who took their views from her, thought that +Sophie was giving herself a great deal of unnecessary and laborious work +as a sort of penance. They had withdrawn all countenance from her after +the disaster of the ball, although they regarded her marriage to Potch +as an endeavour to reinstate herself in their good graces. Mrs. Watty +had been scandalised by the dress she had worn at the ball, by the way +she had danced, and her behaviour generally. But Sophie was quite +unconcerned as to what Mrs. Watty and her friends thought: she did not +go out of her way either to avoid or placate them. + +When she went to the Crosses' to take charge of the children and look +after the house while Mrs. Cross was ill, the gossips had exclaimed +together. And when it was known that Sophie had taken on herself odds +and ends of sewing for other women of the township who had large +families and rather more to do than they knew how to get through, they +declared that they did not know what to make of it, or of Sophie and her +moods and misdemeanours. + +Potch heard of what Sophie was doing from the people she helped. When he +came home in the evening she was nearly always in the kitchen getting +tea for him; but if she was not, she came in soon after he got home, and +he knew that one of these little tasks she had undertaken for people in +the town had kept her longer than she expected. Usually he hung in the +doorway, waiting for her to come and meet him, to hold up her face to be +kissed, eyes sweet with affection and the tender familiarity of their +association. Those offered kisses of hers were the treasure of these +dream-like days to Potch. + +He had always loved Sophie. He had thought that his love had reached the +limit of loving a long time before, but since they had been married and +were living, day after day, together, he had become no more than a +loving of her. He went about his work as usual, performed all the other +functions of his life mechanically, scrupulously, but it was always with +a subconscious knowledge of Sophie and of their life together. + +"You're tired," he said one night when Sophie lifted her face to his, +his eyes strained on her with infinite concern. + +"Dear Potch," she said; and she had put back the hair from his forehead +with a gesture tender and pitiful. + +Her glance and gesture were always tender and pitiful. Potch realised +it. He knew that he worshipped and she accepted his worship. He was +content--not quite content, perhaps--but he assured himself it was +enough for him that it should be so. + +He had never taken Sophie in his arms without an overwhelming sense of +reverence and worship. There was no passionate need, no spontaneity, no +leaping flame in the caresses she had given him, in that kiss of the +evening, and the slight, girlish gestures of affection and tenderness +she gave as she passed him at meals, or when they were reading or +walking together. + +As they lay on the plains this evening they had been thinking of their +life together. They had talked of it in low, brooding murmurs. The +immensity of the silence soaked into them. They had taken into +themselves the faint, musky fragrance of the withered herbage and the +paper daisies. They had gazed among the stars for hours. When it was +time to go home, Sophie sat up. + +"I love to lie against the earth like this," she said. + +"We seem to get back to the beginning of things. You and I are no more +than specks of dust on the plains ... under the skies, Potch ... and yet +the whole world is within us...." + +"Yes," Potch said, and the silence streamed between them again. + +"I'll never forget," Sophie continued dreamily, "hearing a negro talk +once about what they call 'the negro problem' in America. He was an +ordinary thick-set, curly-haired, coarse-featured negro to look +at--Booker Washington--but he talked some of the clearest, straightest +stuff I've ever heard. + +"One thing he said has always stayed in my mind: 'Keep close to the +earth.' It was not good, he said, to walk on asphalted paths too +long.... He was describing what Western civilisation had done for the +negroes--a primitive people.... Anyone could see how they had +degenerated under it. And it's always seemed to me that what was true +for the negroes ... is true for us, too.... It's good to keep close to +the earth." + +"Keep close to the earth?" Potch mused. + +"In tune with the fundamentals, all the great things of loving and +working--our eyes on the stars." + +"The stars?" + +"The objects of our faith and service." + +They were silent again for a while. Then Sophie said: + +"You ..." she hesitated, remembering what she had told John +Armitage--"you and I would fight for the Ridge principle, even if all +the others accepted Mr. Armitage's offer, wouldn't we, Potch?" + +"Of course," Potch said. + +"And Michael?" + +"Michael?" His eyes questioned her in the dim light because of the +hesitation in her question. "Why do you say that? Michael would be the +last man on earth to have anything to do with Armitage's scheme." + +"He comes back to put the proposition to the men definitely in a few +days, doesn't he?" Sophie asked. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"Have you talked to Michael about it?" + +"To tell you the truth, Sophie," Potch replied slowly, +conscience-stricken that he had given the subject so little +consideration, "I took it for granted there could only be one answer to +the whole thing.... I haven't thought of it. I've only thought of you +the last week or so. I haven't talked to Michael; I haven't even heard +what the men were saying at midday.... But, of course, there's only one +answer." + +"I've tried to talk to Michael, but he won't discuss it with me," Sophie +said. + +Potch stared at her. + +"You don't mean," he said--"you can't think--" + +"Oh," she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I know John Armitage is +holding something over Michael ... and if it's true what he says, it'll +break Michael, and it'll go very badly against the Ridge." + +"You can't tell me what it is?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +Potch got up; his face settled into grave and fighting lines. Sophie, +too, rose from the ground. They went towards the track where the three +huts stood facing the scattered dumps of the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"I want to see Michael," Potch said, when they approached the huts. +"I'll be in, in a couple of minutes." + +Sophie went on to their own home, and Potch, swerving from her, walked +across to the back door of Michael's hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders +hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut. + +"You can't bluff me," Potch heard him say. "You may throw dust in the +eyes of the men here, but you can't bluff me.... It was you did for +me.... It was you put it over on me--took those stones." + +"Well, you tell the boys," Potch heard Michael say. + +His voice was as unconcerned as though it were not anything of +importance they were discussing. Potch found relief in the sound of it, +but its unconcern drove Charley to fury. + +"You know I took them from Paul," he shouted. "You know--I can see it in +your eyes ... and you took them from me. When ... how ... I don't +know.... You must 've sneaked into the house when I dozed off for a bit, +and put a parcel of your own rotten stuff in their place.... How do I +know? Well, I'll tell you...." + +He settled back on the sofa. "I hung on to the best stone in the +lot--clear brown potch with good flame in it--hopin' it would give me a +clue some day to the man who'd done that trick on me. But I couldn't +place the stone; I'd never seen it on you, and Jun had never seen it +either. I was dead stony when I sold it to Maud ... and I told her why +I'd been keeping it, seeing she was in the show at the start off. She +sold the stone to Armitage in America, and first thing the old man said +when he saw it was: 'Why, that's Michael's mascot!'" + +"Remembered when you'd got it, he said," Charley continued, taking +Michael's interest with gratified malice. "First stone you'd come on, on +Fallen Star, and you wouldn't sell--kept her for luck.... Old Armitage +wouldn't have anything to do with the stone then--didn't believe Maud's +story.... But John Lincoln got it. He told me...." + +"I see," Michael murmured. + +"Don't mind telling you I'm here to play Armitage's game," Charley said. + +Michael nodded. "Well, what about it?" + +"This about it," Charley exclaimed irritably, his excitement and +impatience rising under Michael's calmness. "You're done on the Ridge +when this story gets around. What I've got to say is ... you took the +opals. You've got 'em. You're done for here. But you could have a good +life somewhere else. Clear out, and----" + +"We'll go halves, eh?" Michael queried. + +"That's it," Charley assented. "I'll clear out and say nothing--although +I've told Rummy enough already to give him his suspicions. Still, +suspicions are only suspicions--nothing more. When I came here I didn't +even mean to give you this chance.... But 'Life is sweet, brother!' +There's still a few pubs down in Sydney, and a woman or two. I wouldn't +go out with such a grouch against things in general if I had a flash in +the pan first.... And it'd suit you all right, Michael.... With this +scheme of Armitage's in the wind----" + +"And suppose I haven't got the stones?" Michael inquired. + +Charley half rose from the sofa, his thin hands grasping the table. + +"It's a lie!" he shrieked, shivering with impotent fury. "You know it +is.... What have you done with 'em then? What have you done with those +stones--that's what I want to know!" + +"You haven't got much breath," Michael said; "you'd better save it." + +"I'll use all I've got to down you, if you don't come to light," Charley +cried. "I'll do it, see if I don't." + +Potch walked across to his father. He had heard Charley abusing and +threatening Michael before without being able to make out what it was +all about. He had thought it bluff and something in the nature of a +try-on; but he had determined to put a stop to it. + +"No, you won't!" he said. + +"Won't I?" Charley turned on his son. + +"No." Potch's tone was steady and decisive. + +Charley looked towards Michael again. + +"Well ... what are you going to do about it?" + +"I've told you," Michael said. "Nothing." + +"Did y' hear what I've been calling your saint?" Charley cried, turning +to Potch. "I'm calling him what everybody on the fields'd be calling him +if they knew." + +Michael's gaze wavered as it went to Potch. + +"A thief," Charley continued, whipping himself into a frenzy. "That's +what he is--a dirty, low-down thief! I'm the ordinary, decent sort ... +get the credit for what I am ... and pay for it, by God! But he--he +doesn't pay. I bag all the disgrace ... and he walks off with the +goods--Rouminof's stones." + +Potch did not look at Michael. What Charley had said did not seem to +shock or surprise him. + +"I've made a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition," Charley went on +more quietly. "I've told him ... if he'll go halves----" + +"Guess again," Potch sneered. + +Charley swung to his feet, a volley of expletives swept from him. + +"I've told Rummy to get the law on his side," he cried shrilly, "and +he's going to. There's one little bit of proof I've got that'll help +him, and----" + +"You'll get jail yourself over it," Potch said. + +"Don't mind if I do," Charley shouted, and poured his rage and +disappointment into a flood of such filthy abuse that Potch took him by +the shoulders. + +"Shut your mouth," he said. "D'y' hear?... Shut your mouth!" + +Charley continued to rave, and Potch, gripping his shoulders, ran him +out of the hut. + +Michael heard them talking in Potch's hut--Charley yelling, threatening, +and cursing. A fit of coughing seized him. Then there was silence--a +hurrying to and fro in the hut. Michael heard Sophie go to the tank, and +carry water into the house, and guessed that Charley's paroxysm and +coughing had brought on the hemorrhage he had had two or three times +since his return to the Ridge. + +A little later Potch came to him. + +"He's had a bleeding, Michael," Potch said; "a pretty bad one, and he's +weak as a kitten. But just before it came on I told him I'd let him have +a pound a week, somehow, if he goes down to Sydney at once.... But if +ever he shows his face in the Ridge again ... or says a word more about +you ... I've promised he'll never get another penny out of me.... He can +die where and how he likes ... I'm through with him...." + +Michael had been sitting beside his fire, staring into it. He had +dropped into a chair and had not moved since Potch and Charley left the +hut. + +"Do you believe what he said, Potch?" he asked. + +Michael felt Potch's eyes on his face; he raised his eyes to meet them. +There was no lie in the clear depths of Potch's eyes. + +"I've known for a long time," Potch said. + +Michael's gaze held him--the swimming misery of it; then, as if +overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it +fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before +Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had +penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and +desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come +to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given +him while they had been mates. + +"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason." + +Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that +unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith. + +He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his +hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently--unable +to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet +overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as +affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned +enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had. + +"It was for Sophie," he said. + +"I intended to give them back to Paul--when she was old enough to go +away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I +don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of +me, somehow--for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give +them back to him--kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my +mind and went to get them, they were gone." + +Potch nodded thoughtfully. + +"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ... +that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me.... +The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it +means something--that somebody must have been near and seen and heard. +Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was +no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I +think--knew I had the stones...." + +"Maud?" + +Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You +remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At +any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects--I don't know which it is +really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's +parcel--a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't +like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney; +and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel +in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead +to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the +stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and----" + +"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch +said. + +"That's what I think," Michael agreed. + +They brooded over the situation for a while. + +"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in +them. + +"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told +her." + +"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said. + +They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away. + +"There's nothing to be done?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done, +Potch," he said. + +They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and +Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her +face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness. + +"Michael, dear!" she whispered. + +Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she +was of his spirit, as he held her then. + +He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on +him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the +moment was beyond words. + +Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to +Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in +himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to +be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told +him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a +star--a thing of miraculous joy and beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together +before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his +proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group +formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction. +M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were +prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not +go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following--and the group about +them was by far the largest--which was asserting an open mind until it +heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with +them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than +against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge +since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared +at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of +Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old +spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and +Watty Frost. + +"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the +numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say. +I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many." + +"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here. +Want to know the strength of them--and him." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought +Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'--all +that.... But they've swallowed it--swallowed it all down. They say----" + +George nodded gloomily. "This blasted talkin' about Michael's done more +harm than anything." + +"That's right," Pony-Fence said. "What's the strength of it, George?" + +"Damned if I know!" + +"Where's Michael to-night?" + +Their eyes wandered over the scattered groups of the miners. Michael was +not among them. + +"Is he coming?" Pony-Fence asked. + +George shrugged his shoulders; the wrinkles of his forehead lifted, +expressing his ignorance and the doubt which had come into his thinking +of Michael. + +"Does he know what's being said?" Pony-Fence asked. + +"He knows all right. I told Potch, and asked him to let Michael know +about it." + +"What did he say?" + +"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this +business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or +two. It might have got him down what's being said--he might be so sore +about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and +paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something.... +It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, +about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it +is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course--but +it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's +done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've----" + +"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they +had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to +say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand--what's the game--and +the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; +and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about +those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them +afterwards." + +When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form +and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained +somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the +fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat +near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American +engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a +little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but +Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was. + +Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be +chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he +took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water +bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, +the American engineer, on the other. + +His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and +chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be +regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan. + +John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of +another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night. +Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was +filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred +the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the +benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or +worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats. +Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the +weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid +through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and +intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say. + +Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr. +Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to +report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the +United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural +resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, +flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the +Armitage Syndicate. + +Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt +features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up +in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not +words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the +substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and +hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting +against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, +although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had +not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he +would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to +assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition +Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He +himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot +with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave +them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of +the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the +success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might +mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great +deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for +mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of +the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the +advantages that would entail. + +The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's +manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the +situation, although he gave very little information they had not already +possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and +confronted the men again. + +He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward +business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; +but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As +their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the +disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for +both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he +proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the +resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an +expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and +prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw +possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he +promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had +outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous +township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity +in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all +manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of +communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased +production would ensure. + +In a nutshell Armitage's scheme amounted to an offer to buy up the mines +for £30,000 and put the men on a wage, allowing every man a percentage +of 20 per cent. profit on all stones over a certain standard and size. +The men would be asked to elect their own manager, who would be expected +to see that engineering and development designs were carried out, but +otherwise the normal routine of work in the mines would be observed. Mr. +Armitage explained that he hoped to occupy the position of general +manager in the company himself, and engaged it to observe the union +rates of hours and wages as they were accepted by miners and mining +companies throughout the country. + +When he had finished speaking there was no doubt in anyone's mind that +John Lincoln Armitage had made a very pleasant picture of what life on +the Ridge might be if success attended the scheme of the Armitage +Syndicate, as John Armitage seemed to believe it would. Men who had been +driven to consider Armitage's offer from their first hearing of it, +because of the lean years the Ridge was passing through, were almost +persuaded by his final exposition. + +George Woods stood up. + +George's strength was in his equable temper, in his downright honesty +and sincerity, and in the steady common-sense with which he reviewed +situations and men. + +He realised the impression Armitage's statement of his scheme, and its +bearing on the life of the Ridge, had made. It did not affect his own +position, but he feared its influence on men who had been wavering +between prospects of the old and of the new order of things for Fallen +Star. In their hands, he could see now, the fate of all that Fallen Star +had stood for so long, would lie. + +"Well," he said, "we've got to thank you for puttin' the thing to us as +clear and as square as you have, Mr. Armitage. It gives every man here a +chance to see just what you're drivin' at. But I might say here and now +... I've got no time for it ... neither me nor my mates.... It'll save +time and finish the business of this meeting if there's no beatin' about +the bush and we understand each other right away. It sounds all +right--your scheme--nice and easy. Looks as if there was more for us to +get out of it than to lose by it.... I don't say it wouldn't mean easier +times ... more money ... all that sort of thing. We haven't had the +easiest of times here sometimes, and this scheme of yours comes ... just +when we're in the worst that's ever knocked us. But speakin' for myself, +and"--his glance round the hall was an appeal to that principle the +Ridge stood for-"the most of my mates, we'd rather have the hard times +and be our own masters. That's what we've always said on the Ridge.... +Your scheme 'd be all right if we didn't feel like that; I suppose. But +we do ... and as far as I'm concerned, we won't touch it. It's no go. + +"We're obliged to you for putting the thing to us. We recognise you +could have gone another way about getting control here. You may---buy up +a few of the mines perhaps, and try to squeeze the rest of us out. Not +that I think the boys'd stand for the experiment." + +"They wouldn't," Bill Grant called. + +"I'm glad to hear that," George said. He tried to point out that if +Fallen Star miners accepted Armitage's offer they would be shouldering +conditions which would take from their work the freedom and interest +that had made their life in common what it had been on the Ridge. He +asked whether a weekly Wage to tide them over years of misfortune would +compensate for loss of the sense of being free men; he wanted to know +how they'd feel if they won a nest of knobbies worth £400 or £500 and +got no more out of them than the weekly wage. The percentage on big +stones was only a bluff to encourage men to hand over big stones, George +said. And that, beyond the word being used pretty frequently in Mr. +Armitage's argument and documents, was all the profit-sharing he could +see in Mr. Armitage's scheme. He reminded the men, too, that under their +own system, in a day they could make a fortune. And all there was for +them under Mr. Armitage's system was three or four pounds a week--and +not a bit of potch, nor a penny in the quart pot for their old age. + +"We own these mines. Every man here owns his mine," George said; "that's +worth more to us just now than engineers and prospecting parties.... +Well have them on our own account directly, when the luck turns and +there's money about again.... For the present we'll hang on to what +we've got, thank you, Mr. Armitage." + +He sat down, and a guffaw of laughter rolled over his last words. + +"Anybody else got anything to say?" Peter Newton inquired. + +M'Ginnis stood up. + +He had heard a good deal of talk about men of the Ridge being free, he +said, but all it amounted to was their being free to starve, as far as +he could see. He didn't see that the men's ownership of the mines meant +much more than that--the freedom to starve. It was all very well for +them to swank round about being masters of their own mines; any fool +could be master of a rubbish heap if he was keen enough on the rubbish +heap. But as far as he was concerned, M'Ginnis declared, he didn't see +the point. What they wanted was capital, and Mr. Armitage had +volunteered it on what were more than ordinarily generous terms.... + +It was all very well for a few shell-backs who, because they had been on +the place in the early days, thought they had some royal prerogative to +it, to cut up rusty when their ideas were challenged. But their ideas +had been given a chance; and how had they worked out? It was all very +well to say that if a man was master of his own mine he stood a chance +of being a millionaire at a minute's notice; but how many of them were +millionaires? As a matter of fact, not a man on the Ridge had a penny to +bless himself with at that moment, and it was sheer madness to turn down +this offer of Mr. Armitage's. For his part he was for it, and, what was +more, there was a big body of the men in the hall for it. + +"If it's put to the vote whether people want to take on or turn down Mr. +Armitage's scheme, we'll soon see which way the cat's jumping," M'Ginnis +said. "People'd have the nause to see which side their bread's buttered +on--not be led by the nose by a few fools and dreamers. For my part, I +don't see why----" + +"You're not paid to," a voice called from the back of the hall. + +"I don't see why," M'Ginnis repeated stolidly, ignoring the +interruption, "the ideas of three or four men should be allowed to rule +the roost. What's wanted on the Ridge is a little more horse sense----" + +Impatient and derisive exclamations were hurled at him; men sitting near +M'Ginnis shouted back at the interrupters. It looked as if the meeting +were going to break up in uproar, confusion, and fighting all round. +Peter Newton knocked on the table and shouted himself hoarse trying to +restore order. The voices of George, Watty, and Pony-Fence Inglewood +were heard howling over the din: + +"Let him alone." + +"Let's hear what he's got to say." + +Then M'Ginnis continued his description of the advantages to be gained +by the acceptance of Mr. Armitage's offer. + +"And," he wound up, "there's the women and children to think of." At the +back of the hall somebody laughed. "Laugh if you like"--M'Ginnis worked +himself into a passion of virtuous indignation--"but I don't see there's +anything to laugh at when I say remember what those things are goin' to +mean to the women and children of this town--what a few of the +advantages of civilisation----" + +"Disadvantages!" the same voice called. + +"--Comforts and conveniences of civilisation are goin' to mean to the +women and children of this God-forsaken hole," M'Ginnis cried furiously. +"If I had a wife and kids, d'ye think I'd have any time for this +high-falutin' flap-doodle of yours about bread and fat? Not much. The +best in the country wouldn't be too good for them--and it's not good +enough for the women and children of Fallen Star. That's what I've got +to say--and that's what any decent man would say if he could see +straight. I'm an ordinary, plain, practical man myself ... and I ask you +chaps who've been lettin' your legs be pulled pretty freely---and +starvin' to be masters of your own dumps--to look at this business like +ordinary, plain, practical men, who've got their heads screwed on the +right way, and not throw away the chance of a lifetime to make Fallen +Star the sort of township it ought to be. If there's some men here want +to starve to be masters of their own dumps, let 'em, I say: it's a free +country. But there's no need for the rest of us to starve with 'em." + +He sat down, and again it seemed that the pendulum had swung in favour +of Armitage and his Scheme. + +"What's Michael got to say about it?" a man from the Three Mile asked. +And several voices called: "Yes; what's Michael got to say?" + +For a moment there was silence--a silence of apprehension. George Woods +and the men who knew, or had been disturbed by the stories they had +heard of a secret treaty between Michael and John Armitage, recognised +in that moment the power of Michael's influence; that what Michael was +going to say would sway the men of the Ridge as it had always done, +either for or against the standing order of life on the Ridge on which +they had staked so much. His mates could not doubt Michael, and yet +there was fear in the waiting silence. + +Those who had heard Michael was not the man they thought he was, waited +anxiously for his movement, the sound of his voice. Charley Heathfield +waited, crouched in a corner near the platform, where everyone could see +him, Rouminof beside him. They were standing there together as if there +was not room for them in the body of the hall, and their eyes were fixed +on the place where Michael sat--Charley's eager and cruel as a cat's on +its victim, Rouminof's alight with the fires of his consuming +excitement. + +Then Michael got up from his seat, took off his hat; and his glance, +those deep-set eyes of his, travelled the hall, skimming the heads and +faces of the men in it, with their faint, whimsical smile. + +"All I've got to say," he said, "George Woods has said. There's nothing +in Mr. Armitage's scheme for Fallen Star.... It looks all right, but it +isn't; it's all wrong. The thing this place has stood for is ownership +of the mines by the men who work them. Mr. Armitage 'll give us anything +but that--he offers us every inducement but that ... and you know how +the thing worked out on the Cliffs. If the mines are worth so much to +him, they're worth as much, or more, to us. + +"Boiled down, all the scheme amounts to is an offer to buy up the +mines--at a 'fair valuation'--put us on wages and an eight-hour day. All +the rest, about making a flourishing and, up-to-date town of Fallen +Star, might or mightn't come true. P'raps it would. I can't say. All I +say is, it's being used to gild the pill we're asked to swallow--buyin' +up of the mines. There's nothing sure about all this talk of electricity +and water laid on; it's just gilding. And supposing the new conditions +did put more money about--did bring the comforts and conveniences of +civilisation to Fallen Star--like M'Ginnis says--what good would they be +to the people, women and children, too, if the men sold themselves like +a team of bullocks to work the mines? It wouldn't matter to them any +more whether they brought up knobbies or mullock; they'd have their +wages--like bullocks have their hay. It's because our work's had +interest; it's because we've been our own bosses, life's been as good as +it has on Fallen Star all these years. If a man hasn't got interest in +his work he's got to get it somewhere. How did we get it on the Cliffs +when the mines were bought up? Drinking and gambling ... and how did +that work out for the women and children? But it was stone silly of +M'Ginnis to talk of women and children here. We know that old +hitting-below-the-belt gag of sweating employers too well to be taken in +by it. By and by, if you took on the Armitage scheme, and there was a +strike in the mines, he'd be saying that to you: 'Remember the women and +children.'" + +Colour flamed in Michael's face, and he continued with more heat than +there had yet been in his voice. + +"The time's coming when the man who talks 'women and children' to defeat +their own interests will be treated like the skunk--the low-down, +thieving swine he is. Do we say anything's too good for our women and +children? Not much. But we want to give them real things--the real +things of life and happiness--not only flashy clothes and fixings. If we +give our women and children the mines as we've held them, and the record +of a clean fight for them, we'll be giving them something very much +bigger than anything Mr. Armitage can offer us in exchange for them. The +things we've stood for are better than anything he's got to offer. We've +got here what they're fighting for all over the world ... it's bigger +than ourselves. + +"M'Ginnis says he's heard a lot of 'the freedom to starve on the +Ridge'--it's more than I have, it's a sure thing if he wants to starve, +nobody'd stop him...." + +A wave of laughter passed over the hall. + +"But most of us here haven't any fancy for starving, and what's more, +nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don't say that we haven't had +hard times, that we haven't gone on short commons--we have; but we +haven't starved, and we're not going to.... + +"This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have +been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we're +down, in a way; but the slump'll pass. There've been slumps before, and +they've passed.... Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn't be so keen on +getting hold of the mines. + +"And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to +me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or +syndicate ever made could. Didn't old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once +that he didn't know a better conducted or more industrious mining +community than this one. 'Why d'y' think that is?' I asked him. He said +he didn't know. I said, 'You don't think the way the men feel about +their work's got anything to do with it?' 'Damn it, Michael,' he said, +'I don't want to think so.' + +"And I happen to know"--Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, +who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and +crossed under his chin--"that the old man is opposed even now to this +scheme because he thinks he won't get as much black opal out of us as he +does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and +what taking over of the mines did for opal--and the men--there. This +scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea.... + +"He's put it to you. You've heard what it is. All I've got to say now +is, don't touch it. Don't have anything to do with it.... It'll break us +... the spirit of the men here ... and it'll break what we've been +working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don't let us +see which side our bread's buttered on, as Mr. M'Ginnis says. Let us say +like we always have--like we've been proud to say: 'We'll eat bread and +fat, but we'll be our own masters!'" + +"We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!" the men who +were with Michael roared. + +He sat down amid cheers. George and Watty turned in their seats to beam +at him, filled with rejoicing. + +Armitage rose from his chair and shifted his papers as though he had not +quite decided what he intended to say. + +"I'm not going to ask this meeting for a decision," he began. + +"You can have it!" Bully Bryant yelled. + +"There's a bit of a rush at Blue Pigeon Creek, and I'm going on up +there," John Armitage continued. "I'm due in Sydney at the end of the +month--that is, a month from this date--and I'll run up then for your +answer to the proposition which has been laid before you. I have said +all there is to say about it, except that, notwithstanding anything +which may have been asserted to the contrary, I hope you will give your +gravest consideration to an enterprise, I am convinced, would be in the +best interests of this town and of the people of Fallen Star Ridge. I +think, however, you ought to know----" + +"That Michael Brady's a liar and a thief!" Charley cried, springing from +his corner as if loosed from some invisible leash. "If you believe him, +you're believing a liar and a thief. Mr. Armitage knows ... I know ... +and Paul knows----" + +"Throw him out." + +"He's mad!" + +The cries rose in a tumult of angry voices. When they were at their +height M'Ginnis was seen on his feet and waving his arms. + +"Let him say what he's got to!" he shouted. "You chaps know as well as I +do what's been going the rounds, and we might as well have it out now. +If it's not true, Michael'd rather have the strength of it, and give you +his answer ... and if there is anything in it, we've got a right to +know." + +"That's right!" some of the men near him chorused. + +Newton looked towards George, and George towards Michael. + +"Might as well have it," Michael said. + +Charley, who had been hustled against the wall by Potch and Bully +Bryant, was loosed. He moved a few steps forward so that everyone could +see him, and breathlessly, shivering, in a frenzy of triumphant malice, +told his story. Rouminof, carried away by excitement, edged alongside +him, chiming into what he was saying with exclamations and chippings of +corroboration. + +When Charley had finished talking and had fallen back exhausted, +Armitage left his chair as if to continue what he had been going to say +when Charley took the floor. Instead, he hesitated, and, feeling his way +through the silence of consternation and dismay which had stricken +everybody, said uncertainly: + +"Much as I regret having to do so, I consider it my duty to state that +Charley Heathfield's story, as far as I know it, is substantially +correct. Some time ago I was sold a stone in New York. As soon as he saw +it, my father said, 'Why, that's Michael's mascot.' I asked him if he +were sure, and he declared that he could not be mistaken about the +stone.... + +"I told him the story I had got with it. Charley has already told you. +That stone came from a parcel Charley supposed contained Rouminof's +opals--the one Paul got when Jun Johnson and he had a run of luck +together. The parcel did not contain Rouminof's opals, and had been +exchanged for the parcel which did, either while Rouminof and Charley +were going home together or after he had taken them from Rouminof. My +father refused to believe that Michael Brady had anything to do with the +business. I made further inquiries, and satisfied myself that the man +who had always seemed to me the soul of honour and a pattern of the +altruistic virtues, I must confess, was responsible for placing that +stone in the parcel Charley took down to Sydney ... and also that +Michael had possession of Rouminof's opals. Mrs. Johnson will swear she +saw Rouminof's stones on the table of Michael Brady's hut one evening +nearly two years ago. + +"I approached Michael myself to try to discover more of the stones. He +denied all knowledge of them. But now, before you all, and because it +seems to me an outrageous thing for people to ruin themselves on account +of their belief in a man who is utterly unworthy of it, I accuse Michael +Brady of having stolen Rouminof's opals. If he has anything to say, now +is the time to say it." + +What Armitage said seemed to have paralysed everybody. The silence was +heavier, more dismayed than it had been a few minutes before. Nobody +spoke nobody moved. Michael's friends sat with hunched shoulders, not +looking at each other, their gaze fixed ahead of them, or on the place +where Michael was sitting, waiting to see his face and to hear the first +sound of his voice. Potch, who had gone to hold his father back when +Charley had made his attack on Michael, stood against the wall, his eyes +on Michael, his face illumined by the fire of his faith. His glance +swept the crowd as if he would consign it to perdition for its doubt and +humiliation of Michael. The silence was invaded by a stir of movement, +the shuffle of feet. People began to mutter and whisper together. Still +Michael did not move. George Woods turned round to him. + +"For God's sake speak, Michael," he said. Michael did not move. + +Then from the back of the hall marched Snow-Shoes. Tall and stately, he +strode up the narrow passage between the rows of seats wedged close +together. People watched him with an abstract curiosity, their minds +under the shadow of the accusation against Michael, waiting only to hear +what he would say to it. When Snow-Shoes reached the top of the hall he +turned and faced the men He held up a narrow package wrapped in +newspaper and before them all handed it to Rouminof, who was still +hovering near the edge of the platform. + +"Your stones," he said. "I took them." And in the same stately, measured +fashion he had entered, he walked out of the hall again. + +Cheers resounded, cheers on cheers, until the roof rang. There was no +hearing anything beyond cheers and cries for Michael. People crushed +round him shaking his hand, clinging to him, tears in their eyes. When +order was achieved again, it was found that Paul was on the platform +going over the stones with Armitage, Newton looking on. Paul was +laughing and crying; he had forgotten Charley, forgotten everything but +his joy in fingering his lost gems. + +When there was a lull in the tempest of excitement and applause, +Armitage spoke. + +"I've got to apologise to you, Michael," he said. "I do most +contritely.... I don't yet understand--but the facts are, the opals are +here, and Mr. Riley has said--" + +Michael stood up. His mouth moved and twisted as though he were going to +speak before his voice was heard. When it was, it sounded harsh and as +if only a great effort of will drove it from him. + +"I want to say," he said, "I did take those stones ... not from Paul ... +but from Charley." + +His words went through the heavy quiet slowly, a vibration of his +suffering on every one of them. He told how he had seen Charley and Paul +going home together, and how he had seen Charley take the package of +opals from Rouminof's pocket and put them in his own. + +"I didn't want the stones," Michael cried, "I didn't ever want them for +myself.... It was for Paul I took them back, but I didn't want him to +have them just then...." + +Haltingly, with the same deadly earnestness, he went over the promise he +had made to Sophie's mother, and why he did not want Paul to have the +stones and to use them to take Sophie away from the Ridge. But she had +gone soon after, and what he had done was of no use. When he explained +why he had not then, at once, returned the opals he did not spare +himself. + +Paul had had sun-stroke; but Michael confessed that from the first night +he had opened the parcel and had gone over the stones, he had been +reluctant to part with them; he had found himself deferring returning +them to Paul, making excuses for not doing so. He could not explain the +thing to himself even.... He had not looked at the opals except once +again, and then it was to see whether, in putting them away hurriedly +the first time, any had tumbled out of the tin among his books. Then +Potch and Maud had seen him. Afterwards he realised where he was +drifting--how the stones were getting hold of him--and in a panic, +knowing what that meant, he had gone for the parcel intending to take it +to Paul at once and tell him how he, Michael, came to have anything to +do with his opals, just as he was telling them. But the parcel was gone. + +Michael said he could not think who had found it and taken it away; but +now it was clear. Probably Snow-Shoes had known all the time he had the +stones. The more he thought of it, the more Michael believed it must +have been so. He remembered the slight stir on the shingly soil as he +came from the hut on the night he had taken the opals from Charley. It +was just that slight sound Snow-Shoes' moccasins made on the shingle. +Exclamations and odd queries Snow-Shoes had launched from time to time +came back to Michael. He had no doubt, he said, that Mr. Riley had taken +the stones to do just what he had done--and because he feared the +influence possession of them was having on him, Michael, since they +should have been returned to Paul long ago. + +"That's the truth, as far as I know it," Michael said. "There's been +attempts made to injure ... the Ridge, our way of doing things here, +because of me, and because of those stones.... What happened to me +doesn't matter. What happens to the Ridge and the mines does matter. I +done wrong. I know I done wrong holding those stones. I'd give anything +now if I--if I'd given them to Paul when Sophie went away. But I didn't +... and I'll stand by anything the men who've been my mates care to say +or do about that. Only don't let the Ridge, and our way of doing things +here, get hurt through me. That's bigger--it means more than any man. +Don't let it! ... I'd ask George to call a meeting, and get the boys to +say what they think about all this--and where I stand." + +Michael put on his hat, dragged it down over his eyes, and walked out of +the hall. + +When the slow fall of his footsteps no longer sounded on the wooden +floor, George Woods rose from his place on the front bench. He turned +and faced the men. The smoke from their smouldering pipes had created +such a fog that he could see only the bulk of those on the near rows of +forms. With the exception of M'Ginnis and half a dozen Punti men who had +the far end of one of the front seats, the mass of men in the hall, who +a few moments before had been cheering for Michael, were as inert as +blown balloons. Depression was in every line of their heavy, squatted +shapes and unlighted countenances. + +"Well," George said, "it's been a bit of a shock what we've just heard. +It wasn't easy what Michael's just done ... and Snow-Shoes, if he'd +wanted it, had provided the get-out. But Michael he wouldn't have it.... +At whatever cost to himself, he wanted you to have the truth and to +stand by the Ridge ... he'd stand by it at any cost.... If there's a +doubt in anyone's mind as to what he is, what he's just done proves +Michael. I don't say, as he says himself, that it wouldn't have been +better if he had handed the stones over to Paul when Sophie went away +... but after all, what does that amount to as far as Michael's +concerned? We've got his record, every one of us, his life here. Does +anybody know a mean or selfish thing he's ever done, Michael?" + +No one spoke, and George went on: + +"Michael's asked for trial by his mates--and we've got to give it to +him, if it's only to clear up the whole of this business and be done +with it.... I move we meet here to-morrow night to settle the thing." + +There was a rumbling murmur, and staccato exclamations of assent. Men in +back seats moved to the door; others surged after them. Armitage and his +proposals were forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +When Michael got back to his hut he found Martha there. + +"Oh, Michael," she said, "a dreadful thing has happened." + +Michael stared at her, unable to understand what she said. It seemed to +him all the terrible things that could happen had happened that evening. + +"While you were away Arthur Henty came here to see Sophie," Martha said. +"She hasn't been feeling well ... and I came up to have a look at her. +She's been doing too much lately. Things haven't been too right between +her and Potch, either, and that's her way of taking it out of herself. +Arthur was here when I got here, Michael, and--you never heard anything +like the way he went on...." + +Michael had fallen wearily into his chair while she was talking. + +Martha continued, knowing that the sooner she got rid of her story the +better it would be for both of them. + +"It's an old story, of course, this about Arthur Henty and Sophie.... +When he was ill after the ball he talked a good bit about her.... He +always has ... to me. I was with his mother when he was born ... and +he's always called me Mother M'Cready like the rest of you. He told me +long ago he'd always been fond of Sophie.... He didn't know at first, he +said. He was a fool; he didn't like being teased about her.... Then she +went away.... He doesn't seem to know why he got married except that his +people wanted him to. + +"After the ball he'd made up his mind they were going away together, +Sophie and he. But while he was ill ... before he was able to get around +again, Sophie married Potch. Then he went mad, stark, starin' mad, and +started drinking. He's been drinking hard ever since.... And to-night +when he came, he just went over to Sophie.... She was lying on the couch +under the window, Michael.... He said, I've got a horse for you outside. +Sophie didn't seem to realise what he meant at first. Then she did. I +don't know how he guessed she wouldn't go ... but the next minute he was +on his knees beside her ... and you never heard anything like it, +Michael--the way he went on, sobbing and crying out--I never want to +hear anything like it again.... I couldn't 've stood it meself.... I'd +'ve done anything in the world if a man'd gone on to me like that. And +Sophie ... she put her arms round him, and mothered him like.... Then +she began to cry too.... And there they were, both crying and sayin' how +much they loved each other ... how much they'd always loved each +other.... + +"It fair broke me up, Michael.... I didn't know what to do. They didn't +seem to notice me.... Then he said again they'd go away together, and +begin life all over again. Sophie tried to tell him it was too late to +think of that.... They both had responsibilities they'd ought to stand +by.... Hers was the Ridge and the Ridge life, she said.... He didn't +understand.... He only understood he wanted her to go away with him, and +she wouldn't go...." + +Michael was so spent in body and mind that what Martha was saying did +not at first make any impression on his mind. She seemed to be telling +him a long and dolorous tale of something which had happened a long time +ago, to people he had once known. In a waking nightmare, realisation +that it was Sophie she was talking of dawned on him. + +"He tried to make her," Martha was saying when he began to listen +intently. "He said he'd been weak and a fool all his days. But he wasn't +any more. He was strong now. He knew what he wanted, and he meant to +have it.... Sophie was his, he said. Nothing in the world would ever +make her anything but his. She knew it, and he knew it.... And Sophie +hid her face in her hands. He took her hands away from her face and +dragged her to her feet. He asked her if he was her mate. + +"She said 'Yes.' + +"'Then you've got to come with me,' he said. + +"But she wouldn't go, Michael. She tried to explain it was the +Ridge--what the Ridge stood for--she must stay to work for. She'd sworn +to, she said. He cursed the Ridge and all of us, Michael. He said that +he wouldn't let her go on living with Potch--be his wife. That he'd kill +her, and himself, and Potch, rather than let her.... I never heard a man +go on like he did, Michael. I never want to again. Half the time he was +raging mad, then crying like a child. But in the end he said, quite +quietly: + +"'Will you come with me, Sophie?' + +"And she said, quiet like that, too, 'No.' + +"He went out of the hut.... I heard him ride away. Sophie cried after +him. She put out her arms ... but she couldn't speak. And if you had +seen her face, Michael----She just stood there against the wall, +listening to the hoof-beats.... When we couldn't hear them any more, she +stood there listening just the same. I went to her and tried to--to +waken her--she seemed to have gone off into a sort of trance, +Michael.... After a while she did wake; but she looked at me as if she +didn't know me. She walked about for a bit, she walked round the table, +and then she went out as though she were goin' for a walk. I told her +not to go far ... not to be long ... but I don't think she heard me.... +I watched her walking out towards the old rush.... And she isn't back +yet...." + +"It's too much," Michael muttered. + +He sat with his head buried in his hands. + +"What's to be done about it?" he asked at last. + +Martha shook her head. + +"I don't know. Sophie'll go through with her part, I suppose ... as her +mother did." + +Michael's face quivered. + +"He's such an outsider," he groaned. "Sophie'd never give up the things +we stand for here, now she understands them." + +"That's just it," Martha said. "She doesn't want to--but there's +something stronger than herself draggin' at her ... it's something +that's been in all the women she's come of--the feeling a woman's got +for the man who's her mate. Sophie married Potch, it's my belief, to get +away from this man. She wanted to chain herself to us and her life here. +She wants to stay with us.... She was kept up at first by ideas of duty +and sacrifice, and serving something more than her own happiness. But +love's like murder, Michael--it must out, and it's a good thing it +must...." + +"And what about Potch?" Michael asked. + +"Potch?" Martha smiled. "The dear lad ... he'll stand up to things. +There are people like that--and there're people like Arthur Henty who +can't stand up to things. It's not their fault they're made that way ... +and they go under when they have too much to bear." + +"Curse him," Michael groaned. "I wish he'd kept out of our lives." + +"So do I," Martha said; "but he hasn't." + +Potch came in. He looked from Martha to Michael. + +"Where's Sophie?" he asked. + +"She ... went out for a walk, a while ago," Martha said. + +At first Martha believed Potch knew what had happened. In his eyes there +was an awe and horror which communicated itself to Martha and Michael, +and held them dumb. + +"Henty has shot himself down in the tank paddock," he said at length. + +Martha uttered a low wail. Michael looked at Potch, waiting to hear +further. + +"Some of the boys going home to the Three Mile heard the shot, and went +over," Potch said. "I wanted to tell Sophie myself.... They were looking +for you in the town, Martha." + +"Oh!" Martha got up and went to the door. + +"He's at Newton's," Potch said. "Which way did Sophie go?" + +"She went towards the Old Town, Potch," Martha said. + +The chestnut Arthur Henty had brought for Sophie, still standing with +reins over a post of the goat-pen, whinnied when he saw them at the door +of the hut. Potch looked at him as if he were wondering why the horse +was there--a vague perplexity defined itself through the troubled +abstraction of his gaze. His eyes went to Martha as if asking her how +the horse came to be there; but she did not offer any explanation. She +went off down the track to Newton's, and he struck out towards the Old +Town. + +Potch wandered over the plains looking for Sophie. She was not in any of +her usual haunts. He wandered, looking for her, calling her, wondering +what this news would mean to her. Vaguely, instinctively he knew. Prom +the time of their marriage nothing had been said between them of Arthur +Henty. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he called. + +The stars were swarming points of silver fire in the blue-black sky. He +wandered, calling still. Desolation overwhelmed him because he could not +find Sophie; because she was in none of the places they had spent so +much time in together. It was significant that she should not be in any +of them, he felt. He could not bear to think she was eluding him, and +yet that was what she had done all her life. She had been with him, +smiling, elfish and tender one moment, and gone the next. She had always +been elusive. For a long time a presentiment of desolation and disaster +had overshadowed him. Again and again he had been able to draw breath of +relief and assure himself that the indefinable dread which was always +with him was a chimera of his too absorbing, too anxious love. But the +fear, instinctive, prophetic, begotten by consciousness of the slight +grasp he had of her, had remained. + +That morning even, before he had gone off to work, she had taken his +face in her hands. He had seen tenderness and an infinite gentleness in +her eyes. + +"Dear Potch," she had said, and kissed him. + +She had withdrawn from him before the faint chill which her words and +the light pressure of her lips diffused, had left him. And now he was +wandering over the plains looking for her, calling her.... He had done +so before.... Sophie liked to wander off like this by herself. Sometimes +he had found her in a place where they often sat together; sometimes she +had been in the hut before him; sometimes she had come in a long time +after him, wearily, a strange, remote expression on her face, as if long +gazing at the stars or into the darkness which overhung the plains had +deprived her of some earthliness. + +He did not know how long he walked over the plains and along the Ridge, +looking for her, his soul in that cry: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +He wandered for hours before he went back to the hut, and saw Michael +coming out to meet him. + +"She knows, Potch," Michael said. + +Potch waited for him to continue. + +"Says nobody told her.... She heard the shot ... and knew," Michael +said. + +Potch exclaimed brokenly. He asked how Sophie was. Michael said she had +come in and had lain down on the sofa as though she were very tired. She +had been lying there ever since, so still that Michael was alarmed. He +had called Paul and sent him to find Martha. Sophie had not cried at +all, Michael said. + +She was lying on the sofa under the window, her hair thrown back from +her face when Potch went into the hut. He closed his eyes against the +sight of her face; he could not see Sophie in the grip of such pain. He +knelt beside her. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he murmured, the inarticulate prayer of his love and +anguish in those words. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was +informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it. +The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the the night before, +but the crowd had none of the elastic excitement and fighting spirit, +the antagonisms and enthusiasms, which had gone off from it in wave-like +vibrations the night before. News of Arthur Henty's death had left +everybody aghast, and awakened realisation of the abysses which even a +life that seemed to move easily could contain. The shock of it was on +everybody; the solemnity it had created in the air. + +George Woods, elected spokesman for the men, and Roy O'Mara deputed to +take notes of the meeting because he was reckoned to be a good penman, +sat at a table on the platform. Michael took a chair just below the +platform, facing the men. He was there to answer questions. No one had +asked him to be present, but it was the custom when men of the Ridge +were holding an inquiry of the sort for the man or men concerned to have +seats in front of the platform, and Michael had gone to sit there as +soon as the men were in their places. + +"This isn't like any other inquiry we've had on the Ridge," George Woods +said. "You chaps know how I feel about it--I told you last night. But +Michael was for it, and I take it he's come here to answer any questions +... and to clear this thing up once and for all.... He's put his case to +you. He says he'll stand by what you say--the judgment of his mates." + +Anxious to spare Michael another recital of what had happened, he went +on: + +"There's no need for Michael to repeat what he said last night. If +there's any man here wasn't in the hall, these are the facts." + +He repeated the story Michael had told, steadily, clearly, and +impartially. + +"If there's any man wants to ask a question on those facts, he can do it +now." + +George sat down, and M'Ginnis was on his feet the same instant; his +bat-like ears twitching, his shoulders hunched, his whole tall, thin +frame strung to the pitch of nervous animosity. + +"I want to know," he said, "what reason there is for believing a word of +it. Michael Brady's as good as admitted he's been fooling you for +goodness knows how long, and I don't see----" + +"Y' soon will, y'r bleedin', blasted, fly-blown fool," Bully Bryant +roared, rising and pushing back his sleeves. + +"Sit down, Bull," George Woods called. + +"The question is," he added, "what reason is there for believing what +Michael says?" + +"His word's enough," somebody called. + +"Some of us think so," George said. "But there's some don't. Is there +anyone else can say, Michael?" + +Michael shook his head. He thought of Snow-Shoes, but the old man had +refused to be present at the inquiry or to have anything to do with it. +He had pretended to be deaf when he was asked anything about Paul's +opals. And Michael, who could only surmise that Snow-Shoes' reasons for +having taken the stones in a measure resembled his own when he took them +from Paul, would not have him put to the torture of questioning. + +George had said: "It might make a lot of difference to Michael if you'd +come along, Mr. Riley." + +But Snow-Shoes had marched off from him as if he had not heard anyone +speak, his blue eyes fixed on that invisible goal he was always gazing +at and going towards. + +George had not seen him come into the hall; but when he was needed, his +tall figure, white clad and straight as a dead tree, rose at the back of +the hall. + +"It's true," he said. "I wanted to be sure of Michael; I shadowed him. I +saw him with the stones when he says. I did not see him with them any +other time." + +He sat down again; his eyes, which had flashed, resumed their steady, +distant stare; his features relapsed into their mask of impassivity. + +M'Ginnis sprang to his feet again. + +"That's all very well," he cried, sticking to his question. "But it's +not my idea of evidence. It wouldn't stand in any law court in the +country. Snow-Shoes----" + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Half a dozen voices growled. + +Because of the respect and affection they had for him, and because of a +certain aloof dignity he had with them, no man on the Ridge ever +addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. They resented M'Ginnis +calling him "Snow-Shoes" to his face, and guessed that he had been going +to say something which would reflect on Snow-Shoes' reliability as a +witness. They admitted his eccentricity; but they would not admit that +his mental peculiarities amounted to more than that. Above all, they +were not going to have his feelings hurt by this outsider from the Punti +rush. + +Broad-shouldered, square and solid, Bill Grant towered above the men +about him. "This doesn't pretend to be a court of law, Mister M'Ginnis," +he remarked, with an irony and emphasis which never failed of their mark +when he used them, although he rarely did, and only once or twice had +been heard to speak, at any gathering. "It's an inquiry by men of the +Ridge into the doings of one of their mates. What they want to know is +the rights of this business ... and what you consider evidence doesn't +matter. It's what the men in this hall consider evidence matters. And, +what's more, I don't see why you're butting into our affairs so much: +you're not one of us--you're a newcomer. You've only been a year or so +in the place ... and this concerns only men of the Ridge, who stand +by the Ridge ways of doing things.... Michael's here to be judged +by his mates ... not by you and your sort.... If you'd the brain +of a louse, you'd understand--this isn't a question of law, but of +principle--honour, if you like to call it that." + +"Does the meeting consider the question answered?" George Woods inquired +when Bill Grant sat down. + +"Yes!" + +A chorus of voices intoned the answer. + +"If you believe Michael's story, there's nothing more to be said," +George continued. "Does any man want to ask Michael a question?" + +No one replied for a moment. Then M'Ginnis exclaimed incoherently. + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Men cried out all over the hall. + +"That's all, I think, Michael," George said, looking down to where +Michael sat before the platform; and Michael, pulling his hat further +over his eyes, went out of the hall. + +It was the custom for men of the Ridge to talk over the subject of their +inquiry together after the man or men with whom the meeting was +concerned had left the hall, before giving their verdict. + +When Michael had gone, George Woods said: + +"The boys would like to hear what you've got to say, I think, Archie." + +He looked at Archie Cross. "You and Michael haven't been seein' eye to +eye lately, and if there's any other side in this business, it's the +side that lost confidence in Michael when we were fed-up with all that +whispering. You know Michael, and you're a good Ridge man, though you +were ready to take on Armitage's scheme. The boys'd like to hear what +you've got to say, I'm sure." + +Archie Cross stood up; he rolled his hat in his hands. His face, hacked +out of a piece of dull flesh, sun-reddened, moved convulsively; his hair +was roughed-up from it; his small, sombre eyes went with straight +lightnings to the men in the hall about him. + +"It's true--what George says," he said after a pause, as if it were +difficult for him to express his thought. "I haven't been seein' eye to +eye with Michael lately ... and I listened to all the dirty gossip that +mob"--he glanced towards M'Ginnis and the men with him--"put round about +him. It was part that ... and part listening to their talk about money +invested here making all the difference to Fallen Star ... and the +children growing up ... and gettin' scared and worried about seein' them +through ... made me go agin you boys lately, and let that lot get hold +of me.... But this business about Michael's shown me where I am. +Michael's stood for one thing all through--the Ridge and the hanging on +to the mines for us.... He's been a better Ridge man than I have.... And +I want to say ... as far as I'm concerned, Michael's proved himself.... +I don't reck'n hanging on to opals was anything ... no more does Ted. +It's the sort of thing a chap like Michael'd do absent-minded ... not +noticin' what he was doin'; but when he did notice--and got scared +thinkin' where he was gettin' to, and what it might look like, he +couldn't get rid of 'em quick, enough. That's what I think, and that's +what Ted thinks, too. He hasn't got the gift of the gab, Ted, or he'd +say so himself.... If there's goin' to be opposition to Michael, it's +not comin' from us.... And we've made up our minds we stand by the +Ridge." + +"Good old Archie!" somebody shouted. + +"What have you got to say, Roy?" George Woods faced his secretary who +had been scratching diligently throughout the meeting. "You've been more +with the M'Ginnis lot, too, than with us, lately." + +Roy flushed and sprang to his feet. + +"I'm in the same boat with Archie and Ted," he said. "Except about the +family ... mine isn't so big yet as it might be. But it's a fact, I +funked, not having had much luck lately.... But if ever I go back on the +Ridge again ... may the lot of you go back on me." + +Exclamations of approbation and goodwill reverberated as Roy subsided +into his chair again. + +"That's all there is to be said on the subject, I think," George Woods +remarked. + +"Michael wanted his mates to know what he had done--and why he had done +it. He's asked for judgment from his mates.... If he'd wanted to go back +on us he could have done it; he could have done it quite easy. Armitage +would have shut up on his suspicions about the stones. Charley could +have been bought. Michael need never 've faced all this as far as I can +see ... but he decided to face it rather than give up all we've been +fightin' for here. He'd rather take all the dirt we care to sling at him +than anything they could give him ... and that's why M'Ginnis has been +up against him like he has. Michael has queered his pitch, and most of +us have a notion that M'Ginnis has been here to do Armitage's work ... +work up discontent and ill-feeling amongst us, and split our ranks; and +he came very near doing it. If Michael hadn't 've stood by us, like he's +always done, we'd have the Armitage Syndicate on our backs by now." + +"To tell you the truth, boys," George went on, after a moment's +hesitation, and then as if the impulse to speak a secret thought were +too strong for him, "I've always thought Michael was too good. And if +those stones did get hold of him for a couple of weeks, like he says, +all it proves, as far as I can see, is that Michael isn't any plaster +saint, but a man like the rest of us." + +"That's right!" Watty called, and several men shouted after him. + +Pony-Fence moved out from the crowd he was sitting with. + +"I vote this meeting records a motion of confidence in Michael Brady," +he said. "And when we call Michael in again we'd ought to make it clear +to him ... that so far from its being a question of not having as much +confidence in him as we had before--we've got more. Michael's stood by +his mates if ever a man did.... He's come to us ... he's given himself +up to us. He'll stand by what we say or do about him. And what are we +goin' to do? Are we goin' to turn him down ... read him a bit of a +lecture and tell him to go home and be a good boy and not do it another +time ... or are we going to let him know once and for all what we think +of him?" + +Exclamations of agreement went up in a rabble of voices. + +Bully Bryant rose from one of the back forms with a grin which +illuminated the building. + +"I'll second that motion," he said, pushing back the sleeve on his left +arm. "And his own mother won't know the man who says a word against +it--when I've done with him." + +Watty was sent to bring Michael back to the meeting. They walked to the +end of the hall together; and George Woods told Michael as quietly as he +could for his own agitation, and the joy which, welling in him, impeded +his speech, that men of the Ridge found nothing to censure in what he +had done. His mates believed in him; they stood by him. They were +prepared to stand by him as he had stood by the Ridge always. The +meeting wished to record a vote of confidence.... + +Cheers roared to the roof. Michael, shaken by the storm of his emotion +and gratitude, stood before the crowd in the hall with bowed head. When +the storm was quieter in him, he lifted his head and looked out to the +men, his eyes shining with tears. + +He could not speak; old mates closed round to shake hands with him +before the meeting broke up. Every man grasped and wrung his hand, +saying: + +"Good luck! Good luck to you, Michael!" Or just grasped his hand and +smiled with that assurance of fellowship and goodwill which meant more +to Michael than anything else in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +It was one of those clear days of late spring, the sky exquisitely blue, +the cuckoos calling, the paper daisies in blossom, their fragrance in +the air; they lay across the plains, through the herbage, white to the +dim, circling horizon. + +Horses and vehicles were tied up outside the grey palings of the +cemetery on the Warria road. All the horses and shabby, or new and +brightly-painted carts, sulkies, and buggies of Fallen Star and the +Three Mile were there; and buggies from Warria, Langi-Eumina, and the +river stations as well. Saddle horses, ranged along one side of the +fence, reins over the stakes, whinnied and snapped at each other. + +The crowd of people standing in the tall grass and herbage on the other +side of the fence was just breaking up when Sophie and Potch appeared, +coming over the plains from the direction of the tank paddock, Sophie +riding the chestnut Arthur Henty had left behind her house, and Potch +walking beside the horse's head. Sophie had been gathering Darling pea, +and had a great sheaf in one hand. Potch was carrying some, too: he had +picked up the flowers Sophie let fall, and had a little bunch of them. +She was riding astride and gazing before her, her eyes wide with a +vision beyond the distant horizon. The wind, a light breeze breathing +now and then, blew her hair out in wisps from her bare head. + +All the men of Warria were in the sombre crowd in the cemetery. Old +Henty, red-eyed and broken by the end of his only son, whom he found he +had cared for now that he was dead; the stockmen, boundary-riders, +servants, fencers, shearers from Darrawingee sheds who, a few weeks +before had been on the Warria board, and men from other stations near +enough to have heard of Arthur Henty's death. None of the Henty women +were there; but women of the Ridge, who were accustomed to pay last +respects as their menfolk did, were with their husbands as usual. They +would have thought it unnatural and unkind not to follow Arthur Henty to +his resting-place; not to go as friends would to say good-bye to a +friend who is making a long journey. And there was more than the +ordinary reason for being present at Arthur Henty's funeral. He was +leaving them under a cloud, circumstances which might be interpreted +unkindly, and it was necessary to be present to express sympathy with +him and sorrow at his going. That was the way they regarded it. + +Martha had driven with Sam Nancarrow, as she always did to functions of +the sort. No one remembered having seen Martha take a thing so to heart +as she did Arthur Henty's death. She was utterly shaken by it, and could +not restrain her tears. They coursed down her cheeks all the time she +was in that quiet place on the plains; her great, motherly bosom rose +and fell with the tide of her grief. She tried to subdue it, but every +now and then the sound of her crying could be heard, and in the end Sam +took her, sobbing uncontrollably, back to his buggy. + +People knew she had seen further into the cause of Arthur Henty's death +than they had, and they understood that was why she Was so upset. +Besides, Martha had always confessed to a soft corner for Arthur Henty: +she had been with his mother when he was born, had nursed him during a +hot summer and through several slight illnesses since then. And Arthur +had been fond of her too. He had always called her Mother M'Cready as +the Ridge folk did. Old Mr. Henty had driven over to see Martha the +night before, to hear all she knew of what had happened, and Ridge folk +had gathered something of the story from her broken exclamations and the +reproaches with which she covered herself. + +She cried out over and over again that she could not have believed +Arthur would shoot himself--that he was the sort of man to do such a +thing--and blamed herself for not having foreseen what had occurred. She +had never seen him like he was that night--so strong, so much a man, so +full of life and love for Sophie. He had begged Sophie to go with him as +though his life depended on it--and it had. + +If she had been a woman, and Sophie, and had loved him, Martha said, she +would have had to go with him. She could never have withstood his +pleading.... But Sophie had been good to him; she had been gentle--only +she wouldn't go. Neither Sophie nor she believed, of course, he would do +as he said--but he had. + +Martha could not forgive herself that she had done nothing to soothe or +pacify Arthur; that she had said nothing, given him neither kindly word +nor gesture. But she had been so upset, so carried away. She had not +known what to do or say. She abused and blackguarded herself; but she +had sensed enough of the utter loneliness and darkness of Henty's mind +to realise that most likely she could have done nothing against it. He +would have brushed her aside had she attempted to influence him; he +would not have heard what, she said. She would have been as helpless as +any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly +engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of +pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of +self-defence, as Mother M'Cready saw it, Arthur Henty's end, and that +was all there was to it. + +As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together +in wonderment, awe--almost fear. + +James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking +to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. +Although he would have been the last to forgive Sophie if she had done +as Arthur wished, even to save his life, old Henty had to have a +whipping-post, and he eased his own sense of responsibility for what had +blighted his son's life, by blaming Sophie for it. He assured himself, +his family and friends, that she, and she alone, was responsible for +Arthur's death. She had played with Arthur; she had always played with +him, old Henty said. She had driven him to distraction with her +wiles--and this was the end of it all. + +Sophie rode into the cemetery: she rode to where the broken earth was; +but she did not dismount. The horse came to a standstill beside it, and +she sat on him, her eyes closed. Potch stood bare-headed and bowed +beside her. He put the flowers he had picked up as Sophie let them fall, +on the grave. Sophie thrust the long, purple trails she was carrying +into the saddle-bag where Arthur had put the flowers she gave him that +first day their eyes met and drank the love potion of each others' +being. + +People were already on the road, horses and buggies, dark, ant-like +trains on the flowering plains, moving slowly in the direction of Warria +and of Fallen Star, when Sophie and Potch turned away from the cemetery. + +The shadow of what had happened was heavy over everybody as they drove +home. Arthur Henty had been well enough liked, and he had had much more +to do with Fallen Star than most of the station people. He had gone +about so much with his men they had almost ceased to think of him as not +one of themselves. He was less the "Boss" than any man in the +back-country. They recognised that, and yet he was the "Boss." He had +lived like a half-caste, drifting between two races and belonging to +neither. The people he had been born among cold-shouldered him because +he had acquired the manners and habits of thought of men he lived and +worked with; the men he had lived and worked with distrusted and +disliked in him just those tag-ends of refinement, and odd graces which +belonged to the crowd he had come to them from. + +The station hands, his work-mates--if he had any--had had a slightly +contemptuous feeling for him. They liked him--they were always saying +they liked him--but it was clear they never had any great opinion of +him. As a boy, when he began to work with them, to cover his shyness and +nervousness, he had been silent and boorish; and he had never had the +courage of his opinions--courage for anything, it was suspected. It had +always been hinted that he shirked any jobs where danger was to be +expected. + +The stockmen told each other they would miss him, all the same. They +would miss that wonderful whistling of his from the camp fires; and they +were appalled at what he had done to himself. "The last man," Charley +Este said, "the last man you'd ever 've thought would 've come to that!" +Most of them believed they had misjudged Arthur Henty--that, after, all, +he had had courage of a sort. A man must have courage to blow out his +light, they said. And they were sorry. Every man in the crowd was heavy +with sorrow. + +Ridge people gossiped pitifully, sentimentally, to each other as they +drove home. Most of the women believed in the strength and fidelity of +the old love between Sophie and Arthur Henty. But straight-dealing and +honest themselves, they had no conception of the tricks complex +personalities play each other; they did not understand how two people +who had really cared for each other could have gone so astray from the +natural impulse of their lives. + +They recalled the dance at Warria, and how they had teased Sophie when +they thought she was going to marry Arthur Henty, and how happy and +pleased she had looked about it. How different both their lives would +have been if Sophie and Arthur had been true to that instinct of the +mate for the mate, they reflected; and sighed at the futility of the +thought. They realised in Arthur Henty's drinking and rough ways of +late, all his unhappiness. They imagined that they knew why he had +become the uncouth-looking man he had. They remembered him a slight, shy +youth, with sun-bright, freckled eyes; then a man, lithe, graceful, and +good to look at, with his face a clear, fine bronze, his hair taking a +glint of copper in the sun. When he danced with them at the Ridge balls, +that occasionally flashing, delightful way of his had made them realise +why Sophie was in love with him. They remembered how he had looked at +Sophie; how his eyes had followed her. They had heard of the Warria +dance, and knew Arthur Henty had not behaved well to Sophie at it. They +had been angry at the time. Then Sophie had gone away ... and a little +later he had married. + +His marriage had not been a success. Mrs. Arthur Henty had spent most of +her time in Sydney; she was rarely seen on the Ridge now. So women of +the Ridge, who had known Arthur Henty, went over all they knew of him +until that night at the race ball when he and Sophie had met again. And +then his end in the tank paddock brought them back to exclamations of +dismay and grief at the mystery of it all. + +As she left the cemetery, Sophie began to sing, listlessly, dreamily at +first. No one had heard her sing since her return to the Ridge. But her +voice flew out over the plains, through the wide, clear air now, with +the pure melody it had when she was a girl: + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà, + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà!" + +Ella Bryant, driving home beside Bully, knew Sophie was singing as she +had sung to Arthur Henty years before, when they were coming home from +the tank paddock together. She wondered why Sophie was riding the horse +Arthur had brought for her; why she had ridden him to the funeral; and +why she was singing that song. + +Sophie sang on: + + "Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà, + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà!" + +Looking back, people saw Potch walking beside her as Joseph walked +beside Mary when they went down to Nazareth. + +"It's hard on Potch," somebody said. + +"Yes," it was agreed; "it's hard on Potch." + +The buggies, carts, sulkies, and horsemen moving in opposite directions +on the long, curving road over the plains grew dim in the distance. + +The notes of Sophie's singing, with its undying tenderness triumphing +over life and death, flowed fainter and fainter. + +When she and Potch came to the town again, the light was fading. Through +the green, limpid veil of the sky, stars were glittering; huts of the +township were darkening under the gathering shadow of night. A breath of +sandal-wood burning on kitchen hearths came to Sophie and Potch like a +greeting. The notes of a goat-bell clanking dully sounded from beyond +the dumps. There were lights in a few of the huts; a warm, friendly +murmur of voices went up from them. For weeks troubled and disturbed +thinking, arguments, and conflicting ideas, had created a depressed and +unrestful atmosphere in every home in Fallen Star. But to-night it was +different. The temptations, allurements and debris of Armitage's scheme +had been swept from the minds--even of those who had been ready to +accept it. Hope and pride in the purpose of the Ridge had been restored +by Michael's vindication and by reaffirmation of the principle he and +all staunch men of the Ridge stood for as the mainstay of their life in +common. Thought of Arthur Henty's death, which had oppressed people +during the day, seemed to have been put aside now that they had seen him +laid to rest, and had returned to their homes again. + +Voices were heard exclaiming with the light cadence and rhythm of joy. +The crisis which had come near to shattering the Ridge scheme of things, +and all that it stood for, had ended by drawing dissenting factions of +the community into closer sympathy and more intimate relationship. In +everybody's mind were the hope and enthusiasm of a new endeavour. As +they went through the town again, neither Sophie nor Potch were +conscious of them for the sorrow which had soaked into their lives. But +these things were in the air they breathed, and sooner or later would +claim them from all personal suffering; faith and loving service fill +all their future--the long twilight of their days. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +******* This file should be named 36710-8.txt or 36710-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/7/1/36710 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/36710-8.zip b/36710-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6147f10 --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-8.zip diff --git a/36710-h.zip b/36710-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..33e980c --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-h.zip diff --git a/36710-h/36710-h.htm b/36710-h/36710-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a19b440 --- /dev/null +++ b/36710-h/36710-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12052 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard</title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Black Opal</p> +<p>Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard</p> +<p>Release Date: July 12, 2011 [eBook #36710]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Amy Sisson & Marc D'Hooghe<br /> + (http://www.freeliterature.org)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE BLACK OPAL</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>KATHARINE SUSANNAH PRICHARD</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "THE PIONEERS," "WINDLESTRAWS," ETC.</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h5>London: William Heinemann</h5> + +<h5>1921</h5> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><a href="#Contents">Contents</a></p> +<h3><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a><i>PART I</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + + +<p>A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road +over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains.</p> + +<p>Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, +clear blue sky of early spring, except this train of shabby, +dust-covered vehicles. The road, no more than a track of wheels on +shingly earth, wound lazily through paper daisies growing in drifts +beside it, and throwing a white coverlet to the dim, circling horizon. +The faint, dry fragrance of paper daisies was in the air; a native +cuckoo calling.</p> + +<p>The little girl sitting beside Michael Brady in Newton's buggy glanced +behind her now and then. Michael was driving the old black horse from +the coach stables and Newton's bay mare, and Sophie and her father were +sitting beside him on the front seat. In the open back of the buggy +behind them lay a long box with wreaths and bunches of paper daisies and +budda blossoms over it.</p> + +<p>Sophie knew all the people on the road, and to whom the horses and +buggies they had borrowed belonged. Jun Johnson and Charley Heathfield +were riding together in the Afghan storekeeper's sulky with his fat +white pony before them. Anwah Kaked and Mrs. Kaked had the store cart +themselves. Watty and Mrs. Frost were on the coach. Ed. Ventry was +driving them and had put up the second seat for George and Mrs. Woods +and Maggie Grant. Peter Newton and Cash Wilson followed in Newton's +newly varnished black sulky. Sam Nancarrow had given Martha M'Cready a +lift, and Pony-Fence Inglewood was driving Mrs. Archie and Mrs. Ted +Cross in Robb's old heavy buggy, with the shaggy draught mare used for +carting water in the township during the summer, in the shafts. The +Flails' home-made jinker, whose body was painted a dull yellow, came +last of the vehicles on the road. Sophie could just see Arthur Henty and +two or three stockmen from Warria riding through a thin haze of red +dust. But she knew men were walking two abreast behind the vehicles and +horsemen—Bill Grant, Archie and Ted Cross, and a score of miners from +the Three Mile and the Punti rush. At a curve of the road she had seen +Snow-Shoes and Potch straggling along behind the others, the old man +stooping to pick wild flowers by the roadside, and Potch plodding on, +looking straight in front of him.</p> + +<p>Buggies, horses, and people, they had come all the way from her home at +the Old Town. Almost everybody who lived on Fallen Star Ridge was there, +driving, riding, or walking on the road across the plains behind +Michael, her father, and herself. It was all so strange to Sophie; she +felt so strange in the black dress she had on and which Mrs. Grant had +cut down from one of her own. There was a black ribbon on her old yellow +straw hat too, and she had on a pair of black cotton gloves.</p> + +<p>Sophie could not believe her mother was what they called "dead"; that it +was her mother in the box with flowers on just behind her. They had +walked along this very road, singing and gathering wild flowers, and had +waited to watch the sun set, or the moon rise, so often.</p> + +<p>She glanced at her father. He was sitting beside her, a piece of black +stuff on his arm and a strip of the same material round his old felt +hat. The tears poured down his cheeks, and he shook out the large, new, +white handkerchief he had bought at Chassy Robb's store that morning, +and blew his nose every few minutes. He spoke sometimes to Michael; but +Michael did not seem to hear him. Michael sat staring ahead, his face as +though cut in wood.</p> + +<p>Sophie remembered Michael had been with her when Mrs. Grant said.... Her +mind went back over that.</p> + +<p>"She's dead, Michael," Mrs. Grant had said.</p> + +<p>And she had leaned against the window beside her mother's bed, crying. +Michael was on his knees by the bed. Sophie had thought Michael looked +so funny, kneeling like that, with his head in his hands, his great +heavy boots jutting up from the floor. The light, coming in through the +window near the head of the bed, shone on the nails in the soles of his +boots. It was so strange to see these two people whom she knew quite +well, and whom she had only seen doing quite ordinary, everyday things, +behaving like this. Sophie had gazed at her mother who seemed to be +sleeping. Then Mrs. Grant had come to her, her face working, tears +streaming down her cheeks. She had taken her hand and they had gone out +of the room together. Sophie could not remember what Mrs. Grant had said +to her then.... After a little while Mrs. Grant had gone back to the +room where her mother was, and Sophie went out to the lean-to where +Potch was milking the goats.</p> + +<p>She told him what Mrs. Grant had said about her mother, and he stopped +milking. They had gazed at each other with inquiry and bewilderment in +their eyes; then Potch turned his face away as he sat on the +milking-stool, and Sophie knew he was crying. She wondered why other +people had cried so much and she had not cried at all.</p> + +<p>When Potch was taking the bucket of milk across the yard, her father had +come round the corner of the house. His heavy figure with its broad, +stooping shoulders was outlined against the twilight sky. He made for +the door, shouting incoherently. Sophie and Potch stood still as they +saw him.</p> + +<p>Catching sight of them, he had turned and come towards them.</p> + +<p>"We're on opal," he cried; "on opal!"</p> + +<p>There was a feverish light in his eyes; he was trembling with +excitement.</p> + +<p>He had pulled a small, washed oatmeal bag from his pocket, untied the +string, tumbled some stones on to the outstretched palm of his hand, and +held them for Potch to look at.</p> + +<p>"Not a bad bit in the lot.... Look at the fire, there in the black +potch!... And there's green and gold for you. A lovely bit of pattern! +And look at this ... and this!" he cried eagerly, going over the two or +three small knobbies in his hand.</p> + +<p>Potch looked at him dazedly.</p> + +<p>"Didn't they tell you—?" he began.</p> + +<p>Her father had closed his hands over the stones and opal dirt.</p> + +<p>"I'm going in now," he said, thrusting the opals into the bag.</p> + +<p>He had gone towards the house again, shouting: "We're on opal! On opal!"</p> + +<p>Sophie followed him indoors. Mrs. Grant had met her father on the +threshold of the room where her mother was.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come when I sent for you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think it could be as bad as you made out—that she was really +dying," Sophie could hear her father saying again. "And we'd just struck +opal, me and Jun, struck it rich. Got two or three stones already—great +stuff, lovely pattern, green and orange, and fire all through the black +potch. And there's more of it! Heaps more where it came from, Jun says. +We're next Watty and George Woods—and no end of good stuff's come out +of that claim."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grant stared at him as Potch had done. Then she stood back from the +doorway of the room behind her.</p> + +<p>Every gesture of her father's, of Mrs. Grant's, and of Michael's, was +photographed on Sophie's brain. She could see that room again—the quiet +figure on the bed, light golden-brown hair, threaded with silver, lying +in thin plaits beside the face of yellow ivory; bare, thin arms and +hands lying over grey blankets and a counter-pane of faded red twill; +the window still framing a square of twilight sky on which stars were +glittering. Mrs. Grant had brought a candle and put it on the box near +the bed, and the candle light had flared on Mrs. Grant's figure, showing +it, gaunt and accusing, against the shadows of the room. It had showed +Sophie her father, also, between Michael and Mrs. Grant, looking from +one to the other of them, and to the still figure on the bed, with a +dazed, penitent expression....</p> + +<p>The horses jogged slowly on the long, winding road. Sophie was conscious +of the sunshine, warm and bright, over the plains, the fragrance of +paper daisies in the air; the cuckoos calling in the distance. Her +father snuffled and wiped his eyes and nose with his new handkerchief as +he sat beside her.</p> + +<p>"She was so good, Michael," he said, "too good for this world."</p> + +<p>Michael did not reply.</p> + +<p>"Too good for this world!" Paul murmured again.</p> + +<p>He had said that at least a score of times this morning. Sophie had +heard him say it to people down at the house before they started. She +had never heard him talk of her mother like that before. She looked at +him, sensing vaguely, and resenting the banality. She thought of him as +he had always been with her mother and with her, querulous and +complaining, or noisy and rough when he had been drinking. They had +spent the night in a shed at the back of the house sometimes when he was +like that....</p> + +<p>And her mother had said:</p> + +<p>"You'll take care of Sophie, Michael?"</p> + +<p>Sophie remembered how she had stood in the doorway of her mother's room, +that afternoon—How long ago was it? Not only a day surely? She had +stood there until her mother had seen her, awed without knowing why, +reluctant to move, afraid almost. Michael had nodded without speaking.</p> + +<p>"As though she were your own child?"</p> + +<p>"So help me, God," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Her-mother's eyes had rested on Michael's face. She had smiled at him. +Sophie did not think she had ever seen her smile like that before, +although her smile had always been like a light on her face.</p> + +<p>"Don't let him take her away," her mother had said after a moment. "I +want her to grow up in this place ... in the quiet ... never to know the +treacherous ... whirlpool ... of life beyond the Ridge."</p> + +<p>Then her mother had seen and called to her.</p> + +<p>Sophie glanced back at the slowly-moving train of vehicles. They had a +dreary, dream-like aspect. She felt as if she were moving in a dream. +Everything she saw, and heard, and did, was invested with unreality; she +had a vague, unfeeling curiosity about everything.</p> + +<p>"You see, Michael," her father was saying when she heard him talking +again, "we'd just got out that big bit when Potch came and said that +Marya ... that Marya.... I couldn't believe it was true ... and there +was the opal! And when I got home in the evening she was gone. My poor +Marya! And I'd brought some of the stones to show her."</p> + +<p>He broke down and wept. "Do you think she knows about the opal, +Michael?"</p> + +<p>Michael did not reply. Sophie looked up at him. The pain of his face, a +sudden passionate grieving that wrung it, translated to her what this +dying of her mother meant. She huddled against Michael; in all her +trouble and bewilderment there seemed nothing to do but to keep close to +Michael.</p> + +<p>And so they came to the gate of a fenced plot which was like a quiet +garden on the plains. Several young coolebahs, and two or three older +trees standing in it, scattered light shade; and a few head-stones and +wooden crosses, painted white or bleached by the weather, showed above +the waving grass and wild flowers.</p> + +<p>Sophie held the reins when Michael got down to open the gate. Then he +took his seat again and they drove in through the gateway. Other people +tied their horses and buggies to the fence outside.</p> + +<p>When all the people who had been driving, riding, or walking on the road +went towards an old coolebah under which the earth had been thrown up +and a grave had been dug, Michael told Sophie to go with her father and +stand beside them. She did so, and dull, grieving eyes were turned to +her; glances of pitiful sympathy. But Snow-Shoes came towards the little +crowd beside the tree, singing.</p> + +<p>He was the last person to come into the cemetery, and everybody stared +at him. An old man in worn white moleskins and cotton shirt, an old +white felt hat on his head, the wrappings of bag and leather, which gave +him his name, on his feet—although snow never fell on the Ridge—he +swung towards them. The flowers he had gathered as he came along, not +otilypaper daisies, but the blue flowers of crowsfoot, gold buttons, and +creamy and lavender, sweet-scented budda blossoms, were done up in a +tight little bunch in his hand. He drew nearer still singing under his +breath, and Sophie realised he was going over and over the fragment of a +song that her mother had loved and used often to sing herself.</p> + +<p>There was a curious smile in his eyes as he came to a standstill beside +her. The leaves of the coolebah were bronze and gold in the sunshine, a +white-tail in its branches reiterating plaintively: "Sweet pretty +creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael, George Woods, Archie Cross, +and Cash Wilson, came towards the tree, their shoulders bowed beneath +the burden they were carrying; but Snow-Shoes smiled at everybody as +though this were really a joyous occasion, and they did not understand. +Only he understood, and smiled because of his secret knowledge.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + + +<p>In a week or two Mrs. Rouminof's name had dropped out of Ridge life +almost as if she had never been part of it.</p> + +<p>At first people talked of her, of Paul, of Sophie, and of Michael. They +gossiped of her looks and manner, of her strange air of serenity and +content, although her life on the Ridge was, they surmised, a hard one, +and different from the life she had come from. But her death caused no +more disturbance than a stone thrown into quiet water, falling to the +bottom, does. No one was surprised, when it was known Paul and Sophie +had gone to live with Michael. Everyone expected Michael would try to +look after them for a while, although they could not imagine where he +was going to find room for them in his small house filled with books.</p> + +<p>It was natural enough that Michael should have taken charge of Sophie +and Rouminof, and that he should have made all arrangements for Mrs. +Rouminof's funeral. If it had been left to Paul to bury his wife, people +agreed, she would not have been buried at all; or, at least, not until +the community insisted. And Michael would have done as much for any +shiftless man. He was next-of-kin to all lonely and helpless men and +women on the Ridge, Michael Brady.</p> + +<p>Every man, woman, or child on the Ridge knew Michael. His lean figure in +shabby blue dungarees, faded shirt, and weathered felt hat, with no more +than a few threads of its band left, was as familiar as any tree, shed, +or dump on the fields. He walked with a slight stoop, a pipe in his +mouth always, his head bent as though he were thinking hard; but there +was no hard thought in his eyes, only meditativeness, and a faint smile +if he were stopped and spoken to unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>"You're a regular 'cyclopædia, Michael," the men said sometimes when he, +had given information on a subject they were discussing.</p> + +<p>"Not me," Michael would reply as often as not. "I just came across that +in a book I was reading the other day."</p> + +<p>Ridge folk were proud of Michael's books, and strangers who saw his +miscellaneous collection—mostly of cheap editions, old school books, +and shilling, sixpenny, and penny publications of literary masterpieces, +poetry, and works on industrial and religious subjects—did not wonder +that it impressed Ridge folk, or that Michael's knowledge of the world +and affairs was what it was. He had tracts, leaflets, and small books on +almost every subject under the sun. Books were regarded as his Weakness, +and, remembering it, some of the men, when they had struck opal and left +the town, occasionally sent a box of any old books they happened to come +across to Michael, knowing that a printed page was a printed page to him +in the long evenings when he lay on the sofa under his window. Michael +himself had spent all the money he could, after satisfying the needs of +his everyday life, on those tracts, pamphlets, and cheap books he +hoarded in his hut on shelves made from wooden boxes and old +fruit-cases.</p> + +<p>But there was nothing of the schoolmaster about him. He rarely gave +information unless he was asked for it. The men appreciated that, +although they were proud of his erudition and books. They knew dimly but +surely that Michael used his books for, not against, themselves; and he +was attached to books and learning, chiefly for what they could do for +them, his mates. In all community discussions his opinion carried +considerable weight. A matter was often talked over with more or less +heat, differences of opinion thrashed out while Michael smoked and +listened, weighing the arguments. He rarely spoke until his view was +asked for. Then in a couple of minutes he would straighten out the +subject of controversy, show what was to be said for and against a +proposition, sum up, and give his conclusions, for or against it.</p> + +<p>Michael Brady, however, was much more the general utility man than +encyclopædia of Fallen Star Ridge. If a traveller—swagman—died on the +road, it was Michael who saw he got a decent burial; Michael who was +sent for if a man had his head smashed in a brawl, or a wife died +unexpectedly. He was the court of final appeal in quarrels and +disagreements between mates; and once when Martha M'Cready was away in +Sydney, he had even brought a baby into the world. He was something of a +dentist, too, honorary dentist to anyone on the Ridge who wanted a tooth +pulled out; and the friend of any man, woman, or child in distress.</p> + +<p>And he did things so quietly, so much as a matter of course, that people +did not notice what he did for them, or for the rest of the Ridge. They +took it for granted he liked doing what he did; that he liked helping +them. It was his sympathy, the sense of his oneness with all their +lives, and his shy, whimsical humour and innate refusal to be anything +more than they were, despite his books and the wisdom with which they +were quite willing to credit him, that gained for Michael the regard of +the people of the Ridge, and made him the unconscious power he was in +the community.</p> + +<p>Of about middle height, and sparely built, Michael was forty-five, or +thereabouts, when Mrs. Rouminof died. He looked older, yet had the +vigour and energy of a much younger man. Crowsfeet had gathered at the +corners of his eyes, and there were the fines beneath them which all +back-country men have from screwing their sight against the brilliant +sunshine of the north-west. But the white of his eyes was as clear as +the shell of a bird's egg, the irises grey, flecked with hazel and +green, luminous, and ringed with fine black lines. When he pushed back +his hat, half a dozen lines from frowning against the glare were on his +forehead too. His thin, black hair, streaked with grey, lay flat across +and close to his head. He had a well-shaped nose and the sensitive +nostrils of a thoroughbred, although Michael himself said he was no +breed to speak of, but plain Australian—and proud of it. His father was +born in the country, and so was his mother. His father had been a +teemster, and his mother a storekeeper's daughter. Michael had wandered +from one mining field to another in his young days. He had worked in +Bendigo and Gippsland; later in Silver Town; and from the Barrier Ranges +had migrated to Chalk Cliffs, and from the Cliffs to Fallen Star Ridge. +He had been one of the first comers to the Ridge when opal was +discovered there.</p> + +<p>The Rouminofs had been on Chalk Cliffs too, and had come to the Ridge in +the early days of the rush. Paul had set up at the Cliffs as an opal +buyer, it was said; but he knew very little about opal. Anybody could +sell him a stone for twice as much as it was worth, and he could never +get a price from other buyers for the stones he bought. He soon lost any +money he possessed, and had drifted and swung with the careless life of +the place. He had worked as a gouger for a while when the blocks were +bought up. Then when the rush to the Ridge started, and most of the men +tramped north to try their luck on the new fields, he went with them; +and Mrs. Rouminof and Sophie followed a little later on Ed. Ventry's +bullock wagon, when Ed. was taking stores to the rush.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rouminof had lived in a hut at the Old Town even after the township +was moved to the eastern slope of the Ridge. She had learnt a good deal +about opal on the Cliffs, and soon after she came to the Ridge set up a +cutting-wheel, and started cutting and polishing stones. Several of the +men brought her their stones, and after a while she was so good at her +work that she often added a couple of pounds to the value of a stone. +She kept a few goats too, to assure a means of livelihood when there was +no opal about, and she sold goats' milk and butter in the township. She +had never depended on Rouminof to earn a living, which was just as well, +Fallen Star folk agreed, since, as long as they had known him, he had +never done so. For a long time he had drifted between the mines and +Newton's, cadging drinks or borrowing money from anybody who would lend +to him. Sometimes he did odd jobs at Newton's or the mail stables for +the price of a few drinks; but no man who knew him would take up a +claim, or try working a mine with him.</p> + +<p>His first mate on the Ridge had been Pony-Fence Inglewood. They sank a +hole on a likely spot behind the Old Town; but Paul soon got tired of +it. When they had not seen anything but bony potch for a while, Paul +made up his mind there was nothing in the place. Pony-Fence rather liked +it. He was for working a little longer, but to oblige his mate he agreed +to sink again. Soon after they had started, Paul began to appear at the +dump when the morning was half through, or not at all. Or, as often as +not, when he did decide to sling a pick, or dig a bit, he groaned so +about the pains in his back or his head that as often as not Pony-Fence +told him to go home and get the missus to give him something for it.</p> + +<p>The mildest man on the fields, Pony-Fence Inglewood did not discover for +some time what the boys said was correct. There was nothing the matter +with Rum-Enough but a dislike of shifting mullock if he could get anyone +to shift it for him. When he did discover he was doing the work of the +firm, Pony-Fence and Paul had it out with each other, and parted +company. Pony-Fence took a new mate, Bully Bryant, a youngster from +Budda, who was anxious to put any amount of elbow grease into his search +for a fortune, and Paul drifted. He had several mates afterwards, +newcomers to the fields, who wanted someone to work with them, but they +were all of the same opinion about him.</p> + +<p>"Tell Rum-Enough there's a bit of colour about, and he'll work like a +chow," they said; "but if y' don't see anything for a day or two, he +goes as flat as the day before yesterday."</p> + +<p>If he had been working, and happened on a knobby, or a bit of black +potch with a light or two in it, Paul was like a child, crazy with +happiness. He could talk of nothing else. He thought of nothing else. He +slung his pick and shovelled dirt as long as you would let him, with a +devouring impatience, in a frenzy of eagerness. The smallest piece of +stone with no more than sun-flash was sufficient to put him in a state +of frantic excitement.</p> + +<p>Strangers to the Ridge sometimes wanted to know whether Rouminof had +ever had a touch of the sun. But Ridge folk knew he was not mad. He had +the opal fever all right, they said, but he was not mad.</p> + +<p>When Jun Johnson blew along at the end of one summer and could not get +anyone to work with him, he took Paul on. The two chummed up and started +to sink a hole together, and the men made bets as to the chance of their +ever getting ten or a dozen feet below ground; but before long they were +astounded to see the old saw of setting a thief to catch a thief working +true in this instance. If anybody was loafing on the new claim, it was +not Rouminof. He did every bit of his share of the first day's hard pick +work and shovelling. If anybody was slacking, it was Jun rather than +Paul. Jun kept his mate's nose to the grindstone, and worked more +successfully with him than anyone else had ever done. He knew it, too, +and was proud of his achievement. Joking over it at Newton's in the +evening, he would say:</p> + +<p>"Great mate I've got now! Work? Never saw a chow work like him! Work his +fingers to the bone, he would, if I'd let him. It's a great life, a +gouger's, if only you've got the right sort of mate!"</p> + +<p>Ordinarily, of course, mates shared their finds. There was no question +of what partners would get out of the luck of one or the other. But +Jun—he had his own little way of doing business, everybody knew. He had +been on the Ridge before. He and his mate did not have any sensational +luck, but they had saved up two or three packets of opal and taken them +down to Sydney to sell. Old Bill Olsen was his mate then, and, although +Bill had said nothing of the business, the men guessed there had been +something shady about it. Jun had his own story of what happened. He +said the old chap had "got on his ear" in Sydney, and that "a couple of +spielers had rooked him of his stones." But Bill no longer noticed Jun +if they passed each other on the same track on the Ridge, and Jun +pretended to be sore about it.</p> + +<p>"It's dirt," he said, "the old boy treating me as if I had anything to +do with his bad luck losin' those stones!"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you speak to him about it?" somebody asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we had it out in Sydney," Jun replied, "and it's no good raking the +whole thing up again. Begones is bygones—that's my motto. But if any +man wants to have a grudge against me, well, let him. It's a free +country. That's all I've got to say. Besides, the poor old cuss isn't +all there, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Don't you fret," Michael had said, "he's all right. He's got as much +there as you or me, or any of us for that matter."</p> + +<p>"Oh well, you know, Michael," Jun declared. He was not going to quarrel +with Michael Brady. "What you say goes, anyhow!"</p> + +<p>That was how Jun established himself anywhere. He had an easy, +plausible, good-natured way. All the men laughed and drank with him and +gave him grudging admiration, notwithstanding the threads and shreds of +resentments and distrusts which old stories of his dealings, even with +mates, had put in their minds. None of those stories had been proved +against him, his friends said, Charley Heathfield among them. That was a +fact. But there were too many of them to be good for any man's soul, +Ridge men, who took Jun with a grain of salt, thought—Michael Brady, +George Woods, Archie Cross, and Watty Frost among them; but Charley +Heathfield, Michael's mate, had struck up a friendship with Jun since +his return to the Ridge.</p> + +<p>George Woods and the Crosses said it was a case of birds of a feather, +but they did not say that to Michael. They knew Michael had the sort of +affection for Charley that a man has for a dog he has saved from +drowning.</p> + +<p>Charley Heathfield had been down on his luck when he went to the Ridge, +his wife and a small boy with him; and the rush which he had expected to +bring him a couple of hundred pounds' worth of opal at least, if it did +not make his fortune, had left him worse off than it found him—a piece +of debris in its wake. He and Rouminof had put down a shaft together, +and as neither of them, after the first few weeks, did any more work +than they could help, and were drunk or quarrelling half of their time, +nothing came of their efforts.</p> + +<p>Charley, when his wife died, was ill himself, and living in a hut a few +yards from Michael's. She had been a waitress in a city restaurant, and +he had married her, he said, because she could carry ten dishes of hot +soup on one arm and four trays on the other. A tall, stolid, pale-faced +woman, she had hated the back-country and her husband's sense of humour, +and had fretted herself to death rather than endure them. Charley had no +particular opinion of himself or of her. He called his youngster +Potch—"a little bit of Potch," he said, because the kid would never be +anything better than poor opal at the best of times.</p> + +<p>Michael had nursed Charley while he was ill during that winter, and had +taken him in hand when he was well enough to get about again. Charley +was supposed to have weak lungs; but better food, steady habits, and the +fine, dry air of a mild summer set him up wonderfully. Snow-Shoes had +worked with Michael for a long time; he said that he was getting too old +for the everyday toil of the mine, though, when Michael talked of taking +on Charley to work with them. It would suit him all right if Michael +found another mate. Michael and Charley Heathfield had worked together +ever since, and Snow-Shoes had made his living as far as anybody knew by +noodling on the dumps.</p> + +<p>But Charley and Michael had not come on a glimmer of opal worth speaking +of for nearly twelve months. They were hanging on to their claim, hoping +each day they would strike something good. There is a superstition among +the miners that luck often changes when it seems at its worst. Both +Charley and Michael had storekeeper's accounts as long as their arms, +and the men knew if their luck did not change soon, one or the other of +them would have to go over to Warria, or to one of the other stations, +and earn enough money there to keep the other going on the claim.</p> + +<p>They had no doubt it would be Michael who would have to go. Charley was +not fond of work, and would be able to loaf away his time very +pleasantly on the mine, making only a pretence of doing anything, until +Michael returned. They wondered why Michael did not go and get a move +into his affairs at once. Paul and Sophie might have-something to do +with his putting off going, they told each other; Michael was anxious +how Paul and his luck would fare when it was a question of squaring up +with Jun, and as to how the squaring up, when it came, would affect +Sophie.</p> + +<p>Some of them had been concerning themselves on Paul's account also. They +did not like a good deal they had seen of the way Jun was using Paul, +and they had resolved to see he got fair play when it was time for a +settlement of his and Jun's account. George Woods, Watty Frost, and Bill +Grant went along to talk the matter over with Michael one evening, and +found him fixing a shed at the back of the hut which he and Potch had +put up for Sophie and her father, a few yards from Charley Heathfield's, +and in line with Michael's own hut at the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush.</p> + +<p>"Paul says he's going away if he gets a good thing out of his and Jun's +find," George Woods said.</p> + +<p>"It'll be a good thing—if he gets a fair deal," Michael replied.</p> + +<p>"He'll get that—if we can fix it," Watty Frost said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>"Can't think why you're taking so much trouble with this place if Paul +and Sophie are going away soon, Michael," George Woods remarked at the +end of their talk.</p> + +<p>"They're not gone yet," Michael said, and went on fastening a sapling +across the brushwood he had laid over the roof of the shed.</p> + +<p>The men laughed. They knew Paul well enough to realise that there was no +betting on what he would or would not do. They understood Michael did +not approve of his plans for Sophie. Nobody did. But what was to be +done? If Paul had the money and got the notion into his head that it +would be a good thing to go away, Sophie and he would probably go away. +But the money would not last, people thought; then Sophie and her father +would come back to the Ridge again, or Michael would go to look for +them. Being set adrift on the world with no one to look after her would +be hard on Sophie, it was agreed, but nobody saw how Rouminof was to be +prevented from taking her away if he wanted to.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + + +<p>The unwritten law of the Ridge was that mates pooled all the opal they +found and shared equally, so that all Jun held was Rouminof's, and all +that he held was Jun's. Ordinarily one man kept the lot, and as Jun was +the better dealer and master spirit, it was natural enough he should +hold the stones, or, at any rate, the best of them. But Rouminof was +like a child with opal. He wanted some of the stones to handle, polish +up a bit, and show round. Jun humoured him a good deal. He gave Paul a +packet of the stuff they had won to carry round himself. He was better +tempered and more easy-going with Rouminof, the men admitted, than most +of them would have been; but they could not believe Jun was going to +deal squarely by him.</p> + +<p>Jun and his mate seemed on the best of terms. Paul followed him about +like a dog, referring to him, quoting him, and taking his word for +everything. And Jun was openly genial with Paul, and talked of the times +they were going to have when they went down to Sydney together to sell +their opal.</p> + +<p>Paul was never tired of showing his stones, and almost every night at +Newton's he spread them out on a table, looked them over, and held them +up to admiration. It was good stuff, but the men who had seen Jun's +package knew that he had kept the best stones.</p> + +<p>For a couple of weeks after they had come on their nest of knobbies, Jun +and Paul had gouged and shovelled dirt enthusiastically; but the wisp +fires, mysteriously and suddenly as they had come, had died out of the +stone they moved. Paul searched frantically. He and Jun worked like +bullocks; but the luck which had flashed on them was withdrawn. Although +they broke new tunnels, went through tons of opal dirt with their hands, +and tracked every trace of black potch through a reef of cement stone in +the mine, not a spark of blue or green light had they seen for over a +week. That was the way of black opal, everybody knew, and knew, too, +that the men who had been on a good patch of fired stone would not work +on a claim, shovelling dirt, long after it disappeared. They would be +off down to Sydney, if no buyer was due to visit the fields, eager to +make the most of the good time their luck and the opal would bring them. +"Opal only brings you bad luck when you don't get enough of it," Ridge +folk say.</p> + +<p>George and Watty had a notion Jun would not stick to the claim much +longer, when they arranged the night at Newton's to settle his and +Paul's account with each other. Michael, the Crosses, Cash Wilson, +Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Bully Bryant, old Bill Olsen, and most +of the staunch Ridge men were in the bar, Charley Heathfield drinking +with Jun, when George Woods strolled over to the table where Rouminof +was showing Sam Nancarrow his stones. Sam was blacksmith, undertaker, +and electoral registrar in Fallen Star, and occasionally did odd +butchering jobs when there was no butcher in the township. He had the +reputation, too, of being one of the best judges of black opal on the +fields.</p> + +<p>Paul was holding up a good-looking knobby so that red, green, and gold +lights glittered through its shining potch as he moved it.</p> + +<p>"That's a nice bit of stone you've got, Rummy!" George exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Paul agreed. "But you should see her by candle light, George!" he said +eagerly.</p> + +<p>He held up the stone again so that it caught the light of a lamp hanging +over the bar where Peter Newton was standing. The eyes of two or three +of the men followed the stone as Paul moved it, and its internal fires +broke in showers of sparks.</p> + +<p>"Look, look!" Paul cried, "now she's showin'!"</p> + +<p>"How much have you got on her?" Sam Nancarrow asked.</p> + +<p>"Jun thinks she'll bring £50 or £60 at least."</p> + +<p>Sam's and George Woods' eyes met: £50 was a liberal estimate of the +stone's value. If Paul got £10 or £15 for it he would be doing well, +they knew.</p> + +<p>"They're nice stones, aren't they?" Paul demanded, sorting over the +opals he had spread out on the table. He held up a piece of green potch +with a sun-flash through it.</p> + +<p>"My oath!" George Woods exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"But where's the big beaut.?" Archie Cross asked, looking over the +stones with George.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jun's got her," Paul replied. "Jun!" he called, "the boys want to +see the big stone."</p> + +<p>"Right!" Jun swung across to the table. Several of the men by the bar +followed him. "She's all right," he said.</p> + +<p>He sat down, pulled a shabby leather wallet from his pocket, opened it, +and took out a roll of dirty flannel; he undid the flannel carefully, +and spread the stones on the table. There were several pieces of opal in +the packet. The men, who had seen them before separately, uttered soft +oaths of admiration and surprise when they saw all the opals together. +Two knobbies were as big as almonds, and looked like black almonds, +fossilised, with red fire glinting through their green and gold; a large +flat stone had stars of red, green, amethyst, blue and gold shifting +over and melting into each other; and several smaller stones, all good +stuff, showed smouldering fire in depths of green and blue and gold-lit +darkness.</p> + +<p>Jun held the biggest of the opals at arm's length from the light of the +hanging lamp. The men followed his movement, the light washing their +faces as it did the stone.</p> + +<p>"There she goes!" Paul breathed.</p> + +<p>"What have you got on her?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred pounds, or thereabouts."</p> + +<p>"You'll get it easy!"</p> + +<p>Jun put the stone down. He took up another, a smaller piece of opal, of +even finer quality. The stars were strewn over and over each other in +its limpid black pool.</p> + +<p>"Nice pattern," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Watty Frost murmured.</p> + +<p>"She's not as big as the other ... but better pattern," Archie Cross +said.</p> + +<p>"Reckon you'll get £100 for her too, Jun?"</p> + +<p>"Yup!" Jun put down the stone.</p> + +<p>Then he held up each stone in turn, and the men gave it the same level, +appraising glance. There was no envy in their admiration. In every man's +eyes was the same worshipful appreciation of black opal.</p> + +<p>Jun was drunk with his luck. His luck, as much as Newton's beer, was in +his head this night. He had shown his stones before, but never like +this, the strength of his luck.</p> + +<p>"How much do you think there is in your packet, Jun?" Archie Cross +asked.</p> + +<p>Jun stretched his legs under the table.</p> + +<p>"A thou' if there's a penny."</p> + +<p>Archie whistled.</p> + +<p>"And how much do you reckon there is in Rum-Enough's?" George Woods put +the question.</p> + +<p>"Four or five hundred," Jun said; "but we're evens, of course."</p> + +<p>He leaned across the table and winked at George.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say," Archie protested, "what's the game?"</p> + +<p>They knew Jun wanted them to believe he was joking, humouring Paul. But +that was not what they had arranged this party for.</p> + +<p>"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones, Jun?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>Jun started and stared about him. It was so unusual for one man to +suggest to another what he ought to do, or that there was anything like +bad faith in his dealings with his mates, that his blood rose.</p> + +<p>"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones?" George repeated, +mildly eyeing him over the bowl of his pipe.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Watty butted in, "Rummy ought to hold a few of the good stones, +Jun. Y' see, you might be run into by rats ... or get knocked out—and +have them shook off you, like Oily did down in Sydney—and it'd be hard +on Rummy, that—"</p> + +<p>"When I want your advice about how me and my mate's going to work +things, I'll ask you," Jun snarled.</p> + +<p>"We don't mind giving it before we're asked, Jun," Watty explained +amiably.</p> + +<p>Archie Cross leaned across the table. "How about giving Paul a couple of +those bits of decent pattern—if you stick to the big stone?" he said.</p> + +<p>"What's the game?" Jun demanded, sitting up angrily. His hand went over +his stones.</p> + +<p>"Wait on, Jun!" Michael said. "We're not thieves here. You don't have to +grab y'r stones."</p> + +<p>Jun looked about him. He saw that men of the Ridge, in the bar, were all +standing round the table. Only Peter Newton was left beside the bar, +although Charley Heathfield, on the outer edge of the crowd, regarded +him with a smile of faint sympathy and cynicism. Paul leaned over the +table before him, and looked from Jun to the men who had fallen in round +the table, a dazed expression broadening on his face.</p> + +<p>"What the hell's the matter?" Jun cried, starting to his feet. "What are +you chaps after? Can't I manage me own affairs and me mate's?"</p> + +<p>The crowd moved a little, closer to him. There was no chance of making a +break for it.</p> + +<p>George Woods laughed.</p> + +<p>"Course you can't, Jun!" he said. "Not on the Ridge, you can't manage +your affairs and your mate's ... your way ... Not without a little +helpful advice from the rest of us.... Sit down!"</p> + +<p>Jun glanced about him again; then, realising the intention on every +face, and something of the purpose at the back of it, he sat down again.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I see—you believe old Olsen's +story. That's about the strength of it. Never thought ... a kid, or a +chicken, 'd believe that bloody yarn. Well, what's the advice ... boys? +Let's have it, and be done with it!"</p> + +<p>"We'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. We won't say anything about ... +why," George remarked. "But the boys and I was just thinking it might be +as well if you and Rum-Enough sort of shared up the goods now, and then +... if he doesn't want to go to Sydney same time as you, Jun, he can +deal his goods here, or when he does go."</p> + +<p>No one knew better than Jun the insult which all this seemingly +good-natured talking covered. He knew that neither he, nor any other +man, would have dared to suggest that Watty, or George, or Michael, were +not to be trusted to deal for their mates, to the death even. But then +he knew, too, they were to be trusted; that there was not money enough +in the world to buy their loyalty to each other and to their mates, and +that he could measure their suspicion of his good faith by his knowledge +of himself. To play their game as they would have played it was the only +thing for him to do, he recognised.</p> + +<p>"Right!" he said, "I'm more than willing. In fact, I wouldn't have the +thing on me mind—seein' the way you chaps 've taken it. But 'd like to +know which one of you wouldn't 've done what I've done if Rum-Enough was +your mate?"</p> + +<p>Every man was uneasily conscious that Jun was right. Any one of them, if +he had Paul for a mate, would have taken charge of the most valuable +stones, in Paul's interest as well as his own. At the same time, every +man felt pretty sure the thing was a horse of another colour where Jun +was concerned.</p> + +<p>"Which one of us," George Woods inquired, "if a mate'd been set on by a +spieler in Sydney, would've let him stump his way to Brinarra and foot +it out here ... like you let old Olsen?"</p> + +<p>Jun's expression changed; his features blenched, then a flame of blood +rushed over his face.</p> + +<p>"It's a lie," he yelled. "He cleared out—I never saw him afterwards!"</p> + +<p>"Oh well," George said, "we'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. Let's have a +look at that flat stone."</p> + +<p>Jun handed him the stone.</p> + +<p>George held it to the light.</p> + +<p>"Nice bit of opal," he said, letting the light play over it a moment, +then passed it on to Michael and Watty.</p> + +<p>"You keep the big stone, and Paul'll have this," Archie Cross said.</p> + +<p>He put the stone beside Paul's' little heap of gems.</p> + +<p>Jun sat back in his chair: his eyes smouldering as the men went over his +opals, appraising and allotting each one, putting some before Rouminof, +and some back before him. They dealt as judicially with the stones as +though they were a jury of experts, on the case—as they really were. +When their decisions were made, Jun had still rather the better of the +stones, although the division had been as nearly fair as possible.</p> + +<p>Paul was too dazed and amazed to speak. He glanced dubiously from his +stones to Jun, who rolled his opals back in the strip of dirty flannel, +folded it into his leather wallet, and dropped that into his coat +pocket. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up.</p> + +<p>Big and swarthy, with eyes which took a deeper colour from the new blue +shirt he had on, Jun stood an inch or so above the other men.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you boys have put it across me to-night. You've made a +mistake ... but I'm not one to bear malice. You done right if you +thought I wasn't going to deal square by Rum-Enough ... but I'll lay you +any money you like I'd 've made more money for him by selling his stones +than he'll make himself—Still, that's your business ... if you want it +that way. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm just where I was—in luck. +And you chaps owe me something.... Come and have a drink."</p> + +<p>Most of the men, who believed Jun was behaving with better grace than +they had expected him to, moved off to have a drink with him. They were +less sure than they had been earlier in the evening that they had done +Rouminof a good turn by giving him possession of his share of the opals. +It was just on the cards, they realised as Jun said, that instead of +doing Rouminof a good turn, if Jun had been going to deal squarely by +him, they had done him a rather bad one. Paul was pretty certain to make +a mess of trading his own stones, and to get about half their value from +an opal-buyer if he insisted on taking them down to Sydney to sell +himself.</p> + +<p>"What'll you do now your fortune's fixed up, Rummy?" George Woods asked, +jokingly, when he and two or three men were left with Paul by the table.</p> + +<p>"I'll get out of this," Paul said. "We'll go down to Sydney—me and +Sophie—and we'll say good-bye to the Ridge for good."</p> + +<p>The men laughed. It was the old song of an outsider who cared nothing +for the life of the Ridge, when he got a couple of hundred pounds' worth +of opal. He thought he was made for life and would never come back to +the Ridge; but he always did when his money was spent. Only Michael, +standing a little behind George Woods, did not smile.</p> + +<p>"But you can't live for ever on three or four hundred quid," Watty Frost +said.</p> + +<p>"No," Paul replied eagerly, "but I can always make a bit playing at +dances, and Sophie's going to be a singer. You wait till people hear her +sing.... Her mother was a singer. She had a beautiful voice. When it +went we came here.... But Sophie can sing as well as her mother. And +she's young. She ought to make a name for herself."</p> + +<p>He wrapped the stones before him in a piece of wadding, touching them +reverently, and folded them into the tin cigarette box Michael had given +him to carry about the first stones Jun had let him have. He was still +mystified over the business of the evening, and why the boys had made +Jun give him the other stones. He had been quite satisfied for Jun to +hold most of the stones, and the best ones, as any man on the Ridge +would be for his mate to take care of their common property. There was a +newspaper lying on the table. He took it, wrapped it carefully about his +precious box, tied a piece of strong string round it, and let the box +down carefully into the big, loose pocket of his shabby coat.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + + +<p>Watty and George were well satisfied with their night's work when they +went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said +nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as they were at +what had been done and the way in which it had been done. Michael was +always chary of words, and all night they had noticed that what they +called his "considering cap" had been well drawn over his brows. He +stood smoking beside them and listening abstractedly to what they were +saying.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's fixed him," Watty remarked, glancing back into the room +they had just left.</p> + +<p>Jun was leaning over the bar talking to Newton, the light from the lamp +above, on his red, handsome face, and cutting the bulk of his head and +shoulders from the gloom of the room and the rest of the men about him. +Peter Newton was serving drinks, and Jun laughing and joking +boisterously as he handed them on to the men.</p> + +<p>"He's a clever devil!" George exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't wonder if he didn't clear out by the coach to-morrow," George +said.</p> + +<p>"Nor me," Watty grunted.</p> + +<p>"Well, he won't be taking Paul with him."</p> + +<p>"Not to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But Rummy's going down to town soon as he can get, he says."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Say, Michael, why don't you try scarin' him about losing his stones +like Bill Olsen did?"</p> + +<p>"I have."</p> + +<p>"What does he say?"</p> + +<p>"Says," Michael smiled, "the sharks won't get any of his money or opal."</p> + +<p>Watty snuffed contemptuously by way of exclamation.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be getting along," Michael added, and talked away in the +direction of his hut.</p> + +<p>George and Watty watched his spare figure sway down the road between the +rows of huts which formed the Fallen Star township. It was a misty +moonlight night, and the huts stood dark against the sheening screen of +sky, with here and there a glow of light through open doorways, or +small, square window panes.</p> + +<p>"It's on Michael's mind, Rum-Enough's going and taking Sophie with him," +George, said.</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder," Watty replied. "He'll come a cropper, sure as eggs.... +And what's to become of her? Michael 'd go to town with them if he had a +bean—but he hasn't. He's stony, I know."</p> + +<p>Even to his mate he did not say why he knew, and George did not ask, +understanding Watty's silence. It was not very long since George himself +had given Michael a couple of pounds; but he had a very good idea +Michael had little to do with the use of that money. He guessed that he +would have less to do with whatever he got from Watty.</p> + +<p>"Charley's going over to Warria to-morrow, isn't he?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Watty grunted. "About time he did something. Michael's been grafting for +him for a couple of years ... and he'd have gone to the station +himself—only he didn't want to go away till he knew what Paul was going +to do. Been trying pretty hard to persuade him to leave Sophie—till +he's fixed up down town—but you wouldn't believe how obstinate the +idiot is. Thinks he can make a singer of her in no time ... then she'll +keep her old dad till kingdom come."</p> + +<p>Michael's figure was lost to sight between the trees which encroached on +the track beyond the town. Jun was singing in the hotel. His great +rollicking voice came to George and Watty with shouts of laughter. +George, looking back through the open door, saw Rouminof had joined the +crowd round the bar.</p> + +<p>He was drinking as George's glance fell on him.</p> + +<p>"Think he's all right?" Watty asked.</p> + +<p>George did not reply.</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose Jun 'd try to take the stones off of him, do you, +George?" Watty inquired again. "You don't think——?"</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose he'd dare, seein' we've ... let him know how we feel."</p> + +<p>George spoke slowly, as if he were not quite sure of what he was saying.</p> + +<p>"He knows his hide'd suffer if he tried."</p> + +<p>"That's right."</p> + +<p>Archie Cross came from the bar and joined them.</p> + +<p>"He's trying to make up to the boys—he likes people to think he's +Christmas, Jun," he said, "and he just wants 'em to forget that +anything's been said—detrimental to his character like."</p> + +<p>George was inclined to agree with Archie. They went to the form against +the wall of the hotel and sat there smoking for a while; then all three +got up to go home.</p> + +<p>"You don't think we ought to see Rummy home?" Watty inquired +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed to suggest that Rouminof, drunk, and with four or five +hundred pounds' worth of opal in his pockets, was not as safe as if his +pockets were empty. But Jun had brought a curious unrest into the +community. Watty, or Archie, or George, themselves would have walked +about with the same stuff in their pockets without ever thinking anybody +might try to put a finger on it.</p> + +<p>None of the three looked at each other as they thought over the +proposition. Then Archie spoke:</p> + +<p>"I told Ted," he murmured apologetically, "to keep an eye on Rummy, as +he's coming home. If there's rats about, you never can tell what may +happen. We ain't discovered yet who put it over on Rummy and Jun on the +day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. So I just worded Ted to keep an eye on +the old fool. He comes our track most of the way ... And if he's tight, +he might start sheddin' his stones out along the road—you never can +tell."</p> + +<p>George Woods laughed. The big, genial soul of the man looked out of his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's true," he said heartily.</p> + +<p>Archie and he smiled into each other's eyes. They understood very well +what lay behind Archie's words; They could not bring themselves to admit +there was any danger to the sacred principle of Ridge life, that a mate +stands by a mate, in letting Rouminof wander home by himself. He might +be in danger if there were rats about; they would admit that. But rats, +the men who sneaked into other men's mines when they were on good stuff, +and took out their opal during the night, were never Ridge men. They +were new-comers, outsiders, strangers on the rushes, who had not learnt +or assimilated Ridge ideas.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes George turned away. "Well, good-night, Archie," he +said.</p> + +<p>Watty moved after him.</p> + +<p>"'Night!" Archie replied.</p> + +<p>George and Watty went along the road together, and Archie walked off in +the direction Michael had taken.</p> + +<p>But Michael had not gone home. When the trees screened him from sight, +he had struck out across the Ridge, then, turning back on his tracks +behind the town, had made towards the Warria road. He walked, thinking +hard, without noticing where he was going, his mind full of Paul, of +Sophie, and of his promise.</p> + +<p>Now that Paul had his opal, it was clear he would be able to do as he +wished—leave the Ridge and take Sophie with him. For the time being at +least he was out of Jun Johnson's hands—but Michael was sure he would +not stay out of them if he went to Sydney. How to prevent his +going—how, rather, to prevent Sophie going with him—-that was +Michael's problem. He did not know what he was going to do.</p> + +<p>He had asked Sophie not to go with her father. He had told her what her +mother had said, and tried to explain to her why her mother had not +wanted her to go away from the Ridge, or to become a public singer. But +Sophie was as excited about her future as her father was. It was natural +she should be, Michael assured himself. She was young, and had heard +wonderful stories of Sydney and the world beyond the Ridge. Sydney was +like the town in a fairy tale to her.</p> + +<p>It was not to be expected, Michael confessed to himself, that Sophie +would choose to stay on Fallen Star Ridge. If she could only be +prevailed upon to put off her departure until she was older and better +able to take care of herself, he would be satisfied. If the worst came +to the worst, and she went to Sydney with her father soon, Michael had +decided to go with them. Peter Newton would give him a couple of pounds +for his books, he believed, and he would find something to do down in +Sydney. His roots were in the Ridge. Michael did not know how he was +going to live away from the mines; but anything seemed better than that +Sophie should be committed to what her mother had called "the +treacherous whirlpool" of life in a great city, with no one but her +father to look after her.</p> + +<p>And her mother had said:</p> + +<p>"Don't let him take her away, Michael."</p> + +<p>Michael believed that Marya Rouminof intended Sophie to choose for +herself whether she would stay on the Ridge or not, when she was old +enough. But now she was little more than a child, sixteen, nearly +seventeen, young for her years in some ways and old in others. Michael +knew her mother had wanted Sophie to grow up on the Ridge and to realise +that all the potentialities of real and deep happiness were there.</p> + +<p>"They say there's got to be a scapegoat in every family, Michael," she +had said once. "Someone has to pay for the happiness of the others. If +all that led to my coming here will mean happiness for Sophie, it will +not have been in vain."</p> + +<p>"That's where you're wrong," Michael had told her.</p> + +<p>"Looking for justice—poetic justice, isn't it, they call it?—in the +working out of things. There isn't any of this poetic justice except by +accident. The natural laws just go rolling on—laying us out under them. +All we can do is set our lives as far as possible in accordance with +them and stand by the consequences as well as we know how."</p> + +<p>"Of course, you're right," she had sighed, "but——"</p> + +<p>It was for that "but" Michael was fighting now. He knew what lay beyond +it—a yearning for her child to fare a little better in the battle of +life than she had. Striding almost unconsciously over the loose, shingly +ground, Michael was not aware what direction his steps were taking until +he saw glimmering white shapes above the grass and herbage of the +plains, and realised that he had walked to the gates of the cemetery.</p> + +<p>With an uncomfortable sense of broken faith, he turned away from the +gate, unable to go in and sit under the tree there, to smoke and think, +as he sometimes did. He had used every argument with Paul to prevent his +taking Sophie away, he knew; but for the first time since Michael and he +had been acquainted with each other, Paul had shown a steady will. He +made up his mind he was "going to shake the dust of the Ridge off his +feet," he said. And that was the end of it. Michael almost wished the +men had let Jun clear out with his stones. That would have settled the +business. But, his instinct of an opal-miner asserting itself, he was +unable to wish Paul the loss of his luck, and Jun what he would have to +be to deprive Paul of it. He walked on chewing the cud of bitter and +troubled reflections.</p> + +<p>"Don't let him take her away!" a voice seemed to cry suddenly after him.</p> + +<p>Michael stopped; he snatched the hat from his head.</p> + +<p>"No!" he said, "he shan't take her away!"</p> + +<p>Startled by the sound of his own voice, the intensity of thinking which +had wrung it from him, dazed by the sudden strength of resolution which +had come over him, he stood, his face turned to the sky. The stars +rained their soft light over him. As he looked up to them, his soul went +from him by force of will. How long he stood like that, he did not know; +but when his eyes found the earth again he looked about him wonderingly. +After a little while he put on his hat and turned away. All the pain and +trouble were taken from his thinking; he was strangely soothed and +comforted. He went back along the road to the town, and, skirting the +trees and the houses on the far side, came again to the track below +Newton's.</p> + +<p>Lights were still shining in the hotel although it was well after +midnight. Michael could hear voices in the clear air. A man was singing +one of Jun's choruses as he went down the road towards the Punti Rush. +Michael kept on his way. He was still wondering what he could do to +prevent Paul taking Sophie away; but he was no longer worried about +it—his brain was calm and clear; his step lighter than it had been for +a long time.</p> + +<p>He heard the voices laughing and calling to each other as he walked on.</p> + +<p>"Old Ted!" he commented to himself, recognising Ted Cross's voice. "He's +blithered!"</p> + +<p>When he came to a fork in the tracks where one went off in the direction +of his, Charley's, and Rouminof's huts, and the other towards the +Crosses', Michael saw Ted Cross lumbering along in the direction of his +own hut.</p> + +<p>"Must 've been saying good-night to Charley and Paul," he thought. A +little farther along the path he saw Charley and Paul, unsteady shadows +ahead of him in the moonlight, and Charley had his arm under Paul's, +helping him home.</p> + +<p>"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he +loved.</p> + +<p>He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, +Charley's even and clear.</p> + +<p>"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. +He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, +and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening.</p> + +<p>Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his +steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's +hand—something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box +wrapped in newspaper, it might have been—and Michael saw Charley drop +it into the pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p>Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep +there on the roadside; but Charley led him on.</p> + +<p>"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there +now."</p> + +<p>Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the +shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back +along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. +He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his +brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had +stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, +notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, +Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened.</p> + +<p>The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood +only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track.</p> + +<p>Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. +He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a +second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would +discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then +Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared.</p> + +<p>When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, +keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his +boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles +beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move +on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood +beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared +pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was +sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer +on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as +if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The +wall creaked as Michael leaned against it.</p> + +<p>"Who's there?" Charley cried sharply.</p> + +<p>He threw a blanket over the box on the bed and started to the door.</p> + +<p>Michael moved round the corner of the house. He heard Potch call +sleepily:</p> + +<p>"That you?"</p> + +<p>Charley growled;</p> + +<p>"Oh, go to sleep, can't you? Aren't you asleep yet?"</p> + +<p>Potch murmured, and there was silence again.</p> + +<p>Michael heard Charley go to the door, look out along the road, and turn +back into the hut. Then Michael moved along the wall to the window.</p> + +<p>Charley was taking down some clothes hanging from nails along the inner +wall. He changed from the clothes he had on into them, picked up his +hat, lying where he had thrown it on the floor beside the bed when he +came in, rolled it up, straightened the brim and dinged the crown to his +liking. Then he picked up the packet of opal, put it in his coat pocket, +and went into the other room. Michael followed to the window which gave +on it. He saw Charley glance at the sofa as though he were contemplating +a stretch, but, thinking better of it, he settled into an easy, +bag-bottomed old chair by the table, pulled a newspaper to him, and +began to read by the guttering light of his candle.</p> + +<p>Michael guessed why Charley had dressed, and why he had chosen to sit +and read rather than go to sleep. It was nearly morning, the first chill +of dawn in the air. The coach left at seven o'clock, and Charley meant +to catch the coach. He had no intention of going to Warria. Michael +began to get a bird's-eye view of the situation. He wondered whether +Charley had ever intended going to Warria. He realised Charley would go +off with the five pound note he had made him, Michael, get from Watty +Frost, as well as with Paul's opals. He began, to see clearly what that +would mean, too—Charley's getting away with Paul's opals. Paul would +not be able to take Sophie away....</p> + +<p>In the branches of a shrub nearby, a white-tail was crying plaintively: +"Sweet pretty creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael remembered how +it had cried like that on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral.</p> + +<p>Whether to go into the hut, tell Charley he knew what he had done, and +demand the return of the opals, or let him get away with them, Michael +had not decided, when Charley's hand went to his pocket, and, as it +closed over the package of opals, a smile of infantile satisfaction +flitted across his face. That smile, criminal in its treachery, enraged +Michael more than the deed itself. The candle Charley had been reading +by guttered out. He stumbled about the room looking for another. After a +while, as if he could not find one, he went back to his chair and +settled into it. The room fell into darkness, lit only by the dim pane +of the window by which Michael was standing.</p> + +<p>Michael's mind seethed with resentment and anger. The thing he had +prayed for, that his brain had ached over, had been arranged. Rouminof +would not be able to take Sophie away. But Michael was too good a Ridge +man not to detest Charley's breach of the good faith of the Ridge. +Charley had been accepted by men of the Ridge as one of themselves—at +least, Michael believed he had.</p> + +<p>George, Watty, the Crosses, and most of the other men would have +confessed to reservations where Charley Heathfield was concerned. But as +long as he had lived as a mate among them, they had been mates to him. +Michael did not want Rouminof to have his stones if having them meant +taking Sophie away, but he did not want him to lose them. He could not +allow Charley to get away with them, with that smile of infantile +satisfaction. If the men knew what he had done there would be little of +that smile left on his face when they had finished with him. Their +methods of dealing with rats were short and severe. And although he +deserved all he got from them, Michael was not able to decide to hand +Charley over to the justice of the men of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>As he hesitated, wondering what to do, the sound of heavy, regular +breathing came to him, and, looking through the window, he saw that +Charley had done the last thing he intended to do—he had fallen asleep +in his chair.</p> + +<p>In a vivid, circling flash, Michael's inspiration came to him. He went +across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the +black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a +bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin—a few +pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an +opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the +rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years—that was all. +Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to +the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had +kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer +in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He +wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he +blew out his candle and went out of doors again.</p> + +<p>He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley's hut. When he +reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether +Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and +regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. +He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was +sleeping.</p> + +<p>He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he +had done what he did. He knew only a sick fear possessed him that +Charley would wake and find him, Michael, barefooted, like a thief in +his house. But he was not a thief, he assured himself. It was not +thieving to take from a thief.</p> + +<p>Charley stirred uneasily. His arm went out; in the dim light Michael saw +it go over the pocket which held the packet of opal; his hand clutch at +it unconsciously. Sweating with fear and the nervous tension he was +under, Michael remained standing in the darkness. He waited, wondering +whether he would throw off Charley's hand and snatch the opal, or +whether he would stand till morning, hesitating, and wondering what to +do, and Charley would wake at last and find him there. He had decided to +wrench Charley's arm from the pocket, when Charley himself flung it out +with a sudden restless movement.</p> + +<p>In an instant, almost mechanically, Michael's hand went to the pocket. +He lifted the packet there and put his own in its place.</p> + +<p>The blood was booming in his ears when he turned to the door. A sense of +triumph unnerved him more than the execution of his inspiration. Charley +muttered and called out in his sleep as Michael passed through the +doorway.</p> + +<p>Then the stars were over him. Michael drew a deep breath of the night +air and crossed to his own hut, the package of opal under his coat. Just +as he was entering he drew back, vaguely alarmed. A movement light as +thistledown seemed to have caught his ear. He thought he had detected a +faint shifting of the shingle nearby. He glanced about with quick +apprehension, went back to Charley's hut, listened, and looked around; +but Charley was still sleeping. Michael walked back to his own hut. +There was no sight or sound of a living thing in the wan, misty +moonlight of the dawn, except the white-tail which was still crying from +a wilga near Charley's hut.</p> + +<p>The package under his coat felt very heavy and alive when he returned to +his own hut. Michael was disturbed by that faint sound he had heard, or +thought he had heard. He persuaded himself he had imagined it, that in +the overwrought state of his sensibilities the sound of his own breath, +and his step on the stones, had surprised and alarmed him. The tin of +opals burned against his body, seeming to scar the skin where it +pressed. Michael sickened at the thought of how what he had done might +look to anyone who had seen him. But he put the thought from him. It was +absurd. He had looked; there was no one about—nothing. He was allowing +his mind to play tricks with him. The success of what he had done made +him seem like a thief. But he was not a thief. The stones were +Rouminof's. He had taken them from Charley for him, and he would not +even look at them. He would keep them for Paul.</p> + +<p>If Charley got away without discovering the change of the packets, as he +probably would, in the early morning and in his excitement to catch the +coach, he would be considered the thief. Rouminof would accuse him; +Charley would know his own guilt. He would not dare to confess what he +had done, even when he found that his package of opal had been changed. +He would not know when it had been changed. He would not know whether it +had been changed, perhaps, before he took it from Rouminof.</p> + +<p>Charley might recognise the stones in that packet he had done up, +Michael realised; but he did not think so. Charley was not much of a +judge of opal. Michael did not think he would remember the few scraps of +sun-flash they had come on together, and Charley had never seen the +mascot he had put into the packet, with a remnant of feeling for the +memory of their working days together.</p> + +<p>Michael did not light the candle when he went into his hut again. He +threw himself down on the bed in his clothes; he knew that he would not +sleep as he lay there. His brain burned and whirled, turning over the +happenings of the night and their consequences, likely and unlikely. The +package of opal lay heavy in his pocket. He took it out and dropped it +into a box of books at the end of the room.</p> + +<p>He did not like what he had done, and yet he was glad he had done it. +When he could see more clearly, he was glad, too, that he had grasped +this opportunity to control circumstances. A reader and dreamer all his +days, he had begun to be doubtful of his own capacity for action. He +could think and plan, but he doubted whether he had strength of will to +carry out purposes he had dreamed a long time over. He was pleased, in +an odd, fierce way, that he had been able to do what he thought should +be done.</p> + +<p>"But I don't want them.... I don't want the cursed stones," he argued +with himself. "I'll give them to him—to Paul, as soon as I know what +ought to be done about Sophie. She's not old enough to go yet—to know +her own mind—what she wants to do. When she's older she can decide for +herself. That's what her mother meant. She didn't mean for always ... +only while she's a little girl. By and by, when she's a woman, Sophie +can decide for herself. Now, she's got to stay here ... that's what I +promised."</p> + +<p>"And Charley," he brooded. "He deserves all that's coming to him ... but +I couldn't give him away. The boys would half kill him if they got their +hands on to him. When will he find out? In the train, perhaps—or not +till he gets to Sydney.... He'll have my fiver, and the stones to go on +with—though they won't bring much. Still, they'll do to go on with.... +Paul'll be a raving lunatic when he knows ... but he can't go—he can't +take Sophie away."</p> + +<p>His brain surged over and over every phrase: his state of mind since he +had seen Charley and Paul on the road together; every argument he had +used with himself. He could not get away from the double sense of +disquiet and satisfaction.</p> + +<p>An hour or two later he heard Charley moving about, then rush off down +the track, sending the loose stones flying under his feet as he ran to +catch the coach.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + + +<p>Watty was winding dirt, standing by the windlass on the top of the dump +over his and his mates' mine, when he saw Paul coming along the track +from the New Town. Paul was breaking into a run at every few yards, and +calling out. Watty threw the mullock from his hide bucket as it came up, +and lowered it again. He wound up another bucket. The creak of the +windlass, and the fall of the stone and earth as he threw them over the +dump, drowned the sound of Rouminof's voice. As he came nearer, Watty +saw that he was gibbering with rage, and crying like a child.</p> + +<p>While he was still some distance away, Watty heard him sobbing and +calling out.</p> + +<p>He stopped work to listen as Paul came to the foot of Michael's dump. +Ted Cross, who was winding dirt on the top of Crosses' mine, stopped to +listen too. Old Olsen got up from where he lay noodling on Jun's and +Paul's claim, and went across to Paul. Snow-Shoes, stretched across the +slope near where Watty was standing, lifted his head, his turning of +earth with a little blunt stick arrested for the moment.</p> + +<p>"They've took me stones!... Took me stones!" Watty heard Paul cry to +Bill Olsen. And as he climbed the slope of Michael's dump he went on +crying: "Took me stones! Took me stones! Charley and Jun! Gone by the +coach! Michael!... They've gone by the coach and took me stones!"</p> + +<p>Over and over again he said the same thing in an incoherent wail and +howl. He went down the shaft of Michael's mine, and Ted Cross came +across from his dump to Watty.</p> + +<p>"Hear what he says, Watty?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Watty replied.</p> + +<p>"It gets y'r wind——"</p> + +<p>"If it's true," Watty ventured slowly.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me it's true all right," Ted said. "Charley took him home last +night. I went along with them as far as the turn-off. Paul was a bit on +... and Archie asked me to keep an eye on him.... I was a bit on meself, +too ... but Charley came along with us—so I thought he'd be all +right.... Charley went off by the coach this morning.... Bill Olsen told +me.... And Michael was reck'ning on him goin' to Warria to-day, I know."</p> + +<p>"That's right!"</p> + +<p>"It'll be hard on Michael!"</p> + +<p>Watty's gesture, upward jerk of his chin, and gusty breath, denoted his +agreement on that score.</p> + +<p>Ted went back to his own claim, and Watty slid down the rope with his +next bucket to give his mates the news. It was nearly time to knock off +for the midday meal, and before long men from all the claims were +standing in groups hearing the story from Rouminof himself, or talking +it over together.</p> + +<p>Michael had come up from his mine soon after Paul had gone down to him. +The men had seen him go off down the track to the New Town, his head +bent. They thought they knew why. Michael would feel his mate's +dishonour as though it were his own. He would not be able to believe +that what Paul said was true. He would want to know from Peter Newton +himself if it was a fact that Charley had gone out on the coach with Jun +and two girls who had been at the hotel.</p> + +<p>Women were scarce on the opal fields, and the two girls who had come a +week before to help Mrs. Newton with the work of the hotel had been +having the time of their lives. Charley, Jun Johnson, and two or three +other men, had been shouting drinks for them from the time of their +arrival, and Mrs. Newton had made up her mind to send the girls back to +town by the next coach. Jun had appropriated the younger of the two, a +bright-eyed girl, and the elder, a full-bosomed, florid woman with +straw-coloured hair, had, as the boys said, "taken a fancy to Charley."</p> + +<p>Paul had already told his story once or twice when Cash Wilson, George, +and Watty, went across to where he was standing, with half a dozen of +the men about him. They were listening gravely and smoking over Paul's +recital. There had been ratting epidemics on the Ridge; but robbery of a +mate by a mate had never occurred before. It struck at the fundamental +principle of their life in common. There was no mistaking the grave, +rather than indignant view men of the Ridge took of what Charley had +done. The Ridge code affirmed simply that "a mate stands by a mate." The +men say: "You can't go back on a mate." By those two recognitions they +had run their settlement. Far from all the ordinary institutions of law +and order, they had lived and worked together without need of them, by +appreciation of their relationship to each other as mates and as a +fraternity of mates. No one, who had lived under and seemed to accept +the principle of mateship, had ever before done as Charley had done.</p> + +<p>"But Charley Heathfield was never one of us really," Ted Cross said. "He +was always an outsider."</p> + +<p>"That's right, Ted," George Woods replied. "We only stuck him on +Michael's account."</p> + +<p>Paul told George, Watty, and Cash the story he had been going over all +the morning—how he had gone home with Charley, how he remembered going +along the road with him, and then how he had wakened on the floor of his +own hut in the morning. Sophie was there. She was singing. He had +thought it was her mother. He had called her ... but Sophie had come to +him. And she had abused him. She had called him "a dirty, fat pig," and +told him to get out of the way because she wanted to sweep the floor.</p> + +<p>He sobbed uncontrollably. The men sympathised with him. They knew the +loss of opal came harder on Rouminof than it would have on the rest of +them, because he was so mad about the stuff. They condoned the +abandonment of his grief as natural enough in a foreigner, too; but +after a while it irked them.</p> + +<p>"Take a pull at y'rself, Rummy, can't you?" George Woods said irritably. +"What did Michael say?"</p> + +<p>"Michael?" Paul looked at him, his eyes streaming.</p> + +<p>George nodded.</p> + +<p>"He did not say," Paul replied. "He threw down his pick. He would not +work any more ... and then he went down to Newton's to ask about +Charley."</p> + +<p>Two or three of the men exchanged glances. That was the way they had +expected Michael to take the news. He would not have believed Paul's +story at first. They did not see Michael again that day. In the evening +Peter Newton told them how Michael had come to him, asking if it was +true Charley had gone on the coach with Jun Johnson and the girls. Peter +told Michael, he said, that Charley had gone on the coach, and that he +thought Rouminof's story looked black against Charley.</p> + +<p>"Michael didn't say much," Peter explained, "but I don't think he could +help seeing what I said was true—however much he didn't want to."</p> + +<p>Everybody knew Michael believed in Charley Heathfield. He had thought +the worst that could be said of Charley was that he was a good-natured, +rather shiftless fellow. All the men had responded to an odd attractive +faculty Charley exercised occasionally. He had played it like a woman +for Michael, and Michael had taken him on as a mate and worked with him +when no one else would. And now, the men guessed, that Michael, who had +done more than any of them to make the life of the Ridge what it was, +would feel more deeply and bitterly than any of them that Charley had +gone back on him and on what the Ridge stood for.</p> + +<p>All they imagined Michael was suffering in the grief and bitterness of +spirit which come of misplaced faith, he was suffering. But they could +not imagine the other considerations which had overshadowed grief and +bitterness, the realisation that Sophie's life had been saved from what +looked like early wreckage, and the consciousness that the consequences +of what Charley had done, had fallen, not on Charley, but on himself. +Michael had lived like a child, with an open heart at the disposal of +his mates always; and the sense of Charley's guilt descending on him, +had created a subtle ostracism, a remote alienation from them.</p> + +<p>He could not go to Newton's in the evening and talk things over with the +men as he ordinarily would have. He wandered over the dumps of deserted +rushes at the Old Town, his eyes on the ground or on the distant +horizons. He could still only believe he had done the best thing +possible under the circumstances. If he had let Charlie go away with the +stones, Sophie would have been saved, but Paul would have lost his +stones. As it was, Sophie was saved, and Paul had not lost his stones. +And Michael could not have given Charley away. Charley had been his +mate; they had worked together. The men might suspect, but they could +not convict him of being what he was unless they knew what Michael knew. +Charley had played on the affection, the simplicity of Michael's belief +in him. He had used them, but Michael had still a lingering tenderness +and sympathy for him. It was that which had made him put the one decent +piece of opal he possessed into the parcel he had made up for Charley to +take instead of Paul's stones. It was the first piece of good stuff he +had found on the Ridge, and he had kept it as a mascot—something of a +nest egg.</p> + +<p>Michael wondered at the fate which had sent him along the track just +when Charley had taken Paul's stones. He was perplexed and impatient of +it. There would have been no complication, no conflict and turmoil if +only he had gone along the track a little later, or a little earlier. +But there was no altering what had happened. He had to bear the +responsibility of it. He had to meet the men, encounter the eyes of his +mates as he had never done before, with a reservation from them. If he +could give the stones to Paul at once, Michael knew he would disembarass +himself of any sense of guilt. But he could not do that. He was afraid +if Paul got possession of the opals again he would want to go away and +take Sophie with him.</p> + +<p>Michael thought of taking Watty and George into his confidence, but to +do so would necessitate explanations—explanations which involved +talking of the promise he had made Sophie's mother and all that lay +behind their relationship. He shrank from allowing even the sympathetic +eyes of George and Watty to rest on what for him was wrapped in mystery +and inexplicable reverence. Besides, they both had wives, and Watty was +not permitted to know anything Mrs. Watty did not worm out of him sooner +or later. Michael decided that if he could not keep his own confidence +he could not expect anyone else to keep it. He must take the +responsibility of what he had done, and of maintaining his position in +respect to the opals until Sophie was older—old enough to do as she +wished with her life.</p> + +<p>As he walked, gazing ahead, a hut formed itself out of the distance +before him, and then the dark shapes of bark huts huddled against the +white cliff of dumps at the Three Mile, under a starry sky. A glow came +from the interior of one or two of the houses. A chime of laughter, and +shredded fragments of talking drifted along in the clear air. Michael +felt strangely alone and outcast, hearing them and knowing that he could +not respond to their invitation.</p> + +<p>In any one of those huts a place would be eagerly made for him if he +went into it; eyes would lighten with a smile; warm, kindly greetings +would go to his heart. But the talk would all be of the stealing of +Rouminof's opal, and of Charley and Jun, Michael knew. The people at the +Three Mile would have seen the coach pass. They would be talking about +it, about himself, and the girls who had driven away with Charley and +Jun.</p> + +<p>Turning back, Michael walked again across the flat country towards the +Ridge. He sat for a while on a log near the tank paddock. A drugging +weariness permeated his body and brain, though his brain ticked +ceaselessly. Now and again one or other of Rouminof's opals flashed and +scintillated before him in the darkness, or moved off in starry flight +before his tired gaze. He was vaguely disturbed by the vision of them.</p> + +<p>When he rose and went back towards the town, his feet dragged wearily. +There was a strange lightness at the back of his head, and he wondered +whether he were walking in the fields of heaven, and smiled to think of +that. At least one good thing would come of it all, he told himself over +and over again—Paul could not take Sophie away.</p> + +<p>The houses and stores of the New Town were all in darkness when he +passed along the main street. Newton's was closed. There were no lights +in Rouminof's or Charley's huts as he went to his own door. Then a low +cry caught his ear. He listened, and went to the back door of Charley's +hut. The cry rose again with shuddering gasps for breath. Michael stood +in the doorway, listening. The sound came from the window. He went +towards it, and found Potch lying there on the bunk with his face to the +wall.</p> + +<p>He had not heard Michael enter, and lay moaning brokenly. Michael had +not thought of Potch since the people at Newton's told him that a few +minutes, after the coach had gone Potch had come down to the hotel to +cut wood and do odd jobs in the stable, as he usually did. Mrs. Newton +said he stared at her, aghast, when she told him that his father had +left on the coach. Then he had started off at a run, taking the short +cut across country to the Three Mile.</p> + +<p>Michael put out his hand. He could not endure that crying.</p> + +<p>"Potch!" he said.</p> + +<p>At the sound of his voice, Potch was silent. After a second he struggled +to his feet, and stood facing Michael.</p> + +<p>"He's gone, Michael!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"He might have taken you," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Taken me!" Potch's exclamation did away with any idea Michael had that +his son was grieving for Charley. "It wasn't that I minded——"</p> + +<p>Michael did not know what to say. Potch continued:</p> + +<p>"As soon as I knew, I went after him—thought I'd catch up the coach at +the Three Mile, and I did. I told him he'd have to come back—or hand +out that money. I saw you give it to him the other night and arrange +about going to Warria.... Mr. Ventry pulled up. But <i>he</i> ... set the +horses going again. I tried to stop them, but the sandy bay let out a +kick and they went on again.... The swine!"</p> + +<p>Michael had never imagined this stolid son of Charley's could show such +fire. He was trembling with rage and indignation. Michael rarely lost +his temper, but the blood rushed to his head in response to Potch's +story. Restraint was second nature with him, though, and he waited until +his own and Potch's fury had ebbed.</p> + +<p>Then he moved to leave the hut.</p> + +<p>"Come along," he said.</p> + +<p>"Michael!"</p> + +<p>There was such breaking unbelief and joy in the cry. Michael turned and +caught the boy's expression.</p> + +<p>"You're coming along with me, Potch," he said.</p> + +<p>Potch still stood regarding him with a dazed expression of worshipful +homage and gratitude. Michael put out his hand, and Potch clasped it.</p> + +<p>"You and me," he said, "we both seem to be in the same boat, Potch.... +Neither of us has got a mate. I'll be wanting someone to work with now. +We'd better be mates."</p> + +<p>They went out of the hut together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + + +<p>Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos +were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or +thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, saw Michael on the top of his +dump, tossing mullock.</p> + +<p>"Who's Michael working with?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant considered, and shook their heads, smoking +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>Snow-Shoes, where he lay sprawled across the slope of Crosses' dump, +glanced up at them, and the nickering wisp of a smile went through his +bright eyes. The three were standing at the foot of the dump before +separating.</p> + +<p>"Who's Michael got with him?" Pony-Fence inquired, looking at +Snow-Shoes.</p> + +<p>But the old man had turned his eyes back to the dump and was raking the +earth with his stick again, as if he had not heard what was said. No one +was deafer than Snow-Shoes when he did not want to hear.</p> + +<p>Watty watched Michael as he bent over the windlass, his lean, slight +figure cut against the clear azure of the morning sky.</p> + +<p>"It's to be hoped he's got a decent mate this time—that's all," he +said.</p> + +<p>Pony-Fence and Bully were going off to their own claim when Potch came +up on the rope and stood by the windlass while Michael went down into +the mine.</p> + +<p>"Well!" Watty gasped, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!"</p> + +<p>Bully swore sympathetically, and watched Potch set to work. The three +watched him winding and throwing mullock from the hide buckets over the +dump with the jerky energy of a new chum, although Potch had done odd +jobs on the mines for a good many years. He had often taken his father's +turn of winding dirt, and had managed to keep himself by doing all +manner of scavenging in the township since he was quite a little chap, +but no one had taken him on as a mate till now. He was a big fellow, +too, Potch, seventeen or eighteen; and as they looked at him Watty and +Pony-Fence realised it was time someone gave Potch a chance on the +mines, although after the way his father had behaved Michael was about +the last person who might have been expected to give him that +chance—much less take him on as mate. Like father, like son, was one of +those superstitions Ridge folk had not quite got away from, and the men +who saw Potch working on Michael's mine wondered that, having been let +down by the father as badly as Charley had let Michael down, Michael +could still work with Potch, and give him the confidence a mate was +entitled to. But there was no piece of quixotism they did not think +Michael capable of. The very forlornness of Potch's position on the +Ridge, and because he would have to face out and live down the fact of +being Charley Heathfield's son, were recognised as most likely Michael's +reasons for taking Potch on to work with him.</p> + +<p>Watty and Pony-Fence appreciated Michael's move and the point of view it +indicated. They knew men of the Ridge would endorse it and take Potch on +his merits. But being Charley's son, Potch would have to prove those +merits. They knew, too, that what Michael had done would help him to +tide over the first days of shame and difficulty as nothing else could +have, and it would start Potch on a better track in life than his father +had ever given him.</p> + +<p>Bully had already gone off to his claim when Watty and Pony-Fence +separated. Watty broke the news to his mates when he joined them +underground.</p> + +<p>"Who do y' think's Michael's new mate?" he asked.</p> + +<p>George Woods rested on his pick.</p> + +<p>Cash looked up from the corner where he was crouched working a streak of +green-fired stone from the red floor and lower wall of the mine.</p> + +<p>"Potch!" Watty threw out as George and Cash waited for the information.</p> + +<p>George swept the sweat from his forehead with a broad, steady gesture. +"He was bound to do something nobody else'd 've thought of, Michael!" he +said.</p> + +<p>"That's right," Watty replied. "Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant were +saying," he went on, "he's had a pretty hard time, Potch, and it was +about up to somebody to give him a leg-up ... some sort of a start in +life. He may be all right ... on the other hand, there may not be much +to him...."</p> + +<p>"That's right!" Cash muttered, beginning to work again.</p> + +<p>"But I reck'n he's all right, Potch." George swung his pick again. His +blows echoed in the mine as they shattered the hard stone he was working +on.</p> + +<p>Watty crawled off through a drive he was gouging in.</p> + +<p>At midday Michael and Charley had always eaten their lunches in the +shelter where George Woods, Watty, and Cash Wilson ate theirs and +noodled their opal. They wondered whether Michael would join them this +day. He strolled over to the shelter with Potch beside him as Watty and +Cash, with a billy of steaming tea on a stick between them, came from +the open fire built round with stones, a few yards from the mine.</p> + +<p>"Potch and me's mates," Michael explained to George as he sat down and +spread out his lunch, his smile whimsical and serene over the +information. "But we're lookin' for a third to the company. I reck'n a +lot of you chaps' luck is working on three. It's a lucky number, three, +they say."</p> + +<p>Potch sat down beside him on the outer edge of the shelter's scrap of +shade.</p> + +<p>"See you get one not afraid to do a bit of work, next time—that's all I +say," Watty growled.</p> + +<p>The blood oozed slowly over Potch's heavy, quiet face. Nothing more was +said of Charley, but the men who saw his face realised that Potch was +not the insensible youth they had imagined.</p> + +<p>Michael had watched him when they were below ground, and was surprised +at the way Potch set about his work. He had taken up his father's +gouging pick and spider as if he had been used to take them every day, +and he had set to work where Charley had left off. All the morning he +hewed at a face of honeycombed sandstone, his face tense with +concentration of energy, the sweat glistening on it as though it were +oiled under the light of a candle in his spider, stuck in the red earth +above him. Michael himself swung his pick in leisurely fashion, crumbled +dirt, and knocked off for a smoke now and then.</p> + +<p>"Easy does it, Potch," he remarked, watching the boy's steady slogging. +"We've got no reason to bust ourselves in this mine."</p> + +<p>At four o'clock they put their tools back against the wall and went +above ground. Michael fell in with the Crosses, who were noodling two or +three good-looking pieces of opal Archie had taken out during the +afternoon, and Potch streaked away through the scrub in the direction of +the Old Town.</p> + +<p>Michael wondered where he was going. There was a purposeful hunch about +his shoulders as if he had a definite goal in view. Michael had intended +asking his new mate to go down to the New Town and get the meat for +their tea, but he went himself after he had yarned with Archie and Ted +Cross for a while.</p> + +<p>When he returned to the hut, Potch was not there. Michael made a fire, +unwrapped his steak, hung it on a hook over the fire, and spread out the +pannikins, tin plates and knives and forks for his meal, putting a plate +and pannikin for Potch. He was kneeling before the fire giving the steak +a turn when Potch came in. Potch stood in the doorway, looking at +Michael as doubtfully as a stray kitten which did not know whether it +might enter.</p> + +<p>"That you, Potch?" Michael called.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said.</p> + +<p>Michael got up from the fire and carried the grilled steak on a plate to +the table.</p> + +<p>"Well, you were nearly late for dinner," he remarked, as he cut the +steak in half and put a piece on the other plate for Potch. "You better +come along and tuck in now ... there's a great old crowd down at +Nancarrow's this evening. First time for nearly a month he's killed a +beast, and everybody wants a bit of steak. Sam gave me this as a sort of +treat; and it smells good."</p> + +<p>Potch came into the kitchen and sat on the box Michael had drawn up to +the table for him.</p> + +<p>"Been bringing in the goats for Sophie," he jerked out, looking at +Michael as if there were some need of explanation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was it, was it?" Michael replied, getting on with his meal. +"Thought you'd flitted!"</p> + +<p>Potch met his smile with a shadowy one. A big, clumsy-looking fellow, +with a dull, colourless face and dingy hair, he sat facing Michael, his +eyes anxious, as though he would like to explain further, but was afraid +to, or could not find words. His eyes were beautiful; but they were his +father's eyes, and Michael recoiled to qualms of misgiving, a faint +distrust, as he looked in them.</p> + +<p>It was Ed. Ventry, however, who gave Potch his first claim to the +respect of men of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>"How's that boy of Charley Heathfield's?" was his first question when +the coach came in from Budda, the following week.</p> + +<p>"All right," Newton said. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"He was near killed," Mr. Ventry replied. "Stopped us up at the Three +Mile that morning I was taking Charley and Jun down. He was all for +Charley stopping ... getting off the coach or something. I didn't get +what it was all about—money Charley'd got from Michael, I think. That's +the worst of bein' a bit hard of hearin' ... and bein' battered about by +that yaller-bay horse I bought at Warria couple of months ago."</p> + +<p>"Potch tried to stop Charley getting away, did he?" Newton asked with +interest.</p> + +<p>"He did," Ed. Ventry declared. "I pulled up, seein' something was wrong +... but what does that god-damned blighter Charley do but give a lurch +and grab me reins. Scared four months' growth out of the horses—and +away they went. I'd a colt I was breakin' in on the off-side—and he +landed Potch one—kicked him right out, I thought. As soon as I could, I +pulled up, but I see Potch making off across the plain, and he didn't +look like he was much hurt.... But it was a plucky thing he did, all +right ... and it's the last time I'll drive Charley Heathfield. I told +him straight. I'd as soon kill a man as not for putting a hand on me +reins, like he done—on me own coach, too!"</p> + +<p>Snow-Shoes had drifted up to them as the coach stopped and Newton went +out to it. He stood beside Peter Newton while Mr. Ventry talked, rolling +tobacco. Snow-Shoes' eyes glimmered from one to the other of them when +Ed. Ventry had given the reason for his inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Potch!" he murmured. "A little bit of potch!" And marched off down the +road, a straight, stately white figure, on the bare track under the +azure of the sky.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + + +<p>"Give y' three," Watty said.</p> + +<p>"Take 'em." George Woods did not turn. He was carefully working round a +brilliantly fired seam through black potch in the shin cracker he had +been breaking through two or three days before.</p> + +<p>It was about lunch time, and Watty had crawled from his drive to the +centre of the mine. Cash was still at work, crouched against a corner of +the alley, a hundred yards or so from George; but he laid down his pick +when he heard Watty's voice, and went towards him.</p> + +<p>"Who d'you think Michael's got as third man?"</p> + +<p>"Snow-Shoes?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Old Bill Olsen?"</p> + +<p>Watty could not contain himself to the third guess.</p> + +<p>"Rum-Enough!" he said.</p> + +<p>"He would." George chipped at the stone round his colour. "It was bound +to be a lame dog, anyhow—and it might as well've been Rummy as +anybody."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Cash conceded.</p> + +<p>"Bill Andrews told me," Watty said. "They've just broke through on the +other side of that drive I'm in...."</p> + +<p>"It would be all right," he went on, "if Paul'd work for Michael like he +did for Jun. But is Michael the man to make him? Not by long chalks. +Potch is turning out all right, the boys say.... Michael says he works +like a chow ... has to make him put in the peg ... but they'll both be +havin' Rum-Enough on their hands before long—that's a sure thing."</p> + +<p>Watty's, George's, and Cash's mine was one of the best worked and best +planned on the fields.</p> + +<p>Watty and Cash inspected the streak George was working, and speculated +as to what it would yield. George leaned his pick against the wall, +eager, too, about the chances of what the thread of fire glittering in +the black potch would lead to. But he was proud of the mine as well as +the stone it had produced. It represented the first attempt to work a +claim systematically on the Ridge. George himself had planned and +prospected every inch of it; and before he went above ground for the +midday meal, he glanced about it as usual, affirming his pride and +satisfaction; but his eyes fell on the broken white stone about his +pitch.</p> + +<p>"As soon as we get her out, I'll shift that stuff," he said.</p> + +<p>When they went up for their meal, Michael did not join Watty, George, +and Cash as usual. He spread out his lunch and sat with Paul and Potch +in the shade of some wilgas beside his own mine. He knew that Rouminof +would not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter, and that Paul and +Potch would bring a certain reserve to the discussions of Ridge affairs +which took place there.</p> + +<p>Potch saw Michael's eyes wander to where George was sitting yarning with +his mates. He knew Michael would rather have been over there; and yet +Michael seemed pleased to have got his own mine in working order again. +He talked over ways of developing it with Paul, asking his opinion, and +explaining why he believed the claim was good enough to stick to for a +while longer, although very little valuable stone had come out of it. +Potch wondered why his eyes rested on Paul with that faint smile of +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The Ridge discussed Michael and his new partnership backwards and forth, +and back again. Michael knew that, and was as amused as the rest of the +Ridge at the company he was keeping. Although he sat with his own mates +at midday, he was as often as not with the crowd under Newton's veranda +in the evening, discussing and settling the affairs of the Ridge and of +the universe. After a while he was more like his old self than he had +been for a long time—since Mrs. Rouminof's death—people said, when +they saw him going about again with a quiet smile and whimsical twist to +his mouth.</p> + +<p>The gossips had talked a good deal about Michael and Mrs. Rouminof, but +neither she nor he had bothered their heads about the gossips.</p> + +<p>Michael and Mrs. Rouminof had often been seen standing and talking +together when she was going home from the New Town with stores, or when +Michael was coming in from his hut. He had usually walked back along the +road with her, she for the most part, if it was in the evening, with no +hat on; he smoking the stubby black pipe that was rarely out of his +mouth. There was something in the way Mrs. Rouminof walked beside +Michael, in the way her hair blew out in tiny strands curling in the +wind and taking stray glints of light, in the way she smiled with a +vague underlying sweetness when she looked at Michael; there was +something in the way Michael slouched and smoked beside Mrs. Rouminof, +too, which made their meeting look more than any mere ordinary talking +and walking home together of two people. That was what Mrs. Watty Frost +said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watty believed it was her duty in life to maintain the prejudices +of respectable society in Fallen Star township. She had a constitutional +respect for authority in whatever form it manifested itself. She stood +for washing on Monday, spring-cleaning, keeping herself to herself, and +uncompromising hostility to anything in the shape of a new idea which +threatened the old order of domesticity on the Ridge. And she let +everybody know it. She never went into the one street of the township +even at night without a hat on, and wore gloves whenever she walked +abroad. A little woman, with a mean, sour face, wrinkled like a walnut, +and small, bead-bright eyes, Mrs. Watty was one of those women who are +all energy and have no children to absorb their energies. She put all +her energy into resentment of the Ridge and the conditions Watty had +settled down to so comfortably and happily. She sighed for shops and a +suburb of Sydney, and repeatedly told Watty how nice it would be to have +a little milk shop near Sydney like her father and mother had had.</p> + +<p>But Watty would not hear of the milk shop. He loved the Ridge, and the +milk shop was an evergreen bone of contention between him and his wife. +The only peace he ever got was when Mrs. Watty went away to Sydney for a +holiday, or he went with her, because she would rarely go away without +him. She could not be happy without Watty, people said. She had no one +to growl to and let off her irritation about things in general at, if he +were not there. Watty grew fat, and was always whistling cheerily, +nevertheless. Mrs. Watty cooked like an archangel, he said; and, to give +her her due, the men admitted that although she had never pretended to +approve of the life they led, Mrs. Watty had been a good wife to Watty.</p> + +<p>But everybody, even Mrs. Watty, was as pleased as if a little fortune +had come to them, when, towards the end of their first week, Michael and +his company came on a patch of good stone. Michael struck it, following +the lead he had been working for some time, and, although not wonderful +in colour or quality, the opal cut out at about ten ounces and brought +£3 an ounce. Michael was able to wipe out some of his grocery score, so +was Paul, and Potch had money to burn.</p> + +<p>Paul was very pleased with himself about it. The men began to call him a +mascot and to say he had brought Michael luck, as he had Jun Johnson. +There was no saying how the fortunes of the new partnership might +flourish, if he stuck to it. Paul, responding to the expressions of +goodwill and the inspiration of being on opal, put all his childish and +bullocky energy into working with Michael and Potch.</p> + +<p>He still told everybody who would listen to him the story of the +wonderful stones he had found when he was working with Jun, and how they +had been stolen from him. They grew in number, value, and size every +time he spoke of them. And he wailed over what he had been going to do, +and what selling the stones would have meant to him and to Sophie. But +the partnership was working better than anybody had expected, and people +began to wonder whether, after all, Michael had done so badly for +himself with his brace of dead-beat mates.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + + +<p>In a few weeks thought of the robbery had ceased greatly to disturb +anybody. Michael settled down to working with his new mates, and the +Ridge accepted the new partnership as the most natural thing in the +world.</p> + +<p>Life on the Ridge is usually as still as an inland lake. The settlement +is just that, a lake of life, in the country of wide plains stretching +westwards for hundreds on hundreds of miles, broken only by shingly +ridges to the sea, and eastwards, through pastoral districts, to the +coastal ranges, and the seaboard with its busy towns, ports, and cities.</p> + +<p>In summer the plains are dead and dry; in a drought, deserts. The great +coolebahs standing with their feet in the river ways are green, and +scatter tattered shade. Their small, round leaves flash like mirrors in +the sun, and when the river water vanishes from about their feet, they +hold themselves in the sandy shallow bed of the rivers as if waiting +with imperturbable faith for the return of the waters. The surface of +the dry earth cracks. There are huge fissures where the water lay in +clayey hollows during the winter and spring. Along the stock routes and +beside the empty water-holes, sheep and cattle lie rotting. Their +carcasses, disembowelled by the crows, put an odour of putrefaction in +the air. The sky burns iron-grey with heat. The dust rises in heavy +reddish mist about stockmen or cattle on the roads.</p> + +<p>But after the rains, in the winter or spring of a good season, the seeds +break sheath in a few hours; they sprout over-night, and a green mantle +is flung over the old earth which a few days before was as dead and dry +as a desert. In a little time the country is a flowering wilderness. +Trefoil, crow's-foot, clover, mallow, and wild mustard riot, tangling +and interweaving. The cattle browse through them lazily; stringing out +across the flowering fields, they look in the distance no more than +droves of mice; their red and black backs alone are visible above the +herbage. In places, wild candytuft in blossom spreads a quilt of palest +lavender in every direction on a wide circling horizon. Darling pea, the +colour of violets and smelling like them, threads through the candytuft +and lies in wedges, magenta and dark purple against the sky-line, a +hundred miles farther on. The sky is a wash of pale, exquisite blue, +which deepens as it rises to the zenith. The herbage glows beneath it, +so clear and pure is the light.</p> + +<p>Farther inland, for miles, bachelor's buttons paint the earth raw gold. +Not a hair's breadth of colour shows on the plains except the dull red +of the road winding through them and the blue of the sky overhead. Paper +daisies fringe the gold, and then they lie, white as snow, for miles, +under the bare blue sky. Sometimes the magenta, purple, lavender, gold +and white of the herbage and wild flowers merge and mingle, and a +tapestry of incomparable beauty—a masterpiece of the Immortals—is +wrought on the bare earth.</p> + +<p>During the spring and early summer of a good season, the air is filled +with the wild, thymey odour of herbs, and the dry, musky fragrance of +paper daisies. The crying of lambs, the baa-ing of ewes, and the piping +of mud-larks—their thin, silvery notes—go through the clear air and +are lost over the flowering land and against the blue sky.</p> + +<p>Winter is rarely more than a season of rains on the Ridge. Cold winds +blow from the inland plains for a week or two. There are nights of frost +and sparkling stars. People shiver and crouch over their fires; but the +days have rarely more than a fresh tang in the air.</p> + +<p>The rains as often as not are followed by floods. After a few days' +steady downpour, the shallow rivers and creeks on the plains overflow, +and their waters stretch out over the plains for thirteen, fourteen, and +sometimes twenty miles. Fords become impassable; bridges are washed +away. Fallen Star Ridge is cut off from the rest of the world until the +flood waters have soaked into the earth, as they do after a few days, +and the coach can take to the road again.</p> + +<p>As spring passes into summer, the warmth of the sunshine loses its +mildness, and settles to a heavy taciturnity. The light, losing its +delicate brilliance, becomes a bared sword-blade striking the eyes. +Everything shrinks from the full gaze and blaze of the sun. Eyes ache, +the brain reels with the glare; mirages dance on the limitless horizons. +The scorched herbage falls into dust; water is drawn off from rivers and +water-holes. All day the air is heavy and still; the sky the colour of +iron.</p> + +<p>Nights are heavy and still as the days, and people turn wearily from the +glow in the east at dawn; but the days go on, for months, one after the +other, hot, breathless, of dazzling radiance, or wrapped in the red haze +of a dust storm.</p> + +<p>Ridge folk take the heat as primitive people do most acts of God, as a +matter of course, with stiff-lipped hardihood, which makes complaint the +manifestation of a poor spirit. They meet their difficulties with a +native humour which gives zest to flagging energies. Their houses, with +roofs whitened to throw off the heat, the dumps of crumbling white clay, +and the iron roofs of the billiard parlour, the hotel, and Watty Frost's +new house at the end of the town, shimmer in the intense light. At a +little distance they seem all quivering and dancing together.</p> + +<p>Men like Michael, the Crosses, George Woods, Watty, and women like +Maggie Grant and Martha M'Cready, who had been on the Ridge a long time, +become inured to the heat. At least, they say that they "do not mind +it." No one hears a growl out of them, even when water is scarce and +flies and mosquitoes a plague. Their good spirits and grit keep the +community going through a trying summer. But even they raise their faces +to heaven when an unexpected shower comes, or autumn rains fall a little +earlier than usual.</p> + +<p>In the early days, before stations were fenced, Bill M'Gaffy, a Warria +shepherd, grazing flocks on the plains, declared he had seen a star fall +on the Ridge. When he went into the station he showed the scraps of marl +and dark metallic stone he had picked up near where the star had fallen, +to James Henty, who had taken up Warria Station. The Ridge lay within +its boundary. James Henty had turned them over curiously, and surmised +that some meteoric stone had fallen on the Ridge. The place had always +been called Fallen Star Ridge after that; but opal was not found there, +and it did not begin to be known as the black opal field until several +years later.</p> + +<p>In the first days of the rush to the Ridge, men of restless, reckless +temperament had foregathered at the Old Town. There had been wild nights +at the shanty. But the wilder spirits soon drifted away to Pigeon Creek +and the sapphire mines, and the sober and more serious of the miners had +settled to life on the new fields.</p> + +<p>The first gathering of huts on the clay pan below the Ridge was known as +the Old Town; but it had been flooded so often, that, after people had +been washed out of their homes, and had been forced to take to the Ridge +for safety two or three times, it was decided to move the site of the +township to the brow of the Ridge, above the range of the flood waters +and near the new rush, where the most important mines on the field +promised to be.</p> + +<p>A year or two ago, a score or so of bark and bag huts were ranged on +either side of the wide, unmade road space overgrown with herbage, and a +smithy, a weather-board hotel with roof of corrugated iron, a billiard +parlour, and a couple of stores, comprised the New Town. A wild cherry +tree, gnarled and ancient, which had been left in the middle of the road +near the hotel, bore the news of the district and public notices, nailed +to it on sheets of paper. A little below the hotel, on the same side, +Chassy Robb's store served as post-office, and the nearest approach to a +medicine shop in the township. Opposite was the Afghan's emporium. And +behind the stores and the miners' huts, everywhere, were the dumps +thrown up from mines and old rushes.</p> + +<p>There was no police station nearer than fifty miles, and although +telegraph now links the New Town with Budda, the railway town, +communication with it for a long time was only by coach once or twice a +week; and even now all the fetching and carrying is done by a four or +six horse-coach and bullock-wagons. The community to all intents and +purposes governs itself according to popular custom and popular opinion, +the seat of government being Newton's big, earthen-floored bar, or the +brushwood shelters near the mines in which the men sit at midday to eat +their lunches and noodle—, go over, snip, and examine—the opal they +have taken out of the mines during the morning.</p> + +<p>They hold their blocks of land by miner's right, and their houses are +their own. They formally recognise that they are citizens of the +Commonwealth and of the State of New South Wales, by voting at elections +and by accepting the Federal postal service. Some few of them, as well +as Newton and the storekeepers, pay income tax as compensation for those +privileges; but beyond that the Ridge lives its own life, and the +enactments of external authority are respected or disregarded as best +pleases it.</p> + +<p>A sober, easy-going crowd, the Ridge miners do not trouble themselves +much about law. They have little need of it. They live in accord with +certain fundamental instincts, on terms of good fellowship with each +other.</p> + +<p>"To go back on a mate," is recognised as the major crime of the Ridge +code.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, during a rush, the wilder spirits who roam from one mining +camp to another in the back-country, drift back, and "hit things up" on +the Ridge, as the men say. But they soon drift away again. Sometimes, if +one of them strikes a good patch of opal and outstays his kind, as often +as not he sinks into the Ridge life, absorbs Ridge ways and ideas, and +is accepted into the fellowship of men of the Ridge. There is no +formality about the acceptance. It just happens naturally, that if a man +identifies himself with the Ridge principle of mateship, and will stand +by it as it will stand by him, he is recognised by Ridge men as one of +themselves. But if his ways and ideas savour of those the Ridge has +broken from, he remains an outsider, whatever good terms he may seem to +be on with everybody.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a rush leaves a shiftless ne'er-do-well or two for the Ridge +to reckon with, but even these rarely disregard the Ridge code. If +claims are ratted it is said there are strangers about, and the miners +deal with rats according to their own ideas of justice. On the last +occasion it was applied, this justice had proved so effectual that there +had been no repetition of the offence.</p> + +<p>Ridge miners find happiness in the sense of being free men. They are +satisfied in their own minds that it is not good for a man to work all +day at any mechanical toil; to use himself or allow anyone else to use +him like a working bullock. A man must have time to think, leisure to +enjoy being alive, they say. Is he alive only to work? To sleep worn out +with toil, and work again? It is not good enough, Ridge men say. They +have agreed between themselves that it is a fair thing to begin work +about 6.30 or 7 o'clock and knock off about four, with a couple of hours +above ground at noon for lunch—a snack of bread and cheese and a cup of +tea.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock they come up from the mines, noodle their opal, put on +their coats, smoke and yarn, and saunter down to the town and their +homes. And it is this leisure end of the day which has given life on the +Ridge its tone of peace and quiet happiness, and has made Ridge miners +the thoughtful, well-informed men most of them are.</p> + +<p>To a man they have decided against allowing any wealthy man or body of +wealthy men forming themselves into a company to buy up the mines, put +the men on a weekly wage, and work them, as the opal blocks at Chalk +Cliffs had been worked. There might be more money in it, there would be +a steadier means of livelihood; but the Ridge miners will not hear of +it.</p> + +<p>"No," they say; "we'll put up with less money—and be our own masters."</p> + +<p>Most of them worked on Chalk Cliffs' opal blocks, and they realised in +the early days of the new field the difference between the conditions +they had lived and worked under on the Cliffs and were living and +working under on the Ridge, where every man was the proprietor of his +own energies, worked as long as he liked, and was entitled to the full +benefit of his labour. They had yarned over these differences of +conditions at midday in the shelters beside the mines, discussed them in +the long evenings at Newton's, and without any committees, documents, or +bond—except the common interest of the individual and of the +fraternity—had come to the conclusion that at all costs they were going +to remain masters of their own mines.</p> + +<p>Common thought and common experience were responsible for that +recognition of economic independence as the first value of their new +life together. Michael Brady had stood for it from the earliest days of +the settlement. He had pointed out that the only things which could give +joy in life, men might have on the Ridge, if they were satisfied to find +their joy in these things, and not look for it in enjoyment of the +superficial luxuries money could provide. Most of the real sources of +joy were every man's inheritance, but conditions of work, which wrung +him of energy and spirit, deprived him of leisure to enjoy them until he +was too weary to do more than sleep or seek the stimulus of alcohol. +Besides, these conditions recruited him with the merest subsistence for +his pains, very often—did not even guarantee that—and denied him the +capacity to appreciate the real sources of joy. But the beauty of the +world, the sky, and the stars, spring, summer, the grass, and the birds, +were for every man, Michael said. Any and every man could have immortal +happiness by hearing a bird sing, by gazing into the blue-dark depths of +the sky on a starry night. No man could sell his joy of these things. No +man could buy them. Love is for all men: no man can buy or sell love. +Pleasure in work, in jolly gatherings with friends, peace at the end of +the day, and satisfaction of his natural hungers, a man might have all +these things on the Ridge, if he were content with essentials.</p> + +<p>Ridge miners' live fearlessly, with the magic of adventure in their +daily lives, the prospect of one day finding the great stone which is +the grail of every opal-miner's quest. They are satisfied if they get +enough opal to make a parcel for a buyer when he puts up for a night or +two at Newton's. A young man who sells good stones usually goes off to +Sydney to discover what life in other parts of the world is like, and to +take a draught of the gay life of cities. A married man gives his wife +and children a trip to the seaside or a holiday in town. But all drift +back to the Ridge when the taste of city life has begun to cloy, or when +all their money is spent. Once an opal miner, always an opal miner, the +Ridge folk say.</p> + +<p>Among the men, only the shiftless and more worthless are not in sympathy +with Ridge ideas, and talk of money and what money will buy as the +things of first value in life. They describe the Fallen Star township as +a God-forsaken hole, and promise each other, as soon as their luck has +turned, they will leave it for ever, and have the time of their lives in +Sydney.</p> + +<p>Women like Maggie Grant share their husband's minds. They read what the +men read, have the men's vision, and hold it with jealous enthusiasm. +Others, women used to the rough and simple existence of the +back-country, are satisfied with the life which gives them a husband, +home, and children. Those who sympathise with Mrs. Watty Frost regard +the men's attitude as more than half cussedness, sheer selfishness or +stick-in-the-mudness; and the more worthy and respectable they are, the +more they fret and fume at the earthen floors and open hearths of the +bark and bagging huts they live in, and pine for all the kick-shaws of +suburban villas. The discontented women are a minority, nevertheless. +Ridge folk as a whole have set their compass and steer the course of +their lives with unconscious philosophy, and yet a profound conviction +as to the rightness of what they are doing.</p> + +<p>And the Ridge, which bears them, stands serenely under blue skies the +year long, rising like a backbone from the plains that stretch for +hundreds of miles on either side. A wide, dusty road crosses the plains. +The huts of the Three Mile and Fallen Star crouch beside it, and +everywhere on the rusty, shingle-strewn slopes of the Ridge, are the +holes and thrown-up heaps of white and raddled clay or broken +sandstone—traces of the search for that "ecstasy in the heart of +gloom," black opal, which the Fallen Star earth holds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + + +<p>Darling pea was lying in purple and magenta patches through the long +grass on the tank paddock when Sophie went with Ella and Mirry Flail to +gather wild flowers there.</p> + +<p>Wild flowers did not grow anywhere on Fallen Star as they did in the +tank paddock. It was almost a place of faery to children of the Ridge. +The little ones were not allowed to go there by themselves for fear they +might fall into the waterhole which lay like a great square lake in the +middle of it, its steep, well-set-up banks of yellow clay, ruled with +the precision of a diagram in geometry. The water was almost as yellow +as the banks, thick and muddy looking; but it was good water, nothing on +earth the matter with it when you had boiled it and the sediment had +been allowed to settle, everybody on Fallen Star Ridge was prepared to +swear. It had to be drawn up by a pump which was worked by a donkey +engine, Sam Nancarrow, and his old fat roan draught mare, and carted to +the township when rain-water in the iron tanks beside the houses in +Fallen Star gave out.</p> + +<p>During a dry season, or a very hot summer, all hands turned out to roof +the paddock tank with tarpaulins to prevent evaporation as far as +possible and so conserve the township's water supply. On a placard +facing the roadway a "severe penalty" was promised to anyone using it +without permission or making improper use of it.</p> + +<p>Ella and Mirry were gathering sago flower—"wild sweet Alice," as they +called candytuft—yellow eye-bright, tiny pink starry flowers, +bluebells, small lavender daisies, taller white ones, and yellow +daisies, as well as Darling pea; but Sophie picked only long, trailing +stalks of the pea. She had as many as she could hold when she sat down +to arrange them into a tighter bunch.</p> + +<p>Mirry and Ella Flail had always been good friends of Sophie's. Potch and +she had often gone on excursions with them, or to the swamp to cart +water when it was scarce and very dear in the township. And since Potch +had gone to work Sophie had no one to go about with but Mirry and Ella. +She pleased their mother by trying to teach them to read and write, and +they went noodling together, or gathering wild flowers. Sophie was three +or four years older than Mirry, who was the elder of the two Flails; she +felt much older since her mother's death nearly a year ago, and in the +black dress she had worn since then. She was just seventeen, and had put +her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. That made her feel +older, too. But she still liked to go for walks and wanderings with Ella +and Mirry. They knew so much about the birds and flowers, the trees, and +the ways of all the wild creatures: they were such wild creatures +themselves.</p> + +<p>They came running to her, crying excitedly, their hands filled with +flowers, shedding them as they ran. Then, collapsing in the grass beside +Sophie, Mirry rolled over on her back and gazed up into the sky. Ella, +squatting on her thin, sunburnt little sticks of legs, was arranging her +flowers and glancing every now and then at Sophie with shy, loving +glances.</p> + +<p>Sophie wondered why she had nothing of her old joyous zest in their +enterprises together. She used to be as wild and happy as Mirry and Ella +on an afternoon like this. But there was something of the shy, wild +spirit of a primitive people about Mirry and Ella, she remembered, some +of their blood, too. One of their mother's people, it was said, had been +a native of one of the river tribes.</p> + +<p>Mirry had her mother's beautiful dark eyes, almost green in the light, +and freckled with hazel, and her pale, sallow skin. Ella, younger and +shyer, was more like her father. Her skin was not any darker than +Sophie's, and her eyes blue-grey, her features delicate, her hair +golden-brown that glinted in the sun.</p> + +<p>"Sing to us, Sophie," Mirry said.</p> + +<p>Sophie often sang to them when she and Ella and Mirry were out like +this. As she sat with them, dreaming in the sunshine, she sang almost +without any conscious effort; she just put up her chin, and the melodies +poured from her. Hearing her voice, as it ran in ripples and eddies +through the clear, warm air, hung and quivered and danced again, +delighted her.</p> + +<p>Ella and Mirry listened in a trance of awe, reverence, and admiration. +Sophie had a dim vision of them, wide-eyed and still, against the tall +grass and flowers.</p> + +<p>"My! You can sing, Sophie! Can't she, Ella?"</p> + +<p>Ella nodded, gazing at Sophie with eyes of worshipping love.</p> + +<p>"They say you're going away with your father ... and you're going to be +a great singer, Sophie," Mirry said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Sophie murmured tranquilly, "I am."</p> + +<p>A bevy of black and brown birds flashed past them, flew in a wide +half-circle across the paddock, and alighted on a dead tree beyond the +fence.</p> + +<p>"Look, look!" Mirry started to her feet. "A happy family! I wonder, are +the whole twelve there?"</p> + +<p>She counted the birds, which were calling to each other with little +shrill cries.</p> + +<p>"They're all there!" she announced. "Twelve of them. Mother says in some +parts they call them the twelve apostles. Sing again, Sophie," she +begged.</p> + +<p>Ella smiled at Sophie. Her lips parted as though she would like to have +said that, too; but only her eyes entreated, and she went on putting her +flowers together.</p> + +<p>As she sang, Sophie watched a pair of butterflies, white with black +lines and splashes of yellow and scarlet on their wings, hovering over +the flowered field of the paddock. She was so lost in her singing and +watching the butterflies, and the children were so intent listening to +her, that they did not hear a horseman coming slowly towards them along +the track. As he came up to them, Sophie's rippling notes broke and fell +to earth. Ella saw him first, and was on her feet in an instant. Mirry +and she, their wild instinct asserting itself, darted away and took +cover behind the trunks of the nearest trees.</p> + +<p>Sophie looked after them, wondering whether she would follow them as she +used to; but she felt older and more staid now than she had a year ago. +She stood her ground, as the man, who was leading his horse, came to a +standstill before her.</p> + +<p>She knew him well enough, Arthur Henty, the only son of old Henty of +Warria Station. She had seen him riding behind cattle or sheep on the +roads across the plains for years. Sometimes when Potch and she had met +him riding across the Ridge, or at the swamp, he had stopped to talk to +them. He had been at her mother's funeral, too; but as he stood before +her this afternoon, Sophie seemed to be seeing him for the first time.</p> + +<p>A tall, slightly-built young man, in riding breeches and leggings, a +worn coat, and as weathered a felt hat as any man on the Ridge wore, his +clothes the colour of dust on the roads, he stood before her, smiling +slightly. His face was dark in the shadow of his hat, but the whole of +him, cut against the sunshine, had gilded outlines. And he seemed to be +seeing Sophie for the first time, too. She had jumped up and drawn back +from the track when the Flails ran away. He could not believe that this +tall girl in the black dress was the queer, elfish-like girl he had seen +running about the Ridge, bare-legged, with feet in goat-skin sandals, +and in the cemetery on the Warria road, not much more than a year ago. +Her elfish gaiety had deserted her. It was the black dress gave her face +the warm pallor of ivory, he thought, made her look staider, and as if +the sadness of all it symbolised had not left her. But her eyes, +strange, beautiful eyes, the green and blue of opal, with black rings on +the irises and great black pupils, had still the clear, unconscious gaze +of youth; her lips the sweet, sucking curves of a child's.</p> + +<p>They stood so, smiling and staring at each other, a spell of silence on +each.</p> + +<p>Sophie had dropped half her flowers as she sprang up at the sound of +someone approaching. She had clutched a few in one hand; the rest lay on +the grass about her, her hat beside them. Henty's eyes went to the trees +round which Mirry and Ella were peeping.</p> + +<p>"They're wild birds, aren't they?" he said.</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled. She liked the way his eyes narrowed to slits of sunshine +as he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to sing, again?" he asked hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>Sophie shook her head.</p> + +<p>"My mother's awfully fond of that stuff," Henty said, looking at the +Darling pea Sophie had in her hand. "We haven't got any near the +homestead. I came into the paddock to get some for her."</p> + +<p>Sophie held out her bunch.</p> + +<p>"Not all of it," he said.</p> + +<p>"I can get more," she said.</p> + +<p>He took the flowers, and his vague smile changed to one of shy and +subtle understanding. Ella and Mirry found courage to join Sophie.</p> + +<p>"Where's Potch?" Henty asked.</p> + +<p>"He's working with Michael," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed, and stood before her awkwardly, not knowing what to +talk about.</p> + +<p>He was still thinking how different she was to the little girl he had +seen chasing goats on the Ridge no time before, and wondering what had +changed her so quickly, when Sophie stooped to pick up her hat. Then he +saw her short, dark hair twisted up into a knot at the back of her head. +Feeling intuitively that he was looking at the knot she was so proud of, +Sophie put on her hat quickly. A delicate colour moved on her neck and +cheeks. Arthur Henty found himself looking into her suffused eyes and +smiling at her smile of confusion.</p> + +<p>"Well, we must be going now," Sophie said, a little breathlessly.</p> + +<p>Henty said that he was going into the New Town and would walk along part +of the way with her. He tucked the flowers Sophie had given him into his +saddle-bag, and she and the children turned down the track. Ella, having +found her tongue, chattered eagerly. Arthur Henty strolled beside them, +smoking, his reins over his arm. Mirry wanted to ride his horse.</p> + +<p>"Nobody rides this horse but me," Henty said. "She'd throw you into the +middle of next week."</p> + +<p>"I can ride," Mirry said; "ride like a flea, the boys say."</p> + +<p>She was used to straddling any pony or horse her brothers had in the +yard, and they had a name as the best horse-breakers in the district.</p> + +<p>Henty laughed. "But you couldn't ride Beeswing," he said. "She doesn't +let anybody but me ride her. You can sit on, if you like; she won't mind +that so long as I've got hold of her."</p> + +<p>The stirrup was too high for Mirry to reach, so he picked her up and put +her across the saddle. The mare shivered and shrank under the light +shock of Mirry's landing upon her, but Arthur Henty talked to her and +rubbed her head soothingly.</p> + +<p>"It's all right ... all right, old girl," he muttered. "Think it was one +of those stinging flies? But it isn't, you see. It's only Mirry Flail. +She says she's a flea of a rider. But you'd learn her, wouldn't you, if +you got off with her by yourself?"</p> + +<p>Ella giggled softly, peering at Mirry and Henty and at the beautiful +golden-red chestnut he was leading. Ed. Ventry had put Sophie on his +coach horses sometimes. He had let her go for a scamper with Potch on an +old horse or a likely colt now and then; but she knew she did not ride +well—not as Mirry rode.</p> + +<p>They walked along the dusty road together when they had left the tank +paddock, Mirry chattering from Beeswing's back, Sophie, with Ella +clinging to one hand, on the other side of Henty. But Mirry soon tired +of riding a led horse at a snail's pace. When a sulphur-coloured +butterfly fluttered for a few minutes over a wild tobacco plant, she +slid from the saddle, on the far side, and was off over the plains to +have another look at the butterfly.</p> + +<p>Ella was too shy or too frightened to get on the chestnut, even with +Henty holding her bridle.</p> + +<p>"How about you, Sophie?" Arthur Henty asked.</p> + +<p>Sophie nodded, but before he could help her she had put her foot into +the stirrup and swung into the saddle herself. Beeswing shivered again +to the new, strange weight on her back. Henty held her, muttering +soothingly. They went on again.</p> + +<p>After a while, with a shy glance, and as if to please him, Sophie began +to sing, softly at first, so as not to startle the mare, and then +letting her voice out so that it rippled as easily and naturally as a +bird's. Henty, walking with a hand on the horse's bridle beside her, +heard again the song she had been singing in the tank paddock.</p> + +<p>Ella was supposed to be carrying Sophie's flowers. She did not know she +had dropped nearly half of them, and that they were lying in a trail all +along the dusty road.</p> + +<p>Henty did not speak when Sophie had finished. His pipe had gone out, and +he put it in his pocket. The stillness of her audience of two was so +intense that to escape it Sophie went on singing, and the chestnut did +not flinch. She went quietly to the pace of the song, as though she, +too, were enjoying its rapture and tenderness.</p> + +<p>Then through the clear air came a rattle of wheels and jingle of +harness. Mirry, running towards them from the other side of the road, +called eagerly:</p> + +<p>"It's the coach.... Mr. Ventry's got six horses in, and a man with him!"</p> + +<p>Six horses indicated that a person of some importance was on board the +coach. Henty drew the chestnut to one side as the coach approached. Mr. +Ventry jerked his head in Henty's direction when he passed and saw +Arthur Henty with the Flail children and Sophie. The stranger beside him +eyed, with a faint smile of amusement, the cavalcade, the girl in the +black dress on the fine chestnut horse, the children with the flowers, +and the young man standing beside them. The man on the coach was a +clean-shaved, well-groomed, rather good-looking man of forty, or +thereabouts, and his clothes and appearance proclaimed him a man of the +world beyond the Ridge. His smile and stare annoyed Henty.</p> + +<p>"It's Mr. Armitage," Mirry said. "The young one. He's not as nice as the +old man, my father says—and he doesn't know opal as well—but he gives +a good price."</p> + +<p>They had reached the curve of the road where one arm turns to the town +and the other goes over the plains to Warria. Sophie slipped from the +horse.</p> + +<p>"We'll take the short cut here," she said.</p> + +<p>She stood looking at Arthur Henty for a moment, and in that moment Henty +knew that she had sensed his thought. She had guessed he was afraid of +having looked ridiculous trailing along the road with these children. +Sophie turned away. The young Flails bounded after her. Henty could hear +their laughter when he had ridden out some distance along the road.</p> + +<p>From the slope of a dump Sophie saw him—the chestnut and her rider +loping into the sunset, and, looking after him, she finished her song.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà ,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And my last breath will be for thee, dear name.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The long, sweet notes and rippled melody followed Arthur Henty over the +plains in the quiet air of late afternoon. But the afternoon had been +spoilt for him. He was self-conscious and ill at ease about it all.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + + +<p>"Mr. Armitage is up at Newton's!" Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw +him at his back-door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news.</p> + +<p>"Not the old man?" Michael inquired.</p> + +<p>"No, the young 'un."</p> + +<p>Word was quickly bruited over the fields that the American, one of the +best buyers who came to the Ridge, had arrived by the evening coach. He +invariably had a good deal of money to spend, and gave a better price +than most of the local buyers.</p> + +<p>Dawe P. Armitage had visited Fallen Star Ridge from the first year of +its existence as an opal field, and every year for years after that. But +when he began to complain about aches and pains in his bones, which he +refused to allow anybody to call rheumatism, and was assured he was well +over seventy and that the long rail and sea journey from New York City +to Fallen Star township were getting too much for him, he let his son, +whom he had made a partner in his business, make the journey for him. +John Lincoln Armitage had been going to the Ridge for two or three +years, and although the men liked him well enough, he was not as popular +with them as his father had been. And the old man, John Armitage said, +although he was nearly crippled with rheumatism, still grudged him his +yearly visit to the Ridge, and hated like poison letting anyone else do +his opal-buying.</p> + +<p>Dawe Armitage had bought some of the best black opal found on the Ridge. +He had been a hard man to deal with, but the men had a grudging +admiration for him, a sort of fellow feeling of affection because of his +oneness with them in a passion for black opal. A grim, sturdy old +beggar, there was a certain quality about him, a gruff humour, sheer +doggedness, strength of purpose, and dead honesty within his point of +view, which kept an appreciative and kindly feeling for him in their +hearts. They knew he had preyed on them; but he had done it bluntly, +broadly, and in such an off-with-the-gloves-lads-style, that, after a +good fight over a stone and price, they had sometimes given in to him +for sheer amusement, and to let him have the satisfaction of thinking he +had gained his point.</p> + +<p>Usually he set his price on a stone and would not budge from it. The +gougers knew this, and if their price on a stone was not Dawe +Armitage's, they did not waste breath on argument, except to draw the +old boy and get some diversion from his way of playing them. If a man +had a good stone and did not think anyone else was likely to give him +his figure, sometimes he sold ten minutes before the coach Armitage was +going down to town by, left Newton's. But, three or four times, when a +stone had taken his fancy and a miner was obdurate, the old man, with +his mind's eye full of the stone and the fires in its dazzling jet, had +suddenly sent for it and its owner, paid his price, and pocketed the +stone. He had wrapped up the gem, chuckling in defeat, and rejoicing to +have it at any price. As a rule he made three or four times as much as +he had given for opals he bought on the Ridge, but to Dawe Armitage the +satisfaction of making money on a transaction was nothing like the joy +of putting a coveted treasure into his wallet and driving off from +Fallen Star with it.</p> + +<p>A gem merchant of considerable standing in the United States, Dawe +Armitage's collection of opals was world famous. He had put black opal +on the market, and had been the first to extol the splendour of the +stones found on Fallen Star Ridge. So different they were from the opal +found on Chalk Cliffs, or in any other part of the world, with the fires +in jetty potch rather than in the clear or milky medium people were +accustomed to, that at first timid and conventional souls were disturbed +and repelled by them. "They felt," they said, "that there was something +occultly evil about black opal." They had a curious fear and dread of +the stones as talismans of evil. Dawe Armitage scattered the quakers +like chaff with his scorn. They could not, he said, accept the +magnificent pessimism of black opal. They would not rejoice with pagan +abandonment in the beauty of those fires in black opal, realising that, +like the fires of life, they owed their brilliance, their transcendental +glory, to the dark setting. But every day the opals made worshippers of +sightseers. They mesmerised beholders who came to look at them.</p> + +<p>When the coach rattled to a standstill outside the hotel, Peter Newton +went to the door of the bar. He knew John Armitage by the size and shape +of his dust-covered overalls. Armitage dismounted and pulled off his +gloves. Peter Newton went to meet him.</p> + +<p>Armitage gripped his hand.</p> + +<p>"Mighty glad to see you, Newton," he said, "and glad to see the Ridge +again. How are you all?"</p> + +<p>Newton smiled, giving him greeting in downright Ridge style.</p> + +<p>"Fine," he said. "Glad to see you, Mr. Armitage."</p> + +<p>When he got indoors, Armitage threw off his coat. He and Peter had a +drink together, and then he went to have a wash and brush up before +dinner. Mrs. Newton came from the kitchen; she was pleased to see Mr. +Armitage, she said, and he shook hands with her and made her feel that +he was really quite delighted to see her. She spent a busy hour or so +making the best of her preparations for the evening meal, so that he +might repeat his usual little compliments about her cooking. Armitage +had his dinner in a small private sitting-room, and strolled out +afterwards to the veranda to smoke and yarn with the men.</p> + +<p>He spent the evening with them there, and in the bar, hearing the news +of the Ridge and gossiping genially. He had come all the way from Sydney +the day before, spent the night in the train, and had no head for +business that night, he said. When he yarned with them, Fallen Star men +had a downright sense of liking John Armitage. He was a good sort, they +told each other; they appreciated his way of talking, and laughed over +the stories he told and the rare and racy Americanisms with which he +flavoured his speech for their benefit.</p> + +<p>When he exerted himself to entertain and amuse them, they were as +pleased with him as a pack of women. And John Lincoln Armitage pleased +women, men of the Ridge guessed, the women of his own kind as well as +the women of Fallen Star who had talked to him now and then. His eyes +had a mild caress when they rested on a woman; it was not in the least +offensive, but carried challenge and appeal—a suggestion of sympathy. +He had a thousand little courtesies for women, the deference which comes +naturally to "a man of the world" for a member of "the fair sex." Mrs. +Newton was always flattered and delighted after a talk with him. He +asked her advice about opals he had bought or was going to buy, and, +although he did not make use of it very often, she was always pleased by +his manner of asking. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Archie Cross both +confessed to a partiality for Mr. Armitage, and even Mrs. Watty agreed +that he was "a real nice man"; and when he was in the township Mrs. +Henty and one of the girls usually drove over from the station and took +him back to Warria to stay a day or two before he went back to Sydney on +his return journey to New York.</p> + +<p>Armitage was very keen to know whether there had been any sensational +finds on the Ridge during the year, and all about them. He wanted to +know who had been getting good stuff, and said that he had bought Jun's +stones in Sydney. The men exclaimed at that.</p> + +<p>"I was surprised to hear," John Armitage said, "what happened to the +other parcel. You don't mean to say you think Charley Heathfield——?"</p> + +<p>"We ain't tried him yet," Watty remarked cautiously, "but the evidence +is all against him."</p> + +<p>Rouminof thrust himself forward, eager to tell his story. Realising the +proud position he might have been in this night with the opal-buyer if +he had had his opals, tears gathered in his eyes as he went over it all +again.</p> + +<p>Armitage listened intently.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the rotten luck!" he exclaimed, when Paul had finished. +"Have another whisky, Rouminof? But what I can't make out," he added, +"is why, if he had the stones, Charley didn't come to me with them.... I +didn't buy anything but Jun's stuff before I came up here ... and he +just said it was half the find he was showing me. Nice bit of pattern in +that big black piece, eh? If Charley had the stones, you'd think he'd +'ve come along to me, or got Jun, or somebody to come along for him...."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that." George Woods felt for his reasons. "He +wouldn't want you—or anybody else to know he'd got them."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Watty agreed.</p> + +<p>"He's got them all right," Ted Cross declared. "You see, I seen him +taking Rummy home that night—and he cleared out next morning."</p> + +<p>"I guess you boys know best." John Armitage sipped his whisky +thoughtfully. "But I'm mad to get the rest of the stones. Tell you the +truth, the old man hasn't been too pleased with my buying lately ... and +it would put him in no end of a good humour if I could take home with me +another packet of gems like the one I got from Jun. Jun knew I was keen +to get the stones ... and I can't help thinking ... if he knew they were +about, he'd put me in the way of getting them ... or them in my +way—somehow. You don't think ... anybody else could have been on the +job, and ... put it over on Charley, say...."</p> + +<p>His eyes went over the faces of the men lounging against the bar, or +standing in groups about him. Michael was lifting his glass to drink, +and, for the fraction of a second the opal-buyer's glance wavered on his +face before it passed on.</p> + +<p>"Not likely," George Woods said dryly.</p> + +<p>Recognising the disfavour his suggestion raised, Armitage brushed it +aside.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, of course," he said.</p> + +<p>And although he did not speak to him, or even look at him closely again, +John Armitage was thinking all the evening of the quiver, slight as the +tremor of a moth's wing, on Michael's face, when that inquiry had been +thrown out.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + + +<p>Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the +men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more +of Dawe Armitage's zest for the business; and, every time they met, +Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and +easy-going with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they +were sure.</p> + +<p>The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood +him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only +perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to +please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He +was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his +last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John +Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, +which had cost £50 in the rough, was not worth £5 when it was cut. A +grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went +through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought +double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a +good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said.</p> + +<p>George Woods and Watty took John Armitage a couple of fine knobbies +during the morning, and the Crosses had shown him a parcel containing +two good green and blue stones with rippled lights; but they had more on +the parcel than Armitage felt inclined to pay, remembering the stormy +scene there had been with the old man over that last stone from Crosses' +mine which had cracked in the cutter's hands. Towards the end of the day +Mr. Armitage came to the conclusion, having gone over the stones the men +brought him, and having bought all he fancied, that there was very +little black opal of first quality about. He was meditating the fact, +leaning back in his chair in the sitting-room Newton had reserved for +him to see the gougers in, some pieces of opal, his scales and +microscope on the table before him, when Michael knocked.</p> + +<p>Absorbed in his reflections, realising there would be little to show for +the trouble and pains of his long journey, and reviewing a slowly +germinating scheme and dream for the better output of opal from Fallen +Star, John Armitage did not at first pay any attention to the knock.</p> + +<p>He had been thinking a good deal of Michael in connection with that +scheme. Michael, he knew, would be his chief opponent, if ever he tried +putting it into effect. When he had outlined his idea and vaguely formed +plans to his father, Dawe Armitage would have nothing to do with them. +He swept them aside uncompromisingly.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you're up against," he said. "There isn't a man on +the Ridge wouldn't fight like a pole-cat if you tried it on 'em. Give +'em a word of it—and we quit partnership, see? They wouldn't stand for +it—not for a second—and there'd be no more black opal for Armitage and +Son, if they got any idea on the Ridge you'd that sort of notion at the +back of your head."</p> + +<p>But John Armitage refused to give up his idea. He went to it as a dog +goes to a planted bone—gnawed and chewed over it, contemplatively.</p> + +<p>He had made this trip to Fallen Star with little result, and he was sure +a system of working the mines on scientific, up-to-date lines would +ensure the production of more stone. He wanted to talk organisation and +efficiency to men of the Ridge, to point out to them that organisation +and efficiency were of first value in production, not realising Ridge +men considered their methods both organised and efficient within their +means and for their purposes.</p> + +<p>Michael knocked again, and Armitage called:</p> + +<p>"Come in!" When he saw who had come into the room, he rose and greeted +Michael warmly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you, Michael!" he said, with a sense of guilt at the thoughts +Michael had interrupted. "I wondered what on earth had become of you. +The old man gave me no end of messages, and there are a couple of +magazines for you in my grip."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," Michael replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you've got some good stuff," Armitage said.</p> + +<p>Michael took the chair opposite to him on the other side of the table. +"I haven't got much," he said.</p> + +<p>"I remember Newton told me you've been having rotten luck."</p> + +<p>"It's looked up lately," Michael said, the flickering wisp of a smile in +his eyes. "The boys say Rummy's a luck-bringer.... He's working with me +now, and we've been getting some nice stone."</p> + +<p>He took a small packet of opal from his pocket and put it on the table. +It was wrapped in newspaper. He unfastened the string, turned back the +cotton-wool in which the pieces of opal were packed, and spread them out +for Armitage to look at.</p> + +<p>Armitage went over the stones. He put them, one by one, under his +microscope, and held them to and from the light.</p> + +<p>"That's a nice bit of colour, Michael," he said, admiring a small piece +of grey potch with a black strain which flashed needling rays of green +and gold. "A little bit more of that, and you'd be all right, eh?"</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. "We're on a streak now," he said. "It ought to work out +all right."</p> + +<p>"I hope it will." Armitage held the piece of opal to the light and moved +it slowly. "Rouminof's working with you now—and Potch, they tell me?"</p> + +<p>Michael nodded.</p> + +<p>"Pretty hard on him, Charley's getting away with his stones like that!"</p> + +<p>John Armitage probed the quiet eyes of the man before him with a swift +glance.</p> + +<p>"You're right there, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. "Harder on Paul than +it would have been on anybody else. He's got the fever pretty bad."</p> + +<p>Armitage laughed, handling a stone thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"I gave Jun a hundred pounds for his big stone. I'd give the same for +the other—if I could lay my hands on it, though the boys say it wasn't +quite as big, but better pattern."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Silence lay between them for a moment.</p> + +<p>"What have you got on the lot, Michael?" Armitage asked, picking up the +stones before him and going over them absent-mindedly.</p> + +<p>"A tenner," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Usually a gouger asked several pounds more than he expected to get. John +Armitage knew that; Michael knew he knew it. Armitage played with the +stones, hesitated as though his mind were not made up. There was not +much more than potch and colour in the bundle. He went over the stones +with the glass again.</p> + +<p>"Oh well, Michael," he said, "we're old friends. I won't haggle with +you. Ten pounds—your own valuation."</p> + +<p>He would get twice as much for the parcel, but the price was a good one. +Michael was surprised he had conceded it so easily.</p> + +<p>Armitage pulled out his cheque-book and pushed a box of cigars across +the table. Michael took out his pipe.</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind, Mr. Armitage," he said, "I'm more at home with +this."</p> + +<p>"Please yourself, Michael," Armitage murmured, writing his cheque.</p> + +<p>When Michael had put the cheque in his pocket, Armitage took a cigar, +nipped and lighted it, and leaned back in his chair again.</p> + +<p>"Not much big stuff about, Michael," he remarked, conversationally.</p> + +<p>"George Woods had some good stones," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Armitage was not enthusiastic. "Pretty fair. But the old man will be +better pleased with the stuff I got from Jun Johnson than anything else +this trip.... I'd give a good deal to get the almond-shaped stone in +that other parcel."</p> + +<p>Michael realised Mr. Armitage had said the same thing to him before. He +wondered why he had said it to him—what he was driving at.</p> + +<p>"There were several good stones in Paul's parcel," he said.</p> + +<p>His clear, quiet eyes met John Armitage's curious, inquiring gaze. He +was vaguely discomfited by Armitage's gaze, although he did not flinch +from it. He wondered what Mr. Armitage knew, that he should look like +that.</p> + +<p>"It's been hard on Rouminof," Armitage murmured again.</p> + +<p>Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>"After the boys making Jun shell out, too! It doesn't seem to have been +much use, does it?"</p> + +<p>"No," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"And they say he was going to take that girl of his down to Sydney to +have her trained as a singer. She can sing, too. But her mother, +Michael—I heard her in <i>Dinorah</i> ... when I was a little chap." +Enthusiasm lighted John Armitage's face. "She was wonderful.... The old +man says people were mad about her when she was in New York.... It was +said, you know, she belonged to some aristocratic Russian family, and +ran away with a rascally violinist—Rouminof. Can you believe it? ... +Went on the stage to keep him.... But she couldn't stand the life. Soon +after she was lost sight of.... I've often wondered how she drifted to +Fallen Star. But she liked being here, the old man says."</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. There was silence between them a moment; then Michael +rose to go. The opal-buyer got up too, and flung out his arms, +stretching with relief to be done with his day's work.</p> + +<p>"I've been cooped in here all day," he said. "I'll come along with you, +Michael. I'd like to have a look at the Punti Rush. Can you walk over +there with me?"</p> + +<p>"'Course I can, Mr. Armitage," Michael said heartily.</p> + +<p>They walked out of the hotel and through the town towards the rush, +where half a dozen new claims had been pegged a few weeks before.</p> + +<p>Snow-Shoes passed then going out of the town to his hut, swinging along +the track and gazing before him with the eyes of a seer, his fine old +face set in a dream, serene dignity in every line of his erect and +slowly-moving figure.</p> + +<p>Armitage looked after him.</p> + +<p>"What a great old chap he is, Michael," he exclaimed. "You don't know +anything about him ... who he is, or where he comes from, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"How does he live?"</p> + +<p>"Noodles."</p> + +<p>"He's never brought me any stone."</p> + +<p>"Trades it with the storekeepers—though the boys do say"—Michael +looked with smiling eyes after Snow-Shoes—"he may be a bit of a miser, +loves opal more than the money it brings."</p> + +<p>Armitage's interest deepened. "There are chaps like that. I've heard the +old man talk about a stone getting hold of a man sometimes—mesmerising +him. I believe the old man's a bit like that himself, you know. There +are two or three pieces of opal he's got from Fallen Star nothing on +earth will induce him to part with. We wanted a stone for an Indian +nabob's show tiara—something of that sort—not long ago. I fancied that +big knobby we got from George Woods; do you remember? But the old man +wouldn't part with it; not he! Said he'd see all the nabobs in the world +in—Hades, before they got that opal out of him!"</p> + +<p>Michael laughed. The thought of hard-shelled old Dawe Armitage hoarding +opals tickled him immensely.</p> + +<p>"Fact," Armitage continued. "He's got a couple of stones he's like a kid +over—takes them out, rubs them, and plays with them. And you should +hear him if I try to get them from him.... A packet of crackers isn't in +it with the old man."</p> + +<p>"The boys'd like to hear that," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"There's no doubt about the fascination the stuff exercises," John +Armitage went on. "You people say, once an opal-miner, always an +opal-miner; but I say, once an opal-buyer, always an opal-buyer. I +wasn't keen about this business when I came into it ... but it's got me +all right. I can't see myself coming to this God-forsaken part of the +world of yours for anything but black opal...."</p> + +<p>That expression, whimsical and enigmatic, which was never very far from +them, had grown in Michael's eyes. He began to sense a motive in +Armitage's seemingly casual talk, and to understand why the opal-buyer +was so friendly.</p> + +<p>"The old man tells a story," Armitage continued, "of that robbery up at +Blue Pigeon. You know the yarn I mean ... about sticking up a coach when +there was a good parcel of opal on board. Somebody did the bush-ranging +trick and got away with the opal.... The thief was caught, and the stuff +put for safety in an iron safe at the post office. And sight of the +opals corrupted one of the men in the post office.... He was caught ... +and then a mounted trooper took charge of them. And the stuff bewitched +him, too.... He tried to get away with it...."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Michael murmured serenely.</p> + +<p>Armitage eyed him keenly. He could scarcely believe the story he had got +from Jun, that the second parcel of stones had been exchanged after +Charley got them, or that they had been changed on Paul before Charley +got them from him.</p> + +<p>Michael guessed Armitage was sounding him by talking so much of +Rouminof's stones and the robbery. He wondered what Armitage +knew—whether he knew anything which would attach him, Michael, to +knowledge of what had become of Paul's stones. There was always the +chance that Charley had recognised some of the opal in the parcel +substituted for Paul's, although none of the scraps were significant +enough to be remembered, Michael thought, and Charley was never keen +enough to have taken any notice of the sun-flash and fragments of +coloured potch they had taken out of the mine during the year. The brown +knobby, which Michael had kept for something of a sentimental reason, +because it was the first stone he had found on Fallen Star, Charley had +never seen.</p> + +<p>But, probably, he remarked to himself, Armitage was only trying to get +information from him because he thought that Michael Brady was the most +likely man on the Ridge to know what had become of the stones, or to +guess what might have become of them.</p> + +<p>As they walked and talked, these thoughts were an undercurrent in +Michael's mind. And the undercurrent of John Lincoln Armitage's mind, +through all his amiable and seemingly inconsequential gossip, was not +whether Michael had taken the stones, but why he had, and what had +become of them.</p> + +<p>Armitage could not, at first, bring himself to credit the half-formed +suspicion which that quiver of Michael's face, when he had spoken of +what Jun said, had given him. Yet they were all more or less mad, people +who dealt with opal, he believed. It might not be for the sake of profit +Michael had taken the stones, if he had taken them—there was still a +shadow of doubt in his mind. John Armitage knew that any man on the +Ridge would have knocked him down for harbouring such a thought. Michael +was the little father, the knight without fear and without a stain, of +the Ridge. He reflected that Michael had never brought him much stone. +His father had often talked of Michael Brady and the way he had stuck to +gouging opal with precious little luck for many years. The parcel he had +sold that day was perhaps the best Michael had traded with Armitage and +Son for a long time. John Armitage wondered if any man could work so +long without having found good stuff, without having realised the hopes +which had materialised for so many other men of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>They went over the new rush, inspected "prospects," and yarned with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, who had pegged out a claim there. +But as Armitage and he walked back to the town discussing the outlook of +the new field and the colour and potch some of the men already had to +show, Michael found himself in the undertow of an uneasy imagination. He +protested to himself that he was unnecessarily apprehensive, that all +Armitage was trying to get from him was any information which would +throw light on the disappearance of Paul's stones. And Armitage was +wondering whether Michael might not be an opal miser—whether the +mysterious fires of black opal might not have eaten into his brain as +they had into the brains of good men before him.</p> + +<p>If they had, and if he had found the flaw in Michael's armour, John +Armitage realised that the way to fulfilment of his schemes for buying +the mines and working them on up-to-date lines, was opened up. If +Michael could be proved unfaithful to the law and ideals of Ridge, John +Armitage believed the men's faith in the fabric of their common life +would fall to pieces. He envisaged the eating of moths of doubt and +disappointment into the philosophy of the Ridge, the disintegration of +ideas which had held the men together, and made them stand together in +matters of common interest and service, as one man. He had almost +assured himself that if Michael was not the thief and hoarder of the +lost opals, he at least knew something of them, when a ripple of +laughter and gust of singing were flung into the air not far from them.</p> + +<p>To Armitage it was as though some blithe spirit was mocking the +discovery he thought he had made, and the fruition it promised those +secret hopes of his.</p> + +<p>"It's Sophie," Michael said.</p> + +<p>They had come across the Ridge to the back of the huts. The light was +failing; the sky, from the earth upwards where the sunset had been, the +frail, limpid green of a shallow lagoon, deepening to blue, darker than +indigo. The crescent of a moon, faintly gilded, swung in the sky above +the dark shapes of the huts which stood by the track to the old +Flash-in-the-pan rush. The smoke of sandal-wood fires burning in the +huts was in the air. A goat bell tinkled....</p> + +<p>Potch and Sophie were talking behind the hut somewhere; their +exclamations, laughter, a phrase or two of the song Sophie was singing +went through the quietness.</p> + +<p>And it was all this he wanted to change! John Armitage caught the +revelation of the moment as he stood to listen to Sophie singing. He +understood as he had never done what the Ridge stood for—association of +people with the earth, their attachment to the primary needs of life, +the joyous flight of youthful spirits, this quiet happiness and peace at +evening when the work of the day was done.</p> + +<p>As he came from the dumps, having said good-night to Michael, he saw +Sophie, a slight, girlish figure, on the track ahead of him. Her dress +flickered and flashed through the trees beside the track; it was a +wraithlike streak in the twilight. She was taking the milk down to +Newton's, and singing to herself as she walked. John Armitage quickened +his steps to overtake her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + + +<p>The visit of an opal-buyer ruffled ever so slightly the still surface of +life on the Ridge. When Armitage had gone, he was talked of for a few +days; the stones he had bought, the prices he had given for them, were +discussed. Some of his sayings, and the stories he had told, were +laughed over. Tricks of speech he had used, tried at first half in fun, +were adopted and dropped into the vernacular of the mines.</p> + +<p>"Sure!" the men said as easily as an American; and sometimes, talking +with each other: "You've got another think coming to you"; or, "See, +you've got your nerve with you!"</p> + +<p>For a night or two Michael went over the books and papers John Armitage +had brought him. At first he just glanced here and there through them, +and then he began to read systematically, and light glimmered in his +windows far into the night. He soaked the contents of two or three +reviews and several newspapers before giving himself to a book on +international finance in which old Armitage had written his name.</p> + +<p>Michael thrilled to the stimulus of the book, the intellectual +excitement of the ideas it brought forth. He lived tumultuously within +the four bare walls of his room, arguing with himself, the author, the +world at large. Wrong and injustice enthroned, he saw in this book +describing the complexities of national and international systems of +finance, the subtle weaving and interweaving of webs of the +money-makers.</p> + +<p>This was not the effect Dawe Armitage had expected his book to have; he +had expected to overawe and daze Michael with its impressive arraignment +of figures and its subtle and bewildering generalisations on credit and +foreign exchange. Michael's mind had cut through the fog raised by the +financier's jargon to the few small facts beneath it all. Neither dazed +nor dazzled, his brain had swung true to the magnetic meridian of his +faith. Far from the book having shown him the folly and futility of any +attempt against the Money Power, as Dawe Armitage, in a moment of +freakish humour had imagined it might, it had filled him with such an +intensity of fury that for a moment he believed he alone could +accomplish the regeneration of the world; that like St. Michael of old +he would go forth and slay the dragon, this chimera which was ravaging +the world, drawing the blood, beauty, and joy of youth, the peace and +wisdom of age; breaking manhood and womanhood with its merciless claws.</p> + +<p>But falling back on a consciousness of self, as with broken wings he +realised he was neither archangel, nor super-man, but Michael Brady, an +ordinary, ill-educated man who read and dreamed a great deal, and gouged +for black opal on Fallen Star Ridge. He was a little bitter, and more +humble, for having entertained that radiant vision of himself.</p> + +<p>John Armitage had been gone from the Ridge some weeks when Michael went +over in his mind every phase and phrase of the talk they had had. His +lips took a slight smile; it crept into his eyes, as he reviewed what he +had said and what John Armitage had said, smoking unconsciously.</p> + +<p>Absorbed in his reading, he had thought little of John Armitage and that +walk to the new rush with him. Occasionally the memory of it had +nickered and glanced through his mind; but he was so obsessed by the +ideas this new reading had stirred, that he went about his everyday jobs +in the mine and in the hut, absent-mindedly, automatically, because they +were things he was in the habit of doing. Potch watched him anxiously; +Rouminof growled to him; Sophie laughed and flitted and sang, before his +eyes; but Michael had been only distantly conscious of what was going on +about him. George Woods and Watty guessed what was the matter; they knew +the symptoms of these reading and brooding bouts Michael was subject to. +The moods wore off when they put questions likely to draw information +and he began to talk out and discuss what he had been reading with them.</p> + +<p>He had talked this one off, when suddenly he remembered how John +Armitage's eyes had dived into his during that walk to the new rush. He +could see Armitage's eyes again, keen grey eyes they were. And his +hands. Michael remembered how Armitage's hands had played over the opals +he had taken to show him. John Lincoln Armitage had the shrewd eyes of +any man who lives by his wits—lawyer, pickpocket, politician, or +financier—he decided; and the fine white hands of a woman. Only Michael +did not know any woman whose hands were as finely shaped and as white as +John Armitage's. Images of his clean-shaven, hot-house face of a city +dweller, slightly burned by his long journey on land and sea, recurred +to him; expressions, gestures, inflections of voice.</p> + +<p>Michael smiled to himself in communion with his thoughts as he went over +the substance of Armitage's conversation, dissecting and shredding it +critically. The more he thought of what Armitage had said, the more he +found himself believing John Armitage had some information which caused +him to think that he, Michael, knew something of the whereabouts of the +stones. He could not convince himself Armitage believed he actually held +the stones, or that he had stolen them. Armitage had certainly given him +an opportunity to sell on the quiet if he had the stones; but his manner +was too tentative, mingled with a subtle respect, to carry the notion of +an overt suggestion of the sort, or the possession of incriminating +knowledge. Then there was the story of the old Cliffs robbery. Michael +wondered why Mr. Armitage had gone over that. On general principles, +doubting the truth of his long run of bad luck—or from curiosity +merely, perhaps. But Michael did not deceive himself that Armitage might +have told the story in order to discover whether there was something of +the miser in him, and whether—if Michael had anything to do with the +taking of Paul's opals—he might prefer to hold rather than sell them.</p> + +<p>Michael was amused at the thought of himself as a miser. He went into +the matter as honestly as he could. He knew the power opal had with him, +the fascination of the search for it, which had brought him from the +Cliffs to the Ridge, and which had held him to the place, although the +life and ideas it had come to represent meant more to him now than black +opal. Still, he was an opal miner, and through all his lean years on the +Ridge he had been upheld by the thought of the stone he would find some +day.</p> + +<p>He had dreamed of that stone. It had haunted his idle thoughts for +years. He had seen it in the dark of the mine, deep in the ruddy earth, +a mirror of jet with fires swarming, red, green, and gold in it.</p> + +<p>Dreams of the great opal he would one day discover had comforted him +when storekeepers were asking for settlement of long-standing accounts. +He did not altogether believe he would find it, that wonderful piece of +black opal; but he dreamed, like a child, of finding it.</p> + +<p>As he thought of it, and of John Armitage, the smile in his eyes +broadened. If Armitage knew of that stone of his dreams, he would +certainly think his surmise was correct and believe that Michael Brady +was a miser. But he had held the dream in a dark and distant corner of +his consciousness; had it out to mood and brood over only at rare and +distant intervals; and no one was aware of its existence.</p> + +<p>Black opal had no more passionate lover than himself, Michael knew. He +trembled with instinctive eagerness, reverence, and delight, when he saw +a piece of beautiful stone; his eyes devoured it. But there was nothing +personal in his love. He might have been high priest of some mysterious +divinity; when she revealed herself he was consumed with adoration. In a +vague, whimsical way Michael realised this of himself, and yet, too, +that if ever he held the stone of his dreams in his hands, he would be +filled with a glorious and flooding sense of accomplishment; an ecstasy +would transport him. It would be beyond all value in money, that stone; +but he would not want to keep it to gaze on alone, he would want to give +it to the world as a thing of consummate beauty, for everybody to enjoy +the sight of and adore.</p> + +<p>No, Michael assured himself, he was not a miser. And, he reflected, he +had not even looked at Paul's stones. For all he knew, the stones Paul +had been showing that night at Newton's might have been removed from the +box before he left Newton's. Someone might have done to Paul what he, +Michael, had done to Charley Heathfield, as Armitage had suggested. +Paul's little tin box was well enough known. He had been opening and +showing his stones at Newton's a long time before the night when Jun had +been induced to divide spoils. It would be just as well, Michael +decided, to see what the box did contain; and he promised himself that +he would open it and look over the stones—some evening. But he was not +inclined to hurry the engagement with himself to do so.</p> + +<p>He had been glad enough to forget that he had anything to do with that +box of Paul's: it still lay among the books where he had thrown it. The +memory of the night on which he had seen Charley taking Paul home, and +of all that had happened afterwards, was blurred in an ugly vision for +him. It had become like the memory of a nightmare. He could scarcely +believe he had done what he had done; yet he knew he had. He drew a deep +breath of relief when he realised everything had worked out well so far.</p> + +<p>Paul was working with him; they had won that little bit of luck to carry +them on; Sophie was growing up healthily, happily, on the Ridge. She was +growing so quickly, too. Within the last few months Michael had noticed +a subtle change in her. There was an indefinable air of a flower +approaching its bloom about her. People were beginning to talk of her +looks. Michael had seen eyes following her admiringly. Sophie walked +with a light, lithe grace; she was slight and straight, not tall really, +but she looked tall in the black dress she still wore and which came to +her ankles. There was less of the eager sprite about her, a suggestion +of some sobering experience in her eyes—the shadow of her mother's +death—which had banished her unthinking and careless childhood. But the +eyes still had the purity and radiance of a child's. And she seemed +happy—the happiest thing on the Ridge, Michael thought. The cadence of +her laughter and a ripple of her singing were never long out of the air +about her father's hut. Wherever she went, people said now: "Sing to us, +Sophie!"</p> + +<p>And she sang, whenever she was asked, without the slightest +self-consciousness, and always those songs from old operas, or some of +the folk-songs her mother had taught her, which were the only songs she +knew.</p> + +<p>Michael had seen a number of neighbours in the township and their wives +and children sitting round in one or other of their homes while Sophie +sang. He had seen a glow of pleasure transfuse people as they listened +to her pure and ringing notes. Singing, Sophie seemed actually to +diffuse happiness, her own joy in the melodies she flung into the air. +Oh, yes, Sophie was happy singing, Michael could permit himself to +believe now. She could make people happy by her singing. He had feared +her singing as a will-o'-the-wisp which would lead her away from him and +the Ridge. But when he heard her enthralling people in the huts with it, +he was not afraid.</p> + +<p>Paul sometimes moaned about the chances she was missing, and that she +could be singing in theatres to great audiences. Sophie herself laughed +at him. She was quite content with the Ridge, it seemed, and to sing to +people on their verandas in the summer evenings or round the fires in +the winter. She might have had greater and finer audiences, the Ridge +folk said, but she could not have had more appreciative ones.</p> + +<p>If she was singing in the town, Michael always went to bring her home, +and he was as pleased as Sophie to hear people say:</p> + +<p>"You're not taking her away yet, Michael? The night's a pup!" or, +"Another ... just one more song, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>And if she had been singing at Newton's, Michael liked to see the men +come to the door of the bar, holding up their glasses, and to hear their +call, as Sophie and he went down the road:</p> + +<p>"Sophie! Sophie!"</p> + +<p>"Skin off y'r nose!"</p> + +<p>"All the luck!"</p> + +<p>"Best respecks, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>When Sophie did not know what to do with herself all the hours Michael +and Potch and her father were away at the mines, Michael had showed her +how to use her mother's cutting-wheel. He taught her all he knew of +opals, and Sophie was delighted with the idea of learning to cut and +polish gems as her mother had.</p> + +<p>Michael gave her rough stones to practise on, and in no time she learnt +to handle them skilfully. George, Watty, and the Crosses brought her +some gems to face and polish for them, and they were so pleased with her +work that they promised to give her most of their stones to cut and +polish. She had two or three accidents, and was very crestfallen about +them; but Michael declared they were part of the education of an +opal-cutter and would teach her more about her work than anyone could +tell her.</p> + +<p>To Michael those days were of infinite blessedness. They proved again +and again the right of what he had done. At first he was vaguely alarmed +and uneasy when he saw younger men of the Ridge, Roy O'Mara or Bully +Bryant, talking or walking with Sophie, or he saw her laughing and +talking with them. There was something about Sophie's bearing with them +which disturbed him—a subtle, unconscious witchery. Then he explained +it to himself. He guessed that the woman in her was waking, or awake. On +second thoughts he was not jealous or uneasy. It was natural enough the +boys should like Sophie, that she should like them; he recognised the +age-old call of sex in it all. And if Sophie loved and married a man of +the Ridge, the future would be clear, Michael thought. He could give +Paul the opals, and her husband could watch over Sophie and see no harm +came to her if she left the Ridge.</p> + +<p>The uneasiness stirred again, though, one afternoon when he found her +walking from the tank paddock with Arthur Henty beside her. There was a +startled consciousness about them both when Michael joined them and +walked along the road with them. He had seen Sophie talking to Henty in +and about the township before, but it had not occurred to him there was +anything unusual about that. Sophie had gone about as she liked and +talked to whom she liked since she was a child. She was on good terms +with everyone in the countryside. No one knew where she went or what she +did in the long day while the men were at the mines. Because the +carillon of her laughter flew through those quiet days, Michael +instinctively had put up a prayer of thanksgiving. Sophie was happy, he +thought. He did not ask himself why; he was grateful; but a vague +disquiet made itself felt when he remembered how he had found her +walking with Arthur Henty, and the number of times he had seen her +talking to Arthur Henty at Chassy Robb's store, or on the tracks near +the town.</p> + +<p>Fallen Star folk knew Arthur better than any of the Hentys. For years he +had been coming through the township with cattle or sheep, and had put +up at Newton's with stockmen on his way home, or when he was going to an +out-station beyond the Ridge.</p> + +<p>His father, James Henty, had taken up land in the back-country long +before opal was found on Fallen Star Ridge. He had worked half a million +square acres on an arm of the Darling in the days before runs were +fenced, with only a few black shepherds and one white man, old Bill +M'Gaffy, to help him for the first year or two. But, after an era of +extraordinary prosperity, a series of droughts and misfortunes had +overwhelmed the station and thrown it on the tender mercies of the +banks.</p> + +<p>The Hentys lived much as they had always done. They entertained as +usual, and there was no hint of a wolf near the door in the hearty, +good-natured, and liberal hospitality of the homestead. A constitutional +optimism enabled James Henty to believe Warria would ultimately throw +off its debts and the good old days return. Only at the end of a season, +when year after year he found there was no likelihood of being able to +meet even the yearly interest on mortgages, did he lose some of his +sanguine belief in the station's ability to right itself, and become +irritable beyond endurance, blaming any and everyone within hail for the +unsatisfactory estimates.</p> + +<p>But usually Arthur bore the brunt of these outbursts. Arthur Henty had +gone from school to work on the station at the beginning of Warria's +decline from the years of plenty, and had borne the burden and not a +little of the blame for heavy losses during the droughts, without ever +attempting to shift or deny the responsibilities his father put upon +him.</p> + +<p>"It does the old man good to have somebody to go off at," he explained +indifferently to his sister, Elizabeth, when she called him all the +fools under the sun for taking so much blackguarding sitting down.</p> + +<p>Although James Henty's only son and manager of the station under his +father's autocratic rule, Arthur Henty lived and worked among Warria +stockmen as though he were one of them. His clothes were as worn and +heavy with dust as theirs; his hat was as weathered, his hands as +hard—sunburnt and broken with sores when barcoo was in the air. A +quiet, unassuming man, he never came the "Boss" over them. He passed on +the old man's orders, and, for the rest, worked as hard as any man on +the station.</p> + +<p>He had never done anything remarkable that anyone could remember; but +the men he worked with liked him. Everybody rather liked Arthur Henty, +although nobody enthused about him. He had done man's work ever since he +was a boy, with no more than a couple of years' schooling; he had done +it steadily and as well as any other young man in the back-country. But +there was a curious, almost feminine weakness in him somewhere. The men +did not understand it. They thought he was too supine with his father; +that he ought to stand up to him more.</p> + +<p>Arthur Henty preferred being out on the plains with them rather than in +at the home station, the men said. He looked happier when he was with +them; he whistled to them as they lay yarning round the camp-fire before +turning in. They had never heard anything like his whistling. He seemed +to be playing some small, fine, invisible flute as he gave them +old-fashioned airs, ragtime tunes, songs from the comic operas, and +miscellaneous melodies he had heard his sisters singing. No one had +heard him whistling like that at the station. Out on the plains, or in +the bar at Newton's, he was a different man. Once or twice when he had +been drinking, and a glass or two of beer or whisky had got to his head, +he had shown more the spirit that it was thought he possessed—as if, +when the conscious will was relaxed, a submerged self had leapt forth.</p> + +<p>Men who had known him a long time wondered whether time would not +strengthen the fibres of that submerged self; but they had seen Arthur +Henty lose the elastic, hopeful outlook of youth, and sink gradually +into the place assigned him by his father, at first dutifully, then with +an indifference which slowly became apathy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty and the girls exclaimed with dismay and disgust when they +returned to the station after two years in town, and saw how rough and +unkempt-looking Arthur had become. They insisted on his having his hair +and beard cut at once, and that he should manicure his finger-nails. +After he had dressed for dinner and was clipped and shaved, they said he +looked more as if he belonged to them; but he was a shy, awkward boor, +and they did not know what to make of him. In his mother's hands, Arthur +was still a child, though, and she brought him back to the fold of the +family, drew his resistance—an odd, sullen resentment he had acquired +for the niceties of what she called "civilised society"—and made him +amenable to its discipline.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth was twice the man her brother was, James Henty was fond of +declaring. She had all the vigour and dash he would have liked his son +to possess. "My daughter Elizabeth," he said as frequently as possible, +and was always talking of her feats with horses, and the clear-headed +and clever way she went about doing things, and getting her own way on +all and every occasion.</p> + +<p>When the men rounded buck-jumpers into the yards on a Sunday morning, +Elizabeth would ride any Chris Este, the head stockman, let her near; +but Arthur never attempted to ride any of the warrigals. He steered +clear of horse-breaking and rough horses whenever he could, although he +broke and handled his own horses. In a curious way he shared a secret +feeling of his mother's for horses. She had never been able to overcome +an indefinable apprehension of the raw, half-broken horses of the +back-country, although her nerve had carried her through years of +acquaintance with them, innumerable accidents and misadventures, and +hundreds of miles of journeys at their mercy; and Arthur, although he +had lived and worked among horses as long as he could remember, had not +been able to lose something of the same feeling. His sister, suspecting +it, was frankly contemptuous; so was his father. It was the reason of +Henty's low estimate of his son's character generally. And the rumour +that Arthur Henty was shy of tough propositions in horses—"afraid of +horses"—had a good deal to do with the never more than luke-warm +respect men of the station and countryside had for him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + + +<p>Sophie often met Arthur Henty on the road just out of the town. Usually +it was going to or coming from the tank paddock, or in the paddock, on +Friday afternoons, when he had been into Budda for the sales or to truck +sheep or cattle. They did not arrange to meet, but Sophie expected to +see Arthur when she went to the tank paddock, and she knew he expected +to find her there. She did not know why she liked being with Arthur +Henty so much, or why they were such golden occasions when she met him. +They did not talk much when they were together. Their eyes met; they +knew each other through their eyes—a something remote from themselves +was always working through their eyes. It drew them together.</p> + +<p>When she was with Arthur Henty, Sophie knew she was filled with an +ineffable gaiety, a thing so delicate and ethereal that as she sang she +seemed to be filling the air with it. And Henty looked at her sometimes +as if he had discovered a new, strange, and beautiful creature, a +butterfly, or gnat, with gauzy, resplendent wings, whose beauty he was +bewildered and overcome by. The last time they had been together he had +longed to draw her to him and kiss her so that the virgin innocence +would leave her eyes; but fear or some conscientious scruple had +restrained him. He had been reluctant to awaken her, to change the +quality of her feeling towards him. He had let her go with a lingering +handclasp. In all their tender intimacy there had been no more of the +love-making of the flesh than the subtle interweavings of instincts and +fibres which this handclasp gave. Ridge folk had seen them walking +together. They had seen that subtle inclination of Sophie's and Arthur's +figures towards each other as they walked—the magnetic, gentle, +irresistible swaying towards each other—and the gossips began to +whisper and nod smilingly when they came across Arthur and Sophie on the +road. Sophie at first went her way unconscious of the whispers and +smiles. Then words were dropped slyly—people teased her about Arthur. +She realised they thought he was her sweetheart. Was he? She began to +wonder and think about it. He must be; she came to the conclusion +happily. Only sweethearts went for walks together as she and Arthur did.</p> + +<p>"My mother says," Mirry Flail remarked one day, "she wouldn't be a bit +surprised to see you marrying Arthur Henty, Sophie, and going over to +live at Warria."</p> + +<p>"Goodness!" Sophie exclaimed, surprised and delighted that anybody +should think such a thing.</p> + +<p>"Marry Arthur Henty and go over and live at Warria." Her mind, like a +delighted little beaver, began to build on the idea. It did not alter +her bearing with Arthur. She was less shy and thoughtful with him, +perhaps; but he did not notice it, and she was carelessly and childishly +content to have found the meaning of why she and Arthur liked meeting +and talking together. People only felt as she and Arthur felt about each +other if they were going to marry and live "happy ever after," she +supposed.</p> + +<p>When Michael was aware of what was being said, and of the foundation +there was for gossip, he was considerably disturbed. He went to talk to +Maggie Grant about it. She, he thought, would know more of what was in +the wind than he did, and be better able to gauge what the consequences +were likely to be to Sophie.</p> + +<p>"I've been bothered about it myself, Michael," she said. "But neither +you nor me can live Sophie's life for her.... I don't see we can do +anything. His crowd'll do all the interfering, if I know anything about +them."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>"And, as far as I can see, it won't do any good our butting in," Mrs. +Grant continued. "You know Sophie's got a will of her own ... and she's +always had a good deal her own way. I've talked round the thing to her +... and I think she understands."</p> + +<p>"You've always been real good to her, Maggie," Michael said gratefully.</p> + +<p>"As to that"—the lines of Maggie Grant's broad, plain face rucked to +the strength of her feeling—"I've done what I could. But then, I'm fond +of her—fond of her as you are, Michael. That's saying a lot. And you +know what I thought of her mother. But it's no use us thinking we can +buy Sophie's experience for her. She's got to live ... and she's got to +suffer."</p> + +<p>Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no +idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or +that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang +as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch +as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an +insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her +stones to face and fix up. She had acquired such a reputation for making +the most of stones committed to her care that men came from the Three +Mile and from the Punti with opals for her to rough-out and polish.</p> + +<p>Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara were often at Rouminof's in the evening, and +they heard about it when they looked in at Newton's later on, now and +then.</p> + +<p>"You must be striking it pretty good down at the Punti, Bull," Watty +Frost ventured genially one night. "See you takin' stones for Sophie to +fix up pretty near every evenin'."</p> + +<p>"There's some as sees too much," Bully remarked significantly.</p> + +<p>"What you say, you say y'rself, Bull." Watty pulled thoughtfully on his +pipe, but his little blue eyes squinted over his fat, red-grained +cheeks, not in the least abashed.</p> + +<p>"I do," Bull affirmed. "And them as sees too much ... won't see much ... +when I'm through with 'em."</p> + +<p>"Mmm," Watty brooded. "That's a good thing to know, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>He and the rest of the men continued to "sling off," as they said, at +Bully and Roy O'Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless.</p> + +<p>The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of +excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and +the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new +prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on +claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new +field.</p> + +<p>Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show +for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the +fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man +to manage Rummy, the men said.</p> + +<p>Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more +or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with +him for keeping out of the way.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't rather have his room than his +company," Watty ventured, "and they just go shares with him so as +things'll be all right for Sophie."</p> + +<p>"That's right!" Pony-Fence agreed.</p> + +<p>The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man's work, going +about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a +youth at anybody's beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the +taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a +man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older +than he was really, and took being Michael's mate very seriously.</p> + +<p>Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that +Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter; but +George and Watty were loth to lose Michael's word from their councils. +They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. +Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a +discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other +shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that +morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael +had invited him to go across to George and Watty's shelter with him, and +after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael's +shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds +which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what +was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty +trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found +Potch's eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent +expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave +interest.</p> + +<p>Some people were staying at Warria during the winter, and when there was +going to be a dance at the station Mrs. Henty wrote to ask Rouminof to +play for it. She could manage the piano music, she said, and if he would +tune his violin for the occasion, they would have a splendid band for +the young people. And, her letter had continued: "We should be so +pleased if your daughter would come with you."</p> + +<p>Sophie was wildly excited at the invitation. She had been to Ridge race +balls for the last two or three years, but she had never even seen +Warria. Her father had played at a Warria ball once, years before, when +she was little; but she and her mother had not gone with him to the +station. She remembered quite well when he came home, how he had told +them of all the wonderful things there had been to eat at the +ball—stuffed chickens and crystallised fruit, iced cakes, and all +manner of sweets.</p> + +<p>Sophie had heard of the Warria homestead since she was a child, of its +orange garden and great, cool rooms. It had loomed like the enchanted +castle of a legend through all her youthful imaginings. And now, as she +remembered what Mirry Flail had said, she was filled with delight and +excitement at the thought of seeing it.</p> + +<p>She wondered whether Arthur had asked his mother to invite her to the +dance. She thought he must have; and with naïve conceit imagined happily +that Arthur's mother must want to know her because she knew that Arthur +liked her. And Arthur's sisters—it would be nice to know them and to +talk to them. She went over and over in her mind the talks she would +have with Polly and Nina, and perhaps Elizabeth Henty, some day.</p> + +<p>A few weeks before the ball she had seen Arthur riding through the +township with his sisters and a girl who was staying at Warria. He had +not seen her, and Sophie was glad, because suddenly she had felt shy and +confused at the thought of talking to him before a lot of people. +Besides, they all looked so jolly, and were having such a good time, +that she would not have known what to say to Arthur, or to his sisters, +just then.</p> + +<p>When she told Mrs. Woods and Martha M'Cready about the invitation, they +smiled and teased her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that tells a tale!" they said.</p> + +<p>Sophie laughed. She felt silly, and she was blushing, they said. But she +was very happy at having been asked to the ball. For weeks before she +found herself singing "Caro Nome" as she sat at work, went about the +house, or with Potch after the goats in the late afternoon.</p> + +<p>Arthur liked that song better than any other, and its melody had become +mingled and interwoven with all her thoughts of him.</p> + +<p>The twilight was deepening, on the evening a few days before the dance, +when Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara came up to Rouminof's hut, calling +Sophie. She was washing milk tins and tea dishes, and went to the door +singing to herself, a candle throwing a fluttering light before her.</p> + +<p>"Your father sent us along for you, Sophie," Bully explained. "There's a +bit of a celebration on at Newton's to-night, and the boys want you to +sing for them."</p> + +<p>Sophie turned from them, going into the house to put down her candle.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said, pleased at the idea.</p> + +<p>Michael came into the hut through, the back door. From his own room he +had heard Bully calling and then explaining why he and Roy O'Mara were +there.</p> + +<p>"Don't go, Sophie," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"But why, Michael?" Disappointment clouded Sophie's first bright +pleasure that the men had sent for her to sing to them, and her +eagerness to do as they asked.</p> + +<p>"It's not right ... not good for you to sing down there when the boys +'ve been drinking," Michael said, unable to express clearly his +opposition to her singing at Newton's.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a spoil-sport, Michael," the boys at the door called when they +saw he was trying to dissuade Sophie.</p> + +<p>"Come along, Sophie," Roy called.</p> + +<p>She looked from Bully and Roy to Michael, hesitating. Theirs was the +call of youth to youth, of youth to gaiety and adventure. She turned +away from Michael.</p> + +<p>"I'm going, Michael," she said quickly, and swung to the door. Michael +heard her laughing as she went off along the track with Bully and Roy.</p> + +<p>"Did you know Mr. Armitage is up?" Roy stopped to call back.</p> + +<p>"No," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Came up by the coach this evening," Roy said, and ran after Bully and +Sophie.</p> + +<p>It was a rowdy night at Newton's. Shearing was just over at Warria +sheds, and men with cheques to burn were crowding the bar and passages. +Sophie was hailed with cheers as she neared the veranda. Her father +staggered out towards her, waving his arms crazily. Sophie was surprised +when she found the crowd waiting for her. There were so many strangers +in it—rough men with heavy, inflamed faces—hardly one she knew among +them. A murmur and boisterous clamour of voices came from the bar. The +men on the veranda made way for her.</p> + +<p>Her heart quailed when she looked into the big earthen-floored bar, and +saw its crowd of rough-haired, sun-red men, still wearing the clothes +they had been working in, grey flannel shirts and dungarees, +blood-splashed, grimy, and greasy with the "yolk" of fleeces they had +been handling. The smell of sheep and the sweat of long days of shearing +and struggling with restless beasts were in the air, with fumes of rank +tobacco and the flat, stale smell of beer. The hanging lamp over the bar +threw only a dim light through the fog of smoke the men had put up, and +which from the doorway completely obscured Peter Newton where he stood +behind the bar.</p> + +<p>Sophie hung back.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going in there," she said.</p> + +<p>"Did you know Mr. Armitage was up?" Roy asked.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>He explained how Mr. Armitage had come unexpectedly by the coach that +evening. Sophie saw him among the men on the veranda.</p> + +<p>"I'll sing here," she told Bully and Roy, leaning against a veranda +post.</p> + +<p>She was a little afraid. But she knew she had always pleased Ridge folk +when she sang to them, so she put back her head and sang a song of youth +and youthful happiness she had sung on the veranda at Newton's before. +It did not matter that the words were in Italian, which nobody +understood. The dancing joyousness and laughing music of her notes +carried the men with them. The applause was noisy and enthusiastic. +Sophie laughed, delighted, yet almost afraid of her success.</p> + +<p>Big and broad-shouldered, Bully Bryant stood at a little distance from +her, in front of everybody. Arthur Henty, leaning against the wall near +the door of the bar, smiled softly, foolishly, when she glanced at him. +He had been drinking, too, and was watching, and listening to her, with +the same look in his eyes as Bully.</p> + +<p>Sophie caught the excitement about her. An exhilaration of pleasure +thrilled her. It was crude wine which went to her head, this admiration +and applause of strangers and of the men she had known since she was a +child. There was a wonderful elation in having them beg her to sing. +They looked actually hungry to hear her. She found Arthur Henty's eyes +resting on her with the expression she knew in them. An imp of +recklessness entered her. Her father beat the air as if he were leading +an orchestra, and she threw herself into the Shadow Song, singing with +an abandonment that carried her beyond consciousness of her +surroundings.</p> + +<p>She sang again and again, and always in response to an eager tumult of +cheers, thudding of feet, joggling of glasses, chorus of broken cries: +"En-core, encore, Sophie!" An instinct of mischief and coquetry urging, +she glanced sometimes at Arthur, sometimes at Bully. Then with a glance +at Arthur, and for a last number, she began "Caro Nome," and gave to her +singing all the glamour and tenderness, the wild sweetness, the aria had +come to have for her, because she had sung it so often to Arthur when +they met and were walking along the road together. She was so carried +away by her singing, she did not realise what had happened until +afterwards.</p> + +<p>She only knew that suddenly, roughly, she was grasped and lifted. She +saw Bully's face flaming before her own, gazed with terror and horror +into his eyes. His face was thrown against hers—and obliterated.</p> + +<p>"Are you all right?" someone asked after a moment.</p> + +<p>Awaking from the daze and bewilderment, Sophie looked up.</p> + +<p>John Armitage was standing beside her; Potch nearby. They were on the +outskirts of the crowd on the veranda.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>The men on the veranda had broken into two parties; one was surging +towards the bar door, the other moving off down the road out of the +town. Michael came towards her.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Potch looked after her. I couldn't get near," John Armitage said.</p> + +<p>An extraordinary quiet took possession of Sophie. When she was going +down the road with Potch and Michael, she said:</p> + +<p>"Did Bully kiss me, Michael?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what happened then?"</p> + +<p>"Arthur Henty knocked him down," Michael said.</p> + +<p>She looked at him with scared eyes.</p> + +<p>"They want to fight it out ... but they're both drunk. The boys are +trying to stop it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Michael!" Sophie cried on a little gasping breath; and looking into +her eyes he read her contrition, asking forgiveness, understanding all +that he had not been able to explain to her. She did not say, "I'll +never sing there, like that, any more." Her feeling was too deep for +words; but Michael knew she never would.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + + +<p>"It's what I wore, meself, white muslin, when I went to me first ball," +Mrs. George Woods said, standing off to admire the frock of white muslin +Sophie had on, and which she had just fastened up for her.</p> + +<p>Sophie was admiring her reflection in Mrs. Woods' mirror, a square of +glass which gave no more than her head and shoulders in brilliant +sketchy outlines. She moved, trying to see more of herself and the new +dress. Maggie Grant, who had helped with the making of the dress, was +also gazing at her and at it admiringly.</p> + +<p>When it was a question of Sophie having a dress for the ball at Warria, +Mrs. Grant had spoken to Michael about it.</p> + +<p>"Sophie's got to have a decent dress to go to the station, Michael," she +said. "I'm not going to have people over there laughing at her, and +she's had nothing but her mother's old dresses, cut down—for goodness +knows how long."</p> + +<p>"Will you get it?" Michael inquired anxiously.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grant nodded.</p> + +<p>"Bessie Woods and I were thinking it might be pinspot muslin, with a bit +of lace on it," she said. "We could get the stuff at Chassy Robb's and +make it up between us."</p> + +<p>"Right!" Michael replied, looking immensely relieved to have the +difficulty disposed of. "Tell Chassy to put it on my book."</p> + +<p>So the pinspot muslin and some cheap creamy lace had been bought. Mrs. +Woods and Sophie settled on a style they found illustrating an +advertisement in a newspaper and which resembled a dress one of the +Henty girls had worn at the race ball the year before. Maggie Grant had +done all the plain sewing and Mrs. Woods the fixing and finishing +touches. They had consulted over and over again about sleeves and the +length of the skirt. The frock had been fitted at least a dozen times. +They had wondered where they would put the lace as a bit of trimming, +and had decided for frills at the elbows and a tucker in the V-shaped +neck of the blouse. They marvelled at their audacity, but felt sure they +had done the right thing when they cut the neck rather lower than they +would have for a dress to be worn in the daytime.</p> + +<p>Martha M'Cready, insisting on having a finger in the pie, had pressed +the dress when it was finished, and she had washed and ironed Mrs. +George Woods' best embroidered petticoat for Sophie to wear with it.</p> + +<p>And now Sophie was dressing in Mrs. Woods' bedroom because it had a +bigger mirror than her own room, and the three women were watching her, +giving little tugs and pats to the dress now and then, measuring it with +appraising glances of conscious pride in their workmanship, and joy at +Sophie's appearance in it. Sophie, her face flushed, her eyes shining, +turned to them every now and then, begging to know whether the skirt was +not a little full here, or a little flat there; and they pinched and +pulled, until it was thought nothing further could be done to improve +it.</p> + +<p>Sophie was anxious about her hair. She had put it in plaits the night +before, and had kept it in them all the morning. Her hair had never been +in plaits before, and she had not liked the look of it when she saw it +all crisp and frizzy, like Mirry Flail's. She had used a wet brush to +get the crinkle out, but there was still a suggestion of it in the heavy +dark wave of her hair when she had done it up as usual.</p> + +<p>"Your hair looks very nice—don't worry any more about it, Sophie," +Martha M'Cready had said.</p> + +<p>"My mother used to say there was nothing nicer for a young girl to wear +than white muslin," Mrs. Woods remarked, "and that sash of your mother's +looks real nice as a belt, Sophie."</p> + +<p>The sash, a broad piece of blue and green silk shot like a piece of poor +opal, Sophie had found in a box of her mother's, and it was wound round +her waist as a belt and tied in a bow at the side.</p> + +<p>"Turn round and let me see if the skirt's quite the same length all +round, Sophie," Mrs. Grant commanded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Maggie," Bessie Woods exclaimed complacently. "It's quite right."</p> + +<p>Sophie glanced at herself in the glass again. Mrs. Woods had lent her a +pair of opal ear-rings, and Maggie Grant the one piece of finery she +possessed—a round piece of very fine black opal set in a rim of gold, +which Bill had given her when first she came to the Ridge.</p> + +<p>Sophie had on for the first time, too, a necklace she had made herself +of stones the miners had given her at different times. There was a piece +of opal for almost every man on the fields, and she had strung them +together, with a beautiful knobby Potch had made her a present of for +her eighteenth birthday, a few days before, in the centre.</p> + +<p>Just as she had finished dressing, Mrs. Watty Frost called in the +doorway: "Anybody at home?"</p> + +<p>"Come in," Mrs. George Woods replied.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watty walked into the bedroom. She had a long slender parcel +wrapped in brown paper in her hand, but nobody noticed it at the time.</p> + +<p>"My!" she exclaimed, staring at Sophie; "we are fine, aren't we?"</p> + +<p>Sophie caught up her long, cotton gloves and pirouetted in happy +excitement.</p> + +<p>"Aren't we?" she cried gaily. "Just look at my gloves! Did ever you see +such lovely long gloves, Mrs. Watty? And don't my ear-rings look nice? +But it does feel funny wearing ear-rings, doesn't it? I want to be +shaking my head all the time to make them joggle!"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. The blue and green fires of the stones leapt and +sparkled. Her eyes seemed to catch fire from them. The women exchanged +admiring glances.</p> + +<p>"Where's my handkerchief?" Sophie cried. "Father's late, isn't he? I'm +sure we'll be late! How long will it take to drive over to Warria?—An +hour? Goodness! And it'll be almost time for the dance to begin then! +Oh, don't my shoes look nice, Maggie?"</p> + +<p>She looked down at her feet in the white cotton stockings and white +canvas shoes, with ankle straps, which Maggie Grant had sent into Budda +for. The hem of her skirt came just to her ankles. She played the new +shoes in and out from under it in little dancing steps, and the women +laughed at her, happy in her happiness.</p> + +<p>"But you haven't got a fan, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said.</p> + +<p>"A fan?" Sophie's eyes widened.</p> + +<p>"You should oughter have a fan. In my young days it wasn't considered +decent to go to a ball without a fan," Mrs. Watty remarked grimly.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Sophie looked from one to the other of her advisers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. George Woods was just going to say that it was a long time since +Mrs. Watty's young days, when Mrs. Watty took the brown paper from the +long, thin parcel she was carrying.</p> + +<p>"I thought most likely you wouldn't have one," she said, "so I brought +this over."</p> + +<p>She unfurled an old-fashioned, long-handled, sandal-wood fan, with birds +and flowers painted on the brown satin screen, and a little row of +feathers along the top. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Grant exchanged +glances that Mrs. Watty should pander to the vanity of an occasion.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Watty!" Sophie took the fan with a little cry of delight.</p> + +<p>"My, aren't you a grown-up young lady now, Sophie?" Mrs. Woods +exclaimed, as Sophie unfurled the fan.</p> + +<p>"But mind you take care of it, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said, stiffening +against the relaxing atmosphere of goodwill and excitement. "Watty got +it for me last trip he made to sea, before we was married, and I set a +good deal of store by it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll be ever so careful!" Sophie declared. She opened the fan. +"Isn't it pretty?"</p> + +<p>Dropping into a chair, she murmured: "May I—have this dance with you, +Miss Rouminof?" And casting a shy upward glance over her fan, as if +answering for herself, "I don't mind if I do!"</p> + +<p>Martha and Mrs. Woods laughed heartily, recognising Arthur Henty's way +of talking in the voice Sophie had imitated.</p> + +<p>"That's the way to do it, Sophie," Mrs. Woods said; "only you shouldn't +say, 'Don't mind if I do,' but, 'It's a pleasure, I'm sure.'"</p> + +<p>"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Sophie mimed.</p> + +<p>"Is she going to wear the dress over?" Mrs. Watty asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Maggie Grant said. "Bessie's lending her a dust-coat. I don't +think it'll get crushed very much. You see, they won't arrive until it's +nearly time for the dance to begin, and we thought it'd be better for us +to help her to get fixed up. Everybody'll be so busy over at Warria—and +we thought she mightn't be able to get anybody to do up her dress for +her."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Mrs. Watty said.</p> + +<p>There was a rattle of wheels on the rough shingle near the hut.</p> + +<p>"Here's your father, Sophie," Martha called.</p> + +<p>"And Michael and Potch are in the kitchen wanting to have a look at you +before you go, Sophie," Maggie Grant said.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Sophie took the coat Mrs. Woods was lending her, and went out to +the kitchen with it on her arm.</p> + +<p>Michael and Potch were there. They stared at her. But her radiant face, +the shining eyes, and the little smile which hovered on her mouth, held +their gaze more than the new white dress standing out in slight, stiff +folds all round her. The vision of her—incomparable youth and +loveliness she was to Michael—gripped him so that a moisture of love +and reverence dimmed his eyes.... And Potch just stared and stared at +her.</p> + +<p>Paul was bawling from the buggy outside:</p> + +<p>"Are you ready, Sophie? Sophie, are you ready?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Woods held the dust-coat. Very carefully Sophie edged herself into +it, and wrapped its nondescript buff-coloured folds over her dress. Then +she put the pink woollen scarf Martha had brought over her head, and +went out to the buggy. Her father was sitting aloft on the front seat, +driving Sam Nancarrow's old roan mare, and looking spruce and well +turned out in a new baggy suit which Michael had arranged for him to get +in order to look more of a credit to Sophie at the ball.</p> + +<p>"See you take good care of her, Paul," Mrs. Grant called after him as +they drove off.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + + +<p>The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie.</p> + +<p>Paul hummed and talked of the music he was going to play as they went +along. He called to Sam Nancarrow's old nag, quite pleased to be having +a horse to drive as though it belonged to him, and gossiped genially +about this and other balls he had been to.</p> + +<p>Sophie kept remembering what Mrs. Grant and Mrs. George Woods had said, +and how she had looked in those glimpses of herself in the mirror. "I do +look nice! I do look nice!" she assured herself.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful to be going to a ball at Warria. She had never thought +she could look as she did in this new frock, with her necklace, and Mrs. +Woods' ear-rings, and that old sash of her mother's. She was a little +anxious, but very happy and excited.</p> + +<p>She remembered how Arthur had looked at her when she met him on the road +or in the paddock sometimes, She only had on her old black dress then. +He must like her in this new dress, she thought. Her mind had a subtle +recoil from the too great joy of thinking how much more he must like her +in this pretty, new, white frock; she sat in a delicious trance of +happiness. Her father hummed and gossiped. All the stars came out. The +sky was a wonderful blue where it met the horizon, and darkened to +indigo as it climbed to the zenith.</p> + +<p>When they drove from the shadow of the coolebahs which formed an avenue +from the gate of the home paddock to the veranda of the homestead, Ted +Burton, the station book-keeper, a porky, good-natured little man, with +light, twinkling eyes, whose face looked as if it had been sand-papered, +came out to meet them.</p> + +<p>"There you are, Rouminof!" he said. "Glad to see you. We were beginning +to be afraid you weren't coming!"</p> + +<p>Sophie got down from the buggy, and her father drove off to the stables. +Passing the veranda steps with Mr. Burton, she glanced up. Several men +were on the steps. Her eyes went instinctively to Arthur Henty, who was +standing at the foot of them, a yellow puppy fawning at his feet. He did +not look up as Sophie passed, pretending to be occupied with the pup. +But in that fleeting glance her brain had photographed the bruise on his +forehead where it had caught a veranda post when Bully Bryant, having +regained his feet, hit out blindly.</p> + +<p>Potch had told Sophie what happened—she had made him find out in order +to tell her. Arthur and Bully had wanted to fight, but after the first +exchange of blows the men had held them back. Bully was mad drunk, they +said, and would have hammered Henty to pulp. And the next evening Bully +came to Sophie, heavy with shame, and ready to cry for what he had done.</p> + +<p>"If anybody'd 've told me I'd treat you like that, Sophie, I'd 've +killed him," he said. "I'd 've killed him.... You know how I feel about +you—you know how we all feel about you—and for me to have served you +like that—me that'd do anything in the world for you.... But it's no +good trying to say any more. It's no good tryin' to explain. It's got me +down...."</p> + +<p>He sat with his head in his hands for a while, so ashamed and miserable, +that Sophie could not retain her wrath and resentment against him. It +was like having a brother in trouble and doing nothing to help him, to +see Bully like this.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Bully," she said. "I know ... you weren't yourself ... +and you didn't mean it."</p> + +<p>He started to his feet and came to stand beside her. Sophie put her hand +in his; he gripped it hard, unable to say anything. Then, when he could +control his voice, he said:</p> + +<p>"I went over to see Mr. Henty this morning ... and told him if anybody +else 'd done what I did, I'd 've done what he did."</p> + +<p>Potch had said the men expected Bully would want to fight the thing out +when he was sober, and it was a big thing for him to have done what he +had. The punishing power of Bully's fists was well known, and he had +taken this way of punishing himself. Sophie understood that, She was +grateful and reconciled to him.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad, Bully," she said. "Let's forget all about it."</p> + +<p>So the matter ended. But it all came back to her as she saw the broken +red line on Arthur Henty's forehead.</p> + +<p>She did not know that because of it she was an object of interest to the +crowd on the veranda. News of Arthur Henty's bout with Bully Bryant had +been very soon noised over the whole countryside. Most of the men who +came to the ball from Langi-Eumina and other stations had gleaned varied +and highly-coloured versions, and Arthur had been chaffed and twitted +until he was sore and ashamed of the whole incident. He could not +understand himself—the rush of rage, instinctive and unreasoning, which +had overwhelmed him when he hit out at Bully.</p> + +<p>His mother protested that it was a shame to give Arthur such a bad time +for what was, after all, merely the chivalrous impulse of any decent +young man when a girl was treated lightly in his presence; but the men +and the girls who were staying at the station laughed and teased all the +more for the explanation. They pretended he was a very heroic and +quixotic young man, and asked about Sophie—whether she was pretty, and +whether it was true she sang well. They redoubled their efforts, and +goaded him to a state of sulky silence, when they knew she was coming to +the ball.</p> + +<p>Arthur Henty had been conscious for some time of an undercurrent within +him drawing him to Sophie. He was afraid of, and resented it. He had not +thought of loving her, or marrying her. He had gone to the tank paddock +in the afternoons he knew she would be there, or had looked for her on +the Warria road when she had been to the cemetery, with a sensation of +drifting pleasantly. He had never before felt as he did when he was with +Sophie, that life was a clear and simple thing—pleasant, too; that +nothing could be better than walking over the plains through the limpid +twilight. He had liked to see the fires of opal run in her eyes when she +looked at him; to note the black lines on the outer rim of their +coloured orbs; the black lashes set in silken skin of purest ivory; the +curve of her chin and neck; the lines of her mouth, and the way she +walked; all these things he had loved. But he did not want to have the +responsibility of loving Sophie: he could not contemplate what wanting +to marry her would mean in tempests and turmoil with his family.</p> + +<p>He had thought sometimes of a mediæval knight wandering through +flowering fields with the girl on a horse beside him, in connection with +Sophie and himself. A reproduction of the well-known picture of the +knight and the girl hung in his mother's sitting-room. She had cut it +out of a magazine, and framed it, because it pleased her; and beneath +the picture, in fine print, Arthur had often read:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"I met a lady in the meads,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Full beautiful—a fairy's child;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Her hair was long, her foot was light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">And her eyes were wild.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"I set her on my pacing steed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">And nothing else saw all day long;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">For sideways would she lean, and sing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">A faery's song."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>As a small boy Arthur had been attracted by the picture, and his mother +had told him its story, and had read him Keats' poem. He had read it +ever so many times since then himself, and after he met Sophie in the +tank paddock that afternoon she had ridden home on his horse, some of +the verses haunted him with the thought of her. One day when they were +sitting by the track and she had been singing to him, he had made a +daisy chain and thrown it over her, murmuring sheepishly, in a caprice +of tenderness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"I made a garland for her head,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">She looked at me as she did love</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">And made sweet moan."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sophie had asked about the poem. She had wanted to hear more, and he had +repeated as many verses as he could remember. When he had finished, she +had looked at him "as she did love" indeed, with eyes of sweet +confidence, yet withdrawing from him a little in shy and happy confusion +that he should think of her as anyone like the lady of the meads, who +was "full beautiful—a fairy's child."</p> + +<p>But Arthur did not want to love her; he did not want to marry her. He +did not want to have rows with his father, differences with his mother. +The affair at Newton's had shown him where he was going.</p> + +<p>Sophie was "a fairy's child," he decided. "Her hair as long, her foot +was light, and her eyes were wild"; but he did not want to be "a +wretched wight, alone and palely loitering" on her account; he did not +want to marry her. He would close her eyes with "kisses four," he told +himself, smiling at the precision of the knight of the chronicle; +"kisses four"—no more—and be done with the business.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, he wished Sophie were not coming to the ball. He would have +given anything to prevent her coming; but he could do nothing.</p> + +<p>He had thought of escaping from the ball by going to the out-station +with the men; but his mother, foreseeing something of his intention, had +given him so much to do at the homestead for her, that he could not go +away. When the buggy with Sophie and her father drove up to the veranda, +there was a chorus of suppressed exclamations among the assembled +guests.</p> + +<p>"Here she is, Art!"</p> + +<p>"Buck up, old chap! None but the brave, etc."</p> + +<p>Sophie did not hear the undertone of laughter and raillery which greeted +her arrival. She was quite unconscious that the people on the veranda +were interested in her at all, as she walked across the courtyard +listening to Mr. Burton's amiable commonplaces.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Burton left her in a small room with chintz-covered chairs and +dressing-table, Sophie took off her old dust-coat and the pink scarf she +had tied over her hair. The mirror was longer than Mrs. Woods'. Her +dress looked very crushed when she saw it reflected. She tried to shake +out the creases. Her hair, too, was flat, and had blown into stringy +ends. A shade of disappointment dimmed the brightness of her mood as she +realised she was not looking nearly as nice as she had when she left the +Ridge.</p> + +<p>Someone said: "May I come in?" and Polly Henty and another girl entered +the room.</p> + +<p>Polly Henty had just left school. She was a round-faced, jolly-looking +girl of about Sophie's own age, and the girl with her was not much +older, pretty and sprightly, an inch or so taller than Polly, and +slight. She had grey eyes, and a fluff of dry-grass coloured hair about +a small, sharp-featured, fresh-complexioned face, neatly powdered.</p> + +<p>Sophie knew something was wrong with her clothes the moment she +encountered the girls' curious and patronising glances as they came into +the room. Their appearance, too, took the skin from her vanity. Polly +had on a frock of silky white crêpe, with no lace or decoration of any +kind, except a small gold locket and chain which she was wearing. But +her dress fell round her in graceful folds, showing her small, +well-rounded bust and hips, and she had on silk stockings and white +satin slippers. The other girl's frock was of pale pink, misty material, +so thin that her shoulders and arms showed through it as though there +were nothing on them. She had pinned a pink rose in her hair, too, so +that its petals just lay against the nape of her neck. Sophie thought +she had never seen anyone look so nice. She had never dreamed of such a +dress.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Rouminof," Polly said; "mother sent me to look for you. We're +just ready to start, and your father wants you to turn over his music +for him."</p> + +<p>Sophie stood up, conscious that her dress was nothing like as pretty as +she had thought it. It stood out stiffly about her: the starched +petticoat crackled as she moved. She knew the lace should not have been +on her sleeves; that her shoes were of canvas, and creaked as she +walked; that her cotton gloves, and even the heavy, old-fashioned fan +she was carrying, were not what they ought to have been.</p> + +<p>"Miss Chelmsford—Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the +girl in the pink dress.</p> + +<p>Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if +just remembering she, too, had a hand.</p> + +<p>Sophie went with Polly and her friend to the veranda, which was screened +in on one side with hessian to form a ball-room. Behind the hessian the +walls were draped with flags, sheaves of paper daisies, and bundles of +Darling pea. Red paper lanterns swung from the roof, threw a rosy glare +over the floor which had been polished until it shone like burnished +metal.</p> + +<p>Polly Henty took Sophie to the piano where Mrs. Henty was playing the +opening bars of a waltz. Paul beside her, his violin under his arm, +stood looking with eager interest over the room where men and girls were +chatting in little groups.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty nodded and smiled to Sophie. Her father signalled to her, and +she went to a seat near him.</p> + +<p>Holding her hands over the piano, Mrs. Henty looked to Paul to see if he +were ready. He lifted his violin, tucked it under his chin, drew his +bow, and the piano and violin broke gaily, irregularly, uncertainly, at +first, into a measure which set and kept the couples swaying round the +edge of the ball-room.</p> + +<p>Sophie watched them at first, dazed and interested. Under the glow of +the lanterns, the figures of the dancers looked strange and solemn. Some +of the dancers were moving without any conscious effort, just skimming +the floor like swallows; others were working hard as they danced. Tom +Henderson held Elizabeth Henty as if he never intended to let go of her, +and worked her arm up and down as if it were a semaphore.</p> + +<p>Sophie had always admired Arthur's eldest sister, and she thought +Elizabeth the most beautiful-looking person she had ever seen this +evening. And that pink dress—how pretty it was! What had Polly said her +name was—the girl who wore it? Phyllis ... Phyllis Chelmsford.... +Sophie watched the dress flutter among the dancers some time before she +noticed Miss Chelmsford was dancing with Arthur Henty.</p> + +<p>She watched the couples revolving, dazed, and thinking vaguely about +them, noticing how pretty feet looked in satin slippers with high, +curved heels, wondering why some men danced with stiff knees and others +as if their knees had funny-bones like their elbows. The red light from +the lanterns made the whole scene look unreal; she felt as if she were +dreaming.</p> + +<p>"Sophie!" her father cried sharply.</p> + +<p>She turned his page. Her eyes wandered to Mrs. Henty, who sat with her +back to her. Sophie contemplated the bow of her back in its black frock +with Spanish lace scarf across it, the outline of the black lace on the +wrinkled skin of Mrs. Henty's neck, the loose, upward wave of her crisp +white hair, glinting silverly where the light caught it. Her face was +cobwebbed with wrinkles, but her features remained delicate and fine as +sculpturings in ancient ivory. Her eyes were bright: the sparkle of +youth still leapt in them. Her eyes had a slight smile of secret +sympathy and amusement as they flew over the roomful of people dancing.</p> + +<p>Sophie watched dance after dance, while the music jingled and jangled.</p> + +<p>Presently John Armitage appeared in the doorway with Nina Henty. Sophie +heard him apologising to Mrs. Henty for being late, and explaining that +he had stayed in the back-country a few days longer than usual for the +express purpose of coming to the ball.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty replied that it was "better late than never," and a pleasure +to see Mr. Armitage at any time; and then he and Nina joined the throng +of the dancers.</p> + +<p>Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The +disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came +into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely +come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was +dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding +herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the +background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her.</p> + +<p>It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other +people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always +been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the +moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his +way if he wanted a waltz with her.</p> + +<p>As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred +to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had +invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, +left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz +broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the +page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page +himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up +for him.</p> + +<p>After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely +looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would +end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it +would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her +crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty's big, old-fashioned +fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of +them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but +she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in +order to turn over the pages of her father's music more expertly.</p> + +<p>She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been +invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler's little girl +to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, +she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or +speak to her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly:</p> + +<p>"Come here and let me look at your opals, child."</p> + +<p>Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace.</p> + +<p>"What splendid stones!" she said.</p> + +<p>Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur's, with the same +shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty +about the stones.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty admired the ear-rings, and looked appreciatively at the big +flat stone in Mrs. Grant's brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention. +She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her.</p> + +<p>Looking into Sophie's face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, +unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a +something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been +considerably disturbed by Arthur's share in the brawl at Newton's. It +was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened +after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of +Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was +not sorry to see what manner of girl she was.</p> + +<p>But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly +uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite +their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have +brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what +Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time +like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good +time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the +mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to +dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have side-tracked her +about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence +which looked from Sophie's eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and +cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt.</p> + +<p>Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the +long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty's hand fell from Sophie's +necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Henty's thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She +played absent-mindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes. +She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she +protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl. +If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him.</p> + +<p>Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little +annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was +the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in +her hair brushing his cheek.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" Polly called. "For goodness' sake ... what are you dreaming +of?"</p> + +<p>The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty's reverie until Polly +called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm +more briskly.</p> + +<p>After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy +to each, other—at last—and were getting on, she could not afford to +espouse the other girl's cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur +to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old +Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle sales were the envy of +pastoralists on both sides of the Queensland border. Phyllis's +inheritance and the knowledge that the interests of Warria were allied +to those of Andrew Chelmsford of Yuina, would ensure a new lease of hope +and opportunity for Warria.... Whereas it would be worse than awful if +Arthur contemplated anything like marriage with this girl from the +Ridge.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henty's conscience was uneasy all the same. When the dance was +ended, she called Arthur to her.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, dear, ask that child to dance with you," she said +when he came to her. "She's been sitting here all the evening by +herself."</p> + +<p>"I was just going to," Sophie heard Arthur say.</p> + +<p>He came towards her.</p> + +<p>"Will you have the next dance with me, Sophie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She did not look at him.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say——" He sat down beside her. "I've had to dance with these +people who are staying with us," he added awkwardly.</p> + +<p>Her eyes turned to him, all the stormy fires of opal running in them.</p> + +<p>"You don't <i>have</i> to dance with me," she said.</p> + +<p>He got up and stood indecisively a moment.</p> + +<p>"Of course not," he said, "but I want to."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to dance with you," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>He turned away from her, went down the ball-room, and out through the +doorway in the hessian wall. Everyone had gone to supper. Mrs. Henty had +left the piano. Paul himself had gone to have some refreshment which was +being served in the dining-room across the courtyard. From the square, +washed with the silver radiance of moonlight which she could see through +the open space in the hessian, came a tinkle of glasses and spoons, +fragments of talking and laughter. Sophie heard a clear, girlish voice +cry: "Oh, Arthur!"</p> + +<p>She clenched her hands; she thought that she was going to cry; but +stiffening against the inclination, she sat fighting down the pain which +was gripping her, and longed for the time to come when she could go home +and be out in the dark, alone.</p> + +<p>John Armitage entered the ball-room as if looking for someone. Glancing +in the direction of the piano, he saw Sophie.</p> + +<p>"There you are, Sophie!" he exclaimed heartily. "And, would you believe +it, I've only just discovered you were here."</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her, and talked lightly, kindly, for a moment. But +Sophie was in no mood for talking. John Armitage had guessed something +of her crisis when he came into the room and found her sitting by +herself. He had seen the affair at Newton's, and knew enough of Fallen +Star gossip to understand how Sophie would resent Arthur Henty's +treatment of her. He could see she was a sorely hurt little creature, +holding herself together, but throbbing with pain and anger. She could +not talk; she could only think of Arthur Henty, whose voice they heard +occasionally out of doors. He was more than jolly after supper. Armitage +had seen him swallow nearly a glassful of raw whisky. His face had gone +a ghastly white after it. Rouminof had been drinking too. He came into +the room unsteadily when Mrs. Henty took her seat at the piano again; +but he played better.</p> + +<p>Armitage's eyes went to her necklace.</p> + +<p>"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said.</p> + +<p>Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me—there's a +stone for every one. This is Michael's!"—she touched each stone as she +named it—"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that."</p> + +<p>Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile.</p> + +<p>"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here +am I—come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of +stuff in your brooch."</p> + +<p>"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed.</p> + +<p>"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my +old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I +always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New +England spinster."</p> + +<p>Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he +looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and +appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it.</p> + +<p>Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was +an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, +of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so +extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in +this out-of-the-way part of the world.</p> + +<p>John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish +treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have +permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying +Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in +distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her +defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her +disappointment of the earlier part of the evening.</p> + +<p>"May I have the next dance, Sophie?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Sophie glanced up at him.</p> + +<p>"I'm not dancing," she said.</p> + +<p>Her averted face, the quiver of her lips, confirmed him in his +resolution. He took in her dress, the black opals in her ear-rings +swinging against her black hair and white neck. She had never looked +more attractive, he thought, than in this unlovely dress and with the +opals in her ears. The music was beginning for another dance. Across the +room Henty was hovering with a bevy of girls.</p> + +<p>"Why aren't you dancing, Sophie?" John Armitage asked.</p> + +<p>His quiet, friendly tone brought the glitter of tears to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"No one asked me to, until the dance before supper—then I didn't want +to," she said.</p> + +<p>The dance was already in motion.</p> + +<p>"You'll have this one with me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>John Armitage put the question as if he were asking a favour. "Please!" +he insisted.</p> + +<p>Putting her arm on his, Armitage led Sophie among the dancers. He held +her so gently and firmly that she felt as if she were dancing by a will +not her own. She and he glided and flew together; they did not talk, and +when</p> + + +<p>the music stopped, Mr. Armitage took her through the doorway into the +moonlight with the other couples. They walked to the garden where, the +orange trees were in blossom.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Sophie breathed, her arm still on his, and a little giddy.</p> + +<p>The earth was steeped in purest radiance; the orange blossoms swam like +stars on the dark bushes; their fragrance filled the air.</p> + +<p>Sophie held up her face as if to drink. "Isn't it lovely?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>A black butterfly with white etchings on his wings hovered over an +orange bush they were standing near, as if bewildered by the moonlight +and mistaking it for the light of a strange day.</p> + +<p>Armitage spread his handkerchief on a wooden seat.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd like it," he said. "Let's sit here—I've put down my +handkerchief because there's a dew, although the air seems so dry."</p> + +<p>When the music began again Sophie got up.</p> + +<p>"Don't let us go in yet," he begged.</p> + +<p>"But——" she demurred.</p> + +<p>"We'll stay here for this, and have the next dance," Armitage said.</p> + +<p>Sophie hesitated. She wondered why Mr. Armitage was being so nice to +her, understanding a little. She smiled into his eyes, dallying with the +temptation. John Armitage had seen women's eyes like that before; then +fall to the appeal of his own. But in Sophie's eyes he found something +he had not seen very often—a will-o'the-wisp of infinite wispishness +which incited him to pursue and to insist, while it eluded and flew from +him.</p> + +<p>When she danced with John Armitage again, Sophie looked up, laughed, and +played her eyes and smiles for him as she had seen Phyllis Chelmsford do +for Arthur. At first, shyly, she had exerted herself to please him, and +Armitage had responded to her tentative efforts; but presently she found +herself enjoying the game. And Armitage was so surprised at the charm +she revealed as she exerted herself to please him, that he responded +with an enthusiasm he had not contemplated. But their mutual success at +this oldest diversion in the world, while it surprised and delighted +them, did not delight their hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Henty were surprised; +then frankly scandalised. Several young men asked Sophie to dance with +them after she had danced with John Armitage. She thanked them, but +refused, saying she did not wish to dance very much. She sat in her +chair by the piano except when she was dancing with Mr. Armitage, or was +in the garden with him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + + +<p>"See Ed. means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal +before starting on his all-night drive into Budda.</p> + +<p>Newton remembered afterwards that John Armitage did not seem as +interested and jolly as usual. Ordinarily he was interested in +everything, and cordial with everybody; but this evening he was quiet +and preoccupied.</p> + +<p>"Hardly had a word to say for himself," Peter Newton said.</p> + +<p>Armitage had watched Ed. bring the old bone-shaking shandrydan he called +a coach up to the hotel, and put a couple of young horses into it. He +had a colt on the wheel he was breaking-in, and a sturdy old dark bay +beside him, a pair of fine rusty bays ahead of them, and a sorrel, and +chestnut youngster in the lead. He had got old Olsen and two men on the +hotel veranda to help him harness-up, and it took them all their time to +get the leaders into the traces. Bags had to be thrown over the heads of +the young horses before anything could be done with them, and it took +three men to hold on to the team until Ed. Ventry got into his seat and +gathered up the reins. Armitage put his valise on the coach and shook +hands all round. He got into his seat beside Ed. and wrapped a tarpaulin +lined with possum skin over his knees.</p> + +<p>"Let her go, Olly," Ed. yelled.</p> + +<p>The men threw off the bags they had been holding over the horses' heads. +The leaders sprang out and swayed; the coach rocked to the shock; the +steady old wheeler leapt forward. The colt under the whip, trying to +throw himself down on the trace, leapt and kicked, but the leaders +dashed forward; the coach lurched and was carried along with a rattle +and clash of gear, Ed. Ventry, the reins wrapped round his hands, +pulling on them, and yelling:</p> + +<p>"I'll warm yer.... Yer lazy, wobblin' old adders—yer! I'll warm yer.... +Yer wobble like a cross-cut saw.... Kim ovah! Kim ovah, there! I'll get +alongside of yer! Kim ovah!"</p> + +<p>Swaying and rocking like a ship in a stormy sea, the coach turned out of +the town. Armitage thought its timbers would be strewn along the road at +any moment; but the young horses, under Mr. Ventry's masterly grip, soon +took the steady pace of the old roadsters; their freshness wore off, and +they were going at a smart, even pace by the time the Three Mile was +reached.</p> + +<p>"Seemed to have something on his mind," Ed. Ventry said afterwards. +"Ordinarily, he's keen to hear all the yarns you can tell him, but that +day he was dead quiet."</p> + +<p>"'Not much doin' on the Ridge just now, Mr. Armitage,' I says.</p> + +<p>"'No, Ed,' he says.</p> + +<p>"'Hardly worth y'r while comin' all the way from America to get all you +got this trip?'</p> + +<p>"'No,' he says. But, by God—if I'd known what he got——"</p> + +<p>It was an all-night trip. Ed. and Mr. Armitage had left the Ridge at six +o'clock and arrived in Budda township about an hour before the morning +train left for Sydney. There was just time for Armitage to breakfast at +the hotel before he went off in the hotel drag to the station. The train +left at half-past six. But Ed. Ventry had taken off his hat and +scratched his grizzled thatch when he saw a young, baldy-faced gelding +in the paddock with the other coach horses that evening.</p> + +<p>"Could've swore I left Baldy at the Ridge," he said to the boy who +looked after the stables at the Budda end of his journey.</p> + +<p>"Thought he was there meself," the lad replied, imitating Ed.'s +perplexed head-scratching.</p> + +<p>At the Ridge, when he made his next trip, they were able to tell Mr. +Ventry how the baldy-face happened to be at Budda when Ed. thought he +was at Fallen Star, although Ed. heard some of the explanation from +Potch and Michael a day or two later. Sophie had ridden the baldy-face +into Budda the night he drove Mr. Armitage to catch the train for +Sydney. No one discovered she had gone until the end of next day. Then +Potch went to Michael.</p> + +<p>"Michael," he said; "she's gone."</p> + +<p>During the evening Paul had been heard calling Sophie. He asked Potch +whether he had seen her. Potch said he had not. But it was nothing +unusual for Sophie to wander off for a day on an excursion with Ella or +Mirry Flail, so neither he nor Michael thought much of not having seen +her all day, until Paul remarked querulously to Potch that he did not +know where Sophie was. Looking into her room Potch saw her bed had not +been slept in, although the room was disordered. He went up to the town, +to Mrs. Newton and to the Flails', to ask whether they had seen anything +of Sophie. Mirry Flail said she had seen her on one of the coach-stable +horses, riding out towards the Three Mile the evening before. Potch knew +instinctively that Sophie had gone away from the moment Paul had spoken +to him. She had lived away from him during the last few months; but +watching her with always anxious, devout eyes, he had known more of her +than anyone else.</p> + +<p>Lying full stretch on his sofa, Michael was reading when Potch came into +the hut. His stricken face communicated the seriousness of his news. +Michael had no reason to ask who the "she" Potch spoke of was: there was +only one woman for whom Potch would look like that. But Michael's mind +was paralysed by the shock of the thing Potch had said. He could neither +stir nor speak.</p> + +<p>"I'm riding into Budda, to find out if she went down by the train," +Potch said. "I think she did, Michael. She's been talking about going to +Sydney ... a good deal lately.... She was asking me about it—day before +yesterday ... but I never thought—I never thought she wanted to go so +soon ... and that she'd go like this. But I think she has gone.... And +she was afraid to tell us—to let you know.... She said you'd made up +your mind you didn't want her to go ... she'd heard her mother tell you +not to let her go, and if ever she was going she wouldn't tell you...."</p> + +<p>Potch's explanation, broken and incoherent as it was, gave Michael's +thought and feeling time to reassert themselves.</p> + +<p>He said: "See if Chassy can lend me his pony, and I'll come with you, +Potch."</p> + +<p>They rode into Budda that night, and inquiry from the station-master +gave them the information they sought. A girl in a black frock had taken +a second-class ticket for Sydney. He did not notice very much what she +was like. She had come to the window by herself; she had no luggage; he +had seen her later sitting in a corner of a second-class compartment by +herself. The boy, a stranger to the district, who had clipped her +ticket, said she was crying when he asked for her ticket. He had asked +why she was crying. She had said she was going away, and she did not +like going away from the back-country. She was going away—to study +singing, she said, but would be coming back some day.</p> + +<p>Michael determined to go to Sydney by the morning train to try to find +Sophie. He went to Ed. Ventry and borrowed five pounds from him.</p> + +<p>"That explains how the baldy-face got here," Ed. said.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. He could not talk about Sophie. Potch explained why they +wanted the money as well as he could.</p> + +<p>"It's no good trying to bring her back if she doesn't want to come, +Michael," Potch had said before Michael left for Sydney.</p> + +<p>"No," Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>"If you could get her fixed up with somebody to stay with," Potch +suggested; "and see she was all right for money ... it might be the best +thing to do. I've got a bit of dough put by, Michael.... I'll send that +down to you and go over to one of the stations for a while to keep us +goin'—if we want more."</p> + +<p>Michael assented.</p> + +<p>"You might try round and see if you could find Mr. Armitage," Potch +said, just before the train went. "He might have seen something of her."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Michael replied, drearily.</p> + +<p>Potch waited until the train left, and started back to Fallen Star in +the evening.</p> + +<p>A week later a letter came for Michael. It was in Sophie's handwriting. +Potch was beside himself with anxiety and excitement. He wrote to +Michael, care of an opal-buyer they were on good terms with and who +might know where Michael was staying. In the bewilderment of his going, +Potch had not thought to ask Michael where he would live, or where a +letter would find him.</p> + +<p>Michael came back to Fallen Star when he received the letter. He had not +seen Sophie. No one he knew or had spoken to had seen anything of her +after she left the train. Michael handed the letter to Potch as soon as +he got back into the hut.</p> + +<p>Sophie wrote that she had gone away because she wanted to learn to be a +singer, and that she would be on her way to America when they received +it. She explained that she had made up her mind to go quite suddenly, +and she had not wanted Michael to know because she remembered his +promise to her mother. She knew he would not let her go away from the +Ridge if he could help it. She had sold her necklace, she said, and had +got £100 for it, so had plenty of money. Potch and Michael were not to +worry about her. She would be all right, and when she had made a name +for herself as a singer, she would come home to the Ridge to see them. +"Don't be angry, Michael dear," the letter ended, "with your lovingest +Sophie."</p> + +<p>Potch looked at Michael; he wondered whether the thought in his own mind +had reached Michael's. But</p> + +<p>Michael was too dazed and overwhelmed to think at all.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing, Potch," he said; "if she's gone to America, we could +write to Mr. Armitage and ask him to keep an eye on her. And," he added, +"if she's gone to America ... it's just likely she may be on the same +boat as Mr. Armitage, and he'd look after her."</p> + +<p>Potch watched his face. The thought in his mind had not occurred to +Michael, then, he surmised.</p> + +<p>"He'd see she came to no harm."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said.</p> + +<p>But he had seen John Armitage talking to Sophie on the Ridge over near +Snow-Shoes' hut the afternoon after the dance at Warria. He knew Mr. +Armitage had driven Sophie home after the dance, too. Paul had been too +drunk to stand, much less drive. Potch had knocked off early in the mine +to go across to the Three Mile that afternoon. Then it had surprised +Potch to see Sophie sitting and talking to Mr. Armitage as though they +were very good friends; but, beyond a vague, jealous alarm, he had not +attached any importance to it until he knew Sophie had gone down to +Sydney by the same train as Mr. Armitage. She had said she was going to +America, too, and he was going there. Potch had lived all his days on +the Ridge; he knew nothing of the world outside, and its ways, except +what he had learnt from books. But an instinct where Sophie was +concerned had warned him of a link between her going away and John +Armitage. That meeting of theirs came to have an extraordinary +significance in his mind. He had thought out the chances of Sophie's +having gone with Mr. Armitage as far as he could. But Michael had not +associated her going with him, it was clear. It had never occurred to +him that Mr. Armitage could have anything to do with Sophie's going +away. It had not occurred to the rest of the Ridge folk either.</p> + +<p>Paul was distracted. He made as great an outcry about Sophie's going as +he had about losing his stones. No one had thought he was as fond of her +as he appeared to be. He wept and wailed continuously about her having +gone away and left him. He went about begging for money in order to be +able to go to America after Sophie; but no one would lend to him.</p> + +<p>"You wait till Sophie's made a name for herself, Paul," everybody said, +"then she'll send for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he assented eagerly. "But I don't want to spend all that time +here on the Ridge: I want to see something of life and the world again."</p> + +<p>Paul got a touch of the sun during the ferment of those weeks, and then, +for two or three days, Michael and Potch had their work cut out nursing +him through the delirium of sun-stroke.</p> + +<p>A week or so later the coach brought unexpected passengers—Jun Johnson +and the bright-eyed girl who had gone down on the coach with him—and +Jun introduced her to the boys at Newton's as his bride. He had been +down in Sydney on his honeymoon, he said, that was all.</p> + +<p>When Michael went into the bar at Newton's the same evening, he found +Jun there, explaining as much to the boys.</p> + +<p>"I know what you chaps think," he was saying when Michael entered. "You +think I put up the checkmate on old Rum-Enough, Charley played. Well, +you're wrong. I didn't know no more about it than you did; and the proof +is—here I am. If I'd 'a' done it, d'y'r think I'd have come back? If +I'd had any share in the business, d'y'r think I'd be showin' me face +round here for a bit? Not much...."</p> + +<p>Silence hung between him and the men. Jun talked through it, warming to +his task with the eloquence of virtue, liking his audience and the stage +he had got all to himself, as an outraged and righteously indignant man.</p> + +<p>"I know you chaps—I know how you feel about things; and quite right, +too! A man that'd go back on a mate like that—why, he's not fit to wipe +your boots on. He ain't fit to be called a man; he ain't fit to be let +run with the rest."</p> + +<p>He continued impressively; "I didn't know no more about that business +than any man-jack of you—no more did Mrs. Jun.... Bygones is +bygones—that's my motto. But I tell you—and that's the strength of +it—I didn't know no more about those stones of Rummy's than any man +here. D'y' believe me?"</p> + +<p>It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. +It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else +Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth.</p> + +<p>"We're all good triers here, Jun," George said, "but we're not as green +as we're painted."</p> + +<p>Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said:</p> + +<p>"Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain't always +been what you might call the clean potato ... but I ain't always been +married, either. Well, I'm married now—married to the best little girl +ever I struck...."</p> + +<p>The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the +men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did +not please Jun was evident.</p> + +<p>"Well, seein' I've taken on family responsibilities," he went on—"Was +you smiling, Watty?"</p> + +<p>"Me? Oh, no, Jun," the offender replied, meekly; "it was only the +stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn't think +so, but I always look as if I was smilin' when I've got the +stummick-ache."</p> + +<p>George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, +taking Watty's explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued +solemnly, playing the reformed blackguard to his own satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Seein' I've taken on family responsibilities, I want to run straight. I +don't want my kids to think there was anything crook about their dad."</p> + +<p>If he moved no one else, he contrived to feel deeply moved himself at +the prospect of how his unborn children were going to regard him. The +men who had always more or less believed in him managed to convince +themselves that Jun meant what he said. George and Watty realised he had +put up a good case, that he was getting at them in the only way +possible.</p> + +<p>Michael moved out of the crowd round the door towards the bar. Peter +Newton put his daily ration of beer on the bar.</p> + +<p>"'Lo, Michael," Jun said.</p> + +<p>"'Lo, Jun," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Well," Jun concluded, tossing off his beer; "that's the way it is, +boys. Believe me if y'r like, and if y'r don't like—lump it.</p> + +<p>"But there's one thing more I've got to tell you," he added; "and if you +find what I've been saying hard to believe, you'll find this harder: I +don't believe Charley got those stones of Rummy's."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>The query was like the crack of a whip-lash. There was a restive, +restless movement among the men.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe Charley got those stones either," Jun declared. "'Got,' +I said, not 'took.' All I know is, he was like a sick fish when he +reached Sydney ... and sold all the opal he had with him. He was lively +enough when we started out. I give you that. Maybe he took Rum-Enough's +stones all right; but somebody put it over on him. I thought it might be +Emmy—that yeller-haired tart, you remember, went down with us. She was +a tart, and no mistake. My little girl, now—she was never ... like +that! But Maud says she doesn't think so, because Emmy turned Charley +out neck and crop when she found he'd got no cash. He got mighty little +for the bit of stone he had with him ... I'll take my oath. He came +round to borrow from me a day or two after we arrived. And he was ragin' +mad about something.... If he shook the stones off Rum-Enough, it's my +belief somebody shook them off of him, either in the train or here—or +off of Rummy before he got them...."</p> + +<p>Several of the men muttered and grunted their protest. But Jun held to +his point, and the talk became more general. Jun asked for news of the +fields: what had been done, and who was getting the stuff. Somebody said +John Armitage had been up and had bought a few nice stones from the +Crosses, Pony-Fence, and Bully Bryant.</p> + +<p>"Armitage?" Jun said. "He's always a good man—gives a fair price. He +bought my stones, that last lot ... gave me a hundred pounds for the big +knobby. But it fair took my breath away to hear young Sophie Rouminof +had gone off with him."</p> + +<p>Michael was standing beside him before the words were well out of his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"What did you say?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Michael," Jun replied, after a quick, scared glance at the +faces of the men about him. "But I took it for granted you all knew, of +course. We saw them a good bit together down in Sydney, Maud and me, and +she said she saw Sophie on the <i>Zealanida</i> the day the boat sailed. Maud +was down seeing a friend off, and she saw Sophie and Mr. Armitage on +board. She said—"</p> + +<p>Michael turned heavily, and swung out of the bar.</p> + +<p>Jun looked after him. In the faces of the men he read what a bomb his +news had been among them.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have said that for a lot," he said, "if I'd 've thought +Michael didn't know. But, Lord, I thought he knew ... I thought you all +knew."</p> + +<p>In the days which followed, as he wandered over the plains in the late +afternoon and evening, Michael tried to come to some understanding with +himself of what had happened. At first he had been too overcast by the +sense of loss to realise more than that Sophie had gone away. But now, +beyond her going, he could see the failure of his own effort to control +circumstances. He had failed; Sophie had gone; she had left the Ridge.</p> + +<p>"God," he groaned; "with the best intentions in the world, what an awful +mess we make of things!"</p> + +<p>Michael wondered whether it would have been worse for Sophie if she had +gone away with Paul when her mother died. At least, Sophie was older now +and better able to take care of herself.</p> + +<p>He blamed himself because she had gone away as she had, all the same; +the failure of the Ridge to hold her as well as his own failure beat him +to the earth. He had hoped Sophie would care for the things her mother +had cared for. He had tried to explain them to her. But Sophie, he +thought now, had more the restless temperament of her father. He had not +understood her young spirit, its craving for music, laughter, +admiration, and the life that could give them to her. He had thought the +Ridge would be enough for her, as it had been for her mother.</p> + +<p>Michael never thought of Mrs. Rouminof as dead. He thought of her as +though she were living some distance from him, that was all. In the +evening he looked up at the stars, and there was one in which she seemed +to be. Always he felt as if she were looking at him when its mild +radiance fell over him. And now he looked to that star as if trying to +explain and beg forgiveness.</p> + +<p>His heart was sore because Sophie had left him without a word of +affection or any explanation. His fear and anxiety for her gave him no +peace. He sweated in agony with them for a long time, crying to her +mother, praying her to believe he had not failed in his trust through +lack of desire to serve her, but through a fault of understanding. If +she had been near enough to talk to, he knew he could have explained +that the girl was right: neither of them had any right to interfere with +the course of her life. She had to go her own way; to learn joy and +sorrow for herself.</p> + +<p>Too late Michael realised that he had done all the harm in the world by +seeking to make Sophie go his own and her mother's way. He had opposed +the tide of her youth and enthusiasm, instead of sympathising with it; +and by so doing he had made it possible for someone else to sympathise +and help her to go her own way. Opposition had forced her life into +channels which he was afraid would heap sorrows upon her, whereas +identification with her feeling and aspirations might have saved her the +hurt and turmoil he had sought to save her.</p> + +<p>Thought of what he had done to prevent Paul taking Sophie away haunted +Michael. But, after all, he assured himself, he had not stolen from +Paul. Charley had stolen from Paul, and he, Michael, was only holding +Paul's opals until he could give them to Paul when his having them would +not do Sophie any harm.... His having them now could not injure +Sophie.... Michael decided to give Paul the opals and explain how he +came to have them, when the shock of what Jun had said left him. He +tried not to think of that, although a consciousness of it was always +with him.... But Paul was delirious with sun-stroke, he remembered; it +would be foolish to give him the stones just then.... As soon as that +touch of the sun had passed, Michael reflected, he would give Paul the +opals and explain how he came to have them....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a><i>PART II</i></h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Ib" id="CHAPTER_Ib"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + + +<p>The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes +blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms +continued until March.</p> + +<p>Through the heat came the baa-ing of sheep on the plains, moving in +great flocks, weary and thirsty; the blaring of cattle; the harsh crying +of crows following the flocks and waiting to tear the dead flesh from +the bones of spent and drought-stricken beasts. The stock routes were +marked by the bleached bones of cattle and sheep which had fallen by the +road, and the stench of rotting flesh blew with the hot winds and dust +from the plains.</p> + +<p>It was cooler underground than anywhere else during the hot weather. +Fallen Star miners told stockmen and selectors that they had the best of +it in the mines, during the heat. They went to work as soon as it was +dawn, in order to get mullock cleared away and dirt-winding over before +the heat of the day began.</p> + +<p>In the morning, here and there a man was seen on the top of his dump, +handkerchief under his hat, winding dirt, and emptying red sandstone, +shin-cracker, and cement stone from his hide buckets over the slope of +the dump. The creak of the windlass made a small, busy noise in the air. +But the miner standing on the top of his hillock of white crumbled clay, +moving with short, automatic jerks against the sky, or the noodlers +stretched across the slopes of the dumps, turning the rubble thrown up +from the shafts with a piece of wood, were the only outward sign of the +busy underground world of the mines.</p> + +<p>As a son might have, Potch had rearranged the hut and looked after Paul +when Sophie had gone. He had nursed Paul through the fever and delirium +of sun-stroke, and Paul's hut was kept in order as Sophie had left it. +Potch swept the earthen floor and sprinkled it with water every morning; +he washed any dishes Paul left, although Paul had most of his meals with +Potch and Michael. Michael had seen the window of Sophie's room open +sometimes; a piece of muslin on the lower half fluttering out, and once, +in the springtime, he had caught a glimpse of a spray of punti—the +yellow boronia Sophie was so fond of, in a jam-tin on a box cupboard +near the window. Potch had prevailed on Paul to keep one or two of the +goats when he sold most of them soon after Sophie went away, and Potch +saw to it there was always a little milk, and some goat's-milk butter or +cheese for the two huts.</p> + +<p>People at first were surprised at Potch's care of Paul; then they +regarded it as the most natural thing in the world. They believed Potch +Was trying to make up to Paul for what his father had deprived him of. +And after Sophie went away Paul seemed to forget Potch was the son of +his old enemy. He depended on Potch, appealed to, and abused him as if +he were his son, and Potch seemed quite satisfied that it should be so. +He took his service very much as a matter of course, as Paul himself +did.</p> + +<p>A quiet, awkward fellow he was, Potch. For a long time nobody thought +much of him. "Potch," they would say, as his father used to, "a little +bit of potch!" Potch knew what was meant by that. He was Charley +Heathfield's son, and could not be expected to be worth much. He had +rated himself as other people rated him. He was potch, poor opal, stuff +of no particular value, without any fire. And his estimate of himself +was responsible for his keeping away from the boys and younger men of +the Ridge. A habit of shy aloofness had grown with him, although anybody +who wanted help with odd jobs knew where they could get it, and find +eager and willing service. Potch would do anything for anybody with all +the pleasure in the world, whether it were building a fowl-house, +thatching a roof, or helping to run up a hut.</p> + +<p>"He's the only mate worth a straw Michael's had since God knows when, 't +anyrate," Watty said, after Potch had been working with Paul and Michael +for some time. George and Cash agreed with him.</p> + +<p>George and Watty and Cash had "no time," as they said themselves, for +Rouminof; and Potch as a rule stayed in the shelter with Paul when +Michael went over to talk with George and Watty. He was never prouder +than when Michael asked him to go over to George and Watty's shelter.</p> + +<p>At first Potch would sit on the edge of the shelter, leaning against the +brushwood, the sun on his shoulder, as if unworthy to take advantage of +the shelter's shade, further. For a long time he listened, saying +nothing; not listening very intently, apparently, and feeding the birds +with crumbs from his lunch. But Michael saw his eyes light when there +was any misstatement of fact on a subject he had been reading about or +knew something of.</p> + +<p>Soon after Sophie had gone, Michael wrote to Dawe Armitage. He and the +old man had always been on good terms, and Michael had a feeling of real +friendliness for him. But the secret of the sympathy between them was +that they were lovers of the same thing. For both, black opal had a +subtle, inexplicable fascination.</p> + +<p>As briefly as he knew how, Michael told Dawe Armitage how Sophie had +left Fallen Star, and what he had heard. "It's up to you to see no harm +comes to that girl," he wrote. "If it does, you can take my word for it, +there's no man on this field will sell to Armitages."</p> + +<p>Michael knew Mr. Armitage would take his word for it. He knew Dawe +Armitage would realise better than Michael could tell him, that it would +be useless for John Armitage to visit the field the following year. +George Woods had informed Michael that, by common consent, men of the +Ridge had decided not to sell to Armitage for a time; and, in order to +prevent an agent thwarting their purpose, to deal only with known and +rival buyers of the Armitages. Dawe Armitage, Michael guessed, would be +driven to the extremity of promising almost anything to make up for what +his son had done, and to overcome the differences between Armitage and +Son and men of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>When the reply came, Michael showed it to Watty and George.</p> + +<p>"DEAR BRADY," it said, "I need hardly say your letter was a great shock +to me. At first, when I taxed my son with the matter you write of, he +denied all knowledge or responsibility for the young lady. I have since +found she is here in New York, and have seen her. I offered to take her +passage and provide for her to return to the Ridge; but she refuses to +leave this city, and, I believe, is to appear in a musical comedy +production at an early date. Believe me overcome by the misfortune of +this episode, and only anxious to make any reparation in my power. +Knowing the men of the Ridge as I do, I can understand their resentment +of my son's behaviour, and that for a time, at least, business relations +between this house and them cannot be on the old friendly footing. I +need hardly tell you how distressing this state of affairs is to me +personally, and how disastrous the cutting off of supplies is to my +business interests. I can only ask that, as I will, on my part, to the +best of my ability, safeguard the young, lady—whom I will regard as +under my charge—you will, in recognition of our old friendship, perhaps +point out to men of the Ridge that as it is not part of their justice to +visit sins of the fathers upon the children, so I hope it may not be to +visit sins of the children upon the fathers.</p> + +<p>"Yours very truly,</p> + +<p>"DAWE P. ARMITAGE."</p> + +<p>"The old man seems fair broken up," Watty remarked.</p> + +<p>"Depends on how Sophie gets on whether we have anything to do with +Armitage and Son—again," George replied. "If she's all right ... well +... perhaps it'll be all right for them, with us. If she doesn't get on +all right ... they won't neither."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Watty muttered.</p> + +<p>The summer months passed slowly. The country was like a desert for +hundreds of miles about the Ridge in every direction. The herbage had +crumbled into dust; ironstone and quartz pebbles on the long, low slopes +of the Ridge glistened almost black in the light; and out on the plains, +and on the roads where the pebbles were brushed aside, the dust rose in +tawny and reddish clouds when a breath of wind, or the movement of man +and beast stirred it. The trees, too, were almost black in the light; +the sky, dim, and smoking with heat.</p> + +<p>Paul had not done any work in the mine since he had been laid up with +sun-stroke. When he was able to be about again he went to the shelter to +eat his lunch with Michael and Potch. He was extraordinarily weak for +some time, and a haze the sun-stroke had left hovered over his mind. +Usually, to stem the tide of his incessant questions and gossiping, +Potch gave him some scraps of sun-flash, and colour and potch to noodle, +and he sat and snipped them contentedly while Potch and Michael read or +dozed the hot, still, midday hours away.</p> + +<p>When he had eaten his lunch, Potch tossed his crumbs to the birds which +came about the shelter. He whistled to them for a while and tried to +make friends with them. As often as not Michael sat, legs stretched put +before him, smoking and brooding, as he gazed over the plains; but one +day he found himself in the ruck of troubled thoughts as he watched +Potch with the birds.</p> + +<p>Michael had often watched Potch making friends with the birds, as he lay +on his side dozing or dreaming. He had sat quite still many a day, until +Potch, by throwing crumbs and whistling encouragingly and in imitation +of their own calls, had induced a little crested pigeon, or white-tail, +to come quite close to him. The confidence Potch won from the birds was +a reproach to him. But in a few days now, Michael told himself, he would +be giving Paul his opals. Then Potch would know what perhaps he ought to +have known already. Potch was his mate, Michael reminded himself, and +entitled to know what his partner was doing with opal which was not +their common property.</p> + +<p>When Sophie was at home, Michael had taken Potch more or less for +granted. He had not wished to care for, or believe in, Potch, as he had +his father, fearing a second shock of disillusionment. The compassion +which was instinctive had impelled him to offer the boy his goodwill and +assistance; but a remote distrust and contempt of Charley in his son had +at first tinged his feeling for Potch. Slowly and surely Potch had lived +down that distrust and contempt. Dogged and unassuming, he asked nothing +for himself but the opportunity to serve those he loved, and Michael had +found in their work, in their daily association, in the homage and deep, +mute love Potch gave him, something like balm to the hurts he had taken +from other loves.</p> + +<p>Michael had loved greatly and generously, and had little energy to give +to lesser affections, but he was grateful to Potch for caring for him. +He was drawn to Potch by the knowledge of his devotion. He longed to +tell him about the opals; how he had come to have them, and why he was +holding them; but always there had been an undertow of resistance +tugging at the idea, reluctance to break the seals on the subject in his +mind. Some day he would have to break them, he told himself.</p> + +<p>Paul's illness had made it seem advisable to put off explanation about +the opals for a while. Paul was still weak from the fever following his +touch of the sun, and his brain hazy. As soon as he had his normal wits +again, Michael promised himself he would take the opals to Paul and let +him know how he came to have them.</p> + +<p>All the afternoon, as he worked, Michael was plagued by thought of the +opals. He had no peace with himself for accepting Potch's belief in him, +and for not telling Potch how Paul's opals came into his possession.</p> + +<p>In the evening as he lay on the sofa under the window, reading, the +troubled thinking of his midday reverie became tangled with the printed +words of the page before him. Michael had a flashing vision of the +stones as Paul had held them to the light in Newton's bar. Suddenly it +occurred to him that he had not seen the stones, or looked at the +package the opals were in, since he had thrown them into the box of +books in his room, the night he had taken them from Charley.</p> + +<p>He got up from the sofa and crossed to his bedroom to see whether Paul's +cigarette tin, wrapped in its old newspaper, was still lying among his +books. He plunged is hand among them, and turned his books over until he +found the tin. It looked much as it had the night he threw it into the +box—only the wrappings of newspaper were loose.</p> + +<p>Michael wondered whether all the opals were in the box. He hoped none +had fallen out, or got chipped or cracked as a result of his rough +handling. He untied the string round the tin in order to tie it again +more securely. It might be just as well to see whether the stones were +all right while he was about it, he thought.</p> + +<p>He went back to the sitting-room and drew his chair up to the table. +Slowly, abstractedly, he rolled the newspaper wrappings from the tin; +and the stones rattled together in their bed of wadding as he lifted +them to the table. He picked up one and held it off from the +candle-light. It was the stone Paul had had such pride in—a piece of +opal with a glitter of flaked gold and red fire smouldering through its +black potch like embers of a burning tree through the dark of a starless +night.</p> + +<p>One by one he lifted the stones and moved them before the candle, +letting its yellow ray loose their internal splendour. The colours in +the stones—blue, green, gold, amethyst, and red—melted, sprayed, and +scintillated before him. His blood warmed to their fires.</p> + +<p>"God! it's good stuff!" he breathed, his eyes dark with reverence and +emotion.</p> + +<p>With the tranced interest of a child, he sat there watching the play of +colours in the stones. Opal always exerted this fascination for him. Not +only its beauty, but the mystery of its beauty enthralled him. He had a +sense of dimly grasping great secrets as be gazed into its shining +depths, trying to follow the flow and scintillation of its myriad stars.</p> + +<p>Potch came into the hut, brushing against the doorway. He swung +unsteadily, as though he had been running or walking quickly.</p> + +<p>Michael started from the rapt contemplation he had fallen into; he stood +up. His consciousness swaying earthwards again, he was horrified that +Potch should find him with the opals like this before he had explained +how he came to have them. Confounded with shame and dismay, +instinctively he brushed the stones together and, almost without knowing +what he did, threw the wrappings over them. He felt as if he were really +guilty of the thing Potch might suspect him guilty of: either of being a +miser and hoarding opal from his mate, or of having come by the stones +as he had come by them. One opal, the stone he had first looked at, +tumbled out from the others and lay under the candle-light, winking and +flashing.</p> + +<p>But Potch was disturbed himself; he was breathing heavily; his usually +sombre, quiet face was flushed and quivering with restrained excitement. +He was too preoccupied to notice Michael's movement, or what he was +doing.</p> + +<p>"Snow-Shoes been here?" he asked, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"No," Michael said. "Why?"</p> + +<p>He stretched out his hand to take the opal which lay winking in the +light and put it among the others. Potch's excitement died out.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," he said, lamely. "I only thought I saw him making this +way."</p> + +<p>The sound of a woman laughing outside the hut broke the silence between +them. Michael lifted his head to listen.</p> + +<p>"Who's that?" he asked;</p> + +<p>Potch did not reply. The blue dark of the night sky, bright with stars, +was blank in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" a woman's voice called. Her figure wavered in the +doorway. Before either Potch or Michael could speak she had come into +the hut. It was Maud, Jun Johnson's wife. She stood there on the +threshold of the room, her loose, dark hair wind-blown, her eyes, +laughing, the red line of her mouth trembling with a smile. Her eyes +went from Michael to Potch, who had turned away.</p> + +<p>"My old nanny's awful bad, Potch," she said. "They say there's no one on +the Ridge knows as much about goats as you. Will you come along and see +what you can do for her?"</p> + +<p>Potch was silent. Michael had never known him take a request for help so +ungraciously. His face was sullen and resentful as his eyes went to +Maud.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said.</p> + +<p>He moved to go out with her. Maud moved too. Then she caught sight-of +the piece of opal lying out from the other stones on the table.</p> + +<p>"My," she cried eagerly, "that's a pretty stone, Michael!" She turned it +back against the light, so that the opal threw out its splintered sparks +of red and gold.</p> + +<p>"Just been noodlin' over some old scraps ... and came across it," +Michael said awkwardly.</p> + +<p>It seemed impossible to explain about the stones to Maud Johnson. He +could not bear the idea of her hearing his account of Paul's opals +before George, Watty, and the rest of the men who were his mates, had.</p> + +<p>"Well to be you, having stuff like that to noodle," Maud said. "Doin' a +bit of dealin' myself. I'll give you a good price for it, Michael."</p> + +<p>"It's goin' into a parcel," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, when you want to sell, you might let me know," Maud said. +"Comin', Potch?"</p> + +<p>She swung away with the light, graceful swirl of a dancer. Michael +caught the smile in her eyes, mischievous and mocking as a street +urchin's, as she turned to Potch, and Potch followed her out of the hut.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIb" id="CHAPTER_IIb"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + + +<p>Days and months went by, hot and still, with dust-storms and blue skies, +fading to grey. Their happenings were so alike that there was scarcely +any remembering one from the other of them. The twilights and dawns were +clear, with delicate green skies. On still nights the moon rose golden, +flushing the sky before it appeared, as though there were fires beyond +the Ridge.</p> + +<p>Usually in one of the huts a concertina was pulled lazily, and its +wheezing melodies drifted through the quiet air. Everybody missed +Sophie's singing. The summer evenings were long and empty without the +ripple of her laughter and the music of the songs she sang.</p> + +<p>"You miss her these nights, don't you?" Michael said to Potch one very +hot, still night, when the smoke of a mosquito fire in the doorway was +drifting into the room about them.</p> + +<p>Potch was reading, sprawled over the table. His expression changed as he +looked up. It was as though a sudden pain had struck him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. His eyes went to his book again; but he did not read any +more. Presently he pushed back the seat he was sitting on and went out +of doors.</p> + +<p>Michael and Potch were late going down to the claim the morning they +found George and Watty and most of the men who were working that end of +the Ridge collected in a group talking together. No one was working; +even the noodlers, Snow-Shoes and young Flail, were standing round with +the miners.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," Michael said, "something's up!"</p> + +<p>Potch remembered having seen a gathering of the men, like this, only +once before on the fields.</p> + +<p>"Ratting?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Looks like it," Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>"What's up, George?" he asked, as Potch and he joined the men.</p> + +<p>"Rats, Michael," George said, "that's what's up. They've been on our +place and cleaned out a pretty good bit of stuff Watty and me was +working on. They've paid Archie a visit ... and Bully reck'ns his +spider's been walking lately, too."</p> + +<p>Michael and Potch had seen nothing but a few shards of potch and colour +for months. They were not concerned at the thought of a rat's visit to +their claim; but they were as angry and indignant at the news as the men +who had been robbed. In the shelters at midday, the talk was all of the +rats and ratting. The Crosses, Bill Grant, Pony-Fence, Bull Bryant, Roy +O'Mara, Michael, and Potch went to George Woods' shelter to talk the +situation over with George, Watty, and Cash Wilson. The smoke of the +fires Potch and Roy and Bully made to boil the billies drifted towards +them, and the men talked as they ate their lunches, legs stretched out +before them, and leaning against a log George had hauled beside the +shelter.</p> + +<p>George Woods, the best natured, soberest man on the Ridge, was +smouldering with rage at the ratting.</p> + +<p>"I've a good mind to put a bit of dynamite at the bottom of the shaft, +and then, when a rat strikes a match, up he'll go," he said.</p> + +<p>"But," Watty objected, "how'd you feel when you found a dead man in your +claim, George?"</p> + +<p>"Feel?" George burst out. "I wouldn't feel—except he'd got no right to +be there—and perlitely put him on one side."</p> + +<p>"Remember those chaps was up a couple of years ago, George?" Bill Grant +asked, "and helped theirselves when Pony-Fence and me had a bit of luck +up at Rhyll's hill."</p> + +<p>"Remember them?" George growled.</p> + +<p>"They'd go round selling stuff if there was anybody to buy—hang round +the pub all day, and yet had stuff to sell," Watty murmured.</p> + +<p>The men smoked silently for a few minutes.</p> + +<p>"How much did they get, again?" Bully Bryant asked.</p> + +<p>"Couple of months," George said.</p> + +<p>"Police protect criminals—everybody knows that," Snow-Shoes said.</p> + +<p>Sitting on the dump just beyond the shade the shelter cast, he had been +listening to what the men were saying, the sun full blaze on him, his +blue eyes glittering in the shadow of his old felt hat. All eyes turned +to him. The men always listened attentively when Snow-Shoes had anything +to say.</p> + +<p>"If there's a policeman about, and a man starts ratting and is caught, +he gets a couple of months. Well, what does he care? But if there's a +chance of the miners getting hold of him and some rough handling ... he +thinks twice before he rats ... knowing a broken arm or a pain in his +head'll come of it."</p> + +<p>"That's true," George said. "I vote we get this bunch ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Right!" The Crosses and Bully agreed with him. Watty did not like the +idea of the men taking the law into their own hands. He was all for law +and order. His fat, comfortable soul disliked the idea of violence.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me," he said, "it 'd be a good thing to set a trap—catch the +rats—then we'd know where we were."</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. "I'm with Watty," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then we could hand 'em over to the police," Watty said.</p> + +<p>Michael smiled. "Well, after the last batch getting two months, and the +lot of us wasting near on two months gettin' 'em jailed, I reck'n it's +easier to deal with 'em here—But we've got to be sure. They've got to +be caught red-handed, as the sayin' is. It don't do to make mistakes +when we're dealin' out our own justice."</p> + +<p>"That's right, Michael," the men agreed.</p> + +<p>"Well, I reck'n we'd ought to have in the police," Watty remarked +obstinately.</p> + +<p>"The police!" Snow-Shoes stood up as if he had no further patience with +the controversy. "It's like letting hornets build in your house to keep +down flies—to call in the police. The hornets get worse than the +flies."</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel and walked away. His tall, white figure, +straighter than any man's on the Ridge, moved silently, his feet, +wrapped in their moccasins of grass and sacking, making no sound on the +shingly earth.</p> + +<p>Men whose claims had not been nibbled arranged to watch among +themselves, to notice exactly where they put their spiders when they +left the mines in the afternoon, and to set traps for the rats.</p> + +<p>Some of them had their suspicions as to whom the rats might be, because +the field was an old one, and there were not many strangers about. But +when it was known next day that Jun Johnson and his wife had "done a +moonlight flit," it was generally agreed that these suspicions were +confirmed. Maud had made two or three trips to Sydney to sell opal +within the last year, and from what they heard, men of the Ridge had +come to believe she sold more opal than Jun had won, or than she herself +had bought from the gougers. Jun's and Maud's flight was taken not only +as a confession of guilt, but also as an indication that the men's +resolution to deal with rats themselves had been effective in scaring +them away.</p> + +<p>When the storm the ratting had caused died down, life on the Ridge went +its even course again. Several men threw up their claims on the hill +after working without a trace of potch or colour for months, and went to +find jobs on the stations or in the towns nearby.</p> + +<p>The only thing of any importance that happened during those dreary +summer months was Bully Bryant's marriage to Ella Flail, and, although +it took everybody by surprise that little Ella was grown-up enough to be +married, the wedding was celebrated in true Ridge fashion, with a dance +and no end of hearty kindliness to the young couple.</p> + +<p>"Roy O'Mara's got good colour down by the crooked coolebah, Michael," +Potch said one evening, a few days after the wedding, when he and +Michael had finished their tea. He spoke slowly, and as if he had +thought over what he was going to say.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Michael replied.</p> + +<p>"How about tryin' our luck there?" Potch ventured.</p> + +<p>Michael took the suggestion meditatively. Potch and he had been working +together for several years with very little luck. They had won only a +few pieces of opal good enough to put into a parcel for an opal-buyer +when he came to Fallen Star. But Michael was loth to give up the old +shaft, not only because he believed in it, but because of the work he +and his mates had put into it, and because when they did strike opal +there, the mine would be easily worked. But this was the first time +Potch had made a suggestion of the sort, and Michael felt bound to +consider it.</p> + +<p>"There's a bit of a rush on, Snow-Shoes told me," Potch said. "Crosses +have pegged, and I saw Bill Olsen measurin' out a claim."</p> + +<p>Michael's reluctance to move was evident.</p> + +<p>"I feel sure we'll strike it in the old shaft, sooner or later," he +murmured.</p> + +<p>"Might be sooner by the coolebah," Potch said.</p> + +<p>Michael's eyes lifted to his, the gleam of a smile in them.</p> + +<p>"Very well, we'll pull pegs," he said.</p> + +<p>While stars were still in the high sky and the chill breath of dawn in +the air, men were busy measuring and pegging claims on the hillside +round about the old coolebah. Half a dozen blocks were marked one +hundred feet square before the stars began to fade.</p> + +<p>All the morning men with pegs, picks, and shovels came straggling up the +track from the township and from other workings scattered along the +Ridge. The sound of picks on the hard ground and the cutting down of +scrub broke the limpid stillness.</p> + +<p>Paul came out of his hut as Potch passed it on his way to the coolebah. +Immediately he recognised the significance of the heavy pick Potch was +carrying, and trotted over to him.</p> + +<p>"You goin' to break new ground, Potch?" he asked. Potch nodded.</p> + +<p>"There's a bit of a rush on by the crooked coolebah," he said. "Roy +O'Mara's bottomed on opal there ... got some pretty good colours, and +we're goin' to peg out."</p> + +<p>"A rush?" Paul's eyes brightened. "Roy? Has he got the stuff, Potch?"</p> + +<p>"Not bad."</p> + +<p>As they followed the narrow, winding track through the scrub, Paul +chattered eagerly of the chances of the new rush.</p> + +<p>Roy O'Mara had sunk directly under the coolebah. There were few trees of +any great size on the Ridge, and this one, tall and grey-barked, stood +over the scrub of myalls, oddly bent, like a crippled giant, its great, +bleached trunk swung forward and wrenched back as if in agony. The mound +of white clay under the tree was already a considerable dump—Roy had +been working with a new chum from the Three Mile for something over a +fortnight and had just bottomed on opal. His first day's find was spread +on a bag under the tree. There was nothing of great value in it; but +when Potch and Paul came to it, Paul knelt down and turned over the +pieces of opal on the bag with eager excitement.</p> + +<p>When Michael arrived, Potch had driven in his pegs on a site he had +marked in his mind's eye the evening before, a hundred yards beyond +Roy's claim, up the slope of the hill. Michael took turns with Potch at +slinging the heavy pick; they worked steadily all the morning, the sweat +beading and pouring down their faces.</p> + +<p>There was always some excitement and expectation about sinking a new +hole. Michael had lived so long on the fields, and had sunk so many +shafts, that he took a new sinking with a good deal of +matter-of-factness; but even he had some of the thrilling sense of a +child with a surprise packet when he was breaking earth on a new rush.</p> + +<p>Neither Michael nor Paul had much enthusiasm about the new claim after +the first day or so; but Potch worked indefatigably. All day the thud +and click of picks on the hard earth and cement stone, and the +shovelling of loose earth and gravel, could be heard. In about a +fortnight Potch and Michael came on sandstone and drove into red opal +dirt beneath it. Roy O'Mara, working on his trace of promising black +potch, still had found nothing to justify his hope of an early haul. +Paul, easily disappointed, lost faith in the possibilities of the shaft; +Michael was for giving it further trial, but Potch, too, was in favour +of sinking again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIIb" id="CHAPTER_IIIb"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + + +<p>Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from +the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock +from the drives, Potch said:</p> + +<p>"I'm going to sink another hole, Michael—higher up."</p> + +<p>Michael glanced at him. It was unusual for Potch to put a thing in that +way, without a by-your-leave, or feeler for advice, or permission; but +he was not disturbed by his doing so.</p> + +<p>"Right," he said; "you sink another hole, Potch. I'll stick to this one +for a bit."</p> + +<p>Potch began to break earth again next morning. He chose his site +carefully, to the right of the one he had been working on, and all the +morning he swung his heavy pick and shovelled earth from the shaft he +was making. He worked slowly, doggedly. When he came on sandstone he had +been three weeks on the job.</p> + +<p>"Ought to be near bottoming, Potch," Roy remarked one day towards the +end of the three weeks.</p> + +<p>"Be there to-day," Potch said.</p> + +<p>Paul buzzed about the top of the hole, unable to suppress his +impatience, and calling down the shaft now and then.</p> + +<p>Potch believed so in this claim of his that his belief had raised a +certain amount of expectation. His report, too, was going to make +considerable difference to the field. The Crosses had done pretty well: +they had cut out a pocket worth £400 as a result of their sinking, and +it remained to be seen what Potch's new hole would bring. A good +prospect would make the new field, it was reckoned.</p> + +<p>Potch's prospect was disappointing, however, and of no sensational value +when he did bottom; but after a few days he came on a streak or two of +promising colours, and Michael left the first shaft they had sunk on the +coolebah to work with Potch in the new mine.</p> + +<p>They had been on the new claim, with nothing to show for their pains, +for nearly two months, the afternoon Potch, who had been shifting opal +dirt of a dark strain below the steel band on the south side of the +mine, uttered a low cry.</p> + +<p>"Michael," he called.</p> + +<p>Michael, gouging in a drive a few yards away, knew the meaning of that +joyous vibration in a man's voice. He stumbled out of the drive and went +to Potch.</p> + +<p>Potch Was holding his spider off from a surface of opal his pick had +clipped. It glittered, an eye of jet, with every light and star of red, +green, gold, blue, and amethyst, leaping, dancing, and quivering +together in the red earth of the mine. Michael swore reverently when he +saw it. Potch moved his candle before the chipped corner of the stones +which he had worked round sufficiently to show that a knobby of some +size was embedded in the wall of the mine.</p> + +<p>"Looks a beaut, doesn't she, Michael?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>Michael breathed hard.</p> + +<p>"By God——" he murmured.</p> + +<p>Paul, hearing the murmur of their voices, joined them.</p> + +<p>He screamed when he saw the stone.</p> + +<p>"I knew!" he yelled. "I knew we'd strike it here."</p> + +<p>"Well, stand back while I get her out," Potch cried.</p> + +<p>Michael trembled as Potch fitted his spider and began to break the earth +about the opal, working slowly, cautiously, and rubbing the earth away +with his hands. Michael watched him apprehensively, exclaiming with +wonder and admiration as the size of the stone was revealed.</p> + +<p>When Potch had worked it out of its socket, the knobby was found to be +even bigger than they had thought at first. The stroke which located it +had chipped one side so that its quality was laid bare, and the chipped +surface had the blaze and starry splendour of the finest black opal. +Michael and Potch examined the stone, turned it over and over, tremulous +and awed by its size and magnificence. Paul was delirious with +excitement.</p> + +<p>He was first above ground, and broke the news of Potch's find to the men +who were knocking off for the day on other claims. When Michael and +Potch came up, nearly a dozen men were collected about the dump. They +gazed at the stone with oaths and exclamations of amazement and +admiration.</p> + +<p>"You've struck it this time, Potch!" Roy O'Mara said.</p> + +<p>Potch flushed, rubbed the stone on his trousers, licked the chipped +surface, and held it to the sun again.</p> + +<p>"It's the biggest knobby—ever I see," Archie Cross said.</p> + +<p>"Same here," Bill Grant muttered.</p> + +<p>"Wants polishin' up a bit," Michael said, "and then she'll show better."</p> + +<p>As soon as he got home, Potch went into Paul's hut and faced the stone +on Sophie's wheel. Paul and Michael hung over him as he worked; and when +he had cleaned it up and put it on the rouge buffer, they were satisfied +that it fulfilled the promise of its chipped side. Nearly as big as a +hen's egg, clean, hard opal of prismatic fires in sparkling jet, they +agreed that it as the biggest and finest knobby either of them had ever +seen.</p> + +<p>Potch took his luck quietly, although there were repressed emotion and +excitement in his voice as he talked.</p> + +<p>Michael marvelled at the way he went about doing his ordinary little odd +jobs of the evening, when they returned to their own hut. Potch brought +in and milked the goats, set out the pannikins and damper, and made tea.</p> + +<p>When Michael and Potch had finished their meal and put away their +plates, food, and pannikins, Michael picked up the stone from the shelf +where Potch had put it, wrapped in the soft rag of an oatmeal bag. He +threw himself on the sofa under the window and held the opal to the +light, turning it and watching the stars spawn in its firmament of +crystal ebony. Potch pulled a book from his pocket and sprawled across +the table to read.</p> + +<p>Michael regarded him wonderingly. Had the boy no imagination? Did the +magic and mystery of the opal make so little appeal to him? Michael's +eyes went from their reverent and adoring observation of the stone in +his hands, to Potch as he sat stooping over the book on the table before +him. He could not understand why Potch was not fired by the beauty of +the thing he had won, or with pride at having found the biggest knobby +ever taken out of the fields.</p> + +<p>Any other young man would have been beside himself with excitement and +rejoicing. But here was Potch slouched over a dog-eared, paper-covered +book.</p> + +<p>As he gazed at the big opal, a vision of Paul's opals flashed before +him. The consternation and dismay that had made him scarcely conscious +of what he was doing the night Potch found him with them, and Maud +Johnson had come for Potch to go to see her sick goat, overwhelmed him +again. He had not yet given the opals to Paul, he remembered, or +explained to Potch and the rest of the men how he came to have them.</p> + +<p>Any other mate than Potch would have resented his holding opals like +that and saying nothing of them. But there was no resentment in Potch's +bearing to him, Michael had convinced himself. Yet Potch must know about +the stones; he must have seen them. Michael could find no reason for his +silence and the unaltered serenity of the affection in his eyes, except +that Potch had that absolute belief in him which rejects any suggestion +of unworthiness in the object of its belief.</p> + +<p>But since—since he had made up his mind to give the opals to +Paul—since Sophie had gone, and there was no chance of their doing her +any harm; since that night Potch and Maud had seen him, why had he not +given them to Paul? Why had he not told Potch how the opals Potch had +seen him with had come into his possession? Michael put the questions to +himself, hardly daring, and yet knowing, he must search for the answer +in the mysterious no-man's land of his subconsciousness.</p> + +<p>Paul's slow recovery from sun-stroke was a reason for deferring +explanation about the stones and for not giving them back to him, in the +first instance. After Potch and Maud had seen him with the opals, +Michael had intended to go at once to George and Watty and tell them his +story. But the more he had thought of what he had to do, the more +difficult it seemed. He had found himself shrinking from fulfilment of +his intention. Interest in the new claim and the excitement of bottoming +on opal had for a time almost obliterated memory of Paul's opals.</p> + +<p>But he had only put off telling Potch, Michael assured himself; he had +only put off giving the stones back to Paul. There was no motive in this +putting off. It was mental indolence, procrastination, reluctance to +face a difficult and delicate situation: that was all. Having the opals +had worried him to death. It had preyed on his mind so that he was ready +to imagine himself capable of any folly or crime in connection with +them.... He mocked his fears of himself.</p> + +<p>Michael went over all he had done, all that had happened in connection +with the opals, seeking out motives, endeavouring to fathom his own +consciousness and to be honest with himself.</p> + +<p>As if answering an evocation, the opals passed before him in a vision. +He followed their sprayed fires reverently. Then, as if one starry ray +had shed illumination in its passing, a daze of horror and amazement +seized him. He had taken his own rectitude so for granted that he could +not believe he might be guilty of what the light had shown lurking in a +dark corner of his mind.</p> + +<p>Had Paul's stones done that to him? Michael asked himself. Had their +witch fires eaten into his brain? He had heard it said men who were +misers, who hoarded opal, were mesmerised by the lights and colour of +the stuff; they did not want to part with it. Was that what Paul's +stones had done to him? Had they mesmerised him, so that he did not want +to part with them? Michael was aghast at the idea. He could not believe +he had become so besotted in his admiration of black opal that he was +ready to steal—steal from a mate. The opal had never been found, he +assured himself, which could put a spell over his brain to make him do +that. And yet, he realised, the stones themselves had had something to +do with his reluctance to talk of them to Potch, and with the deferring +of his resolution to give them to Paul and let the men know what he had +done. Whenever he had attempted to bring his resolution to talk of them +to the striking-point, he remembered, the opals had swarmed before his +dreaming eyes; his will had weakened as he gazed on them, and he had put +off going to Paul and to Watty and George.</p> + +<p>Stung to action by realisation of what he had been on the brink of, +Michael went to the box of books in his room. He determined to take the +packet of opals to Paul immediately, and go on to tell George and Watty +its history. As he plunged an arm down among the books for the cigarette +tin the opals were packed in, he made up his mind not to look at them +for fear some reason or excuse might hinder the carrying out of his +project. His fingers groped eagerly for the package; he threw out a few +books.</p> + +<p>He had put the tin in a corner of the box, under an old Statesman's +year-book and a couple of paper-covered novels. But it was not there; it +must have slipped, or he had piled books over it, at some time or +another, he thought. He threw out all the books in the box and raked +them over—but he could not find the tin with Paul's opals in.</p> + +<p>He sat back on his haunches, his face lean and ghastly by the +candle-fight.</p> + +<p>"They're gone," he told himself.</p> + +<p>He wondered whether he could have imagined replacing the package in the +box—if there was anywhere else he could have put it, absent-mindedly; +but his eyes returned to the box. He knew he had put the opals there.</p> + +<p>Who could have found them? Potch? His mind turned from the idea.</p> + +<p>Nobody had known of them. Nobody knew just where to put a hand on +them—not even Potch. Who else could have come into the hut, or +suspected the opals were in that box. Paul? He would not have been able +to contain his joy if he had come into possession of any opal worth +speaking of. Who else might suspect him of hoarding opal of any value. +His mind hovered indecisively. Maud?</p> + +<p>Michael remembered the night she had come for Potch and had seen that +gold-and-red-fired stone on the table. His imagination attached itself +to the idea. The more he thought of it, the surer he felt that Maud had +come for the stone she had offered to buy from him. There was nothing to +prevent her walking into the hut and looking for it, any time during the +day when he and Potch were away at the mine. And if she would rat, +Michael thought she would not object to taking stones from a man's hut +either. Of course, it might not be Maud; but he could think of no one +else who knew he had any stone worth having.</p> + +<p>If Maud had taken the stones, Jun would recognise them, Michael knew. By +and by the story would get round, Jun would see to that. And when Jun +told where those opals of Paul's had been found, as he would some +day—Michael could not contemplate the prospect.</p> + +<p>He might tell men of the Ridge his story now and forestall Jun; but it +would sound thin without the opals to verify it, and the opportunity to +restore them to Paul. Michael thought he had sufficient weight with men +of the Ridge to impress them with the truth of what he said; but +knowledge of a subtle undermining of his character, for which possession +of the opals was responsible, gave him such a consciousness of guilt +that he could not face the men without being able to give Paul the +stones and prove he was not as guilty as he felt.</p> + +<p>Overwhelmed and unable to throw off a sense of shame and defeat, Michael +sat on the floor of his room, books thrown out of the box all round him. +He could not understand even now how those stones of Paul's had worked +him to the state of mind they had. He did not even know they had brought +him to the state of mind he imagined they had, or whether his fear of +that state of mind had precipitated it. He realised the effect of the +loss more than the thing itself, as he crouched beside the empty +book-box, foreseeing the consequences to his work and to the Ridge, of +the story Jun would tell—that he, Michael Brady, who had held such high +faiths, and whose allegiance to them had been taken as a matter of +course, was going to be known as a filcher of other men's stones, and +that he who had formulated and inspired the Ridge doctrine was going to +be judged by it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IVb" id="CHAPTER_IVb"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + + +<p>Michael and Potch were finishing their tea when Watty burst in on them. +His colour was up, his small, blue eyes winking and flashing over his +fat, pink cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Who d'y' think's come be motor to-day, Michael?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>Michael's movement and the shade of apprehension which crossed his face +were a question.</p> + +<p>"Old man Armitage!" Watty said. "And he's come all the way from New York +to see the big opal, he says."</p> + +<p>There was a rumble of cart wheels, an exclamation and the reverberation +of a broad, slow voice out-of-doors. Watty looked through Michael's +window.</p> + +<p>"Here he is, Michael," he said. "George and Peter are helping him out of +Newton's dog-cart. And Archie Cross and Bill Grant are coming along the +road a bit behind."</p> + +<p>Michael pushed back his seat and pulled the fastenings from his front +door. The front door was more of a decoration and matter of form in the +face of the hut than intended to serve any useful purpose, and the +fastening had never been moved before.</p> + +<p>Potch cleared away the litter of the meal while Michael went out to meet +the old man. He was walking with the help of a stick, his heavy, +colourless face screwed with pain.</p> + +<p>"Grr-rr!" he grunted. "What a fool I was to come to this God-damn place +of yours, George! What? No fool like an old one? Don't know so much +about that.... What else was I to do? Brrr! Oh, there you are, Michael! +Came to see you. Came right away because, from what the boys tell me, +you weren't likely to slip down and call on me."</p> + +<p>"I'd 've come all right if I'd known you wanted to see me, Mr. +Armitage," Michael said.</p> + +<p>The old man went into the hut and, creaking and groaning as though all +his springs needed oiling, seated himself on the sofa, whipped out a +silk handkerchief and wiped his face and head with it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," he said, "here I am at last—and mighty glad to get here. +The journey from New York City, where I reside, to this spot on the +globe, don't get any nearer as I grow older. No, sir! Who's that young +man?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Armitage had fixed his eyes on Potch from the moment he came into +the hut. Potch stood to his gaze.</p> + +<p>"That's Potch," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Potch?"</p> + +<p>The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to +dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was +trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone +he had come to see, were with the man who had found it.</p> + +<p>"Con—gratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "I've +come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours."</p> + +<p>Potch shook hands with him.</p> + +<p>"They tell me it's the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge +earth," the old man continued. "Well, I couldn't rest out there at home +without havin' a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, +and I couldn't get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I'd +never even see it, perhaps, I danged 'em to Hades—doctors, family and +all—took me passage out here. Ran away! That's what I did." He chuckled +with reminiscent glee. "And here I am."</p> + +<p>"Cleared out, did y', Mr. Armitage?" Watty asked.</p> + +<p>"That's it, Watty," old Armitage answered, still chuckling. "Cleared +out.... Family'll be scarrifyin' the States for me. Sent 'em a cable +when I got here to say I'd arrived."</p> + +<p>Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased +with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying +piece of mischief.</p> + +<p>"Tell you, boys," he said, "I felt I couldn't die easy knowing there was +a stone like that about and I'd never clap eyes on it.... Know you +chaps'd pretty well turned me down—me and mine—and I wouldn't get more +than a squint at the stone for my pains. You're such damned independent +beggars! Eh, Michael? That's the old argument, isn't it? How did y' like +those papers I sent you—and that book ... by the foreign devil—what's +his name? Clever, but mad. Y'r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or +whatever y'r call y'rselves nowadays.... But, for God's sake, let me +have a look at the stone now, there's a good fellow."</p> + +<p>Michael looked at Potch.</p> + +<p>"You get her, Potch," he said.</p> + +<p>Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in ah old tin, the +great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He +put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on +which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips +twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch's clumsy fingers +fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal +flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it +on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside.</p> + +<p>Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes.</p> + +<p>"My!" he breathed; and again: "My!" Then: "She was worth it, Michael," +fell from him in an awed exclamation.</p> + +<p>He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his +eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He +lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be +afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, +Potch's opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who +was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to +the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny +brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its +infinitesimal stars—-red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst—blazing, +splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him.</p> + +<p>The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone +down and mopped his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I reckon she's the God-damnedest piece of opal I've +ever seen."</p> + +<p>"She is that," Watty declared.</p> + +<p>"What have you got on her, Michael?" Dawe Armitage queried.</p> + +<p>A faint smile touched Michael's mouth.</p> + +<p>"I'm only asking," Armitage remarked apologetically. "I can tell you, +boys, it's a pretty bitter thing for me to be out of the running for a +stone like this. I ain't even bidding, you see—just inquiring, that's +all."</p> + +<p>Michael looked at Potch.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "it's Potch's first bit of luck, and I reck'n he's got +the say about it."</p> + +<p>The old man looked at Potch. He was a good judge of character. His +chance of getting the stone from Michael was remote; from Potch—a +steady, flat look in the eyes, a stolidity and inflexibility about the +young man, did hot give Dawe Armitage much hope where he was concerned +either.</p> + +<p>"They tell me," Mr. Armitage said, the twinkling of a smile in his eyes +as he realised the metal of his adversary—"they tell me," he repeated, +"you've refused three hundred pounds for her?"</p> + +<p>"That's right," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"How much do you reck'n she's worth?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"How much have you got on her?"</p> + +<p>Potch looked at Michael.</p> + +<p>"We haven't fixed any price," he said.</p> + +<p>"Four hundred pounds?" Armitage asked.</p> + +<p>Potch's grey eyes lay on his for the fraction of a second.</p> + +<p>"You haven't got money enough to buy that stone, Mr. Armitage," he said, +quietly.</p> + +<p>The old man was crestfallen. Although he pretended that he had no hope +of buying the opal, everybody knew that, hoping against hope, he had not +altogether despaired of being able to prevail against the Ridge +resolution not to sell to Armitage and Son, in this instance. Potch +remarked vaguely that he had to see Paul, and went out of the hut.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," Dawe Armitage said, "I suppose that settles the matter. +Daresay I was a durned old fool to try the boy—but there you are. Well, +since I can't have her, Michael, see nobody else gets her for less than +my bid."</p> + +<p>The men were sorry for the old man. What Potch had said was rather like +striking a man when he was down, they thought; and they were not too +pleased about it.</p> + +<p>"Potch doesn't seem to fancy sellin' at all for a bit," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"What!" Armitage exclaimed. "He's not a miser—at his age?"</p> + +<p>"It's not that," Michael replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well"—the old man's gesture disposed of the matter. He gazed at +the stone entranced again. "But she's the koh-i-noor of opals, sure +enough. But tell me"—he sat back on the sofa for a yarn—"what's the +news of the field? Who's been getting the stuff?"</p> + +<p>The gossip of Jun and the ratting was still the latest news of the +Ridge; but Mr. Armitage appeared to know as much of that as anybody. Ed. +Ventry's boy, who had motored him over from Budda, had told him about +it, he said. He had no opinion of Jun.</p> + +<p>"A bad egg," he said, and began to talk about bygone days on the Ridge. +There was nothing in the world he liked better than smoking and yarning +with men of the Ridge about black opal.</p> + +<p>He was fond of telling his family and their friends, who were too nice +and precise in their manners for his taste, and who thought him a boor +and mad on the subject of black opal, that the happiest times of his +life had been spent on Fallen Star Ridge, "swoppin' lies with the +gougers"; yarning with them about the wonderful stuff they had got, and +other chaps had got, or looking over some of the opal he had bought, or +was going to buy from them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," Mr. Armitage said after they had been talking for a long +time, "it's great sitting here yarning with you chaps. Never thought ... +I'd be sitting here like this again...."</p> + +<p>"It's fine to have a yarn with you, Mr. Armitage," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Michael," the old man replied. "But I suppose I must be +putting my old bones to bed.... There's something else I want to talk to +you about though, Michael."</p> + +<p>The men turned to the door, judging from Mr. Armitage's tone that what +he had to say was for Michael alone.</p> + +<p>"I'll just have a look if that bally mare of mine's all right, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said.</p> + +<p>He went to the door, and the rest of the men followed him.</p> + +<p>"Well, Michael," Dawe Armitage said when the men had gone out, "I guess +you know what it is I want to talk to you about."</p> + +<p>Michael jerked his head slightly by way of acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>"That little girl of yours."</p> + +<p>Michael smiled. It always pleased and amused him to hear people talk as +if he and not Paul were Sophie's father.</p> + +<p>"She"—old Armitage leaned back on the sofa, and a shade of perplexity +crossed his face—"I've seen a good deal of her, Michael, and I've tried +to keep an eye on her—but I don't mind admitting to you that a man +needs as many eyes as a centipede has legs to know what's coming to him +where Sophie's concerned. But first of all ... she's well ... and +happy—at least, she appears to be; and she's a great little lady."</p> + +<p>He brooded a moment, and Michael smoked, watching his face as though it +were a page he were trying to read.</p> + +<p>"You know, she's singing at one of the theatres in New York, and they +say she's doing well. She's sought after—made much of. She's got little +old Manhattan at her feet, as they say.... I don't want to gloss over +anything that son of mine may have done—but to put it in a nutshell, +Michael, he's in love with her. He's really in love with her—wants to +marry her, but Sophie won't have him."</p> + +<p>Michael did not speak, and he continued:</p> + +<p>"And there's this to be said for him. She says it. He isn't quite so +much to blame as we first thought. Seems he'd been making love to her... +and did a break before.... He didn't mean to be a blackguard, y' see. +You know what I'm driving at, Michael. He loved the girl and went—She +says when she knew he had gone away, she went after him. Then—well, you +know, Michael ... you've been young ... you've been in love. And in +Sydney ... summer-time ... with the harbour there at your feet....</p> + +<p>"They were happy enough when they came to America. How they escaped the +emigration authorities, I don't know. They make enough fuss about an old +fogey like me, as if I had a harem up me sleeve. But still, when I found +her they were still happy, and she was having dancing lessons, had made +up her mind to go on the stage, and wouldn't hear of getting married. +Seemed to think it was a kind of barbarous business, gettin' married. +Said her mother had been married—and look what it had brought her to.</p> + +<p>"She's fond of John, too," the old man continued. "But, at present, New +York's a side-show, and she's enjoying it like a child on a holiday from +the country. I've got her living with an old maid cousin of mine.... +Sophie says by and by perhaps she'll marry John, but not yet—not +now—she's having too good a time. She's got all the money she wants ... +all the gaiety and admiration. It's not the sort of life I like for a +woman myself ... but I've done my best, Michael."</p> + +<p>There was something pathetic about the quiver which took the old face +before him. Michael responded to it gratefully.</p> + +<p>"You have that, I believe, Mr. Armitage," he said, "and I'm grateful to +you.".</p> + +<p>"Tell you the truth, Michael," he said, "I'm fond of her. I feel about +her as if she were a piece of live opal—the best bit that fool of a son +of mine ever brought from the Ridge...."</p> + +<p>His face writhed as he got up from the sofa.</p> + +<p>"But I must be going, Michael. Rouminof had a touch of the sun a while +ago, they tell me. Never been quite himself since. Bad business that. +Better go and have a look at him. Yes? Thanks, Michael; thanks. It's a +God-damned business growing old, Michael. Never knew I had so many bones +in me body."</p> + +<p>Leaning heavily on his stick he hobbled to the door. Michael gave him +his arm, and they went to Rouminof's hut.</p> + +<p>Potch had told Paul of Dawe P. Armitage's arrival; that he had come to +the Ridge to see the big opal, and was in Michael's hut. Paul had gone +to bed, but was all eagerness to get up and go to see Mr. Armitage. He +was sitting on his bed, weak and dishevelled-looking, shirt and trousers +on, while Potch was hunting for his boots, when Michael and Mr. Armitage +came into the room.</p> + +<p>After he had asked Paul how he was, and had gossiped with him awhile, +Mr. Armitage produced an illustrated magazine from one of the outer +pockets of his overcoat.</p> + +<p>"Thought you'd like to see these pictures of Sophie, Rouminof," he said. +"She's well, and doing well. The magazine will tell you about that. And +I brought along this." He held out a photograph. "She wouldn't give me a +photograph for you, Michael—said you'd never know her—so I prigged +this from her sitting-room last time I was there."</p> + +<p>Michael glanced at the photographer's card of heavy grey paper, which +Mr. Armitage was holding. He would know Sophie, anyhow and anywhere, he +thought; but he agreed that she was right when, the card in his hands, +he gazed at the elegant, bizarre-looking girl in the photograph. She was +so unlike the Sophie he had known that he closed his eyes on the +picture, pain, and again a dogging sense of failure and defeat filtering +through all his consciousness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Vb" id="CHAPTER_Vb"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + + +<p>Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul's +hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and +start work again. It was nearly five years since he had got the +sun-stroke which had given him an excuse for loafing, and Michael and +Potch had come to the conclusion that even if it were only to keep him +out of mischief, Paul had to be put to work again.</p> + +<p>Since old Armitage's visit he had been restless and dissatisfied. He was +getting old, and had less energy, even by fits and starts, than he used +to have, they realised, but otherwise he was much the same as he had +been before Sophie went away. For months after Armitage's visit he spent +the greater part of his time on the form in the shade of Newton's +veranda, or in the bar, smoking and yarning to anybody who would yarn +with him about Sophie. His imagination gilded and wove freakish fancies +over what Mr. Armitage had said of her, while he wailed about Sophie's +neglect of him—how she had gone away and left him, her old father, to +do the best he could for himself. His reproaches led him to rambling +reminiscences of his life before he came to the Ridge, and of Sophie's +mother. He brought out his violin, tuned it, and practised Sometimes, +talking of how he would play for Sophie in New York.</p> + +<p>He was rarely sober, and Michael and Potch were afraid of the effect of +so much drinking on his never very steady brain.</p> + +<p>For months they had been trying to induce him to go down to the claim +and start work again; but Paul would not.</p> + +<p>"What's the good," he had said, "Sophie'll be sending for me soon, and +I'll be going to live with her in New York, and she won't want people to +be saying her father is an old miner."</p> + +<p>Michael had too deep a sense of what he owed to Paul to allow him ever +to want. He had provided for him ever since Sophie had left the Ridge; +he was satisfied to go on providing for him; but he was anxious to steer +Paul back to more or less regular ways of living.</p> + +<p>This morning Michael had made up his mind to tempt him to begin work +again by telling him of a splash of colour Potch had come on in the mine +the day before. Michael did not think Paul could resist the lure of that +news.</p> + +<p>Potch had brought Paul home from Newton's the night before, Michael +knew; but Paul was not in the kitchen or in his own room when Michael +went into the hut.</p> + +<p>As he was going out he noticed that the curtain of bagging over the door +of the room which had been Sophie's was thrown back. Michael went +towards it.</p> + +<p>"Paul!" he called.</p> + +<p>No answer coming, he went into the room. Its long quiet and tranquillity +had been disturbed. Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway +thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been +like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but +there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room +about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the +frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the +window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael +remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago.</p> + +<p>He was realising Potch had put them there, and wondering why he had left +the dead stalks in the tin until they were as dry as brown paper, when +his eyes fell on a hat with a long veil, and a dark cloak on the bed. He +gazed at them, his brain shocked into momentary stillness by the +suggestion they conveyed.</p> + +<p>Sophie exclaimed behind him.</p> + +<p>When he turned, Michael saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against +one side of it. Her face was very pale and tired-looking; her eyes gazed +into his, dark and strange. He thought she had been ill.</p> + +<p>"I've come home, Michael," she said.</p> + +<p>Michael could not speak. He stood staring at her. The dumb pain in her +eyes inundated him, as though he were a sensitive medium for the +realisation of pain. It surged through him, mingling with the flood of +his own rejoicing, gratitude, and relief that Sophie had come back to +the Ridge again.</p> + +<p>They stood looking at each other, their eyes telling in that moment what +words could not. Then Michael spoke, sensing her need of some +commonplace, homely sentiment and expression of affection.</p> + +<p>"It's a sight for sore eyes—the sight of you, Sophie," he said.</p> + +<p>"Michael!"</p> + +<p>Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved +to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been +like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own +child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and +tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried, +brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all.</p> + +<p>"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!"</p> + +<p>He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering +tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears +she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came +from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily, +reverently.</p> + +<p>"There, there!" he muttered again and again.</p> + +<p>Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from +him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her +eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him.</p> + +<p>"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said.</p> + +<p>Michael's mouth took its wry twist.</p> + +<p>"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else +on the Ridge'd dare say so."</p> + +<p>"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a +little as she looked at him; her eyes closed.</p> + +<p>Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie +down and drew the coverlet over her.</p> + +<p>"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said.</p> + +<p>Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour +when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and +butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had +fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave, +anxious face as he gazed at her.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired." +She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the +tea and ate the bread and butter.</p> + +<p>"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world," +Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether +it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have +tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice."</p> + +<p>After a while she said:</p> + +<p>"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about +half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before. +That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat +and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how +badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I +didn't come—so I came."</p> + +<p>Then she asked about Potch and her father.</p> + +<p>Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but +that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of +putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down +to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and +Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the +night before.</p> + +<p>"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd +better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye +you've been missing these last two or three days."</p> + +<p>"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her +eyes again.</p> + +<p>They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed.</p> + +<p>"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for +years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the +sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste, +Michael.... It smells like peace, I think."</p> + +<p>"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind +if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more +good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter."</p> + +<p>"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured.</p> + +<p>Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep, +thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was +already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to +the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank +sunshine of the day again.</p> + +<p>He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to +the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for +Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to +look for Paul and send him to her.</p> + +<p>She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew +there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage +had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and +the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine, +with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever +it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake, +devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no +more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her.</p> + +<p>Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into +the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill +near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with +red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the +belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared.</p> + +<p>"Get him?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Michael had almost forgotten Paul.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in +Michael's expression.</p> + +<p>Michael wanted to tell him—this was a big thing for Potch, he knew—and +yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the +throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he +told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said.</p> + +<p>But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He +would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian +of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for +fear of dazzling the beholder.</p> + +<p>The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had +come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of +having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did +not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and +happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like +that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie—Michael must have some good +news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his +own time.</p> + +<p>He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's +steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached +himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch.</p> + +<p>He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of +the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse +him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and +determined to speak.</p> + +<p>Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt +round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the +floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against +the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Where was he?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Who—Paul?"</p> + +<p>Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Michael decided he would tell him now.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away."</p> + +<p>Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again.</p> + +<p>"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit +of a business getting him home."</p> + +<p>"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and +stopped to listen.</p> + +<p>There was a muffled rumbling and sound of someone calling in the +distance. It came from Roy O'Mara's drive, on the other side of the +mine.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" Michael called.</p> + +<p>"That you, Michael?" Roy replied. "I'm comin' through."</p> + +<p>His head appeared through the drive which he had tunnelled to meet +Potch's and Michael's drive on the eastern side of the mine. He crawled +out, shook himself, took out his pipe, and squatted on the floor beside +Michael.</p> + +<p>"Where's Rummy?" Roy asked.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>"You didn't get him down, after all—the boys were taking bets about it +last night."</p> + +<p>"We'll get him yet," Potch said. "The colour'll work like one thing."</p> + +<p>Michael stared ahead of him, smoking as though his thoughts absorbed +him.</p> + +<p>"He was pretty full at Newton's last night," Roy said, "and +talkin'—talkin' about Sophie singing in America, and the great lady she +is now. And how she was goin' to send for him, and he'd be leavin' us +soon, and how sorry we'd all be then."</p> + +<p>"Should've thought you'd about wore out that joke," Michael remarked, +dryly.</p> + +<p>Roy's easy, good-natured voice faltered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," he said, "he likes to show off a bit, and it don't hurt us, +Michael."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Michael returned; "but Potch was out half the night +bringing him home. You chaps might remember Paul's our proposition when +you're having a bit of fun out of him."</p> + +<p>Potch turned back to his work.</p> + +<p>"Right, Michael," Roy said. And then, after a moment, having decided +that both Michael's and Potch's demeanours were too calm for them to +have heard what he had, as if savouring the effect of his news, he +added:</p> + +<p>"But perhaps we won't have many more chances-seein' Rummy 'll be going +to America before long, perhaps——"</p> + +<p>Michael, looking at Roy through his tobacco smoke, realised that he knew +about Sophie's having come home. His glance travelled to Potch, who was +slogging at the cement stone again.</p> + +<p>"Saw old Ventry on me way down to the mine," Roy said, "and he said he'd +a passenger on the coach last night.... Who do you think it was?"</p> + +<p>Michael dared not look at Potch.</p> + +<p>"He said," Roy murmured slowly, "it was Sophie."</p> + +<p>They knew that Potch's pick had stopped. Michael had seen a tremor +traverse the length of his bared back; but Potch did not turn. He stood +with his face away from them, immobile. His body dripped with sweat and +seemed to be oiled by the garish light of the candle which outlined his +head, gilded his splendid arms and torso against the red earth of the +mine, and threw long shadows into the darkness, shrouding the workings +behind him. Then his pick smashed into the cement stone with a force +which sent sharp, white chips flying in every direction.</p> + +<p>When Roy crawled away through the tunnel to his own quarters, Potch +swung round from the face he was working on, his eyes blazing.</p> + +<p>"Is it true?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Michael said.</p> + +<p>After a moment he added: "I found her in the hut this morning just +before I came away. I been tryin' all these blasted hours to tell you, +Potch ... but every time I tried, it got me by the neck, and I had to +wait until I found me voice."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIb" id="CHAPTER_VIb"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + + +<p>The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, +its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous +green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, when Sophie went +out of the hut to meet Potch.</p> + +<p>The smell of sandal-wood burning on the fireplace in the kitchen she had +just left, was in the air. Such soothing its fragrance had for her! And +on the shingly soil, between the old dumps cast up a little distance +from the huts, in every direction, the paper daisies were lying, white +as driven snow in the wan light. Sophie went to the goat-pen, strung +round with a light, crooked fence, a few yards from the back of the +house.</p> + +<p>As she leaned against the fence she could hear the tinkling of a +goat-bell in the distance. The fragrances, the twilight, and the quiet +were balm to her bruised senses. The note of a bell sounded nearer. +Potch was bringing the goats in.</p> + +<p>Sophie went to the shed and stood near it, so that she might see him +before he saw her. A kid in the shed bleated as the note of the bell +became harsher and nearer. Sophie heard the answering cry of the nanny +among the three or four goats coming down to the yard along a narrow +track from a fringe of trees beyond the dumps. Then she saw Potch's +figure emerge from the trees.</p> + +<p>He drove the goats into the yard where two sticks of the fence were +down, put up the rails, and went to the shed for a milking bucket. He +came back into the yard, pulled a little tan-and-white nanny beside a +low box on which he sat to milk, and the squirt and song of milk in the +pail began. Sophie wondered what Potch was thinking of as he sat there +milking. She remembered the night—Potch had been sitting just like +that—when she told him her mother was dead. As she remembered, she saw +again every flicker and gesture of his, the play of light on his broad, +heavy face and head, with its shock of fairish hair; how his face had +puckered up and looked ugly and childish as he began to cry; how, after +a while, he had wiped his eyes and nose on his shirt-sleeve, and gone on +with the milking again, crying and sniffling in a subdued way.</p> + +<p>There was a deep note of loving them in his voice, rough and burred +though it was, as Potch spoke to the goats. Two of them came when he +called.</p> + +<p>When he had nearly finished milking, Sophie moved away from the screen +of the shed. She went along to the fence and stood where he could see +her when he looked up.</p> + +<p>The light had faded, and stars were glimmering in the luminous green of +the sky when Potch, as he released the last goat, pushed back the box he +had been sitting on, got up, took his bucket by the handle, and, looking +towards the fence, saw Sophie standing there. At first he seemed to +think she was a figure of his imagination, he stood so still gazing at +her. He had often thought of her, leaning against the rails there, +smiling at him like that. Then he remembered Sophie had come home; that +it was really Sophie herself by the fence as he had dreamed of seeing +her. But her face was wan and ethereal in the half-light; it floated +before him as if it were a drowned face in the still, thin air.</p> + +<p>"She's very like my old white nanny, Potch," Sophie said, her eyes +glancing from Potch to the goat he had just let go and which had +followed him across the yard.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"She might almost be Annie Laurie's daughter," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>"She's her grand-daughter," Potch replied.</p> + +<p>He put the bucket down at the rails and stooped to get through them. +Before he took up the bucket again he stood looking at her as though to +assure himself that it was really Sophie in the flesh who was waiting +for him by the fence. Then he took up the bucket, and they walked across +to Michael's hut together.</p> + +<p>Potch dared scarcely glance at her when he realised that Sophie was +really walking beside him—Sophie herself—although her eyes and her +voice were not the eyes and voice of the Sophie he had known. And he had +so often dreamed of her walking beside him that the dream seemed almost +more real than the thing which had come to pass.</p> + +<p>Sophie went with him to the lean-to, where the milk-dishes stood on a +bench under the window outside Michael's hut. She watched Potch while he +strained the milk and poured it into big, flat dishes on a bench under +the window.</p> + +<p>Paul came to the door of their own hut. He called her. Sophie could hear +voices exclaiming and talking to Paul and Michael. She supposed that the +people her father had said were coming from New Town to see her had +arrived. She dreaded going into the room where they all were, although +she knew that she must go.</p> + +<p>"Are you coming, Potch?" she asked.</p> + +<p>His eyes went from her to his hands.</p> + +<p>"I'll get cleaned up a bit first," he said, "then I'll come."</p> + +<p>The content in his eyes as they rested on her was transferred to Sophie. +It completed what the fragrances, those first minutes in the quiet and +twilight had done for her. It gave her a sense of having come to haven +after a tempestuous journey on the high seas beyond the reef of the +Ridge, and of having cast anchor in the lee of a kindly and sheltering +land.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIb"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + + +<p>Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged +insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung +in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George +Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Here she is," Paul said.</p> + +<p>Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her.</p> + +<p>"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called:</p> + +<p>"H'llo, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!"</p> + +<p>Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie +warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump +and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and +rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again. +The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of +so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than +Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!"</p> + +<p>"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me +that scared of you—saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be +tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a +minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own +little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms +round you—not for the life of me."</p> + +<p>She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in +them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too.</p> + +<p>"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway.</p> + +<p>And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the +room.</p> + +<p>"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!"</p> + +<p>Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie.</p> + +<p>"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get +her to wait till this evening to come along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly.</p> + +<p>"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you +and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a +word about it!"</p> + +<p>The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost, +the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of +pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they +came to her.</p> + +<p>She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was +surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they +had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was +full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him +the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other +woman on the Ridge—Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a +blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had +done as long as Sophie could remember.</p> + +<p>Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call. +Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes +spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant.</p> + +<p>"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Bill," she replied.</p> + +<p>Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night, +Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but +he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat +outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did +not know whether he would go into the room or not.</p> + +<p>Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff, +gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow +flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But +there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had +done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a +triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it, +those who saw him knew.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him.</p> + +<p>"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said.</p> + +<p>The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that +although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no +one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley.</p> + +<p>He held the flowers out to her.</p> + +<p>"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her +nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a +perfume!"</p> + +<p>Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to +sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had +gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men.</p> + +<p>He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make +him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and +he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the +talk Paul's voice was raised querulously:</p> + +<p>"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's +happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you +caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd +go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been +with you...."</p> + +<p>Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling +with a hearty guffaw.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of +this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and +me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son, +just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch:</p> + +<p>"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-"</p> + +<p>All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a +way which meant much more than the words—singing from their hearts, +every man and woman of them.</p> + +<p>Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of +washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night +to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would +walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said +good-night.</p> + +<p>"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant +said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let +Sophie get to bed early.</p> + +<p>"I will," Sophie replied.</p> + +<p>Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and +George followed them.</p> + +<p>"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods +said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this +field since you went away."</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily.</p> + + +<p>"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck."</p> + +<p>"So he has," George Woods agreed.</p> + +<p>"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said.</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to +show it to me to-night."</p> + +<p>"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"—he +turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses—"I reck'n we'll have to stay for +this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring +her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too +much of a good thing."</p> + +<p>"Right," Potch replied.</p> + +<p>He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room.</p> + +<p>"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said, +"and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it, +Michael?"</p> + +<p>"Four hundred," Michael said.</p> + +<p>"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering.</p> + +<p>"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I +daresay he'll be letting her go soon."</p> + +<p>He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that +Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie +the stone before selling it.</p> + +<p>Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph +and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin, +skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and +emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on +the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red, +weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old +penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening—a thirsting, +eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin, +lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which +he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool.</p> + +<p>Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The +emotion in the room made itself felt through her.</p> + +<p>"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said.</p> + +<p>Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in +a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table. +Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the +flame of the candle.</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of +them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel +opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered +exclamations went up:</p> + +<p>"Now, she's showin'!"</p> + +<p>"God, look at her now!"</p> + +<p>Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a +world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering +and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty +pool of the stone.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous.</p> + +<p>Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of +miraculous and mysterious beauty.</p> + +<p>"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie."</p> + +<p>Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and +emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on +them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of +glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a +moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have +left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes +wide....</p> + +<p>After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying:</p> + +<p>"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael +lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, +Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were +caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor +near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered +stars—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst—out across the earthen +floor.</p> + +<p>Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them +up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of +those stars—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst.</p> + +<p>She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to +think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and +that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only +for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal +specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her +hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was +saying.</p> + +<p>When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting +on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At +first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to +listen; tried to understand what he was saying.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking.</p> + +<p>Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt +beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly:</p> + +<p>"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze. +Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently:</p> + +<p>"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I +was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't +want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you +liked with, really. That was what I +meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think of it any more. +I don't want to think of it any more."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... +somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal—that I bring people bad +luck like opal...."</p> + +<p>"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you +get through opal is when you can't get enough of it—so the only bad +luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of +you."</p> + +<p>"Potch!"</p> + +<p>Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The +forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which +she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and +exclamation.</p> + +<p>On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being +throbbed.</p> + +<p>"Don't think of it any more," he begged.</p> + +<p>"But it was your luck—your wonderful opal—and ... I broke it, Potch. I +spoilt your luck."</p> + +<p>"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to +assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie. +Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it.... +This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because +you're here that I can't think of anything else."</p> + +<p>Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion +of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured +over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung +so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying +abstractedly, wearily.</p> + +<p>There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch. +His instincts, sensitive as the antennæ of an insect, wavered over her, +trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded +him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense +of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to +comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to +him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!"</p> + +<p>Later she said:</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ... +not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all +the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I +thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like +I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful +here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left +it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it +was before...."</p> + +<p>"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to +read her thought.</p> + +<p>"But look what I've done," she said.</p> + +<p>Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him +moving his restraint.</p> + +<p>"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our +hearts—just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George +and the rest of them."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark +thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like +any of you think."</p> + +<p>Potch's grip on her hand tightened.</p> + +<p>"You're you—and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said.</p> + +<p>Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and +Michael I knew would—but the others ... I thought they'd remember ... +and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"—a smile showed faintly in +her eyes—"I thought she'd see to that."</p> + +<p>"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's +valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty +was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night."</p> + +<p>"Was he?"</p> + +<p>Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us +here ... we—we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again."</p> + +<p>Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance.</p> + +<p>"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...."</p> + +<p>"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he +might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had +cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress. +"But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't +bother you ... I want just to stand by—and help you all I know how."</p> + +<p>"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of +loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one +sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been +hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were +here."</p> + +<p>Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been +engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed +and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she +looked at him; her face was grave and still.</p> + +<p>"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else, +once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so +tired."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIIb"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + + +<p>The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great +opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which +Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her +eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, +inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would +put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath +from them in the lingering kiss she gave.</p> + +<p>When she had laid her head back on his shoulder sometimes, closing her +eyes, an expression of infinite rest coming over her face, Potch had +gazed at it, wondering what world of thought lay beneath that still, +sleep-like mask as, it rested on his shoulder; what thought or emotion +set a nerve quivering beneath her skin, as the water of some still pool +quivers when an insect stirs beneath it.</p> + +<p>Sophie had no tricks of sex with Potch. She went to him sometimes when +ghosts of her mind were driving her before them. She went to him because +she was sure that she could go to him, whatever her reasons for going. +With Potch there was no need for explanations.</p> + +<p>His quiet strength of body and mind had something to do with the rest +and assurance which his very presence gave her. It was like being a baby +and lying in a cradle again to have his arm about her; no harm or ill +could reach her behind the barrier they raised, Sophie thought. She knew +Potch loved her with all the passion of a virile man as well as with a +love like the ocean into which all her misdeeds of commission and +omission might be dropped. And she had as intimate and sympathetic a +knowledge of Potch as he had of her. Sophie thought that nothing he +might do could make her care less, or be less appreciative of him. She +loved him, she said, with a love of the tenderest affection. If it +lacked an irresistible impulse, she thought it was because she had lost +the power to love in that way; but she hoped some day she would love +Potch as he loved her—without reservations. For the time being she +loved him gratefully; her gratitude was as immense as his love.</p> + +<p>Potch divined as much; Sophie had not tried to tell him how she felt +about him, but he understood, perhaps better than she could tell him. +His humility was equal to any demand she could make of him. He had not +sufficient belief in himself or his worth to believe that Sophie could +ever love him as he loved her: he did not expect it. The only way for +him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is +to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for +life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it.</p> + +<p>Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; +but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched +itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages +which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them.</p> + +<p>The days were blessed and peaceful to Sophie, too; but she, also, was +afraid that something might happen to disturb them. She wanted to marry +Potch in order to secure them, and to live and work with him on the +Ridge. She wanted to live the life of any other woman on the Ridge with +her mate. Life looked so straight and simple that way. She could see it +stretching before her into the years. Her hands would be full of real +things. She would be living a life of service and usefulness, in +accordance with the ideal the Ridge had set itself, and which Michael +had preached with the zeal of a latter-day saint. She believed her life +would shape itself to this future; but sometimes a wraith in the +back-country of her mind rose shrieking: "Never! Never!"</p> + +<p>It threw her into the outer darkness of despair, that cry, but she had +learned to exorcise its influence by going to Potch and lifting her lips +for him to kiss.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked one day, vaguely aware of the meaning of the +movement.</p> + +<p>Before the reverence and worship of his eyes the wraith fled. Sophie +took his face between her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, "I do love +you ... and I will love you, more and more."</p> + +<p>"You don't have to worry about that," Potch said. "I love you enough for +both of us.... Just think of me"—he lifted her hand and kissed the back +of it gently—"like this—your hand—a sort of third hand."</p> + +<p>When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see +Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. +Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books +Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually +towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking +the Rouminofs' first home—near where they had played when they were +children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the +dumps.</p> + +<p>They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off +sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of +them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind +of their voices.</p> + +<p>They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had +happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a +good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to +avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie +returned to them, perplexed by his reticence.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, Potch," she said on one occasion. "You found out +that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went +over to Jun's ... and told them you were going to tell the boys.... They +must have known you would tell. Maud——"</p> + +<p>Potch's expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, +arrested her thought.</p> + +<p>"Maud——" she murmured again. "I see," she added, "it was just +Maud——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"That explains a good deal." Sophie's eyes were on the distant horizon +of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained +like rose coral, lying on the earth about her.</p> + +<p>"What does it explain?" Potch asked.</p> + +<p>"Why," Sophie said, "for one thing—how you grew up. You've changed +since I went away, Potch, you know...."</p> + +<p>His smile showed a moment.</p> + +<p>"I'm older."</p> + +<p>"Older, graver, harder ... and kinder, though you always had a genius +for kindness, Potch.... But Maud——"</p> + +<p>Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile +thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"I understand," she said.</p> + +<p>Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes.</p> + +<p>"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said.</p> + +<p>"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men—because of her."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Potch agreed.</p> + +<p>"And—you don't now?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I saw her—Maud—in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said +slowly. "She was selling opal...."</p> + +<p>"Did she show you the stones?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>"Michael?" Potch's face clouded.</p> + +<p>"She didn't show them to me, but I know who saw them all—he bought +them—Mr. Armitage."</p> + +<p>"The old man?"</p> + +<p>"No, John."</p> + +<p>After a minute Sophie said:</p> + +<p>"Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, +too.... Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose—but was +there anything more than that?"</p> + +<p>"It's hard to say." Potch spoke reluctantly. "There's nothing more than +a bit of guesswork in my mind ... and I suppose it's the same with +Michael. I haven't said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn't to +me, so it's better not to mention it."</p> + +<p>"There's a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away," Sophie +remarked musingly.</p> + +<p>"The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers' church, and Mrs. +Watty's veranda?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean that," Sophie said. "It's the people and things ... you, +for instance, and Michael——"</p> + +<p>"Michael?" Potch exclaimed. "He's wearing the same old clothes, the same +old hat."</p> + +<p>Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey.</p> + +<p>"He's different somehow ... I don't quite know how," she said. "There's +a look about him—his eyes—a disappointed look, Potch.... It hurt him +when I went away, I know. But now—it's not that...."</p> + +<p>As Potch did not reply, Sophie's eyes questioned him earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened," she asked, "to make Michael look like that?"</p> + +<p>"I ... don't know," Potch replied.</p> + +<p>Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"There is something, Potch! I don't want to know what it is if you can't +tell me. I'm only worried about Michael.... I'd always thought he had +the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks——Oh, I can't bear to +see him look as he does.... And he seems to have lost interest in +things—the life here—everything."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch admitted.</p> + +<p>"Only tell me," Sophie urged, "is this that's bothering Michael likely +to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?"</p> + +<p>Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to +answer the question. Then he said slowly:</p> + +<p>"I ... don't know. I really don't know anything, Sophie. I happened to +find out—by accident—that Michael's pretty worried about something. I +don't rightly know what, or why. That's all."</p> + +<p>The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to +the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the +sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. +She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the +cutting-wheel which had been her mother's, cleared and cleaned up the +room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and +polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the +wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael +was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her +several small stones to face and polish for him.</p> + +<p>Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, +Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and +in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before +she left the Ridge, but it was a long time before Sophie went about as +she used to. After a while, however, she got into the way of walking +over to see Maggie Grant or Martha M'Cready in the afternoon, +occasionally; but she never talked to them of her life away from the +Ridge; they never spoke of it to her.</p> + +<p>Only one thing had disturbed her slightly—seeing Arthur Henty one +evening as she and Martha were coming from the Three Mile.</p> + +<p>He had come towards them, with a couple of stockmen, driving a mob of +cattle. Dust rose at the heels of the cattle and horses; the cattle +moved slowly; and the sun was setting in the faces of the men behind the +cattle. Sophie did not know who they were until a man on a chestnut +horse stared at her. His face was almost hidden by his beard; but after +the first glance she recognised Arthur Henty. They passed as people do +in a dream, Sophie and Martha back from the road, the men riding off the +cattle, Arthur with the stockmen and cattle which a cloud of dust +enveloped immediately. The dark trees by the roadside swayed, dipped in +the gold of the sunset, when they had passed. The image of Arthur Henty +riding like that in the dust behind the cattle, his face gilded by the +light of the setting sun, came to Sophie again and again. She was a +little disturbed by it; but it was only natural that she should be, she +thought. She had not seen Arthur since the night of the ball, and so +much had happened to both their lives since then.</p> + +<p>She saw him once or twice in the township afterwards. He had stared at +her; Sophie had bowed and smiled, but they had not spoken. Later, she +had seen him lounging on the veranda at Newton's, or hanging his bridle +over the pegs outside Ezra Smith's billiard saloon, and neither her +brain nor pulse had quickened at the sight of him. She was pleased and +reassured. She did not think of him after that, and went on her way +quietly, happily, more deeply content in her life with Michael and +Potch.</p> + +<p>As her natural vigour returned, she grew to a fuller appreciation of +that life; health and a normal poise of body and soul brought the faint +light of happiness to her eyes. Michael heard her laughing as she teased +Paul sometimes, and Potch thrilled to the rippled cadenza of Sophie's +laughter.</p> + +<p>"It's good to hear that again," Michael said to him one day, hearing it +fly from Rouminof's hut.</p> + +<p>Potch's glance, as his head moved in assent, was eloquent beyond words.</p> + +<p>Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. +Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, +calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way +the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected +her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her +unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be +splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy +fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IXb" id="CHAPTER_IXb"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + + +<p>Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race +meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road +opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star +to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, +constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll +the track.</p> + +<p>A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one +side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the +trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually +drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs +was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been +fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous +muster of the show horses of the district—rough-haired nags, piebald +and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous +reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; +Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet +nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina +stallion Black Harry.</p> + +<p>People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was +held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's. +Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not +stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than +railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many +of them as were needed were run up for the occasion.</p> + +<p>Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every +horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, +and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange +horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, +Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical +warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the +enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the +course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were +gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next +day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest +pitch.</p> + +<p>Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to +go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and +children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of +an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, +and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it +was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs. +Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still +maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, +so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money.</p> + +<p>Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to +the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and +Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see +all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she +said—people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns. +Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to +mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was +at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut.</p> + +<p>Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Are you there, Martha?" she called.</p> + + +<p>"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!"</p> + +<p>Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was +full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and +freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from +above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as +Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face.</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on +an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was +at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down. +I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go +over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full +over there—with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a +crowd at the races, Sophie."</p> + +<p>Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the +brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch +of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back +to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with +great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, +broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other +hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw +its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, +scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks' +houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for +Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies +into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, +giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, +healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, +Sophie exclaimed to herself.</p> + +<p>Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, +and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did +not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said +Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie +knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could +dance like a two-year-old.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I +suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going," Sophie said,</p> + +<p>"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed +wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball—the +first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course +you're going, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open +doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon +was nearly over.</p> + +<p>"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say? +And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you +there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress +extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's +brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with +her...."</p> + +<p>Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naïve and genial admiration of what +Martha had said.</p> + +<p>"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron +flashing vigorously. "It just won't be—the ball—and everything looking +as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge. +Everybody'll be that disappointed——"</p> + +<p>"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried.</p> + +<p>"I don't think; I know."</p> + +<p>A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes.</p> + +<p>"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither."</p> + +<p>"Potch?"</p> + +<p>"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy—and going to +marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, +Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking.</p> + +<p>"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since +you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're +goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: +'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she +goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.' +That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...."</p> + +<p>Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was +amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to +think that Potch was not a good enough match for her.</p> + +<p>"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're +all coming over from Warria—Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs. +Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and +most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...."</p> + +<p>She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no +flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as +she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon +sky.</p> + +<p>"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse +theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine +dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, +Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think +they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ... +we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But +Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see +her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'"</p> + +<p>As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had +years before. She could see the people in it—figures swaying down the +long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford—their +faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, +herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her +father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the +rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt +indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to +think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and +now.</p> + +<p>"I'd give anything for you to be there—looking your best," Martha +continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you +weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me—as he used to be," Sophie murmured.</p> + +<p>Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one +knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an +American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read +and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put +her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off +her kitchen.</p> + +<p>"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the +paper.</p> + +<p>She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph +on its page.</p> + +<p>"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human +understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has +had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from +comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and +musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith +of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she +goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang. +Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and +have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no +better reason, it is said, than that she is <i>écÅ“uré</i> of us and our +life—the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario +informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for +a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms. +And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like +one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little +Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more."</p> + +<p>The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak +when she had finished reading.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me +<i>écÅ“uré</i>—sick to the heart, that is—of the life over there, +Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd +never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for +me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't +even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just +a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without +meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go +away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing +any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to +come home.... And I came."</p> + +<p>Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck.</p> + +<p>"My lamb," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare +arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously.</p> + +<p>"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said.</p> + +<p>"All right, dearie!"</p> + +<p>Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another +iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. +She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with +a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress.</p> + +<p>"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a +swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't +you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, +Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair +dying to wear them."</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line +beside a newly-starched petticoat.</p> + +<p>"You will, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Sophie shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, Martha."</p> + +<p>Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a +moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A +couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, +giggling cries.</p> + +<p>She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to +Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the +pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran +down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to +the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted +ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the +ball was in the air.</p> + +<p>Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge +balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of +hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced. +She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the +music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the +boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you +could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up +so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced.</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice, +eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter +of a girl's laughter—they were all in the air now as they had been +then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, +and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a +good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to +them—they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? +Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with +all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her?</p> + +<p>Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face, +trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it +what Sophie was thinking.</p> + +<p>"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged.</p> + +<p>Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light +in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed +her.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?"</p> + +<p>"Course you could, darling," Martha said.</p> + +<p>Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she +stood off from her.</p> + +<p>"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing—and to be young +again, Martha?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Xb" id="CHAPTER_Xb"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + + +<p>It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood +along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. +At a little distance the big building showed dark and ungainly against +the sky. Its double doors were open, and a wash of dull, golden light +came out from it into the twilight, with the noise of people laughing +and talking.</p> + +<p>"It's like old times, isn't it, Potch"—Sophie's fingers closed over +Potch's arm—"to be going to a Ridge dance?"</p> + +<p>There was a faint, sweet stirring which the wind makes in the trees +within her, Sophie realised. It was strange and delightful to feel alive +again, and alive with the first freshness, innocence, and vague +happiness of a girl.</p> + +<p>Potch looked down on her, smiling. He was filled with pride to have her +beside him like this, to think they would go into the hall together, and +that people would say to each other when they saw them: "There's Sophie +and Potch!"</p> + +<p>That using of their names side by side was a source of infinite content +to Potch. He loved people to say: "When are you and Sophie coming over +to see us, Potch?" or, "Would you mind telling Sophie, Potch?" and give +him a message for Sophie. And this would be the first time they had +appeared at an assembly of Ridge folk together.</p> + +<p>He walked with his head held straight and high, and his eyes shone when +he went down the hall with Sophie. What did it matter if they called him +Potch, the Ridge folk, "a little bit of potch," he thought, Sophie was +going to be Mrs. Heathfield.</p> + +<p>"Here's Sophie and Potch," he heard people say, as he had thought they +would, and his heart welled with happiness and pride.</p> + +<p>Nearly everybody had arrived when they went into the hall; the first +dance was just beginning. Branches of budda, fleeced with creamy and +lavender blossom, had been stuck through the supports of the hall. Flags +and pennants of all the colours in the rainbow, strung on a line +together, were stretched at the end of the platform. On the platform +Mrs. Newton was sitting at the piano. Paul had his music-stand near her, +and behind him an old man from the Three Mile was nervously fingering +and blowing on a black and silver-mounted flute. Women and girls and a +few of the older men were seated on forms against the walls. Several +young mothers had babies in their arms, and children of all ages were +standing about, or sitting beside their parents. By common consent, +Ridge folk had taken one side of the hall, and station folk the upper +end of the other side.</p> + +<p>Sophie's first glance found Martha, her white dress stiff and +immaculate, her face with its plump, rosy cheeks turned towards her, her +eyes smiling and expectant. Martha beamed at her; Sophie smiled back, +and, her glance travelling on, found Maggie and Bill Grant, Mrs. George +Woods and two of her little girls; Mrs. Watty, in a black dress, its +high neck fastened by a brooch, with three opals in, Watty had given +her; and Watty, genial and chirrupy as usual, but afraid to appear as if +he were promising himself too much of a good time.</p> + +<p>Warria, Langi-Eumina, and Darrawingee folk had foregathered; the girls +and men laughed and chattered in little groups; the older people talked, +sitting against the wall or leaning towards each other. Mrs. Henty +looked much as she had done five years before; James Henty not a day +older; but Mrs. Tom Henderson, who had been Elizabeth Henty, had +developed a sedate and matronly appearance. Polly was not as plump and +jolly as she had been—a little puzzled and apprehensive expression +flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of +discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a +slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an +expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent.</p> + +<p>The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul +scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a +bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge +loved. Roy O'Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: "Take y'r +partners for a waltz!" Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment +were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. +There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the +polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way +of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and +pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing +with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first +dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael—no one on the Ridge +was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with +neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a +threepenny piece!</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled at Martha's happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing +with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to +the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton's, he +had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which +had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with +unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised +the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose +litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. +Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical +fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other.</p> + +<p>Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. +Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. +The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did.</p> + +<p>His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy +ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of +rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the +flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through +the crowd.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said.</p> + +<p>"But I do mean it, Sophie," he said.</p> + +<p>As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he +did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything—with a dead +earnestness.</p> + +<p>After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round +Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances +as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened +to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they +didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance +with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie +Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell +Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the +opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing.</p> + +<p>"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie +whispered.</p> + +<p>"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should +have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking +so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!"</p> + +<p>Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was +claiming her for a polka mazurka.</p> + +<p>The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. +Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw +Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as +Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and +Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few +weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added.</p> + +<p>"Why has he come?" Michael asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out +whether the men will do business with him again."</p> + +<p>Michael's gesture implied it was useless to talk of that.</p> + +<p>Sophie continued: "But you know what I said, Michael. I can't be happy +until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the +men here.... You must do that for me, Michael. They know I'm going to +marry Potch ... and if they see there's no ill feeling between John +Armitage and me, they'll believe I was more to blame than he was—if +it's a question of blame.... I want you and Potch to stand by me in +this, Michael."</p> + +<p>Potch's eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and +sure. But Michael showed no relenting.</p> + +<p>Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in +the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had +circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had +created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and +indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach +to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie.</p> + +<p>She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had +met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them +than playing a game they had learned to play rather well.</p> + +<p>Sophie said: "It is you really?"</p> + +<p>He took the hand she held to him. "But you knew I was coming? You had my +letter?"</p> + +<p>"Of course ... but——"</p> + +<p>"And my word is my bond."</p> + +<p>The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage's voice, and the +perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised +people who were near them.</p> + +<p>Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded +Armitage with grave, quiet eyes.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Michael! Evening, Potch!" Armitage said.</p> + +<p>Michael did not reply; but Potch said:</p> + +<p>"Evening, Mr. Armitage!" And Sophie covered the trail of his words, and +Michael's silence, with questions as to the sort of journey Armitage had +made; a flying commentary on the ball, the races, and the weather. +Michael moved away as the next dance was beginning.</p> + +<p>"Is this my dance, Sophie?" Armitage inquired.</p> + +<p>Sophie shook her head, smiling.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Which is my dance?" The challenge had yielded to a note of appeal.</p> + +<p>Sophie met that appeal with a smile, baffling, but of kindly +understanding.</p> + +<p>"The next one."</p> + +<p>She danced with Potch, appreciating his quiet strength, the reserve +force she felt in him, the sense that this man was hers to lean on, hold +to, or move as she wished.</p> + +<p>"It's awfully good to have you, Potch," she murmured, glancing up at +him.</p> + +<p>"Sophie!"</p> + +<p>His declarations were always just that murmuring of her name with a love +and gratitude beyond words.</p> + +<p>While she was dancing with Potch, Sophie saw Armitage go to the Hentys; +he stood talking with them, and then danced the last bars of the waltz +with Polly Henty.</p> + +<p>When she was dancing with Armitage, Sophie discovered Arthur Henty +leaning against the wall near the door, looking over the dancers with an +odd, glowering expression. He had been drinking heavily of late, she had +heard. Sophie wondered whether he was watching her, and whether he was +connecting this night with that night at Warria, which had brought about +all there had been between herself and John Armitage—even this dancing +with him at a Ridge ball, after they had been lovers, and were no longer +anything but very good friends. She knew people were following her +dancing with John Armitage with interest. Some of them were scandalised +that he should have come to the Ridge, and that they should be meeting +on such friendly terms. She could see the Warria party watching her +dancing with John Armitage, Mrs. Arthur Henty looking like a pastel +drawing against the wall, and Polly, her pleasant face and plump figure +blurred against the grey background of the corrugated iron wall.</p> + +<p>Armitage talked, amiably, easily, about nothing in particular, as they +danced. Sophie enjoyed the harmonious rhythm and languor of their +movement together. The black, misty folds of her gown drifted out and +about them. It was delightful to be drifting idly to music like this +with John, all their old differences, disagreements, and love-making +forgotten, or leaving just a delicate aroma of subtle and intimate +sympathy. The old admiration and affection were in John Armitage's eyes. +It was like playing in the sunshine after a long winter, to be laughing +and dancing under them again. And those stiff, disapproving faces by the +wall spurred Sophie to further laughter—a reckless gaiety.</p> + +<p>"You look like a butterfly just out of its chrysalis, and ... trying its +wings in the sun, Sophie," Armitage said.</p> + +<p>"I feel ... just like that," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>After that Armitage had eyes for no one but her. He danced with two or +three other people. Sophie saw him steering Martha through a set of +quadrilles; but he hovered about her between the dances. She danced with +George Woods and Watty, with the Moffats of Langi-Eumina, and some of +the men from Darrawingee. Men of the station families were rather in awe +of, and had a good deal of curiosity about this Fallen Star girl who had +"gone the pace," in their vernacular, and of whose career in the gay +world on the other side of the earth they had heard spicy gossip. Sophie +guessed that had something to do with their fluttering about her. But +she had learned to play inconsequently with the admiration of young men +like these; she did so without thinking about it. Once or twice she +caught Potch's gaze, perplexed and inquiring, fixed on her. She smiled +to reassure him; but, unconsciously, she had drawn an eddy of the +younger men in the room about her, and when she was not dancing she was +talking with them, laughingly, fielding their crude witticisms, and +enjoying the game as much as she had ever done.</p> + +<p>As she was coming from a dance with Roy O'Mara she passed Arthur Henty +where he stood by the door. The reek of whisky about him assailed Sophie +as she passed. She glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. He swung +over to her where she had gone to sit beside Martha M'Cready.</p> + +<p>"You're going to dance with me?" he asked, a husky uncertainty in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"No," Sophie said, looking away from him.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The low growl, savage and insistent, brought her eyes to his. Dark and +sunbright, they were, but with pain and hunger in their depths. The +unspoken truth between them, the truth which their wills had thwarted, +spoke through their eyes. It would not be denied.</p> + +<p>"There's going to be an extra after supper," he said.</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>What happened then was remote from her. Sophie did not remember what she +had said or done, until she was dancing with Arthur Henty.</p> + +<p>How long was it since that night at Warria? Was she waiting for him as +she had waited then? But there were all those long years between. +Memories brilliant and tempestuous flickered before her. Then she was +dancing with Arthur.</p> + +<p>He had come to her quite ordinarily; they had walked down the room a few +paces; then he had taken her hand in his, and they had swung out among +the dancers. He did not seem drunk now. Sophie wondered at his steadier +poise as she moved away with him. The butterfly joy of fluttering in +sunshine was leaving her, she knew, as she went with him. She made an +effort to recapture it. Looking up at him, she tried to talk lightly, +indifferently, and to laugh, but it was no good. Arthur did not bother +to reply to anything she said; he rested his eyes in hers, possessing +himself of her behind her gaze. Sophie's laughter failed. The +inalienable, unalterable attraction of each to the other which they had +read long before in each other's eyes was still there, after all the +years and the dark and troubled times they had been through.</p> + +<p>Sophie wondered whether Arthur was thinking of those times when they had +walked together on the Ridge tracks. She wondered whether he was +remembering little things he had said ... she had said ... the afternoon +he had recited:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"I met a lady in the meads</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Full beautiful, a fairy's child;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Her hair was long, her foot was light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">And her eyes were wild."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Sophie wished she had not begun to think back. She wished she had not +danced with Arthur. People looking after her wondered why she was not +laughing; why suddenly her good spirits had died down. She was tired and +wanted to cry.... She hoped she would not cry; but she did not like +dancing with Arthur Henty before all these people. It was like dancing +on a grave.</p> + +<p>Henty's grip tightened. Sophie's face had become childish and pitiful, +working with the distress which she could not suppress. His hand on hers +comforted her. Their hands loved and clung; they comforted each other, +every fibre finding its mate, twined and entwined; all the little nests +of nerves were throbbing and crooning to each other.</p> + +<p>Were they dancing, or drifting through space as they would drift when +they were dead, as perhaps they had drifted through time? Sophie +wondered. The noises of the ball-room broke in on her wondering—voices, +shouting, and laughter; the little cries of girls and the heavy +exclamations of men, the music enwrapping them....</p> + +<p>Sophie longed for the deep, straight glance of his eyes; yet she dared +not look up. Arthur's will, working against hers, demanded the +surrender. Through all her body, imperiously, his demand communicated +itself. Her gaze went to him, and flew off again.</p> + +<p>As they danced, Arthur seemed to be taking her into deep water. She was +afraid of getting out of her depth ... but he held her carefully. His +grasp, was strong and his eyes hungry. Sophie could not escape that +hungry look of his eyes. She told herself that she would not look up; +she would not see it. They moved unsteadily; his breath, hot and +smelling of whisky, fanned her. She sickened under it, loathing the +smell of whisky and the rank tobacco he had been smoking. His grasp +tightened. She was afraid of him—afraid of all the long, old dreams he +might revive. Her step faltered, his arm trembled against her. And those +hungry, hungry eyes.... She could not see them; she would not.</p> + +<p>A clamour of tiny voices rose within her and dinned in her ears. She +could hear the clamour of tiny voices going on in Henty, too; his voices +were drowning her voices. She looked up to him begging him to silence +them ... begging, but unable to beg, terrified and quailing to the +implacable in him—the stark passion and tragedy which were in his face. +She was helpless before them.</p> + +<p>Arthur had given her his arm before the open door; they had moved a +little distance from the door. Darkness was about them. There was no +hesitancy, no moment of consideration. As two waves meeting in mid-ocean +fall to each other, they met, and were lost in the oblivion of a close +embrace. The first violence of their movement, failing, brought +consciousness of time and place. They were standing in the slight shadow +of some trees just beyond the light of the hall. A purring of music came +to them in far-away murmurs, and strange, distant ejaculations, and +laughter.</p> + +<p>Sophie tried to withdraw from the arms which held her.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she breathed; but Henty drew her to him again.</p> + +<p>He murmured into her hair, and then from her lips again took a full +draught of her being, lingeringly, as though he would drain its last +essence.</p> + +<p>A shadow loomed heavy and shapeless over them. It fell on them. Sophie +was thrown back. Dazed, and as if she were falling through space, for a +moment she did not realise what had happened. Then, there in the dark, +she knew men were grappling silently. The intensity of the struggle +paralysed her; she could see nothing but heavy, rolling shapes; hear +nothing but stertorous breathing and the snorting grunts as of enraged +animals. A cry, as if someone were hurt, broke the fear which had +stupefied her.</p> + +<p>She called Michael.</p> + +<p>Two or three men came running from the hall. The struggling figures were +on their feet again; they swung from the shadow. Sophie had an instant's +vision of a hideous, distorted face she scarcely recognised as Potch's +... she saw Henty on the ground and Potch crouched over him. Then the +surrounding darkness swallowed her. She knew she was dragged away from +where she had been standing; she seemed to have been dragged through +darkness for hours. When she wakened she could see only those heavy, +quiet figures, struggling and grappling through the darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIb" id="CHAPTER_XIb"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + + +<p>Sophie went into the shed where her cutting-wheel was soon after eight +o'clock next morning. She took up a packet of small stones George Woods +had left with her and set to work on them.</p> + +<p>The wheel was in a line with the window, and she sat on the wooden chair +before it, so that the light fell over her left shoulder. On the bench +which ran out from the wheel were a spirit lamp and the trays of rough +opal; on the other side of the bench the polishing buffers were arranged +one against the other. A hand-basin, the water in it raddled with rouge, +stood on the table behind her, and a white china jug of fresh water +beside it.</p> + +<p>Sophie lighted the spirit lamp, gathered up a handful of the slender +sticks about the size of pen-holders which Potch had prepared for her, +melted her sealing-wax over the flame of the lamp, drew the saucer of +George's opals to her, and fastened a score of small stones to the +heated wax on the ends of the sticks. She blew out the lamp.</p> + +<p>She was working in order not to think; she worked for awhile without +thinking, details of the opal-cutting following each other in the +routine they had made for themselves.</p> + +<p>The plague of her thoughts grew as she worked. From being nebulæ of a +state of mind which she could not allow herself to contemplate, such +darkness of despair there was in it, they evolved to tiny pictures which +presented themselves singly and in panorama, flitting and flickering +incoherently, incongruously.</p> + +<p>Sophie could see the hall as she had the night before. She seemed to be +able to see everything at once and in detail—its polished floors, +flowering boughs, and flags, the people sitting against the iron walls +in their best clothes ... Mrs. Watty, Watty and George, Ella and Bully +... Bully holding the baby ... the two little Woods' girls in their +white embroidered muslin dresses, with pink ribbons tied round their +heads.... Cash Wilson dancing solemnly in carpet slippers; Mrs. Newton +at the piano ... the prim way her fat little hands pranced sedately up +and down over the keys.... Paul enjoying his own music ... getting a +little bit wild over it, and working his right leg and knee as though he +had an orchestra to keep going somehow.... Mrs. Newton refusing to be +coaxed into anything like enthusiasm, but trying to keep up with him, +nevertheless.... Mrs. Henty, Polly, Elizabeth ... Mrs. Arthur ... the +Langi-Eumina party ... the Moffats ... Potch, Michael ... John Armitage.</p> + +<p>Images of New York flashed across these pictures of the night before. +Sophie visualised the city as she had first seen it. A fairy city it had +seemed to her with its sky-flung lights, thronged thoroughfares, and +jangling bells. She saw a square of tall, flat-faced buildings before a +park of leafless trees; shimmering streets on a wet night, near the New +Theatre and the Little Opera House; a supper-party after the theatre ... +gilded walls, Byzantian hangings, women with bare shoulders flashing +satin from slight, elegant limbs, or emerging with jewel-strung necks +from swathings of mist-like tulle, the men beside them ... a haze of +cigarette smoke over it all ... tinkle of laughter, a sweet, sleepy +stirring of music somewhere ... light of golden wine in wide, +shallow-bowled glasses, with tall, fragile stems ... lipping and sway of +tides against the hull of a yacht on quiet water ... a man's face, heavy +and swinish, peering into her own....</p> + +<p>Then again, Mrs. Watty against the wall of the Ridge ball-room, stiff +and disapproving-looking in her high-necked black dress ... Michael +dancing with Martha ... Martha's pink stockings ... and the way she had +danced, lightly, delightedly, her feet encased in white canvas shoes. +Sophie had worn white canvas shoes at the Warria ball, she remembered. +Pictures of that night crowded on her, of Phyllis Chelmsford and Arthur +... Arthur....</p> + +<p>Her thought stopped there. Arthur ... what did it all mean? She saw +again the fixed, flat figures she had seen against the wall when she was +dancing with Arthur—the corpse-like faces.... Why had everybody died +when she was dancing with Arthur Henty? Sophie remembered that people +had looked very much as usual when she went out to dance with Arthur; +then when she looked at them again, they all seemed to be +dead—drowned—and sitting round the hall in clear, still water, like +the figures she had seen in mummy cases in foreign museums. Only she and +Arthur were alive in that roomful of dead people. They had come from +years before and were going to years beyond. It had been dark before she +realised this; then they had been caught up into a light, transcending +all consciousness of light; in which they had seemed no more than atoms +of light adrift on the tide of the ages. Then the light had gone....</p> + +<p>They were out of doors when she recognised time and place again. Sophie +had seen the hall crouched heavy and dark under a starry sky, its +windows, yellow eyes.... She was conscious of trees about her ... the +note of a goat-bell not far away ... and Arthur.... They had kissed, and +then in the darkness that terror and fear—those struggling shapes ... +figures of a nightmare ... light on Potch's hair.... She heard her own +cry, winging eerie and shrill through the darkness.</p> + +<p>With a sudden desperate effort Sophie threw off the plague of these +thoughts and small mind-pictures; she turned to the cutting-wheel again. +It whirred as she bent over it.</p> + +<p>"Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" the wheel purred. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!"</p> + +<p>Her brain throbbed as she tried not to listen or hear that song of the +wheel; "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!" the blood murmured and droned in her +head.</p> + +<p>Her hand holding an opal to the wheel trembled, the opal skidded and was +scratched.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God," Sophie moaned, "don't let me think of him any more. Don't let +me...."</p> + +<p>A mirror on the wall opposite reflected her face. Sophie wondered +whether that was her face she saw in the mirror: the face in the mirror +was strangely old, withered and wan. She closed her eyes on the sight of +it. It confronted her again when she opened them. The eyes of the face +in the mirror were heavy and dark with a darkness of mind she could not +fathom.</p> + +<p>Sophie got up from her chair before the cutting-wheel. She went to the +window and stood looking through its small open space at the bare earth +beyond the hut. A few slight, sketchy trees, and the broken earth and +scattered mounds of old dumps were thrown up under a fall of clear, +exquisite sky, of a blue so pure, so fine, that there was balm just in +looking at it. For a moment she plunged into it, the tragic chaos of her +mind obliterated.</p> + +<p>With new courage from that moment's absorption of peaceful beauty, she +went back to the wheel, the resolution which had taken her to it twice +before that morning urging her. She sat down and began to work, took up +the piece of opal she had scratched, examined it closely, wondering how +the flaw could be rectified, if it could be rectified.</p> + +<p>The wheel, set going, raised its droning whirr. Sophie held her mind to +the stone. She was pleased after a while. "That's all right," she told +herself. "If only you don't think.... If only you keep working like this +and don't think of Arthur."</p> + +<p>It was Arthur she did not want to think of. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" +the wheel mocked. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!"</p> + +<p>Her head went into her hands. She was moaning and crying again. "Don't +let me think of him any more ... if only I needn't think of him any +more...."</p> + +<p>She began to work again. There was nothing to do but persist in trying +to work, she thought. If she kept to it, perhaps in the end the routine +would take her; she would become absorbed in the mechanism of what she +was doing.</p> + +<p>A shadow was thrown before her. In the mirror Sophie saw that John +Armitage was standing in the doorway. Her feet ceased to work the +treadles of the cutting-wheel; her hands fell to her lap; she waited for +him to come into the room. He walked past her to the window, and stood +with his back to it, facing her. Her eyes went to him. She let him take +what impression he might from her face, her defences were down; vaguely, +perhaps, she hoped he would read something of her mind in her face, that +he would need no explanation of what she had no words to express.</p> + +<p>There had been a smile of faint cynicism in his eyes as he looked +towards her; it evaporated as she surrendered to the inquisition of his +gaze.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he inquired gravely.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she replied as gravely.</p> + +<p>They studied each other quietly.</p> + +<p>John Armitage had changed very little since she had first seen him. His +clean-shaven face was harder, a little more firmly set perhaps; the +indecision had gone from it; it had lost some of its amiable mobility. +He looked much more a man of the world he was living in—a business man, +whose intelligence and energies had been trained in its service—but his +eyes still had their subtle knowledge and sympathy, his individuality +the attraction it had first had for her.</p> + +<p>He was wearing the loose, well-cut tweeds he travelled in, and had taken +off his hat. It lay on the window-sill beside him, and Sophie saw that +there was more silver in his hair where it was brushed back from his +ears than there used to be. His eyes surveyed her as if she were written +in an argot or dialect which puzzled him; his hands drifted and moved +before her as he smoked a cigarette. His hands emphasised the difference +between John Lincoln Armitage and men of the Ridge. Sophie thought of +Potch's hands, and of Michael's, and the smile +Michael might have had for Armitage's hands curved her lips.</p> + +<p>Armitage, taking that smile for a lessening of the tension of her mood, +said:</p> + +<p>"You'd much better put on your bonnet and shawl, and come home with me, +Sophie. We can be married en route, or in Sydney if you like.... You +know how pleased the old man'll be. And, as for me——"</p> + +<p>Sophie's gaze swept past him, fretted lines deepening on her forehead.</p> + +<p>Armitage threw away his cigarette, abandoning his assumption of familiar +friendliness with the action, and went to her side. Sophie rose to meet +him.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Sophie," he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking +into her eyes, "let's have done with all this neurotic rot.... You're +the only woman in the world for me. I don't know why you left me. I +don't care.... Come home ... let's get married ... and see whether we +can't make a better thing of it...."</p> + +<p>Sophie had turned her eyes from his.</p> + +<p>"When I've said that before, you wouldn't have anything to do with it," +he continued. "You had a notion I was saying it because I ought—thought +I had to, or the old man had talked me into it.... It wasn't true even +then. I came here to say it ... so that you would believe I—want it, +and I want you—more than anything on earth, Sophie."</p> + +<p>There was no response, only an overshadowing of troubled thought in +Sophie's face.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything love or money can give you, girl, that I'm not eager +to give you?" Armitage demanded. "What is it you want?... Do you know +what you want?"</p> + +<p>Sophie did not reply, and her silence exasperated him.</p> + +<p>Taking her face in his hands, Armitage scrutinised it as though he must +read there what her silence held from him.</p> + +<p>He realised how wan and weary-looking it was. Shadows beneath her eyes +fell far down her cheeks, her lips lay together with a new, strange +sternness. But he could not think of that yet. His male egoism could +only consider its own situation, fight imperiously in its own defence.</p> + +<p>"You want something I can't give you?"</p> + +<p>His eyes held her for the fraction of a second; then, the pain of +knowledge gripping him, his hands fell from her face. He turned away.</p> + +<p>"Which is it ... Potch or—the other?" He spoke with cruel bitterness. +"It's always a case of 'which' with you—isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"That's just it," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>He glanced at her, surprised to hear a note of the same bitterness in +her voice.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that, Sophie," he said. "You know I didn't."</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's true all the same."</p> + +<p>"Tell me"—he turned to her—"I wish you would. You never have—why you +left New York ... and gave up singing ... everything there, and came +here."</p> + +<p>Sophie dropped into her chair again.</p> + +<p>"But you know."</p> + +<p>"Who could know anything of you, Sophie?"</p> + +<p>She moved the stones on the bench absent-mindedly. At length she said:</p> + +<p>"You remember our big row about Adler, when I was going to the supper on +his yacht?"</p> + +<p>Armitage exclaimed with a gesture of protest.</p> + +<p>"I know," Sophie said, "you were angry ... you didn't mean what you +said. But you were right all the same. You said I had let the life I was +leading go to my head—that I was utterly demoralised by it.... I was +angry; but it was true. You know the people I was going about with...."</p> + +<p>"I did my best to get you away from them," Armitage said.</p> + +<p>Sophie nodded. "But I hadn't had enough then ... of the beautiful places +and things I found myself in the midst of ... and of all the admiration +that came my way. What a queer crowd they were—Kalin, that Greek boy +who was singing with me in <i>Eurydice</i>, Ina Barres, the Countess, Mrs. +Youille-Bailey, Adler, and the rest of them.... They seemed to have run +the gamut of all natural experiences and to be interested only in what +was unnatural, bizarre, macabre.... Adler in that crowd was almost a +relief. I liked his—honest Rabelaisianism, if you like.... I hadn't the +slightest intention of more than amusing myself with him ... but he, +evidently, did not intend to be merely a source of amusement to me. The +supper on the yacht.... I kept my head for a while, not long, and +then——"</p> + +<p>"Then?" Armitage queried.</p> + +<p>"That's why I came home," Sophie said. "I was so sick with the shock and +shame of it all ... so sick and ashamed I couldn't sing any more. I +wouldn't. My voice died.... I deserved what happened. I'd been playing +for it ... taking the wine, the music, Adler's love-making ... and +expecting to escape the taint of it all.... Afterwards I saw where I was +going ... what that life was making of me...."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how you came to have anything to do with such a rotten +lot," Armitage cried, sweating under a white heat of rage.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're just people of means and leisure who like to patronise +successful young dancers and singers for their own amusement," Sophie +said.</p> + +<p>"Because you fell in with a set of ultraæsthetics and degenerates, is no +reason to suppose all our people of means and leisure are like them," +Armitage declared hotly.</p> + +<p>"I don't," Sophie said; "what I felt, when I began to think about it, +was that they were just the natural consequences of all the easy, +luxurious living I'd seen—the extreme of the pole if you like. I saw +the other when I went to live in a slum settlement in Chicago."</p> + +<p>"You did?" Armitage exclaimed incredulously.</p> + +<p>"When I got over the shock of—my awakening," she went on slowly, "I +began to remember things Michael had said. That's why I went to Chicago +... and worked in a clothing factory for a while.... I saw there why +Adler's a millionaire, and heard from girls in a Youille-Bailey-M'Gill +factory why Connie Youille-Bailey has money to burn...."</p> + +<p>"Old Youille-Bailey had fingers in a dozen pies, and he left her all +he'd got," Armitage said.</p> + +<p>"But people down in the district where most of their money is made are +living like bugs under a rotten log," Sophie exclaimed wearily. "They're +made to live like that ... in order that people like William P. Adler +and Mrs. Youille-Bailey ... may live as they do."</p> + +<p>Armitage's expression of mild cynicism yielded to one of concerned +attentiveness. But he was concerned with the bearing on Sophie of what +she had to say, and not at all with its relation to conditions of +existence.</p> + +<p>"After all, life only goes on by its interests," she went on musingly; +"and Mrs. Youille-Bailey's not altogether to blame for what she is. When +people are bored, they've got to get interest or die; and if faculties +which ought to be spent in useful or creative work aren't spent in that +work, they find outlet in the silly energies a selfish and artificial +life breeds...."</p> + +<p>"I admit," Armitage said, trying to veer her thoughts from the abstract +to the personal issue, "that you went the pace. I couldn't keep up with +it—not with Adler and his mob! But there's no need to go back to that +sort of life. We could live as quietly as you like."</p> + +<p>Sophie shook her head. "I want to live here," she said. "I want to work +with my hands ... feel myself in the swim of the world's life ... going +with the great stream; and I want to help Michael here."</p> + +<p>Armitage sat back against the window-sill regarding her steadily.</p> + +<p>"If I could help you to do a great deal for the Ridge," he said; "if I +were to settle here and spend all the money I've got in developing this +place.—There's nothing innately immoral about a water-supply or +electric power, I suppose, or in giving people decent houses to live in. +And it would mean that for Fallen Star, if the scheme I have in mind is +put into action. And if it is ... and I build a house here and were to +live here most of my time ... would you marry me then, Sophie?"</p> + +<p>Sophie gazed at him, her eyes widening to a scarcely believable vision.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you'd give up all your money to do that for the Ridge?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Not quite that," he replied. "But the scheme would work out like that. +I mean, it would provide more comfort and convenience for everybody on +the Ridge—a more assured means of livelihood."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to buy up the mines?"</p> + +<p>"Just that," he said.</p> + +<p>"But the men wouldn't agree...."</p> + +<p>"I don't know so much about that. It would depend on a few——"</p> + +<p>"Michael would never consent."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact"—John Armitage returned Sophie's gaze +tranquilly—"I know something about Michael—some information came into +my hands recently, although I've always vaguely suspected it—which will +make his consent much more likely than you would have imagined.... If it +does not, giving the information I hold to men of the Ridge will so +destroy their faith and confidence in Michael that what he may say or do +will not matter."</p> + +<p>Sophie's bewilderment and dismay constrained him. Then he continued:</p> + +<p>"You see, quite apart from you, my dear, it has always been a sort of +dream of mine—ambition, if you like—to make a going concern of this +place—to do for Fallen Star what other men I know have done for +no-count, out-of-the-way towns and countries where natural resources or +possibilities of investment warranted it.... I've talked the thing over +with the old man, and with Andy M'Intosh, an old friend of mine, who is +one of the ablest engineers in the States.... He's willing to throw in +his lot with me.... Roughly, we've drawn up plans for conservation of +flood waters and winter rains, which will alter the whole character of +this country.... The old man at first was opposed—said the miners would +never stand it; but since we've been out with the Ridge men, he's +changed his mind rather. I mean, that when he knew some of the men would +be willing to stand by us—and I have means of knowing they would—he +was ready to agree. And when I told him Michael might be reckoned a +traitor to his own creed——"</p> + +<p>"It's not true," Sophie cried, her faith afire. "It couldn't be! ... If +everybody in the world told me, I wouldn't believe it!"</p> + +<p>Armitage took a cigarette-case from his vest pocket, opened it, and +selected a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"I'm not asking you to believe me," he said. "I'm only explaining the +position to you because you're concerned in it. And for God's sake don't +let us be melodramatic about it, Sophie. I'm not a villain. I don't feel +in the least like one. This is entirely a business affair.... I see my +way to a profitable investment—incidentally fulfilment of a scheme I've +been working out for a good many years.</p> + +<p>"Michael would oppose the syndicate for all he's worth if it weren't for +this trump card of mine," Armitage went on. "He's got a Utopian dream +about the place.... I see it as an up-to-date mining town, with all the +advantages which science and money can bring to the development of its +resources. His dream against mine—that's what it amounts to.... Well, +it's a fair thing, isn't it, if I know that Michael is false to the +things he says he stands for—and he stands in the way of my scheme—to +let the men know he's false? ... They will fall away from the ideas he +stands for as they will from Michael; two or three may take the ideas +sans Michael ... but they will be in the minority.... The way will be +clear for reorganisation then."</p> + +<p>Not for an instant did Sophie believe that Michael had been a traitor to +his own creed—false to the things he stood for, as John Armitage +said,—although she thought he may have done something to give Armitage +reason for thinking so.</p> + +<p>"I'll see Michael to-morrow, and have it out with him," John Armitage +said. "I shall tell him what I know ... and also my plans. If he will +work with me——"</p> + +<p>Sophie looked up, her smile glimmering.</p> + +<p>"If he will work with me," Armitage repeated, knowing she realised all +that would mean in the way of surrender for Michael, "nothing need be +said which will undermine Michael's influence with men of the Ridge. I +know he can make things a great deal easier by using his influence with +them—by bending their thoughts in the direction of my proposition, +suggesting that, after all, they have given their system a trial and it +has not worked out as satisfactorily as might have been expected.... +I'll make all the concessions possible, you may be sure—give it a +profit-sharing basis even, so that the transaction won't look like the +thing they are prejudiced against. But if Michael refuses...."</p> + +<p>"He will...."</p> + +<p>"I am going to ask the men to meet me in the hall, at the end of the +month, to lay before them a proposition for the more effective working +of the mines. I shall put my proposition before them, and if Michael +refuses to work with me, I shall be forced to give them proofs of his +unworthiness of their respect...."</p> + +<p>"They won't believe you."</p> + +<p>"There will be the proofs, and Michael will not—he cannot—deny them."</p> + +<p>"You'll tell him what you are going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>Sophie realised how far Armitage was from understanding the religious +intensity and simplicity with which Ridge folk worked for the way of +life they believed to be the right one, and what the break-up of that +belief would mean to those who had served it in the unpretentious, +unprotesting fashion of honest, downright people. To him the Ridge stood +for messy sentimentalism, Utopian idealism. And there was money in the +place: there was money to be made by putting money into it—by working +the mines and prospecting the country as the men without capital could +not.</p> + +<p>John Armitage was ready to admit—Sophie had heard him admitting in +controversy—that the Fallen Star mines which the miners themselves +controlled were as well worked and as well managed within their means as +any he had ever come across; that the miners themselves were a sober and +industrious crowd. What capital could do for them and for the Fallen +Star community by way of increasing its output and furthering its +activities was what he saw. And the only security he could have for +putting his capital into working the mines was ownership of them. +Ownership would give him the right to organise the workers, and to claim +interest for his investment from their toil, or the product of their +toil.</p> + +<p>The Ridge declaration of independence had made it clear that people of +Fallen Star did not want increased output, the comforts and conveniences +which capital could give them, unless they were provided from the common +fund of the community. Ultimately, it was hoped the common fund would +provide them, but until it did Ridge men had announced their willingness +to do without improvements for the sake of being masters of their own +mines. If it was a question of barter, they were for the pride and +dignity of being free men and doing without the comforts and +conveniences of modern life. Sophie felt sure Armitage underestimated +the feeling of the majority of men of the Ridge toward the Ridge idea, +and that most of them would stand by it, even if for some mysterious +reason Michael lost status with them. But she was dismayed at the test +the strength of that feeling was to be put to, and at the mysterious +shame which threatened Michael. She could not believe Michael had ever +done anything to merit it. Michael could never be less than Michael to +her—the soul of honour, the knight without fear, against whom no +reproach could be levelled.</p> + +<p>Armitage spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "you could still have all those things you spoke of, +under my scheme—the long, quiet days; life that is broad and simple; +the hearth; home, children—all that sort of thing ... and even time for +any of the little social reform schemes you fancied...."</p> + +<p>Sophie found herself confronted with the fundamental difference of their +outlook again. He talked as if the ideas which meant so much to her and +to people of the Ridge were the notions of headstrong +children—whimsical and interesting notions, perhaps, but mistaken, of +course. He was inclined to make every allowance for them.</p> + +<p>"The only little social reform I'd have any time for," she murmured, +"would be the overthrowing of your scheme for ownership of the mines."</p> + +<p>John Armitage was frankly surprised to find that she held so firmly to +the core of the Ridge idea, and amused by the uncompromising hostility +of her attitude. Sophie herself had not thought she was so attached to +the Ridge life and its purposes, until there was this suggestion of +destroying them.</p> + +<p>"Then"—he stood up suddenly—"whether I succeed or whether I +don't—whether the scheme goes my way or not—won't make any difference +to you—to us."</p> + +<p>"It will make this difference," Sophie said. "I'm heart and soul in the +life here, I've told you. And if you do as you say you're going to ... +instead of thinking of you in the old, good, friendly way, I'll have to +think of you as the enemy of all that is of most value to me."</p> + +<p>"You mean," John Armitage cried, his voice broken by the anger and +chagrin which rushed over him, "you mean you're going to take on +Henty—that's what's at the back of all this."</p> + +<p>"I mean," Sophie said steadily, her eyes clear green and cool in his, +"that I'm going to marry Potch, and if Michael and all the rest of the +men of the Ridge go over to you and your scheme, we'll fight it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIb"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + + +<p>"Are you there, Potch?" Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael's hut, a +wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her.</p> + +<p>Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in +his hands.</p> + +<p>"He's not here," he said.</p> + +<p>His voice was as distant as though he were talking to a stranger. He had +been trying to read, but his mind refused to concern itself with +anything except the night before, and the consequences of it. His eyes +had followed a trail of words; but he had been unable to take any +meaning from them. Sophie! His mind hung aghast at the exclamation of +her. She was the storm-centre. His thoughts moved in a whirlwind about +her. He did not understand how she could have worn that dress showing +her shoulders and so much of her bared breast. It had surprised, +confused, and alarmed him to see Sophie looking as she did in that +photograph Dawe Armitage had brought to the Ridge. The innocence and +sheer joyousness of her laughter had reassured him, but, as the evening +wore on, she seemed to become intoxicated with her own gaiety.</p> + +<p>Michael had watched her dancing with vague disquiet. To him, dancing was +rather a matter of concern to keep step and to avoid knocking against +anyone—a serious business. He did not get any particular pleasure out +of it; and Sophie's delight in rhythmic movement and giving of her whole +being to a waltz, amazed him. When Armitage came, her manner had +changed. It had lost some of its abstract joyousness. It was as if she +were playing up to him.... She had been much more of his world than of +the world of the Ridge; had displayed a thousand little airs and +superficial graces, all the gay, light manner of that other world. When +she was dancing with Arthur Henty, Michael had seen the sudden drooping +and overcasting of her gaiety. He thought she was tired, and that Potch +should take her home. The old gossip about Arthur Henty had faded from +his memory; not the faintest recollection of it occurred to him as he +had seen Sophie and Arthur Henty dancing together.</p> + +<p>Then Sophie's cry, eerie and shrill in the night air, had reached him. +He had seen Potch and Arthur Henty at grips. He had not imagined that +such fury could exist in Potch. Other men had come. They dragged Potch +away from Henty.... Henty had fallen.... Potch would have killed him if +they had not dragged him away.... Henty was carried in an unconscious +condition to Newton's. Armitage had taken Sophie home. Michael went with +Potch.</p> + +<p>Michael did not know exactly what had occurred. He could only +imagine.... Sophie had been behaving in that gay, light manner of the +other world: he had seen her at it all the evening. Potch had not +understood, he believed; it had goaded him to a state of mind in which +he was not responsible for what he did.</p> + +<p>Sophie was conscious of Michael's aloofness from her as she stood in the +doorway; it wavered as his eyes held and communed with hers. The night +before he had not been able to realise that the girl in the black dress, +which had seemed to him almost indecent, was Sophie. He kept seeing her +in her everyday white cotton frock—as she sat at work at her +cutting-wheel, or went about the hut—and now that she stood before him +in white again, he could scarcely believe that the black dress and +happenings of the ball were not an hallucination. But there was a prayer +in her eyes which came of the night before. She would not have looked at +him so if there had been no night before; her lips would not have +quivered in that way, as if she were sorry and would like to explain, +but could not.</p> + +<p>Potch had staggered home beside Michael, swaying and muttering as though +he were drunk. But he was not drunk, except with rage and grief, Michael +knew. He had lain on his bunk like a log all night, muttering and +groaning. Michael had sat in a chair in the next room, trying to +understand the madness which had overwhelmed Potch.</p> + +<p>In the morning, he realised that work and the normal order of their +working days were the only things to restore Potch's mental balance. He +roused him earlier than usual.</p> + +<p>"We'd better get down and clear out some of the mullock," he said. "The +gouges are fair choked up. There'll be no doing anything if we don't get +a move on with it."</p> + +<p>Potch had stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then he got up, changed his +clothes, and they had gone down to the mine together. His face was +swollen and discoloured, his lip broken, one eye almost hidden beneath a +purple and blue swelling which had risen on the upper part of his left +cheek. He had dragged his hat over his face, and walked with his head +down; they had not spoken all the morning. Potch had swung his pick +stolidly. All day his eyes had not met Michael's as they usually did, in +that glance of love and comradeship which united them whenever their +eyes met.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon, when they stopped work and went to the top of the +mine, Potch had said:</p> + +<p>"Think I'll clear out—go away somewhere for awhile, Michael."</p> + +<p>From his attitude, averted head and drooping shoulders, Michael got the +unendurable agony of his mind, his pain and shame. He did not reply, and +Potch had walked away from him striking out in a south-easterly +direction across the Ridge. Michael had not seen him since then. And now +it was early evening, the moon up and silvering the plains with the +light of her young crescent.</p> + +<p>"He says—Potch says ... he's going away," Michael said to Sophie.</p> + +<p>Her eyes widened. Her thought would not utter itself, but Michael knew +it. Potch leaving the Ridge! The Ridge without Potch! It was impossible. +Their minds would not accept the idea.</p> + +<p>Sophie turned away from the door. Her white dress fluttered in the +moonlight. Michael could see it moving across the bare, shingly ground +at the back of the hut. He thought that Sophie was going to look for +Potch. He had not told her the direction in which Potch had gone. He +wondered whether she would find him. She might know where to look for +him. Michael wondered whether Potch haunted particular places as he +himself did, when his soul was out of its depths in misery.</p> + +<p>Instinctively Sophie went to the old playground she and Potch had made +on the slope of the Ridge behind the Old Town.</p> + +<p>She found him lying there, stretched across the shingly earth. He lay so +still that she thought he might be asleep. Then she went to him and +knelt beside him.</p> + +<p>"Potch!" she said.</p> + +<p>He moved as if to escape her touch. The desolation of spirit which had +brought him to the earth like that overwhelmed Sophie. She crouched +beside him.</p> + +<p>"Potch," she cried. "Potch!"</p> + +<p>Potch did not move or reply.</p> + +<p>"I can't live ... if you won't forgive me, Potch," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>He stirred. "Don't talk like that," he muttered.</p> + +<p>After a little time he sat up and turned his face to her. The dim light +of-the young moon showed it swollen and discoloured, a hideous and comic +mask of the tragedy which consumed him.</p> + +<p>"That's the sort of man I am," Potch said, his voice harsh and unsteady. +"I didn't know ... I didn't know I was like that. It came over me all of +a sudden, when I saw you and—him. I didn't know any more until Michael +was talking to me. I wouldn't've done it if I'd known, Sophie.... But I +didn't know.... I just saw him—and you, and I had to put out the sight +of it ... I had to get it out of my eyes... what I saw.... That's all I +know. Michael says I didn't kill him ... but I meant to ... that's what +I started to do."</p> + +<p>Sophie's face withered under her distress.</p> + +<p>"Don't say that, Potch," she begged.</p> + +<p>"But I do," he said. "I must.... I can't make out ... how it was ... I +felt like that. I thought I'd see things like you saw them always, stand +by you. Now I don't know.... I'm not to be trusted——"</p> + +<p>"I'd trust you always, and in anything, Potch," Sophie said.</p> + +<p>"You can't say that—now."</p> + +<p>"It's now ... I want to say it more than ever," she continued. "I can't +explain ... what I did ... any more than you can what you did, Potch. +But I'm to blame for what you did ... and yet ... I can't see that I'm +altogether to blame. I didn't want what happened—to happen ... any more +than you."</p> + +<p>She wanted to explain to Potch—to herself also. But she could not see +clearly, or understand how the threads of her intentions and deeds had +become so crossed and tangled. It was not easy to explain.</p> + +<p>"You remember that ball at Warria I went to with father," she said at +last. "I thought a lot of Arthur Henty then.... I thought I was in love +with him. People teased me about him. They thought he was in love with +me, too.... And then over there at the ball something happened that +changed everything. I thought he was ashamed of me ... he didn't ask me +to dance with him like he did at the Ridge balls.... He danced with +other girls ... and nobody asked me to dance except Mr. Armitage, I +wanted to go away from the Ridge and learn to look like those girls +Arthur had danced with ... so that he would not be ashamed of me.... +Afterwards I thought I'd forgotten and didn't care for him any more.... +Last night he was not ashamed of me.... It was funny. I felt that the +Warria people were envying me last night, and I had envied them at the +other ball.... I didn't want to dance with Arthur ... but I did ... and, +somehow, then—it was as if we had gone back to the time before the ball +at Warria...."</p> + +<p>A heavy, brooding silence hung between them. Sophie broke it.</p> + +<p>"Michael says you're going away?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch replied.</p> + +<p>Sophie shifted the pebbles on the earth about her abstractedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't leave me, Potch," she cried, scattering the pebbles suddenly. "I +don't know what will become of me if you go away.... I wanted us to get +married and settle down."</p> + +<p>Potch turned to her.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?"</p> + +<p>"I do," Sophie said, all her strength of will and spirit in the words. +"I'm afraid of myself, Potch ... afraid of drifting."</p> + +<p>Potch's arms went round her. "Sophie!" he sobbed. But even as he held +her he was conscious of something in her which did not fuse with him.</p> + +<p>"But you love him!" he said.</p> + +<p>Sophie's eyes did not fail from his.</p> + +<p>"I do," she said, "but I don't want to. I wish I didn't."</p> + +<p>His hands fell from her. "Why," he asked, "why do you say you'll marry +me, if you ... if——"</p> + +<p>Despair and desperation were in the restive movement of Sophie's hands.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid of him," she said, "of the power of my love for him ... and +there's no future that way. With you there is a future. I can work with +you and Michael for the Ridge.... You know I do care for you too, Potch +dear, and I want to have the sort of life that keeps a woman faithful +... to mend your clothes, cook your meals, and——"</p> + +<p>Potch quivered to the suggestions she had evoked. He saw Sophie in a +thousand tender associations—their home, the quiet course their lives +might have together. He loved her enough for both, he told himself.</p> + +<p>His conscience was not clear that he should take this happiness the gods +offered him, even for the moment. And yet—he could not turn from it. +Sophie had said she needed him; she wanted the home they would have +together; all that their life in common would mean. And by and by—he +stirred to the afterthought of her "and"—she wanted the children who +might come to them.... Potch knew what Sophie meant when she said that +she cared for him. Whatever else happened he knew he had her tenderest +affection. She kissed him familiarly and with tenderness. It was not as +Maud had kissed him, with passion, a soul-dying yearning. He drove the +thought off. Maud was Maud, and Sophie Sophie; Maud's most passionate +kisses had never distilled the magic for him that the slightest brush of +Sophie's dress or fingers had.</p> + +<p>Sophie took his hand.</p> + +<p>"Potch," she said, "if you love me—if you want me to marry you, let us +settle the thing this way.... I want to marry you.... I want to be your +loving and faithful wife.... I'll try to be.... I don't want to think of +anyone but you.... You may make me forget—if we are married, and get on +well together. I hope you will——"</p> + +<p>Potch took her into his arms, an inarticulate murmur breaking his +voice.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIIb"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + + +<p>Potch had looked towards Michael's hut before he went into his own, next +evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael +had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking to the mine, Potch +said:</p> + +<p>"He's back; did you know?"</p> + +<p>Michael guessed whom Potch was speaking of. "Saw him ... as I was +walking out along the Warria road yesterday afternoon," he said; "and +then at Newton's.... He looks ill."</p> + +<p>Potch did not reply. They did not speak of Charley again, and yet as +they worked they thought of no one else, and of nothing but the +difficulties his coming would bring into their lives. For Potch, his +father's return meant the revival of an old shame. He had been accepted +on his merits by the Ridge; he had made people forget he was Charley +Heathfield's son, and now Charley was back Potch had no hope of anything +but the old situation where his father was concerned, the old drag and +the old fear. The thought of it was more disconcerting than ever, now +too, because Sophie would have to share the sort of atmosphere Charley +would put about them.</p> + +<p>And Michael was dulled by the weight of the fate which threatened him. +Every day the consciousness of it weighed more heavily. He wondered +whether his mind would remain clear and steady enough to interpret his +resolve. For him, Charley's coming, and the enmity he had gauged in his +glance the night before, were last straws of misfortune.</p> + +<p>John Armitage had put the proposition he outlined for Sophie, to +Michael, the night before he left for Sydney. He had told Michael what +he knew, and what he suspected in connection with Rouminof's opals. +Michael had neither defended himself nor denied Armitage's accusation. +He had ignored any reference to Paul's opals, and had made his position +of uncompromising hostility to Armitage's proposition clear from the +outset. There had not been a shadow of hesitation in his decision to +oppose the Armitages' scheme for buying up the mines. At whatever cost, +he believed he had no choice but to stand by the ideas and ideals on +which the life of the Ridge was established and had grown.</p> + +<p>John Armitage, because of his preconceived notion of the guilty +conscience Michael was suffering from, was disappointed that the action +of Michael's mind had been as direct to the poles of his faith as it had +been. He realised Sophie was right: Michael would not go back on the +Ridge or the Ridge code; but the Ridge might go back on him. Armitage +assured himself he had a good hand to play, and he explained his +position quite frankly to Michael. If Michael would not work with him, +he, John Armitage, must work against Michael. He would prefer not to do +so, he said. He described to several men, separately, what the proposals +of the Armitage Syndicate amounted to, in order that they might think +over, weigh, and discuss them. He was going down to Sydney for a few +weeks, and when he came back he would call a meeting and lay his +proposition before the men. He hoped by then Michael would have +reconsidered his decision. If he had not, Armitage made it clear that, +much as he would regret having to, he would nevertheless do all in his +power to destroy any influence Michael might have with men of the Ridge +which might militate against their acceptance of the scheme for +reorganisation of the mines he had to lay before them. Michael +understood what that meant. John Armitage would accuse him of having +stolen Paul's opals, and he would have to answer the accusation before +men of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>His mind hovered about the thought of Maud Johnson.</p> + +<p>He could not conceive how John Armitage had come to the knowledge he +possessed, unless Maud, whom he was aware Armitage had bought stones +from in America, had not showed or sold them to him. But Armitage +believed Michael still had, and was hoarding the stones. That was the +strange part of it all. How could Armitage declare he had one of the +stones, and yet believe Michael was holding the rest? Unless Maud had +taken that one stone from the table the night she came to see Potch? +Michael could not remember having seen the stone after she went. He +could not remember having put it back in the box. It only just occurred +to him she might only have taken the stone that night. Jun had probably +recognised the stone, and she had told Armitage what Jun had said about +it. Jun might have gone to the hut for the rest of the stones, but then +Maud would not have told Armitage they were still on the Ridge. Maud +would be sure to know if Jun had got the stones on his own account, +Michael thought.</p> + +<p>His brain went over and over again what John Armitage had said, +querying, exclaiming, explaining, and enlarging on fragments of their +talk. Armitage declared he had evidence to prove Michael Brady had +stolen Rouminof's stones. He might have proof that he had had possession +of them for a while, Michael believed. But if Armitage was under the +impression he still had the opals, his information was incomplete at +least, and Michael treasured a vague hope that the proof which he might +adduce, would be as faulty.</p> + +<p>But more important than the bringing home to him of responsibility for +the lost opals, and the "unmasking" to eyes of men of the Ridge which +Armitage had promised him, was the bearing it would have on the +proposition which was to be put before them. Michael realised that there +was a good deal of truth in what Armitage had said. A section of the +younger miners, men who had settled on the new rushes, and one or two of +the older men who had grown away from the Ridge idea, would probably be +willing enough to fall in with and work under Armitage's scheme. George, +Watty, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Cash Wilson, and most of the +older men were against it, and some of the younger ones, too; but Archie +and Ted Cross were inclined to waver, although they had always been +staunch for the Ridge principle, and with them was a substantial +following from the Punti, Three Mile, and other rushes.</p> + +<p>A disintegrating influence was at work, Michael recognised. It had been +active for some time. Since Potch's finding of the big stone, scarcely +any stone worth speaking of had been unearthed on the fields, and that +meant long store accounts, and anxious and hard times for most of the +gougers.</p> + +<p>The settlement had weathered seasons of dearth, and had existed on the +merest traces of precious opal before; but this one had lasted longer, +and had tried everybody's patience and capacity for endurance to the +last degree. Murmurs of the need for money to prospect the field and +open up new workings were heard. Criticisms of the ideas which would +keep out money and money-owners who might be persuaded to invest their +money to prospect and open up new workings on Fallen Star, crept into +the murmurings, and had been circulating for some months. Bat M'Ginnis, +a tall, lean, herring-gutted Irishman, with big ears, pointed like a +bat's, was generally considered author of the criticisms and abettor of +the murmurings. He had sunk on the Coolebah and drifted to the Punti +rush soon after. On the Punti, it was known, he had expatiated on the +need for business men and business methods to run the mines and make the +most of the resources of the Ridge.</p> + +<p>M'Ginnis was a good agent for Armitage, before Armitage's proposition +was heard of. Michael wondered now whether he was perhaps an agent of +Armitage's, and had been sent to the Ridge to prepare the way for John +Armitage's scheme. When he came to think of it, Michael remembered he +had heard men exclaim that Bat never seemed short of money himself, +although if he had to live on what his claim produced he would have been +as hard up as most of them. Michael wondered whether Charley's +home-coming was a coincidence likewise, or whether Armitage had laid his +plans more carefully than might have been imagined.</p> + +<p>Michael saw no way out for himself. He could not accept Armitage's bribe +of silence as to his share in the disappearance of Paul's opals, in +order to urge men of the Ridge to agree to the Armitages' proposition +for buying up the mines. If he could have, he realised, he would carry +perhaps a majority of men of the Ridge with him; and those he cared most +for would stand by the Ridge idea whether he deserted it or not, he +believed. He would only fall in their esteem; they would despise him; +and he would despise himself if he betrayed the idea on which he had +staked so much, and the realisation of which he would have died to +preserve. But there was no question of betraying the Ridge idea, or of +being false to the teaching of his whole life. He was not even tempted +by the terms Armitage offered for his co-operation. He was glad to think +no terms Armitage could offer would tempt him from his allegiance to the +principle which was the corner-stone of life on the Ridge.</p> + +<p>But he asked himself what the men would think of him when they heard +Armitage's story; what Sophie would think, and Potch. He turned in agony +from the thought that Sophie and Potch would believe him guilty of the +thing he seemed to be guilty of. Anything seemed easier to bear than the +loss of their love and faith, and the faith of men of the Ridge he had +worked with and been in close sympathy with for so long—Watty and +George, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant and Cash Wilson. Would he have +to leave the Ridge when they knew? Would they cold-shoulder him out of +their lives? His imagination had centred for so long about the thing he +had done that the guilt of it was magnified out of all proportion to the +degree of his culpability. He did not accuse himself in the initial act. +He had done what seemed to him the only thing to do, in good faith; the +opals had nothing to do with it. He did not understand yet how they had +got an ascendancy over him; how when he had intended just to look at +them, to see they were well packed, he had been seduced into that trance +of worshipful admiration.</p> + +<p>Why he had not returned the stones to Paul as soon as Sophie had left +the Ridge, Michael could not entirely explain to himself. He went over +and over the excuses he had made to himself, seeing in them evidence of +the subtle witchery the stones had exercised over him. But as soon as he +was aware of the danger of delay, he tried to assure himself, and the +appearance it must have, he had determined to get rid of the stones.</p> + +<p>Would the men believe he had wanted to give the stones to Paul—even +that he had done what he had done for the reasons he would put before +them? George and Watty and some of the others would believe him—but the +rest? Michael could not hope that the majority would believe his story. +They would want to know if at first he had kept the stones to prevent +Sophie leaving the Ridge, why he had not given them to Paul as soon as +she had gone. Michael knew he could only explain to them as he had to +himself. He had intended to; he had delayed doing so; and then, when he +went to find the stones to give them to Paul, they were no longer where +he had left them. It was a thin story—a poor explanation. But that was +the truth of the situation as far as he knew it. There was nothing more +to be said or thought on the subject. He put it away from him with an +impulse of impatience, desperate and weary.</p> + +<p>When Potch returned from the mine that afternoon; he went into Michael's +hut before going home. Michael himself he had seen strike out westwards +in the direction of the swamp soon after he came above ground. Potch +expected to see his father where he was; he had seen him so often before +on Michael's sofa under the window. Charley glanced up from the +newspaper he was reading as Potch came into the room.</p> + +<p>"Well, son," he said, "the prodigal father's returned, and quite ready +for a fatted calf."</p> + +<p>Potch stood staring at him. Light from the window bathed the thin, +yellow face on the faded cushions of Michael's couch, limning the sharp +nose with its curiously scenting expression, all the hungry, shrewd +femininity and weakness of the face, and the smile of triumphant malice +which glided in and out of the eyes. Michael was right, Potch realised; +Charley was ill; but he had no pity for the man who lay there and smiled +like that.</p> + +<p>"You can't stay here," he said. "Michael's coming."</p> + +<p>Charley smiled imperturbably.</p> + +<p>"Can't I?" he said. "You see. Besides ... I want to see Michael. That's +what I'm here for."</p> + +<p>Potch growled inarticulately. He went to the hearth, gathered the +half-burnt sticks together to make a fire. He would have given anything +to get Charley out of the hut before Michael returned; but he did not +know how to manage it. If Charley thought he wanted him to go, nothing +would move him, Potch knew.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to see Michael about?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nice, affectionate son you are," Charley murmured. "Suppose you know +you are my son—and heir?"</p> + +<p>"Worse luck," Potch muttered, watching the flame he had kindled over the +dry chips and sticks.</p> + +<p>"You might've done worse," Charley replied, watching his son with a +slight, derisive smile. "I might've done worse myself in the way of a +son to support me in my old age."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to do that."</p> + +<p>Charley laughed. "Aren't you?" he queried. "You might be very glad +to—on terms I could suggest. And you're a fine, husky chap to do it, +Potch, my lad.... They tell me you've married Rouminof's girl, and she's +chucked the singing racket. Rum go, that! She could sing, too.... People +I know told me they'd seen her in America in some revue stunt there, and +she was just the thing. Went the pace a bit, eh? Oh, well, there's +nothing like matrimony to sober a woman down—take the devil out of +her."</p> + +<p>Potch's resentment surged; but before he could utter it, his father's +pleasantries were flipping lightly, cynically.</p> + +<p>"By the way, I saw a friend of yours in Sydney couple of months ago. Oh, +well, several perhaps. Might have been a year.... Maud! There's a fine +woman, Potch. And she told me she was awfully gone on you once. Eh, +what?... And now you're a married man. And to think of my becoming a +grandfather. Help!"</p> + +<p>Potch sprang to his feet, goaded to fury by the jeering, amiable voice.</p> + +<p>"Shut up," he yelled, "shut up, or——"</p> + +<p>The doorway darkened. Potch saw Charley's face light with an expression +of curious satisfaction and triumph. He turned and discovered that +Michael was standing in the doorway. Irresolute and flinching, he stood +there gazing at Charley, a strange expression of fear and loathing in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You can clear out now, son," Charley remarked, putting an emphasis on +the "son" calculated to enrage Potch. "I want to talk to Michael."</p> + +<p>Potch looked at Michael. It was his intention to stand by Michael if, +and for as long as, Michael needed him.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Potch," Michael said; but his eyes did not go to +Potch's as they usually did. There was a strange, grave quality of +aloofness about Michael. Potch hesitated, studying his face; but Michael +dismissed him with a glance, and Potch went out of the hut.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIVb" id="CHAPTER_XIVb"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + + +<p>The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree +or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; +only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of trees drew a +blurred line between earth and sky.</p> + +<p>Potch and Sophie lay out on the plains, on their backs in the dried +herbage, watching the sunset—the play of light on the wide sweep of the +sky—silently, as if they were listening to great music.</p> + +<p>They had been married some days before in Budda township, and were +living in Potch's hut.</p> + +<p>Sophie and Potch had often wandered over the plains in the evening and +watched the sunset; but never before had they come to the sense of +understanding and completeness they attained this evening. The days had +been long and peaceful since they were living together, an anodyne to +Sophie, soothing all the restless turmoil of her soul and body. She had +ceased to desire happiness; she was grateful for this lull of all her +powers of sense and thought, and eager to love and to serve Potch as he +did her. She believed her life had found its haven; that if she kept in +tune with the fundamentals of love and service, she could maintain a +consciousness of peace and rightness with the world which would make +living something more than a weary longing for death.</p> + +<p>All the days were holy days to Potch since Sophie and he had been +married. He looked at her as if she were Undine making toast and tea, +cooking, washing dishes, or sweeping and tidying up his hut. He followed +her every movement with a worshipful, reverent gaze.</p> + +<p>Soon after Sophie's return, Potch had gone to live in the hut which he +and his father had occupied in the old days. He had put a veranda of +boughs to the front of it, and had washed the roof and walls with +carbide to lessen the heat in summer. He had turned out the rooms and +put up shelves, trying to furnish the place a little for Sophie; but she +had not wanted it altered at all. She had cleared the cupboard, put +clean paper on the shelves, and had arranged Potch's books on them +herself.</p> + +<p>Sophie loved the austerity of her home when she went to live in it—its +earthen floor, bare walls, unvarnished furniture, the couch under the +window, the curtains of unbleached linen she had hemstitched herself, +the row of shining syrup-tins in which she kept tea, sugar, and coffee +on shelves near the fireplace, the big earthenware jar for flowers, and +a couple of jugs which Snow-Shoes had made for her and baked in an oven +of his own contrivance. She had a quiet satisfaction in doing all the +cleaning up and tidying to keep her house in the order she liked, so +that her eyes could rest on any part of it and take pleasure from the +sense of beauty in ordinary and commonplace things.</p> + +<p>But the hut was small and its arrangements so simple that an hour or two +after Potch had gone to the mines Sophie went to the shed into which he +had moved her cutting-wheel, and busied herself facing and polishing the +stones which some of the men brought her as usual. She knew her work +pleased them. She was as skilful at showing a stone to all its advantage +as any cutter on the Ridge, and nothing delighted her more than when +Watty or George or one of the Crosses exclaimed with satisfaction at a +piece of work she had done.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon sometimes she went down to the New Town to talk with +Maggie Grant, Mrs. Woods, or Martha. She was understudying Martha, too, +when anyone was sick in the town, and needed nursing or a helping hand. +Martha had her hands full when Mrs. Ted Cross's fourth baby was born. +There were five babies in the township at the time, and Sophie went to +Crosses' every morning to fix up the house and look after the children +and Mrs. Ted before Martha arrived. When Martha found the Crosses' +washing gaily flapping on the line one morning towards midday, she +protested in her own vigorous fashion.</p> + +<p>"I ain't going to have you blackleggin' on me, Mrs. Heathfield," she +said. "And what's more, if I find you doin' it again, I'll tell Potch. +It's all right for me to be goin' round doing other people's odd jobs; +but I don't hold with you doin' 'em—so there! If folks wants babies, +well, it's their look-out—and mine. But I don't see what you've got to +do with it, coming round makin' your hands look anyhow."</p> + +<p>"You just sit down, and I'll make you a cup of tea, Mother M'Cready," +Sophie said by way of reply, and gently pushed Martha into the most +comfortable chair in the room. "You look done up ... and you're going on +to see Ella and Mrs. Inglewood, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Martha nodded. She watched Sophie with troubled, loving eyes. She was +really very tired, and glad to be able to sit and rest for a moment. It +gave her a welling tenderness and gratitude to have Sophie concerned for +her tiredness, and fuss about her like this. Martha was so accustomed to +caring for everybody on the Ridge, and she was so strong, good-natured, +and vigorous, very few people thought of her ever being weary or +dispirited. But as she bustled into the kitchen, blocking out the light, +Sophie saw that Martha's fat, jolly face under the shadow of her +sun-hat, was not as happy-looking as usual. Sophie guessed the weariness +which had overtaken her, and that she was "poorly" or "out-of-sorts," as +Martha would have said herself, if she could have been made to admit +such a thing.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well to give folks a helping hand," Martha continued, +"but I'm not going to have you doin' their washin' while I'm about."</p> + +<p>Sophie put a cup of tea and slice of bread and syrup down beside her.</p> + +<p>"There! You drink that cup of tea, and tell me what you think of it," +she said.</p> + +<p>"But, Sophie," Martha protested. "It's stone silly for you to be doing +things like Cross's washing. You're not strong enough, and I won't have +it."</p> + +<p>"Won't you?"</p> + +<p>Sophie put her arms around Martha's neck from behind her chair. She +pressed her face against the creases of Martha's sunburnt neck and +kissed it.</p> + +<p>Martha gurgled happily under the pressure of Sophie's young arms, the +childish impulse of that hugging. She turned her face back and kissed +Sophie.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my lamb! My dearie lamb!" she murmured.</p> + +<p>She recognised Sophie's need for common and kindly service to the people +of the Ridge. She knew what that service had meant to her at one time, +and was willing to let Sophie share her ministry so long as her health +was equal to it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Watty, and the women who took their views from her, thought that +Sophie was giving herself a great deal of unnecessary and laborious work +as a sort of penance. They had withdrawn all countenance from her after +the disaster of the ball, although they regarded her marriage to Potch +as an endeavour to reinstate herself in their good graces. Mrs. Watty +had been scandalised by the dress she had worn at the ball, by the way +she had danced, and her behaviour generally. But Sophie was quite +unconcerned as to what Mrs. Watty and her friends thought: she did not +go out of her way either to avoid or placate them.</p> + +<p>When she went to the Crosses' to take charge of the children and look +after the house while Mrs. Cross was ill, the gossips had exclaimed +together. And when it was known that Sophie had taken on herself odds +and ends of sewing for other women of the township who had large +families and rather more to do than they knew how to get through, they +declared that they did not know what to make of it, or of Sophie and her +moods and misdemeanours.</p> + +<p>Potch heard of what Sophie was doing from the people she helped. When he +came home in the evening she was nearly always in the kitchen getting +tea for him; but if she was not, she came in soon after he got home, and +he knew that one of these little tasks she had undertaken for people in +the town had kept her longer than she expected. Usually he hung in the +doorway, waiting for her to come and meet him, to hold up her face to be +kissed, eyes sweet with affection and the tender familiarity of their +association. Those offered kisses of hers were the treasure of these +dream-like days to Potch.</p> + +<p>He had always loved Sophie. He had thought that his love had reached the +limit of loving a long time before, but since they had been married and +were living, day after day, together, he had become no more than a +loving of her. He went about his work as usual, performed all the other +functions of his life mechanically, scrupulously, but it was always with +a subconscious knowledge of Sophie and of their life together.</p> + +<p>"You're tired," he said one night when Sophie lifted her face to his, +his eyes strained on her with infinite concern.</p> + +<p>"Dear Potch," she said; and she had put back the hair from his forehead +with a gesture tender and pitiful.</p> + +<p>Her glance and gesture were always tender and pitiful. Potch realised +it. He knew that he worshipped and she accepted his worship. He was +content—not quite content, perhaps—but he assured himself it was +enough for him that it should be so.</p> + +<p>He had never taken Sophie in his arms without an overwhelming sense of +reverence and worship. There was no passionate need, no spontaneity, no +leaping flame in the caresses she had given him, in that kiss of the +evening, and the slight, girlish gestures of affection and tenderness +she gave as she passed him at meals, or when they were reading or +walking together.</p> + +<p>As they lay on the plains this evening they had been thinking of their +life together. They had talked of it in low, brooding murmurs. The +immensity of the silence soaked into them. They had taken into +themselves the faint, musky fragrance of the withered herbage and the +paper daisies. They had gazed among the stars for hours. When it was +time to go home, Sophie sat up.</p> + +<p>"I love to lie against the earth like this," she said.</p> + +<p>"We seem to get back to the beginning of things. You and I are no more +than specks of dust on the plains ... under the skies, Potch ... and yet +the whole world is within us...."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said, and the silence streamed between them again.</p> + +<p>"I'll never forget," Sophie continued dreamily, "hearing a negro talk +once about what they call 'the negro problem' in America. He was an +ordinary thick-set, curly-haired, coarse-featured negro to look +at—Booker Washington—but he talked some of the clearest, straightest +stuff I've ever heard.</p> + +<p>"One thing he said has always stayed in my mind: 'Keep close to the +earth.' It was not good, he said, to walk on asphalted paths too +long.... He was describing what Western civilisation had done for the +negroes—a primitive people.... Anyone could see how they had +degenerated under it. And it's always seemed to me that what was true +for the negroes ... is true for us, too.... It's good to keep close to +the earth."</p> + +<p>"Keep close to the earth?" Potch mused.</p> + +<p>"In tune with the fundamentals, all the great things of loving and +working—our eyes on the stars."</p> + +<p>"The stars?"</p> + +<p>"The objects of our faith and service."</p> + +<p>They were silent again for a while. Then Sophie said:</p> + +<p>"You ..." she hesitated, remembering what she had told John +Armitage—"you and I would fight for the Ridge principle, even if all +the others accepted Mr. Armitage's offer, wouldn't we, Potch?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"And Michael?"</p> + +<p>"Michael?" His eyes questioned her in the dim light because of the +hesitation in her question. "Why do you say that? Michael would be the +last man on earth to have anything to do with Armitage's scheme."</p> + +<p>"He comes back to put the proposition to the men definitely in a few +days, doesn't he?" Sophie asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"Have you talked to Michael about it?"</p> + +<p>"To tell you the truth, Sophie," Potch replied slowly, +conscience-stricken that he had given the subject so little +consideration, "I took it for granted there could only be one answer to +the whole thing.... I haven't thought of it. I've only thought of you +the last week or so. I haven't talked to Michael; I haven't even heard +what the men were saying at midday.... But, of course, there's only one +answer."</p> + +<p>"I've tried to talk to Michael, but he won't discuss it with me," Sophie +said.</p> + +<p>Potch stared at her.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean," he said—"you can't think—"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I know John Armitage is +holding something over Michael ... and if it's true what he says, it'll +break Michael, and it'll go very badly against the Ridge."</p> + +<p>"You can't tell me what it is?"</p> + +<p>Sophie shook her head.</p> + +<p>Potch got up; his face settled into grave and fighting lines. Sophie, +too, rose from the ground. They went towards the track where the three +huts stood facing the scattered dumps of the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush.</p> + +<p>"I want to see Michael," Potch said, when they approached the huts. +"I'll be in, in a couple of minutes."</p> + +<p>Sophie went on to their own home, and Potch, swerving from her, walked +across to the back door of Michael's hut.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVb" id="CHAPTER_XVb"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + + +<p>Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders +hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut.</p> + +<p>"You can't bluff me," Potch heard him say. "You may throw dust in the +eyes of the men here, but you can't bluff me.... It was you did for +me.... It was you put it over on me—took those stones."</p> + +<p>"Well, you tell the boys," Potch heard Michael say.</p> + +<p>His voice was as unconcerned as though it were not anything of +importance they were discussing. Potch found relief in the sound of it, +but its unconcern drove Charley to fury.</p> + +<p>"You know I took them from Paul," he shouted. "You know—I can see it in +your eyes ... and you took them from me. When ... how ... I don't +know.... You must 've sneaked into the house when I dozed off for a bit, +and put a parcel of your own rotten stuff in their place.... How do I +know? Well, I'll tell you...."</p> + +<p>He settled back on the sofa. "I hung on to the best stone in the +lot—clear brown potch with good flame in it—hopin' it would give me a +clue some day to the man who'd done that trick on me. But I couldn't +place the stone; I'd never seen it on you, and Jun had never seen it +either. I was dead stony when I sold it to Maud ... and I told her why +I'd been keeping it, seeing she was in the show at the start off. She +sold the stone to Armitage in America, and first thing the old man said +when he saw it was: 'Why, that's Michael's mascot!'"</p> + +<p>"Remembered when you'd got it, he said," Charley continued, taking +Michael's interest with gratified malice. "First stone you'd come on, on +Fallen Star, and you wouldn't sell—kept her for luck.... Old Armitage +wouldn't have anything to do with the stone then—didn't believe Maud's +story.... But John Lincoln got it. He told me...."</p> + +<p>"I see," Michael murmured.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind telling you I'm here to play Armitage's game," Charley said.</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. "Well, what about it?"</p> + +<p>"This about it," Charley exclaimed irritably, his excitement and +impatience rising under Michael's calmness. "You're done on the Ridge +when this story gets around. What I've got to say is ... you took the +opals. You've got 'em. You're done for here. But you could have a good +life somewhere else. Clear out, and——"</p> + +<p>"We'll go halves, eh?" Michael queried.</p> + +<p>"That's it," Charley assented. "I'll clear out and say nothing—although +I've told Rummy enough already to give him his suspicions. Still, +suspicions are only suspicions—nothing more. When I came here I didn't +even mean to give you this chance.... But 'Life is sweet, brother!' +There's still a few pubs down in Sydney, and a woman or two. I wouldn't +go out with such a grouch against things in general if I had a flash in +the pan first.... And it'd suit you all right, Michael.... With this +scheme of Armitage's in the wind——"</p> + +<p>"And suppose I haven't got the stones?" Michael inquired.</p> + +<p>Charley half rose from the sofa, his thin hands grasping the table.</p> + +<p>"It's a lie!" he shrieked, shivering with impotent fury. "You know it +is.... What have you done with 'em then? What have you done with those +stones—that's what I want to know!"</p> + +<p>"You haven't got much breath," Michael said; "you'd better save it."</p> + +<p>"I'll use all I've got to down you, if you don't come to light," Charley +cried. "I'll do it, see if I don't."</p> + +<p>Potch walked across to his father. He had heard Charley abusing and +threatening Michael before without being able to make out what it was +all about. He had thought it bluff and something in the nature of a +try-on; but he had determined to put a stop to it.</p> + +<p>"No, you won't!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Won't I?" Charley turned on his son.</p> + +<p>"No." Potch's tone was steady and decisive.</p> + +<p>Charley looked towards Michael again.</p> + +<p>"Well ... what are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you," Michael said. "Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Did y' hear what I've been calling your saint?" Charley cried, turning +to Potch. "I'm calling him what everybody on the fields'd be calling him +if they knew."</p> + +<p>Michael's gaze wavered as it went to Potch.</p> + +<p>"A thief," Charley continued, whipping himself into a frenzy. "That's +what he is—a dirty, low-down thief! I'm the ordinary, decent sort ... +get the credit for what I am ... and pay for it, by God! But he—he +doesn't pay. I bag all the disgrace ... and he walks off with the +goods—Rouminof's stones."</p> + +<p>Potch did not look at Michael. What Charley had said did not seem to +shock or surprise him.</p> + +<p>"I've made a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition," Charley went on +more quietly. "I've told him ... if he'll go halves——"</p> + +<p>"Guess again," Potch sneered.</p> + +<p>Charley swung to his feet, a volley of expletives swept from him.</p> + +<p>"I've told Rummy to get the law on his side," he cried shrilly, "and +he's going to. There's one little bit of proof I've got that'll help +him, and——"</p> + +<p>"You'll get jail yourself over it," Potch said.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind if I do," Charley shouted, and poured his rage and +disappointment into a flood of such filthy abuse that Potch took him by +the shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Shut your mouth," he said. "D'y' hear?... Shut your mouth!"</p> + +<p>Charley continued to rave, and Potch, gripping his shoulders, ran him +out of the hut.</p> + +<p>Michael heard them talking in Potch's hut—Charley yelling, threatening, +and cursing. A fit of coughing seized him. Then there was silence—a +hurrying to and fro in the hut. Michael heard Sophie go to the tank, and +carry water into the house, and guessed that Charley's paroxysm and +coughing had brought on the hemorrhage he had had two or three times +since his return to the Ridge.</p> + +<p>A little later Potch came to him.</p> + +<p>"He's had a bleeding, Michael," Potch said; "a pretty bad one, and he's +weak as a kitten. But just before it came on I told him I'd let him have +a pound a week, somehow, if he goes down to Sydney at once.... But if +ever he shows his face in the Ridge again ... or says a word more about +you ... I've promised he'll never get another penny out of me.... He can +die where and how he likes ... I'm through with him...."</p> + +<p>Michael had been sitting beside his fire, staring into it. He had +dropped into a chair and had not moved since Potch and Charley left the +hut.</p> + +<p>"Do you believe what he said, Potch?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Michael felt Potch's eyes on his face; he raised his eyes to meet them. +There was no lie in the clear depths of Potch's eyes.</p> + +<p>"I've known for a long time," Potch said.</p> + +<p>Michael's gaze held him—the swimming misery of it; then, as if +overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it +fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before +Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had +penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and +desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come +to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given +him while they had been mates.</p> + +<p>"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason."</p> + +<p>Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that +unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith.</p> + +<p>He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his +hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently—unable +to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet +overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as +affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned +enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had.</p> + +<p>"It was for Sophie," he said.</p> + +<p>"I intended to give them back to Paul—when she was old enough to go +away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I +don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of +me, somehow—for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give +them back to him—kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my +mind and went to get them, they were gone."</p> + +<p>Potch nodded thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ... +that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me.... +The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it +means something—that somebody must have been near and seen and heard. +Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was +no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I +think—knew I had the stones...."</p> + +<p>"Maud?"</p> + +<p>Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You +remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At +any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects—I don't know which it is +really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's +parcel—a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't +like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney; +and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel +in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead +to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the +stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and——"</p> + +<p>"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch +said.</p> + +<p>"That's what I think," Michael agreed.</p> + +<p>They brooded over the situation for a while.</p> + +<p>"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in +them.</p> + +<p>"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told +her."</p> + +<p>"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said.</p> + +<p>They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to be done?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done, +Potch," he said.</p> + +<p>They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and +Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her +face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Michael, dear!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she +was of his spirit, as he held her then.</p> + +<p>He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on +him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the +moment was beyond words.</p> + +<p>Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to +Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in +himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to +be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told +him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a +star—a thing of miraculous joy and beauty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIb" id="CHAPTER_XVIb"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + + +<p>The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together +before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his +proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group +formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction. +M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were +prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not +go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following—and the group about +them was by far the largest—which was asserting an open mind until it +heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with +them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than +against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge +since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared +at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of +Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old +spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and +Watty Frost.</p> + +<p>"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the +numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say. +I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many."</p> + +<p>"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here. +Want to know the strength of them—and him."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Watty muttered.</p> + +<p>"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought +Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'—all +that.... But they've swallowed it—swallowed it all down. They say——"</p> + +<p>George nodded gloomily. "This blasted talkin' about Michael's done more +harm than anything."</p> + +<p>"That's right," Pony-Fence said. "What's the strength of it, George?"</p> + +<p>"Damned if I know!"</p> + +<p>"Where's Michael to-night?"</p> + +<p>Their eyes wandered over the scattered groups of the miners. Michael was +not among them.</p> + +<p>"Is he coming?" Pony-Fence asked.</p> + +<p>George shrugged his shoulders; the wrinkles of his forehead lifted, +expressing his ignorance and the doubt which had come into his thinking +of Michael.</p> + +<p>"Does he know what's being said?" Pony-Fence asked.</p> + +<p>"He knows all right. I told Potch, and asked him to let Michael know +about it."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this +business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or +two. It might have got him down what's being said—he might be so sore +about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and +paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something.... +It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, +about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it +is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course—but +it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's +done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've——"</p> + +<p>"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they +had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to +say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand—what's the game—and +the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; +and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about +those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them +afterwards."</p> + +<p>When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form +and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained +somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the +fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat +near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American +engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a +little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but +Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was.</p> + +<p>Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be +chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he +took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water +bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, +the American engineer, on the other.</p> + +<p>His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and +chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be +regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan.</p> + +<p>John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of +another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night. +Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was +filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred +the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the +benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or +worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats. +Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the +weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid +through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and +intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say.</p> + +<p>Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr. +Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to +report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the +United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural +resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, +flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the +Armitage Syndicate.</p> + +<p>Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt +features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up +in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not +words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the +substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and +hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting +against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, +although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had +not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he +would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to +assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition +Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He +himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot +with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave +them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of +the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the +success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might +mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great +deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for +mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of +the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the +advantages that would entail.</p> + +<p>The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's +manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the +situation, although he gave very little information they had not already +possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and +confronted the men again.</p> + +<p>He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward +business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; +but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As +their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the +disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for +both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he +proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the +resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an +expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and +prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw +possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he +promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had +outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous +township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity +in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all +manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of +communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased +production would ensure.</p> + +<p>In a nutshell Armitage's scheme amounted to an offer to buy up the mines +for £30,000 and put the men on a wage, allowing every man a percentage +of 20 per cent. profit on all stones over a certain standard and size. +The men would be asked to elect their own manager, who would be expected +to see that engineering and development designs were carried out, but +otherwise the normal routine of work in the mines would be observed. Mr. +Armitage explained that he hoped to occupy the position of general +manager in the company himself, and engaged it to observe the union +rates of hours and wages as they were accepted by miners and mining +companies throughout the country.</p> + +<p>When he had finished speaking there was no doubt in anyone's mind that +John Lincoln Armitage had made a very pleasant picture of what life on +the Ridge might be if success attended the scheme of the Armitage +Syndicate, as John Armitage seemed to believe it would. Men who had been +driven to consider Armitage's offer from their first hearing of it, +because of the lean years the Ridge was passing through, were almost +persuaded by his final exposition.</p> + +<p>George Woods stood up.</p> + +<p>George's strength was in his equable temper, in his downright honesty +and sincerity, and in the steady common-sense with which he reviewed +situations and men.</p> + +<p>He realised the impression Armitage's statement of his scheme, and its +bearing on the life of the Ridge, had made. It did not affect his own +position, but he feared its influence on men who had been wavering +between prospects of the old and of the new order of things for Fallen +Star. In their hands, he could see now, the fate of all that Fallen Star +had stood for so long, would lie.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "we've got to thank you for puttin' the thing to us as +clear and as square as you have, Mr. Armitage. It gives every man here a +chance to see just what you're drivin' at. But I might say here and now +... I've got no time for it ... neither me nor my mates.... It'll save +time and finish the business of this meeting if there's no beatin' about +the bush and we understand each other right away. It sounds all +right—your scheme—nice and easy. Looks as if there was more for us to +get out of it than to lose by it.... I don't say it wouldn't mean easier +times ... more money ... all that sort of thing. We haven't had the +easiest of times here sometimes, and this scheme of yours comes ... just +when we're in the worst that's ever knocked us. But speakin' for myself, +and"—his glance round the hall was an appeal to that principle the +Ridge stood for-"the most of my mates, we'd rather have the hard times +and be our own masters. That's what we've always said on the Ridge.... +Your scheme 'd be all right if we didn't feel like that; I suppose. But +we do ... and as far as I'm concerned, we won't touch it. It's no go.</p> + +<p>"We're obliged to you for putting the thing to us. We recognise you +could have gone another way about getting control here. You may—-buy up +a few of the mines perhaps, and try to squeeze the rest of us out. Not +that I think the boys'd stand for the experiment."</p> + +<p>"They wouldn't," Bill Grant called.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear that," George said. He tried to point out that if +Fallen Star miners accepted Armitage's offer they would be shouldering +conditions which would take from their work the freedom and interest +that had made their life in common what it had been on the Ridge. He +asked whether a weekly Wage to tide them over years of misfortune would +compensate for loss of the sense of being free men; he wanted to know +how they'd feel if they won a nest of knobbies worth £400 or £500 and +got no more out of them than the weekly wage. The percentage on big +stones was only a bluff to encourage men to hand over big stones, George +said. And that, beyond the word being used pretty frequently in Mr. +Armitage's argument and documents, was all the profit-sharing he could +see in Mr. Armitage's scheme. He reminded the men, too, that under their +own system, in a day they could make a fortune. And all there was for +them under Mr. Armitage's system was three or four pounds a week—and +not a bit of potch, nor a penny in the quart pot for their old age.</p> + +<p>"We own these mines. Every man here owns his mine," George said; "that's +worth more to us just now than engineers and prospecting parties.... +Well have them on our own account directly, when the luck turns and +there's money about again.... For the present we'll hang on to what +we've got, thank you, Mr. Armitage."</p> + +<p>He sat down, and a guffaw of laughter rolled over his last words.</p> + +<p>"Anybody else got anything to say?" Peter Newton inquired.</p> + +<p>M'Ginnis stood up.</p> + +<p>He had heard a good deal of talk about men of the Ridge being free, he +said, but all it amounted to was their being free to starve, as far as +he could see. He didn't see that the men's ownership of the mines meant +much more than that—the freedom to starve. It was all very well for +them to swank round about being masters of their own mines; any fool +could be master of a rubbish heap if he was keen enough on the rubbish +heap. But as far as he was concerned, M'Ginnis declared, he didn't see +the point. What they wanted was capital, and Mr. Armitage had +volunteered it on what were more than ordinarily generous terms....</p> + +<p>It was all very well for a few shell-backs who, because they had been on +the place in the early days, thought they had some royal prerogative to +it, to cut up rusty when their ideas were challenged. But their ideas +had been given a chance; and how had they worked out? It was all very +well to say that if a man was master of his own mine he stood a chance +of being a millionaire at a minute's notice; but how many of them were +millionaires? As a matter of fact, not a man on the Ridge had a penny to +bless himself with at that moment, and it was sheer madness to turn down +this offer of Mr. Armitage's. For his part he was for it, and, what was +more, there was a big body of the men in the hall for it.</p> + +<p>"If it's put to the vote whether people want to take on or turn down Mr. +Armitage's scheme, we'll soon see which way the cat's jumping," M'Ginnis +said. "People'd have the nause to see which side their bread's buttered +on—not be led by the nose by a few fools and dreamers. For my part, I +don't see why——"</p> + +<p>"You're not paid to," a voice called from the back of the hall.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," M'Ginnis repeated stolidly, ignoring the +interruption, "the ideas of three or four men should be allowed to rule +the roost. What's wanted on the Ridge is a little more horse sense——"</p> + +<p>Impatient and derisive exclamations were hurled at him; men sitting near +M'Ginnis shouted back at the interrupters. It looked as if the meeting +were going to break up in uproar, confusion, and fighting all round. +Peter Newton knocked on the table and shouted himself hoarse trying to +restore order. The voices of George, Watty, and Pony-Fence Inglewood +were heard howling over the din:</p> + +<p>"Let him alone."</p> + +<p>"Let's hear what he's got to say."</p> + +<p>Then M'Ginnis continued his description of the advantages to be gained +by the acceptance of Mr. Armitage's offer.</p> + +<p>"And," he wound up, "there's the women and children to think of." At the +back of the hall somebody laughed. "Laugh if you like"—M'Ginnis worked +himself into a passion of virtuous indignation—"but I don't see there's +anything to laugh at when I say remember what those things are goin' to +mean to the women and children of this town—what a few of the +advantages of civilisation——"</p> + +<p>"Disadvantages!" the same voice called.</p> + +<p>"—Comforts and conveniences of civilisation are goin' to mean to the +women and children of this God-forsaken hole," M'Ginnis cried furiously. +"If I had a wife and kids, d'ye think I'd have any time for this +high-falutin' flap-doodle of yours about bread and fat? Not much. The +best in the country wouldn't be too good for them—and it's not good +enough for the women and children of Fallen Star. That's what I've got +to say—and that's what any decent man would say if he could see +straight. I'm an ordinary, plain, practical man myself ... and I ask you +chaps who've been lettin' your legs be pulled pretty freely—-and +starvin' to be masters of your own dumps—to look at this business like +ordinary, plain, practical men, who've got their heads screwed on the +right way, and not throw away the chance of a lifetime to make Fallen +Star the sort of township it ought to be. If there's some men here want +to starve to be masters of their own dumps, let 'em, I say: it's a free +country. But there's no need for the rest of us to starve with 'em."</p> + +<p>He sat down, and again it seemed that the pendulum had swung in favour +of Armitage and his Scheme.</p> + +<p>"What's Michael got to say about it?" a man from the Three Mile asked. +And several voices called: "Yes; what's Michael got to say?"</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence—a silence of apprehension. George Woods +and the men who knew, or had been disturbed by the stories they had +heard of a secret treaty between Michael and John Armitage, recognised +in that moment the power of Michael's influence; that what Michael was +going to say would sway the men of the Ridge as it had always done, +either for or against the standing order of life on the Ridge on which +they had staked so much. His mates could not doubt Michael, and yet +there was fear in the waiting silence.</p> + +<p>Those who had heard Michael was not the man they thought he was, waited +anxiously for his movement, the sound of his voice. Charley Heathfield +waited, crouched in a corner near the platform, where everyone could see +him, Rouminof beside him. They were standing there together as if there +was not room for them in the body of the hall, and their eyes were fixed +on the place where Michael sat—Charley's eager and cruel as a cat's on +its victim, Rouminof's alight with the fires of his consuming +excitement.</p> + +<p>Then Michael got up from his seat, took off his hat; and his glance, +those deep-set eyes of his, travelled the hall, skimming the heads and +faces of the men in it, with their faint, whimsical smile.</p> + +<p>"All I've got to say," he said, "George Woods has said. There's nothing +in Mr. Armitage's scheme for Fallen Star.... It looks all right, but it +isn't; it's all wrong. The thing this place has stood for is ownership +of the mines by the men who work them. Mr. Armitage 'll give us anything +but that—he offers us every inducement but that ... and you know how +the thing worked out on the Cliffs. If the mines are worth so much to +him, they're worth as much, or more, to us.</p> + +<p>"Boiled down, all the scheme amounts to is an offer to buy up the +mines—at a 'fair valuation'—put us on wages and an eight-hour day. All +the rest, about making a flourishing and, up-to-date town of Fallen +Star, might or mightn't come true. P'raps it would. I can't say. All I +say is, it's being used to gild the pill we're asked to swallow—buyin' +up of the mines. There's nothing sure about all this talk of electricity +and water laid on; it's just gilding. And supposing the new conditions +did put more money about—did bring the comforts and conveniences of +civilisation to Fallen Star—like M'Ginnis says—what good would they be +to the people, women and children, too, if the men sold themselves like +a team of bullocks to work the mines? It wouldn't matter to them any +more whether they brought up knobbies or mullock; they'd have their +wages—like bullocks have their hay. It's because our work's had +interest; it's because we've been our own bosses, life's been as good as +it has on Fallen Star all these years. If a man hasn't got interest in +his work he's got to get it somewhere. How did we get it on the Cliffs +when the mines were bought up? Drinking and gambling ... and how did +that work out for the women and children? But it was stone silly of +M'Ginnis to talk of women and children here. We know that old +hitting-below-the-belt gag of sweating employers too well to be taken in +by it. By and by, if you took on the Armitage scheme, and there was a +strike in the mines, he'd be saying that to you: 'Remember the women and +children.'"</p> + +<p>Colour flamed in Michael's face, and he continued with more heat than +there had yet been in his voice.</p> + +<p>"The time's coming when the man who talks 'women and children' to defeat +their own interests will be treated like the skunk—the low-down, +thieving swine he is. Do we say anything's too good for our women and +children? Not much. But we want to give them real things—the real +things of life and happiness—not only flashy clothes and fixings. If we +give our women and children the mines as we've held them, and the record +of a clean fight for them, we'll be giving them something very much +bigger than anything Mr. Armitage can offer us in exchange for them. The +things we've stood for are better than anything he's got to offer. We've +got here what they're fighting for all over the world ... it's bigger +than ourselves.</p> + +<p>"M'Ginnis says he's heard a lot of 'the freedom to starve on the +Ridge'—it's more than I have, it's a sure thing if he wants to starve, +nobody'd stop him...."</p> + +<p>A wave of laughter passed over the hall.</p> + +<p>"But most of us here haven't any fancy for starving, and what's more, +nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don't say that we haven't had +hard times, that we haven't gone on short commons—we have; but we +haven't starved, and we're not going to....</p> + +<p>"This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have +been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we're +down, in a way; but the slump'll pass. There've been slumps before, and +they've passed.... Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn't be so keen on +getting hold of the mines.</p> + +<p>"And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to +me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or +syndicate ever made could. Didn't old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once +that he didn't know a better conducted or more industrious mining +community than this one. 'Why d'y' think that is?' I asked him. He said +he didn't know. I said, 'You don't think the way the men feel about +their work's got anything to do with it?' 'Damn it, Michael,' he said, +'I don't want to think so.'</p> + +<p>"And I happen to know"—Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, +who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and +crossed under his chin—"that the old man is opposed even now to this +scheme because he thinks he won't get as much black opal out of us as he +does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and +what taking over of the mines did for opal—and the men—there. This +scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea....</p> + +<p>"He's put it to you. You've heard what it is. All I've got to say now +is, don't touch it. Don't have anything to do with it.... It'll break us +... the spirit of the men here ... and it'll break what we've been +working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don't let us +see which side our bread's buttered on, as Mr. M'Ginnis says. Let us say +like we always have—like we've been proud to say: 'We'll eat bread and +fat, but we'll be our own masters!'"</p> + +<p>"We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!" the men who +were with Michael roared.</p> + +<p>He sat down amid cheers. George and Watty turned in their seats to beam +at him, filled with rejoicing.</p> + +<p>Armitage rose from his chair and shifted his papers as though he had not +quite decided what he intended to say.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to ask this meeting for a decision," he began.</p> + +<p>"You can have it!" Bully Bryant yelled.</p> + +<p>"There's a bit of a rush at Blue Pigeon Creek, and I'm going on up +there," John Armitage continued. "I'm due in Sydney at the end of the +month—that is, a month from this date—and I'll run up then for your +answer to the proposition which has been laid before you. I have said +all there is to say about it, except that, notwithstanding anything +which may have been asserted to the contrary, I hope you will give your +gravest consideration to an enterprise, I am convinced, would be in the +best interests of this town and of the people of Fallen Star Ridge. I +think, however, you ought to know——"</p> + +<p>"That Michael Brady's a liar and a thief!" Charley cried, springing from +his corner as if loosed from some invisible leash. "If you believe him, +you're believing a liar and a thief. Mr. Armitage knows ... I know ... +and Paul knows——"</p> + +<p>"Throw him out."</p> + +<p>"He's mad!"</p> + +<p>The cries rose in a tumult of angry voices. When they were at their +height M'Ginnis was seen on his feet and waving his arms.</p> + +<p>"Let him say what he's got to!" he shouted. "You chaps know as well as I +do what's been going the rounds, and we might as well have it out now. +If it's not true, Michael'd rather have the strength of it, and give you +his answer ... and if there is anything in it, we've got a right to +know."</p> + +<p>"That's right!" some of the men near him chorused.</p> + +<p>Newton looked towards George, and George towards Michael.</p> + +<p>"Might as well have it," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Charley, who had been hustled against the wall by Potch and Bully +Bryant, was loosed. He moved a few steps forward so that everyone could +see him, and breathlessly, shivering, in a frenzy of triumphant malice, +told his story. Rouminof, carried away by excitement, edged alongside +him, chiming into what he was saying with exclamations and chippings of +corroboration.</p> + +<p>When Charley had finished talking and had fallen back exhausted, +Armitage left his chair as if to continue what he had been going to say +when Charley took the floor. Instead, he hesitated, and, feeling his way +through the silence of consternation and dismay which had stricken +everybody, said uncertainly:</p> + +<p>"Much as I regret having to do so, I consider it my duty to state that +Charley Heathfield's story, as far as I know it, is substantially +correct. Some time ago I was sold a stone in New York. As soon as he saw +it, my father said, 'Why, that's Michael's mascot.' I asked him if he +were sure, and he declared that he could not be mistaken about the +stone....</p> + +<p>"I told him the story I had got with it. Charley has already told you. +That stone came from a parcel Charley supposed contained Rouminof's +opals—the one Paul got when Jun Johnson and he had a run of luck +together. The parcel did not contain Rouminof's opals, and had been +exchanged for the parcel which did, either while Rouminof and Charley +were going home together or after he had taken them from Rouminof. My +father refused to believe that Michael Brady had anything to do with the +business. I made further inquiries, and satisfied myself that the man +who had always seemed to me the soul of honour and a pattern of the +altruistic virtues, I must confess, was responsible for placing that +stone in the parcel Charley took down to Sydney ... and also that +Michael had possession of Rouminof's opals. Mrs. Johnson will swear she +saw Rouminof's stones on the table of Michael Brady's hut one evening +nearly two years ago.</p> + +<p>"I approached Michael myself to try to discover more of the stones. He +denied all knowledge of them. But now, before you all, and because it +seems to me an outrageous thing for people to ruin themselves on account +of their belief in a man who is utterly unworthy of it, I accuse Michael +Brady of having stolen Rouminof's opals. If he has anything to say, now +is the time to say it."</p> + +<p>What Armitage said seemed to have paralysed everybody. The silence was +heavier, more dismayed than it had been a few minutes before. Nobody +spoke nobody moved. Michael's friends sat with hunched shoulders, not +looking at each other, their gaze fixed ahead of them, or on the place +where Michael was sitting, waiting to see his face and to hear the first +sound of his voice. Potch, who had gone to hold his father back when +Charley had made his attack on Michael, stood against the wall, his eyes +on Michael, his face illumined by the fire of his faith. His glance +swept the crowd as if he would consign it to perdition for its doubt and +humiliation of Michael. The silence was invaded by a stir of movement, +the shuffle of feet. People began to mutter and whisper together. Still +Michael did not move. George Woods turned round to him.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake speak, Michael," he said. Michael did not move.</p> + +<p>Then from the back of the hall marched Snow-Shoes. Tall and stately, he +strode up the narrow passage between the rows of seats wedged close +together. People watched him with an abstract curiosity, their minds +under the shadow of the accusation against Michael, waiting only to hear +what he would say to it. When Snow-Shoes reached the top of the hall he +turned and faced the men He held up a narrow package wrapped in +newspaper and before them all handed it to Rouminof, who was still +hovering near the edge of the platform.</p> + +<p>"Your stones," he said. "I took them." And in the same stately, measured +fashion he had entered, he walked out of the hall again.</p> + +<p>Cheers resounded, cheers on cheers, until the roof rang. There was no +hearing anything beyond cheers and cries for Michael. People crushed +round him shaking his hand, clinging to him, tears in their eyes. When +order was achieved again, it was found that Paul was on the platform +going over the stones with Armitage, Newton looking on. Paul was +laughing and crying; he had forgotten Charley, forgotten everything but +his joy in fingering his lost gems.</p> + +<p>When there was a lull in the tempest of excitement and applause, +Armitage spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've got to apologise to you, Michael," he said. "I do most +contritely.... I don't yet understand—but the facts are, the opals are +here, and Mr. Riley has said—"</p> + +<p>Michael stood up. His mouth moved and twisted as though he were going to +speak before his voice was heard. When it was, it sounded harsh and as +if only a great effort of will drove it from him.</p> + +<p>"I want to say," he said, "I did take those stones ... not from Paul ... +but from Charley."</p> + +<p>His words went through the heavy quiet slowly, a vibration of his +suffering on every one of them. He told how he had seen Charley and Paul +going home together, and how he had seen Charley take the package of +opals from Rouminof's pocket and put them in his own.</p> + +<p>"I didn't want the stones," Michael cried, "I didn't ever want them for +myself.... It was for Paul I took them back, but I didn't want him to +have them just then...."</p> + +<p>Haltingly, with the same deadly earnestness, he went over the promise he +had made to Sophie's mother, and why he did not want Paul to have the +stones and to use them to take Sophie away from the Ridge. But she had +gone soon after, and what he had done was of no use. When he explained +why he had not then, at once, returned the opals he did not spare +himself.</p> + +<p>Paul had had sun-stroke; but Michael confessed that from the first night +he had opened the parcel and had gone over the stones, he had been +reluctant to part with them; he had found himself deferring returning +them to Paul, making excuses for not doing so. He could not explain the +thing to himself even.... He had not looked at the opals except once +again, and then it was to see whether, in putting them away hurriedly +the first time, any had tumbled out of the tin among his books. Then +Potch and Maud had seen him. Afterwards he realised where he was +drifting—how the stones were getting hold of him—and in a panic, +knowing what that meant, he had gone for the parcel intending to take it +to Paul at once and tell him how he, Michael, came to have anything to +do with his opals, just as he was telling them. But the parcel was gone.</p> + +<p>Michael said he could not think who had found it and taken it away; but +now it was clear. Probably Snow-Shoes had known all the time he had the +stones. The more he thought of it, the more Michael believed it must +have been so. He remembered the slight stir on the shingly soil as he +came from the hut on the night he had taken the opals from Charley. It +was just that slight sound Snow-Shoes' moccasins made on the shingle. +Exclamations and odd queries Snow-Shoes had launched from time to time +came back to Michael. He had no doubt, he said, that Mr. Riley had taken +the stones to do just what he had done—and because he feared the +influence possession of them was having on him, Michael, since they +should have been returned to Paul long ago.</p> + +<p>"That's the truth, as far as I know it," Michael said. "There's been +attempts made to injure ... the Ridge, our way of doing things here, +because of me, and because of those stones.... What happened to me +doesn't matter. What happens to the Ridge and the mines does matter. I +done wrong. I know I done wrong holding those stones. I'd give anything +now if I—if I'd given them to Paul when Sophie went away. But I didn't +... and I'll stand by anything the men who've been my mates care to say +or do about that. Only don't let the Ridge, and our way of doing things +here, get hurt through me. That's bigger—it means more than any man. +Don't let it! ... I'd ask George to call a meeting, and get the boys to +say what they think about all this—and where I stand."</p> + +<p>Michael put on his hat, dragged it down over his eyes, and walked out of +the hall.</p> + +<p>When the slow fall of his footsteps no longer sounded on the wooden +floor, George Woods rose from his place on the front bench. He turned +and faced the men. The smoke from their smouldering pipes had created +such a fog that he could see only the bulk of those on the near rows of +forms. With the exception of M'Ginnis and half a dozen Punti men who had +the far end of one of the front seats, the mass of men in the hall, who +a few moments before had been cheering for Michael, were as inert as +blown balloons. Depression was in every line of their heavy, squatted +shapes and unlighted countenances.</p> + +<p>"Well," George said, "it's been a bit of a shock what we've just heard. +It wasn't easy what Michael's just done ... and Snow-Shoes, if he'd +wanted it, had provided the get-out. But Michael he wouldn't have it.... +At whatever cost to himself, he wanted you to have the truth and to +stand by the Ridge ... he'd stand by it at any cost.... If there's a +doubt in anyone's mind as to what he is, what he's just done proves +Michael. I don't say, as he says himself, that it wouldn't have been +better if he had handed the stones over to Paul when Sophie went away +... but after all, what does that amount to as far as Michael's +concerned? We've got his record, every one of us, his life here. Does +anybody know a mean or selfish thing he's ever done, Michael?"</p> + +<p>No one spoke, and George went on:</p> + +<p>"Michael's asked for trial by his mates—and we've got to give it to +him, if it's only to clear up the whole of this business and be done +with it.... I move we meet here to-morrow night to settle the thing."</p> + +<p>There was a rumbling murmur, and staccato exclamations of assent. Men in +back seats moved to the door; others surged after them. Armitage and his +proposals were forgotten.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3> + + +<p>When Michael got back to his hut he found Martha there.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Michael," she said, "a dreadful thing has happened."</p> + +<p>Michael stared at her, unable to understand what she said. It seemed to +him all the terrible things that could happen had happened that evening.</p> + +<p>"While you were away Arthur Henty came here to see Sophie," Martha said. +"She hasn't been feeling well ... and I came up to have a look at her. +She's been doing too much lately. Things haven't been too right between +her and Potch, either, and that's her way of taking it out of herself. +Arthur was here when I got here, Michael, and—you never heard anything +like the way he went on...."</p> + +<p>Michael had fallen wearily into his chair while she was talking.</p> + +<p>Martha continued, knowing that the sooner she got rid of her story the +better it would be for both of them.</p> + +<p>"It's an old story, of course, this about Arthur Henty and Sophie.... +When he was ill after the ball he talked a good bit about her.... He +always has ... to me. I was with his mother when he was born ... and +he's always called me Mother M'Cready like the rest of you. He told me +long ago he'd always been fond of Sophie.... He didn't know at first, he +said. He was a fool; he didn't like being teased about her.... Then she +went away.... He doesn't seem to know why he got married except that his +people wanted him to.</p> + +<p>"After the ball he'd made up his mind they were going away together, +Sophie and he. But while he was ill ... before he was able to get around +again, Sophie married Potch. Then he went mad, stark, starin' mad, and +started drinking. He's been drinking hard ever since.... And to-night +when he came, he just went over to Sophie.... She was lying on the couch +under the window, Michael.... He said, I've got a horse for you outside. +Sophie didn't seem to realise what he meant at first. Then she did. I +don't know how he guessed she wouldn't go ... but the next minute he was +on his knees beside her ... and you never heard anything like it, +Michael—the way he went on, sobbing and crying out—I never want to +hear anything like it again.... I couldn't 've stood it meself.... I'd +'ve done anything in the world if a man'd gone on to me like that. And +Sophie ... she put her arms round him, and mothered him like.... Then +she began to cry too.... And there they were, both crying and sayin' how +much they loved each other ... how much they'd always loved each +other....</p> + +<p>"It fair broke me up, Michael.... I didn't know what to do. They didn't +seem to notice me.... Then he said again they'd go away together, and +begin life all over again. Sophie tried to tell him it was too late to +think of that.... They both had responsibilities they'd ought to stand +by.... Hers was the Ridge and the Ridge life, she said.... He didn't +understand.... He only understood he wanted her to go away with him, and +she wouldn't go...."</p> + +<p>Michael was so spent in body and mind that what Martha was saying did +not at first make any impression on his mind. She seemed to be telling +him a long and dolorous tale of something which had happened a long time +ago, to people he had once known. In a waking nightmare, realisation +that it was Sophie she was talking of dawned on him.</p> + +<p>"He tried to make her," Martha was saying when he began to listen +intently. "He said he'd been weak and a fool all his days. But he wasn't +any more. He was strong now. He knew what he wanted, and he meant to +have it.... Sophie was his, he said. Nothing in the world would ever +make her anything but his. She knew it, and he knew it.... And Sophie +hid her face in her hands. He took her hands away from her face and +dragged her to her feet. He asked her if he was her mate.</p> + +<p>"She said 'Yes.'</p> + +<p>"'Then you've got to come with me,' he said.</p> + +<p>"But she wouldn't go, Michael. She tried to explain it was the +Ridge—what the Ridge stood for—she must stay to work for. She'd sworn +to, she said. He cursed the Ridge and all of us, Michael. He said that +he wouldn't let her go on living with Potch—be his wife. That he'd kill +her, and himself, and Potch, rather than let her.... I never heard a man +go on like he did, Michael. I never want to again. Half the time he was +raging mad, then crying like a child. But in the end he said, quite +quietly:</p> + +<p>"'Will you come with me, Sophie?'</p> + +<p>"And she said, quiet like that, too, 'No.'</p> + +<p>"He went out of the hut.... I heard him ride away. Sophie cried after +him. She put out her arms ... but she couldn't speak. And if you had +seen her face, Michael——She just stood there against the wall, +listening to the hoof-beats.... When we couldn't hear them any more, she +stood there listening just the same. I went to her and tried to—to +waken her—she seemed to have gone off into a sort of trance, +Michael.... After a while she did wake; but she looked at me as if she +didn't know me. She walked about for a bit, she walked round the table, +and then she went out as though she were goin' for a walk. I told her +not to go far ... not to be long ... but I don't think she heard me.... +I watched her walking out towards the old rush.... And she isn't back +yet...."</p> + +<p>"It's too much," Michael muttered.</p> + +<p>He sat with his head buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>"What's to be done about it?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>Martha shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Sophie'll go through with her part, I suppose ... as her +mother did."</p> + +<p>Michael's face quivered.</p> + +<p>"He's such an outsider," he groaned. "Sophie'd never give up the things +we stand for here, now she understands them."</p> + +<p>"That's just it," Martha said. "She doesn't want to—but there's +something stronger than herself draggin' at her ... it's something +that's been in all the women she's come of—the feeling a woman's got +for the man who's her mate. Sophie married Potch, it's my belief, to get +away from this man. She wanted to chain herself to us and her life here. +She wants to stay with us.... She was kept up at first by ideas of duty +and sacrifice, and serving something more than her own happiness. But +love's like murder, Michael—it must out, and it's a good thing it +must...."</p> + +<p>"And what about Potch?" Michael asked.</p> + +<p>"Potch?" Martha smiled. "The dear lad ... he'll stand up to things. +There are people like that—and there're people like Arthur Henty who +can't stand up to things. It's not their fault they're made that way ... +and they go under when they have too much to bear."</p> + +<p>"Curse him," Michael groaned. "I wish he'd kept out of our lives."</p> + +<p>"So do I," Martha said; "but he hasn't."</p> + +<p>Potch came in. He looked from Martha to Michael.</p> + +<p>"Where's Sophie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"She ... went out for a walk, a while ago," Martha said.</p> + +<p>At first Martha believed Potch knew what had happened. In his eyes there +was an awe and horror which communicated itself to Martha and Michael, +and held them dumb.</p> + +<p>"Henty has shot himself down in the tank paddock," he said at length.</p> + +<p>Martha uttered a low wail. Michael looked at Potch, waiting to hear +further.</p> + +<p>"Some of the boys going home to the Three Mile heard the shot, and went +over," Potch said. "I wanted to tell Sophie myself.... They were looking +for you in the town, Martha."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Martha got up and went to the door.</p> + +<p>"He's at Newton's," Potch said. "Which way did Sophie go?"</p> + +<p>"She went towards the Old Town, Potch," Martha said.</p> + +<p>The chestnut Arthur Henty had brought for Sophie, still standing with +reins over a post of the goat-pen, whinnied when he saw them at the door +of the hut. Potch looked at him as if he were wondering why the horse +was there—a vague perplexity defined itself through the troubled +abstraction of his gaze. His eyes went to Martha as if asking her how +the horse came to be there; but she did not offer any explanation. She +went off down the track to Newton's, and he struck out towards the Old +Town.</p> + +<p>Potch wandered over the plains looking for Sophie. She was not in any of +her usual haunts. He wandered, looking for her, calling her, wondering +what this news would mean to her. Vaguely, instinctively he knew. Prom +the time of their marriage nothing had been said between them of Arthur +Henty.</p> + +<p>"Sophie! Sophie!" he called.</p> + +<p>The stars were swarming points of silver fire in the blue-black sky. He +wandered, calling still. Desolation overwhelmed him because he could not +find Sophie; because she was in none of the places they had spent so +much time in together. It was significant that she should not be in any +of them, he felt. He could not bear to think she was eluding him, and +yet that was what she had done all her life. She had been with him, +smiling, elfish and tender one moment, and gone the next. She had always +been elusive. For a long time a presentiment of desolation and disaster +had overshadowed him. Again and again he had been able to draw breath of +relief and assure himself that the indefinable dread which was always +with him was a chimera of his too absorbing, too anxious love. But the +fear, instinctive, prophetic, begotten by consciousness of the slight +grasp he had of her, had remained.</p> + +<p>That morning even, before he had gone off to work, she had taken his +face in her hands. He had seen tenderness and an infinite gentleness in +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Dear Potch," she had said, and kissed him.</p> + +<p>She had withdrawn from him before the faint chill which her words and +the light pressure of her lips diffused, had left him. And now he was +wandering over the plains looking for her, calling her.... He had done +so before.... Sophie liked to wander off like this by herself. Sometimes +he had found her in a place where they often sat together; sometimes she +had been in the hut before him; sometimes she had come in a long time +after him, wearily, a strange, remote expression on her face, as if long +gazing at the stars or into the darkness which overhung the plains had +deprived her of some earthliness.</p> + +<p>He did not know how long he walked over the plains and along the Ridge, +looking for her, his soul in that cry:</p> + +<p>"Sophie! Sophie!"</p> + +<p>He wandered for hours before he went back to the hut, and saw Michael +coming out to meet him.</p> + +<p>"She knows, Potch," Michael said.</p> + +<p>Potch waited for him to continue.</p> + +<p>"Says nobody told her.... She heard the shot ... and knew," Michael +said.</p> + +<p>Potch exclaimed brokenly. He asked how Sophie was. Michael said she had +come in and had lain down on the sofa as though she were very tired. She +had been lying there ever since, so still that Michael was alarmed. He +had called Paul and sent him to find Martha. Sophie had not cried at +all, Michael said.</p> + +<p>She was lying on the sofa under the window, her hair thrown back from +her face when Potch went into the hut. He closed his eyes against the +sight of her face; he could not see Sophie in the grip of such pain. He +knelt beside her.</p> + +<p>"Sophie! Sophie!" he murmured, the inarticulate prayer of his love and +anguish in those words.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h3> + + +<p>The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was +informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it. +The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the the night before, +but the crowd had none of the elastic excitement and fighting spirit, +the antagonisms and enthusiasms, which had gone off from it in wave-like +vibrations the night before. News of Arthur Henty's death had left +everybody aghast, and awakened realisation of the abysses which even a +life that seemed to move easily could contain. The shock of it was on +everybody; the solemnity it had created in the air.</p> + +<p>George Woods, elected spokesman for the men, and Roy O'Mara deputed to +take notes of the meeting because he was reckoned to be a good penman, +sat at a table on the platform. Michael took a chair just below the +platform, facing the men. He was there to answer questions. No one had +asked him to be present, but it was the custom when men of the Ridge +were holding an inquiry of the sort for the man or men concerned to have +seats in front of the platform, and Michael had gone to sit there as +soon as the men were in their places.</p> + +<p>"This isn't like any other inquiry we've had on the Ridge," George Woods +said. "You chaps know how I feel about it—I told you last night. But +Michael was for it, and I take it he's come here to answer any questions +... and to clear this thing up once and for all.... He's put his case to +you. He says he'll stand by what you say—the judgment of his mates."</p> + +<p>Anxious to spare Michael another recital of what had happened, he went +on:</p> + +<p>"There's no need for Michael to repeat what he said last night. If +there's any man here wasn't in the hall, these are the facts."</p> + +<p>He repeated the story Michael had told, steadily, clearly, and +impartially.</p> + +<p>"If there's any man wants to ask a question on those facts, he can do it +now."</p> + +<p>George sat down, and M'Ginnis was on his feet the same instant; his +bat-like ears twitching, his shoulders hunched, his whole tall, thin +frame strung to the pitch of nervous animosity.</p> + +<p>"I want to know," he said, "what reason there is for believing a word of +it. Michael Brady's as good as admitted he's been fooling you for +goodness knows how long, and I don't see——"</p> + +<p>"Y' soon will, y'r bleedin', blasted, fly-blown fool," Bully Bryant +roared, rising and pushing back his sleeves.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Bull," George Woods called.</p> + +<p>"The question is," he added, "what reason is there for believing what +Michael says?"</p> + +<p>"His word's enough," somebody called.</p> + +<p>"Some of us think so," George said. "But there's some don't. Is there +anyone else can say, Michael?"</p> + +<p>Michael shook his head. He thought of Snow-Shoes, but the old man had +refused to be present at the inquiry or to have anything to do with it. +He had pretended to be deaf when he was asked anything about Paul's +opals. And Michael, who could only surmise that Snow-Shoes' reasons for +having taken the stones in a measure resembled his own when he took them +from Paul, would not have him put to the torture of questioning.</p> + +<p>George had said: "It might make a lot of difference to Michael if you'd +come along, Mr. Riley."</p> + +<p>But Snow-Shoes had marched off from him as if he had not heard anyone +speak, his blue eyes fixed on that invisible goal he was always gazing +at and going towards.</p> + +<p>George had not seen him come into the hall; but when he was needed, his +tall figure, white clad and straight as a dead tree, rose at the back of +the hall.</p> + +<p>"It's true," he said. "I wanted to be sure of Michael; I shadowed him. I +saw him with the stones when he says. I did not see him with them any +other time."</p> + +<p>He sat down again; his eyes, which had flashed, resumed their steady, +distant stare; his features relapsed into their mask of impassivity.</p> + +<p>M'Ginnis sprang to his feet again.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well," he cried, sticking to his question. "But it's +not my idea of evidence. It wouldn't stand in any law court in the +country. Snow-Shoes——"</p> + +<p>"Shut up!"</p> + +<p>"Sit down!"</p> + +<p>Half a dozen voices growled.</p> + +<p>Because of the respect and affection they had for him, and because of a +certain aloof dignity he had with them, no man on the Ridge ever +addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. They resented M'Ginnis +calling him "Snow-Shoes" to his face, and guessed that he had been going +to say something which would reflect on Snow-Shoes' reliability as a +witness. They admitted his eccentricity; but they would not admit that +his mental peculiarities amounted to more than that. Above all, they +were not going to have his feelings hurt by this outsider from the Punti +rush.</p> + +<p>Broad-shouldered, square and solid, Bill Grant towered above the men +about him. "This doesn't pretend to be a court of law, Mister M'Ginnis," +he remarked, with an irony and emphasis which never failed of their mark +when he used them, although he rarely did, and only once or twice had +been heard to speak, at any gathering. "It's an inquiry by men of the +Ridge into the doings of one of their mates. What they want to know is +the rights of this business ... and what you consider evidence doesn't +matter. It's what the men in this hall consider evidence matters. And, +what's more, I don't see why you're butting into our affairs so much: +you're not one of us—you're a newcomer. You've only been a year or so +in the place ... and this concerns only men of the Ridge, who stand by +the Ridge ways of doing things.... Michael's here to be judged by his +mates ... not by you and your sort.... If you'd the brain of a louse, +you'd understand—this isn't a question of law, but of +principle—honour, if you like to call it that."</p> + +<p>"Does the meeting consider the question answered?" George Woods inquired +when Bill Grant sat down.</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>A chorus of voices intoned the answer.</p> + +<p>"If you believe Michael's story, there's nothing more to be said," +George continued. "Does any man want to ask Michael a question?"</p> + +<p>No one replied for a moment. Then M'Ginnis exclaimed incoherently.</p> + +<p>"Shut up!"</p> + +<p>"Sit down!"</p> + +<p>Men cried out all over the hall.</p> + +<p>"That's all, I think, Michael," George said, looking down to where +Michael sat before the platform; and Michael, pulling his hat further +over his eyes, went out of the hall.</p> + +<p>It was the custom for men of the Ridge to talk over the subject of their +inquiry together after the man or men with whom the meeting was +concerned had left the hall, before giving their verdict.</p> + +<p>When Michael had gone, George Woods said:</p> + +<p>"The boys would like to hear what you've got to say, I think, Archie."</p> + +<p>He looked at Archie Cross. "You and Michael haven't been seein' eye to +eye lately, and if there's any other side in this business, it's the +side that lost confidence in Michael when we were fed-up with all that +whispering. You know Michael, and you're a good Ridge man, though you +were ready to take on Armitage's scheme. The boys'd like to hear what +you've got to say, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>Archie Cross stood up; he rolled his hat in his hands. His face, hacked +out of a piece of dull flesh, sun-reddened, moved convulsively; his hair +was roughed-up from it; his small, sombre eyes went with straight +lightnings to the men in the hall about him.</p> + +<p>"It's true—what George says," he said after a pause, as if it were +difficult for him to express his thought. "I haven't been seein' eye to +eye with Michael lately ... and I listened to all the dirty gossip that +mob"—he glanced towards M'Ginnis and the men with him—"put round about +him. It was part that ... and part listening to their talk about money +invested here making all the difference to Fallen Star ... and the +children growing up ... and gettin' scared and worried about seein' them +through ... made me go agin you boys lately, and let that lot get hold +of me.... But this business about Michael's shown me where I am. +Michael's stood for one thing all through—the Ridge and the hanging on +to the mines for us.... He's been a better Ridge man than I have.... And +I want to say ... as far as I'm concerned, Michael's proved himself.... +I don't reck'n hanging on to opals was anything ... no more does Ted. +It's the sort of thing a chap like Michael'd do absent-minded ... not +noticin' what he was doin'; but when he did notice—and got scared +thinkin' where he was gettin' to, and what it might look like, he +couldn't get rid of 'em quick, enough. That's what I think, and that's +what Ted thinks, too. He hasn't got the gift of the gab, Ted, or he'd +say so himself.... If there's goin' to be opposition to Michael, it's +not comin' from us.... And we've made up our minds we stand by the +Ridge."</p> + +<p>"Good old Archie!" somebody shouted.</p> + +<p>"What have you got to say, Roy?" George Woods faced his secretary who +had been scratching diligently throughout the meeting. "You've been more +with the M'Ginnis lot, too, than with us, lately."</p> + +<p>Roy flushed and sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>"I'm in the same boat with Archie and Ted," he said. "Except about the +family ... mine isn't so big yet as it might be. But it's a fact, I +funked, not having had much luck lately.... But if ever I go back on the +Ridge again ... may the lot of you go back on me."</p> + +<p>Exclamations of approbation and goodwill reverberated as Roy subsided +into his chair again.</p> + +<p>"That's all there is to be said on the subject, I think," George Woods +remarked.</p> + +<p>"Michael wanted his mates to know what he had done—and why he had done +it. He's asked for judgment from his mates.... If he'd wanted to go back +on us he could have done it; he could have done it quite easy. Armitage +would have shut up on his suspicions about the stones. Charley could +have been bought. Michael need never 've faced all this as far as I can +see ... but he decided to face it rather than give up all we've been +fightin' for here. He'd rather take all the dirt we care to sling at him +than anything they could give him ... and that's why M'Ginnis has been +up against him like he has. Michael has queered his pitch, and most of +us have a notion that M'Ginnis has been here to do Armitage's work ... +work up discontent and ill-feeling amongst us, and split our ranks; and +he came very near doing it. If Michael hadn't 've stood by us, like he's +always done, we'd have the Armitage Syndicate on our backs by now."</p> + +<p>"To tell you the truth, boys," George went on, after a moment's +hesitation, and then as if the impulse to speak a secret thought were +too strong for him, "I've always thought Michael was too good. And if +those stones did get hold of him for a couple of weeks, like he says, +all it proves, as far as I can see, is that Michael isn't any plaster +saint, but a man like the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"That's right!" Watty called, and several men shouted after him.</p> + +<p>Pony-Fence moved out from the crowd he was sitting with.</p> + +<p>"I vote this meeting records a motion of confidence in Michael Brady," +he said. "And when we call Michael in again we'd ought to make it clear +to him ... that so far from its being a question of not having as much +confidence in him as we had before—we've got more. Michael's stood by +his mates if ever a man did.... He's come to us ... he's given himself +up to us. He'll stand by what we say or do about him. And what are we +goin' to do? Are we goin' to turn him down ... read him a bit of a +lecture and tell him to go home and be a good boy and not do it another +time ... or are we going to let him know once and for all what we think +of him?"</p> + +<p>Exclamations of agreement went up in a rabble of voices.</p> + +<p>Bully Bryant rose from one of the back forms with a grin which +illuminated the building.</p> + +<p>"I'll second that motion," he said, pushing back the sleeve on his left +arm. "And his own mother won't know the man who says a word against +it—when I've done with him."</p> + +<p>Watty was sent to bring Michael back to the meeting. They walked to the +end of the hall together; and George Woods told Michael as quietly as he +could for his own agitation, and the joy which, welling in him, impeded +his speech, that men of the Ridge found nothing to censure in what he +had done. His mates believed in him; they stood by him. They were +prepared to stand by him as he had stood by the Ridge always. The +meeting wished to record a vote of confidence....</p> + +<p>Cheers roared to the roof. Michael, shaken by the storm of his emotion +and gratitude, stood before the crowd in the hall with bowed head. When +the storm was quieter in him, he lifted his head and looked out to the +men, his eyes shining with tears.</p> + +<p>He could not speak; old mates closed round to shake hands with him +before the meeting broke up. Every man grasped and wrung his hand, +saying:</p> + +<p>"Good luck! Good luck to you, Michael!" Or just grasped his hand and +smiled with that assurance of fellowship and goodwill which meant more +to Michael than anything else in the world.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h3> + + +<p>It was one of those clear days of late spring, the sky exquisitely blue, +the cuckoos calling, the paper daisies in blossom, their fragrance in +the air; they lay across the plains, through the herbage, white to the +dim, circling horizon.</p> + +<p>Horses and vehicles were tied up outside the grey palings of the +cemetery on the Warria road. All the horses and shabby, or new and +brightly-painted carts, sulkies, and buggies of Fallen Star and the +Three Mile were there; and buggies from Warria, Langi-Eumina, and the +river stations as well. Saddle horses, ranged along one side of the +fence, reins over the stakes, whinnied and snapped at each other.</p> + +<p>The crowd of people standing in the tall grass and herbage on the other +side of the fence was just breaking up when Sophie and Potch appeared, +coming over the plains from the direction of the tank paddock, Sophie +riding the chestnut Arthur Henty had left behind her house, and Potch +walking beside the horse's head. Sophie had been gathering Darling pea, +and had a great sheaf in one hand. Potch was carrying some, too: he had +picked up the flowers Sophie let fall, and had a little bunch of them. +She was riding astride and gazing before her, her eyes wide with a +vision beyond the distant horizon. The wind, a light breeze breathing +now and then, blew her hair out in wisps from her bare head.</p> + +<p>All the men of Warria were in the sombre crowd in the cemetery. Old +Henty, red-eyed and broken by the end of his only son, whom he found he +had cared for now that he was dead; the stockmen, boundary-riders, +servants, fencers, shearers from Darrawingee sheds who, a few weeks +before had been on the Warria board, and men from other stations near +enough to have heard of Arthur Henty's death. None of the Henty women +were there; but women of the Ridge, who were accustomed to pay last +respects as their menfolk did, were with their husbands as usual. They +would have thought it unnatural and unkind not to follow Arthur Henty to +his resting-place; not to go as friends would to say good-bye to a +friend who is making a long journey. And there was more than the +ordinary reason for being present at Arthur Henty's funeral. He was +leaving them under a cloud, circumstances which might be interpreted +unkindly, and it was necessary to be present to express sympathy with +him and sorrow at his going. That was the way they regarded it.</p> + +<p>Martha had driven with Sam Nancarrow, as she always did to functions of +the sort. No one remembered having seen Martha take a thing so to heart +as she did Arthur Henty's death. She was utterly shaken by it, and could +not restrain her tears. They coursed down her cheeks all the time she +was in that quiet place on the plains; her great, motherly bosom rose +and fell with the tide of her grief. She tried to subdue it, but every +now and then the sound of her crying could be heard, and in the end Sam +took her, sobbing uncontrollably, back to his buggy.</p> + +<p>People knew she had seen further into the cause of Arthur Henty's death +than they had, and they understood that was why she Was so upset. +Besides, Martha had always confessed to a soft corner for Arthur Henty: +she had been with his mother when he was born, had nursed him during a +hot summer and through several slight illnesses since then. And Arthur +had been fond of her too. He had always called her Mother M'Cready as +the Ridge folk did. Old Mr. Henty had driven over to see Martha the +night before, to hear all she knew of what had happened, and Ridge folk +had gathered something of the story from her broken exclamations and the +reproaches with which she covered herself.</p> + +<p>She cried out over and over again that she could not have believed +Arthur would shoot himself—that he was the sort of man to do such a +thing—and blamed herself for not having foreseen what had occurred. She +had never seen him like he was that night—so strong, so much a man, so +full of life and love for Sophie. He had begged Sophie to go with him as +though his life depended on it—and it had.</p> + +<p>If she had been a woman, and Sophie, and had loved him, Martha said, she +would have had to go with him. She could never have withstood his +pleading.... But Sophie had been good to him; she had been gentle—only +she wouldn't go. Neither Sophie nor she believed, of course, he would do +as he said—but he had.</p> + +<p>Martha could not forgive herself that she had done nothing to soothe or +pacify Arthur; that she had said nothing, given him neither kindly word +nor gesture. But she had been so upset, so carried away. She had not +known what to do or say. She abused and blackguarded herself; but she +had sensed enough of the utter loneliness and darkness of Henty's mind +to realise that most likely she could have done nothing against it. He +would have brushed her aside had she attempted to influence him; he +would not have heard what, she said. She would have been as helpless as +any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly +engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of +pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of +self-defence, as Mother M'Cready saw it, Arthur Henty's end, and that +was all there was to it.</p> + +<p>As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together +in wonderment, awe—almost fear.</p> + +<p>James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking +to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. +Although he would have been the last to forgive Sophie if she had done +as Arthur wished, even to save his life, old Henty had to have a +whipping-post, and he eased his own sense of responsibility for what had +blighted his son's life, by blaming Sophie for it. He assured himself, +his family and friends, that she, and she alone, was responsible for +Arthur's death. She had played with Arthur; she had always played with +him, old Henty said. She had driven him to distraction with her +wiles—and this was the end of it all.</p> + +<p>Sophie rode into the cemetery: she rode to where the broken earth was; +but she did not dismount. The horse came to a standstill beside it, and +she sat on him, her eyes closed. Potch stood bare-headed and bowed +beside her. He put the flowers he had picked up as Sophie let them fall, +on the grave. Sophie thrust the long, purple trails she was carrying +into the saddle-bag where Arthur had put the flowers she gave him that +first day their eyes met and drank the love potion of each others' +being.</p> + +<p>People were already on the road, horses and buggies, dark, ant-like +trains on the flowering plains, moving slowly in the direction of Warria +and of Fallen Star, when Sophie and Potch turned away from the cemetery.</p> + +<p>The shadow of what had happened was heavy over everybody as they drove +home. Arthur Henty had been well enough liked, and he had had much more +to do with Fallen Star than most of the station people. He had gone +about so much with his men they had almost ceased to think of him as not +one of themselves. He was less the "Boss" than any man in the +back-country. They recognised that, and yet he was the "Boss." He had +lived like a half-caste, drifting between two races and belonging to +neither. The people he had been born among cold-shouldered him because +he had acquired the manners and habits of thought of men he lived and +worked with; the men he had lived and worked with distrusted and +disliked in him just those tag-ends of refinement, and odd graces which +belonged to the crowd he had come to them from.</p> + +<p>The station hands, his work-mates—if he had any—had had a slightly +contemptuous feeling for him. They liked him—they were always saying +they liked him—but it was clear they never had any great opinion of +him. As a boy, when he began to work with them, to cover his shyness and +nervousness, he had been silent and boorish; and he had never had the +courage of his opinions—courage for anything, it was suspected. It had +always been hinted that he shirked any jobs where danger was to be +expected.</p> + +<p>The stockmen told each other they would miss him, all the same. They +would miss that wonderful whistling of his from the camp fires; and they +were appalled at what he had done to himself. "The last man," Charley +Este said, "the last man you'd ever 've thought would 've come to that!" +Most of them believed they had misjudged Arthur Henty—that, after, all, +he had had courage of a sort. A man must have courage to blow out his +light, they said. And they were sorry. Every man in the crowd was heavy +with sorrow.</p> + +<p>Ridge people gossiped pitifully, sentimentally, to each other as they +drove home. Most of the women believed in the strength and fidelity of +the old love between Sophie and Arthur Henty. But straight-dealing and +honest themselves, they had no conception of the tricks complex +personalities play each other; they did not understand how two people +who had really cared for each other could have gone so astray from the +natural impulse of their lives.</p> + +<p>They recalled the dance at Warria, and how they had teased Sophie when +they thought she was going to marry Arthur Henty, and how happy and +pleased she had looked about it. How different both their lives would +have been if Sophie and Arthur had been true to that instinct of the +mate for the mate, they reflected; and sighed at the futility of the +thought. They realised in Arthur Henty's drinking and rough ways of +late, all his unhappiness. They imagined that they knew why he had +become the uncouth-looking man he had. They remembered him a slight, shy +youth, with sun-bright, freckled eyes; then a man, lithe, graceful, and +good to look at, with his face a clear, fine bronze, his hair taking a +glint of copper in the sun. When he danced with them at the Ridge balls, +that occasionally flashing, delightful way of his had made them realise +why Sophie was in love with him. They remembered how he had looked at +Sophie; how his eyes had followed her. They had heard of the Warria +dance, and knew Arthur Henty had not behaved well to Sophie at it. They +had been angry at the time. Then Sophie had gone away ... and a little +later he had married.</p> + +<p>His marriage had not been a success. Mrs. Arthur Henty had spent most of +her time in Sydney; she was rarely seen on the Ridge now. So women of +the Ridge, who had known Arthur Henty, went over all they knew of him +until that night at the race ball when he and Sophie had met again. And +then his end in the tank paddock brought them back to exclamations of +dismay and grief at the mystery of it all.</p> + +<p>As she left the cemetery, Sophie began to sing, listlessly, dreamily at +first. No one had heard her sing since her return to the Ridge. But her +voice flew out over the plains, through the wide, clear air now, with +the pure melody it had when she was a girl:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà ,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Ella Bryant, driving home beside Bully, knew Sophie was singing as she +had sung to Arthur Henty years before, when they were coming home from +the tank paddock together. She wondered why Sophie was riding the horse +Arthur had brought for her; why she had ridden him to the funeral; and +why she was singing that song.</p> + +<p>Sophie sang on:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volerà ,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sarà !"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Looking back, people saw Potch walking beside her as Joseph walked +beside Mary when they went down to Nazareth.</p> + +<p>"It's hard on Potch," somebody said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," it was agreed; "it's hard on Potch."</p> + +<p>The buggies, carts, sulkies, and horsemen moving in opposite directions +on the long, curving road over the plains grew dim in the distance.</p> + +<p>The notes of Sophie's singing, with its undying tenderness triumphing +over life and death, flowed fainter and fainter.</p> + +<p>When she and Potch came to the town again, the light was fading. Through +the green, limpid veil of the sky, stars were glittering; huts of the +township were darkening under the gathering shadow of night. A breath of +sandal-wood burning on kitchen hearths came to Sophie and Potch like a +greeting. The notes of a goat-bell clanking dully sounded from beyond +the dumps. There were lights in a few of the huts; a warm, friendly +murmur of voices went up from them. For weeks troubled and disturbed +thinking, arguments, and conflicting ideas, had created a depressed and +unrestful atmosphere in every home in Fallen Star. But to-night it was +different. The temptations, allurements and debris of Armitage's scheme +had been swept from the minds—even of those who had been ready to +accept it. Hope and pride in the purpose of the Ridge had been restored +by Michael's vindication and by reaffirmation of the principle he and +all staunch men of the Ridge stood for as the mainstay of their life in +common. Thought of Arthur Henty's death, which had oppressed people +during the day, seemed to have been put aside now that they had seen him +laid to rest, and had returned to their homes again.</p> + +<p>Voices were heard exclaiming with the light cadence and rhythm of joy. +The crisis which had come near to shattering the Ridge scheme of things, +and all that it stood for, had ended by drawing dissenting factions of +the community into closer sympathy and more intimate relationship. In +everybody's mind were the hope and enthusiasm of a new endeavour. As +they went through the town again, neither Sophie nor Potch were +conscious of them for the sorrow which had soaked into their lives. But +these things were in the air they breathed, and sooner or later would +claim them from all personal suffering; faith and loving service fill +all their future—the long twilight of their days.</p> + + + +<p class="caption"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</p> + +<p> +<a href="#PART_I"><b>PART I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#PART_II"><b>PART II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_Ib"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIb"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIb"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IVb"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_Vb"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIb"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIb"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIb"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IXb"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_Xb"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIb"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIb"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIb"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIVb"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVb"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIb"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br /> +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 36710-h.txt or 36710-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/7/1/36710">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/1/36710</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/36710.txt b/36710.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..546eabc --- /dev/null +++ b/36710.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11906 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Black Opal, by Katharine Susannah Prichard + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Black Opal + + +Author: Katharine Susannah Prichard + + + +Release Date: July 12, 2011 [eBook #36710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +E-text prepared by Amy Sisson & Marc D'Hooghe +(http://www.freeliterature.org) + + + +THE BLACK OPAL + +by + +KATHARINE SUSANNAH PRICHARD + +Author of "The Pioneers," "Windlestraws," Etc. + + + + + + + +London: William Heinemann +1921 + + + + +_PART I_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road +over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains. + +Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, +clear blue sky of early spring, except this train of shabby, +dust-covered vehicles. The road, no more than a track of wheels on +shingly earth, wound lazily through paper daisies growing in drifts +beside it, and throwing a white coverlet to the dim, circling horizon. +The faint, dry fragrance of paper daisies was in the air; a native +cuckoo calling. + +The little girl sitting beside Michael Brady in Newton's buggy glanced +behind her now and then. Michael was driving the old black horse from +the coach stables and Newton's bay mare, and Sophie and her father were +sitting beside him on the front seat. In the open back of the buggy +behind them lay a long box with wreaths and bunches of paper daisies and +budda blossoms over it. + +Sophie knew all the people on the road, and to whom the horses and +buggies they had borrowed belonged. Jun Johnson and Charley Heathfield +were riding together in the Afghan storekeeper's sulky with his fat +white pony before them. Anwah Kaked and Mrs. Kaked had the store cart +themselves. Watty and Mrs. Frost were on the coach. Ed. Ventry was +driving them and had put up the second seat for George and Mrs. Woods +and Maggie Grant. Peter Newton and Cash Wilson followed in Newton's +newly varnished black sulky. Sam Nancarrow had given Martha M'Cready a +lift, and Pony-Fence Inglewood was driving Mrs. Archie and Mrs. Ted +Cross in Robb's old heavy buggy, with the shaggy draught mare used for +carting water in the township during the summer, in the shafts. The +Flails' home-made jinker, whose body was painted a dull yellow, came +last of the vehicles on the road. Sophie could just see Arthur Henty and +two or three stockmen from Warria riding through a thin haze of red +dust. But she knew men were walking two abreast behind the vehicles and +horsemen--Bill Grant, Archie and Ted Cross, and a score of miners from +the Three Mile and the Punti rush. At a curve of the road she had seen +Snow-Shoes and Potch straggling along behind the others, the old man +stooping to pick wild flowers by the roadside, and Potch plodding on, +looking straight in front of him. + +Buggies, horses, and people, they had come all the way from her home at +the Old Town. Almost everybody who lived on Fallen Star Ridge was there, +driving, riding, or walking on the road across the plains behind +Michael, her father, and herself. It was all so strange to Sophie; she +felt so strange in the black dress she had on and which Mrs. Grant had +cut down from one of her own. There was a black ribbon on her old yellow +straw hat too, and she had on a pair of black cotton gloves. + +Sophie could not believe her mother was what they called "dead"; that it +was her mother in the box with flowers on just behind her. They had +walked along this very road, singing and gathering wild flowers, and had +waited to watch the sun set, or the moon rise, so often. + +She glanced at her father. He was sitting beside her, a piece of black +stuff on his arm and a strip of the same material round his old felt +hat. The tears poured down his cheeks, and he shook out the large, new, +white handkerchief he had bought at Chassy Robb's store that morning, +and blew his nose every few minutes. He spoke sometimes to Michael; but +Michael did not seem to hear him. Michael sat staring ahead, his face as +though cut in wood. + +Sophie remembered Michael had been with her when Mrs. Grant said.... Her +mind went back over that. + +"She's dead, Michael," Mrs. Grant had said. + +And she had leaned against the window beside her mother's bed, crying. +Michael was on his knees by the bed. Sophie had thought Michael looked +so funny, kneeling like that, with his head in his hands, his great +heavy boots jutting up from the floor. The light, coming in through the +window near the head of the bed, shone on the nails in the soles of his +boots. It was so strange to see these two people whom she knew quite +well, and whom she had only seen doing quite ordinary, everyday things, +behaving like this. Sophie had gazed at her mother who seemed to be +sleeping. Then Mrs. Grant had come to her, her face working, tears +streaming down her cheeks. She had taken her hand and they had gone out +of the room together. Sophie could not remember what Mrs. Grant had said +to her then.... After a little while Mrs. Grant had gone back to the +room where her mother was, and Sophie went out to the lean-to where +Potch was milking the goats. + +She told him what Mrs. Grant had said about her mother, and he stopped +milking. They had gazed at each other with inquiry and bewilderment in +their eyes; then Potch turned his face away as he sat on the +milking-stool, and Sophie knew he was crying. She wondered why other +people had cried so much and she had not cried at all. + +When Potch was taking the bucket of milk across the yard, her father had +come round the corner of the house. His heavy figure with its broad, +stooping shoulders was outlined against the twilight sky. He made for +the door, shouting incoherently. Sophie and Potch stood still as they +saw him. + +Catching sight of them, he had turned and come towards them. + +"We're on opal," he cried; "on opal!" + +There was a feverish light in his eyes; he was trembling with +excitement. + +He had pulled a small, washed oatmeal bag from his pocket, untied the +string, tumbled some stones on to the outstretched palm of his hand, and +held them for Potch to look at. + +"Not a bad bit in the lot.... Look at the fire, there in the black +potch!... And there's green and gold for you. A lovely bit of pattern! +And look at this ... and this!" he cried eagerly, going over the two or +three small knobbies in his hand. + +Potch looked at him dazedly. + +"Didn't they tell you--?" he began. + +Her father had closed his hands over the stones and opal dirt. + +"I'm going in now," he said, thrusting the opals into the bag. + +He had gone towards the house again, shouting: "We're on opal! On opal!" + +Sophie followed him indoors. Mrs. Grant had met her father on the +threshold of the room where her mother was. + +"Why didn't you come when I sent for you?" she asked. + +"I didn't think it could be as bad as you made out--that she was really +dying," Sophie could hear her father saying again. "And we'd just struck +opal, me and Jun, struck it rich. Got two or three stones already--great +stuff, lovely pattern, green and orange, and fire all through the black +potch. And there's more of it! Heaps more where it came from, Jun says. +We're next Watty and George Woods--and no end of good stuff's come out +of that claim." + +Mrs. Grant stared at him as Potch had done. Then she stood back from the +doorway of the room behind her. + +Every gesture of her father's, of Mrs. Grant's, and of Michael's, was +photographed on Sophie's brain. She could see that room again--the quiet +figure on the bed, light golden-brown hair, threaded with silver, lying +in thin plaits beside the face of yellow ivory; bare, thin arms and +hands lying over grey blankets and a counter-pane of faded red twill; +the window still framing a square of twilight sky on which stars were +glittering. Mrs. Grant had brought a candle and put it on the box near +the bed, and the candle light had flared on Mrs. Grant's figure, showing +it, gaunt and accusing, against the shadows of the room. It had showed +Sophie her father, also, between Michael and Mrs. Grant, looking from +one to the other of them, and to the still figure on the bed, with a +dazed, penitent expression.... + +The horses jogged slowly on the long, winding road. Sophie was conscious +of the sunshine, warm and bright, over the plains, the fragrance of +paper daisies in the air; the cuckoos calling in the distance. Her +father snuffled and wiped his eyes and nose with his new handkerchief as +he sat beside her. + +"She was so good, Michael," he said, "too good for this world." + +Michael did not reply. + +"Too good for this world!" Paul murmured again. + +He had said that at least a score of times this morning. Sophie had +heard him say it to people down at the house before they started. She +had never heard him talk of her mother like that before. She looked at +him, sensing vaguely, and resenting the banality. She thought of him as +he had always been with her mother and with her, querulous and +complaining, or noisy and rough when he had been drinking. They had +spent the night in a shed at the back of the house sometimes when he was +like that.... + +And her mother had said: + +"You'll take care of Sophie, Michael?" + +Sophie remembered how she had stood in the doorway of her mother's room, +that afternoon--How long ago was it? Not only a day surely? She had +stood there until her mother had seen her, awed without knowing why, +reluctant to move, afraid almost. Michael had nodded without speaking. + +"As though she were your own child?" + +"So help me, God," Michael said. + +Her-mother's eyes had rested on Michael's face. She had smiled at him. +Sophie did not think she had ever seen her smile like that before, +although her smile had always been like a light on her face. + +"Don't let him take her away," her mother had said after a moment. "I +want her to grow up in this place ... in the quiet ... never to know the +treacherous ... whirlpool ... of life beyond the Ridge." + +Then her mother had seen and called to her. + +Sophie glanced back at the slowly-moving train of vehicles. They had a +dreary, dream-like aspect. She felt as if she were moving in a dream. +Everything she saw, and heard, and did, was invested with unreality; she +had a vague, unfeeling curiosity about everything. + +"You see, Michael," her father was saying when she heard him talking +again, "we'd just got out that big bit when Potch came and said that +Marya ... that Marya.... I couldn't believe it was true ... and there +was the opal! And when I got home in the evening she was gone. My poor +Marya! And I'd brought some of the stones to show her." + +He broke down and wept. "Do you think she knows about the opal, +Michael?" + +Michael did not reply. Sophie looked up at him. The pain of his face, a +sudden passionate grieving that wrung it, translated to her what this +dying of her mother meant. She huddled against Michael; in all her +trouble and bewilderment there seemed nothing to do but to keep close to +Michael. + +And so they came to the gate of a fenced plot which was like a quiet +garden on the plains. Several young coolebahs, and two or three older +trees standing in it, scattered light shade; and a few head-stones and +wooden crosses, painted white or bleached by the weather, showed above +the waving grass and wild flowers. + +Sophie held the reins when Michael got down to open the gate. Then he +took his seat again and they drove in through the gateway. Other people +tied their horses and buggies to the fence outside. + +When all the people who had been driving, riding, or walking on the road +went towards an old coolebah under which the earth had been thrown up +and a grave had been dug, Michael told Sophie to go with her father and +stand beside them. She did so, and dull, grieving eyes were turned to +her; glances of pitiful sympathy. But Snow-Shoes came towards the little +crowd beside the tree, singing. + +He was the last person to come into the cemetery, and everybody stared +at him. An old man in worn white moleskins and cotton shirt, an old +white felt hat on his head, the wrappings of bag and leather, which gave +him his name, on his feet--although snow never fell on the Ridge--he +swung towards them. The flowers he had gathered as he came along, not +otilypaper daisies, but the blue flowers of crowsfoot, gold buttons, and +creamy and lavender, sweet-scented budda blossoms, were done up in a +tight little bunch in his hand. He drew nearer still singing under his +breath, and Sophie realised he was going over and over the fragment of a +song that her mother had loved and used often to sing herself. + +There was a curious smile in his eyes as he came to a standstill beside +her. The leaves of the coolebah were bronze and gold in the sunshine, a +white-tail in its branches reiterating plaintively: "Sweet pretty +creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael, George Woods, Archie Cross, +and Cash Wilson, came towards the tree, their shoulders bowed beneath +the burden they were carrying; but Snow-Shoes smiled at everybody as +though this were really a joyous occasion, and they did not understand. +Only he understood, and smiled because of his secret knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +In a week or two Mrs. Rouminof's name had dropped out of Ridge life +almost as if she had never been part of it. + +At first people talked of her, of Paul, of Sophie, and of Michael. They +gossiped of her looks and manner, of her strange air of serenity and +content, although her life on the Ridge was, they surmised, a hard one, +and different from the life she had come from. But her death caused no +more disturbance than a stone thrown into quiet water, falling to the +bottom, does. No one was surprised, when it was known Paul and Sophie +had gone to live with Michael. Everyone expected Michael would try to +look after them for a while, although they could not imagine where he +was going to find room for them in his small house filled with books. + +It was natural enough that Michael should have taken charge of Sophie +and Rouminof, and that he should have made all arrangements for Mrs. +Rouminof's funeral. If it had been left to Paul to bury his wife, people +agreed, she would not have been buried at all; or, at least, not until +the community insisted. And Michael would have done as much for any +shiftless man. He was next-of-kin to all lonely and helpless men and +women on the Ridge, Michael Brady. + +Every man, woman, or child on the Ridge knew Michael. His lean figure in +shabby blue dungarees, faded shirt, and weathered felt hat, with no more +than a few threads of its band left, was as familiar as any tree, shed, +or dump on the fields. He walked with a slight stoop, a pipe in his +mouth always, his head bent as though he were thinking hard; but there +was no hard thought in his eyes, only meditativeness, and a faint smile +if he were stopped and spoken to unexpectedly. + +"You're a regular 'cyclopaedia, Michael," the men said sometimes when he, +had given information on a subject they were discussing. + +"Not me," Michael would reply as often as not. "I just came across that +in a book I was reading the other day." + +Ridge folk were proud of Michael's books, and strangers who saw his +miscellaneous collection--mostly of cheap editions, old school books, +and shilling, sixpenny, and penny publications of literary masterpieces, +poetry, and works on industrial and religious subjects--did not wonder +that it impressed Ridge folk, or that Michael's knowledge of the world +and affairs was what it was. He had tracts, leaflets, and small books on +almost every subject under the sun. Books were regarded as his Weakness, +and, remembering it, some of the men, when they had struck opal and left +the town, occasionally sent a box of any old books they happened to come +across to Michael, knowing that a printed page was a printed page to him +in the long evenings when he lay on the sofa under his window. Michael +himself had spent all the money he could, after satisfying the needs of +his everyday life, on those tracts, pamphlets, and cheap books he +hoarded in his hut on shelves made from wooden boxes and old +fruit-cases. + +But there was nothing of the schoolmaster about him. He rarely gave +information unless he was asked for it. The men appreciated that, +although they were proud of his erudition and books. They knew dimly but +surely that Michael used his books for, not against, themselves; and he +was attached to books and learning, chiefly for what they could do for +them, his mates. In all community discussions his opinion carried +considerable weight. A matter was often talked over with more or less +heat, differences of opinion thrashed out while Michael smoked and +listened, weighing the arguments. He rarely spoke until his view was +asked for. Then in a couple of minutes he would straighten out the +subject of controversy, show what was to be said for and against a +proposition, sum up, and give his conclusions, for or against it. + +Michael Brady, however, was much more the general utility man than +encyclopaedia of Fallen Star Ridge. If a traveller--swagman--died on the +road, it was Michael who saw he got a decent burial; Michael who was +sent for if a man had his head smashed in a brawl, or a wife died +unexpectedly. He was the court of final appeal in quarrels and +disagreements between mates; and once when Martha M'Cready was away in +Sydney, he had even brought a baby into the world. He was something of a +dentist, too, honorary dentist to anyone on the Ridge who wanted a tooth +pulled out; and the friend of any man, woman, or child in distress. + +And he did things so quietly, so much as a matter of course, that people +did not notice what he did for them, or for the rest of the Ridge. They +took it for granted he liked doing what he did; that he liked helping +them. It was his sympathy, the sense of his oneness with all their +lives, and his shy, whimsical humour and innate refusal to be anything +more than they were, despite his books and the wisdom with which they +were quite willing to credit him, that gained for Michael the regard of +the people of the Ridge, and made him the unconscious power he was in +the community. + +Of about middle height, and sparely built, Michael was forty-five, or +thereabouts, when Mrs. Rouminof died. He looked older, yet had the +vigour and energy of a much younger man. Crowsfeet had gathered at the +corners of his eyes, and there were the fines beneath them which all +back-country men have from screwing their sight against the brilliant +sunshine of the north-west. But the white of his eyes was as clear as +the shell of a bird's egg, the irises grey, flecked with hazel and +green, luminous, and ringed with fine black lines. When he pushed back +his hat, half a dozen lines from frowning against the glare were on his +forehead too. His thin, black hair, streaked with grey, lay flat across +and close to his head. He had a well-shaped nose and the sensitive +nostrils of a thoroughbred, although Michael himself said he was no +breed to speak of, but plain Australian--and proud of it. His father was +born in the country, and so was his mother. His father had been a +teemster, and his mother a storekeeper's daughter. Michael had wandered +from one mining field to another in his young days. He had worked in +Bendigo and Gippsland; later in Silver Town; and from the Barrier Ranges +had migrated to Chalk Cliffs, and from the Cliffs to Fallen Star Ridge. +He had been one of the first comers to the Ridge when opal was +discovered there. + +The Rouminofs had been on Chalk Cliffs too, and had come to the Ridge in +the early days of the rush. Paul had set up at the Cliffs as an opal +buyer, it was said; but he knew very little about opal. Anybody could +sell him a stone for twice as much as it was worth, and he could never +get a price from other buyers for the stones he bought. He soon lost any +money he possessed, and had drifted and swung with the careless life of +the place. He had worked as a gouger for a while when the blocks were +bought up. Then when the rush to the Ridge started, and most of the men +tramped north to try their luck on the new fields, he went with them; +and Mrs. Rouminof and Sophie followed a little later on Ed. Ventry's +bullock wagon, when Ed. was taking stores to the rush. + +Mrs. Rouminof had lived in a hut at the Old Town even after the township +was moved to the eastern slope of the Ridge. She had learnt a good deal +about opal on the Cliffs, and soon after she came to the Ridge set up a +cutting-wheel, and started cutting and polishing stones. Several of the +men brought her their stones, and after a while she was so good at her +work that she often added a couple of pounds to the value of a stone. +She kept a few goats too, to assure a means of livelihood when there was +no opal about, and she sold goats' milk and butter in the township. She +had never depended on Rouminof to earn a living, which was just as well, +Fallen Star folk agreed, since, as long as they had known him, he had +never done so. For a long time he had drifted between the mines and +Newton's, cadging drinks or borrowing money from anybody who would lend +to him. Sometimes he did odd jobs at Newton's or the mail stables for +the price of a few drinks; but no man who knew him would take up a +claim, or try working a mine with him. + +His first mate on the Ridge had been Pony-Fence Inglewood. They sank a +hole on a likely spot behind the Old Town; but Paul soon got tired of +it. When they had not seen anything but bony potch for a while, Paul +made up his mind there was nothing in the place. Pony-Fence rather liked +it. He was for working a little longer, but to oblige his mate he agreed +to sink again. Soon after they had started, Paul began to appear at the +dump when the morning was half through, or not at all. Or, as often as +not, when he did decide to sling a pick, or dig a bit, he groaned so +about the pains in his back or his head that as often as not Pony-Fence +told him to go home and get the missus to give him something for it. + +The mildest man on the fields, Pony-Fence Inglewood did not discover for +some time what the boys said was correct. There was nothing the matter +with Rum-Enough but a dislike of shifting mullock if he could get anyone +to shift it for him. When he did discover he was doing the work of the +firm, Pony-Fence and Paul had it out with each other, and parted +company. Pony-Fence took a new mate, Bully Bryant, a youngster from +Budda, who was anxious to put any amount of elbow grease into his search +for a fortune, and Paul drifted. He had several mates afterwards, +newcomers to the fields, who wanted someone to work with them, but they +were all of the same opinion about him. + +"Tell Rum-Enough there's a bit of colour about, and he'll work like a +chow," they said; "but if y' don't see anything for a day or two, he +goes as flat as the day before yesterday." + +If he had been working, and happened on a knobby, or a bit of black +potch with a light or two in it, Paul was like a child, crazy with +happiness. He could talk of nothing else. He thought of nothing else. He +slung his pick and shovelled dirt as long as you would let him, with a +devouring impatience, in a frenzy of eagerness. The smallest piece of +stone with no more than sun-flash was sufficient to put him in a state +of frantic excitement. + +Strangers to the Ridge sometimes wanted to know whether Rouminof had +ever had a touch of the sun. But Ridge folk knew he was not mad. He had +the opal fever all right, they said, but he was not mad. + +When Jun Johnson blew along at the end of one summer and could not get +anyone to work with him, he took Paul on. The two chummed up and started +to sink a hole together, and the men made bets as to the chance of their +ever getting ten or a dozen feet below ground; but before long they were +astounded to see the old saw of setting a thief to catch a thief working +true in this instance. If anybody was loafing on the new claim, it was +not Rouminof. He did every bit of his share of the first day's hard pick +work and shovelling. If anybody was slacking, it was Jun rather than +Paul. Jun kept his mate's nose to the grindstone, and worked more +successfully with him than anyone else had ever done. He knew it, too, +and was proud of his achievement. Joking over it at Newton's in the +evening, he would say: + +"Great mate I've got now! Work? Never saw a chow work like him! Work his +fingers to the bone, he would, if I'd let him. It's a great life, a +gouger's, if only you've got the right sort of mate!" + +Ordinarily, of course, mates shared their finds. There was no question +of what partners would get out of the luck of one or the other. But +Jun--he had his own little way of doing business, everybody knew. He had +been on the Ridge before. He and his mate did not have any sensational +luck, but they had saved up two or three packets of opal and taken them +down to Sydney to sell. Old Bill Olsen was his mate then, and, although +Bill had said nothing of the business, the men guessed there had been +something shady about it. Jun had his own story of what happened. He +said the old chap had "got on his ear" in Sydney, and that "a couple of +spielers had rooked him of his stones." But Bill no longer noticed Jun +if they passed each other on the same track on the Ridge, and Jun +pretended to be sore about it. + +"It's dirt," he said, "the old boy treating me as if I had anything to +do with his bad luck losin' those stones!" + +"Why don't you speak to him about it?" somebody asked. + +"Oh, we had it out in Sydney," Jun replied, "and it's no good raking the +whole thing up again. Begones is bygones--that's my motto. But if any +man wants to have a grudge against me, well, let him. It's a free +country. That's all I've got to say. Besides, the poor old cuss isn't +all there, perhaps." + +"Don't you fret," Michael had said, "he's all right. He's got as much +there as you or me, or any of us for that matter." + +"Oh well, you know, Michael," Jun declared. He was not going to quarrel +with Michael Brady. "What you say goes, anyhow!" + +That was how Jun established himself anywhere. He had an easy, +plausible, good-natured way. All the men laughed and drank with him and +gave him grudging admiration, notwithstanding the threads and shreds of +resentments and distrusts which old stories of his dealings, even with +mates, had put in their minds. None of those stories had been proved +against him, his friends said, Charley Heathfield among them. That was a +fact. But there were too many of them to be good for any man's soul, +Ridge men, who took Jun with a grain of salt, thought--Michael Brady, +George Woods, Archie Cross, and Watty Frost among them; but Charley +Heathfield, Michael's mate, had struck up a friendship with Jun since +his return to the Ridge. + +George Woods and the Crosses said it was a case of birds of a feather, +but they did not say that to Michael. They knew Michael had the sort of +affection for Charley that a man has for a dog he has saved from +drowning. + +Charley Heathfield had been down on his luck when he went to the Ridge, +his wife and a small boy with him; and the rush which he had expected to +bring him a couple of hundred pounds' worth of opal at least, if it did +not make his fortune, had left him worse off than it found him--a piece +of debris in its wake. He and Rouminof had put down a shaft together, +and as neither of them, after the first few weeks, did any more work +than they could help, and were drunk or quarrelling half of their time, +nothing came of their efforts. + +Charley, when his wife died, was ill himself, and living in a hut a few +yards from Michael's. She had been a waitress in a city restaurant, and +he had married her, he said, because she could carry ten dishes of hot +soup on one arm and four trays on the other. A tall, stolid, pale-faced +woman, she had hated the back-country and her husband's sense of humour, +and had fretted herself to death rather than endure them. Charley had no +particular opinion of himself or of her. He called his youngster +Potch--"a little bit of Potch," he said, because the kid would never be +anything better than poor opal at the best of times. + +Michael had nursed Charley while he was ill during that winter, and had +taken him in hand when he was well enough to get about again. Charley +was supposed to have weak lungs; but better food, steady habits, and the +fine, dry air of a mild summer set him up wonderfully. Snow-Shoes had +worked with Michael for a long time; he said that he was getting too old +for the everyday toil of the mine, though, when Michael talked of taking +on Charley to work with them. It would suit him all right if Michael +found another mate. Michael and Charley Heathfield had worked together +ever since, and Snow-Shoes had made his living as far as anybody knew by +noodling on the dumps. + +But Charley and Michael had not come on a glimmer of opal worth speaking +of for nearly twelve months. They were hanging on to their claim, hoping +each day they would strike something good. There is a superstition among +the miners that luck often changes when it seems at its worst. Both +Charley and Michael had storekeeper's accounts as long as their arms, +and the men knew if their luck did not change soon, one or the other of +them would have to go over to Warria, or to one of the other stations, +and earn enough money there to keep the other going on the claim. + +They had no doubt it would be Michael who would have to go. Charley was +not fond of work, and would be able to loaf away his time very +pleasantly on the mine, making only a pretence of doing anything, until +Michael returned. They wondered why Michael did not go and get a move +into his affairs at once. Paul and Sophie might have-something to do +with his putting off going, they told each other; Michael was anxious +how Paul and his luck would fare when it was a question of squaring up +with Jun, and as to how the squaring up, when it came, would affect +Sophie. + +Some of them had been concerning themselves on Paul's account also. They +did not like a good deal they had seen of the way Jun was using Paul, +and they had resolved to see he got fair play when it was time for a +settlement of his and Jun's account. George Woods, Watty Frost, and Bill +Grant went along to talk the matter over with Michael one evening, and +found him fixing a shed at the back of the hut which he and Potch had +put up for Sophie and her father, a few yards from Charley Heathfield's, +and in line with Michael's own hut at the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"Paul says he's going away if he gets a good thing out of his and Jun's +find," George Woods said. + +"It'll be a good thing--if he gets a fair deal," Michael replied. + +"He'll get that--if we can fix it," Watty Frost said. + +"Yes," Michael agreed. + +"Can't think why you're taking so much trouble with this place if Paul +and Sophie are going away soon, Michael," George Woods remarked at the +end of their talk. + +"They're not gone yet," Michael said, and went on fastening a sapling +across the brushwood he had laid over the roof of the shed. + +The men laughed. They knew Paul well enough to realise that there was no +betting on what he would or would not do. They understood Michael did +not approve of his plans for Sophie. Nobody did. But what was to be +done? If Paul had the money and got the notion into his head that it +would be a good thing to go away, Sophie and he would probably go away. +But the money would not last, people thought; then Sophie and her father +would come back to the Ridge again, or Michael would go to look for +them. Being set adrift on the world with no one to look after her would +be hard on Sophie, it was agreed, but nobody saw how Rouminof was to be +prevented from taking her away if he wanted to. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The unwritten law of the Ridge was that mates pooled all the opal they +found and shared equally, so that all Jun held was Rouminof's, and all +that he held was Jun's. Ordinarily one man kept the lot, and as Jun was +the better dealer and master spirit, it was natural enough he should +hold the stones, or, at any rate, the best of them. But Rouminof was +like a child with opal. He wanted some of the stones to handle, polish +up a bit, and show round. Jun humoured him a good deal. He gave Paul a +packet of the stuff they had won to carry round himself. He was better +tempered and more easy-going with Rouminof, the men admitted, than most +of them would have been; but they could not believe Jun was going to +deal squarely by him. + +Jun and his mate seemed on the best of terms. Paul followed him about +like a dog, referring to him, quoting him, and taking his word for +everything. And Jun was openly genial with Paul, and talked of the times +they were going to have when they went down to Sydney together to sell +their opal. + +Paul was never tired of showing his stones, and almost every night at +Newton's he spread them out on a table, looked them over, and held them +up to admiration. It was good stuff, but the men who had seen Jun's +package knew that he had kept the best stones. + +For a couple of weeks after they had come on their nest of knobbies, Jun +and Paul had gouged and shovelled dirt enthusiastically; but the wisp +fires, mysteriously and suddenly as they had come, had died out of the +stone they moved. Paul searched frantically. He and Jun worked like +bullocks; but the luck which had flashed on them was withdrawn. Although +they broke new tunnels, went through tons of opal dirt with their hands, +and tracked every trace of black potch through a reef of cement stone in +the mine, not a spark of blue or green light had they seen for over a +week. That was the way of black opal, everybody knew, and knew, too, +that the men who had been on a good patch of fired stone would not work +on a claim, shovelling dirt, long after it disappeared. They would be +off down to Sydney, if no buyer was due to visit the fields, eager to +make the most of the good time their luck and the opal would bring them. +"Opal only brings you bad luck when you don't get enough of it," Ridge +folk say. + +George and Watty had a notion Jun would not stick to the claim much +longer, when they arranged the night at Newton's to settle his and +Paul's account with each other. Michael, the Crosses, Cash Wilson, +Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Bully Bryant, old Bill Olsen, and most +of the staunch Ridge men were in the bar, Charley Heathfield drinking +with Jun, when George Woods strolled over to the table where Rouminof +was showing Sam Nancarrow his stones. Sam was blacksmith, undertaker, +and electoral registrar in Fallen Star, and occasionally did odd +butchering jobs when there was no butcher in the township. He had the +reputation, too, of being one of the best judges of black opal on the +fields. + +Paul was holding up a good-looking knobby so that red, green, and gold +lights glittered through its shining potch as he moved it. + +"That's a nice bit of stone you've got, Rummy!" George exclaimed. + +Paul agreed. "But you should see her by candle light, George!" he said +eagerly. + +He held up the stone again so that it caught the light of a lamp hanging +over the bar where Peter Newton was standing. The eyes of two or three +of the men followed the stone as Paul moved it, and its internal fires +broke in showers of sparks. + +"Look, look!" Paul cried, "now she's showin'!" + +"How much have you got on her?" Sam Nancarrow asked. + +"Jun thinks she'll bring L50 or L60 at least." + +Sam's and George Woods' eyes met: L50 was a liberal estimate of the +stone's value. If Paul got L10 or L15 for it he would be doing well, +they knew. + +"They're nice stones, aren't they?" Paul demanded, sorting over the +opals he had spread out on the table. He held up a piece of green potch +with a sun-flash through it. + +"My oath!" George Woods exclaimed. + +"But where's the big beaut.?" Archie Cross asked, looking over the +stones with George. + +"Oh, Jun's got her," Paul replied. "Jun!" he called, "the boys want to +see the big stone." + +"Right!" Jun swung across to the table. Several of the men by the bar +followed him. "She's all right," he said. + +He sat down, pulled a shabby leather wallet from his pocket, opened it, +and took out a roll of dirty flannel; he undid the flannel carefully, +and spread the stones on the table. There were several pieces of opal in +the packet. The men, who had seen them before separately, uttered soft +oaths of admiration and surprise when they saw all the opals together. +Two knobbies were as big as almonds, and looked like black almonds, +fossilised, with red fire glinting through their green and gold; a large +flat stone had stars of red, green, amethyst, blue and gold shifting +over and melting into each other; and several smaller stones, all good +stuff, showed smouldering fire in depths of green and blue and gold-lit +darkness. + +Jun held the biggest of the opals at arm's length from the light of the +hanging lamp. The men followed his movement, the light washing their +faces as it did the stone. + +"There she goes!" Paul breathed. + +"What have you got on her?" + +"A hundred pounds, or thereabouts." + +"You'll get it easy!" + +Jun put the stone down. He took up another, a smaller piece of opal, of +even finer quality. The stars were strewn over and over each other in +its limpid black pool. + +"Nice pattern," he said. + +"Yes," Watty Frost murmured. + +"She's not as big as the other ... but better pattern," Archie Cross +said. + +"Reckon you'll get L100 for her too, Jun?" + +"Yup!" Jun put down the stone. + +Then he held up each stone in turn, and the men gave it the same level, +appraising glance. There was no envy in their admiration. In every man's +eyes was the same worshipful appreciation of black opal. + +Jun was drunk with his luck. His luck, as much as Newton's beer, was in +his head this night. He had shown his stones before, but never like +this, the strength of his luck. + +"How much do you think there is in your packet, Jun?" Archie Cross +asked. + +Jun stretched his legs under the table. + +"A thou' if there's a penny." + +Archie whistled. + +"And how much do you reckon there is in Rum-Enough's?" George Woods put +the question. + +"Four or five hundred," Jun said; "but we're evens, of course." + +He leaned across the table and winked at George. + +"Oh, I say," Archie protested, "what's the game?" + +They knew Jun wanted them to believe he was joking, humouring Paul. But +that was not what they had arranged this party for. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones, Jun?" + +"What?" + +Jun started and stared about him. It was so unusual for one man to +suggest to another what he ought to do, or that there was anything like +bad faith in his dealings with his mates, that his blood rose. + +"Why not let Rum-Enough mind a few of the good stones?" George repeated, +mildly eyeing him over the bowl of his pipe. + +"Yes," Watty butted in, "Rummy ought to hold a few of the good stones, +Jun. Y' see, you might be run into by rats ... or get knocked out--and +have them shook off you, like Oily did down in Sydney--and it'd be hard +on Rummy, that--" + +"When I want your advice about how me and my mate's going to work +things, I'll ask you," Jun snarled. + +"We don't mind giving it before we're asked, Jun," Watty explained +amiably. + +Archie Cross leaned across the table. "How about giving Paul a couple of +those bits of decent pattern--if you stick to the big stone?" he said. + +"What's the game?" Jun demanded, sitting up angrily. His hand went over +his stones. + +"Wait on, Jun!" Michael said. "We're not thieves here. You don't have to +grab y'r stones." + +Jun looked about him. He saw that men of the Ridge, in the bar, were all +standing round the table. Only Peter Newton was left beside the bar, +although Charley Heathfield, on the outer edge of the crowd, regarded +him with a smile of faint sympathy and cynicism. Paul leaned over the +table before him, and looked from Jun to the men who had fallen in round +the table, a dazed expression broadening on his face. + +"What the hell's the matter?" Jun cried, starting to his feet. "What are +you chaps after? Can't I manage me own affairs and me mate's?" + +The crowd moved a little, closer to him. There was no chance of making a +break for it. + +George Woods laughed. + +"Course you can't, Jun!" he said. "Not on the Ridge, you can't manage +your affairs and your mate's ... your way ... Not without a little +helpful advice from the rest of us.... Sit down!" + +Jun glanced about him again; then, realising the intention on every +face, and something of the purpose at the back of it, he sat down again. + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I see--you believe old Olsen's +story. That's about the strength of it. Never thought ... a kid, or a +chicken, 'd believe that bloody yarn. Well, what's the advice ... boys? +Let's have it, and be done with it!" + +"We'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. We won't say anything about ... +why," George remarked. "But the boys and I was just thinking it might be +as well if you and Rum-Enough sort of shared up the goods now, and then +... if he doesn't want to go to Sydney same time as you, Jun, he can +deal his goods here, or when he does go." + +No one knew better than Jun the insult which all this seemingly +good-natured talking covered. He knew that neither he, nor any other +man, would have dared to suggest that Watty, or George, or Michael, were +not to be trusted to deal for their mates, to the death even. But then +he knew, too, they were to be trusted; that there was not money enough +in the world to buy their loyalty to each other and to their mates, and +that he could measure their suspicion of his good faith by his knowledge +of himself. To play their game as they would have played it was the only +thing for him to do, he recognised. + +"Right!" he said, "I'm more than willing. In fact, I wouldn't have the +thing on me mind--seein' the way you chaps 've taken it. But 'd like to +know which one of you wouldn't 've done what I've done if Rum-Enough was +your mate?" + +Every man was uneasily conscious that Jun was right. Any one of them, if +he had Paul for a mate, would have taken charge of the most valuable +stones, in Paul's interest as well as his own. At the same time, every +man felt pretty sure the thing was a horse of another colour where Jun +was concerned. + +"Which one of us," George Woods inquired, "if a mate'd been set on by a +spieler in Sydney, would've let him stump his way to Brinarra and foot +it out here ... like you let old Olsen?" + +Jun's expression changed; his features blenched, then a flame of blood +rushed over his face. + +"It's a lie," he yelled. "He cleared out--I never saw him afterwards!" + +"Oh well," George said, "we'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. Let's have a +look at that flat stone." + +Jun handed him the stone. + +George held it to the light. + +"Nice bit of opal," he said, letting the light play over it a moment, +then passed it on to Michael and Watty. + +"You keep the big stone, and Paul'll have this," Archie Cross said. + +He put the stone beside Paul's' little heap of gems. + +Jun sat back in his chair: his eyes smouldering as the men went over his +opals, appraising and allotting each one, putting some before Rouminof, +and some back before him. They dealt as judicially with the stones as +though they were a jury of experts, on the case--as they really were. +When their decisions were made, Jun had still rather the better of the +stones, although the division had been as nearly fair as possible. + +Paul was too dazed and amazed to speak. He glanced dubiously from his +stones to Jun, who rolled his opals back in the strip of dirty flannel, +folded it into his leather wallet, and dropped that into his coat +pocket. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. + +Big and swarthy, with eyes which took a deeper colour from the new blue +shirt he had on, Jun stood an inch or so above the other men. + +"Well," he said, "you boys have put it across me to-night. You've made a +mistake ... but I'm not one to bear malice. You done right if you +thought I wasn't going to deal square by Rum-Enough ... but I'll lay you +any money you like I'd 've made more money for him by selling his stones +than he'll make himself--Still, that's your business ... if you want it +that way. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm just where I was--in luck. +And you chaps owe me something.... Come and have a drink." + +Most of the men, who believed Jun was behaving with better grace than +they had expected him to, moved off to have a drink with him. They were +less sure than they had been earlier in the evening that they had done +Rouminof a good turn by giving him possession of his share of the opals. +It was just on the cards, they realised as Jun said, that instead of +doing Rouminof a good turn, if Jun had been going to deal squarely by +him, they had done him a rather bad one. Paul was pretty certain to make +a mess of trading his own stones, and to get about half their value from +an opal-buyer if he insisted on taking them down to Sydney to sell +himself. + +"What'll you do now your fortune's fixed up, Rummy?" George Woods asked, +jokingly, when he and two or three men were left with Paul by the table. + +"I'll get out of this," Paul said. "We'll go down to Sydney--me and +Sophie--and we'll say good-bye to the Ridge for good." + +The men laughed. It was the old song of an outsider who cared nothing +for the life of the Ridge, when he got a couple of hundred pounds' worth +of opal. He thought he was made for life and would never come back to +the Ridge; but he always did when his money was spent. Only Michael, +standing a little behind George Woods, did not smile. + +"But you can't live for ever on three or four hundred quid," Watty Frost +said. + +"No," Paul replied eagerly, "but I can always make a bit playing at +dances, and Sophie's going to be a singer. You wait till people hear her +sing.... Her mother was a singer. She had a beautiful voice. When it +went we came here.... But Sophie can sing as well as her mother. And +she's young. She ought to make a name for herself." + +He wrapped the stones before him in a piece of wadding, touching them +reverently, and folded them into the tin cigarette box Michael had given +him to carry about the first stones Jun had let him have. He was still +mystified over the business of the evening, and why the boys had made +Jun give him the other stones. He had been quite satisfied for Jun to +hold most of the stones, and the best ones, as any man on the Ridge +would be for his mate to take care of their common property. There was a +newspaper lying on the table. He took it, wrapped it carefully about his +precious box, tied a piece of strong string round it, and let the box +down carefully into the big, loose pocket of his shabby coat. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Watty and George were well satisfied with their night's work when they +went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said +nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as they were at +what had been done and the way in which it had been done. Michael was +always chary of words, and all night they had noticed that what they +called his "considering cap" had been well drawn over his brows. He +stood smoking beside them and listening abstractedly to what they were +saying. + +"Well, that's fixed him," Watty remarked, glancing back into the room +they had just left. + +Jun was leaning over the bar talking to Newton, the light from the lamp +above, on his red, handsome face, and cutting the bulk of his head and +shoulders from the gloom of the room and the rest of the men about him. +Peter Newton was serving drinks, and Jun laughing and joking +boisterously as he handed them on to the men. + +"He's a clever devil!" George exclaimed. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +"Shouldn't wonder if he didn't clear out by the coach to-morrow," George +said. + +"Nor me," Watty grunted. + +"Well, he won't be taking Paul with him." + +"Not to-morrow." + +"No." + +"But Rummy's going down to town soon as he can get, he says." + +"Yes." + +"Say, Michael, why don't you try scarin' him about losing his stones +like Bill Olsen did?" + +"I have." + +"What does he say?" + +"Says," Michael smiled, "the sharks won't get any of his money or opal." + +Watty snuffed contemptuously by way of exclamation. + +"Well, I'll be getting along," Michael added, and talked away in the +direction of his hut. + +George and Watty watched his spare figure sway down the road between the +rows of huts which formed the Fallen Star township. It was a misty +moonlight night, and the huts stood dark against the sheening screen of +sky, with here and there a glow of light through open doorways, or +small, square window panes. + +"It's on Michael's mind, Rum-Enough's going and taking Sophie with him," +George, said. + +"I don't wonder," Watty replied. "He'll come a cropper, sure as eggs.... +And what's to become of her? Michael 'd go to town with them if he had a +bean--but he hasn't. He's stony, I know." + +Even to his mate he did not say why he knew, and George did not ask, +understanding Watty's silence. It was not very long since George himself +had given Michael a couple of pounds; but he had a very good idea +Michael had little to do with the use of that money. He guessed that he +would have less to do with whatever he got from Watty. + +"Charley's going over to Warria to-morrow, isn't he?" he asked. + +Watty grunted. "About time he did something. Michael's been grafting for +him for a couple of years ... and he'd have gone to the station +himself--only he didn't want to go away till he knew what Paul was going +to do. Been trying pretty hard to persuade him to leave Sophie--till +he's fixed up down town--but you wouldn't believe how obstinate the +idiot is. Thinks he can make a singer of her in no time ... then she'll +keep her old dad till kingdom come." + +Michael's figure was lost to sight between the trees which encroached on +the track beyond the town. Jun was singing in the hotel. His great +rollicking voice came to George and Watty with shouts of laughter. +George, looking back through the open door, saw Rouminof had joined the +crowd round the bar. + +He was drinking as George's glance fell on him. + +"Think he's all right?" Watty asked. + +George did not reply. + +"You don't suppose Jun 'd try to take the stones off of him, do you, +George?" Watty inquired again. "You don't think----?" + +"I don't suppose he'd dare, seein' we've ... let him know how we feel." + +George spoke slowly, as if he were not quite sure of what he was saying. + +"He knows his hide'd suffer if he tried." + +"That's right." + +Archie Cross came from the bar and joined them. + +"He's trying to make up to the boys--he likes people to think he's +Christmas, Jun," he said, "and he just wants 'em to forget that +anything's been said--detrimental to his character like." + +George was inclined to agree with Archie. They went to the form against +the wall of the hotel and sat there smoking for a while; then all three +got up to go home. + +"You don't think we ought to see Rummy home?" Watty inquired +hesitatingly. + +He was ashamed to suggest that Rouminof, drunk, and with four or five +hundred pounds' worth of opal in his pockets, was not as safe as if his +pockets were empty. But Jun had brought a curious unrest into the +community. Watty, or Archie, or George, themselves would have walked +about with the same stuff in their pockets without ever thinking anybody +might try to put a finger on it. + +None of the three looked at each other as they thought over the +proposition. Then Archie spoke: + +"I told Ted," he murmured apologetically, "to keep an eye on Rummy, as +he's coming home. If there's rats about, you never can tell what may +happen. We ain't discovered yet who put it over on Rummy and Jun on the +day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. So I just worded Ted to keep an eye on +the old fool. He comes our track most of the way ... And if he's tight, +he might start sheddin' his stones out along the road--you never can +tell." + +George Woods laughed. The big, genial soul of the man looked out of his +eyes. + +"That's true," he said heartily. + +Archie and he smiled into each other's eyes. They understood very well +what lay behind Archie's words; They could not bring themselves to admit +there was any danger to the sacred principle of Ridge life, that a mate +stands by a mate, in letting Rouminof wander home by himself. He might +be in danger if there were rats about; they would admit that. But rats, +the men who sneaked into other men's mines when they were on good stuff, +and took out their opal during the night, were never Ridge men. They +were new-comers, outsiders, strangers on the rushes, who had not learnt +or assimilated Ridge ideas. + +After a few minutes George turned away. "Well, good-night, Archie," he +said. + +Watty moved after him. + +"'Night!" Archie replied. + +George and Watty went along the road together, and Archie walked off in +the direction Michael had taken. + +But Michael had not gone home. When the trees screened him from sight, +he had struck out across the Ridge, then, turning back on his tracks +behind the town, had made towards the Warria road. He walked, thinking +hard, without noticing where he was going, his mind full of Paul, of +Sophie, and of his promise. + +Now that Paul had his opal, it was clear he would be able to do as he +wished--leave the Ridge and take Sophie with him. For the time being at +least he was out of Jun Johnson's hands--but Michael was sure he would +not stay out of them if he went to Sydney. How to prevent his +going--how, rather, to prevent Sophie going with him---that was +Michael's problem. He did not know what he was going to do. + +He had asked Sophie not to go with her father. He had told her what her +mother had said, and tried to explain to her why her mother had not +wanted her to go away from the Ridge, or to become a public singer. But +Sophie was as excited about her future as her father was. It was natural +she should be, Michael assured himself. She was young, and had heard +wonderful stories of Sydney and the world beyond the Ridge. Sydney was +like the town in a fairy tale to her. + +It was not to be expected, Michael confessed to himself, that Sophie +would choose to stay on Fallen Star Ridge. If she could only be +prevailed upon to put off her departure until she was older and better +able to take care of herself, he would be satisfied. If the worst came +to the worst, and she went to Sydney with her father soon, Michael had +decided to go with them. Peter Newton would give him a couple of pounds +for his books, he believed, and he would find something to do down in +Sydney. His roots were in the Ridge. Michael did not know how he was +going to live away from the mines; but anything seemed better than that +Sophie should be committed to what her mother had called "the +treacherous whirlpool" of life in a great city, with no one but her +father to look after her. + +And her mother had said: + +"Don't let him take her away, Michael." + +Michael believed that Marya Rouminof intended Sophie to choose for +herself whether she would stay on the Ridge or not, when she was old +enough. But now she was little more than a child, sixteen, nearly +seventeen, young for her years in some ways and old in others. Michael +knew her mother had wanted Sophie to grow up on the Ridge and to realise +that all the potentialities of real and deep happiness were there. + +"They say there's got to be a scapegoat in every family, Michael," she +had said once. "Someone has to pay for the happiness of the others. If +all that led to my coming here will mean happiness for Sophie, it will +not have been in vain." + +"That's where you're wrong," Michael had told her. + +"Looking for justice--poetic justice, isn't it, they call it?--in the +working out of things. There isn't any of this poetic justice except by +accident. The natural laws just go rolling on--laying us out under them. +All we can do is set our lives as far as possible in accordance with +them and stand by the consequences as well as we know how." + +"Of course, you're right," she had sighed, "but----" + +It was for that "but" Michael was fighting now. He knew what lay beyond +it--a yearning for her child to fare a little better in the battle of +life than she had. Striding almost unconsciously over the loose, shingly +ground, Michael was not aware what direction his steps were taking until +he saw glimmering white shapes above the grass and herbage of the +plains, and realised that he had walked to the gates of the cemetery. + +With an uncomfortable sense of broken faith, he turned away from the +gate, unable to go in and sit under the tree there, to smoke and think, +as he sometimes did. He had used every argument with Paul to prevent his +taking Sophie away, he knew; but for the first time since Michael and he +had been acquainted with each other, Paul had shown a steady will. He +made up his mind he was "going to shake the dust of the Ridge off his +feet," he said. And that was the end of it. Michael almost wished the +men had let Jun clear out with his stones. That would have settled the +business. But, his instinct of an opal-miner asserting itself, he was +unable to wish Paul the loss of his luck, and Jun what he would have to +be to deprive Paul of it. He walked on chewing the cud of bitter and +troubled reflections. + +"Don't let him take her away!" a voice seemed to cry suddenly after him. + +Michael stopped; he snatched the hat from his head. + +"No!" he said, "he shan't take her away!" + +Startled by the sound of his own voice, the intensity of thinking which +had wrung it from him, dazed by the sudden strength of resolution which +had come over him, he stood, his face turned to the sky. The stars +rained their soft light over him. As he looked up to them, his soul went +from him by force of will. How long he stood like that, he did not know; +but when his eyes found the earth again he looked about him wonderingly. +After a little while he put on his hat and turned away. All the pain and +trouble were taken from his thinking; he was strangely soothed and +comforted. He went back along the road to the town, and, skirting the +trees and the houses on the far side, came again to the track below +Newton's. + +Lights were still shining in the hotel although it was well after +midnight. Michael could hear voices in the clear air. A man was singing +one of Jun's choruses as he went down the road towards the Punti Rush. +Michael kept on his way. He was still wondering what he could do to +prevent Paul taking Sophie away; but he was no longer worried about +it--his brain was calm and clear; his step lighter than it had been for +a long time. + +He heard the voices laughing and calling to each other as he walked on. + +"Old Ted!" he commented to himself, recognising Ted Cross's voice. "He's +blithered!" + +When he came to a fork in the tracks where one went off in the direction +of his, Charley's, and Rouminof's huts, and the other towards the +Crosses', Michael saw Ted Cross lumbering along in the direction of his +own hut. + +"Must 've been saying good-night to Charley and Paul," he thought. A +little farther along the path he saw Charley and Paul, unsteady shadows +ahead of him in the moonlight, and Charley had his arm under Paul's, +helping him home. + +"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he +loved. + +He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, +Charley's even and clear. + +"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. +He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, +and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening. + +Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his +steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's +hand--something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box +wrapped in newspaper, it might have been--and Michael saw Charley drop +it into the pocket of his coat. + +Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep +there on the roadside; but Charley led him on. + +"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there +now." + +Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the +shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back +along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. +He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his +brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had +stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, +notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, +Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened. + +The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood +only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track. + +Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. +He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a +second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would +discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then +Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared. + +When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, +keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his +boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles +beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move +on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood +beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared +pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was +sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer +on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as +if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The +wall creaked as Michael leaned against it. + +"Who's there?" Charley cried sharply. + +He threw a blanket over the box on the bed and started to the door. + +Michael moved round the corner of the house. He heard Potch call +sleepily: + +"That you?" + +Charley growled; + +"Oh, go to sleep, can't you? Aren't you asleep yet?" + +Potch murmured, and there was silence again. + +Michael heard Charley go to the door, look out along the road, and turn +back into the hut. Then Michael moved along the wall to the window. + +Charley was taking down some clothes hanging from nails along the inner +wall. He changed from the clothes he had on into them, picked up his +hat, lying where he had thrown it on the floor beside the bed when he +came in, rolled it up, straightened the brim and dinged the crown to his +liking. Then he picked up the packet of opal, put it in his coat pocket, +and went into the other room. Michael followed to the window which gave +on it. He saw Charley glance at the sofa as though he were contemplating +a stretch, but, thinking better of it, he settled into an easy, +bag-bottomed old chair by the table, pulled a newspaper to him, and +began to read by the guttering light of his candle. + +Michael guessed why Charley had dressed, and why he had chosen to sit +and read rather than go to sleep. It was nearly morning, the first chill +of dawn in the air. The coach left at seven o'clock, and Charley meant +to catch the coach. He had no intention of going to Warria. Michael +began to get a bird's-eye view of the situation. He wondered whether +Charley had ever intended going to Warria. He realised Charley would go +off with the five pound note he had made him, Michael, get from Watty +Frost, as well as with Paul's opals. He began, to see clearly what that +would mean, too--Charley's getting away with Paul's opals. Paul would +not be able to take Sophie away.... + +In the branches of a shrub nearby, a white-tail was crying plaintively: +"Sweet pretty creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael remembered how +it had cried like that on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. + +Whether to go into the hut, tell Charley he knew what he had done, and +demand the return of the opals, or let him get away with them, Michael +had not decided, when Charley's hand went to his pocket, and, as it +closed over the package of opals, a smile of infantile satisfaction +flitted across his face. That smile, criminal in its treachery, enraged +Michael more than the deed itself. The candle Charley had been reading +by guttered out. He stumbled about the room looking for another. After a +while, as if he could not find one, he went back to his chair and +settled into it. The room fell into darkness, lit only by the dim pane +of the window by which Michael was standing. + +Michael's mind seethed with resentment and anger. The thing he had +prayed for, that his brain had ached over, had been arranged. Rouminof +would not be able to take Sophie away. But Michael was too good a Ridge +man not to detest Charley's breach of the good faith of the Ridge. +Charley had been accepted by men of the Ridge as one of themselves--at +least, Michael believed he had. + +George, Watty, the Crosses, and most of the other men would have +confessed to reservations where Charley Heathfield was concerned. But as +long as he had lived as a mate among them, they had been mates to him. +Michael did not want Rouminof to have his stones if having them meant +taking Sophie away, but he did not want him to lose them. He could not +allow Charley to get away with them, with that smile of infantile +satisfaction. If the men knew what he had done there would be little of +that smile left on his face when they had finished with him. Their +methods of dealing with rats were short and severe. And although he +deserved all he got from them, Michael was not able to decide to hand +Charley over to the justice of the men of the Ridge. + +As he hesitated, wondering what to do, the sound of heavy, regular +breathing came to him, and, looking through the window, he saw that +Charley had done the last thing he intended to do--he had fallen asleep +in his chair. + +In a vivid, circling flash, Michael's inspiration came to him. He went +across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the +black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a +bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin--a few +pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an +opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the +rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years--that was all. +Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to +the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had +kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer +in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He +wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he +blew out his candle and went out of doors again. + +He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley's hut. When he +reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether +Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and +regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. +He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was +sleeping. + +He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he +had done what he did. He knew only a sick fear possessed him that +Charley would wake and find him, Michael, barefooted, like a thief in +his house. But he was not a thief, he assured himself. It was not +thieving to take from a thief. + +Charley stirred uneasily. His arm went out; in the dim light Michael saw +it go over the pocket which held the packet of opal; his hand clutch at +it unconsciously. Sweating with fear and the nervous tension he was +under, Michael remained standing in the darkness. He waited, wondering +whether he would throw off Charley's hand and snatch the opal, or +whether he would stand till morning, hesitating, and wondering what to +do, and Charley would wake at last and find him there. He had decided to +wrench Charley's arm from the pocket, when Charley himself flung it out +with a sudden restless movement. + +In an instant, almost mechanically, Michael's hand went to the pocket. +He lifted the packet there and put his own in its place. + +The blood was booming in his ears when he turned to the door. A sense of +triumph unnerved him more than the execution of his inspiration. Charley +muttered and called out in his sleep as Michael passed through the +doorway. + +Then the stars were over him. Michael drew a deep breath of the night +air and crossed to his own hut, the package of opal under his coat. Just +as he was entering he drew back, vaguely alarmed. A movement light as +thistledown seemed to have caught his ear. He thought he had detected a +faint shifting of the shingle nearby. He glanced about with quick +apprehension, went back to Charley's hut, listened, and looked around; +but Charley was still sleeping. Michael walked back to his own hut. +There was no sight or sound of a living thing in the wan, misty +moonlight of the dawn, except the white-tail which was still crying from +a wilga near Charley's hut. + +The package under his coat felt very heavy and alive when he returned to +his own hut. Michael was disturbed by that faint sound he had heard, or +thought he had heard. He persuaded himself he had imagined it, that in +the overwrought state of his sensibilities the sound of his own breath, +and his step on the stones, had surprised and alarmed him. The tin of +opals burned against his body, seeming to scar the skin where it +pressed. Michael sickened at the thought of how what he had done might +look to anyone who had seen him. But he put the thought from him. It was +absurd. He had looked; there was no one about--nothing. He was allowing +his mind to play tricks with him. The success of what he had done made +him seem like a thief. But he was not a thief. The stones were +Rouminof's. He had taken them from Charley for him, and he would not +even look at them. He would keep them for Paul. + +If Charley got away without discovering the change of the packets, as he +probably would, in the early morning and in his excitement to catch the +coach, he would be considered the thief. Rouminof would accuse him; +Charley would know his own guilt. He would not dare to confess what he +had done, even when he found that his package of opal had been changed. +He would not know when it had been changed. He would not know whether it +had been changed, perhaps, before he took it from Rouminof. + +Charley might recognise the stones in that packet he had done up, +Michael realised; but he did not think so. Charley was not much of a +judge of opal. Michael did not think he would remember the few scraps of +sun-flash they had come on together, and Charley had never seen the +mascot he had put into the packet, with a remnant of feeling for the +memory of their working days together. + +Michael did not light the candle when he went into his hut again. He +threw himself down on the bed in his clothes; he knew that he would not +sleep as he lay there. His brain burned and whirled, turning over the +happenings of the night and their consequences, likely and unlikely. The +package of opal lay heavy in his pocket. He took it out and dropped it +into a box of books at the end of the room. + +He did not like what he had done, and yet he was glad he had done it. +When he could see more clearly, he was glad, too, that he had grasped +this opportunity to control circumstances. A reader and dreamer all his +days, he had begun to be doubtful of his own capacity for action. He +could think and plan, but he doubted whether he had strength of will to +carry out purposes he had dreamed a long time over. He was pleased, in +an odd, fierce way, that he had been able to do what he thought should +be done. + +"But I don't want them.... I don't want the cursed stones," he argued +with himself. "I'll give them to him--to Paul, as soon as I know what +ought to be done about Sophie. She's not old enough to go yet--to know +her own mind--what she wants to do. When she's older she can decide for +herself. That's what her mother meant. She didn't mean for always ... +only while she's a little girl. By and by, when she's a woman, Sophie +can decide for herself. Now, she's got to stay here ... that's what I +promised." + +"And Charley," he brooded. "He deserves all that's coming to him ... but +I couldn't give him away. The boys would half kill him if they got their +hands on to him. When will he find out? In the train, perhaps--or not +till he gets to Sydney.... He'll have my fiver, and the stones to go on +with--though they won't bring much. Still, they'll do to go on with.... +Paul'll be a raving lunatic when he knows ... but he can't go--he can't +take Sophie away." + +His brain surged over and over every phrase: his state of mind since he +had seen Charley and Paul on the road together; every argument he had +used with himself. He could not get away from the double sense of +disquiet and satisfaction. + +An hour or two later he heard Charley moving about, then rush off down +the track, sending the loose stones flying under his feet as he ran to +catch the coach. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Watty was winding dirt, standing by the windlass on the top of the dump +over his and his mates' mine, when he saw Paul coming along the track +from the New Town. Paul was breaking into a run at every few yards, and +calling out. Watty threw the mullock from his hide bucket as it came up, +and lowered it again. He wound up another bucket. The creak of the +windlass, and the fall of the stone and earth as he threw them over the +dump, drowned the sound of Rouminof's voice. As he came nearer, Watty +saw that he was gibbering with rage, and crying like a child. + +While he was still some distance away, Watty heard him sobbing and +calling out. + +He stopped work to listen as Paul came to the foot of Michael's dump. +Ted Cross, who was winding dirt on the top of Crosses' mine, stopped to +listen too. Old Olsen got up from where he lay noodling on Jun's and +Paul's claim, and went across to Paul. Snow-Shoes, stretched across the +slope near where Watty was standing, lifted his head, his turning of +earth with a little blunt stick arrested for the moment. + +"They've took me stones!... Took me stones!" Watty heard Paul cry to +Bill Olsen. And as he climbed the slope of Michael's dump he went on +crying: "Took me stones! Took me stones! Charley and Jun! Gone by the +coach! Michael!... They've gone by the coach and took me stones!" + +Over and over again he said the same thing in an incoherent wail and +howl. He went down the shaft of Michael's mine, and Ted Cross came +across from his dump to Watty. + +"Hear what he says, Watty?" he asked. + +"Yes," Watty replied. + +"It gets y'r wind----" + +"If it's true," Watty ventured slowly. + +"Seems to me it's true all right," Ted said. "Charley took him home last +night. I went along with them as far as the turn-off. Paul was a bit on +... and Archie asked me to keep an eye on him.... I was a bit on meself, +too ... but Charley came along with us--so I thought he'd be all +right.... Charley went off by the coach this morning.... Bill Olsen told +me.... And Michael was reck'ning on him goin' to Warria to-day, I know." + +"That's right!" + +"It'll be hard on Michael!" + +Watty's gesture, upward jerk of his chin, and gusty breath, denoted his +agreement on that score. + +Ted went back to his own claim, and Watty slid down the rope with his +next bucket to give his mates the news. It was nearly time to knock off +for the midday meal, and before long men from all the claims were +standing in groups hearing the story from Rouminof himself, or talking +it over together. + +Michael had come up from his mine soon after Paul had gone down to him. +The men had seen him go off down the track to the New Town, his head +bent. They thought they knew why. Michael would feel his mate's +dishonour as though it were his own. He would not be able to believe +that what Paul said was true. He would want to know from Peter Newton +himself if it was a fact that Charley had gone out on the coach with Jun +and two girls who had been at the hotel. + +Women were scarce on the opal fields, and the two girls who had come a +week before to help Mrs. Newton with the work of the hotel had been +having the time of their lives. Charley, Jun Johnson, and two or three +other men, had been shouting drinks for them from the time of their +arrival, and Mrs. Newton had made up her mind to send the girls back to +town by the next coach. Jun had appropriated the younger of the two, a +bright-eyed girl, and the elder, a full-bosomed, florid woman with +straw-coloured hair, had, as the boys said, "taken a fancy to Charley." + +Paul had already told his story once or twice when Cash Wilson, George, +and Watty, went across to where he was standing, with half a dozen of +the men about him. They were listening gravely and smoking over Paul's +recital. There had been ratting epidemics on the Ridge; but robbery of a +mate by a mate had never occurred before. It struck at the fundamental +principle of their life in common. There was no mistaking the grave, +rather than indignant view men of the Ridge took of what Charley had +done. The Ridge code affirmed simply that "a mate stands by a mate." The +men say: "You can't go back on a mate." By those two recognitions they +had run their settlement. Far from all the ordinary institutions of law +and order, they had lived and worked together without need of them, by +appreciation of their relationship to each other as mates and as a +fraternity of mates. No one, who had lived under and seemed to accept +the principle of mateship, had ever before done as Charley had done. + +"But Charley Heathfield was never one of us really," Ted Cross said. "He +was always an outsider." + +"That's right, Ted," George Woods replied. "We only stuck him on +Michael's account." + +Paul told George, Watty, and Cash the story he had been going over all +the morning--how he had gone home with Charley, how he remembered going +along the road with him, and then how he had wakened on the floor of his +own hut in the morning. Sophie was there. She was singing. He had +thought it was her mother. He had called her ... but Sophie had come to +him. And she had abused him. She had called him "a dirty, fat pig," and +told him to get out of the way because she wanted to sweep the floor. + +He sobbed uncontrollably. The men sympathised with him. They knew the +loss of opal came harder on Rouminof than it would have on the rest of +them, because he was so mad about the stuff. They condoned the +abandonment of his grief as natural enough in a foreigner, too; but +after a while it irked them. + +"Take a pull at y'rself, Rummy, can't you?" George Woods said irritably. +"What did Michael say?" + +"Michael?" Paul looked at him, his eyes streaming. + +George nodded. + +"He did not say," Paul replied. "He threw down his pick. He would not +work any more ... and then he went down to Newton's to ask about +Charley." + +Two or three of the men exchanged glances. That was the way they had +expected Michael to take the news. He would not have believed Paul's +story at first. They did not see Michael again that day. In the evening +Peter Newton told them how Michael had come to him, asking if it was +true Charley had gone on the coach with Jun Johnson and the girls. Peter +told Michael, he said, that Charley had gone on the coach, and that he +thought Rouminof's story looked black against Charley. + +"Michael didn't say much," Peter explained, "but I don't think he could +help seeing what I said was true--however much he didn't want to." + +Everybody knew Michael believed in Charley Heathfield. He had thought +the worst that could be said of Charley was that he was a good-natured, +rather shiftless fellow. All the men had responded to an odd attractive +faculty Charley exercised occasionally. He had played it like a woman +for Michael, and Michael had taken him on as a mate and worked with him +when no one else would. And now, the men guessed, that Michael, who had +done more than any of them to make the life of the Ridge what it was, +would feel more deeply and bitterly than any of them that Charley had +gone back on him and on what the Ridge stood for. + +All they imagined Michael was suffering in the grief and bitterness of +spirit which come of misplaced faith, he was suffering. But they could +not imagine the other considerations which had overshadowed grief and +bitterness, the realisation that Sophie's life had been saved from what +looked like early wreckage, and the consciousness that the consequences +of what Charley had done, had fallen, not on Charley, but on himself. +Michael had lived like a child, with an open heart at the disposal of +his mates always; and the sense of Charley's guilt descending on him, +had created a subtle ostracism, a remote alienation from them. + +He could not go to Newton's in the evening and talk things over with the +men as he ordinarily would have. He wandered over the dumps of deserted +rushes at the Old Town, his eyes on the ground or on the distant +horizons. He could still only believe he had done the best thing +possible under the circumstances. If he had let Charlie go away with the +stones, Sophie would have been saved, but Paul would have lost his +stones. As it was, Sophie was saved, and Paul had not lost his stones. +And Michael could not have given Charley away. Charley had been his +mate; they had worked together. The men might suspect, but they could +not convict him of being what he was unless they knew what Michael knew. +Charley had played on the affection, the simplicity of Michael's belief +in him. He had used them, but Michael had still a lingering tenderness +and sympathy for him. It was that which had made him put the one decent +piece of opal he possessed into the parcel he had made up for Charley to +take instead of Paul's stones. It was the first piece of good stuff he +had found on the Ridge, and he had kept it as a mascot--something of a +nest egg. + +Michael wondered at the fate which had sent him along the track just +when Charley had taken Paul's stones. He was perplexed and impatient of +it. There would have been no complication, no conflict and turmoil if +only he had gone along the track a little later, or a little earlier. +But there was no altering what had happened. He had to bear the +responsibility of it. He had to meet the men, encounter the eyes of his +mates as he had never done before, with a reservation from them. If he +could give the stones to Paul at once, Michael knew he would disembarass +himself of any sense of guilt. But he could not do that. He was afraid +if Paul got possession of the opals again he would want to go away and +take Sophie with him. + +Michael thought of taking Watty and George into his confidence, but to +do so would necessitate explanations--explanations which involved +talking of the promise he had made Sophie's mother and all that lay +behind their relationship. He shrank from allowing even the sympathetic +eyes of George and Watty to rest on what for him was wrapped in mystery +and inexplicable reverence. Besides, they both had wives, and Watty was +not permitted to know anything Mrs. Watty did not worm out of him sooner +or later. Michael decided that if he could not keep his own confidence +he could not expect anyone else to keep it. He must take the +responsibility of what he had done, and of maintaining his position in +respect to the opals until Sophie was older--old enough to do as she +wished with her life. + +As he walked, gazing ahead, a hut formed itself out of the distance +before him, and then the dark shapes of bark huts huddled against the +white cliff of dumps at the Three Mile, under a starry sky. A glow came +from the interior of one or two of the houses. A chime of laughter, and +shredded fragments of talking drifted along in the clear air. Michael +felt strangely alone and outcast, hearing them and knowing that he could +not respond to their invitation. + +In any one of those huts a place would be eagerly made for him if he +went into it; eyes would lighten with a smile; warm, kindly greetings +would go to his heart. But the talk would all be of the stealing of +Rouminof's opal, and of Charley and Jun, Michael knew. The people at the +Three Mile would have seen the coach pass. They would be talking about +it, about himself, and the girls who had driven away with Charley and +Jun. + +Turning back, Michael walked again across the flat country towards the +Ridge. He sat for a while on a log near the tank paddock. A drugging +weariness permeated his body and brain, though his brain ticked +ceaselessly. Now and again one or other of Rouminof's opals flashed and +scintillated before him in the darkness, or moved off in starry flight +before his tired gaze. He was vaguely disturbed by the vision of them. + +When he rose and went back towards the town, his feet dragged wearily. +There was a strange lightness at the back of his head, and he wondered +whether he were walking in the fields of heaven, and smiled to think of +that. At least one good thing would come of it all, he told himself over +and over again--Paul could not take Sophie away. + +The houses and stores of the New Town were all in darkness when he +passed along the main street. Newton's was closed. There were no lights +in Rouminof's or Charley's huts as he went to his own door. Then a low +cry caught his ear. He listened, and went to the back door of Charley's +hut. The cry rose again with shuddering gasps for breath. Michael stood +in the doorway, listening. The sound came from the window. He went +towards it, and found Potch lying there on the bunk with his face to the +wall. + +He had not heard Michael enter, and lay moaning brokenly. Michael had +not thought of Potch since the people at Newton's told him that a few +minutes, after the coach had gone Potch had come down to the hotel to +cut wood and do odd jobs in the stable, as he usually did. Mrs. Newton +said he stared at her, aghast, when she told him that his father had +left on the coach. Then he had started off at a run, taking the short +cut across country to the Three Mile. + +Michael put out his hand. He could not endure that crying. + +"Potch!" he said. + +At the sound of his voice, Potch was silent. After a second he struggled +to his feet, and stood facing Michael. + +"He's gone, Michael!" he cried. + +"He might have taken you," Michael said. + +"Taken me!" Potch's exclamation did away with any idea Michael had that +his son was grieving for Charley. "It wasn't that I minded----" + +Michael did not know what to say. Potch continued: + +"As soon as I knew, I went after him--thought I'd catch up the coach at +the Three Mile, and I did. I told him he'd have to come back--or hand +out that money. I saw you give it to him the other night and arrange +about going to Warria.... Mr. Ventry pulled up. But _he_ ... set the +horses going again. I tried to stop them, but the sandy bay let out a +kick and they went on again.... The swine!" + +Michael had never imagined this stolid son of Charley's could show such +fire. He was trembling with rage and indignation. Michael rarely lost +his temper, but the blood rushed to his head in response to Potch's +story. Restraint was second nature with him, though, and he waited until +his own and Potch's fury had ebbed. + +Then he moved to leave the hut. + +"Come along," he said. + +"Michael!" + +There was such breaking unbelief and joy in the cry. Michael turned and +caught the boy's expression. + +"You're coming along with me, Potch," he said. + +Potch still stood regarding him with a dazed expression of worshipful +homage and gratitude. Michael put out his hand, and Potch clasped it. + +"You and me," he said, "we both seem to be in the same boat, Potch.... +Neither of us has got a mate. I'll be wanting someone to work with now. +We'd better be mates." + +They went out of the hut together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos +were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or +thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, saw Michael on the top of his +dump, tossing mullock. + +"Who's Michael working with?" he asked. + +Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant considered, and shook their heads, smoking +thoughtfully. + +Snow-Shoes, where he lay sprawled across the slope of Crosses' dump, +glanced up at them, and the nickering wisp of a smile went through his +bright eyes. The three were standing at the foot of the dump before +separating. + +"Who's Michael got with him?" Pony-Fence inquired, looking at +Snow-Shoes. + +But the old man had turned his eyes back to the dump and was raking the +earth with his stick again, as if he had not heard what was said. No one +was deafer than Snow-Shoes when he did not want to hear. + +Watty watched Michael as he bent over the windlass, his lean, slight +figure cut against the clear azure of the morning sky. + +"It's to be hoped he's got a decent mate this time--that's all," he +said. + +Pony-Fence and Bully were going off to their own claim when Potch came +up on the rope and stood by the windlass while Michael went down into +the mine. + +"Well!" Watty gasped, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!" + +Bully swore sympathetically, and watched Potch set to work. The three +watched him winding and throwing mullock from the hide buckets over the +dump with the jerky energy of a new chum, although Potch had done odd +jobs on the mines for a good many years. He had often taken his father's +turn of winding dirt, and had managed to keep himself by doing all +manner of scavenging in the township since he was quite a little chap, +but no one had taken him on as a mate till now. He was a big fellow, +too, Potch, seventeen or eighteen; and as they looked at him Watty and +Pony-Fence realised it was time someone gave Potch a chance on the +mines, although after the way his father had behaved Michael was about +the last person who might have been expected to give him that +chance--much less take him on as mate. Like father, like son, was one of +those superstitions Ridge folk had not quite got away from, and the men +who saw Potch working on Michael's mine wondered that, having been let +down by the father as badly as Charley had let Michael down, Michael +could still work with Potch, and give him the confidence a mate was +entitled to. But there was no piece of quixotism they did not think +Michael capable of. The very forlornness of Potch's position on the +Ridge, and because he would have to face out and live down the fact of +being Charley Heathfield's son, were recognised as most likely Michael's +reasons for taking Potch on to work with him. + +Watty and Pony-Fence appreciated Michael's move and the point of view it +indicated. They knew men of the Ridge would endorse it and take Potch on +his merits. But being Charley's son, Potch would have to prove those +merits. They knew, too, that what Michael had done would help him to +tide over the first days of shame and difficulty as nothing else could +have, and it would start Potch on a better track in life than his father +had ever given him. + +Bully had already gone off to his claim when Watty and Pony-Fence +separated. Watty broke the news to his mates when he joined them +underground. + +"Who do y' think's Michael's new mate?" he asked. + +George Woods rested on his pick. + +Cash looked up from the corner where he was crouched working a streak of +green-fired stone from the red floor and lower wall of the mine. + +"Potch!" Watty threw out as George and Cash waited for the information. + +George swept the sweat from his forehead with a broad, steady gesture. +"He was bound to do something nobody else'd 've thought of, Michael!" he +said. + +"That's right," Watty replied. "Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant were +saying," he went on, "he's had a pretty hard time, Potch, and it was +about up to somebody to give him a leg-up ... some sort of a start in +life. He may be all right ... on the other hand, there may not be much +to him...." + +"That's right!" Cash muttered, beginning to work again. + +"But I reck'n he's all right, Potch." George swung his pick again. His +blows echoed in the mine as they shattered the hard stone he was working +on. + +Watty crawled off through a drive he was gouging in. + +At midday Michael and Charley had always eaten their lunches in the +shelter where George Woods, Watty, and Cash Wilson ate theirs and +noodled their opal. They wondered whether Michael would join them this +day. He strolled over to the shelter with Potch beside him as Watty and +Cash, with a billy of steaming tea on a stick between them, came from +the open fire built round with stones, a few yards from the mine. + +"Potch and me's mates," Michael explained to George as he sat down and +spread out his lunch, his smile whimsical and serene over the +information. "But we're lookin' for a third to the company. I reck'n a +lot of you chaps' luck is working on three. It's a lucky number, three, +they say." + +Potch sat down beside him on the outer edge of the shelter's scrap of +shade. + +"See you get one not afraid to do a bit of work, next time--that's all I +say," Watty growled. + +The blood oozed slowly over Potch's heavy, quiet face. Nothing more was +said of Charley, but the men who saw his face realised that Potch was +not the insensible youth they had imagined. + +Michael had watched him when they were below ground, and was surprised +at the way Potch set about his work. He had taken up his father's +gouging pick and spider as if he had been used to take them every day, +and he had set to work where Charley had left off. All the morning he +hewed at a face of honeycombed sandstone, his face tense with +concentration of energy, the sweat glistening on it as though it were +oiled under the light of a candle in his spider, stuck in the red earth +above him. Michael himself swung his pick in leisurely fashion, crumbled +dirt, and knocked off for a smoke now and then. + +"Easy does it, Potch," he remarked, watching the boy's steady slogging. +"We've got no reason to bust ourselves in this mine." + +At four o'clock they put their tools back against the wall and went +above ground. Michael fell in with the Crosses, who were noodling two or +three good-looking pieces of opal Archie had taken out during the +afternoon, and Potch streaked away through the scrub in the direction of +the Old Town. + +Michael wondered where he was going. There was a purposeful hunch about +his shoulders as if he had a definite goal in view. Michael had intended +asking his new mate to go down to the New Town and get the meat for +their tea, but he went himself after he had yarned with Archie and Ted +Cross for a while. + +When he returned to the hut, Potch was not there. Michael made a fire, +unwrapped his steak, hung it on a hook over the fire, and spread out the +pannikins, tin plates and knives and forks for his meal, putting a plate +and pannikin for Potch. He was kneeling before the fire giving the steak +a turn when Potch came in. Potch stood in the doorway, looking at +Michael as doubtfully as a stray kitten which did not know whether it +might enter. + +"That you, Potch?" Michael called. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +Michael got up from the fire and carried the grilled steak on a plate to +the table. + +"Well, you were nearly late for dinner," he remarked, as he cut the +steak in half and put a piece on the other plate for Potch. "You better +come along and tuck in now ... there's a great old crowd down at +Nancarrow's this evening. First time for nearly a month he's killed a +beast, and everybody wants a bit of steak. Sam gave me this as a sort of +treat; and it smells good." + +Potch came into the kitchen and sat on the box Michael had drawn up to +the table for him. + +"Been bringing in the goats for Sophie," he jerked out, looking at +Michael as if there were some need of explanation. + +"Oh, that was it, was it?" Michael replied, getting on with his meal. +"Thought you'd flitted!" + +Potch met his smile with a shadowy one. A big, clumsy-looking fellow, +with a dull, colourless face and dingy hair, he sat facing Michael, his +eyes anxious, as though he would like to explain further, but was afraid +to, or could not find words. His eyes were beautiful; but they were his +father's eyes, and Michael recoiled to qualms of misgiving, a faint +distrust, as he looked in them. + +It was Ed. Ventry, however, who gave Potch his first claim to the +respect of men of the Ridge. + +"How's that boy of Charley Heathfield's?" was his first question when +the coach came in from Budda, the following week. + +"All right," Newton said. "Why?" + +"He was near killed," Mr. Ventry replied. "Stopped us up at the Three +Mile that morning I was taking Charley and Jun down. He was all for +Charley stopping ... getting off the coach or something. I didn't get +what it was all about--money Charley'd got from Michael, I think. That's +the worst of bein' a bit hard of hearin' ... and bein' battered about by +that yaller-bay horse I bought at Warria couple of months ago." + +"Potch tried to stop Charley getting away, did he?" Newton asked with +interest. + +"He did," Ed. Ventry declared. "I pulled up, seein' something was wrong +... but what does that god-damned blighter Charley do but give a lurch +and grab me reins. Scared four months' growth out of the horses--and +away they went. I'd a colt I was breakin' in on the off-side--and he +landed Potch one--kicked him right out, I thought. As soon as I could, I +pulled up, but I see Potch making off across the plain, and he didn't +look like he was much hurt.... But it was a plucky thing he did, all +right ... and it's the last time I'll drive Charley Heathfield. I told +him straight. I'd as soon kill a man as not for putting a hand on me +reins, like he done--on me own coach, too!" + +Snow-Shoes had drifted up to them as the coach stopped and Newton went +out to it. He stood beside Peter Newton while Mr. Ventry talked, rolling +tobacco. Snow-Shoes' eyes glimmered from one to the other of them when +Ed. Ventry had given the reason for his inquiry. + +"Potch!" he murmured. "A little bit of potch!" And marched off down the +road, a straight, stately white figure, on the bare track under the +azure of the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"Give y' three," Watty said. + +"Take 'em." George Woods did not turn. He was carefully working round a +brilliantly fired seam through black potch in the shin cracker he had +been breaking through two or three days before. + +It was about lunch time, and Watty had crawled from his drive to the +centre of the mine. Cash was still at work, crouched against a corner of +the alley, a hundred yards or so from George; but he laid down his pick +when he heard Watty's voice, and went towards him. + +"Who d'you think Michael's got as third man?" + +"Snow-Shoes?" + +"No." + +"Old Bill Olsen?" + +Watty could not contain himself to the third guess. + +"Rum-Enough!" he said. + +"He would." George chipped at the stone round his colour. "It was bound +to be a lame dog, anyhow--and it might as well've been Rummy as +anybody." + +"That's right," Cash conceded. + +"Bill Andrews told me," Watty said. "They've just broke through on the +other side of that drive I'm in...." + +"It would be all right," he went on, "if Paul'd work for Michael like he +did for Jun. But is Michael the man to make him? Not by long chalks. +Potch is turning out all right, the boys say.... Michael says he works +like a chow ... has to make him put in the peg ... but they'll both be +havin' Rum-Enough on their hands before long--that's a sure thing." + +Watty's, George's, and Cash's mine was one of the best worked and best +planned on the fields. + +Watty and Cash inspected the streak George was working, and speculated +as to what it would yield. George leaned his pick against the wall, +eager, too, about the chances of what the thread of fire glittering in +the black potch would lead to. But he was proud of the mine as well as +the stone it had produced. It represented the first attempt to work a +claim systematically on the Ridge. George himself had planned and +prospected every inch of it; and before he went above ground for the +midday meal, he glanced about it as usual, affirming his pride and +satisfaction; but his eyes fell on the broken white stone about his +pitch. + +"As soon as we get her out, I'll shift that stuff," he said. + +When they went up for their meal, Michael did not join Watty, George, +and Cash as usual. He spread out his lunch and sat with Paul and Potch +in the shade of some wilgas beside his own mine. He knew that Rouminof +would not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter, and that Paul and +Potch would bring a certain reserve to the discussions of Ridge affairs +which took place there. + +Potch saw Michael's eyes wander to where George was sitting yarning with +his mates. He knew Michael would rather have been over there; and yet +Michael seemed pleased to have got his own mine in working order again. +He talked over ways of developing it with Paul, asking his opinion, and +explaining why he believed the claim was good enough to stick to for a +while longer, although very little valuable stone had come out of it. +Potch wondered why his eyes rested on Paul with that faint smile of +satisfaction. + +The Ridge discussed Michael and his new partnership backwards and forth, +and back again. Michael knew that, and was as amused as the rest of the +Ridge at the company he was keeping. Although he sat with his own mates +at midday, he was as often as not with the crowd under Newton's veranda +in the evening, discussing and settling the affairs of the Ridge and of +the universe. After a while he was more like his old self than he had +been for a long time--since Mrs. Rouminof's death--people said, when +they saw him going about again with a quiet smile and whimsical twist to +his mouth. + +The gossips had talked a good deal about Michael and Mrs. Rouminof, but +neither she nor he had bothered their heads about the gossips. + +Michael and Mrs. Rouminof had often been seen standing and talking +together when she was going home from the New Town with stores, or when +Michael was coming in from his hut. He had usually walked back along the +road with her, she for the most part, if it was in the evening, with no +hat on; he smoking the stubby black pipe that was rarely out of his +mouth. There was something in the way Mrs. Rouminof walked beside +Michael, in the way her hair blew out in tiny strands curling in the +wind and taking stray glints of light, in the way she smiled with a +vague underlying sweetness when she looked at Michael; there was +something in the way Michael slouched and smoked beside Mrs. Rouminof, +too, which made their meeting look more than any mere ordinary talking +and walking home together of two people. That was what Mrs. Watty Frost +said. + +Mrs. Watty believed it was her duty in life to maintain the prejudices +of respectable society in Fallen Star township. She had a constitutional +respect for authority in whatever form it manifested itself. She stood +for washing on Monday, spring-cleaning, keeping herself to herself, and +uncompromising hostility to anything in the shape of a new idea which +threatened the old order of domesticity on the Ridge. And she let +everybody know it. She never went into the one street of the township +even at night without a hat on, and wore gloves whenever she walked +abroad. A little woman, with a mean, sour face, wrinkled like a walnut, +and small, bead-bright eyes, Mrs. Watty was one of those women who are +all energy and have no children to absorb their energies. She put all +her energy into resentment of the Ridge and the conditions Watty had +settled down to so comfortably and happily. She sighed for shops and a +suburb of Sydney, and repeatedly told Watty how nice it would be to have +a little milk shop near Sydney like her father and mother had had. + +But Watty would not hear of the milk shop. He loved the Ridge, and the +milk shop was an evergreen bone of contention between him and his wife. +The only peace he ever got was when Mrs. Watty went away to Sydney for a +holiday, or he went with her, because she would rarely go away without +him. She could not be happy without Watty, people said. She had no one +to growl to and let off her irritation about things in general at, if he +were not there. Watty grew fat, and was always whistling cheerily, +nevertheless. Mrs. Watty cooked like an archangel, he said; and, to give +her her due, the men admitted that although she had never pretended to +approve of the life they led, Mrs. Watty had been a good wife to Watty. + +But everybody, even Mrs. Watty, was as pleased as if a little fortune +had come to them, when, towards the end of their first week, Michael and +his company came on a patch of good stone. Michael struck it, following +the lead he had been working for some time, and, although not wonderful +in colour or quality, the opal cut out at about ten ounces and brought +L3 an ounce. Michael was able to wipe out some of his grocery score, so +was Paul, and Potch had money to burn. + +Paul was very pleased with himself about it. The men began to call him a +mascot and to say he had brought Michael luck, as he had Jun Johnson. +There was no saying how the fortunes of the new partnership might +flourish, if he stuck to it. Paul, responding to the expressions of +goodwill and the inspiration of being on opal, put all his childish and +bullocky energy into working with Michael and Potch. + +He still told everybody who would listen to him the story of the +wonderful stones he had found when he was working with Jun, and how they +had been stolen from him. They grew in number, value, and size every +time he spoke of them. And he wailed over what he had been going to do, +and what selling the stones would have meant to him and to Sophie. But +the partnership was working better than anybody had expected, and people +began to wonder whether, after all, Michael had done so badly for +himself with his brace of dead-beat mates. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +In a few weeks thought of the robbery had ceased greatly to disturb +anybody. Michael settled down to working with his new mates, and the +Ridge accepted the new partnership as the most natural thing in the +world. + +Life on the Ridge is usually as still as an inland lake. The settlement +is just that, a lake of life, in the country of wide plains stretching +westwards for hundreds on hundreds of miles, broken only by shingly +ridges to the sea, and eastwards, through pastoral districts, to the +coastal ranges, and the seaboard with its busy towns, ports, and cities. + +In summer the plains are dead and dry; in a drought, deserts. The great +coolebahs standing with their feet in the river ways are green, and +scatter tattered shade. Their small, round leaves flash like mirrors in +the sun, and when the river water vanishes from about their feet, they +hold themselves in the sandy shallow bed of the rivers as if waiting +with imperturbable faith for the return of the waters. The surface of +the dry earth cracks. There are huge fissures where the water lay in +clayey hollows during the winter and spring. Along the stock routes and +beside the empty water-holes, sheep and cattle lie rotting. Their +carcasses, disembowelled by the crows, put an odour of putrefaction in +the air. The sky burns iron-grey with heat. The dust rises in heavy +reddish mist about stockmen or cattle on the roads. + +But after the rains, in the winter or spring of a good season, the seeds +break sheath in a few hours; they sprout over-night, and a green mantle +is flung over the old earth which a few days before was as dead and dry +as a desert. In a little time the country is a flowering wilderness. +Trefoil, crow's-foot, clover, mallow, and wild mustard riot, tangling +and interweaving. The cattle browse through them lazily; stringing out +across the flowering fields, they look in the distance no more than +droves of mice; their red and black backs alone are visible above the +herbage. In places, wild candytuft in blossom spreads a quilt of palest +lavender in every direction on a wide circling horizon. Darling pea, the +colour of violets and smelling like them, threads through the candytuft +and lies in wedges, magenta and dark purple against the sky-line, a +hundred miles farther on. The sky is a wash of pale, exquisite blue, +which deepens as it rises to the zenith. The herbage glows beneath it, +so clear and pure is the light. + +Farther inland, for miles, bachelor's buttons paint the earth raw gold. +Not a hair's breadth of colour shows on the plains except the dull red +of the road winding through them and the blue of the sky overhead. Paper +daisies fringe the gold, and then they lie, white as snow, for miles, +under the bare blue sky. Sometimes the magenta, purple, lavender, gold +and white of the herbage and wild flowers merge and mingle, and a +tapestry of incomparable beauty--a masterpiece of the Immortals--is +wrought on the bare earth. + +During the spring and early summer of a good season, the air is filled +with the wild, thymey odour of herbs, and the dry, musky fragrance of +paper daisies. The crying of lambs, the baa-ing of ewes, and the piping +of mud-larks--their thin, silvery notes--go through the clear air and +are lost over the flowering land and against the blue sky. + +Winter is rarely more than a season of rains on the Ridge. Cold winds +blow from the inland plains for a week or two. There are nights of frost +and sparkling stars. People shiver and crouch over their fires; but the +days have rarely more than a fresh tang in the air. + +The rains as often as not are followed by floods. After a few days' +steady downpour, the shallow rivers and creeks on the plains overflow, +and their waters stretch out over the plains for thirteen, fourteen, and +sometimes twenty miles. Fords become impassable; bridges are washed +away. Fallen Star Ridge is cut off from the rest of the world until the +flood waters have soaked into the earth, as they do after a few days, +and the coach can take to the road again. + +As spring passes into summer, the warmth of the sunshine loses its +mildness, and settles to a heavy taciturnity. The light, losing its +delicate brilliance, becomes a bared sword-blade striking the eyes. +Everything shrinks from the full gaze and blaze of the sun. Eyes ache, +the brain reels with the glare; mirages dance on the limitless horizons. +The scorched herbage falls into dust; water is drawn off from rivers and +water-holes. All day the air is heavy and still; the sky the colour of +iron. + +Nights are heavy and still as the days, and people turn wearily from the +glow in the east at dawn; but the days go on, for months, one after the +other, hot, breathless, of dazzling radiance, or wrapped in the red haze +of a dust storm. + +Ridge folk take the heat as primitive people do most acts of God, as a +matter of course, with stiff-lipped hardihood, which makes complaint the +manifestation of a poor spirit. They meet their difficulties with a +native humour which gives zest to flagging energies. Their houses, with +roofs whitened to throw off the heat, the dumps of crumbling white clay, +and the iron roofs of the billiard parlour, the hotel, and Watty Frost's +new house at the end of the town, shimmer in the intense light. At a +little distance they seem all quivering and dancing together. + +Men like Michael, the Crosses, George Woods, Watty, and women like +Maggie Grant and Martha M'Cready, who had been on the Ridge a long time, +become inured to the heat. At least, they say that they "do not mind +it." No one hears a growl out of them, even when water is scarce and +flies and mosquitoes a plague. Their good spirits and grit keep the +community going through a trying summer. But even they raise their faces +to heaven when an unexpected shower comes, or autumn rains fall a little +earlier than usual. + +In the early days, before stations were fenced, Bill M'Gaffy, a Warria +shepherd, grazing flocks on the plains, declared he had seen a star fall +on the Ridge. When he went into the station he showed the scraps of marl +and dark metallic stone he had picked up near where the star had fallen, +to James Henty, who had taken up Warria Station. The Ridge lay within +its boundary. James Henty had turned them over curiously, and surmised +that some meteoric stone had fallen on the Ridge. The place had always +been called Fallen Star Ridge after that; but opal was not found there, +and it did not begin to be known as the black opal field until several +years later. + +In the first days of the rush to the Ridge, men of restless, reckless +temperament had foregathered at the Old Town. There had been wild nights +at the shanty. But the wilder spirits soon drifted away to Pigeon Creek +and the sapphire mines, and the sober and more serious of the miners had +settled to life on the new fields. + +The first gathering of huts on the clay pan below the Ridge was known as +the Old Town; but it had been flooded so often, that, after people had +been washed out of their homes, and had been forced to take to the Ridge +for safety two or three times, it was decided to move the site of the +township to the brow of the Ridge, above the range of the flood waters +and near the new rush, where the most important mines on the field +promised to be. + +A year or two ago, a score or so of bark and bag huts were ranged on +either side of the wide, unmade road space overgrown with herbage, and a +smithy, a weather-board hotel with roof of corrugated iron, a billiard +parlour, and a couple of stores, comprised the New Town. A wild cherry +tree, gnarled and ancient, which had been left in the middle of the road +near the hotel, bore the news of the district and public notices, nailed +to it on sheets of paper. A little below the hotel, on the same side, +Chassy Robb's store served as post-office, and the nearest approach to a +medicine shop in the township. Opposite was the Afghan's emporium. And +behind the stores and the miners' huts, everywhere, were the dumps +thrown up from mines and old rushes. + +There was no police station nearer than fifty miles, and although +telegraph now links the New Town with Budda, the railway town, +communication with it for a long time was only by coach once or twice a +week; and even now all the fetching and carrying is done by a four or +six horse-coach and bullock-wagons. The community to all intents and +purposes governs itself according to popular custom and popular opinion, +the seat of government being Newton's big, earthen-floored bar, or the +brushwood shelters near the mines in which the men sit at midday to eat +their lunches and noodle--, go over, snip, and examine--the opal they +have taken out of the mines during the morning. + +They hold their blocks of land by miner's right, and their houses are +their own. They formally recognise that they are citizens of the +Commonwealth and of the State of New South Wales, by voting at elections +and by accepting the Federal postal service. Some few of them, as well +as Newton and the storekeepers, pay income tax as compensation for those +privileges; but beyond that the Ridge lives its own life, and the +enactments of external authority are respected or disregarded as best +pleases it. + +A sober, easy-going crowd, the Ridge miners do not trouble themselves +much about law. They have little need of it. They live in accord with +certain fundamental instincts, on terms of good fellowship with each +other. + +"To go back on a mate," is recognised as the major crime of the Ridge +code. + +Sometimes, during a rush, the wilder spirits who roam from one mining +camp to another in the back-country, drift back, and "hit things up" on +the Ridge, as the men say. But they soon drift away again. Sometimes, if +one of them strikes a good patch of opal and outstays his kind, as often +as not he sinks into the Ridge life, absorbs Ridge ways and ideas, and +is accepted into the fellowship of men of the Ridge. There is no +formality about the acceptance. It just happens naturally, that if a man +identifies himself with the Ridge principle of mateship, and will stand +by it as it will stand by him, he is recognised by Ridge men as one of +themselves. But if his ways and ideas savour of those the Ridge has +broken from, he remains an outsider, whatever good terms he may seem to +be on with everybody. + +Sometimes a rush leaves a shiftless ne'er-do-well or two for the Ridge +to reckon with, but even these rarely disregard the Ridge code. If +claims are ratted it is said there are strangers about, and the miners +deal with rats according to their own ideas of justice. On the last +occasion it was applied, this justice had proved so effectual that there +had been no repetition of the offence. + +Ridge miners find happiness in the sense of being free men. They are +satisfied in their own minds that it is not good for a man to work all +day at any mechanical toil; to use himself or allow anyone else to use +him like a working bullock. A man must have time to think, leisure to +enjoy being alive, they say. Is he alive only to work? To sleep worn out +with toil, and work again? It is not good enough, Ridge men say. They +have agreed between themselves that it is a fair thing to begin work +about 6.30 or 7 o'clock and knock off about four, with a couple of hours +above ground at noon for lunch--a snack of bread and cheese and a cup of +tea. + +At four o'clock they come up from the mines, noodle their opal, put on +their coats, smoke and yarn, and saunter down to the town and their +homes. And it is this leisure end of the day which has given life on the +Ridge its tone of peace and quiet happiness, and has made Ridge miners +the thoughtful, well-informed men most of them are. + +To a man they have decided against allowing any wealthy man or body of +wealthy men forming themselves into a company to buy up the mines, put +the men on a weekly wage, and work them, as the opal blocks at Chalk +Cliffs had been worked. There might be more money in it, there would be +a steadier means of livelihood; but the Ridge miners will not hear of +it. + +"No," they say; "we'll put up with less money--and be our own masters." + +Most of them worked on Chalk Cliffs' opal blocks, and they realised in +the early days of the new field the difference between the conditions +they had lived and worked under on the Cliffs and were living and +working under on the Ridge, where every man was the proprietor of his +own energies, worked as long as he liked, and was entitled to the full +benefit of his labour. They had yarned over these differences of +conditions at midday in the shelters beside the mines, discussed them in +the long evenings at Newton's, and without any committees, documents, or +bond--except the common interest of the individual and of the +fraternity--had come to the conclusion that at all costs they were going +to remain masters of their own mines. + +Common thought and common experience were responsible for that +recognition of economic independence as the first value of their new +life together. Michael Brady had stood for it from the earliest days of +the settlement. He had pointed out that the only things which could give +joy in life, men might have on the Ridge, if they were satisfied to find +their joy in these things, and not look for it in enjoyment of the +superficial luxuries money could provide. Most of the real sources of +joy were every man's inheritance, but conditions of work, which wrung +him of energy and spirit, deprived him of leisure to enjoy them until he +was too weary to do more than sleep or seek the stimulus of alcohol. +Besides, these conditions recruited him with the merest subsistence for +his pains, very often--did not even guarantee that--and denied him the +capacity to appreciate the real sources of joy. But the beauty of the +world, the sky, and the stars, spring, summer, the grass, and the birds, +were for every man, Michael said. Any and every man could have immortal +happiness by hearing a bird sing, by gazing into the blue-dark depths of +the sky on a starry night. No man could sell his joy of these things. No +man could buy them. Love is for all men: no man can buy or sell love. +Pleasure in work, in jolly gatherings with friends, peace at the end of +the day, and satisfaction of his natural hungers, a man might have all +these things on the Ridge, if he were content with essentials. + +Ridge miners' live fearlessly, with the magic of adventure in their +daily lives, the prospect of one day finding the great stone which is +the grail of every opal-miner's quest. They are satisfied if they get +enough opal to make a parcel for a buyer when he puts up for a night or +two at Newton's. A young man who sells good stones usually goes off to +Sydney to discover what life in other parts of the world is like, and to +take a draught of the gay life of cities. A married man gives his wife +and children a trip to the seaside or a holiday in town. But all drift +back to the Ridge when the taste of city life has begun to cloy, or when +all their money is spent. Once an opal miner, always an opal miner, the +Ridge folk say. + +Among the men, only the shiftless and more worthless are not in sympathy +with Ridge ideas, and talk of money and what money will buy as the +things of first value in life. They describe the Fallen Star township as +a God-forsaken hole, and promise each other, as soon as their luck has +turned, they will leave it for ever, and have the time of their lives in +Sydney. + +Women like Maggie Grant share their husband's minds. They read what the +men read, have the men's vision, and hold it with jealous enthusiasm. +Others, women used to the rough and simple existence of the +back-country, are satisfied with the life which gives them a husband, +home, and children. Those who sympathise with Mrs. Watty Frost regard +the men's attitude as more than half cussedness, sheer selfishness or +stick-in-the-mudness; and the more worthy and respectable they are, the +more they fret and fume at the earthen floors and open hearths of the +bark and bagging huts they live in, and pine for all the kick-shaws of +suburban villas. The discontented women are a minority, nevertheless. +Ridge folk as a whole have set their compass and steer the course of +their lives with unconscious philosophy, and yet a profound conviction +as to the rightness of what they are doing. + +And the Ridge, which bears them, stands serenely under blue skies the +year long, rising like a backbone from the plains that stretch for +hundreds of miles on either side. A wide, dusty road crosses the plains. +The huts of the Three Mile and Fallen Star crouch beside it, and +everywhere on the rusty, shingle-strewn slopes of the Ridge, are the +holes and thrown-up heaps of white and raddled clay or broken +sandstone--traces of the search for that "ecstasy in the heart of +gloom," black opal, which the Fallen Star earth holds. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Darling pea was lying in purple and magenta patches through the long +grass on the tank paddock when Sophie went with Ella and Mirry Flail to +gather wild flowers there. + +Wild flowers did not grow anywhere on Fallen Star as they did in the +tank paddock. It was almost a place of faery to children of the Ridge. +The little ones were not allowed to go there by themselves for fear they +might fall into the waterhole which lay like a great square lake in the +middle of it, its steep, well-set-up banks of yellow clay, ruled with +the precision of a diagram in geometry. The water was almost as yellow +as the banks, thick and muddy looking; but it was good water, nothing on +earth the matter with it when you had boiled it and the sediment had +been allowed to settle, everybody on Fallen Star Ridge was prepared to +swear. It had to be drawn up by a pump which was worked by a donkey +engine, Sam Nancarrow, and his old fat roan draught mare, and carted to +the township when rain-water in the iron tanks beside the houses in +Fallen Star gave out. + +During a dry season, or a very hot summer, all hands turned out to roof +the paddock tank with tarpaulins to prevent evaporation as far as +possible and so conserve the township's water supply. On a placard +facing the roadway a "severe penalty" was promised to anyone using it +without permission or making improper use of it. + +Ella and Mirry were gathering sago flower--"wild sweet Alice," as they +called candytuft--yellow eye-bright, tiny pink starry flowers, +bluebells, small lavender daisies, taller white ones, and yellow +daisies, as well as Darling pea; but Sophie picked only long, trailing +stalks of the pea. She had as many as she could hold when she sat down +to arrange them into a tighter bunch. + +Mirry and Ella Flail had always been good friends of Sophie's. Potch and +she had often gone on excursions with them, or to the swamp to cart +water when it was scarce and very dear in the township. And since Potch +had gone to work Sophie had no one to go about with but Mirry and Ella. +She pleased their mother by trying to teach them to read and write, and +they went noodling together, or gathering wild flowers. Sophie was three +or four years older than Mirry, who was the elder of the two Flails; she +felt much older since her mother's death nearly a year ago, and in the +black dress she had worn since then. She was just seventeen, and had put +her hair up into a knot at the back of her head. That made her feel +older, too. But she still liked to go for walks and wanderings with Ella +and Mirry. They knew so much about the birds and flowers, the trees, and +the ways of all the wild creatures: they were such wild creatures +themselves. + +They came running to her, crying excitedly, their hands filled with +flowers, shedding them as they ran. Then, collapsing in the grass beside +Sophie, Mirry rolled over on her back and gazed up into the sky. Ella, +squatting on her thin, sunburnt little sticks of legs, was arranging her +flowers and glancing every now and then at Sophie with shy, loving +glances. + +Sophie wondered why she had nothing of her old joyous zest in their +enterprises together. She used to be as wild and happy as Mirry and Ella +on an afternoon like this. But there was something of the shy, wild +spirit of a primitive people about Mirry and Ella, she remembered, some +of their blood, too. One of their mother's people, it was said, had been +a native of one of the river tribes. + +Mirry had her mother's beautiful dark eyes, almost green in the light, +and freckled with hazel, and her pale, sallow skin. Ella, younger and +shyer, was more like her father. Her skin was not any darker than +Sophie's, and her eyes blue-grey, her features delicate, her hair +golden-brown that glinted in the sun. + +"Sing to us, Sophie," Mirry said. + +Sophie often sang to them when she and Ella and Mirry were out like +this. As she sat with them, dreaming in the sunshine, she sang almost +without any conscious effort; she just put up her chin, and the melodies +poured from her. Hearing her voice, as it ran in ripples and eddies +through the clear, warm air, hung and quivered and danced again, +delighted her. + +Ella and Mirry listened in a trance of awe, reverence, and admiration. +Sophie had a dim vision of them, wide-eyed and still, against the tall +grass and flowers. + +"My! You can sing, Sophie! Can't she, Ella?" + +Ella nodded, gazing at Sophie with eyes of worshipping love. + +"They say you're going away with your father ... and you're going to be +a great singer, Sophie," Mirry said. + +"Yes," Sophie murmured tranquilly, "I am." + +A bevy of black and brown birds flashed past them, flew in a wide +half-circle across the paddock, and alighted on a dead tree beyond the +fence. + +"Look, look!" Mirry started to her feet. "A happy family! I wonder, are +the whole twelve there?" + +She counted the birds, which were calling to each other with little +shrill cries. + +"They're all there!" she announced. "Twelve of them. Mother says in some +parts they call them the twelve apostles. Sing again, Sophie," she +begged. + +Ella smiled at Sophie. Her lips parted as though she would like to have +said that, too; but only her eyes entreated, and she went on putting her +flowers together. + +As she sang, Sophie watched a pair of butterflies, white with black +lines and splashes of yellow and scarlet on their wings, hovering over +the flowered field of the paddock. She was so lost in her singing and +watching the butterflies, and the children were so intent listening to +her, that they did not hear a horseman coming slowly towards them along +the track. As he came up to them, Sophie's rippling notes broke and fell +to earth. Ella saw him first, and was on her feet in an instant. Mirry +and she, their wild instinct asserting itself, darted away and took +cover behind the trunks of the nearest trees. + +Sophie looked after them, wondering whether she would follow them as she +used to; but she felt older and more staid now than she had a year ago. +She stood her ground, as the man, who was leading his horse, came to a +standstill before her. + +She knew him well enough, Arthur Henty, the only son of old Henty of +Warria Station. She had seen him riding behind cattle or sheep on the +roads across the plains for years. Sometimes when Potch and she had met +him riding across the Ridge, or at the swamp, he had stopped to talk to +them. He had been at her mother's funeral, too; but as he stood before +her this afternoon, Sophie seemed to be seeing him for the first time. + +A tall, slightly-built young man, in riding breeches and leggings, a +worn coat, and as weathered a felt hat as any man on the Ridge wore, his +clothes the colour of dust on the roads, he stood before her, smiling +slightly. His face was dark in the shadow of his hat, but the whole of +him, cut against the sunshine, had gilded outlines. And he seemed to be +seeing Sophie for the first time, too. She had jumped up and drawn back +from the track when the Flails ran away. He could not believe that this +tall girl in the black dress was the queer, elfish-like girl he had seen +running about the Ridge, bare-legged, with feet in goat-skin sandals, +and in the cemetery on the Warria road, not much more than a year ago. +Her elfish gaiety had deserted her. It was the black dress gave her face +the warm pallor of ivory, he thought, made her look staider, and as if +the sadness of all it symbolised had not left her. But her eyes, +strange, beautiful eyes, the green and blue of opal, with black rings on +the irises and great black pupils, had still the clear, unconscious gaze +of youth; her lips the sweet, sucking curves of a child's. + +They stood so, smiling and staring at each other, a spell of silence on +each. + +Sophie had dropped half her flowers as she sprang up at the sound of +someone approaching. She had clutched a few in one hand; the rest lay on +the grass about her, her hat beside them. Henty's eyes went to the trees +round which Mirry and Ella were peeping. + +"They're wild birds, aren't they?" he said. + +Sophie smiled. She liked the way his eyes narrowed to slits of sunshine +as he smiled. + +"Are you going to sing, again?" he asked hesitatingly. + +Sophie shook her head. + +"My mother's awfully fond of that stuff," Henty said, looking at the +Darling pea Sophie had in her hand. "We haven't got any near the +homestead. I came into the paddock to get some for her." + +Sophie held out her bunch. + +"Not all of it," he said. + +"I can get more," she said. + +He took the flowers, and his vague smile changed to one of shy and +subtle understanding. Ella and Mirry found courage to join Sophie. + +"Where's Potch?" Henty asked. + +"He's working with Michael," Sophie said. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, and stood before her awkwardly, not knowing what to +talk about. + +He was still thinking how different she was to the little girl he had +seen chasing goats on the Ridge no time before, and wondering what had +changed her so quickly, when Sophie stooped to pick up her hat. Then he +saw her short, dark hair twisted up into a knot at the back of her head. +Feeling intuitively that he was looking at the knot she was so proud of, +Sophie put on her hat quickly. A delicate colour moved on her neck and +cheeks. Arthur Henty found himself looking into her suffused eyes and +smiling at her smile of confusion. + +"Well, we must be going now," Sophie said, a little breathlessly. + +Henty said that he was going into the New Town and would walk along part +of the way with her. He tucked the flowers Sophie had given him into his +saddle-bag, and she and the children turned down the track. Ella, having +found her tongue, chattered eagerly. Arthur Henty strolled beside them, +smoking, his reins over his arm. Mirry wanted to ride his horse. + +"Nobody rides this horse but me," Henty said. "She'd throw you into the +middle of next week." + +"I can ride," Mirry said; "ride like a flea, the boys say." + +She was used to straddling any pony or horse her brothers had in the +yard, and they had a name as the best horse-breakers in the district. + +Henty laughed. "But you couldn't ride Beeswing," he said. "She doesn't +let anybody but me ride her. You can sit on, if you like; she won't mind +that so long as I've got hold of her." + +The stirrup was too high for Mirry to reach, so he picked her up and put +her across the saddle. The mare shivered and shrank under the light +shock of Mirry's landing upon her, but Arthur Henty talked to her and +rubbed her head soothingly. + +"It's all right ... all right, old girl," he muttered. "Think it was one +of those stinging flies? But it isn't, you see. It's only Mirry Flail. +She says she's a flea of a rider. But you'd learn her, wouldn't you, if +you got off with her by yourself?" + +Ella giggled softly, peering at Mirry and Henty and at the beautiful +golden-red chestnut he was leading. Ed. Ventry had put Sophie on his +coach horses sometimes. He had let her go for a scamper with Potch on an +old horse or a likely colt now and then; but she knew she did not ride +well--not as Mirry rode. + +They walked along the dusty road together when they had left the tank +paddock, Mirry chattering from Beeswing's back, Sophie, with Ella +clinging to one hand, on the other side of Henty. But Mirry soon tired +of riding a led horse at a snail's pace. When a sulphur-coloured +butterfly fluttered for a few minutes over a wild tobacco plant, she +slid from the saddle, on the far side, and was off over the plains to +have another look at the butterfly. + +Ella was too shy or too frightened to get on the chestnut, even with +Henty holding her bridle. + +"How about you, Sophie?" Arthur Henty asked. + +Sophie nodded, but before he could help her she had put her foot into +the stirrup and swung into the saddle herself. Beeswing shivered again +to the new, strange weight on her back. Henty held her, muttering +soothingly. They went on again. + +After a while, with a shy glance, and as if to please him, Sophie began +to sing, softly at first, so as not to startle the mare, and then +letting her voice out so that it rippled as easily and naturally as a +bird's. Henty, walking with a hand on the horse's bridle beside her, +heard again the song she had been singing in the tank paddock. + +Ella was supposed to be carrying Sophie's flowers. She did not know she +had dropped nearly half of them, and that they were lying in a trail all +along the dusty road. + +Henty did not speak when Sophie had finished. His pipe had gone out, and +he put it in his pocket. The stillness of her audience of two was so +intense that to escape it Sophie went on singing, and the chestnut did +not flinch. She went quietly to the pace of the song, as though she, +too, were enjoying its rapture and tenderness. + +Then through the clear air came a rattle of wheels and jingle of +harness. Mirry, running towards them from the other side of the road, +called eagerly: + +"It's the coach.... Mr. Ventry's got six horses in, and a man with him!" + +Six horses indicated that a person of some importance was on board the +coach. Henty drew the chestnut to one side as the coach approached. Mr. +Ventry jerked his head in Henty's direction when he passed and saw +Arthur Henty with the Flail children and Sophie. The stranger beside him +eyed, with a faint smile of amusement, the cavalcade, the girl in the +black dress on the fine chestnut horse, the children with the flowers, +and the young man standing beside them. The man on the coach was a +clean-shaved, well-groomed, rather good-looking man of forty, or +thereabouts, and his clothes and appearance proclaimed him a man of the +world beyond the Ridge. His smile and stare annoyed Henty. + +"It's Mr. Armitage," Mirry said. "The young one. He's not as nice as the +old man, my father says--and he doesn't know opal as well--but he gives +a good price." + +They had reached the curve of the road where one arm turns to the town +and the other goes over the plains to Warria. Sophie slipped from the +horse. + +"We'll take the short cut here," she said. + +She stood looking at Arthur Henty for a moment, and in that moment Henty +knew that she had sensed his thought. She had guessed he was afraid of +having looked ridiculous trailing along the road with these children. +Sophie turned away. The young Flails bounded after her. Henty could hear +their laughter when he had ridden out some distance along the road. + +From the slope of a dump Sophie saw him--the chestnut and her rider +loping into the sunset, and, looking after him, she finished her song. + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volera, + A fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sara!" + + Dear name forever nursed in my memory thou shalt be, + For my heart first stirred to the delight of love for thee! + My thoughts and my desire will always be, dear name, toward thee, + And my last breath will be for thee, dear name. + +The long, sweet notes and rippled melody followed Arthur Henty over the +plains in the quiet air of late afternoon. But the afternoon had been +spoilt for him. He was self-conscious and ill at ease about it all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Mr. Armitage is up at Newton's!" Paul yelled to Michael, when he saw +him at his back-door a few minutes after Sophie had given him the news. + +"Not the old man?" Michael inquired. + +"No, the young 'un." + +Word was quickly bruited over the fields that the American, one of the +best buyers who came to the Ridge, had arrived by the evening coach. He +invariably had a good deal of money to spend, and gave a better price +than most of the local buyers. + +Dawe P. Armitage had visited Fallen Star Ridge from the first year of +its existence as an opal field, and every year for years after that. But +when he began to complain about aches and pains in his bones, which he +refused to allow anybody to call rheumatism, and was assured he was well +over seventy and that the long rail and sea journey from New York City +to Fallen Star township were getting too much for him, he let his son, +whom he had made a partner in his business, make the journey for him. +John Lincoln Armitage had been going to the Ridge for two or three +years, and although the men liked him well enough, he was not as popular +with them as his father had been. And the old man, John Armitage said, +although he was nearly crippled with rheumatism, still grudged him his +yearly visit to the Ridge, and hated like poison letting anyone else do +his opal-buying. + +Dawe Armitage had bought some of the best black opal found on the Ridge. +He had been a hard man to deal with, but the men had a grudging +admiration for him, a sort of fellow feeling of affection because of his +oneness with them in a passion for black opal. A grim, sturdy old +beggar, there was a certain quality about him, a gruff humour, sheer +doggedness, strength of purpose, and dead honesty within his point of +view, which kept an appreciative and kindly feeling for him in their +hearts. They knew he had preyed on them; but he had done it bluntly, +broadly, and in such an off-with-the-gloves-lads-style, that, after a +good fight over a stone and price, they had sometimes given in to him +for sheer amusement, and to let him have the satisfaction of thinking he +had gained his point. + +Usually he set his price on a stone and would not budge from it. The +gougers knew this, and if their price on a stone was not Dawe +Armitage's, they did not waste breath on argument, except to draw the +old boy and get some diversion from his way of playing them. If a man +had a good stone and did not think anyone else was likely to give him +his figure, sometimes he sold ten minutes before the coach Armitage was +going down to town by, left Newton's. But, three or four times, when a +stone had taken his fancy and a miner was obdurate, the old man, with +his mind's eye full of the stone and the fires in its dazzling jet, had +suddenly sent for it and its owner, paid his price, and pocketed the +stone. He had wrapped up the gem, chuckling in defeat, and rejoicing to +have it at any price. As a rule he made three or four times as much as +he had given for opals he bought on the Ridge, but to Dawe Armitage the +satisfaction of making money on a transaction was nothing like the joy +of putting a coveted treasure into his wallet and driving off from +Fallen Star with it. + +A gem merchant of considerable standing in the United States, Dawe +Armitage's collection of opals was world famous. He had put black opal +on the market, and had been the first to extol the splendour of the +stones found on Fallen Star Ridge. So different they were from the opal +found on Chalk Cliffs, or in any other part of the world, with the fires +in jetty potch rather than in the clear or milky medium people were +accustomed to, that at first timid and conventional souls were disturbed +and repelled by them. "They felt," they said, "that there was something +occultly evil about black opal." They had a curious fear and dread of +the stones as talismans of evil. Dawe Armitage scattered the quakers +like chaff with his scorn. They could not, he said, accept the +magnificent pessimism of black opal. They would not rejoice with pagan +abandonment in the beauty of those fires in black opal, realising that, +like the fires of life, they owed their brilliance, their transcendental +glory, to the dark setting. But every day the opals made worshippers of +sightseers. They mesmerised beholders who came to look at them. + +When the coach rattled to a standstill outside the hotel, Peter Newton +went to the door of the bar. He knew John Armitage by the size and shape +of his dust-covered overalls. Armitage dismounted and pulled off his +gloves. Peter Newton went to meet him. + +Armitage gripped his hand. + +"Mighty glad to see you, Newton," he said, "and glad to see the Ridge +again. How are you all?" + +Newton smiled, giving him greeting in downright Ridge style. + +"Fine," he said. "Glad to see you, Mr. Armitage." + +When he got indoors, Armitage threw off his coat. He and Peter had a +drink together, and then he went to have a wash and brush up before +dinner. Mrs. Newton came from the kitchen; she was pleased to see Mr. +Armitage, she said, and he shook hands with her and made her feel that +he was really quite delighted to see her. She spent a busy hour or so +making the best of her preparations for the evening meal, so that he +might repeat his usual little compliments about her cooking. Armitage +had his dinner in a small private sitting-room, and strolled out +afterwards to the veranda to smoke and yarn with the men. + +He spent the evening with them there, and in the bar, hearing the news +of the Ridge and gossiping genially. He had come all the way from Sydney +the day before, spent the night in the train, and had no head for +business that night, he said. When he yarned with them, Fallen Star men +had a downright sense of liking John Armitage. He was a good sort, they +told each other; they appreciated his way of talking, and laughed over +the stories he told and the rare and racy Americanisms with which he +flavoured his speech for their benefit. + +When he exerted himself to entertain and amuse them, they were as +pleased with him as a pack of women. And John Lincoln Armitage pleased +women, men of the Ridge guessed, the women of his own kind as well as +the women of Fallen Star who had talked to him now and then. His eyes +had a mild caress when they rested on a woman; it was not in the least +offensive, but carried challenge and appeal--a suggestion of sympathy. +He had a thousand little courtesies for women, the deference which comes +naturally to "a man of the world" for a member of "the fair sex." Mrs. +Newton was always flattered and delighted after a talk with him. He +asked her advice about opals he had bought or was going to buy, and, +although he did not make use of it very often, she was always pleased by +his manner of asking. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Archie Cross both +confessed to a partiality for Mr. Armitage, and even Mrs. Watty agreed +that he was "a real nice man"; and when he was in the township Mrs. +Henty and one of the girls usually drove over from the station and took +him back to Warria to stay a day or two before he went back to Sydney on +his return journey to New York. + +Armitage was very keen to know whether there had been any sensational +finds on the Ridge during the year, and all about them. He wanted to +know who had been getting good stuff, and said that he had bought Jun's +stones in Sydney. The men exclaimed at that. + +"I was surprised to hear," John Armitage said, "what happened to the +other parcel. You don't mean to say you think Charley Heathfield----?" + +"We ain't tried him yet," Watty remarked cautiously, "but the evidence +is all against him." + +Rouminof thrust himself forward, eager to tell his story. Realising the +proud position he might have been in this night with the opal-buyer if +he had had his opals, tears gathered in his eyes as he went over it all +again. + +Armitage listened intently. + +"Well, of all the rotten luck!" he exclaimed, when Paul had finished. +"Have another whisky, Rouminof? But what I can't make out," he added, +"is why, if he had the stones, Charley didn't come to me with them.... I +didn't buy anything but Jun's stuff before I came up here ... and he +just said it was half the find he was showing me. Nice bit of pattern in +that big black piece, eh? If Charley had the stones, you'd think he'd +'ve come along to me, or got Jun, or somebody to come along for him...." + +"I don't know about that." George Woods felt for his reasons. "He +wouldn't want you--or anybody else to know he'd got them." + +"That's right," Watty agreed. + +"He's got them all right," Ted Cross declared. "You see, I seen him +taking Rummy home that night--and he cleared out next morning." + +"I guess you boys know best." John Armitage sipped his whisky +thoughtfully. "But I'm mad to get the rest of the stones. Tell you the +truth, the old man hasn't been too pleased with my buying lately ... and +it would put him in no end of a good humour if I could take home with me +another packet of gems like the one I got from Jun. Jun knew I was keen +to get the stones ... and I can't help thinking ... if he knew they were +about, he'd put me in the way of getting them ... or them in my +way--somehow. You don't think ... anybody else could have been on the +job, and ... put it over on Charley, say...." + +His eyes went over the faces of the men lounging against the bar, or +standing in groups about him. Michael was lifting his glass to drink, +and, for the fraction of a second the opal-buyer's glance wavered on his +face before it passed on. + +"Not likely," George Woods said dryly. + +Recognising the disfavour his suggestion raised, Armitage brushed it +aside. + +"I don't think so, of course," he said. + +And although he did not speak to him, or even look at him closely again, +John Armitage was thinking all the evening of the quiver, slight as the +tremor of a moth's wing, on Michael's face, when that inquiry had been +thrown out. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Armitage was busy going over parcels of stone and bargaining with the +men for the greater part of the next day. He was beginning to have more +of Dawe Armitage's zest for the business; and, every time they met, +Ridge men found him shrewder, keener. His manner was genial and +easy-going with them; but there was a steel band in him somewhere, they +were sure. + +The old man had been bluff, and as hard as nails; but they understood +him better than his son. John Armitage, they knew, was only +perfunctorily interested opal-buying at first; he had gone into it to +please the old man, but gradually the thing had taken hold of him. He +was not yet, however, anything like as good a judge of opal, and his +last buying on the Ridge had displeased his father considerably. John +Armitage had bought several parcels of good-looking opal; but one stone, +which had cost L50 in the rough, was not worth L5 when it was cut. A +grain of sand, Dawe Armitage swore he could have seen a mile away, went +through it, and it cracked on the wheel. A couple of parcels had brought +double what had been paid for them; but several stones John had given a +good price for were not worth half the amount, his father had said. + +George Woods and Watty took John Armitage a couple of fine knobbies +during the morning, and the Crosses had shown him a parcel containing +two good green and blue stones with rippled lights; but they had more on +the parcel than Armitage felt inclined to pay, remembering the stormy +scene there had been with the old man over that last stone from Crosses' +mine which had cracked in the cutter's hands. Towards the end of the day +Mr. Armitage came to the conclusion, having gone over the stones the men +brought him, and having bought all he fancied, that there was very +little black opal of first quality about. He was meditating the fact, +leaning back in his chair in the sitting-room Newton had reserved for +him to see the gougers in, some pieces of opal, his scales and +microscope on the table before him, when Michael knocked. + +Absorbed in his reflections, realising there would be little to show for +the trouble and pains of his long journey, and reviewing a slowly +germinating scheme and dream for the better output of opal from Fallen +Star, John Armitage did not at first pay any attention to the knock. + +He had been thinking a good deal of Michael in connection with that +scheme. Michael, he knew, would be his chief opponent, if ever he tried +putting it into effect. When he had outlined his idea and vaguely formed +plans to his father, Dawe Armitage would have nothing to do with them. +He swept them aside uncompromisingly. + +"You don't know what you're up against," he said. "There isn't a man on +the Ridge wouldn't fight like a pole-cat if you tried it on 'em. Give +'em a word of it--and we quit partnership, see? They wouldn't stand for +it--not for a second--and there'd be no more black opal for Armitage and +Son, if they got any idea on the Ridge you'd that sort of notion at the +back of your head." + +But John Armitage refused to give up his idea. He went to it as a dog +goes to a planted bone--gnawed and chewed over it, contemplatively. + +He had made this trip to Fallen Star with little result, and he was sure +a system of working the mines on scientific, up-to-date lines would +ensure the production of more stone. He wanted to talk organisation and +efficiency to men of the Ridge, to point out to them that organisation +and efficiency were of first value in production, not realising Ridge +men considered their methods both organised and efficient within their +means and for their purposes. + +Michael knocked again, and Armitage called: + +"Come in!" When he saw who had come into the room, he rose and greeted +Michael warmly. + +"Oh, it's you, Michael!" he said, with a sense of guilt at the thoughts +Michael had interrupted. "I wondered what on earth had become of you. +The old man gave me no end of messages, and there are a couple of +magazines for you in my grip." + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," Michael replied. + +"Well, I hope you've got some good stuff," Armitage said. + +Michael took the chair opposite to him on the other side of the table. +"I haven't got much," he said. + +"I remember Newton told me you've been having rotten luck." + +"It's looked up lately," Michael said, the flickering wisp of a smile in +his eyes. "The boys say Rummy's a luck-bringer.... He's working with me +now, and we've been getting some nice stone." + +He took a small packet of opal from his pocket and put it on the table. +It was wrapped in newspaper. He unfastened the string, turned back the +cotton-wool in which the pieces of opal were packed, and spread them out +for Armitage to look at. + +Armitage went over the stones. He put them, one by one, under his +microscope, and held them to and from the light. + +"That's a nice bit of colour, Michael," he said, admiring a small piece +of grey potch with a black strain which flashed needling rays of green +and gold. "A little bit more of that, and you'd be all right, eh?" + +Michael nodded. "We're on a streak now," he said. "It ought to work out +all right." + +"I hope it will." Armitage held the piece of opal to the light and moved +it slowly. "Rouminof's working with you now--and Potch, they tell me?" + +Michael nodded. + +"Pretty hard on him, Charley's getting away with his stones like that!" + +John Armitage probed the quiet eyes of the man before him with a swift +glance. + +"You're right there, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. "Harder on Paul than +it would have been on anybody else. He's got the fever pretty bad." + +Armitage laughed, handling a stone thoughtfully. + +"I gave Jun a hundred pounds for his big stone. I'd give the same for +the other--if I could lay my hands on it, though the boys say it wasn't +quite as big, but better pattern." + +"That's right," Michael said. + +Silence lay between them for a moment. + +"What have you got on the lot, Michael?" Armitage asked, picking up the +stones before him and going over them absent-mindedly. + +"A tenner," Michael said. + +Usually a gouger asked several pounds more than he expected to get. John +Armitage knew that; Michael knew he knew it. Armitage played with the +stones, hesitated as though his mind were not made up. There was not +much more than potch and colour in the bundle. He went over the stones +with the glass again. + +"Oh well, Michael," he said, "we're old friends. I won't haggle with +you. Ten pounds--your own valuation." + +He would get twice as much for the parcel, but the price was a good one. +Michael was surprised he had conceded it so easily. + +Armitage pulled out his cheque-book and pushed a box of cigars across +the table. Michael took out his pipe. + +"If you don't mind, Mr. Armitage," he said, "I'm more at home with +this." + +"Please yourself, Michael," Armitage murmured, writing his cheque. + +When Michael had put the cheque in his pocket, Armitage took a cigar, +nipped and lighted it, and leaned back in his chair again. + +"Not much big stuff about, Michael," he remarked, conversationally. + +"George Woods had some good stones," Michael said. + +Armitage was not enthusiastic. "Pretty fair. But the old man will be +better pleased with the stuff I got from Jun Johnson than anything else +this trip.... I'd give a good deal to get the almond-shaped stone in +that other parcel." + +Michael realised Mr. Armitage had said the same thing to him before. He +wondered why he had said it to him--what he was driving at. + +"There were several good stones in Paul's parcel," he said. + +His clear, quiet eyes met John Armitage's curious, inquiring gaze. He +was vaguely discomfited by Armitage's gaze, although he did not flinch +from it. He wondered what Mr. Armitage knew, that he should look like +that. + +"It's been hard on Rouminof," Armitage murmured again. + +Michael agreed. + +"After the boys making Jun shell out, too! It doesn't seem to have been +much use, does it?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"And they say he was going to take that girl of his down to Sydney to +have her trained as a singer. She can sing, too. But her mother, +Michael--I heard her in _Dinorah_ ... when I was a little chap." +Enthusiasm lighted John Armitage's face. "She was wonderful.... The old +man says people were mad about her when she was in New York.... It was +said, you know, she belonged to some aristocratic Russian family, and +ran away with a rascally violinist--Rouminof. Can you believe it? ... +Went on the stage to keep him.... But she couldn't stand the life. Soon +after she was lost sight of.... I've often wondered how she drifted to +Fallen Star. But she liked being here, the old man says." + +Michael nodded. There was silence between them a moment; then Michael +rose to go. The opal-buyer got up too, and flung out his arms, +stretching with relief to be done with his day's work. + +"I've been cooped in here all day," he said. "I'll come along with you, +Michael. I'd like to have a look at the Punti Rush. Can you walk over +there with me?" + +"'Course I can, Mr. Armitage," Michael said heartily. + +They walked out of the hotel and through the town towards the rush, +where half a dozen new claims had been pegged a few weeks before. + +Snow-Shoes passed then going out of the town to his hut, swinging along +the track and gazing before him with the eyes of a seer, his fine old +face set in a dream, serene dignity in every line of his erect and +slowly-moving figure. + +Armitage looked after him. + +"What a great old chap he is, Michael," he exclaimed. "You don't know +anything about him ... who he is, or where he comes from, do you?" + +"No," Michael said. + +"How does he live?" + +"Noodles." + +"He's never brought me any stone." + +"Trades it with the storekeepers--though the boys do say"--Michael +looked with smiling eyes after Snow-Shoes--"he may be a bit of a miser, +loves opal more than the money it brings." + +Armitage's interest deepened. "There are chaps like that. I've heard the +old man talk about a stone getting hold of a man sometimes--mesmerising +him. I believe the old man's a bit like that himself, you know. There +are two or three pieces of opal he's got from Fallen Star nothing on +earth will induce him to part with. We wanted a stone for an Indian +nabob's show tiara--something of that sort--not long ago. I fancied that +big knobby we got from George Woods; do you remember? But the old man +wouldn't part with it; not he! Said he'd see all the nabobs in the world +in--Hades, before they got that opal out of him!" + +Michael laughed. The thought of hard-shelled old Dawe Armitage hoarding +opals tickled him immensely. + +"Fact," Armitage continued. "He's got a couple of stones he's like a kid +over--takes them out, rubs them, and plays with them. And you should +hear him if I try to get them from him.... A packet of crackers isn't in +it with the old man." + +"The boys'd like to hear that," Michael said. + +"There's no doubt about the fascination the stuff exercises," John +Armitage went on. "You people say, once an opal-miner, always an +opal-miner; but I say, once an opal-buyer, always an opal-buyer. I +wasn't keen about this business when I came into it ... but it's got me +all right. I can't see myself coming to this God-forsaken part of the +world of yours for anything but black opal...." + +That expression, whimsical and enigmatic, which was never very far from +them, had grown in Michael's eyes. He began to sense a motive in +Armitage's seemingly casual talk, and to understand why the opal-buyer +was so friendly. + +"The old man tells a story," Armitage continued, "of that robbery up at +Blue Pigeon. You know the yarn I mean ... about sticking up a coach when +there was a good parcel of opal on board. Somebody did the bush-ranging +trick and got away with the opal.... The thief was caught, and the stuff +put for safety in an iron safe at the post office. And sight of the +opals corrupted one of the men in the post office.... He was caught ... +and then a mounted trooper took charge of them. And the stuff bewitched +him, too.... He tried to get away with it...." + +"That's right," Michael murmured serenely. + +Armitage eyed him keenly. He could scarcely believe the story he had got +from Jun, that the second parcel of stones had been exchanged after +Charley got them, or that they had been changed on Paul before Charley +got them from him. + +Michael guessed Armitage was sounding him by talking so much of +Rouminof's stones and the robbery. He wondered what Armitage +knew--whether he knew anything which would attach him, Michael, to +knowledge of what had become of Paul's stones. There was always the +chance that Charley had recognised some of the opal in the parcel +substituted for Paul's, although none of the scraps were significant +enough to be remembered, Michael thought, and Charley was never keen +enough to have taken any notice of the sun-flash and fragments of +coloured potch they had taken out of the mine during the year. The brown +knobby, which Michael had kept for something of a sentimental reason, +because it was the first stone he had found on Fallen Star, Charley had +never seen. + +But, probably, he remarked to himself, Armitage was only trying to get +information from him because he thought that Michael Brady was the most +likely man on the Ridge to know what had become of the stones, or to +guess what might have become of them. + +As they walked and talked, these thoughts were an undercurrent in +Michael's mind. And the undercurrent of John Lincoln Armitage's mind, +through all his amiable and seemingly inconsequential gossip, was not +whether Michael had taken the stones, but why he had, and what had +become of them. + +Armitage could not, at first, bring himself to credit the half-formed +suspicion which that quiver of Michael's face, when he had spoken of +what Jun said, had given him. Yet they were all more or less mad, people +who dealt with opal, he believed. It might not be for the sake of profit +Michael had taken the stones, if he had taken them--there was still a +shadow of doubt in his mind. John Armitage knew that any man on the +Ridge would have knocked him down for harbouring such a thought. Michael +was the little father, the knight without fear and without a stain, of +the Ridge. He reflected that Michael had never brought him much stone. +His father had often talked of Michael Brady and the way he had stuck to +gouging opal with precious little luck for many years. The parcel he had +sold that day was perhaps the best Michael had traded with Armitage and +Son for a long time. John Armitage wondered if any man could work so +long without having found good stuff, without having realised the hopes +which had materialised for so many other men of the Ridge. + +They went over the new rush, inspected "prospects," and yarned with +Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, who had pegged out a claim there. +But as Armitage and he walked back to the town discussing the outlook of +the new field and the colour and potch some of the men already had to +show, Michael found himself in the undertow of an uneasy imagination. He +protested to himself that he was unnecessarily apprehensive, that all +Armitage was trying to get from him was any information which would +throw light on the disappearance of Paul's stones. And Armitage was +wondering whether Michael might not be an opal miser--whether the +mysterious fires of black opal might not have eaten into his brain as +they had into the brains of good men before him. + +If they had, and if he had found the flaw in Michael's armour, John +Armitage realised that the way to fulfilment of his schemes for buying +the mines and working them on up-to-date lines, was opened up. If +Michael could be proved unfaithful to the law and ideals of Ridge, John +Armitage believed the men's faith in the fabric of their common life +would fall to pieces. He envisaged the eating of moths of doubt and +disappointment into the philosophy of the Ridge, the disintegration of +ideas which had held the men together, and made them stand together in +matters of common interest and service, as one man. He had almost +assured himself that if Michael was not the thief and hoarder of the +lost opals, he at least knew something of them, when a ripple of +laughter and gust of singing were flung into the air not far from them. + +To Armitage it was as though some blithe spirit was mocking the +discovery he thought he had made, and the fruition it promised those +secret hopes of his. + +"It's Sophie," Michael said. + +They had come across the Ridge to the back of the huts. The light was +failing; the sky, from the earth upwards where the sunset had been, the +frail, limpid green of a shallow lagoon, deepening to blue, darker than +indigo. The crescent of a moon, faintly gilded, swung in the sky above +the dark shapes of the huts which stood by the track to the old +Flash-in-the-pan rush. The smoke of sandal-wood fires burning in the +huts was in the air. A goat bell tinkled.... + +Potch and Sophie were talking behind the hut somewhere; their +exclamations, laughter, a phrase or two of the song Sophie was singing +went through the quietness. + +And it was all this he wanted to change! John Armitage caught the +revelation of the moment as he stood to listen to Sophie singing. He +understood as he had never done what the Ridge stood for--association of +people with the earth, their attachment to the primary needs of life, +the joyous flight of youthful spirits, this quiet happiness and peace at +evening when the work of the day was done. + +As he came from the dumps, having said good-night to Michael, he saw +Sophie, a slight, girlish figure, on the track ahead of him. Her dress +flickered and flashed through the trees beside the track; it was a +wraithlike streak in the twilight. She was taking the milk down to +Newton's, and singing to herself as she walked. John Armitage quickened +his steps to overtake her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The visit of an opal-buyer ruffled ever so slightly the still surface of +life on the Ridge. When Armitage had gone, he was talked of for a few +days; the stones he had bought, the prices he had given for them, were +discussed. Some of his sayings, and the stories he had told, were +laughed over. Tricks of speech he had used, tried at first half in fun, +were adopted and dropped into the vernacular of the mines. + +"Sure!" the men said as easily as an American; and sometimes, talking +with each other: "You've got another think coming to you"; or, "See, +you've got your nerve with you!" + +For a night or two Michael went over the books and papers John Armitage +had brought him. At first he just glanced here and there through them, +and then he began to read systematically, and light glimmered in his +windows far into the night. He soaked the contents of two or three +reviews and several newspapers before giving himself to a book on +international finance in which old Armitage had written his name. + +Michael thrilled to the stimulus of the book, the intellectual +excitement of the ideas it brought forth. He lived tumultuously within +the four bare walls of his room, arguing with himself, the author, the +world at large. Wrong and injustice enthroned, he saw in this book +describing the complexities of national and international systems of +finance, the subtle weaving and interweaving of webs of the +money-makers. + +This was not the effect Dawe Armitage had expected his book to have; he +had expected to overawe and daze Michael with its impressive arraignment +of figures and its subtle and bewildering generalisations on credit and +foreign exchange. Michael's mind had cut through the fog raised by the +financier's jargon to the few small facts beneath it all. Neither dazed +nor dazzled, his brain had swung true to the magnetic meridian of his +faith. Far from the book having shown him the folly and futility of any +attempt against the Money Power, as Dawe Armitage, in a moment of +freakish humour had imagined it might, it had filled him with such an +intensity of fury that for a moment he believed he alone could +accomplish the regeneration of the world; that like St. Michael of old +he would go forth and slay the dragon, this chimera which was ravaging +the world, drawing the blood, beauty, and joy of youth, the peace and +wisdom of age; breaking manhood and womanhood with its merciless claws. + +But falling back on a consciousness of self, as with broken wings he +realised he was neither archangel, nor super-man, but Michael Brady, an +ordinary, ill-educated man who read and dreamed a great deal, and gouged +for black opal on Fallen Star Ridge. He was a little bitter, and more +humble, for having entertained that radiant vision of himself. + +John Armitage had been gone from the Ridge some weeks when Michael went +over in his mind every phase and phrase of the talk they had had. His +lips took a slight smile; it crept into his eyes, as he reviewed what he +had said and what John Armitage had said, smoking unconsciously. + +Absorbed in his reading, he had thought little of John Armitage and that +walk to the new rush with him. Occasionally the memory of it had +nickered and glanced through his mind; but he was so obsessed by the +ideas this new reading had stirred, that he went about his everyday jobs +in the mine and in the hut, absent-mindedly, automatically, because they +were things he was in the habit of doing. Potch watched him anxiously; +Rouminof growled to him; Sophie laughed and flitted and sang, before his +eyes; but Michael had been only distantly conscious of what was going on +about him. George Woods and Watty guessed what was the matter; they knew +the symptoms of these reading and brooding bouts Michael was subject to. +The moods wore off when they put questions likely to draw information +and he began to talk out and discuss what he had been reading with them. + +He had talked this one off, when suddenly he remembered how John +Armitage's eyes had dived into his during that walk to the new rush. He +could see Armitage's eyes again, keen grey eyes they were. And his +hands. Michael remembered how Armitage's hands had played over the opals +he had taken to show him. John Lincoln Armitage had the shrewd eyes of +any man who lives by his wits--lawyer, pickpocket, politician, or +financier--he decided; and the fine white hands of a woman. Only Michael +did not know any woman whose hands were as finely shaped and as white as +John Armitage's. Images of his clean-shaven, hot-house face of a city +dweller, slightly burned by his long journey on land and sea, recurred +to him; expressions, gestures, inflections of voice. + +Michael smiled to himself in communion with his thoughts as he went over +the substance of Armitage's conversation, dissecting and shredding it +critically. The more he thought of what Armitage had said, the more he +found himself believing John Armitage had some information which caused +him to think that he, Michael, knew something of the whereabouts of the +stones. He could not convince himself Armitage believed he actually held +the stones, or that he had stolen them. Armitage had certainly given him +an opportunity to sell on the quiet if he had the stones; but his manner +was too tentative, mingled with a subtle respect, to carry the notion of +an overt suggestion of the sort, or the possession of incriminating +knowledge. Then there was the story of the old Cliffs robbery. Michael +wondered why Mr. Armitage had gone over that. On general principles, +doubting the truth of his long run of bad luck--or from curiosity +merely, perhaps. But Michael did not deceive himself that Armitage might +have told the story in order to discover whether there was something of +the miser in him, and whether--if Michael had anything to do with the +taking of Paul's opals--he might prefer to hold rather than sell them. + +Michael was amused at the thought of himself as a miser. He went into +the matter as honestly as he could. He knew the power opal had with him, +the fascination of the search for it, which had brought him from the +Cliffs to the Ridge, and which had held him to the place, although the +life and ideas it had come to represent meant more to him now than black +opal. Still, he was an opal miner, and through all his lean years on the +Ridge he had been upheld by the thought of the stone he would find some +day. + +He had dreamed of that stone. It had haunted his idle thoughts for +years. He had seen it in the dark of the mine, deep in the ruddy earth, +a mirror of jet with fires swarming, red, green, and gold in it. + +Dreams of the great opal he would one day discover had comforted him +when storekeepers were asking for settlement of long-standing accounts. +He did not altogether believe he would find it, that wonderful piece of +black opal; but he dreamed, like a child, of finding it. + +As he thought of it, and of John Armitage, the smile in his eyes +broadened. If Armitage knew of that stone of his dreams, he would +certainly think his surmise was correct and believe that Michael Brady +was a miser. But he had held the dream in a dark and distant corner of +his consciousness; had it out to mood and brood over only at rare and +distant intervals; and no one was aware of its existence. + +Black opal had no more passionate lover than himself, Michael knew. He +trembled with instinctive eagerness, reverence, and delight, when he saw +a piece of beautiful stone; his eyes devoured it. But there was nothing +personal in his love. He might have been high priest of some mysterious +divinity; when she revealed herself he was consumed with adoration. In a +vague, whimsical way Michael realised this of himself, and yet, too, +that if ever he held the stone of his dreams in his hands, he would be +filled with a glorious and flooding sense of accomplishment; an ecstasy +would transport him. It would be beyond all value in money, that stone; +but he would not want to keep it to gaze on alone, he would want to give +it to the world as a thing of consummate beauty, for everybody to enjoy +the sight of and adore. + +No, Michael assured himself, he was not a miser. And, he reflected, he +had not even looked at Paul's stones. For all he knew, the stones Paul +had been showing that night at Newton's might have been removed from the +box before he left Newton's. Someone might have done to Paul what he, +Michael, had done to Charley Heathfield, as Armitage had suggested. +Paul's little tin box was well enough known. He had been opening and +showing his stones at Newton's a long time before the night when Jun had +been induced to divide spoils. It would be just as well, Michael +decided, to see what the box did contain; and he promised himself that +he would open it and look over the stones--some evening. But he was not +inclined to hurry the engagement with himself to do so. + +He had been glad enough to forget that he had anything to do with that +box of Paul's: it still lay among the books where he had thrown it. The +memory of the night on which he had seen Charley taking Paul home, and +of all that had happened afterwards, was blurred in an ugly vision for +him. It had become like the memory of a nightmare. He could scarcely +believe he had done what he had done; yet he knew he had. He drew a deep +breath of relief when he realised everything had worked out well so far. + +Paul was working with him; they had won that little bit of luck to carry +them on; Sophie was growing up healthily, happily, on the Ridge. She was +growing so quickly, too. Within the last few months Michael had noticed +a subtle change in her. There was an indefinable air of a flower +approaching its bloom about her. People were beginning to talk of her +looks. Michael had seen eyes following her admiringly. Sophie walked +with a light, lithe grace; she was slight and straight, not tall really, +but she looked tall in the black dress she still wore and which came to +her ankles. There was less of the eager sprite about her, a suggestion +of some sobering experience in her eyes--the shadow of her mother's +death--which had banished her unthinking and careless childhood. But the +eyes still had the purity and radiance of a child's. And she seemed +happy--the happiest thing on the Ridge, Michael thought. The cadence of +her laughter and a ripple of her singing were never long out of the air +about her father's hut. Wherever she went, people said now: "Sing to us, +Sophie!" + +And she sang, whenever she was asked, without the slightest +self-consciousness, and always those songs from old operas, or some of +the folk-songs her mother had taught her, which were the only songs she +knew. + +Michael had seen a number of neighbours in the township and their wives +and children sitting round in one or other of their homes while Sophie +sang. He had seen a glow of pleasure transfuse people as they listened +to her pure and ringing notes. Singing, Sophie seemed actually to +diffuse happiness, her own joy in the melodies she flung into the air. +Oh, yes, Sophie was happy singing, Michael could permit himself to +believe now. She could make people happy by her singing. He had feared +her singing as a will-o'-the-wisp which would lead her away from him and +the Ridge. But when he heard her enthralling people in the huts with it, +he was not afraid. + +Paul sometimes moaned about the chances she was missing, and that she +could be singing in theatres to great audiences. Sophie herself laughed +at him. She was quite content with the Ridge, it seemed, and to sing to +people on their verandas in the summer evenings or round the fires in +the winter. She might have had greater and finer audiences, the Ridge +folk said, but she could not have had more appreciative ones. + +If she was singing in the town, Michael always went to bring her home, +and he was as pleased as Sophie to hear people say: + +"You're not taking her away yet, Michael? The night's a pup!" or, +"Another ... just one more song, Sophie!" + +And if she had been singing at Newton's, Michael liked to see the men +come to the door of the bar, holding up their glasses, and to hear their +call, as Sophie and he went down the road: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +"Skin off y'r nose!" + +"All the luck!" + +"Best respecks, Sophie!" + +When Sophie did not know what to do with herself all the hours Michael +and Potch and her father were away at the mines, Michael had showed her +how to use her mother's cutting-wheel. He taught her all he knew of +opals, and Sophie was delighted with the idea of learning to cut and +polish gems as her mother had. + +Michael gave her rough stones to practise on, and in no time she learnt +to handle them skilfully. George, Watty, and the Crosses brought her +some gems to face and polish for them, and they were so pleased with her +work that they promised to give her most of their stones to cut and +polish. She had two or three accidents, and was very crestfallen about +them; but Michael declared they were part of the education of an +opal-cutter and would teach her more about her work than anyone could +tell her. + +To Michael those days were of infinite blessedness. They proved again +and again the right of what he had done. At first he was vaguely alarmed +and uneasy when he saw younger men of the Ridge, Roy O'Mara or Bully +Bryant, talking or walking with Sophie, or he saw her laughing and +talking with them. There was something about Sophie's bearing with them +which disturbed him--a subtle, unconscious witchery. Then he explained +it to himself. He guessed that the woman in her was waking, or awake. On +second thoughts he was not jealous or uneasy. It was natural enough the +boys should like Sophie, that she should like them; he recognised the +age-old call of sex in it all. And if Sophie loved and married a man of +the Ridge, the future would be clear, Michael thought. He could give +Paul the opals, and her husband could watch over Sophie and see no harm +came to her if she left the Ridge. + +The uneasiness stirred again, though, one afternoon when he found her +walking from the tank paddock with Arthur Henty beside her. There was a +startled consciousness about them both when Michael joined them and +walked along the road with them. He had seen Sophie talking to Henty in +and about the township before, but it had not occurred to him there was +anything unusual about that. Sophie had gone about as she liked and +talked to whom she liked since she was a child. She was on good terms +with everyone in the countryside. No one knew where she went or what she +did in the long day while the men were at the mines. Because the +carillon of her laughter flew through those quiet days, Michael +instinctively had put up a prayer of thanksgiving. Sophie was happy, he +thought. He did not ask himself why; he was grateful; but a vague +disquiet made itself felt when he remembered how he had found her +walking with Arthur Henty, and the number of times he had seen her +talking to Arthur Henty at Chassy Robb's store, or on the tracks near +the town. + +Fallen Star folk knew Arthur better than any of the Hentys. For years he +had been coming through the township with cattle or sheep, and had put +up at Newton's with stockmen on his way home, or when he was going to an +out-station beyond the Ridge. + +His father, James Henty, had taken up land in the back-country long +before opal was found on Fallen Star Ridge. He had worked half a million +square acres on an arm of the Darling in the days before runs were +fenced, with only a few black shepherds and one white man, old Bill +M'Gaffy, to help him for the first year or two. But, after an era of +extraordinary prosperity, a series of droughts and misfortunes had +overwhelmed the station and thrown it on the tender mercies of the +banks. + +The Hentys lived much as they had always done. They entertained as +usual, and there was no hint of a wolf near the door in the hearty, +good-natured, and liberal hospitality of the homestead. A constitutional +optimism enabled James Henty to believe Warria would ultimately throw +off its debts and the good old days return. Only at the end of a season, +when year after year he found there was no likelihood of being able to +meet even the yearly interest on mortgages, did he lose some of his +sanguine belief in the station's ability to right itself, and become +irritable beyond endurance, blaming any and everyone within hail for the +unsatisfactory estimates. + +But usually Arthur bore the brunt of these outbursts. Arthur Henty had +gone from school to work on the station at the beginning of Warria's +decline from the years of plenty, and had borne the burden and not a +little of the blame for heavy losses during the droughts, without ever +attempting to shift or deny the responsibilities his father put upon +him. + +"It does the old man good to have somebody to go off at," he explained +indifferently to his sister, Elizabeth, when she called him all the +fools under the sun for taking so much blackguarding sitting down. + +Although James Henty's only son and manager of the station under his +father's autocratic rule, Arthur Henty lived and worked among Warria +stockmen as though he were one of them. His clothes were as worn and +heavy with dust as theirs; his hat was as weathered, his hands as +hard--sunburnt and broken with sores when barcoo was in the air. A +quiet, unassuming man, he never came the "Boss" over them. He passed on +the old man's orders, and, for the rest, worked as hard as any man on +the station. + +He had never done anything remarkable that anyone could remember; but +the men he worked with liked him. Everybody rather liked Arthur Henty, +although nobody enthused about him. He had done man's work ever since he +was a boy, with no more than a couple of years' schooling; he had done +it steadily and as well as any other young man in the back-country. But +there was a curious, almost feminine weakness in him somewhere. The men +did not understand it. They thought he was too supine with his father; +that he ought to stand up to him more. + +Arthur Henty preferred being out on the plains with them rather than in +at the home station, the men said. He looked happier when he was with +them; he whistled to them as they lay yarning round the camp-fire before +turning in. They had never heard anything like his whistling. He seemed +to be playing some small, fine, invisible flute as he gave them +old-fashioned airs, ragtime tunes, songs from the comic operas, and +miscellaneous melodies he had heard his sisters singing. No one had +heard him whistling like that at the station. Out on the plains, or in +the bar at Newton's, he was a different man. Once or twice when he had +been drinking, and a glass or two of beer or whisky had got to his head, +he had shown more the spirit that it was thought he possessed--as if, +when the conscious will was relaxed, a submerged self had leapt forth. + +Men who had known him a long time wondered whether time would not +strengthen the fibres of that submerged self; but they had seen Arthur +Henty lose the elastic, hopeful outlook of youth, and sink gradually +into the place assigned him by his father, at first dutifully, then with +an indifference which slowly became apathy. + +Mrs. Henty and the girls exclaimed with dismay and disgust when they +returned to the station after two years in town, and saw how rough and +unkempt-looking Arthur had become. They insisted on his having his hair +and beard cut at once, and that he should manicure his finger-nails. +After he had dressed for dinner and was clipped and shaved, they said he +looked more as if he belonged to them; but he was a shy, awkward boor, +and they did not know what to make of him. In his mother's hands, Arthur +was still a child, though, and she brought him back to the fold of the +family, drew his resistance--an odd, sullen resentment he had acquired +for the niceties of what she called "civilised society"--and made him +amenable to its discipline. + +Elizabeth was twice the man her brother was, James Henty was fond of +declaring. She had all the vigour and dash he would have liked his son +to possess. "My daughter Elizabeth," he said as frequently as possible, +and was always talking of her feats with horses, and the clear-headed +and clever way she went about doing things, and getting her own way on +all and every occasion. + +When the men rounded buck-jumpers into the yards on a Sunday morning, +Elizabeth would ride any Chris Este, the head stockman, let her near; +but Arthur never attempted to ride any of the warrigals. He steered +clear of horse-breaking and rough horses whenever he could, although he +broke and handled his own horses. In a curious way he shared a secret +feeling of his mother's for horses. She had never been able to overcome +an indefinable apprehension of the raw, half-broken horses of the +back-country, although her nerve had carried her through years of +acquaintance with them, innumerable accidents and misadventures, and +hundreds of miles of journeys at their mercy; and Arthur, although he +had lived and worked among horses as long as he could remember, had not +been able to lose something of the same feeling. His sister, suspecting +it, was frankly contemptuous; so was his father. It was the reason of +Henty's low estimate of his son's character generally. And the rumour +that Arthur Henty was shy of tough propositions in horses--"afraid of +horses"--had a good deal to do with the never more than luke-warm +respect men of the station and countryside had for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Sophie often met Arthur Henty on the road just out of the town. Usually +it was going to or coming from the tank paddock, or in the paddock, on +Friday afternoons, when he had been into Budda for the sales or to truck +sheep or cattle. They did not arrange to meet, but Sophie expected to +see Arthur when she went to the tank paddock, and she knew he expected +to find her there. She did not know why she liked being with Arthur +Henty so much, or why they were such golden occasions when she met him. +They did not talk much when they were together. Their eyes met; they +knew each other through their eyes--a something remote from themselves +was always working through their eyes. It drew them together. + +When she was with Arthur Henty, Sophie knew she was filled with an +ineffable gaiety, a thing so delicate and ethereal that as she sang she +seemed to be filling the air with it. And Henty looked at her sometimes +as if he had discovered a new, strange, and beautiful creature, a +butterfly, or gnat, with gauzy, resplendent wings, whose beauty he was +bewildered and overcome by. The last time they had been together he had +longed to draw her to him and kiss her so that the virgin innocence +would leave her eyes; but fear or some conscientious scruple had +restrained him. He had been reluctant to awaken her, to change the +quality of her feeling towards him. He had let her go with a lingering +handclasp. In all their tender intimacy there had been no more of the +love-making of the flesh than the subtle interweavings of instincts and +fibres which this handclasp gave. Ridge folk had seen them walking +together. They had seen that subtle inclination of Sophie's and Arthur's +figures towards each other as they walked--the magnetic, gentle, +irresistible swaying towards each other--and the gossips began to +whisper and nod smilingly when they came across Arthur and Sophie on the +road. Sophie at first went her way unconscious of the whispers and +smiles. Then words were dropped slyly--people teased her about Arthur. +She realised they thought he was her sweetheart. Was he? She began to +wonder and think about it. He must be; she came to the conclusion +happily. Only sweethearts went for walks together as she and Arthur did. + +"My mother says," Mirry Flail remarked one day, "she wouldn't be a bit +surprised to see you marrying Arthur Henty, Sophie, and going over to +live at Warria." + +"Goodness!" Sophie exclaimed, surprised and delighted that anybody +should think such a thing. + +"Marry Arthur Henty and go over and live at Warria." Her mind, like a +delighted little beaver, began to build on the idea. It did not alter +her bearing with Arthur. She was less shy and thoughtful with him, +perhaps; but he did not notice it, and she was carelessly and childishly +content to have found the meaning of why she and Arthur liked meeting +and talking together. People only felt as she and Arthur felt about each +other if they were going to marry and live "happy ever after," she +supposed. + +When Michael was aware of what was being said, and of the foundation +there was for gossip, he was considerably disturbed. He went to talk to +Maggie Grant about it. She, he thought, would know more of what was in +the wind than he did, and be better able to gauge what the consequences +were likely to be to Sophie. + +"I've been bothered about it myself, Michael," she said. "But neither +you nor me can live Sophie's life for her.... I don't see we can do +anything. His crowd'll do all the interfering, if I know anything about +them." + +"I suppose so," Michael agreed. + +"And, as far as I can see, it won't do any good our butting in," Mrs. +Grant continued. "You know Sophie's got a will of her own ... and she's +always had a good deal her own way. I've talked round the thing to her +... and I think she understands." + +"You've always been real good to her, Maggie," Michael said gratefully. + +"As to that"--the lines of Maggie Grant's broad, plain face rucked to +the strength of her feeling--"I've done what I could. But then, I'm fond +of her--fond of her as you are, Michael. That's saying a lot. And you +know what I thought of her mother. But it's no use us thinking we can +buy Sophie's experience for her. She's got to live ... and she's got to +suffer." + +Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no +idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or +that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang +as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch +as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an +insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her +stones to face and fix up. She had acquired such a reputation for making +the most of stones committed to her care that men came from the Three +Mile and from the Punti with opals for her to rough-out and polish. + +Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara were often at Rouminof's in the evening, and +they heard about it when they looked in at Newton's later on, now and +then. + +"You must be striking it pretty good down at the Punti, Bull," Watty +Frost ventured genially one night. "See you takin' stones for Sophie to +fix up pretty near every evenin'." + +"There's some as sees too much," Bully remarked significantly. + +"What you say, you say y'rself, Bull." Watty pulled thoughtfully on his +pipe, but his little blue eyes squinted over his fat, red-grained +cheeks, not in the least abashed. + +"I do," Bull affirmed. "And them as sees too much ... won't see much ... +when I'm through with 'em." + +"Mmm," Watty brooded. "That's a good thing to know, isn't it?" + +He and the rest of the men continued to "sling off," as they said, at +Bully and Roy O'Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless. + +The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of +excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and +the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new +prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on +claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new +field. + +Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show +for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the +fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man +to manage Rummy, the men said. + +Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more +or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with +him for keeping out of the way. + +"Shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't rather have his room than his +company," Watty ventured, "and they just go shares with him so as +things'll be all right for Sophie." + +"That's right!" Pony-Fence agreed. + +The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man's work, going +about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a +youth at anybody's beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the +taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a +man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older +than he was really, and took being Michael's mate very seriously. + +Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that +Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter; but +George and Watty were loth to lose Michael's word from their councils. +They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. +Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a +discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other +shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that +morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael +had invited him to go across to George and Watty's shelter with him, and +after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael's +shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds +which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what +was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty +trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found +Potch's eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent +expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave +interest. + +Some people were staying at Warria during the winter, and when there was +going to be a dance at the station Mrs. Henty wrote to ask Rouminof to +play for it. She could manage the piano music, she said, and if he would +tune his violin for the occasion, they would have a splendid band for +the young people. And, her letter had continued: "We should be so +pleased if your daughter would come with you." + +Sophie was wildly excited at the invitation. She had been to Ridge race +balls for the last two or three years, but she had never even seen +Warria. Her father had played at a Warria ball once, years before, when +she was little; but she and her mother had not gone with him to the +station. She remembered quite well when he came home, how he had told +them of all the wonderful things there had been to eat at the +ball--stuffed chickens and crystallised fruit, iced cakes, and all +manner of sweets. + +Sophie had heard of the Warria homestead since she was a child, of its +orange garden and great, cool rooms. It had loomed like the enchanted +castle of a legend through all her youthful imaginings. And now, as she +remembered what Mirry Flail had said, she was filled with delight and +excitement at the thought of seeing it. + +She wondered whether Arthur had asked his mother to invite her to the +dance. She thought he must have; and with naive conceit imagined happily +that Arthur's mother must want to know her because she knew that Arthur +liked her. And Arthur's sisters--it would be nice to know them and to +talk to them. She went over and over in her mind the talks she would +have with Polly and Nina, and perhaps Elizabeth Henty, some day. + +A few weeks before the ball she had seen Arthur riding through the +township with his sisters and a girl who was staying at Warria. He had +not seen her, and Sophie was glad, because suddenly she had felt shy and +confused at the thought of talking to him before a lot of people. +Besides, they all looked so jolly, and were having such a good time, +that she would not have known what to say to Arthur, or to his sisters, +just then. + +When she told Mrs. Woods and Martha M'Cready about the invitation, they +smiled and teased her. + +"Oh, that tells a tale!" they said. + +Sophie laughed. She felt silly, and she was blushing, they said. But she +was very happy at having been asked to the ball. For weeks before she +found herself singing "Caro Nome" as she sat at work, went about the +house, or with Potch after the goats in the late afternoon. + +Arthur liked that song better than any other, and its melody had become +mingled and interwoven with all her thoughts of him. + +The twilight was deepening, on the evening a few days before the dance, +when Bully Bryant and Roy O'Mara came up to Rouminof's hut, calling +Sophie. She was washing milk tins and tea dishes, and went to the door +singing to herself, a candle throwing a fluttering light before her. + +"Your father sent us along for you, Sophie," Bully explained. "There's a +bit of a celebration on at Newton's to-night, and the boys want you to +sing for them." + +Sophie turned from them, going into the house to put down her candle. + +"All right," she said, pleased at the idea. + +Michael came into the hut through, the back door. From his own room he +had heard Bully calling and then explaining why he and Roy O'Mara were +there. + +"Don't go, Sophie," Michael said. + +"But why, Michael?" Disappointment clouded Sophie's first bright +pleasure that the men had sent for her to sing to them, and her +eagerness to do as they asked. + +"It's not right ... not good for you to sing down there when the boys +'ve been drinking," Michael said, unable to express clearly his +opposition to her singing at Newton's. + +"Don't be a spoil-sport, Michael," the boys at the door called when they +saw he was trying to dissuade Sophie. + +"Come along, Sophie," Roy called. + +She looked from Bully and Roy to Michael, hesitating. Theirs was the +call of youth to youth, of youth to gaiety and adventure. She turned +away from Michael. + +"I'm going, Michael," she said quickly, and swung to the door. Michael +heard her laughing as she went off along the track with Bully and Roy. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage is up?" Roy stopped to call back. + +"No," Michael said. + +"Came up by the coach this evening," Roy said, and ran after Bully and +Sophie. + +It was a rowdy night at Newton's. Shearing was just over at Warria +sheds, and men with cheques to burn were crowding the bar and passages. +Sophie was hailed with cheers as she neared the veranda. Her father +staggered out towards her, waving his arms crazily. Sophie was surprised +when she found the crowd waiting for her. There were so many strangers +in it--rough men with heavy, inflamed faces--hardly one she knew among +them. A murmur and boisterous clamour of voices came from the bar. The +men on the veranda made way for her. + +Her heart quailed when she looked into the big earthen-floored bar, and +saw its crowd of rough-haired, sun-red men, still wearing the clothes +they had been working in, grey flannel shirts and dungarees, +blood-splashed, grimy, and greasy with the "yolk" of fleeces they had +been handling. The smell of sheep and the sweat of long days of shearing +and struggling with restless beasts were in the air, with fumes of rank +tobacco and the flat, stale smell of beer. The hanging lamp over the bar +threw only a dim light through the fog of smoke the men had put up, and +which from the doorway completely obscured Peter Newton where he stood +behind the bar. + +Sophie hung back. + +"I'm not going in there," she said. + +"Did you know Mr. Armitage was up?" Roy asked. + +"No," she said. + +He explained how Mr. Armitage had come unexpectedly by the coach that +evening. Sophie saw him among the men on the veranda. + +"I'll sing here," she told Bully and Roy, leaning against a veranda +post. + +She was a little afraid. But she knew she had always pleased Ridge folk +when she sang to them, so she put back her head and sang a song of youth +and youthful happiness she had sung on the veranda at Newton's before. +It did not matter that the words were in Italian, which nobody +understood. The dancing joyousness and laughing music of her notes +carried the men with them. The applause was noisy and enthusiastic. +Sophie laughed, delighted, yet almost afraid of her success. + +Big and broad-shouldered, Bully Bryant stood at a little distance from +her, in front of everybody. Arthur Henty, leaning against the wall near +the door of the bar, smiled softly, foolishly, when she glanced at him. +He had been drinking, too, and was watching, and listening to her, with +the same look in his eyes as Bully. + +Sophie caught the excitement about her. An exhilaration of pleasure +thrilled her. It was crude wine which went to her head, this admiration +and applause of strangers and of the men she had known since she was a +child. There was a wonderful elation in having them beg her to sing. +They looked actually hungry to hear her. She found Arthur Henty's eyes +resting on her with the expression she knew in them. An imp of +recklessness entered her. Her father beat the air as if he were leading +an orchestra, and she threw herself into the Shadow Song, singing with +an abandonment that carried her beyond consciousness of her +surroundings. + +She sang again and again, and always in response to an eager tumult of +cheers, thudding of feet, joggling of glasses, chorus of broken cries: +"En-core, encore, Sophie!" An instinct of mischief and coquetry urging, +she glanced sometimes at Arthur, sometimes at Bully. Then with a glance +at Arthur, and for a last number, she began "Caro Nome," and gave to her +singing all the glamour and tenderness, the wild sweetness, the aria had +come to have for her, because she had sung it so often to Arthur when +they met and were walking along the road together. She was so carried +away by her singing, she did not realise what had happened until +afterwards. + +She only knew that suddenly, roughly, she was grasped and lifted. She +saw Bully's face flaming before her own, gazed with terror and horror +into his eyes. His face was thrown against hers--and obliterated. + +"Are you all right?" someone asked after a moment. + +Awaking from the daze and bewilderment, Sophie looked up. + +John Armitage was standing beside her; Potch nearby. They were on the +outskirts of the crowd on the veranda. + +"Yes," she said. + +The men on the veranda had broken into two parties; one was surging +towards the bar door, the other moving off down the road out of the +town. Michael came towards her. + +"Thank you, Mr. Armitage," he said. + +"Oh, Potch looked after her. I couldn't get near," John Armitage said. + +An extraordinary quiet took possession of Sophie. When she was going +down the road with Potch and Michael, she said: + +"Did Bully kiss me, Michael?" + +"Yes," he replied. + +"I don't know what happened then?" + +"Arthur Henty knocked him down," Michael said. + +She looked at him with scared eyes. + +"They want to fight it out ... but they're both drunk. The boys are +trying to stop it." + +"Oh, Michael!" Sophie cried on a little gasping breath; and looking into +her eyes he read her contrition, asking forgiveness, understanding all +that he had not been able to explain to her. She did not say, "I'll +never sing there, like that, any more." Her feeling was too deep for +words; but Michael knew she never would. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +"It's what I wore, meself, white muslin, when I went to me first ball," +Mrs. George Woods said, standing off to admire the frock of white muslin +Sophie had on, and which she had just fastened up for her. + +Sophie was admiring her reflection in Mrs. Woods' mirror, a square of +glass which gave no more than her head and shoulders in brilliant +sketchy outlines. She moved, trying to see more of herself and the new +dress. Maggie Grant, who had helped with the making of the dress, was +also gazing at her and at it admiringly. + +When it was a question of Sophie having a dress for the ball at Warria, +Mrs. Grant had spoken to Michael about it. + +"Sophie's got to have a decent dress to go to the station, Michael," she +said. "I'm not going to have people over there laughing at her, and +she's had nothing but her mother's old dresses, cut down--for goodness +knows how long." + +"Will you get it?" Michael inquired anxiously. + +Mrs. Grant nodded. + +"Bessie Woods and I were thinking it might be pinspot muslin, with a bit +of lace on it," she said. "We could get the stuff at Chassy Robb's and +make it up between us." + +"Right!" Michael replied, looking immensely relieved to have the +difficulty disposed of. "Tell Chassy to put it on my book." + +So the pinspot muslin and some cheap creamy lace had been bought. Mrs. +Woods and Sophie settled on a style they found illustrating an +advertisement in a newspaper and which resembled a dress one of the +Henty girls had worn at the race ball the year before. Maggie Grant had +done all the plain sewing and Mrs. Woods the fixing and finishing +touches. They had consulted over and over again about sleeves and the +length of the skirt. The frock had been fitted at least a dozen times. +They had wondered where they would put the lace as a bit of trimming, +and had decided for frills at the elbows and a tucker in the V-shaped +neck of the blouse. They marvelled at their audacity, but felt sure they +had done the right thing when they cut the neck rather lower than they +would have for a dress to be worn in the daytime. + +Martha M'Cready, insisting on having a finger in the pie, had pressed +the dress when it was finished, and she had washed and ironed Mrs. +George Woods' best embroidered petticoat for Sophie to wear with it. + +And now Sophie was dressing in Mrs. Woods' bedroom because it had a +bigger mirror than her own room, and the three women were watching her, +giving little tugs and pats to the dress now and then, measuring it with +appraising glances of conscious pride in their workmanship, and joy at +Sophie's appearance in it. Sophie, her face flushed, her eyes shining, +turned to them every now and then, begging to know whether the skirt was +not a little full here, or a little flat there; and they pinched and +pulled, until it was thought nothing further could be done to improve +it. + +Sophie was anxious about her hair. She had put it in plaits the night +before, and had kept it in them all the morning. Her hair had never been +in plaits before, and she had not liked the look of it when she saw it +all crisp and frizzy, like Mirry Flail's. She had used a wet brush to +get the crinkle out, but there was still a suggestion of it in the heavy +dark wave of her hair when she had done it up as usual. + +"Your hair looks very nice--don't worry any more about it, Sophie," +Martha M'Cready had said. + +"My mother used to say there was nothing nicer for a young girl to wear +than white muslin," Mrs. Woods remarked, "and that sash of your mother's +looks real nice as a belt, Sophie." + +The sash, a broad piece of blue and green silk shot like a piece of poor +opal, Sophie had found in a box of her mother's, and it was wound round +her waist as a belt and tied in a bow at the side. + +"Turn round and let me see if the skirt's quite the same length all +round, Sophie," Mrs. Grant commanded. + +"Yes, Maggie," Bessie Woods exclaimed complacently. "It's quite right." + +Sophie glanced at herself in the glass again. Mrs. Woods had lent her a +pair of opal ear-rings, and Maggie Grant the one piece of finery she +possessed--a round piece of very fine black opal set in a rim of gold, +which Bill had given her when first she came to the Ridge. + +Sophie had on for the first time, too, a necklace she had made herself +of stones the miners had given her at different times. There was a piece +of opal for almost every man on the fields, and she had strung them +together, with a beautiful knobby Potch had made her a present of for +her eighteenth birthday, a few days before, in the centre. + +Just as she had finished dressing, Mrs. Watty Frost called in the +doorway: "Anybody at home?" + +"Come in," Mrs. George Woods replied. + +Mrs. Watty walked into the bedroom. She had a long slender parcel +wrapped in brown paper in her hand, but nobody noticed it at the time. + +"My!" she exclaimed, staring at Sophie; "we are fine, aren't we?" + +Sophie caught up her long, cotton gloves and pirouetted in happy +excitement. + +"Aren't we?" she cried gaily. "Just look at my gloves! Did ever you see +such lovely long gloves, Mrs. Watty? And don't my ear-rings look nice? +But it does feel funny wearing ear-rings, doesn't it? I want to be +shaking my head all the time to make them joggle!" + +She shook her head. The blue and green fires of the stones leapt and +sparkled. Her eyes seemed to catch fire from them. The women exchanged +admiring glances. + +"Where's my handkerchief?" Sophie cried. "Father's late, isn't he? I'm +sure we'll be late! How long will it take to drive over to Warria?--An +hour? Goodness! And it'll be almost time for the dance to begin then! +Oh, don't my shoes look nice, Maggie?" + +She looked down at her feet in the white cotton stockings and white +canvas shoes, with ankle straps, which Maggie Grant had sent into Budda +for. The hem of her skirt came just to her ankles. She played the new +shoes in and out from under it in little dancing steps, and the women +laughed at her, happy in her happiness. + +"But you haven't got a fan, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said. + +"A fan?" Sophie's eyes widened. + +"You should oughter have a fan. In my young days it wasn't considered +decent to go to a ball without a fan," Mrs. Watty remarked grimly. + +"Oh!" Sophie looked from one to the other of her advisers. + +Mrs. George Woods was just going to say that it was a long time since +Mrs. Watty's young days, when Mrs. Watty took the brown paper from the +long, thin parcel she was carrying. + +"I thought most likely you wouldn't have one," she said, "so I brought +this over." + +She unfurled an old-fashioned, long-handled, sandal-wood fan, with birds +and flowers painted on the brown satin screen, and a little row of +feathers along the top. Mrs. George Woods and Mrs. Grant exchanged +glances that Mrs. Watty should pander to the vanity of an occasion. + +"Mrs. Watty!" Sophie took the fan with a little cry of delight. + +"My, aren't you a grown-up young lady now, Sophie?" Mrs. Woods +exclaimed, as Sophie unfurled the fan. + +"But mind you take care of it, Sophie," Mrs. Watty said, stiffening +against the relaxing atmosphere of goodwill and excitement. "Watty got +it for me last trip he made to sea, before we was married, and I set a +good deal of store by it." + +"Oh, I'll be ever so careful!" Sophie declared. She opened the fan. +"Isn't it pretty?" + +Dropping into a chair, she murmured: "May I--have this dance with you, +Miss Rouminof?" And casting a shy upward glance over her fan, as if +answering for herself, "I don't mind if I do!" + +Martha and Mrs. Woods laughed heartily, recognising Arthur Henty's way +of talking in the voice Sophie had imitated. + +"That's the way to do it, Sophie," Mrs. Woods said; "only you shouldn't +say, 'Don't mind if I do,' but, 'It's a pleasure, I'm sure.'" + +"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Sophie mimed. + +"Is she going to wear the dress over?" Mrs. Watty asked anxiously. + +"Yes," Maggie Grant said. "Bessie's lending her a dust-coat. I don't +think it'll get crushed very much. You see, they won't arrive until it's +nearly time for the dance to begin, and we thought it'd be better for us +to help her to get fixed up. Everybody'll be so busy over at Warria--and +we thought she mightn't be able to get anybody to do up her dress for +her." + +"That's right," Mrs. Watty said. + +There was a rattle of wheels on the rough shingle near the hut. + +"Here's your father, Sophie," Martha called. + +"And Michael and Potch are in the kitchen wanting to have a look at you +before you go, Sophie," Maggie Grant said. + +"Oh!" Sophie took the coat Mrs. Woods was lending her, and went out to +the kitchen with it on her arm. + +Michael and Potch were there. They stared at her. But her radiant face, +the shining eyes, and the little smile which hovered on her mouth, held +their gaze more than the new white dress standing out in slight, stiff +folds all round her. The vision of her--incomparable youth and +loveliness she was to Michael--gripped him so that a moisture of love +and reverence dimmed his eyes.... And Potch just stared and stared at +her. + +Paul was bawling from the buggy outside: + +"Are you ready, Sophie? Sophie, are you ready?" + +Mrs. Woods held the dust-coat. Very carefully Sophie edged herself into +it, and wrapped its nondescript buff-coloured folds over her dress. Then +she put the pink woollen scarf Martha had brought over her head, and +went out to the buggy. Her father was sitting aloft on the front seat, +driving Sam Nancarrow's old roan mare, and looking spruce and well +turned out in a new baggy suit which Michael had arranged for him to get +in order to look more of a credit to Sophie at the ball. + +"See you take good care of her, Paul," Mrs. Grant called after him as +they drove off. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie. + +Paul hummed and talked of the music he was going to play as they went +along. He called to Sam Nancarrow's old nag, quite pleased to be having +a horse to drive as though it belonged to him, and gossiped genially +about this and other balls he had been to. + +Sophie kept remembering what Mrs. Grant and Mrs. George Woods had said, +and how she had looked in those glimpses of herself in the mirror. "I do +look nice! I do look nice!" she assured herself. + +It was wonderful to be going to a ball at Warria. She had never thought +she could look as she did in this new frock, with her necklace, and Mrs. +Woods' ear-rings, and that old sash of her mother's. She was a little +anxious, but very happy and excited. + +She remembered how Arthur had looked at her when she met him on the road +or in the paddock sometimes, She only had on her old black dress then. +He must like her in this new dress, she thought. Her mind had a subtle +recoil from the too great joy of thinking how much more he must like her +in this pretty, new, white frock; she sat in a delicious trance of +happiness. Her father hummed and gossiped. All the stars came out. The +sky was a wonderful blue where it met the horizon, and darkened to +indigo as it climbed to the zenith. + +When they drove from the shadow of the coolebahs which formed an avenue +from the gate of the home paddock to the veranda of the homestead, Ted +Burton, the station book-keeper, a porky, good-natured little man, with +light, twinkling eyes, whose face looked as if it had been sand-papered, +came out to meet them. + +"There you are, Rouminof!" he said. "Glad to see you. We were beginning +to be afraid you weren't coming!" + +Sophie got down from the buggy, and her father drove off to the stables. +Passing the veranda steps with Mr. Burton, she glanced up. Several men +were on the steps. Her eyes went instinctively to Arthur Henty, who was +standing at the foot of them, a yellow puppy fawning at his feet. He did +not look up as Sophie passed, pretending to be occupied with the pup. +But in that fleeting glance her brain had photographed the bruise on his +forehead where it had caught a veranda post when Bully Bryant, having +regained his feet, hit out blindly. + +Potch had told Sophie what happened--she had made him find out in order +to tell her. Arthur and Bully had wanted to fight, but after the first +exchange of blows the men had held them back. Bully was mad drunk, they +said, and would have hammered Henty to pulp. And the next evening Bully +came to Sophie, heavy with shame, and ready to cry for what he had done. + +"If anybody'd 've told me I'd treat you like that, Sophie, I'd 've +killed him," he said. "I'd 've killed him.... You know how I feel about +you--you know how we all feel about you--and for me to have served you +like that--me that'd do anything in the world for you.... But it's no +good trying to say any more. It's no good tryin' to explain. It's got me +down...." + +He sat with his head in his hands for a while, so ashamed and miserable, +that Sophie could not retain her wrath and resentment against him. It +was like having a brother in trouble and doing nothing to help him, to +see Bully like this. + +"It's all right, Bully," she said. "I know ... you weren't yourself ... +and you didn't mean it." + +He started to his feet and came to stand beside her. Sophie put her hand +in his; he gripped it hard, unable to say anything. Then, when he could +control his voice, he said: + +"I went over to see Mr. Henty this morning ... and told him if anybody +else 'd done what I did, I'd 've done what he did." + +Potch had said the men expected Bully would want to fight the thing out +when he was sober, and it was a big thing for him to have done what he +had. The punishing power of Bully's fists was well known, and he had +taken this way of punishing himself. Sophie understood that, She was +grateful and reconciled to him. + +"I'm glad, Bully," she said. "Let's forget all about it." + +So the matter ended. But it all came back to her as she saw the broken +red line on Arthur Henty's forehead. + +She did not know that because of it she was an object of interest to the +crowd on the veranda. News of Arthur Henty's bout with Bully Bryant had +been very soon noised over the whole countryside. Most of the men who +came to the ball from Langi-Eumina and other stations had gleaned varied +and highly-coloured versions, and Arthur had been chaffed and twitted +until he was sore and ashamed of the whole incident. He could not +understand himself--the rush of rage, instinctive and unreasoning, which +had overwhelmed him when he hit out at Bully. + +His mother protested that it was a shame to give Arthur such a bad time +for what was, after all, merely the chivalrous impulse of any decent +young man when a girl was treated lightly in his presence; but the men +and the girls who were staying at the station laughed and teased all the +more for the explanation. They pretended he was a very heroic and +quixotic young man, and asked about Sophie--whether she was pretty, and +whether it was true she sang well. They redoubled their efforts, and +goaded him to a state of sulky silence, when they knew she was coming to +the ball. + +Arthur Henty had been conscious for some time of an undercurrent within +him drawing him to Sophie. He was afraid of, and resented it. He had not +thought of loving her, or marrying her. He had gone to the tank paddock +in the afternoons he knew she would be there, or had looked for her on +the Warria road when she had been to the cemetery, with a sensation of +drifting pleasantly. He had never before felt as he did when he was with +Sophie, that life was a clear and simple thing--pleasant, too; that +nothing could be better than walking over the plains through the limpid +twilight. He had liked to see the fires of opal run in her eyes when she +looked at him; to note the black lines on the outer rim of their +coloured orbs; the black lashes set in silken skin of purest ivory; the +curve of her chin and neck; the lines of her mouth, and the way she +walked; all these things he had loved. But he did not want to have the +responsibility of loving Sophie: he could not contemplate what wanting +to marry her would mean in tempests and turmoil with his family. + +He had thought sometimes of a mediaeval knight wandering through +flowering fields with the girl on a horse beside him, in connection with +Sophie and himself. A reproduction of the well-known picture of the +knight and the girl hung in his mother's sitting-room. She had cut it +out of a magazine, and framed it, because it pleased her; and beneath +the picture, in fine print, Arthur had often read: + + "I met a lady in the meads, + Full beautiful--a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild. + + "I set her on my pacing steed, + And nothing else saw all day long; + For sideways would she lean, and sing + A faery's song." + +As a small boy Arthur had been attracted by the picture, and his mother +had told him its story, and had read him Keats' poem. He had read it +ever so many times since then himself, and after he met Sophie in the +tank paddock that afternoon she had ridden home on his horse, some of +the verses haunted him with the thought of her. One day when they were +sitting by the track and she had been singing to him, he had made a +daisy chain and thrown it over her, murmuring sheepishly, in a caprice +of tenderness: + + "I made a garland for her head, + And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; + She looked at me as she did love + And made sweet moan." + +Sophie had asked about the poem. She had wanted to hear more, and he had +repeated as many verses as he could remember. When he had finished, she +had looked at him "as she did love" indeed, with eyes of sweet +confidence, yet withdrawing from him a little in shy and happy confusion +that he should think of her as anyone like the lady of the meads, who +was "full beautiful--a fairy's child." + +But Arthur did not want to love her; he did not want to marry her. He +did not want to have rows with his father, differences with his mother. +The affair at Newton's had shown him where he was going. + +Sophie was "a fairy's child," he decided. "Her hair as long, her foot +was light, and her eyes were wild"; but he did not want to be "a +wretched wight, alone and palely loitering" on her account; he did not +want to marry her. He would close her eyes with "kisses four," he told +himself, smiling at the precision of the knight of the chronicle; +"kisses four"--no more--and be done with the business. + +Meanwhile, he wished Sophie were not coming to the ball. He would have +given anything to prevent her coming; but he could do nothing. + +He had thought of escaping from the ball by going to the out-station +with the men; but his mother, foreseeing something of his intention, had +given him so much to do at the homestead for her, that he could not go +away. When the buggy with Sophie and her father drove up to the veranda, +there was a chorus of suppressed exclamations among the assembled +guests. + +"Here she is, Art!" + +"Buck up, old chap! None but the brave, etc." + +Sophie did not hear the undertone of laughter and raillery which greeted +her arrival. She was quite unconscious that the people on the veranda +were interested in her at all, as she walked across the courtyard +listening to Mr. Burton's amiable commonplaces. + +When Mr. Burton left her in a small room with chintz-covered chairs and +dressing-table, Sophie took off her old dust-coat and the pink scarf she +had tied over her hair. The mirror was longer than Mrs. Woods'. Her +dress looked very crushed when she saw it reflected. She tried to shake +out the creases. Her hair, too, was flat, and had blown into stringy +ends. A shade of disappointment dimmed the brightness of her mood as she +realised she was not looking nearly as nice as she had when she left the +Ridge. + +Someone said: "May I come in?" and Polly Henty and another girl entered +the room. + +Polly Henty had just left school. She was a round-faced, jolly-looking +girl of about Sophie's own age, and the girl with her was not much +older, pretty and sprightly, an inch or so taller than Polly, and +slight. She had grey eyes, and a fluff of dry-grass coloured hair about +a small, sharp-featured, fresh-complexioned face, neatly powdered. + +Sophie knew something was wrong with her clothes the moment she +encountered the girls' curious and patronising glances as they came into +the room. Their appearance, too, took the skin from her vanity. Polly +had on a frock of silky white crepe, with no lace or decoration of any +kind, except a small gold locket and chain which she was wearing. But +her dress fell round her in graceful folds, showing her small, +well-rounded bust and hips, and she had on silk stockings and white +satin slippers. The other girl's frock was of pale pink, misty material, +so thin that her shoulders and arms showed through it as though there +were nothing on them. She had pinned a pink rose in her hair, too, so +that its petals just lay against the nape of her neck. Sophie thought +she had never seen anyone look so nice. She had never dreamed of such a +dress. + +"Oh, Miss Rouminof," Polly said; "mother sent me to look for you. We're +just ready to start, and your father wants you to turn over his music +for him." + +Sophie stood up, conscious that her dress was nothing like as pretty as +she had thought it. It stood out stiffly about her: the starched +petticoat crackled as she moved. She knew the lace should not have been +on her sleeves; that her shoes were of canvas, and creaked as she +walked; that her cotton gloves, and even the heavy, old-fashioned fan +she was carrying, were not what they ought to have been. + +"Miss Chelmsford--Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the +girl in the pink dress. + +Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand. + +"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if +just remembering she, too, had a hand. + +Sophie went with Polly and her friend to the veranda, which was screened +in on one side with hessian to form a ball-room. Behind the hessian the +walls were draped with flags, sheaves of paper daisies, and bundles of +Darling pea. Red paper lanterns swung from the roof, threw a rosy glare +over the floor which had been polished until it shone like burnished +metal. + +Polly Henty took Sophie to the piano where Mrs. Henty was playing the +opening bars of a waltz. Paul beside her, his violin under his arm, +stood looking with eager interest over the room where men and girls were +chatting in little groups. + +Mrs. Henty nodded and smiled to Sophie. Her father signalled to her, and +she went to a seat near him. + +Holding her hands over the piano, Mrs. Henty looked to Paul to see if he +were ready. He lifted his violin, tucked it under his chin, drew his +bow, and the piano and violin broke gaily, irregularly, uncertainly, at +first, into a measure which set and kept the couples swaying round the +edge of the ball-room. + +Sophie watched them at first, dazed and interested. Under the glow of +the lanterns, the figures of the dancers looked strange and solemn. Some +of the dancers were moving without any conscious effort, just skimming +the floor like swallows; others were working hard as they danced. Tom +Henderson held Elizabeth Henty as if he never intended to let go of her, +and worked her arm up and down as if it were a semaphore. + +Sophie had always admired Arthur's eldest sister, and she thought +Elizabeth the most beautiful-looking person she had ever seen this +evening. And that pink dress--how pretty it was! What had Polly said her +name was--the girl who wore it? Phyllis ... Phyllis Chelmsford.... +Sophie watched the dress flutter among the dancers some time before she +noticed Miss Chelmsford was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +She watched the couples revolving, dazed, and thinking vaguely about +them, noticing how pretty feet looked in satin slippers with high, +curved heels, wondering why some men danced with stiff knees and others +as if their knees had funny-bones like their elbows. The red light from +the lanterns made the whole scene look unreal; she felt as if she were +dreaming. + +"Sophie!" her father cried sharply. + +She turned his page. Her eyes wandered to Mrs. Henty, who sat with her +back to her. Sophie contemplated the bow of her back in its black frock +with Spanish lace scarf across it, the outline of the black lace on the +wrinkled skin of Mrs. Henty's neck, the loose, upward wave of her crisp +white hair, glinting silverly where the light caught it. Her face was +cobwebbed with wrinkles, but her features remained delicate and fine as +sculpturings in ancient ivory. Her eyes were bright: the sparkle of +youth still leapt in them. Her eyes had a slight smile of secret +sympathy and amusement as they flew over the roomful of people dancing. + +Sophie watched dance after dance, while the music jingled and jangled. + +Presently John Armitage appeared in the doorway with Nina Henty. Sophie +heard him apologising to Mrs. Henty for being late, and explaining that +he had stayed in the back-country a few days longer than usual for the +express purpose of coming to the ball. + +Mrs. Henty replied that it was "better late than never," and a pleasure +to see Mr. Armitage at any time; and then he and Nina joined the throng +of the dancers. + +Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The +disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came +into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely +come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was +dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding +herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the +background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her. + +It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other +people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always +been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the +moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his +way if he wanted a waltz with her. + +As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred +to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had +invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, +left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz +broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the +page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page +himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up +for him. + +After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely +looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would +end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it +would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her +crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty's big, old-fashioned +fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of +them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but +she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in +order to turn over the pages of her father's music more expertly. + +She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been +invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler's little girl +to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, +she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or +speak to her. + +Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly: + +"Come here and let me look at your opals, child." + +Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace. + +"What splendid stones!" she said. + +Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur's, with the same +shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought. + +"Yes," she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty +about the stones. + +Mrs. Henty admired the ear-rings, and looked appreciatively at the big +flat stone in Mrs. Grant's brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention. +She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her. + +Looking into Sophie's face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, +unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a +something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been +considerably disturbed by Arthur's share in the brawl at Newton's. It +was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened +after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of +Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was +not sorry to see what manner of girl she was. + +But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly +uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite +their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have +brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what +Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time +like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good +time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the +mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to +dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have side-tracked her +about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence +which looked from Sophie's eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and +cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt. + +Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the +long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty's hand fell from Sophie's +necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair. + +But Mrs. Henty's thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She +played absent-mindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes. +She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she +protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl. +If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him. + +Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little +annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was +the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in +her hair brushing his cheek. + +"Mother!" Polly called. "For goodness' sake ... what are you dreaming +of?" + +The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty's reverie until Polly +called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm +more briskly. + +After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy +to each, other--at last--and were getting on, she could not afford to +espouse the other girl's cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur +to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old +Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle sales were the envy of +pastoralists on both sides of the Queensland border. Phyllis's +inheritance and the knowledge that the interests of Warria were allied +to those of Andrew Chelmsford of Yuina, would ensure a new lease of hope +and opportunity for Warria.... Whereas it would be worse than awful if +Arthur contemplated anything like marriage with this girl from the +Ridge. + +Mrs. Henty's conscience was uneasy all the same. When the dance was +ended, she called Arthur to her. + +"For goodness' sake, dear, ask that child to dance with you," she said +when he came to her. "She's been sitting here all the evening by +herself." + +"I was just going to," Sophie heard Arthur say. + +He came towards her. + +"Will you have the next dance with me, Sophie?" he asked. + +She did not look at him. + +"No," she said. + +"Oh, I say----" He sat down beside her. "I've had to dance with these +people who are staying with us," he added awkwardly. + +Her eyes turned to him, all the stormy fires of opal running in them. + +"You don't _have_ to dance with me," she said. + +He got up and stood indecisively a moment. + +"Of course not," he said, "but I want to." + +"I don't want to dance with you," Sophie said. + +He turned away from her, went down the ball-room, and out through the +doorway in the hessian wall. Everyone had gone to supper. Mrs. Henty had +left the piano. Paul himself had gone to have some refreshment which was +being served in the dining-room across the courtyard. From the square, +washed with the silver radiance of moonlight which she could see through +the open space in the hessian, came a tinkle of glasses and spoons, +fragments of talking and laughter. Sophie heard a clear, girlish voice +cry: "Oh, Arthur!" + +She clenched her hands; she thought that she was going to cry; but +stiffening against the inclination, she sat fighting down the pain which +was gripping her, and longed for the time to come when she could go home +and be out in the dark, alone. + +John Armitage entered the ball-room as if looking for someone. Glancing +in the direction of the piano, he saw Sophie. + +"There you are, Sophie!" he exclaimed heartily. "And, would you believe +it, I've only just discovered you were here." + +He sat down beside her, and talked lightly, kindly, for a moment. But +Sophie was in no mood for talking. John Armitage had guessed something +of her crisis when he came into the room and found her sitting by +herself. He had seen the affair at Newton's, and knew enough of Fallen +Star gossip to understand how Sophie would resent Arthur Henty's +treatment of her. He could see she was a sorely hurt little creature, +holding herself together, but throbbing with pain and anger. She could +not talk; she could only think of Arthur Henty, whose voice they heard +occasionally out of doors. He was more than jolly after supper. Armitage +had seen him swallow nearly a glassful of raw whisky. His face had gone +a ghastly white after it. Rouminof had been drinking too. He came into +the room unsteadily when Mrs. Henty took her seat at the piano again; +but he played better. + +Armitage's eyes went to her necklace. + +"What lovely stones, Sophie!" he said. + +Sophie looked up. "Yes, aren't they? The men gave them to me--there's a +stone for every one. This is Michael's!"--she touched each stone as she +named it--"Potch gave me that, and Bully Bryant that." + +Her eyes caught Armitage's with a little smile. + +"It's easy to see where good stones go on the Ridge," he said. "And here +am I--come hundreds of miles ... can't get anything like that piece of +stuff in your brooch." + +"That's Mrs. Grant's," Sophie confessed. + +"And your ear-rings, Sophie!" Armitage said. "'Clare to goodness,' as my +old nurse used to say, I didn't think you could look such a witch. But I +always have said black opal ear-rings would make a witch of a New +England spinster." + +Sophie laughed. It was impossible not to respond to Mr. Armitage when he +looked and smiled like that. His manner was so friendly and +appreciative, Sophie was thawed and insensibly exhilarated by it. + +Armitage sat talking to her. Sophie had always interested him. There was +an unusual quality about her; it was like the odour some flowers have, +of indescribable attraction for certain insects, to him. And it was so +extraordinary, to find anyone singing arias from old-fashioned operas in +this out-of-the-way part of the world. + +John Lincoln Armitage had a man of the world's contempt for churlish +treatment of a woman, and he was indignant that the Hentys should have +permitted a girl to be so humiliated in their house. He had been paying +Nina Henty some mild attention during the evening, but Sophie in +distress enlisted the instinct of that famous ancestor of his in her +defence. He determined to make amends as far as possible for her +disappointment of the earlier part of the evening. + +"May I have the next dance, Sophie?" he inquired. + +Sophie glanced up at him. + +"I'm not dancing," she said. + +Her averted face, the quiver of her lips, confirmed him in his +resolution. He took in her dress, the black opals in her ear-rings +swinging against her black hair and white neck. She had never looked +more attractive, he thought, than in this unlovely dress and with the +opals in her ears. The music was beginning for another dance. Across the +room Henty was hovering with a bevy of girls. + +"Why aren't you dancing, Sophie?" John Armitage asked. + +His quiet, friendly tone brought the glitter of tears to her eyes. + +"No one asked me to, until the dance before supper--then I didn't want +to," she said. + +The dance was already in motion. + +"You'll have this one with me, won't you?" + +John Armitage put the question as if he were asking a favour. "Please!" +he insisted. + +Putting her arm on his, Armitage led Sophie among the dancers. He held +her so gently and firmly that she felt as if she were dancing by a will +not her own. She and he glided and flew together; they did not talk, and +when + + +the music stopped, Mr. Armitage took her through the doorway into the +moonlight with the other couples. They walked to the garden where, the +orange trees were in blossom. + +"Oh!" Sophie breathed, her arm still on his, and a little giddy. + +The earth was steeped in purest radiance; the orange blossoms swam like +stars on the dark bushes; their fragrance filled the air. + +Sophie held up her face as if to drink. "Isn't it lovely?" she murmured. + +A black butterfly with white etchings on his wings hovered over an +orange bush they were standing near, as if bewildered by the moonlight +and mistaking it for the light of a strange day. + +Armitage spread his handkerchief on a wooden seat. + +"I thought you'd like it," he said. "Let's sit here--I've put down my +handkerchief because there's a dew, although the air seems so dry." + +When the music began again Sophie got up. + +"Don't let us go in yet," he begged. + +"But----" she demurred. + +"We'll stay here for this, and have the next dance," Armitage said. + +Sophie hesitated. She wondered why Mr. Armitage was being so nice to +her, understanding a little. She smiled into his eyes, dallying with the +temptation. John Armitage had seen women's eyes like that before; then +fall to the appeal of his own. But in Sophie's eyes he found something +he had not seen very often--a will-o'the-wisp of infinite wispishness +which incited him to pursue and to insist, while it eluded and flew from +him. + +When she danced with John Armitage again, Sophie looked up, laughed, and +played her eyes and smiles for him as she had seen Phyllis Chelmsford do +for Arthur. At first, shyly, she had exerted herself to please him, and +Armitage had responded to her tentative efforts; but presently she found +herself enjoying the game. And Armitage was so surprised at the charm +she revealed as she exerted herself to please him, that he responded +with an enthusiasm he had not contemplated. But their mutual success at +this oldest diversion in the world, while it surprised and delighted +them, did not delight their hosts. Mr. and Mrs. Henty were surprised; +then frankly scandalised. Several young men asked Sophie to dance with +them after she had danced with John Armitage. She thanked them, but +refused, saying she did not wish to dance very much. She sat in her +chair by the piano except when she was dancing with Mr. Armitage, or was +in the garden with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +"See Ed. means to do you well with a six-horse team this evening, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said, while Armitage was having his early meal +before starting on his all-night drive into Budda. + +Newton remembered afterwards that John Armitage did not seem as +interested and jolly as usual. Ordinarily he was interested in +everything, and cordial with everybody; but this evening he was quiet +and preoccupied. + +"Hardly had a word to say for himself," Peter Newton said. + +Armitage had watched Ed. bring the old bone-shaking shandrydan he called +a coach up to the hotel, and put a couple of young horses into it. He +had a colt on the wheel he was breaking-in, and a sturdy old dark bay +beside him, a pair of fine rusty bays ahead of them, and a sorrel, and +chestnut youngster in the lead. He had got old Olsen and two men on the +hotel veranda to help him harness-up, and it took them all their time to +get the leaders into the traces. Bags had to be thrown over the heads of +the young horses before anything could be done with them, and it took +three men to hold on to the team until Ed. Ventry got into his seat and +gathered up the reins. Armitage put his valise on the coach and shook +hands all round. He got into his seat beside Ed. and wrapped a tarpaulin +lined with possum skin over his knees. + +"Let her go, Olly," Ed. yelled. + +The men threw off the bags they had been holding over the horses' heads. +The leaders sprang out and swayed; the coach rocked to the shock; the +steady old wheeler leapt forward. The colt under the whip, trying to +throw himself down on the trace, leapt and kicked, but the leaders +dashed forward; the coach lurched and was carried along with a rattle +and clash of gear, Ed. Ventry, the reins wrapped round his hands, +pulling on them, and yelling: + +"I'll warm yer.... Yer lazy, wobblin' old adders--yer! I'll warm yer.... +Yer wobble like a cross-cut saw.... Kim ovah! Kim ovah, there! I'll get +alongside of yer! Kim ovah!" + +Swaying and rocking like a ship in a stormy sea, the coach turned out of +the town. Armitage thought its timbers would be strewn along the road at +any moment; but the young horses, under Mr. Ventry's masterly grip, soon +took the steady pace of the old roadsters; their freshness wore off, and +they were going at a smart, even pace by the time the Three Mile was +reached. + +"Seemed to have something on his mind," Ed. Ventry said afterwards. +"Ordinarily, he's keen to hear all the yarns you can tell him, but that +day he was dead quiet." + +"'Not much doin' on the Ridge just now, Mr. Armitage,' I says. + +"'No, Ed,' he says. + +"'Hardly worth y'r while comin' all the way from America to get all you +got this trip?' + +"'No,' he says. But, by God--if I'd known what he got----" + +It was an all-night trip. Ed. and Mr. Armitage had left the Ridge at six +o'clock and arrived in Budda township about an hour before the morning +train left for Sydney. There was just time for Armitage to breakfast at +the hotel before he went off in the hotel drag to the station. The train +left at half-past six. But Ed. Ventry had taken off his hat and +scratched his grizzled thatch when he saw a young, baldy-faced gelding +in the paddock with the other coach horses that evening. + +"Could've swore I left Baldy at the Ridge," he said to the boy who +looked after the stables at the Budda end of his journey. + +"Thought he was there meself," the lad replied, imitating Ed.'s +perplexed head-scratching. + +At the Ridge, when he made his next trip, they were able to tell Mr. +Ventry how the baldy-face happened to be at Budda when Ed. thought he +was at Fallen Star, although Ed. heard some of the explanation from +Potch and Michael a day or two later. Sophie had ridden the baldy-face +into Budda the night he drove Mr. Armitage to catch the train for +Sydney. No one discovered she had gone until the end of next day. Then +Potch went to Michael. + +"Michael," he said; "she's gone." + +During the evening Paul had been heard calling Sophie. He asked Potch +whether he had seen her. Potch said he had not. But it was nothing +unusual for Sophie to wander off for a day on an excursion with Ella or +Mirry Flail, so neither he nor Michael thought much of not having seen +her all day, until Paul remarked querulously to Potch that he did not +know where Sophie was. Looking into her room Potch saw her bed had not +been slept in, although the room was disordered. He went up to the town, +to Mrs. Newton and to the Flails', to ask whether they had seen anything +of Sophie. Mirry Flail said she had seen her on one of the coach-stable +horses, riding out towards the Three Mile the evening before. Potch knew +instinctively that Sophie had gone away from the moment Paul had spoken +to him. She had lived away from him during the last few months; but +watching her with always anxious, devout eyes, he had known more of her +than anyone else. + +Lying full stretch on his sofa, Michael was reading when Potch came into +the hut. His stricken face communicated the seriousness of his news. +Michael had no reason to ask who the "she" Potch spoke of was: there was +only one woman for whom Potch would look like that. But Michael's mind +was paralysed by the shock of the thing Potch had said. He could neither +stir nor speak. + +"I'm riding into Budda, to find out if she went down by the train," +Potch said. "I think she did, Michael. She's been talking about going to +Sydney ... a good deal lately.... She was asking me about it--day before +yesterday ... but I never thought--I never thought she wanted to go so +soon ... and that she'd go like this. But I think she has gone.... And +she was afraid to tell us--to let you know.... She said you'd made up +your mind you didn't want her to go ... she'd heard her mother tell you +not to let her go, and if ever she was going she wouldn't tell you...." + +Potch's explanation, broken and incoherent as it was, gave Michael's +thought and feeling time to reassert themselves. + +He said: "See if Chassy can lend me his pony, and I'll come with you, +Potch." + +They rode into Budda that night, and inquiry from the station-master +gave them the information they sought. A girl in a black frock had taken +a second-class ticket for Sydney. He did not notice very much what she +was like. She had come to the window by herself; she had no luggage; he +had seen her later sitting in a corner of a second-class compartment by +herself. The boy, a stranger to the district, who had clipped her +ticket, said she was crying when he asked for her ticket. He had asked +why she was crying. She had said she was going away, and she did not +like going away from the back-country. She was going away--to study +singing, she said, but would be coming back some day. + +Michael determined to go to Sydney by the morning train to try to find +Sophie. He went to Ed. Ventry and borrowed five pounds from him. + +"That explains how the baldy-face got here," Ed. said. + +Michael nodded. He could not talk about Sophie. Potch explained why they +wanted the money as well as he could. + +"It's no good trying to bring her back if she doesn't want to come, +Michael," Potch had said before Michael left for Sydney. + +"No," Michael agreed. + +"If you could get her fixed up with somebody to stay with," Potch +suggested; "and see she was all right for money ... it might be the best +thing to do. I've got a bit of dough put by, Michael.... I'll send that +down to you and go over to one of the stations for a while to keep us +goin'--if we want more." + +Michael assented. + +"You might try round and see if you could find Mr. Armitage," Potch +said, just before the train went. "He might have seen something of her." + +"Yes," Michael replied, drearily. + +Potch waited until the train left, and started back to Fallen Star in +the evening. + +A week later a letter came for Michael. It was in Sophie's handwriting. +Potch was beside himself with anxiety and excitement. He wrote to +Michael, care of an opal-buyer they were on good terms with and who +might know where Michael was staying. In the bewilderment of his going, +Potch had not thought to ask Michael where he would live, or where a +letter would find him. + +Michael came back to Fallen Star when he received the letter. He had not +seen Sophie. No one he knew or had spoken to had seen anything of her +after she left the train. Michael handed the letter to Potch as soon as +he got back into the hut. + +Sophie wrote that she had gone away because she wanted to learn to be a +singer, and that she would be on her way to America when they received +it. She explained that she had made up her mind to go quite suddenly, +and she had not wanted Michael to know because she remembered his +promise to her mother. She knew he would not let her go away from the +Ridge if he could help it. She had sold her necklace, she said, and had +got L100 for it, so had plenty of money. Potch and Michael were not to +worry about her. She would be all right, and when she had made a name +for herself as a singer, she would come home to the Ridge to see them. +"Don't be angry, Michael dear," the letter ended, "with your lovingest +Sophie." + +Potch looked at Michael; he wondered whether the thought in his own mind +had reached Michael's. But + +Michael was too dazed and overwhelmed to think at all. + +"There's one thing, Potch," he said; "if she's gone to America, we could +write to Mr. Armitage and ask him to keep an eye on her. And," he added, +"if she's gone to America ... it's just likely she may be on the same +boat as Mr. Armitage, and he'd look after her." + +Potch watched his face. The thought in his mind had not occurred to +Michael, then, he surmised. + +"He'd see she came to no harm." + +"Yes," Potch said. + +But he had seen John Armitage talking to Sophie on the Ridge over near +Snow-Shoes' hut the afternoon after the dance at Warria. He knew Mr. +Armitage had driven Sophie home after the dance, too. Paul had been too +drunk to stand, much less drive. Potch had knocked off early in the mine +to go across to the Three Mile that afternoon. Then it had surprised +Potch to see Sophie sitting and talking to Mr. Armitage as though they +were very good friends; but, beyond a vague, jealous alarm, he had not +attached any importance to it until he knew Sophie had gone down to +Sydney by the same train as Mr. Armitage. She had said she was going to +America, too, and he was going there. Potch had lived all his days on +the Ridge; he knew nothing of the world outside, and its ways, except +what he had learnt from books. But an instinct where Sophie was +concerned had warned him of a link between her going away and John +Armitage. That meeting of theirs came to have an extraordinary +significance in his mind. He had thought out the chances of Sophie's +having gone with Mr. Armitage as far as he could. But Michael had not +associated her going with him, it was clear. It had never occurred to +him that Mr. Armitage could have anything to do with Sophie's going +away. It had not occurred to the rest of the Ridge folk either. + +Paul was distracted. He made as great an outcry about Sophie's going as +he had about losing his stones. No one had thought he was as fond of her +as he appeared to be. He wept and wailed continuously about her having +gone away and left him. He went about begging for money in order to be +able to go to America after Sophie; but no one would lend to him. + +"You wait till Sophie's made a name for herself, Paul," everybody said, +"then she'll send for you." + +"Yes," he assented eagerly. "But I don't want to spend all that time +here on the Ridge: I want to see something of life and the world again." + +Paul got a touch of the sun during the ferment of those weeks, and then, +for two or three days, Michael and Potch had their work cut out nursing +him through the delirium of sun-stroke. + +A week or so later the coach brought unexpected passengers--Jun Johnson +and the bright-eyed girl who had gone down on the coach with him--and +Jun introduced her to the boys at Newton's as his bride. He had been +down in Sydney on his honeymoon, he said, that was all. + +When Michael went into the bar at Newton's the same evening, he found +Jun there, explaining as much to the boys. + +"I know what you chaps think," he was saying when Michael entered. "You +think I put up the checkmate on old Rum-Enough, Charley played. Well, +you're wrong. I didn't know no more about it than you did; and the proof +is--here I am. If I'd 'a' done it, d'y'r think I'd have come back? If +I'd had any share in the business, d'y'r think I'd be showin' me face +round here for a bit? Not much...." + +Silence hung between him and the men. Jun talked through it, warming to +his task with the eloquence of virtue, liking his audience and the stage +he had got all to himself, as an outraged and righteously indignant man. + +"I know you chaps--I know how you feel about things; and quite right, +too! A man that'd go back on a mate like that--why, he's not fit to wipe +your boots on. He ain't fit to be called a man; he ain't fit to be let +run with the rest." + +He continued impressively; "I didn't know no more about that business +than any man-jack of you--no more did Mrs. Jun.... Bygones is +bygones--that's my motto. But I tell you--and that's the strength of +it--I didn't know no more about those stones of Rummy's than any man +here. D'y' believe me?" + +It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. +It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else +Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth. + +"We're all good triers here, Jun," George said, "but we're not as green +as we're painted." + +Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said: + +"Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain't always +been what you might call the clean potato ... but I ain't always been +married, either. Well, I'm married now--married to the best little girl +ever I struck...." + +The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the +men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did +not please Jun was evident. + +"Well, seein' I've taken on family responsibilities," he went on--"Was +you smiling, Watty?" + +"Me? Oh, no, Jun," the offender replied, meekly; "it was only the +stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn't think +so, but I always look as if I was smilin' when I've got the +stummick-ache." + +George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, +taking Watty's explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued +solemnly, playing the reformed blackguard to his own satisfaction. + +"Seein' I've taken on family responsibilities, I want to run straight. I +don't want my kids to think there was anything crook about their dad." + +If he moved no one else, he contrived to feel deeply moved himself at +the prospect of how his unborn children were going to regard him. The +men who had always more or less believed in him managed to convince +themselves that Jun meant what he said. George and Watty realised he had +put up a good case, that he was getting at them in the only way +possible. + +Michael moved out of the crowd round the door towards the bar. Peter +Newton put his daily ration of beer on the bar. + +"'Lo, Michael," Jun said. + +"'Lo, Jun," Michael said. + +"Well," Jun concluded, tossing off his beer; "that's the way it is, +boys. Believe me if y'r like, and if y'r don't like--lump it. + +"But there's one thing more I've got to tell you," he added; "and if you +find what I've been saying hard to believe, you'll find this harder: I +don't believe Charley got those stones of Rummy's." + +"What?" + +The query was like the crack of a whip-lash. There was a restive, +restless movement among the men. + +"I don't believe Charley got those stones either," Jun declared. "'Got,' +I said, not 'took.' All I know is, he was like a sick fish when he +reached Sydney ... and sold all the opal he had with him. He was lively +enough when we started out. I give you that. Maybe he took Rum-Enough's +stones all right; but somebody put it over on him. I thought it might be +Emmy--that yeller-haired tart, you remember, went down with us. She was +a tart, and no mistake. My little girl, now--she was never ... like +that! But Maud says she doesn't think so, because Emmy turned Charley +out neck and crop when she found he'd got no cash. He got mighty little +for the bit of stone he had with him ... I'll take my oath. He came +round to borrow from me a day or two after we arrived. And he was ragin' +mad about something.... If he shook the stones off Rum-Enough, it's my +belief somebody shook them off of him, either in the train or here--or +off of Rummy before he got them...." + +Several of the men muttered and grunted their protest. But Jun held to +his point, and the talk became more general. Jun asked for news of the +fields: what had been done, and who was getting the stuff. Somebody said +John Armitage had been up and had bought a few nice stones from the +Crosses, Pony-Fence, and Bully Bryant. + +"Armitage?" Jun said. "He's always a good man--gives a fair price. He +bought my stones, that last lot ... gave me a hundred pounds for the big +knobby. But it fair took my breath away to hear young Sophie Rouminof +had gone off with him." + +Michael was standing beside him before the words were well out of his +mouth. + +"What did you say?" he demanded. + +"I'm sorry, Michael," Jun replied, after a quick, scared glance at the +faces of the men about him. "But I took it for granted you all knew, of +course. We saw them a good bit together down in Sydney, Maud and me, and +she said she saw Sophie on the _Zealanida_ the day the boat sailed. Maud +was down seeing a friend off, and she saw Sophie and Mr. Armitage on +board. She said--" + +Michael turned heavily, and swung out of the bar. + +Jun looked after him. In the faces of the men he read what a bomb his +news had been among them. + +"I wouldn't have said that for a lot," he said, "if I'd 've thought +Michael didn't know. But, Lord, I thought he knew ... I thought you all +knew." + +In the days which followed, as he wandered over the plains in the late +afternoon and evening, Michael tried to come to some understanding with +himself of what had happened. At first he had been too overcast by the +sense of loss to realise more than that Sophie had gone away. But now, +beyond her going, he could see the failure of his own effort to control +circumstances. He had failed; Sophie had gone; she had left the Ridge. + +"God," he groaned; "with the best intentions in the world, what an awful +mess we make of things!" + +Michael wondered whether it would have been worse for Sophie if she had +gone away with Paul when her mother died. At least, Sophie was older now +and better able to take care of herself. + +He blamed himself because she had gone away as she had, all the same; +the failure of the Ridge to hold her as well as his own failure beat him +to the earth. He had hoped Sophie would care for the things her mother +had cared for. He had tried to explain them to her. But Sophie, he +thought now, had more the restless temperament of her father. He had not +understood her young spirit, its craving for music, laughter, +admiration, and the life that could give them to her. He had thought the +Ridge would be enough for her, as it had been for her mother. + +Michael never thought of Mrs. Rouminof as dead. He thought of her as +though she were living some distance from him, that was all. In the +evening he looked up at the stars, and there was one in which she seemed +to be. Always he felt as if she were looking at him when its mild +radiance fell over him. And now he looked to that star as if trying to +explain and beg forgiveness. + +His heart was sore because Sophie had left him without a word of +affection or any explanation. His fear and anxiety for her gave him no +peace. He sweated in agony with them for a long time, crying to her +mother, praying her to believe he had not failed in his trust through +lack of desire to serve her, but through a fault of understanding. If +she had been near enough to talk to, he knew he could have explained +that the girl was right: neither of them had any right to interfere with +the course of her life. She had to go her own way; to learn joy and +sorrow for herself. + +Too late Michael realised that he had done all the harm in the world by +seeking to make Sophie go his own and her mother's way. He had opposed +the tide of her youth and enthusiasm, instead of sympathising with it; +and by so doing he had made it possible for someone else to sympathise +and help her to go her own way. Opposition had forced her life into +channels which he was afraid would heap sorrows upon her, whereas +identification with her feeling and aspirations might have saved her the +hurt and turmoil he had sought to save her. + +Thought of what he had done to prevent Paul taking Sophie away haunted +Michael. But, after all, he assured himself, he had not stolen from +Paul. Charley had stolen from Paul, and he, Michael, was only holding +Paul's opals until he could give them to Paul when his having them would +not do Sophie any harm.... His having them now could not injure +Sophie.... Michael decided to give Paul the opals and explain how he +came to have them, when the shock of what Jun had said left him. He +tried not to think of that, although a consciousness of it was always +with him.... But Paul was delirious with sun-stroke, he remembered; it +would be foolish to give him the stones just then.... As soon as that +touch of the sun had passed, Michael reflected, he would give Paul the +opals and explain how he came to have them.... + + + + +_PART II_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The summer Sophie left the Ridge was a long and dry one. Cool changes +blew over, but no rain fell. The still, hot days and dust-storms +continued until March. + +Through the heat came the baa-ing of sheep on the plains, moving in +great flocks, weary and thirsty; the blaring of cattle; the harsh crying +of crows following the flocks and waiting to tear the dead flesh from +the bones of spent and drought-stricken beasts. The stock routes were +marked by the bleached bones of cattle and sheep which had fallen by the +road, and the stench of rotting flesh blew with the hot winds and dust +from the plains. + +It was cooler underground than anywhere else during the hot weather. +Fallen Star miners told stockmen and selectors that they had the best of +it in the mines, during the heat. They went to work as soon as it was +dawn, in order to get mullock cleared away and dirt-winding over before +the heat of the day began. + +In the morning, here and there a man was seen on the top of his dump, +handkerchief under his hat, winding dirt, and emptying red sandstone, +shin-cracker, and cement stone from his hide buckets over the slope of +the dump. The creak of the windlass made a small, busy noise in the air. +But the miner standing on the top of his hillock of white crumbled clay, +moving with short, automatic jerks against the sky, or the noodlers +stretched across the slopes of the dumps, turning the rubble thrown up +from the shafts with a piece of wood, were the only outward sign of the +busy underground world of the mines. + +As a son might have, Potch had rearranged the hut and looked after Paul +when Sophie had gone. He had nursed Paul through the fever and delirium +of sun-stroke, and Paul's hut was kept in order as Sophie had left it. +Potch swept the earthen floor and sprinkled it with water every morning; +he washed any dishes Paul left, although Paul had most of his meals with +Potch and Michael. Michael had seen the window of Sophie's room open +sometimes; a piece of muslin on the lower half fluttering out, and once, +in the springtime, he had caught a glimpse of a spray of punti--the +yellow boronia Sophie was so fond of, in a jam-tin on a box cupboard +near the window. Potch had prevailed on Paul to keep one or two of the +goats when he sold most of them soon after Sophie went away, and Potch +saw to it there was always a little milk, and some goat's-milk butter or +cheese for the two huts. + +People at first were surprised at Potch's care of Paul; then they +regarded it as the most natural thing in the world. They believed Potch +Was trying to make up to Paul for what his father had deprived him of. +And after Sophie went away Paul seemed to forget Potch was the son of +his old enemy. He depended on Potch, appealed to, and abused him as if +he were his son, and Potch seemed quite satisfied that it should be so. +He took his service very much as a matter of course, as Paul himself +did. + +A quiet, awkward fellow he was, Potch. For a long time nobody thought +much of him. "Potch," they would say, as his father used to, "a little +bit of potch!" Potch knew what was meant by that. He was Charley +Heathfield's son, and could not be expected to be worth much. He had +rated himself as other people rated him. He was potch, poor opal, stuff +of no particular value, without any fire. And his estimate of himself +was responsible for his keeping away from the boys and younger men of +the Ridge. A habit of shy aloofness had grown with him, although anybody +who wanted help with odd jobs knew where they could get it, and find +eager and willing service. Potch would do anything for anybody with all +the pleasure in the world, whether it were building a fowl-house, +thatching a roof, or helping to run up a hut. + +"He's the only mate worth a straw Michael's had since God knows when, 't +anyrate," Watty said, after Potch had been working with Paul and Michael +for some time. George and Cash agreed with him. + +George and Watty and Cash had "no time," as they said themselves, for +Rouminof; and Potch as a rule stayed in the shelter with Paul when +Michael went over to talk with George and Watty. He was never prouder +than when Michael asked him to go over to George and Watty's shelter. + +At first Potch would sit on the edge of the shelter, leaning against the +brushwood, the sun on his shoulder, as if unworthy to take advantage of +the shelter's shade, further. For a long time he listened, saying +nothing; not listening very intently, apparently, and feeding the birds +with crumbs from his lunch. But Michael saw his eyes light when there +was any misstatement of fact on a subject he had been reading about or +knew something of. + +Soon after Sophie had gone, Michael wrote to Dawe Armitage. He and the +old man had always been on good terms, and Michael had a feeling of real +friendliness for him. But the secret of the sympathy between them was +that they were lovers of the same thing. For both, black opal had a +subtle, inexplicable fascination. + +As briefly as he knew how, Michael told Dawe Armitage how Sophie had +left Fallen Star, and what he had heard. "It's up to you to see no harm +comes to that girl," he wrote. "If it does, you can take my word for it, +there's no man on this field will sell to Armitages." + +Michael knew Mr. Armitage would take his word for it. He knew Dawe +Armitage would realise better than Michael could tell him, that it would +be useless for John Armitage to visit the field the following year. +George Woods had informed Michael that, by common consent, men of the +Ridge had decided not to sell to Armitage for a time; and, in order to +prevent an agent thwarting their purpose, to deal only with known and +rival buyers of the Armitages. Dawe Armitage, Michael guessed, would be +driven to the extremity of promising almost anything to make up for what +his son had done, and to overcome the differences between Armitage and +Son and men of the Ridge. + +When the reply came, Michael showed it to Watty and George. + +"DEAR BRADY," it said, "I need hardly say your letter was a great shock +to me. At first, when I taxed my son with the matter you write of, he +denied all knowledge or responsibility for the young lady. I have since +found she is here in New York, and have seen her. I offered to take her +passage and provide for her to return to the Ridge; but she refuses to +leave this city, and, I believe, is to appear in a musical comedy +production at an early date. Believe me overcome by the misfortune of +this episode, and only anxious to make any reparation in my power. +Knowing the men of the Ridge as I do, I can understand their resentment +of my son's behaviour, and that for a time, at least, business relations +between this house and them cannot be on the old friendly footing. I +need hardly tell you how distressing this state of affairs is to me +personally, and how disastrous the cutting off of supplies is to my +business interests. I can only ask that, as I will, on my part, to the +best of my ability, safeguard the young, lady--whom I will regard as +under my charge--you will, in recognition of our old friendship, perhaps +point out to men of the Ridge that as it is not part of their justice to +visit sins of the fathers upon the children, so I hope it may not be to +visit sins of the children upon the fathers. + +"Yours very truly, + +"DAWE P. ARMITAGE." + +"The old man seems fair broken up," Watty remarked. + +"Depends on how Sophie gets on whether we have anything to do with +Armitage and Son--again," George replied. "If she's all right ... well +... perhaps it'll be all right for them, with us. If she doesn't get on +all right ... they won't neither." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +The summer months passed slowly. The country was like a desert for +hundreds of miles about the Ridge in every direction. The herbage had +crumbled into dust; ironstone and quartz pebbles on the long, low slopes +of the Ridge glistened almost black in the light; and out on the plains, +and on the roads where the pebbles were brushed aside, the dust rose in +tawny and reddish clouds when a breath of wind, or the movement of man +and beast stirred it. The trees, too, were almost black in the light; +the sky, dim, and smoking with heat. + +Paul had not done any work in the mine since he had been laid up with +sun-stroke. When he was able to be about again he went to the shelter to +eat his lunch with Michael and Potch. He was extraordinarily weak for +some time, and a haze the sun-stroke had left hovered over his mind. +Usually, to stem the tide of his incessant questions and gossiping, +Potch gave him some scraps of sun-flash, and colour and potch to noodle, +and he sat and snipped them contentedly while Potch and Michael read or +dozed the hot, still, midday hours away. + +When he had eaten his lunch, Potch tossed his crumbs to the birds which +came about the shelter. He whistled to them for a while and tried to +make friends with them. As often as not Michael sat, legs stretched put +before him, smoking and brooding, as he gazed over the plains; but one +day he found himself in the ruck of troubled thoughts as he watched +Potch with the birds. + +Michael had often watched Potch making friends with the birds, as he lay +on his side dozing or dreaming. He had sat quite still many a day, until +Potch, by throwing crumbs and whistling encouragingly and in imitation +of their own calls, had induced a little crested pigeon, or white-tail, +to come quite close to him. The confidence Potch won from the birds was +a reproach to him. But in a few days now, Michael told himself, he would +be giving Paul his opals. Then Potch would know what perhaps he ought to +have known already. Potch was his mate, Michael reminded himself, and +entitled to know what his partner was doing with opal which was not +their common property. + +When Sophie was at home, Michael had taken Potch more or less for +granted. He had not wished to care for, or believe in, Potch, as he had +his father, fearing a second shock of disillusionment. The compassion +which was instinctive had impelled him to offer the boy his goodwill and +assistance; but a remote distrust and contempt of Charley in his son had +at first tinged his feeling for Potch. Slowly and surely Potch had lived +down that distrust and contempt. Dogged and unassuming, he asked nothing +for himself but the opportunity to serve those he loved, and Michael had +found in their work, in their daily association, in the homage and deep, +mute love Potch gave him, something like balm to the hurts he had taken +from other loves. + +Michael had loved greatly and generously, and had little energy to give +to lesser affections, but he was grateful to Potch for caring for him. +He was drawn to Potch by the knowledge of his devotion. He longed to +tell him about the opals; how he had come to have them, and why he was +holding them; but always there had been an undertow of resistance +tugging at the idea, reluctance to break the seals on the subject in his +mind. Some day he would have to break them, he told himself. + +Paul's illness had made it seem advisable to put off explanation about +the opals for a while. Paul was still weak from the fever following his +touch of the sun, and his brain hazy. As soon as he had his normal wits +again, Michael promised himself he would take the opals to Paul and let +him know how he came to have them. + +All the afternoon, as he worked, Michael was plagued by thought of the +opals. He had no peace with himself for accepting Potch's belief in him, +and for not telling Potch how Paul's opals came into his possession. + +In the evening as he lay on the sofa under the window, reading, the +troubled thinking of his midday reverie became tangled with the printed +words of the page before him. Michael had a flashing vision of the +stones as Paul had held them to the light in Newton's bar. Suddenly it +occurred to him that he had not seen the stones, or looked at the +package the opals were in, since he had thrown them into the box of +books in his room, the night he had taken them from Charley. + +He got up from the sofa and crossed to his bedroom to see whether Paul's +cigarette tin, wrapped in its old newspaper, was still lying among his +books. He plunged is hand among them, and turned his books over until he +found the tin. It looked much as it had the night he threw it into the +box--only the wrappings of newspaper were loose. + +Michael wondered whether all the opals were in the box. He hoped none +had fallen out, or got chipped or cracked as a result of his rough +handling. He untied the string round the tin in order to tie it again +more securely. It might be just as well to see whether the stones were +all right while he was about it, he thought. + +He went back to the sitting-room and drew his chair up to the table. +Slowly, abstractedly, he rolled the newspaper wrappings from the tin; +and the stones rattled together in their bed of wadding as he lifted +them to the table. He picked up one and held it off from the +candle-light. It was the stone Paul had had such pride in--a piece of +opal with a glitter of flaked gold and red fire smouldering through its +black potch like embers of a burning tree through the dark of a starless +night. + +One by one he lifted the stones and moved them before the candle, +letting its yellow ray loose their internal splendour. The colours in +the stones--blue, green, gold, amethyst, and red--melted, sprayed, and +scintillated before him. His blood warmed to their fires. + +"God! it's good stuff!" he breathed, his eyes dark with reverence and +emotion. + +With the tranced interest of a child, he sat there watching the play of +colours in the stones. Opal always exerted this fascination for him. Not +only its beauty, but the mystery of its beauty enthralled him. He had a +sense of dimly grasping great secrets as be gazed into its shining +depths, trying to follow the flow and scintillation of its myriad stars. + +Potch came into the hut, brushing against the doorway. He swung +unsteadily, as though he had been running or walking quickly. + +Michael started from the rapt contemplation he had fallen into; he stood +up. His consciousness swaying earthwards again, he was horrified that +Potch should find him with the opals like this before he had explained +how he came to have them. Confounded with shame and dismay, +instinctively he brushed the stones together and, almost without knowing +what he did, threw the wrappings over them. He felt as if he were really +guilty of the thing Potch might suspect him guilty of: either of being a +miser and hoarding opal from his mate, or of having come by the stones +as he had come by them. One opal, the stone he had first looked at, +tumbled out from the others and lay under the candle-light, winking and +flashing. + +But Potch was disturbed himself; he was breathing heavily; his usually +sombre, quiet face was flushed and quivering with restrained excitement. +He was too preoccupied to notice Michael's movement, or what he was +doing. + +"Snow-Shoes been here?" he asked, breathlessly. + +"No," Michael said. "Why?" + +He stretched out his hand to take the opal which lay winking in the +light and put it among the others. Potch's excitement died out. + +"Oh, nothing," he said, lamely. "I only thought I saw him making this +way." + +The sound of a woman laughing outside the hut broke the silence between +them. Michael lifted his head to listen. + +"Who's that?" he asked; + +Potch did not reply. The blue dark of the night sky, bright with stars, +was blank in the doorway. + +"May I come in?" a woman's voice called. Her figure wavered in the +doorway. Before either Potch or Michael could speak she had come into +the hut. It was Maud, Jun Johnson's wife. She stood there on the +threshold of the room, her loose, dark hair wind-blown, her eyes, +laughing, the red line of her mouth trembling with a smile. Her eyes +went from Michael to Potch, who had turned away. + +"My old nanny's awful bad, Potch," she said. "They say there's no one on +the Ridge knows as much about goats as you. Will you come along and see +what you can do for her?" + +Potch was silent. Michael had never known him take a request for help so +ungraciously. His face was sullen and resentful as his eyes went to +Maud. + +"All right," he said. + +He moved to go out with her. Maud moved too. Then she caught sight-of +the piece of opal lying out from the other stones on the table. + +"My," she cried eagerly, "that's a pretty stone, Michael!" She turned it +back against the light, so that the opal threw out its splintered sparks +of red and gold. + +"Just been noodlin' over some old scraps ... and came across it," +Michael said awkwardly. + +It seemed impossible to explain about the stones to Maud Johnson. He +could not bear the idea of her hearing his account of Paul's opals +before George, Watty, and the rest of the men who were his mates, had. + +"Well to be you, having stuff like that to noodle," Maud said. "Doin' a +bit of dealin' myself. I'll give you a good price for it, Michael." + +"It's goin' into a parcel," he replied. + +"Oh, well, when you want to sell, you might let me know," Maud said. +"Comin', Potch?" + +She swung away with the light, graceful swirl of a dancer. Michael +caught the smile in her eyes, mischievous and mocking as a street +urchin's, as she turned to Potch, and Potch followed her out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Days and months went by, hot and still, with dust-storms and blue skies, +fading to grey. Their happenings were so alike that there was scarcely +any remembering one from the other of them. The twilights and dawns were +clear, with delicate green skies. On still nights the moon rose golden, +flushing the sky before it appeared, as though there were fires beyond +the Ridge. + +Usually in one of the huts a concertina was pulled lazily, and its +wheezing melodies drifted through the quiet air. Everybody missed +Sophie's singing. The summer evenings were long and empty without the +ripple of her laughter and the music of the songs she sang. + +"You miss her these nights, don't you?" Michael said to Potch one very +hot, still night, when the smoke of a mosquito fire in the doorway was +drifting into the room about them. + +Potch was reading, sprawled over the table. His expression changed as he +looked up. It was as though a sudden pain had struck him. + +"Yes," he said. His eyes went to his book again; but he did not read any +more. Presently he pushed back the seat he was sitting on and went out +of doors. + +Michael and Potch were late going down to the claim the morning they +found George and Watty and most of the men who were working that end of +the Ridge collected in a group talking together. No one was working; +even the noodlers, Snow-Shoes and young Flail, were standing round with +the miners. + +"Hullo," Michael said, "something's up!" + +Potch remembered having seen a gathering of the men, like this, only +once before on the fields. + +"Ratting?" he said. + +"Looks like it," Michael agreed. + +"What's up, George?" he asked, as Potch and he joined the men. + +"Rats, Michael," George said, "that's what's up. They've been on our +place and cleaned out a pretty good bit of stuff Watty and me was +working on. They've paid Archie a visit ... and Bully reck'ns his +spider's been walking lately, too." + +Michael and Potch had seen nothing but a few shards of potch and colour +for months. They were not concerned at the thought of a rat's visit to +their claim; but they were as angry and indignant at the news as the men +who had been robbed. In the shelters at midday, the talk was all of the +rats and ratting. The Crosses, Bill Grant, Pony-Fence, Bull Bryant, Roy +O'Mara, Michael, and Potch went to George Woods' shelter to talk the +situation over with George, Watty, and Cash Wilson. The smoke of the +fires Potch and Roy and Bully made to boil the billies drifted towards +them, and the men talked as they ate their lunches, legs stretched out +before them, and leaning against a log George had hauled beside the +shelter. + +George Woods, the best natured, soberest man on the Ridge, was +smouldering with rage at the ratting. + +"I've a good mind to put a bit of dynamite at the bottom of the shaft, +and then, when a rat strikes a match, up he'll go," he said. + +"But," Watty objected, "how'd you feel when you found a dead man in your +claim, George?" + +"Feel?" George burst out. "I wouldn't feel--except he'd got no right to +be there--and perlitely put him on one side." + +"Remember those chaps was up a couple of years ago, George?" Bill Grant +asked, "and helped theirselves when Pony-Fence and me had a bit of luck +up at Rhyll's hill." + +"Remember them?" George growled. + +"They'd go round selling stuff if there was anybody to buy--hang round +the pub all day, and yet had stuff to sell," Watty murmured. + +The men smoked silently for a few minutes. + +"How much did they get, again?" Bully Bryant asked. + +"Couple of months," George said. + +"Police protect criminals--everybody knows that," Snow-Shoes said. + +Sitting on the dump just beyond the shade the shelter cast, he had been +listening to what the men were saying, the sun full blaze on him, his +blue eyes glittering in the shadow of his old felt hat. All eyes turned +to him. The men always listened attentively when Snow-Shoes had anything +to say. + +"If there's a policeman about, and a man starts ratting and is caught, +he gets a couple of months. Well, what does he care? But if there's a +chance of the miners getting hold of him and some rough handling ... he +thinks twice before he rats ... knowing a broken arm or a pain in his +head'll come of it." + +"That's true," George said. "I vote we get this bunch ourselves." + +"Right!" The Crosses and Bully agreed with him. Watty did not like the +idea of the men taking the law into their own hands. He was all for law +and order. His fat, comfortable soul disliked the idea of violence. + +"Seems to me," he said, "it 'd be a good thing to set a trap--catch the +rats--then we'd know where we were." + +Michael nodded. "I'm with Watty," he said. + +"Then we could hand 'em over to the police," Watty said. + +Michael smiled. "Well, after the last batch getting two months, and the +lot of us wasting near on two months gettin' 'em jailed, I reck'n it's +easier to deal with 'em here--But we've got to be sure. They've got to +be caught red-handed, as the sayin' is. It don't do to make mistakes +when we're dealin' out our own justice." + +"That's right, Michael," the men agreed. + +"Well, I reck'n we'd ought to have in the police," Watty remarked +obstinately. + +"The police!" Snow-Shoes stood up as if he had no further patience with +the controversy. "It's like letting hornets build in your house to keep +down flies--to call in the police. The hornets get worse than the +flies." + +He turned on his heel and walked away. His tall, white figure, +straighter than any man's on the Ridge, moved silently, his feet, +wrapped in their moccasins of grass and sacking, making no sound on the +shingly earth. + +Men whose claims had not been nibbled arranged to watch among +themselves, to notice exactly where they put their spiders when they +left the mines in the afternoon, and to set traps for the rats. + +Some of them had their suspicions as to whom the rats might be, because +the field was an old one, and there were not many strangers about. But +when it was known next day that Jun Johnson and his wife had "done a +moonlight flit," it was generally agreed that these suspicions were +confirmed. Maud had made two or three trips to Sydney to sell opal +within the last year, and from what they heard, men of the Ridge had +come to believe she sold more opal than Jun had won, or than she herself +had bought from the gougers. Jun's and Maud's flight was taken not only +as a confession of guilt, but also as an indication that the men's +resolution to deal with rats themselves had been effective in scaring +them away. + +When the storm the ratting had caused died down, life on the Ridge went +its even course again. Several men threw up their claims on the hill +after working without a trace of potch or colour for months, and went to +find jobs on the stations or in the towns nearby. + +The only thing of any importance that happened during those dreary +summer months was Bully Bryant's marriage to Ella Flail, and, although +it took everybody by surprise that little Ella was grown-up enough to be +married, the wedding was celebrated in true Ridge fashion, with a dance +and no end of hearty kindliness to the young couple. + +"Roy O'Mara's got good colour down by the crooked coolebah, Michael," +Potch said one evening, a few days after the wedding, when he and +Michael had finished their tea. He spoke slowly, and as if he had +thought over what he was going to say. + +"Yes?" Michael replied. + +"How about tryin' our luck there?" Potch ventured. + +Michael took the suggestion meditatively. Potch and he had been working +together for several years with very little luck. They had won only a +few pieces of opal good enough to put into a parcel for an opal-buyer +when he came to Fallen Star. But Michael was loth to give up the old +shaft, not only because he believed in it, but because of the work he +and his mates had put into it, and because when they did strike opal +there, the mine would be easily worked. But this was the first time +Potch had made a suggestion of the sort, and Michael felt bound to +consider it. + +"There's a bit of a rush on, Snow-Shoes told me," Potch said. "Crosses +have pegged, and I saw Bill Olsen measurin' out a claim." + +Michael's reluctance to move was evident. + +"I feel sure we'll strike it in the old shaft, sooner or later," he +murmured. + +"Might be sooner by the coolebah," Potch said. + +Michael's eyes lifted to his, the gleam of a smile in them. + +"Very well, we'll pull pegs," he said. + +While stars were still in the high sky and the chill breath of dawn in +the air, men were busy measuring and pegging claims on the hillside +round about the old coolebah. Half a dozen blocks were marked one +hundred feet square before the stars began to fade. + +All the morning men with pegs, picks, and shovels came straggling up the +track from the township and from other workings scattered along the +Ridge. The sound of picks on the hard ground and the cutting down of +scrub broke the limpid stillness. + +Paul came out of his hut as Potch passed it on his way to the coolebah. +Immediately he recognised the significance of the heavy pick Potch was +carrying, and trotted over to him. + +"You goin' to break new ground, Potch?" he asked. Potch nodded. + +"There's a bit of a rush on by the crooked coolebah," he said. "Roy +O'Mara's bottomed on opal there ... got some pretty good colours, and +we're goin' to peg out." + +"A rush?" Paul's eyes brightened. "Roy? Has he got the stuff, Potch?" + +"Not bad." + +As they followed the narrow, winding track through the scrub, Paul +chattered eagerly of the chances of the new rush. + +Roy O'Mara had sunk directly under the coolebah. There were few trees of +any great size on the Ridge, and this one, tall and grey-barked, stood +over the scrub of myalls, oddly bent, like a crippled giant, its great, +bleached trunk swung forward and wrenched back as if in agony. The mound +of white clay under the tree was already a considerable dump--Roy had +been working with a new chum from the Three Mile for something over a +fortnight and had just bottomed on opal. His first day's find was spread +on a bag under the tree. There was nothing of great value in it; but +when Potch and Paul came to it, Paul knelt down and turned over the +pieces of opal on the bag with eager excitement. + +When Michael arrived, Potch had driven in his pegs on a site he had +marked in his mind's eye the evening before, a hundred yards beyond +Roy's claim, up the slope of the hill. Michael took turns with Potch at +slinging the heavy pick; they worked steadily all the morning, the sweat +beading and pouring down their faces. + +There was always some excitement and expectation about sinking a +new hole. Michael had lived so long on the fields, and had sunk +so many shafts, that he took a new sinking with a good deal of +matter-of-factness; but even he had some of the thrilling sense of a +child with a surprise packet when he was breaking earth on a new rush. + +Neither Michael nor Paul had much enthusiasm about the new claim after +the first day or so; but Potch worked indefatigably. All day the thud +and click of picks on the hard earth and cement stone, and the +shovelling of loose earth and gravel, could be heard. In about a +fortnight Potch and Michael came on sandstone and drove into red opal +dirt beneath it. Roy O'Mara, working on his trace of promising black +potch, still had found nothing to justify his hope of an early haul. +Paul, easily disappointed, lost faith in the possibilities of the shaft; +Michael was for giving it further trial, but Potch, too, was in favour +of sinking again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from +the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock +from the drives, Potch said: + +"I'm going to sink another hole, Michael--higher up." + +Michael glanced at him. It was unusual for Potch to put a thing in that +way, without a by-your-leave, or feeler for advice, or permission; but +he was not disturbed by his doing so. + +"Right," he said; "you sink another hole, Potch. I'll stick to this one +for a bit." + +Potch began to break earth again next morning. He chose his site +carefully, to the right of the one he had been working on, and all the +morning he swung his heavy pick and shovelled earth from the shaft he +was making. He worked slowly, doggedly. When he came on sandstone he had +been three weeks on the job. + +"Ought to be near bottoming, Potch," Roy remarked one day towards the +end of the three weeks. + +"Be there to-day," Potch said. + +Paul buzzed about the top of the hole, unable to suppress his +impatience, and calling down the shaft now and then. + +Potch believed so in this claim of his that his belief had raised a +certain amount of expectation. His report, too, was going to make +considerable difference to the field. The Crosses had done pretty well: +they had cut out a pocket worth L400 as a result of their sinking, and +it remained to be seen what Potch's new hole would bring. A good +prospect would make the new field, it was reckoned. + +Potch's prospect was disappointing, however, and of no sensational value +when he did bottom; but after a few days he came on a streak or two of +promising colours, and Michael left the first shaft they had sunk on the +coolebah to work with Potch in the new mine. + +They had been on the new claim, with nothing to show for their pains, +for nearly two months, the afternoon Potch, who had been shifting opal +dirt of a dark strain below the steel band on the south side of the +mine, uttered a low cry. + +"Michael," he called. + +Michael, gouging in a drive a few yards away, knew the meaning of that +joyous vibration in a man's voice. He stumbled out of the drive and went +to Potch. + +Potch Was holding his spider off from a surface of opal his pick had +clipped. It glittered, an eye of jet, with every light and star of red, +green, gold, blue, and amethyst, leaping, dancing, and quivering +together in the red earth of the mine. Michael swore reverently when he +saw it. Potch moved his candle before the chipped corner of the stones +which he had worked round sufficiently to show that a knobby of some +size was embedded in the wall of the mine. + +"Looks a beaut, doesn't she, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael breathed hard. + +"By God----" he murmured. + +Paul, hearing the murmur of their voices, joined them. + +He screamed when he saw the stone. + +"I knew!" he yelled. "I knew we'd strike it here." + +"Well, stand back while I get her out," Potch cried. + +Michael trembled as Potch fitted his spider and began to break the earth +about the opal, working slowly, cautiously, and rubbing the earth away +with his hands. Michael watched him apprehensively, exclaiming with +wonder and admiration as the size of the stone was revealed. + +When Potch had worked it out of its socket, the knobby was found to be +even bigger than they had thought at first. The stroke which located it +had chipped one side so that its quality was laid bare, and the chipped +surface had the blaze and starry splendour of the finest black opal. +Michael and Potch examined the stone, turned it over and over, tremulous +and awed by its size and magnificence. Paul was delirious with +excitement. + +He was first above ground, and broke the news of Potch's find to the men +who were knocking off for the day on other claims. When Michael and +Potch came up, nearly a dozen men were collected about the dump. They +gazed at the stone with oaths and exclamations of amazement and +admiration. + +"You've struck it this time, Potch!" Roy O'Mara said. + +Potch flushed, rubbed the stone on his trousers, licked the chipped +surface, and held it to the sun again. + +"It's the biggest knobby--ever I see," Archie Cross said. + +"Same here," Bill Grant muttered. + +"Wants polishin' up a bit," Michael said, "and then she'll show better." + +As soon as he got home, Potch went into Paul's hut and faced the stone +on Sophie's wheel. Paul and Michael hung over him as he worked; and when +he had cleaned it up and put it on the rouge buffer, they were satisfied +that it fulfilled the promise of its chipped side. Nearly as big as a +hen's egg, clean, hard opal of prismatic fires in sparkling jet, they +agreed that it as the biggest and finest knobby either of them had ever +seen. + +Potch took his luck quietly, although there were repressed emotion and +excitement in his voice as he talked. + +Michael marvelled at the way he went about doing his ordinary little odd +jobs of the evening, when they returned to their own hut. Potch brought +in and milked the goats, set out the pannikins and damper, and made tea. + +When Michael and Potch had finished their meal and put away their +plates, food, and pannikins, Michael picked up the stone from the shelf +where Potch had put it, wrapped in the soft rag of an oatmeal bag. He +threw himself on the sofa under the window and held the opal to the +light, turning it and watching the stars spawn in its firmament of +crystal ebony. Potch pulled a book from his pocket and sprawled across +the table to read. + +Michael regarded him wonderingly. Had the boy no imagination? Did the +magic and mystery of the opal make so little appeal to him? Michael's +eyes went from their reverent and adoring observation of the stone in +his hands, to Potch as he sat stooping over the book on the table before +him. He could not understand why Potch was not fired by the beauty of +the thing he had won, or with pride at having found the biggest knobby +ever taken out of the fields. + +Any other young man would have been beside himself with excitement and +rejoicing. But here was Potch slouched over a dog-eared, paper-covered +book. + +As he gazed at the big opal, a vision of Paul's opals flashed before +him. The consternation and dismay that had made him scarcely conscious +of what he was doing the night Potch found him with them, and Maud +Johnson had come for Potch to go to see her sick goat, overwhelmed him +again. He had not yet given the opals to Paul, he remembered, or +explained to Potch and the rest of the men how he came to have them. + +Any other mate than Potch would have resented his holding opals like +that and saying nothing of them. But there was no resentment in Potch's +bearing to him, Michael had convinced himself. Yet Potch must know about +the stones; he must have seen them. Michael could find no reason for his +silence and the unaltered serenity of the affection in his eyes, except +that Potch had that absolute belief in him which rejects any suggestion +of unworthiness in the object of its belief. + +But since--since he had made up his mind to give the opals to +Paul--since Sophie had gone, and there was no chance of their doing her +any harm; since that night Potch and Maud had seen him, why had he not +given them to Paul? Why had he not told Potch how the opals Potch had +seen him with had come into his possession? Michael put the questions to +himself, hardly daring, and yet knowing, he must search for the answer +in the mysterious no-man's land of his subconsciousness. + +Paul's slow recovery from sun-stroke was a reason for deferring +explanation about the stones and for not giving them back to him, in the +first instance. After Potch and Maud had seen him with the opals, +Michael had intended to go at once to George and Watty and tell them his +story. But the more he had thought of what he had to do, the more +difficult it seemed. He had found himself shrinking from fulfilment of +his intention. Interest in the new claim and the excitement of bottoming +on opal had for a time almost obliterated memory of Paul's opals. + +But he had only put off telling Potch, Michael assured himself; he had +only put off giving the stones back to Paul. There was no motive in this +putting off. It was mental indolence, procrastination, reluctance to +face a difficult and delicate situation: that was all. Having the opals +had worried him to death. It had preyed on his mind so that he was ready +to imagine himself capable of any folly or crime in connection with +them.... He mocked his fears of himself. + +Michael went over all he had done, all that had happened in connection +with the opals, seeking out motives, endeavouring to fathom his own +consciousness and to be honest with himself. + +As if answering an evocation, the opals passed before him in a vision. +He followed their sprayed fires reverently. Then, as if one starry ray +had shed illumination in its passing, a daze of horror and amazement +seized him. He had taken his own rectitude so for granted that he could +not believe he might be guilty of what the light had shown lurking in a +dark corner of his mind. + +Had Paul's stones done that to him? Michael asked himself. Had their +witch fires eaten into his brain? He had heard it said men who were +misers, who hoarded opal, were mesmerised by the lights and colour of +the stuff; they did not want to part with it. Was that what Paul's +stones had done to him? Had they mesmerised him, so that he did not want +to part with them? Michael was aghast at the idea. He could not believe +he had become so besotted in his admiration of black opal that he was +ready to steal--steal from a mate. The opal had never been found, he +assured himself, which could put a spell over his brain to make him do +that. And yet, he realised, the stones themselves had had something to +do with his reluctance to talk of them to Potch, and with the deferring +of his resolution to give them to Paul and let the men know what he had +done. Whenever he had attempted to bring his resolution to talk of them +to the striking-point, he remembered, the opals had swarmed before his +dreaming eyes; his will had weakened as he gazed on them, and he had put +off going to Paul and to Watty and George. + +Stung to action by realisation of what he had been on the brink of, +Michael went to the box of books in his room. He determined to take the +packet of opals to Paul immediately, and go on to tell George and Watty +its history. As he plunged an arm down among the books for the cigarette +tin the opals were packed in, he made up his mind not to look at them +for fear some reason or excuse might hinder the carrying out of his +project. His fingers groped eagerly for the package; he threw out a few +books. + +He had put the tin in a corner of the box, under an old Statesman's +year-book and a couple of paper-covered novels. But it was not there; it +must have slipped, or he had piled books over it, at some time or +another, he thought. He threw out all the books in the box and raked +them over--but he could not find the tin with Paul's opals in. + +He sat back on his haunches, his face lean and ghastly by the +candle-fight. + +"They're gone," he told himself. + +He wondered whether he could have imagined replacing the package in the +box--if there was anywhere else he could have put it, absent-mindedly; +but his eyes returned to the box. He knew he had put the opals there. + +Who could have found them? Potch? His mind turned from the idea. + +Nobody had known of them. Nobody knew just where to put a hand on +them--not even Potch. Who else could have come into the hut, or +suspected the opals were in that box. Paul? He would not have been able +to contain his joy if he had come into possession of any opal worth +speaking of. Who else might suspect him of hoarding opal of any value. +His mind hovered indecisively. Maud? + +Michael remembered the night she had come for Potch and had seen that +gold-and-red-fired stone on the table. His imagination attached itself +to the idea. The more he thought of it, the surer he felt that Maud had +come for the stone she had offered to buy from him. There was nothing to +prevent her walking into the hut and looking for it, any time during the +day when he and Potch were away at the mine. And if she would rat, +Michael thought she would not object to taking stones from a man's hut +either. Of course, it might not be Maud; but he could think of no one +else who knew he had any stone worth having. + +If Maud had taken the stones, Jun would recognise them, Michael knew. By +and by the story would get round, Jun would see to that. And when Jun +told where those opals of Paul's had been found, as he would some +day--Michael could not contemplate the prospect. + +He might tell men of the Ridge his story now and forestall Jun; but it +would sound thin without the opals to verify it, and the opportunity to +restore them to Paul. Michael thought he had sufficient weight with men +of the Ridge to impress them with the truth of what he said; but +knowledge of a subtle undermining of his character, for which possession +of the opals was responsible, gave him such a consciousness of guilt +that he could not face the men without being able to give Paul the +stones and prove he was not as guilty as he felt. + +Overwhelmed and unable to throw off a sense of shame and defeat, Michael +sat on the floor of his room, books thrown out of the box all round him. +He could not understand even now how those stones of Paul's had worked +him to the state of mind they had. He did not even know they had brought +him to the state of mind he imagined they had, or whether his fear of +that state of mind had precipitated it. He realised the effect of the +loss more than the thing itself, as he crouched beside the empty +book-box, foreseeing the consequences to his work and to the Ridge, of +the story Jun would tell--that he, Michael Brady, who had held such high +faiths, and whose allegiance to them had been taken as a matter of +course, was going to be known as a filcher of other men's stones, and +that he who had formulated and inspired the Ridge doctrine was going to +be judged by it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Michael and Potch were finishing their tea when Watty burst in on them. +His colour was up, his small, blue eyes winking and flashing over his +fat, pink cheeks. + +"Who d'y' think's come be motor to-day, Michael?" he gasped. + +Michael's movement and the shade of apprehension which crossed his face +were a question. + +"Old man Armitage!" Watty said. "And he's come all the way from New York +to see the big opal, he says." + +There was a rumble of cart wheels, an exclamation and the reverberation +of a broad, slow voice out-of-doors. Watty looked through Michael's +window. + +"Here he is, Michael," he said. "George and Peter are helping him out of +Newton's dog-cart. And Archie Cross and Bill Grant are coming along the +road a bit behind." + +Michael pushed back his seat and pulled the fastenings from his front +door. The front door was more of a decoration and matter of form in the +face of the hut than intended to serve any useful purpose, and the +fastening had never been moved before. + +Potch cleared away the litter of the meal while Michael went out to meet +the old man. He was walking with the help of a stick, his heavy, +colourless face screwed with pain. + +"Grr-rr!" he grunted. "What a fool I was to come to this God-damn place +of yours, George! What? No fool like an old one? Don't know so much +about that.... What else was I to do? Brrr! Oh, there you are, Michael! +Came to see you. Came right away because, from what the boys tell me, +you weren't likely to slip down and call on me." + +"I'd 've come all right if I'd known you wanted to see me, Mr. +Armitage," Michael said. + +The old man went into the hut and, creaking and groaning as though all +his springs needed oiling, seated himself on the sofa, whipped out a +silk handkerchief and wiped his face and head with it. + +"Oh, well," he said, "here I am at last--and mighty glad to get here. +The journey from New York City, where I reside, to this spot on the +globe, don't get any nearer as I grow older. No, sir! Who's that young +man?" + +Mr. Armitage had fixed his eyes on Potch from the moment he came into +the hut. Potch stood to his gaze. + +"That's Potch," Michael said. + +"Potch?" + +The small, round eyes, brown with black rims and centres, beginning to +dull with age, winked over Potch, and in that moment Dawe Armitage was +trying to discover what his chances of getting possession of the stone +he had come to see, were with the man who had found it. + +"Con--gratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "I've +come, Lord knows how many miles, to have a look at that stone of yours." + +Potch shook hands with him. + +"They tell me it's the finest piece of opal ever come out of Ridge +earth," the old man continued. "Well, I couldn't rest out there at home +without havin' a look at it. To think there was an opal like that about, +and I couldn't get me fingers on it! And when I thought how it was I'd +never even see it, perhaps, I danged 'em to Hades--doctors, family and +all--took me passage out here. Ran away! That's what I did." He chuckled +with reminiscent glee. "And here I am." + +"Cleared out, did y', Mr. Armitage?" Watty asked. + +"That's it, Watty," old Armitage answered, still chuckling. "Cleared +out.... Family'll be scarrifyin' the States for me. Sent 'em a cable +when I got here to say I'd arrived." + +Michael and George laughed with Watty, and the old man looked as pleased +with himself as a schoolboy who has brought off some soul-satisfying +piece of mischief. + +"Tell you, boys," he said, "I felt I couldn't die easy knowing there was +a stone like that about and I'd never clap eyes on it.... Know you +chaps'd pretty well turned me down--me and mine--and I wouldn't get more +than a squint at the stone for my pains. You're such damned independent +beggars! Eh, Michael? That's the old argument, isn't it? How did y' like +those papers I sent you--and that book ... by the foreign devil--what's +his name? Clever, but mad. Y'r all mad, you socialists, syndicalists, or +whatever y'r call y'rselves nowadays.... But, for God's sake, let me +have a look at the stone now, there's a good fellow." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"You get her, Potch," he said. + +Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in ah old tin, the +great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He +put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on +which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips +twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch's clumsy fingers +fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal +flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it +on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside. + +Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes. + +"My!" he breathed; and again: "My!" Then: "She was worth it, Michael," +fell from him in an awed exclamation. + +He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his +eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He +lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be +afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, +Potch's opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who +was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to +the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny +brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its +infinitesimal stars---red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst--blazing, +splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him. + +The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone +down and mopped his forehead. + +"Well," he said, "I reckon she's the God-damnedest piece of opal I've +ever seen." + +"She is that," Watty declared. + +"What have you got on her, Michael?" Dawe Armitage queried. + +A faint smile touched Michael's mouth. + +"I'm only asking," Armitage remarked apologetically. "I can tell you, +boys, it's a pretty bitter thing for me to be out of the running for a +stone like this. I ain't even bidding, you see--just inquiring, that's +all." + +Michael looked at Potch. + +"Well," he said, "it's Potch's first bit of luck, and I reck'n he's got +the say about it." + +The old man looked at Potch. He was a good judge of character. His +chance of getting the stone from Michael was remote; from Potch--a +steady, flat look in the eyes, a stolidity and inflexibility about the +young man, did hot give Dawe Armitage much hope where he was concerned +either. + +"They tell me," Mr. Armitage said, the twinkling of a smile in his eyes +as he realised the metal of his adversary--"they tell me," he repeated, +"you've refused three hundred pounds for her?" + +"That's right," Potch said. + +"How much do you reck'n she's worth?" + +"I don't know." + +"How much have you got on her?" + +Potch looked at Michael. + +"We haven't fixed any price," he said. + +"Four hundred pounds?" Armitage asked. + +Potch's grey eyes lay on his for the fraction of a second. + +"You haven't got money enough to buy that stone, Mr. Armitage," he said, +quietly. + +The old man was crestfallen. Although he pretended that he had no hope +of buying the opal, everybody knew that, hoping against hope, he had not +altogether despaired of being able to prevail against the Ridge +resolution not to sell to Armitage and Son, in this instance. Potch +remarked vaguely that he had to see Paul, and went out of the hut. + +"Oh, well," Dawe Armitage said, "I suppose that settles the matter. +Daresay I was a durned old fool to try the boy--but there you are. Well, +since I can't have her, Michael, see nobody else gets her for less than +my bid." + +The men were sorry for the old man. What Potch had said was rather like +striking a man when he was down, they thought; and they were not too +pleased about it. + +"Potch doesn't seem to fancy sellin' at all for a bit," Michael said. + +"What!" Armitage exclaimed. "He's not a miser--at his age?" + +"It's not that," Michael replied. + +"Oh, well"--the old man's gesture disposed of the matter. He gazed at +the stone entranced again. "But she's the koh-i-noor of opals, sure +enough. But tell me"--he sat back on the sofa for a yarn--"what's the +news of the field? Who's been getting the stuff?" + +The gossip of Jun and the ratting was still the latest news of the +Ridge; but Mr. Armitage appeared to know as much of that as anybody. Ed. +Ventry's boy, who had motored him over from Budda, had told him about +it, he said. He had no opinion of Jun. + +"A bad egg," he said, and began to talk about bygone days on the Ridge. +There was nothing in the world he liked better than smoking and yarning +with men of the Ridge about black opal. + +He was fond of telling his family and their friends, who were too nice +and precise in their manners for his taste, and who thought him a boor +and mad on the subject of black opal, that the happiest times of his +life had been spent on Fallen Star Ridge, "swoppin' lies with the +gougers"; yarning with them about the wonderful stuff they had got, and +other chaps had got, or looking over some of the opal he had bought, or +was going to buy from them. + +"Oh, well," Mr. Armitage said after they had been talking for a long +time, "it's great sitting here yarning with you chaps. Never thought ... +I'd be sitting here like this again...." + +"It's fine to have a yarn with you, Mr. Armitage," Michael said. + +"Thank you, Michael," the old man replied. "But I suppose I must be +putting my old bones to bed.... There's something else I want to talk to +you about though, Michael." + +The men turned to the door, judging from Mr. Armitage's tone that what +he had to say was for Michael alone. + +"I'll just have a look if that bally mare of mine's all right, Mr. +Armitage," Peter Newton said. + +He went to the door, and the rest of the men followed him. + +"Well, Michael," Dawe Armitage said when the men had gone out, "I guess +you know what it is I want to talk to you about." + +Michael jerked his head slightly by way of acknowledgment. + +"That little girl of yours." + +Michael smiled. It always pleased and amused him to hear people talk as +if he and not Paul were Sophie's father. + +"She"--old Armitage leaned back on the sofa, and a shade of perplexity +crossed his face--"I've seen a good deal of her, Michael, and I've tried +to keep an eye on her--but I don't mind admitting to you that a man +needs as many eyes as a centipede has legs to know what's coming to him +where Sophie's concerned. But first of all ... she's well ... and +happy--at least, she appears to be; and she's a great little lady." + +He brooded a moment, and Michael smoked, watching his face as though it +were a page he were trying to read. + +"You know, she's singing at one of the theatres in New York, and they +say she's doing well. She's sought after--made much of. She's got little +old Manhattan at her feet, as they say.... I don't want to gloss over +anything that son of mine may have done--but to put it in a nutshell, +Michael, he's in love with her. He's really in love with her--wants to +marry her, but Sophie won't have him." + +Michael did not speak, and he continued: + +"And there's this to be said for him. She says it. He isn't quite so +much to blame as we first thought. Seems he'd been making love to her... +and did a break before.... He didn't mean to be a blackguard, y' see. +You know what I'm driving at, Michael. He loved the girl and went--She +says when she knew he had gone away, she went after him. Then--well, you +know, Michael ... you've been young ... you've been in love. And in +Sydney ... summer-time ... with the harbour there at your feet.... + +"They were happy enough when they came to America. How they escaped the +emigration authorities, I don't know. They make enough fuss about an old +fogey like me, as if I had a harem up me sleeve. But still, when I found +her they were still happy, and she was having dancing lessons, had made +up her mind to go on the stage, and wouldn't hear of getting married. +Seemed to think it was a kind of barbarous business, gettin' married. +Said her mother had been married--and look what it had brought her to. + +"She's fond of John, too," the old man continued. "But, at present, New +York's a side-show, and she's enjoying it like a child on a holiday from +the country. I've got her living with an old maid cousin of mine.... +Sophie says by and by perhaps she'll marry John, but not yet--not +now--she's having too good a time. She's got all the money she wants ... +all the gaiety and admiration. It's not the sort of life I like for a +woman myself ... but I've done my best, Michael." + +There was something pathetic about the quiver which took the old face +before him. Michael responded to it gratefully. + +"You have that, I believe, Mr. Armitage," he said, "and I'm grateful to +you.". + +"Tell you the truth, Michael," he said, "I'm fond of her. I feel about +her as if she were a piece of live opal--the best bit that fool of a son +of mine ever brought from the Ridge...." + +His face writhed as he got up from the sofa. + +"But I must be going, Michael. Rouminof had a touch of the sun a while +ago, they tell me. Never been quite himself since. Bad business that. +Better go and have a look at him. Yes? Thanks, Michael; thanks. It's a +God-damned business growing old, Michael. Never knew I had so many bones +in me body." + +Leaning heavily on his stick he hobbled to the door. Michael gave him +his arm, and they went to Rouminof's hut. + +Potch had told Paul of Dawe P. Armitage's arrival; that he had come to +the Ridge to see the big opal, and was in Michael's hut. Paul had gone +to bed, but was all eagerness to get up and go to see Mr. Armitage. He +was sitting on his bed, weak and dishevelled-looking, shirt and trousers +on, while Potch was hunting for his boots, when Michael and Mr. Armitage +came into the room. + +After he had asked Paul how he was, and had gossiped with him awhile, +Mr. Armitage produced an illustrated magazine from one of the outer +pockets of his overcoat. + +"Thought you'd like to see these pictures of Sophie, Rouminof," he said. +"She's well, and doing well. The magazine will tell you about that. And +I brought along this." He held out a photograph. "She wouldn't give me a +photograph for you, Michael--said you'd never know her--so I prigged +this from her sitting-room last time I was there." + +Michael glanced at the photographer's card of heavy grey paper, which +Mr. Armitage was holding. He would know Sophie, anyhow and anywhere, he +thought; but he agreed that she was right when, the card in his hands, +he gazed at the elegant, bizarre-looking girl in the photograph. She was +so unlike the Sophie he had known that he closed his eyes on the +picture, pain, and again a dogging sense of failure and defeat filtering +through all his consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul's +hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and +start work again. It was nearly five years since he had got the +sun-stroke which had given him an excuse for loafing, and Michael and +Potch had come to the conclusion that even if it were only to keep him +out of mischief, Paul had to be put to work again. + +Since old Armitage's visit he had been restless and dissatisfied. He was +getting old, and had less energy, even by fits and starts, than he used +to have, they realised, but otherwise he was much the same as he had +been before Sophie went away. For months after Armitage's visit he spent +the greater part of his time on the form in the shade of Newton's +veranda, or in the bar, smoking and yarning to anybody who would yarn +with him about Sophie. His imagination gilded and wove freakish fancies +over what Mr. Armitage had said of her, while he wailed about Sophie's +neglect of him--how she had gone away and left him, her old father, to +do the best he could for himself. His reproaches led him to rambling +reminiscences of his life before he came to the Ridge, and of Sophie's +mother. He brought out his violin, tuned it, and practised Sometimes, +talking of how he would play for Sophie in New York. + +He was rarely sober, and Michael and Potch were afraid of the effect of +so much drinking on his never very steady brain. + +For months they had been trying to induce him to go down to the claim +and start work again; but Paul would not. + +"What's the good," he had said, "Sophie'll be sending for me soon, and +I'll be going to live with her in New York, and she won't want people to +be saying her father is an old miner." + +Michael had too deep a sense of what he owed to Paul to allow him ever +to want. He had provided for him ever since Sophie had left the Ridge; +he was satisfied to go on providing for him; but he was anxious to steer +Paul back to more or less regular ways of living. + +This morning Michael had made up his mind to tempt him to begin work +again by telling him of a splash of colour Potch had come on in the mine +the day before. Michael did not think Paul could resist the lure of that +news. + +Potch had brought Paul home from Newton's the night before, Michael +knew; but Paul was not in the kitchen or in his own room when Michael +went into the hut. + +As he was going out he noticed that the curtain of bagging over the door +of the room which had been Sophie's was thrown back. Michael went +towards it. + +"Paul!" he called. + +No answer coming, he went into the room. Its long quiet and tranquillity +had been disturbed. Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway +thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been +like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but +there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room +about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the +frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the +window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael +remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago. + +He was realising Potch had put them there, and wondering why he had left +the dead stalks in the tin until they were as dry as brown paper, when +his eyes fell on a hat with a long veil, and a dark cloak on the bed. He +gazed at them, his brain shocked into momentary stillness by the +suggestion they conveyed. + +Sophie exclaimed behind him. + +When he turned, Michael saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against +one side of it. Her face was very pale and tired-looking; her eyes gazed +into his, dark and strange. He thought she had been ill. + +"I've come home, Michael," she said. + +Michael could not speak. He stood staring at her. The dumb pain in her +eyes inundated him, as though he were a sensitive medium for the +realisation of pain. It surged through him, mingling with the flood of +his own rejoicing, gratitude, and relief that Sophie had come back to +the Ridge again. + +They stood looking at each other, their eyes telling in that moment what +words could not. Then Michael spoke, sensing her need of some +commonplace, homely sentiment and expression of affection. + +"It's a sight for sore eyes--the sight of you, Sophie," he said. + +"Michael!" + +Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved +to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been +like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own +child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and +tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried, +brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all. + +"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!" + +He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering +tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears +she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came +from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily, +reverently. + +"There, there!" he muttered again and again. + +Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from +him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her +eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him. + +"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said. + +Michael's mouth took its wry twist. + +"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else +on the Ridge'd dare say so." + +"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a +little as she looked at him; her eyes closed. + +Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie +down and drew the coverlet over her. + +"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said. + +Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour +when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and +butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had +fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave, +anxious face as he gazed at her. + +"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired." +She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the +tea and ate the bread and butter. + +"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world," +Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether +it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have +tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice." + +After a while she said: + +"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about +half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before. +That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat +and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how +badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I +didn't come--so I came." + +Then she asked about Potch and her father. + +Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but +that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of +putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down +to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and +Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the +night before. + +"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd +better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye +you've been missing these last two or three days." + +"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her +eyes again. + +They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed. + +"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for +years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the +sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste, +Michael.... It smells like peace, I think." + +"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind +if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more +good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter." + +"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured. + +Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep, +thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was +already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to +the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank +sunshine of the day again. + +He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to +the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for +Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to +look for Paul and send him to her. + +She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew +there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage +had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and +the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine, +with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever +it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake, +devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no +more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her. + +Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into +the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill +near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with +red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the +belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared. + +"Get him?" he asked. + +Michael had almost forgotten Paul. + +"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie. + +"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in +Michael's expression. + +Michael wanted to tell him--this was a big thing for Potch, he knew--and +yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the +throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he +told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch. + +"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said. + +But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He +would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian +of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for +fear of dazzling the beholder. + +The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had +come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of +having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did +not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and +happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like +that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie--Michael must have some good +news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his +own time. + +He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's +steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached +himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch. + +He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of +the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse +him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and +determined to speak. + +Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt +round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the +floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against +the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders. + +"Where was he?" he asked. + +"Who--Paul?" + +Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck. + +"Yes." + +Michael decided he would tell him now. + +"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away." + +Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again. + +"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit +of a business getting him home." + +"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and +stopped to listen. + +There was a muffled rumbling and sound of someone calling in the +distance. It came from Roy O'Mara's drive, on the other side of the +mine. + +"Hullo!" Michael called. + +"That you, Michael?" Roy replied. "I'm comin' through." + +His head appeared through the drive which he had tunnelled to meet +Potch's and Michael's drive on the eastern side of the mine. He crawled +out, shook himself, took out his pipe, and squatted on the floor beside +Michael. + +"Where's Rummy?" Roy asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"You didn't get him down, after all--the boys were taking bets about it +last night." + +"We'll get him yet," Potch said. "The colour'll work like one thing." + +Michael stared ahead of him, smoking as though his thoughts absorbed +him. + +"He was pretty full at Newton's last night," Roy said, "and +talkin'--talkin' about Sophie singing in America, and the great lady she +is now. And how she was goin' to send for him, and he'd be leavin' us +soon, and how sorry we'd all be then." + +"Should've thought you'd about wore out that joke," Michael remarked, +dryly. + +Roy's easy, good-natured voice faltered. + +"Oh, well," he said, "he likes to show off a bit, and it don't hurt us, +Michael." + +"That's right," Michael returned; "but Potch was out half the night +bringing him home. You chaps might remember Paul's our proposition when +you're having a bit of fun out of him." + +Potch turned back to his work. + +"Right, Michael," Roy said. And then, after a moment, having decided +that both Michael's and Potch's demeanours were too calm for them to +have heard what he had, as if savouring the effect of his news, he +added: + +"But perhaps we won't have many more chances-seein' Rummy 'll be going +to America before long, perhaps----" + +Michael, looking at Roy through his tobacco smoke, realised that he knew +about Sophie's having come home. His glance travelled to Potch, who was +slogging at the cement stone again. + +"Saw old Ventry on me way down to the mine," Roy said, "and he said he'd +a passenger on the coach last night.... Who do you think it was?" + +Michael dared not look at Potch. + +"He said," Roy murmured slowly, "it was Sophie." + +They knew that Potch's pick had stopped. Michael had seen a tremor +traverse the length of his bared back; but Potch did not turn. He stood +with his face away from them, immobile. His body dripped with sweat and +seemed to be oiled by the garish light of the candle which outlined his +head, gilded his splendid arms and torso against the red earth of the +mine, and threw long shadows into the darkness, shrouding the workings +behind him. Then his pick smashed into the cement stone with a force +which sent sharp, white chips flying in every direction. + +When Roy crawled away through the tunnel to his own quarters, Potch +swung round from the face he was working on, his eyes blazing. + +"Is it true?" he gasped. + +"Yes," Michael said. + +After a moment he added: "I found her in the hut this morning just +before I came away. I been tryin' all these blasted hours to tell you, +Potch ... but every time I tried, it got me by the neck, and I had to +wait until I found me voice." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The sunset was fading, a persimmon glow failing from behind the trees, +its light merging with the blue of the sky, creating the faint, luminous +green which holds the first stars with such brilliance, when Sophie went +out of the hut to meet Potch. + +The smell of sandal-wood burning on the fireplace in the kitchen she had +just left, was in the air. Such soothing its fragrance had for her! And +on the shingly soil, between the old dumps cast up a little distance +from the huts, in every direction, the paper daisies were lying, white +as driven snow in the wan light. Sophie went to the goat-pen, strung +round with a light, crooked fence, a few yards from the back of the +house. + +As she leaned against the fence she could hear the tinkling of a +goat-bell in the distance. The fragrances, the twilight, and the quiet +were balm to her bruised senses. The note of a bell sounded nearer. +Potch was bringing the goats in. + +Sophie went to the shed and stood near it, so that she might see him +before he saw her. A kid in the shed bleated as the note of the bell +became harsher and nearer. Sophie heard the answering cry of the nanny +among the three or four goats coming down to the yard along a narrow +track from a fringe of trees beyond the dumps. Then she saw Potch's +figure emerge from the trees. + +He drove the goats into the yard where two sticks of the fence were +down, put up the rails, and went to the shed for a milking bucket. He +came back into the yard, pulled a little tan-and-white nanny beside a +low box on which he sat to milk, and the squirt and song of milk in the +pail began. Sophie wondered what Potch was thinking of as he sat there +milking. She remembered the night--Potch had been sitting just like +that--when she told him her mother was dead. As she remembered, she saw +again every flicker and gesture of his, the play of light on his broad, +heavy face and head, with its shock of fairish hair; how his face had +puckered up and looked ugly and childish as he began to cry; how, after +a while, he had wiped his eyes and nose on his shirt-sleeve, and gone on +with the milking again, crying and sniffling in a subdued way. + +There was a deep note of loving them in his voice, rough and burred +though it was, as Potch spoke to the goats. Two of them came when he +called. + +When he had nearly finished milking, Sophie moved away from the screen +of the shed. She went along to the fence and stood where he could see +her when he looked up. + +The light had faded, and stars were glimmering in the luminous green of +the sky when Potch, as he released the last goat, pushed back the box he +had been sitting on, got up, took his bucket by the handle, and, looking +towards the fence, saw Sophie standing there. At first he seemed to +think she was a figure of his imagination, he stood so still gazing at +her. He had often thought of her, leaning against the rails there, +smiling at him like that. Then he remembered Sophie had come home; that +it was really Sophie herself by the fence as he had dreamed of seeing +her. But her face was wan and ethereal in the half-light; it floated +before him as if it were a drowned face in the still, thin air. + +"She's very like my old white nanny, Potch," Sophie said, her eyes +glancing from Potch to the goat he had just let go and which had +followed him across the yard. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"She might almost be Annie Laurie's daughter," Sophie said. + +"She's her grand-daughter," Potch replied. + +He put the bucket down at the rails and stooped to get through them. +Before he took up the bucket again he stood looking at her as though to +assure himself that it was really Sophie in the flesh who was waiting +for him by the fence. Then he took up the bucket, and they walked across +to Michael's hut together. + +Potch dared scarcely glance at her when he realised that Sophie was +really walking beside him--Sophie herself--although her eyes and her +voice were not the eyes and voice of the Sophie he had known. And he had +so often dreamed of her walking beside him that the dream seemed almost +more real than the thing which had come to pass. + +Sophie went with him to the lean-to, where the milk-dishes stood on a +bench under the window outside Michael's hut. She watched Potch while he +strained the milk and poured it into big, flat dishes on a bench under +the window. + +Paul came to the door of their own hut. He called her. Sophie could hear +voices exclaiming and talking to Paul and Michael. She supposed that the +people her father had said were coming from New Town to see her had +arrived. She dreaded going into the room where they all were, although +she knew that she must go. + +"Are you coming, Potch?" she asked. + +His eyes went from her to his hands. + +"I'll get cleaned up a bit first," he said, "then I'll come." + +The content in his eyes as they rested on her was transferred to Sophie. +It completed what the fragrances, those first minutes in the quiet and +twilight had done for her. It gave her a sense of having come to haven +after a tempestuous journey on the high seas beyond the reef of the +Ridge, and of having cast anchor in the lee of a kindly and sheltering +land. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged +insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung +in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George +Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the +kitchen. + +"Here she is," Paul said. + +Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her. + +"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called: + +"H'llo, Sophie!" + +And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!" + +Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie +warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump +and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and +rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again. +The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of +so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness. + +"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than +Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!" + +"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me +that scared of you--saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be +tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a +minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own +little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms +round you--not for the life of me." + +She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in +them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too. + +"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway. + +And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the +room. + +"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!" + +Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie. + +"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get +her to wait till this evening to come along." + +"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly. + +"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you +and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a +word about it!" + +The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost, +the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door. + +"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of +pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they +came to her. + +She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was +surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they +had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was +full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him +the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other +woman on the Ridge--Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a +blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had +done as long as Sophie could remember. + +Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call. +Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes +spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant. + +"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply. + +"Thank you, Bill," she replied. + +Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night, +Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but +he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat +outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did +not know whether he would go into the room or not. + +Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff, +gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow +flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But +there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had +done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a +triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it, +those who saw him knew. + +"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him. + +"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said. + +The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that +although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no +one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. + +He held the flowers out to her. + +"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her +nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a +perfume!" + +Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to +sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had +gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men. + +He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make +him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and +he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the +talk Paul's voice was raised querulously: + +"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's +happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you +caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd +go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been +with you...." + +Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling +with a hearty guffaw. + +"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of +this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and +me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son, +just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch: + +"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-" + +All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a +way which meant much more than the words--singing from their hearts, +every man and woman of them. + +Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of +washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night +to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would +walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said +good-night. + +"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant +said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let +Sophie get to bed early. + +"I will," Sophie replied. + +Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and +George followed them. + +"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods +said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this +field since you went away." + +Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes. + +"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily. + + +"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck." + +"So he has," George Woods agreed. + +"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said. + +"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to +show it to me to-night." + +"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"--he +turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses--"I reck'n we'll have to stay for +this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring +her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too +much of a good thing." + +"Right," Potch replied. + +He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room. + +"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said, +"and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it, +Michael?" + +"Four hundred," Michael said. + +"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked. + +Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering. + +"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I +daresay he'll be letting her go soon." + +He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that +Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie +the stone before selling it. + +Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph +and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin, +skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and +emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on +the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red, +weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old +penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening--a thirsting, +eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin, +lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which +he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool. + +Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The +emotion in the room made itself felt through her. + +"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said. + +Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in +a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table. +Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the +flame of the candle. + +"Oh!" + +Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of +them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel +opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm. + +The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered +exclamations went up: + +"Now, she's showin'!" + +"God, look at her now!" + +Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a +world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering +and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty +pool of the stone. + +"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous. + +Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of +miraculous and mysterious beauty. + +"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie." + +Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and +emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on +them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of +glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a +moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have +left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes +wide.... + +After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael +lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, +Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were +caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor +near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered +stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst--out across the earthen +floor. + +Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them +up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of +those stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst. + +She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to +think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and +that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only +for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal +specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her +hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was +saying. + +When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting +on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At +first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to +listen; tried to understand what he was saying. + +"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking. + +Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt +beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly: + +"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!" + +She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze. +Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently: + +"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I +was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't +want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you liked with, really. +That was what I meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think +of it any more. I don't want to think of it any more." + +"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... +somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal--that I bring people bad +luck like opal...." + +"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you +get through opal is when you can't get enough of it--so the only bad +luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of +you." + +"Potch!" + +Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The +forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which +she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and +exclamation. + +On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being +throbbed. + +"Don't think of it any more," he begged. + +"But it was your luck--your wonderful opal--and ... I broke it, Potch. I +spoilt your luck." + +"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to +assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie. +Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it.... +This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because +you're here that I can't think of anything else." + +Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion +of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured +over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung +so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying +abstractedly, wearily. + +There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch. +His instincts, sensitive as the antennae of an insect, wavered over her, +trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded +him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense +of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to +comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to +him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!" + +Later she said: + +"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ... +not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all +the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I +thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like +I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful +here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left +it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it +was before...." + +"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to +read her thought. + +"But look what I've done," she said. + +Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him +moving his restraint. + +"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our +hearts--just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George +and the rest of them." + +"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark +thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like +any of you think." + +Potch's grip on her hand tightened. + +"You're you--and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said. + +Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and +Michael I knew would--but the others ... I thought they'd remember ... +and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"--a smile showed faintly in +her eyes--"I thought she'd see to that." + +"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's +valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty +was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night." + +"Was he?" + +Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us +here ... we--we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again." + +Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance. + +"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...." + +"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he +might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had +cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress. +"But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't +bother you ... I want just to stand by--and help you all I know how." + +"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of +loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one +sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been +hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were +here." + +Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been +engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed +and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she +looked at him; her face was grave and still. + +"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else, +once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so +tired." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great +opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which +Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her +eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, +inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would +put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath +from them in the lingering kiss she gave. + +When she had laid her head back on his shoulder sometimes, closing her +eyes, an expression of infinite rest coming over her face, Potch had +gazed at it, wondering what world of thought lay beneath that still, +sleep-like mask as, it rested on his shoulder; what thought or emotion +set a nerve quivering beneath her skin, as the water of some still pool +quivers when an insect stirs beneath it. + +Sophie had no tricks of sex with Potch. She went to him sometimes when +ghosts of her mind were driving her before them. She went to him because +she was sure that she could go to him, whatever her reasons for going. +With Potch there was no need for explanations. + +His quiet strength of body and mind had something to do with the rest +and assurance which his very presence gave her. It was like being a baby +and lying in a cradle again to have his arm about her; no harm or ill +could reach her behind the barrier they raised, Sophie thought. She knew +Potch loved her with all the passion of a virile man as well as with a +love like the ocean into which all her misdeeds of commission and +omission might be dropped. And she had as intimate and sympathetic a +knowledge of Potch as he had of her. Sophie thought that nothing he +might do could make her care less, or be less appreciative of him. She +loved him, she said, with a love of the tenderest affection. If it +lacked an irresistible impulse, she thought it was because she had lost +the power to love in that way; but she hoped some day she would love +Potch as he loved her--without reservations. For the time being she +loved him gratefully; her gratitude was as immense as his love. + +Potch divined as much; Sophie had not tried to tell him how she felt +about him, but he understood, perhaps better than she could tell him. +His humility was equal to any demand she could make of him. He had not +sufficient belief in himself or his worth to believe that Sophie could +ever love him as he loved her: he did not expect it. The only way for +him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is +to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for +life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it. + +Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; +but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched +itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages +which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them. + +The days were blessed and peaceful to Sophie, too; but she, also, was +afraid that something might happen to disturb them. She wanted to marry +Potch in order to secure them, and to live and work with him on the +Ridge. She wanted to live the life of any other woman on the Ridge with +her mate. Life looked so straight and simple that way. She could see it +stretching before her into the years. Her hands would be full of real +things. She would be living a life of service and usefulness, in +accordance with the ideal the Ridge had set itself, and which Michael +had preached with the zeal of a latter-day saint. She believed her life +would shape itself to this future; but sometimes a wraith in the +back-country of her mind rose shrieking: "Never! Never!" + +It threw her into the outer darkness of despair, that cry, but she had +learned to exorcise its influence by going to Potch and lifting her lips +for him to kiss. + +"What is it?" he asked one day, vaguely aware of the meaning of the +movement. + +Before the reverence and worship of his eyes the wraith fled. Sophie +took his face between her hands. + +"Oh, my dear," she murmured, her eyes straining on his face, "I do love +you ... and I will love you, more and more." + +"You don't have to worry about that," Potch said. "I love you enough for +both of us.... Just think of me"--he lifted her hand and kissed the back +of it gently--"like this--your hand--a sort of third hand." + +When he came back from the mine in the afternoon Potch went to see +Sophie, cut wood for her, and do any odd jobs she might need done. +Sometimes he had tea with her, and they read the reviews and books +Michael passed on to them. In the evening they went for a walk, usually +towards the Old Town, and sat on a long slope of the Ridge overlooking +the Rouminofs' first home--near where they had played when they were +children, and had watched the goats feeding on green patches between the +dumps. + +They had awed talks there; and now and then the darkness, shutting off +sight of each other, had made something like disembodied spirits of +them, and their spirits communicated dumbly as well as on the frail wind +of their voices. + +They yarned and gossiped sometimes, too, about the things that had +happened, and what Potch had done while Sophie was away. She asked a +good deal about the ratting, and about Jun and Maud. Potch tried to +avoid talking of it and of them. He had evaded her questions, and Sophie +returned to them, perplexed by his reticence. + +"I don't understand, Potch," she said on one occasion. "You found out +that Maud and Jun had something to do with the ratting, and you went +over to Jun's ... and told them you were going to tell the boys.... They +must have known you would tell. Maud----" + +Potch's expression, a queer, sombre and shamed heaviness of his face, +arrested her thought. + +"Maud----" she murmured again. "I see," she added, "it was just +Maud----" + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"That explains a good deal." Sophie's eyes were on the distant horizon +of the plains; her fingers played idly with quartz pebbles, pink-stained +like rose coral, lying on the earth about her. + +"What does it explain?" Potch asked. + +"Why," Sophie said, "for one thing--how you grew up. You've changed +since I went away, Potch, you know...." + +His smile showed a moment. + +"I'm older." + +"Older, graver, harder ... and kinder, though you always had a genius +for kindness, Potch.... But Maud----" + +Potch turned his head from her. Sophie regarded his averted profile +thoughtfully. + +"I understand," she said. + +Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes. + +"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said. + +"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men--because of her." + +"That's right," Potch agreed. + +"And--you don't now?" + +"No." + +"I saw her--Maud--in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said +slowly. "She was selling opal...." + +"Did she show you the stones?" + +"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said. + +"Michael?" Potch's face clouded. + +"She didn't show them to me, but I know who saw them all--he bought +them--Mr. Armitage." + +"The old man?" + +"No, John." + +After a minute Sophie said: + +"Why are you so keen about those stones Maud had, Potch? Michael is, +too.... Most of them were taken from the claims, I suppose--but was +there anything more than that?" + +"It's hard to say." Potch spoke reluctantly. "There's nothing more than +a bit of guesswork in my mind ... and I suppose it's the same with +Michael. I haven't said anything to Michael about it, and he hasn't to +me, so it's better not to mention it." + +"There's a good deal changed on the Ridge since I went away," Sophie +remarked musingly. + +"The new rush, and the school, the Bush Brothers' church, and Mrs. +Watty's veranda?" + +"I don't mean that," Sophie said. "It's the people and things ... you, +for instance, and Michael----" + +"Michael?" Potch exclaimed. "He's wearing the same old clothes, the same +old hat." + +Sophie was too much in earnest to respond to the whimsey. + +"He's different somehow ... I don't quite know how," she said. "There's +a look about him--his eyes--a disappointed look, Potch.... It hurt him +when I went away, I know. But now--it's not that...." + +As Potch did not reply, Sophie's eyes questioned him earnestly. + +"Has anything happened," she asked, "to make Michael look like that?" + +"I ... don't know," Potch replied. + +Answered by the slow and doubtful tone of his denial, Sophie exclaimed: + +"There is something, Potch! I don't want to know what it is if you can't +tell me. I'm only worried about Michael.... I'd always thought he had +the secret of that inside peace, and now he looks----Oh, I can't bear to +see him look as he does.... And he seems to have lost interest in +things--the life here--everything." + +"Yes," Potch admitted. + +"Only tell me," Sophie urged, "is this that's bothering Michael likely +to clear, and has it been hanging over him for long?" + +Potch was silent so long that she wondered whether he was going to +answer the question. Then he said slowly: + +"I ... don't know. I really don't know anything, Sophie. I happened to +find out--by accident--that Michael's pretty worried about something. I +don't rightly know what, or why. That's all." + +The even pace of those days gave Sophie the quiet mind she had come to +the Ridge for. There was healing for her in the fragrant air, the +sunshiny days, the blue-dark nights, with their unclouded, starry skies. +She went into the shed one morning and threw the bags from the +cutting-wheel which had been her mother's, cleared and cleaned up the +room, rearranged the boxes, put out her working gear, and cut and +polished one or two stones which were lying on a saucer beside the +wheel, to discover whether her hand had still its old deftness. Michael +was delighted with the work she showed him in the evening, and gave her +several small stones to face and polish for him. + +Every day then Sophie worked at her wheel for a while. George and Watty, +Bill Grant and the Crosses brought stuff for her to cut and polish, and +in a little while her life was going in the even way it had done before +she left the Ridge, but it was a long time before Sophie went about as +she used to. After a while, however, she got into the way of walking +over to see Maggie Grant or Martha M'Cready in the afternoon, +occasionally; but she never talked to them of her life away from the +Ridge; they never spoke of it to her. + +Only one thing had disturbed her slightly--seeing Arthur Henty one +evening as she and Martha were coming from the Three Mile. + +He had come towards them, with a couple of stockmen, driving a mob of +cattle. Dust rose at the heels of the cattle and horses; the cattle +moved slowly; and the sun was setting in the faces of the men behind the +cattle. Sophie did not know who they were until a man on a chestnut +horse stared at her. His face was almost hidden by his beard; but after +the first glance she recognised Arthur Henty. They passed as people do +in a dream, Sophie and Martha back from the road, the men riding off the +cattle, Arthur with the stockmen and cattle which a cloud of dust +enveloped immediately. The dark trees by the roadside swayed, dipped in +the gold of the sunset, when they had passed. The image of Arthur Henty +riding like that in the dust behind the cattle, his face gilded by the +light of the setting sun, came to Sophie again and again. She was a +little disturbed by it; but it was only natural that she should be, she +thought. She had not seen Arthur since the night of the ball, and so +much had happened to both their lives since then. + +She saw him once or twice in the township afterwards. He had stared at +her; Sophie had bowed and smiled, but they had not spoken. Later, she +had seen him lounging on the veranda at Newton's, or hanging his bridle +over the pegs outside Ezra Smith's billiard saloon, and neither her +brain nor pulse had quickened at the sight of him. She was pleased and +reassured. She did not think of him after that, and went on her way +quietly, happily, more deeply content in her life with Michael and +Potch. + +As her natural vigour returned, she grew to a fuller appreciation of +that life; health and a normal poise of body and soul brought the faint +light of happiness to her eyes. Michael heard her laughing as she teased +Paul sometimes, and Potch thrilled to the rippled cadenza of Sophie's +laughter. + +"It's good to hear that again," Michael said to him one day, hearing it +fly from Rouminof's hut. + +Potch's glance, as his head moved in assent, was eloquent beyond words. + +Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. +Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, +calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way +the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected +her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her +unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be +splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy +fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race +meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road +opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star +to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra, +constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll +the track. + +A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one +side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the +trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually +drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs +was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been +fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous +muster of the show horses of the district--rough-haired nags, piebald +and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous +reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains; +Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet +nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina +stallion Black Harry. + +People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was +held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's. +Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not +stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than +railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many +of them as were needed were run up for the occasion. + +Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every +horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, +and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange +horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, +Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical +warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the +enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the +course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were +gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next +day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest +pitch. + +Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to +go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and +children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of +an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, +and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it +was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs. +Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still +maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, +so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money. + +Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to +the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and +Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see +all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she +said--people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns. +Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to +mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was +at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut. + +Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway. + +"Are you there, Martha?" she called. + + +"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!" + +Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was +full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and +freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from +above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as +Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face. + +"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on +an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was +at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down. +I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go +over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full +over there--with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a +crowd at the races, Sophie." + +Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the +brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch +of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back +to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with +great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, +broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other +hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw +its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, +scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks' +houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for +Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies +into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, +giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, +healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, +Sophie exclaimed to herself. + +Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, +and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did +not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said +Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie +knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could +dance like a two-year-old. + +"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I +suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America." + +"I'm not going," Sophie said, + +"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed +wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball--the +first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course +you're going, Sophie!" + +Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open +doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon +was nearly over. + +"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say? +And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you +there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress +extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's +brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with +her...." + +Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naive and genial admiration of what +Martha had said. + +"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron +flashing vigorously. "It just won't be--the ball--and everything looking +as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge. +Everybody'll be that disappointed----" + +"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried. + +"I don't think; I know." + +A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes. + +"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither." + +"Potch?" + +"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy--and going to +marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, +Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking. + +"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since +you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're +goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: +'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she +goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.' +That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...." + +Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was +amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to +think that Potch was not a good enough match for her. + +"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're +all coming over from Warria--Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs. +Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and +most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...." + +She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no +flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as +she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon +sky. + +"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse +theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine +dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, +Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think +they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ... +we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But +Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see +her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'" + +As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had +years before. She could see the people in it--figures swaying down the +long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford--their +faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, +herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her +father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the +rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt +indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to +think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and +now. + +"I'd give anything for you to be there--looking your best," Martha +continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you +weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...." + +"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me--as he used to be," Sophie murmured. + +Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one +knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an +American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read +and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put +her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off +her kitchen. + +"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the +paper. + +She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph +on its page. + +"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human +understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has +had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from +comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and +musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith +of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she +goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang. +Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and +have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no +better reason, it is said, than that she is _ecoeoeure_ of us and our +life--the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario +informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for +a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms. +And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like +one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little +Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more." + +The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes. + +"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak +when she had finished reading. + +"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me +_ecoeoeure_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there, +Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd +never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for +me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't +even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just +a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without +meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go +away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing +any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to +come home.... And I came." + +Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck. + +"My lamb," she whispered. + +Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare +arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously. + +"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said. + +"All right, dearie!" + +Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another +iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table. +She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with +a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress. + +"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said. + +"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a +swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't +you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't, +Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair +dying to wear them." + +Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line +beside a newly-starched petticoat. + +"You will, won't you?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +"I don't think so, Martha." + +Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a +moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A +couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low, +giggling cries. + +She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to +Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the +pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran +down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to +the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted +ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the +ball was in the air. + +Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge +balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of +hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced. +She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the +music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the +boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you +could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up +so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced. + +Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice, +eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter +of a girl's laughter--they were all in the air now as they had been +then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, +and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a +good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to +them--they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? +Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with +all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her? + +Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face, +trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it +what Sophie was thinking. + +"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged. + +Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light +in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed +her. + +"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?" + +"Course you could, darling," Martha said. + +Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she +stood off from her. + +"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing--and to be young +again, Martha?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was still light; the sky, faintly green, a tinge as of stale blood +along the horizon, as Sophie and Potch walked down the road to the hall. +At a little distance the big building showed dark and ungainly against +the sky. Its double doors were open, and a wash of dull, golden light +came out from it into the twilight, with the noise of people laughing +and talking. + +"It's like old times, isn't it, Potch"--Sophie's fingers closed over +Potch's arm--"to be going to a Ridge dance?" + +There was a faint, sweet stirring which the wind makes in the trees +within her, Sophie realised. It was strange and delightful to feel alive +again, and alive with the first freshness, innocence, and vague +happiness of a girl. + +Potch looked down on her, smiling. He was filled with pride to have her +beside him like this, to think they would go into the hall together, and +that people would say to each other when they saw them: "There's Sophie +and Potch!" + +That using of their names side by side was a source of infinite content +to Potch. He loved people to say: "When are you and Sophie coming over +to see us, Potch?" or, "Would you mind telling Sophie, Potch?" and give +him a message for Sophie. And this would be the first time they had +appeared at an assembly of Ridge folk together. + +He walked with his head held straight and high, and his eyes shone when +he went down the hall with Sophie. What did it matter if they called him +Potch, the Ridge folk, "a little bit of potch," he thought, Sophie was +going to be Mrs. Heathfield. + +"Here's Sophie and Potch," he heard people say, as he had thought they +would, and his heart welled with happiness and pride. + +Nearly everybody had arrived when they went into the hall; the first +dance was just beginning. Branches of budda, fleeced with creamy and +lavender blossom, had been stuck through the supports of the hall. Flags +and pennants of all the colours in the rainbow, strung on a line +together, were stretched at the end of the platform. On the platform +Mrs. Newton was sitting at the piano. Paul had his music-stand near her, +and behind him an old man from the Three Mile was nervously fingering +and blowing on a black and silver-mounted flute. Women and girls and a +few of the older men were seated on forms against the walls. Several +young mothers had babies in their arms, and children of all ages were +standing about, or sitting beside their parents. By common consent, +Ridge folk had taken one side of the hall, and station folk the upper +end of the other side. + +Sophie's first glance found Martha, her white dress stiff and +immaculate, her face with its plump, rosy cheeks turned towards her, her +eyes smiling and expectant. Martha beamed at her; Sophie smiled back, +and, her glance travelling on, found Maggie and Bill Grant, Mrs. George +Woods and two of her little girls; Mrs. Watty, in a black dress, its +high neck fastened by a brooch, with three opals in, Watty had given +her; and Watty, genial and chirrupy as usual, but afraid to appear as if +he were promising himself too much of a good time. + +Warria, Langi-Eumina, and Darrawingee folk had foregathered; the girls +and men laughed and chattered in little groups; the older people talked, +sitting against the wall or leaning towards each other. Mrs. Henty +looked much as she had done five years before; James Henty not a day +older; but Mrs. Tom Henderson, who had been Elizabeth Henty, had +developed a sedate and matronly appearance. Polly was not as plump and +jolly as she had been--a little puzzled and apprehensive expression +flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of +discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a +slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an +expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent. + +The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul +scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a +bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge +loved. Roy O'Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: "Take y'r +partners for a waltz!" Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment +were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. +There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the +polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way +of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and +pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing +with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first +dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael--no one on the Ridge +was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with +neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a +threepenny piece! + +Sophie smiled at Martha's happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing +with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to +the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton's, he +had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which +had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with +unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised +the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose +litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. +Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical +fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other. + +Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. +Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. +The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did. + +His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy +ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of +rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the +flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through +the crowd. + +"For goodness' sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it," she said. + +"But I do mean it, Sophie," he said. + +As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he +did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything--with a dead +earnestness. + +After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round +Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances +as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened +to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they +didn't get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance +with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie +Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell +Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the +opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing. + +"You can see them from one end of the hall to the other," Sophie +whispered. + +"And you, lovey," Martha said. "It's just lovely, the dress. You should +have seen how they stared at you when you came in.... And Potch looking +so nice, too. He wouldn't call the King his uncle to-night, Sophie!" + +Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was +claiming her for a polka mazurka. + +The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. +Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw +Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as +Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them. + +"Mr. Armitage did come, I see," Sophie said quietly, as Potch and +Michael were looking towards the door. "I had a letter from him a few +weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball," she added. + +"Why has he come?" Michael asked. + +"I don't know," she said. "To see me, I suppose ... and to find out +whether the men will do business with him again." + +Michael's gesture implied it was useless to talk of that. + +Sophie continued: "But you know what I said, Michael. I can't be happy +until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the +men here.... You must do that for me, Michael. They know I'm going to +marry Potch ... and if they see there's no ill feeling between John +Armitage and me, they'll believe I was more to blame than he was--if +it's a question of blame.... I want you and Potch to stand by me in +this, Michael." + +Potch's eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and +sure. But Michael showed no relenting. + +Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in +the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had +circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had +created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and +indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach +to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie. + +She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had +met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them +than playing a game they had learned to play rather well. + +Sophie said: "It is you really?" + +He took the hand she held to him. "But you knew I was coming? You had my +letter?" + +"Of course ... but----" + +"And my word is my bond." + +The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage's voice, and the +perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised +people who were near them. + +Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded +Armitage with grave, quiet eyes. + +"Good evening, Michael! Evening, Potch!" Armitage said. + +Michael did not reply; but Potch said: + +"Evening, Mr. Armitage!" And Sophie covered the trail of his words, and +Michael's silence, with questions as to the sort of journey Armitage had +made; a flying commentary on the ball, the races, and the weather. +Michael moved away as the next dance was beginning. + +"Is this my dance, Sophie?" Armitage inquired. + +Sophie shook her head, smiling. + +"No," she said. + +"Which is my dance?" The challenge had yielded to a note of appeal. + +Sophie met that appeal with a smile, baffling, but of kindly +understanding. + +"The next one." + +She danced with Potch, appreciating his quiet strength, the reserve +force she felt in him, the sense that this man was hers to lean on, hold +to, or move as she wished. + +"It's awfully good to have you, Potch," she murmured, glancing up at +him. + +"Sophie!" + +His declarations were always just that murmuring of her name with a love +and gratitude beyond words. + +While she was dancing with Potch, Sophie saw Armitage go to the Hentys; +he stood talking with them, and then danced the last bars of the waltz +with Polly Henty. + +When she was dancing with Armitage, Sophie discovered Arthur Henty +leaning against the wall near the door, looking over the dancers with an +odd, glowering expression. He had been drinking heavily of late, she had +heard. Sophie wondered whether he was watching her, and whether he was +connecting this night with that night at Warria, which had brought about +all there had been between herself and John Armitage--even this dancing +with him at a Ridge ball, after they had been lovers, and were no longer +anything but very good friends. She knew people were following her +dancing with John Armitage with interest. Some of them were scandalised +that he should have come to the Ridge, and that they should be meeting +on such friendly terms. She could see the Warria party watching her +dancing with John Armitage, Mrs. Arthur Henty looking like a pastel +drawing against the wall, and Polly, her pleasant face and plump figure +blurred against the grey background of the corrugated iron wall. + +Armitage talked, amiably, easily, about nothing in particular, as they +danced. Sophie enjoyed the harmonious rhythm and languor of their +movement together. The black, misty folds of her gown drifted out and +about them. It was delightful to be drifting idly to music like this +with John, all their old differences, disagreements, and love-making +forgotten, or leaving just a delicate aroma of subtle and intimate +sympathy. The old admiration and affection were in John Armitage's eyes. +It was like playing in the sunshine after a long winter, to be laughing +and dancing under them again. And those stiff, disapproving faces by the +wall spurred Sophie to further laughter--a reckless gaiety. + +"You look like a butterfly just out of its chrysalis, and ... trying its +wings in the sun, Sophie," Armitage said. + +"I feel ... just like that," Sophie said. + +After that Armitage had eyes for no one but her. He danced with two or +three other people. Sophie saw him steering Martha through a set of +quadrilles; but he hovered about her between the dances. She danced with +George Woods and Watty, with the Moffats of Langi-Eumina, and some of +the men from Darrawingee. Men of the station families were rather in awe +of, and had a good deal of curiosity about this Fallen Star girl who had +"gone the pace," in their vernacular, and of whose career in the gay +world on the other side of the earth they had heard spicy gossip. Sophie +guessed that had something to do with their fluttering about her. But +she had learned to play inconsequently with the admiration of young men +like these; she did so without thinking about it. Once or twice she +caught Potch's gaze, perplexed and inquiring, fixed on her. She smiled +to reassure him; but, unconsciously, she had drawn an eddy of the +younger men in the room about her, and when she was not dancing she was +talking with them, laughingly, fielding their crude witticisms, and +enjoying the game as much as she had ever done. + +As she was coming from a dance with Roy O'Mara she passed Arthur Henty +where he stood by the door. The reek of whisky about him assailed Sophie +as she passed. She glanced up at him. His eyes were on her. He swung +over to her where she had gone to sit beside Martha M'Cready. + +"You're going to dance with me?" he asked, a husky uncertainty in his +voice. + +"No," Sophie said, looking away from him. + +"Yes." + +The low growl, savage and insistent, brought her eyes to his. Dark and +sunbright, they were, but with pain and hunger in their depths. The +unspoken truth between them, the truth which their wills had thwarted, +spoke through their eyes. It would not be denied. + +"There's going to be an extra after supper," he said. + +"Very well." + +What happened then was remote from her. Sophie did not remember what she +had said or done, until she was dancing with Arthur Henty. + +How long was it since that night at Warria? Was she waiting for him as +she had waited then? But there were all those long years between. +Memories brilliant and tempestuous flickered before her. Then she was +dancing with Arthur. + +He had come to her quite ordinarily; they had walked down the room a few +paces; then he had taken her hand in his, and they had swung out among +the dancers. He did not seem drunk now. Sophie wondered at his steadier +poise as she moved away with him. The butterfly joy of fluttering in +sunshine was leaving her, she knew, as she went with him. She made an +effort to recapture it. Looking up at him, she tried to talk lightly, +indifferently, and to laugh, but it was no good. Arthur did not bother +to reply to anything she said; he rested his eyes in hers, possessing +himself of her behind her gaze. Sophie's laughter failed. The +inalienable, unalterable attraction of each to the other which they had +read long before in each other's eyes was still there, after all the +years and the dark and troubled times they had been through. + +Sophie wondered whether Arthur was thinking of those times when they had +walked together on the Ridge tracks. She wondered whether he was +remembering little things he had said ... she had said ... the afternoon +he had recited: + + "I met a lady in the meads + Full beautiful, a fairy's child; + Her hair was long, her foot was light, + And her eyes were wild." + +Sophie wished she had not begun to think back. She wished she had not +danced with Arthur. People looking after her wondered why she was not +laughing; why suddenly her good spirits had died down. She was tired and +wanted to cry.... She hoped she would not cry; but she did not like +dancing with Arthur Henty before all these people. It was like dancing +on a grave. + +Henty's grip tightened. Sophie's face had become childish and pitiful, +working with the distress which she could not suppress. His hand on hers +comforted her. Their hands loved and clung; they comforted each other, +every fibre finding its mate, twined and entwined; all the little nests +of nerves were throbbing and crooning to each other. + +Were they dancing, or drifting through space as they would drift when +they were dead, as perhaps they had drifted through time? Sophie +wondered. The noises of the ball-room broke in on her wondering--voices, +shouting, and laughter; the little cries of girls and the heavy +exclamations of men, the music enwrapping them.... + +Sophie longed for the deep, straight glance of his eyes; yet she dared +not look up. Arthur's will, working against hers, demanded the +surrender. Through all her body, imperiously, his demand communicated +itself. Her gaze went to him, and flew off again. + +As they danced, Arthur seemed to be taking her into deep water. She was +afraid of getting out of her depth ... but he held her carefully. His +grasp, was strong and his eyes hungry. Sophie could not escape that +hungry look of his eyes. She told herself that she would not look up; +she would not see it. They moved unsteadily; his breath, hot and +smelling of whisky, fanned her. She sickened under it, loathing the +smell of whisky and the rank tobacco he had been smoking. His grasp +tightened. She was afraid of him--afraid of all the long, old dreams he +might revive. Her step faltered, his arm trembled against her. And those +hungry, hungry eyes.... She could not see them; she would not. + +A clamour of tiny voices rose within her and dinned in her ears. She +could hear the clamour of tiny voices going on in Henty, too; his voices +were drowning her voices. She looked up to him begging him to silence +them ... begging, but unable to beg, terrified and quailing to the +implacable in him--the stark passion and tragedy which were in his face. +She was helpless before them. + +Arthur had given her his arm before the open door; they had moved a +little distance from the door. Darkness was about them. There was no +hesitancy, no moment of consideration. As two waves meeting in mid-ocean +fall to each other, they met, and were lost in the oblivion of a close +embrace. The first violence of their movement, failing, brought +consciousness of time and place. They were standing in the slight shadow +of some trees just beyond the light of the hall. A purring of music came +to them in far-away murmurs, and strange, distant ejaculations, and +laughter. + +Sophie tried to withdraw from the arms which held her. + +"No, no," she breathed; but Henty drew her to him again. + +He murmured into her hair, and then from her lips again took a full +draught of her being, lingeringly, as though he would drain its last +essence. + +A shadow loomed heavy and shapeless over them. It fell on them. Sophie +was thrown back. Dazed, and as if she were falling through space, for a +moment she did not realise what had happened. Then, there in the dark, +she knew men were grappling silently. The intensity of the struggle +paralysed her; she could see nothing but heavy, rolling shapes; hear +nothing but stertorous breathing and the snorting grunts as of enraged +animals. A cry, as if someone were hurt, broke the fear which had +stupefied her. + +She called Michael. + +Two or three men came running from the hall. The struggling figures were +on their feet again; they swung from the shadow. Sophie had an instant's +vision of a hideous, distorted face she scarcely recognised as Potch's +... she saw Henty on the ground and Potch crouched over him. Then the +surrounding darkness swallowed her. She knew she was dragged away from +where she had been standing; she seemed to have been dragged through +darkness for hours. When she wakened she could see only those heavy, +quiet figures, struggling and grappling through the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Sophie went into the shed where her cutting-wheel was soon after eight +o'clock next morning. She took up a packet of small stones George Woods +had left with her and set to work on them. + +The wheel was in a line with the window, and she sat on the wooden chair +before it, so that the light fell over her left shoulder. On the bench +which ran out from the wheel were a spirit lamp and the trays of rough +opal; on the other side of the bench the polishing buffers were arranged +one against the other. A hand-basin, the water in it raddled with rouge, +stood on the table behind her, and a white china jug of fresh water +beside it. + +Sophie lighted the spirit lamp, gathered up a handful of the slender +sticks about the size of pen-holders which Potch had prepared for her, +melted her sealing-wax over the flame of the lamp, drew the saucer of +George's opals to her, and fastened a score of small stones to the +heated wax on the ends of the sticks. She blew out the lamp. + +She was working in order not to think; she worked for awhile without +thinking, details of the opal-cutting following each other in the +routine they had made for themselves. + +The plague of her thoughts grew as she worked. From being nebulae of a +state of mind which she could not allow herself to contemplate, such +darkness of despair there was in it, they evolved to tiny pictures which +presented themselves singly and in panorama, flitting and flickering +incoherently, incongruously. + +Sophie could see the hall as she had the night before. She seemed to be +able to see everything at once and in detail--its polished floors, +flowering boughs, and flags, the people sitting against the iron walls +in their best clothes ... Mrs. Watty, Watty and George, Ella and Bully +... Bully holding the baby ... the two little Woods' girls in their +white embroidered muslin dresses, with pink ribbons tied round their +heads.... Cash Wilson dancing solemnly in carpet slippers; Mrs. Newton +at the piano ... the prim way her fat little hands pranced sedately up +and down over the keys.... Paul enjoying his own music ... getting a +little bit wild over it, and working his right leg and knee as though he +had an orchestra to keep going somehow.... Mrs. Newton refusing to be +coaxed into anything like enthusiasm, but trying to keep up with him, +nevertheless.... Mrs. Henty, Polly, Elizabeth ... Mrs. Arthur ... the +Langi-Eumina party ... the Moffats ... Potch, Michael ... John Armitage. + +Images of New York flashed across these pictures of the night before. +Sophie visualised the city as she had first seen it. A fairy city it had +seemed to her with its sky-flung lights, thronged thoroughfares, and +jangling bells. She saw a square of tall, flat-faced buildings before a +park of leafless trees; shimmering streets on a wet night, near the New +Theatre and the Little Opera House; a supper-party after the theatre ... +gilded walls, Byzantian hangings, women with bare shoulders flashing +satin from slight, elegant limbs, or emerging with jewel-strung necks +from swathings of mist-like tulle, the men beside them ... a haze of +cigarette smoke over it all ... tinkle of laughter, a sweet, sleepy +stirring of music somewhere ... light of golden wine in wide, +shallow-bowled glasses, with tall, fragile stems ... lipping and sway of +tides against the hull of a yacht on quiet water ... a man's face, heavy +and swinish, peering into her own.... + +Then again, Mrs. Watty against the wall of the Ridge ball-room, stiff +and disapproving-looking in her high-necked black dress ... Michael +dancing with Martha ... Martha's pink stockings ... and the way she had +danced, lightly, delightedly, her feet encased in white canvas shoes. +Sophie had worn white canvas shoes at the Warria ball, she remembered. +Pictures of that night crowded on her, of Phyllis Chelmsford and Arthur +... Arthur.... + +Her thought stopped there. Arthur ... what did it all mean? She saw +again the fixed, flat figures she had seen against the wall when she was +dancing with Arthur--the corpse-like faces.... Why had everybody died +when she was dancing with Arthur Henty? Sophie remembered that people +had looked very much as usual when she went out to dance with Arthur; +then when she looked at them again, they all seemed to be +dead--drowned--and sitting round the hall in clear, still water, like +the figures she had seen in mummy cases in foreign museums. Only she and +Arthur were alive in that roomful of dead people. They had come from +years before and were going to years beyond. It had been dark before she +realised this; then they had been caught up into a light, transcending +all consciousness of light; in which they had seemed no more than atoms +of light adrift on the tide of the ages. Then the light had gone.... + +They were out of doors when she recognised time and place again. Sophie +had seen the hall crouched heavy and dark under a starry sky, its +windows, yellow eyes.... She was conscious of trees about her ... the +note of a goat-bell not far away ... and Arthur.... They had kissed, and +then in the darkness that terror and fear--those struggling shapes ... +figures of a nightmare ... light on Potch's hair.... She heard her own +cry, winging eerie and shrill through the darkness. + +With a sudden desperate effort Sophie threw off the plague of these +thoughts and small mind-pictures; she turned to the cutting-wheel again. +It whirred as she bent over it. + +"Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" the wheel purred. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her brain throbbed as she tried not to listen or hear that song of the +wheel; "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!" the blood murmured and droned in her +head. + +Her hand holding an opal to the wheel trembled, the opal skidded and was +scratched. + +"Oh, God," Sophie moaned, "don't let me think of him any more. Don't let +me...." + +A mirror on the wall opposite reflected her face. Sophie wondered +whether that was her face she saw in the mirror: the face in the mirror +was strangely old, withered and wan. She closed her eyes on the sight of +it. It confronted her again when she opened them. The eyes of the face +in the mirror were heavy and dark with a darkness of mind she could not +fathom. + +Sophie got up from her chair before the cutting-wheel. She went to the +window and stood looking through its small open space at the bare earth +beyond the hut. A few slight, sketchy trees, and the broken earth and +scattered mounds of old dumps were thrown up under a fall of clear, +exquisite sky, of a blue so pure, so fine, that there was balm just in +looking at it. For a moment she plunged into it, the tragic chaos of her +mind obliterated. + +With new courage from that moment's absorption of peaceful beauty, she +went back to the wheel, the resolution which had taken her to it twice +before that morning urging her. She sat down and began to work, took up +the piece of opal she had scratched, examined it closely, wondering how +the flaw could be rectified, if it could be rectified. + +The wheel, set going, raised its droning whirr. Sophie held her mind to +the stone. She was pleased after a while. "That's all right," she told +herself. "If only you don't think.... If only you keep working like this +and don't think of Arthur." + +It was Arthur she did not want to think of. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" +the wheel mocked. "Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!" + +Her head went into her hands. She was moaning and crying again. "Don't +let me think of him any more ... if only I needn't think of him any +more...." + +She began to work again. There was nothing to do but persist in trying +to work, she thought. If she kept to it, perhaps in the end the routine +would take her; she would become absorbed in the mechanism of what she +was doing. + +A shadow was thrown before her. In the mirror Sophie saw that John +Armitage was standing in the doorway. Her feet ceased to work the +treadles of the cutting-wheel; her hands fell to her lap; she waited for +him to come into the room. He walked past her to the window, and stood +with his back to it, facing her. Her eyes went to him. She let him take +what impression he might from her face, her defences were down; vaguely, +perhaps, she hoped he would read something of her mind in her face, that +he would need no explanation of what she had no words to express. + +There had been a smile of faint cynicism in his eyes as he looked +towards her; it evaporated as she surrendered to the inquisition of his +gaze. + +"Well?" he inquired gravely. + +"Well?" she replied as gravely. + +They studied each other quietly. + +John Armitage had changed very little since she had first seen him. His +clean-shaven face was harder, a little more firmly set perhaps; the +indecision had gone from it; it had lost some of its amiable mobility. +He looked much more a man of the world he was living in--a business man, +whose intelligence and energies had been trained in its service--but his +eyes still had their subtle knowledge and sympathy, his individuality +the attraction it had first had for her. + +He was wearing the loose, well-cut tweeds he travelled in, and had taken +off his hat. It lay on the window-sill beside him, and Sophie saw that +there was more silver in his hair where it was brushed back from his +ears than there used to be. His eyes surveyed her as if she were written +in an argot or dialect which puzzled him; his hands drifted and moved +before her as he smoked a cigarette. His hands emphasised the difference +between John Lincoln Armitage and men of the Ridge. Sophie thought of +Potch's hands, and of Michael's, and the smile Michael might have had +for Armitage's hands curved her lips. + +Armitage, taking that smile for a lessening of the tension of her mood, +said: + +"You'd much better put on your bonnet and shawl, and come home with me, +Sophie. We can be married en route, or in Sydney if you like.... You +know how pleased the old man'll be. And, as for me----" + +Sophie's gaze swept past him, fretted lines deepening on her forehead. + +Armitage threw away his cigarette, abandoning his assumption of familiar +friendliness with the action, and went to her side. Sophie rose to meet +him. + +"Look here, Sophie," he said, taking her by the shoulders and looking +into her eyes, "let's have done with all this neurotic rot.... You're +the only woman in the world for me. I don't know why you left me. I +don't care.... Come home ... let's get married ... and see whether we +can't make a better thing of it...." + +Sophie had turned her eyes from his. + +"When I've said that before, you wouldn't have anything to do with it," +he continued. "You had a notion I was saying it because I ought--thought +I had to, or the old man had talked me into it.... It wasn't true even +then. I came here to say it ... so that you would believe I--want it, +and I want you--more than anything on earth, Sophie." + +There was no response, only an overshadowing of troubled thought in +Sophie's face. + +"Is there anything love or money can give you, girl, that I'm not eager +to give you?" Armitage demanded. "What is it you want?... Do you know +what you want?" + +Sophie did not reply, and her silence exasperated him. + +Taking her face in his hands, Armitage scrutinised it as though he must +read there what her silence held from him. + +He realised how wan and weary-looking it was. Shadows beneath her eyes +fell far down her cheeks, her lips lay together with a new, strange +sternness. But he could not think of that yet. His male egoism could +only consider its own situation, fight imperiously in its own defence. + +"You want something I can't give you?" + +His eyes held her for the fraction of a second; then, the pain of +knowledge gripping him, his hands fell from her face. He turned away. + +"Which is it ... Potch or--the other?" He spoke with cruel bitterness. +"It's always a case of 'which' with you--isn't it?" + +"That's just it," Sophie said. + +He glanced at her, surprised to hear a note of the same bitterness in +her voice. + +"I didn't mean that, Sophie," he said. "You know I didn't." + +She smiled. + +"It's true all the same." + +"Tell me"--he turned to her--"I wish you would. You never have--why you +left New York ... and gave up singing ... everything there, and came +here." + +Sophie dropped into her chair again. + +"But you know." + +"Who could know anything of you, Sophie?" + +She moved the stones on the bench absent-mindedly. At length she said: + +"You remember our big row about Adler, when I was going to the supper on +his yacht?" + +Armitage exclaimed with a gesture of protest. + +"I know," Sophie said, "you were angry ... you didn't mean what you +said. But you were right all the same. You said I had let the life I was +leading go to my head--that I was utterly demoralised by it.... I was +angry; but it was true. You know the people I was going about with...." + +"I did my best to get you away from them," Armitage said. + +Sophie nodded. "But I hadn't had enough then ... of the beautiful places +and things I found myself in the midst of ... and of all the admiration +that came my way. What a queer crowd they were--Kalin, that Greek boy +who was singing with me in _Eurydice_, Ina Barres, the Countess, Mrs. +Youille-Bailey, Adler, and the rest of them.... They seemed to have run +the gamut of all natural experiences and to be interested only in what +was unnatural, bizarre, macabre.... Adler in that crowd was almost a +relief. I liked his--honest Rabelaisianism, if you like.... I hadn't the +slightest intention of more than amusing myself with him ... but he, +evidently, did not intend to be merely a source of amusement to me. The +supper on the yacht.... I kept my head for a while, not long, and +then----" + +"Then?" Armitage queried. + +"That's why I came home," Sophie said. "I was so sick with the shock and +shame of it all ... so sick and ashamed I couldn't sing any more. I +wouldn't. My voice died.... I deserved what happened. I'd been playing +for it ... taking the wine, the music, Adler's love-making ... and +expecting to escape the taint of it all.... Afterwards I saw where I was +going ... what that life was making of me...." + +"I don't know how you came to have anything to do with such a rotten +lot," Armitage cried, sweating under a white heat of rage. + +"Oh, they're just people of means and leisure who like to patronise +successful young dancers and singers for their own amusement," Sophie +said. + +"Because you fell in with a set of ultraaesthetics and degenerates, is no +reason to suppose all our people of means and leisure are like them," +Armitage declared hotly. + +"I don't," Sophie said; "what I felt, when I began to think about it, +was that they were just the natural consequences of all the easy, +luxurious living I'd seen--the extreme of the pole if you like. I saw +the other when I went to live in a slum settlement in Chicago." + +"You did?" Armitage exclaimed incredulously. + +"When I got over the shock of--my awakening," she went on slowly, "I +began to remember things Michael had said. That's why I went to Chicago +... and worked in a clothing factory for a while.... I saw there why +Adler's a millionaire, and heard from girls in a Youille-Bailey-M'Gill +factory why Connie Youille-Bailey has money to burn...." + +"Old Youille-Bailey had fingers in a dozen pies, and he left her all +he'd got," Armitage said. + +"But people down in the district where most of their money is made are +living like bugs under a rotten log," Sophie exclaimed wearily. "They're +made to live like that ... in order that people like William P. Adler +and Mrs. Youille-Bailey ... may live as they do." + +Armitage's expression of mild cynicism yielded to one of concerned +attentiveness. But he was concerned with the bearing on Sophie of what +she had to say, and not at all with its relation to conditions of +existence. + +"After all, life only goes on by its interests," she went on musingly; +"and Mrs. Youille-Bailey's not altogether to blame for what she is. When +people are bored, they've got to get interest or die; and if faculties +which ought to be spent in useful or creative work aren't spent in that +work, they find outlet in the silly energies a selfish and artificial +life breeds...." + +"I admit," Armitage said, trying to veer her thoughts from the abstract +to the personal issue, "that you went the pace. I couldn't keep up with +it--not with Adler and his mob! But there's no need to go back to that +sort of life. We could live as quietly as you like." + +Sophie shook her head. "I want to live here," she said. "I want to work +with my hands ... feel myself in the swim of the world's life ... going +with the great stream; and I want to help Michael here." + +Armitage sat back against the window-sill regarding her steadily. + +"If I could help you to do a great deal for the Ridge," he said; "if I +were to settle here and spend all the money I've got in developing this +place.--There's nothing innately immoral about a water-supply or +electric power, I suppose, or in giving people decent houses to live in. +And it would mean that for Fallen Star, if the scheme I have in mind is +put into action. And if it is ... and I build a house here and were to +live here most of my time ... would you marry me then, Sophie?" + +Sophie gazed at him, her eyes widening to a scarcely believable vision. + +"Do you mean you'd give up all your money to do that for the Ridge?" she +asked. + +"Not quite that," he replied. "But the scheme would work out like that. +I mean, it would provide more comfort and convenience for everybody on +the Ridge--a more assured means of livelihood." + +"You don't mean to buy up the mines?" + +"Just that," he said. + +"But the men wouldn't agree...." + +"I don't know so much about that. It would depend on a few----" + +"Michael would never consent." + +"As a matter of fact"--John Armitage returned Sophie's gaze +tranquilly--"I know something about Michael--some information came into +my hands recently, although I've always vaguely suspected it--which will +make his consent much more likely than you would have imagined.... If it +does not, giving the information I hold to men of the Ridge will so +destroy their faith and confidence in Michael that what he may say or do +will not matter." + +Sophie's bewilderment and dismay constrained him. Then he continued: + +"You see, quite apart from you, my dear, it has always been a sort of +dream of mine--ambition, if you like--to make a going concern of this +place--to do for Fallen Star what other men I know have done for +no-count, out-of-the-way towns and countries where natural resources or +possibilities of investment warranted it.... I've talked the thing over +with the old man, and with Andy M'Intosh, an old friend of mine, who is +one of the ablest engineers in the States.... He's willing to throw in +his lot with me.... Roughly, we've drawn up plans for conservation of +flood waters and winter rains, which will alter the whole character of +this country.... The old man at first was opposed--said the miners would +never stand it; but since we've been out with the Ridge men, he's +changed his mind rather. I mean, that when he knew some of the men would +be willing to stand by us--and I have means of knowing they would--he +was ready to agree. And when I told him Michael might be reckoned a +traitor to his own creed----" + +"It's not true," Sophie cried, her faith afire. "It couldn't be! ... If +everybody in the world told me, I wouldn't believe it!" + +Armitage took a cigarette-case from his vest pocket, opened it, and +selected a cigarette. + +"I'm not asking you to believe me," he said. "I'm only explaining the +position to you because you're concerned in it. And for God's sake don't +let us be melodramatic about it, Sophie. I'm not a villain. I don't feel +in the least like one. This is entirely a business affair.... I see my +way to a profitable investment--incidentally fulfilment of a scheme I've +been working out for a good many years. + +"Michael would oppose the syndicate for all he's worth if it weren't for +this trump card of mine," Armitage went on. "He's got a Utopian dream +about the place.... I see it as an up-to-date mining town, with all the +advantages which science and money can bring to the development of its +resources. His dream against mine--that's what it amounts to.... Well, +it's a fair thing, isn't it, if I know that Michael is false to the +things he says he stands for--and he stands in the way of my scheme--to +let the men know he's false? ... They will fall away from the ideas he +stands for as they will from Michael; two or three may take the ideas +sans Michael ... but they will be in the minority.... The way will be +clear for reorganisation then." + +Not for an instant did Sophie believe that Michael had been a traitor to +his own creed--false to the things he stood for, as John Armitage +said,--although she thought he may have done something to give Armitage +reason for thinking so. + +"I'll see Michael to-morrow, and have it out with him," John Armitage +said. "I shall tell him what I know ... and also my plans. If he will +work with me----" + +Sophie looked up, her smile glimmering. + +"If he will work with me," Armitage repeated, knowing she realised all +that would mean in the way of surrender for Michael, "nothing need be +said which will undermine Michael's influence with men of the Ridge. I +know he can make things a great deal easier by using his influence with +them--by bending their thoughts in the direction of my proposition, +suggesting that, after all, they have given their system a trial and it +has not worked out as satisfactorily as might have been expected.... +I'll make all the concessions possible, you may be sure--give it a +profit-sharing basis even, so that the transaction won't look like the +thing they are prejudiced against. But if Michael refuses...." + +"He will...." + +"I am going to ask the men to meet me in the hall, at the end of the +month, to lay before them a proposition for the more effective working +of the mines. I shall put my proposition before them, and if Michael +refuses to work with me, I shall be forced to give them proofs of his +unworthiness of their respect...." + +"They won't believe you." + +"There will be the proofs, and Michael will not--he cannot--deny them." + +"You'll tell him what you are going to do?" + +"Certainly." + +Sophie realised how far Armitage was from understanding the religious +intensity and simplicity with which Ridge folk worked for the way of +life they believed to be the right one, and what the break-up of that +belief would mean to those who had served it in the unpretentious, +unprotesting fashion of honest, downright people. To him the Ridge stood +for messy sentimentalism, Utopian idealism. And there was money in the +place: there was money to be made by putting money into it--by working +the mines and prospecting the country as the men without capital could +not. + +John Armitage was ready to admit--Sophie had heard him admitting in +controversy--that the Fallen Star mines which the miners themselves +controlled were as well worked and as well managed within their means as +any he had ever come across; that the miners themselves were a sober and +industrious crowd. What capital could do for them and for the Fallen +Star community by way of increasing its output and furthering its +activities was what he saw. And the only security he could have for +putting his capital into working the mines was ownership of them. +Ownership would give him the right to organise the workers, and to claim +interest for his investment from their toil, or the product of their +toil. + +The Ridge declaration of independence had made it clear that people of +Fallen Star did not want increased output, the comforts and conveniences +which capital could give them, unless they were provided from the common +fund of the community. Ultimately, it was hoped the common fund would +provide them, but until it did Ridge men had announced their willingness +to do without improvements for the sake of being masters of their own +mines. If it was a question of barter, they were for the pride and +dignity of being free men and doing without the comforts and +conveniences of modern life. Sophie felt sure Armitage underestimated +the feeling of the majority of men of the Ridge toward the Ridge idea, +and that most of them would stand by it, even if for some mysterious +reason Michael lost status with them. But she was dismayed at the test +the strength of that feeling was to be put to, and at the mysterious +shame which threatened Michael. She could not believe Michael had ever +done anything to merit it. Michael could never be less than Michael to +her--the soul of honour, the knight without fear, against whom no +reproach could be levelled. + +Armitage spoke again. + +"You see," he said, "you could still have all those things you spoke of, +under my scheme--the long, quiet days; life that is broad and simple; +the hearth; home, children--all that sort of thing ... and even time for +any of the little social reform schemes you fancied...." + +Sophie found herself confronted with the fundamental difference of +their outlook again. He talked as if the ideas which meant so much +to her and to people of the Ridge were the notions of headstrong +children--whimsical and interesting notions, perhaps, but mistaken, of +course. He was inclined to make every allowance for them. + +"The only little social reform I'd have any time for," she murmured, +"would be the overthrowing of your scheme for ownership of the mines." + +John Armitage was frankly surprised to find that she held so firmly to +the core of the Ridge idea, and amused by the uncompromising hostility +of her attitude. Sophie herself had not thought she was so attached to +the Ridge life and its purposes, until there was this suggestion of +destroying them. + +"Then"--he stood up suddenly--"whether I succeed or whether I +don't--whether the scheme goes my way or not--won't make any difference +to you--to us." + +"It will make this difference," Sophie said. "I'm heart and soul in the +life here, I've told you. And if you do as you say you're going to ... +instead of thinking of you in the old, good, friendly way, I'll have to +think of you as the enemy of all that is of most value to me." + +"You mean," John Armitage cried, his voice broken by the anger and +chagrin which rushed over him, "you mean you're going to take on +Henty--that's what's at the back of all this." + +"I mean," Sophie said steadily, her eyes clear green and cool in his, +"that I'm going to marry Potch, and if Michael and all the rest of the +men of the Ridge go over to you and your scheme, we'll fight it." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"Are you there, Potch?" Sophie stood in the doorway of Michael's hut, a +wavering shadow against the moonlight behind her. + +Michael looked up. He was lying on the sofa under the window, a book in +his hands. + +"He's not here," he said. + +His voice was as distant as though he were talking to a stranger. He had +been trying to read, but his mind refused to concern itself with +anything except the night before, and the consequences of it. His eyes +had followed a trail of words; but he had been unable to take any +meaning from them. Sophie! His mind hung aghast at the exclamation of +her. She was the storm-centre. His thoughts moved in a whirlwind about +her. He did not understand how she could have worn that dress showing +her shoulders and so much of her bared breast. It had surprised, +confused, and alarmed him to see Sophie looking as she did in that +photograph Dawe Armitage had brought to the Ridge. The innocence and +sheer joyousness of her laughter had reassured him, but, as the evening +wore on, she seemed to become intoxicated with her own gaiety. + +Michael had watched her dancing with vague disquiet. To him, dancing was +rather a matter of concern to keep step and to avoid knocking against +anyone--a serious business. He did not get any particular pleasure out +of it; and Sophie's delight in rhythmic movement and giving of her whole +being to a waltz, amazed him. When Armitage came, her manner had +changed. It had lost some of its abstract joyousness. It was as if she +were playing up to him.... She had been much more of his world than of +the world of the Ridge; had displayed a thousand little airs and +superficial graces, all the gay, light manner of that other world. When +she was dancing with Arthur Henty, Michael had seen the sudden drooping +and overcasting of her gaiety. He thought she was tired, and that Potch +should take her home. The old gossip about Arthur Henty had faded from +his memory; not the faintest recollection of it occurred to him as he +had seen Sophie and Arthur Henty dancing together. + +Then Sophie's cry, eerie and shrill in the night air, had reached him. +He had seen Potch and Arthur Henty at grips. He had not imagined that +such fury could exist in Potch. Other men had come. They dragged Potch +away from Henty.... Henty had fallen.... Potch would have killed him if +they had not dragged him away.... Henty was carried in an unconscious +condition to Newton's. Armitage had taken Sophie home. Michael went with +Potch. + +Michael did not know exactly what had occurred. He could only +imagine.... Sophie had been behaving in that gay, light manner of the +other world: he had seen her at it all the evening. Potch had not +understood, he believed; it had goaded him to a state of mind in which +he was not responsible for what he did. + +Sophie was conscious of Michael's aloofness from her as she stood in the +doorway; it wavered as his eyes held and communed with hers. The night +before he had not been able to realise that the girl in the black dress, +which had seemed to him almost indecent, was Sophie. He kept seeing her +in her everyday white cotton frock--as she sat at work at her +cutting-wheel, or went about the hut--and now that she stood before him +in white again, he could scarcely believe that the black dress and +happenings of the ball were not an hallucination. But there was a prayer +in her eyes which came of the night before. She would not have looked at +him so if there had been no night before; her lips would not have +quivered in that way, as if she were sorry and would like to explain, +but could not. + +Potch had staggered home beside Michael, swaying and muttering as though +he were drunk. But he was not drunk, except with rage and grief, Michael +knew. He had lain on his bunk like a log all night, muttering and +groaning. Michael had sat in a chair in the next room, trying to +understand the madness which had overwhelmed Potch. + +In the morning, he realised that work and the normal order of their +working days were the only things to restore Potch's mental balance. He +roused him earlier than usual. + +"We'd better get down and clear out some of the mullock," he said. "The +gouges are fair choked up. There'll be no doing anything if we don't get +a move on with it." + +Potch had stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then he got up, changed his +clothes, and they had gone down to the mine together. His face was +swollen and discoloured, his lip broken, one eye almost hidden beneath a +purple and blue swelling which had risen on the upper part of his left +cheek. He had dragged his hat over his face, and walked with his head +down; they had not spoken all the morning. Potch had swung his pick +stolidly. All day his eyes had not met Michael's as they usually did, in +that glance of love and comradeship which united them whenever their +eyes met. + +In the afternoon, when they stopped work and went to the top of the +mine, Potch had said: + +"Think I'll clear out--go away somewhere for awhile, Michael." + +From his attitude, averted head and drooping shoulders, Michael got the +unendurable agony of his mind, his pain and shame. He did not reply, and +Potch had walked away from him striking out in a south-easterly +direction across the Ridge. Michael had not seen him since then. And now +it was early evening, the moon up and silvering the plains with the +light of her young crescent. + +"He says--Potch says ... he's going away," Michael said to Sophie. + +Her eyes widened. Her thought would not utter itself, but Michael knew +it. Potch leaving the Ridge! The Ridge without Potch! It was impossible. +Their minds would not accept the idea. + +Sophie turned away from the door. Her white dress fluttered in the +moonlight. Michael could see it moving across the bare, shingly ground +at the back of the hut. He thought that Sophie was going to look for +Potch. He had not told her the direction in which Potch had gone. He +wondered whether she would find him. She might know where to look for +him. Michael wondered whether Potch haunted particular places as he +himself did, when his soul was out of its depths in misery. + +Instinctively Sophie went to the old playground she and Potch had made +on the slope of the Ridge behind the Old Town. + +She found him lying there, stretched across the shingly earth. He lay so +still that she thought he might be asleep. Then she went to him and +knelt beside him. + +"Potch!" she said. + +He moved as if to escape her touch. The desolation of spirit which had +brought him to the earth like that overwhelmed Sophie. She crouched +beside him. + +"Potch," she cried. "Potch!" + +Potch did not move or reply. + +"I can't live ... if you won't forgive me, Potch," Sophie said. + +He stirred. "Don't talk like that," he muttered. + +After a little time he sat up and turned his face to her. The dim light +of-the young moon showed it swollen and discoloured, a hideous and comic +mask of the tragedy which consumed him. + +"That's the sort of man I am," Potch said, his voice harsh and unsteady. +"I didn't know ... I didn't know I was like that. It came over me all of +a sudden, when I saw you and--him. I didn't know any more until Michael +was talking to me. I wouldn't've done it if I'd known, Sophie.... But I +didn't know.... I just saw him--and you, and I had to put out the sight +of it ... I had to get it out of my eyes... what I saw.... That's all I +know. Michael says I didn't kill him ... but I meant to ... that's what +I started to do." + +Sophie's face withered under her distress. + +"Don't say that, Potch," she begged. + +"But I do," he said. "I must.... I can't make out ... how it was ... I +felt like that. I thought I'd see things like you saw them always, stand +by you. Now I don't know.... I'm not to be trusted----" + +"I'd trust you always, and in anything, Potch," Sophie said. + +"You can't say that--now." + +"It's now ... I want to say it more than ever," she continued. "I can't +explain ... what I did ... any more than you can what you did, Potch. +But I'm to blame for what you did ... and yet ... I can't see that I'm +altogether to blame. I didn't want what happened--to happen ... any more +than you." + +She wanted to explain to Potch--to herself also. But she could not see +clearly, or understand how the threads of her intentions and deeds had +become so crossed and tangled. It was not easy to explain. + +"You remember that ball at Warria I went to with father," she said at +last. "I thought a lot of Arthur Henty then.... I thought I was in love +with him. People teased me about him. They thought he was in love with +me, too.... And then over there at the ball something happened that +changed everything. I thought he was ashamed of me ... he didn't ask me +to dance with him like he did at the Ridge balls.... He danced with +other girls ... and nobody asked me to dance except Mr. Armitage, I +wanted to go away from the Ridge and learn to look like those girls +Arthur had danced with ... so that he would not be ashamed of me.... +Afterwards I thought I'd forgotten and didn't care for him any more.... +Last night he was not ashamed of me.... It was funny. I felt that the +Warria people were envying me last night, and I had envied them at the +other ball.... I didn't want to dance with Arthur ... but I did ... and, +somehow, then--it was as if we had gone back to the time before the ball +at Warria...." + +A heavy, brooding silence hung between them. Sophie broke it. + +"Michael says you're going away?" + +"Yes," Potch replied. + +Sophie shifted the pebbles on the earth about her abstractedly. + +"Don't leave me, Potch," she cried, scattering the pebbles suddenly. "I +don't know what will become of me if you go away.... I wanted us to get +married and settle down." + +Potch turned to her. + +"You don't mean that?" + +"I do," Sophie said, all her strength of will and spirit in the words. +"I'm afraid of myself, Potch ... afraid of drifting." + +Potch's arms went round her. "Sophie!" he sobbed. But even as he held +her he was conscious of something in her which did not fuse with him. + +"But you love him!" he said. + +Sophie's eyes did not fail from his. + +"I do," she said, "but I don't want to. I wish I didn't." + +His hands fell from her. "Why," he asked, "why do you say you'll marry +me, if you ... if----" + +Despair and desperation were in the restive movement of Sophie's hands. + +"I'm afraid of him," she said, "of the power of my love for him ... and +there's no future that way. With you there is a future. I can work with +you and Michael for the Ridge.... You know I do care for you too, Potch +dear, and I want to have the sort of life that keeps a woman faithful +... to mend your clothes, cook your meals, and----" + +Potch quivered to the suggestions she had evoked. He saw Sophie in a +thousand tender associations--their home, the quiet course their lives +might have together. He loved her enough for both, he told himself. + +His conscience was not clear that he should take this happiness the gods +offered him, even for the moment. And yet--he could not turn from it. +Sophie had said she needed him; she wanted the home they would have +together; all that their life in common would mean. And by and by--he +stirred to the afterthought of her "and"--she wanted the children who +might come to them.... Potch knew what Sophie meant when she said that +she cared for him. Whatever else happened he knew he had her tenderest +affection. She kissed him familiarly and with tenderness. It was not as +Maud had kissed him, with passion, a soul-dying yearning. He drove the +thought off. Maud was Maud, and Sophie Sophie; Maud's most passionate +kisses had never distilled the magic for him that the slightest brush of +Sophie's dress or fingers had. + +Sophie took his hand. + +"Potch," she said, "if you love me--if you want me to marry you, let us +settle the thing this way.... I want to marry you.... I want to be your +loving and faithful wife.... I'll try to be.... I don't want to think of +anyone but you.... You may make me forget--if we are married, and get on +well together. I hope you will----" + +Potch took her into his arms, an inarticulate murmur breaking his +voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Potch had looked towards Michael's hut before he went into his own, next +evening. There was no light in its window, and he supposed that Michael +had gone to bed. In the morning, as they were walking to the mine, Potch +said: + +"He's back; did you know?" + +Michael guessed whom Potch was speaking of. "Saw him ... as I was +walking out along the Warria road yesterday afternoon," he said; "and +then at Newton's.... He looks ill." + +Potch did not reply. They did not speak of Charley again, and yet as +they worked they thought of no one else, and of nothing but the +difficulties his coming would bring into their lives. For Potch, his +father's return meant the revival of an old shame. He had been accepted +on his merits by the Ridge; he had made people forget he was Charley +Heathfield's son, and now Charley was back Potch had no hope of anything +but the old situation where his father was concerned, the old drag and +the old fear. The thought of it was more disconcerting than ever, now +too, because Sophie would have to share the sort of atmosphere Charley +would put about them. + +And Michael was dulled by the weight of the fate which threatened him. +Every day the consciousness of it weighed more heavily. He wondered +whether his mind would remain clear and steady enough to interpret his +resolve. For him, Charley's coming, and the enmity he had gauged in his +glance the night before, were last straws of misfortune. + +John Armitage had put the proposition he outlined for Sophie, to +Michael, the night before he left for Sydney. He had told Michael what +he knew, and what he suspected in connection with Rouminof's opals. +Michael had neither defended himself nor denied Armitage's accusation. +He had ignored any reference to Paul's opals, and had made his position +of uncompromising hostility to Armitage's proposition clear from the +outset. There had not been a shadow of hesitation in his decision to +oppose the Armitages' scheme for buying up the mines. At whatever cost, +he believed he had no choice but to stand by the ideas and ideals on +which the life of the Ridge was established and had grown. + +John Armitage, because of his preconceived notion of the guilty +conscience Michael was suffering from, was disappointed that the action +of Michael's mind had been as direct to the poles of his faith as it had +been. He realised Sophie was right: Michael would not go back on the +Ridge or the Ridge code; but the Ridge might go back on him. Armitage +assured himself he had a good hand to play, and he explained his +position quite frankly to Michael. If Michael would not work with him, +he, John Armitage, must work against Michael. He would prefer not to do +so, he said. He described to several men, separately, what the proposals +of the Armitage Syndicate amounted to, in order that they might think +over, weigh, and discuss them. He was going down to Sydney for a few +weeks, and when he came back he would call a meeting and lay his +proposition before the men. He hoped by then Michael would have +reconsidered his decision. If he had not, Armitage made it clear that, +much as he would regret having to, he would nevertheless do all in his +power to destroy any influence Michael might have with men of the Ridge +which might militate against their acceptance of the scheme for +reorganisation of the mines he had to lay before them. Michael +understood what that meant. John Armitage would accuse him of having +stolen Paul's opals, and he would have to answer the accusation before +men of the Ridge. + +His mind hovered about the thought of Maud Johnson. + +He could not conceive how John Armitage had come to the knowledge he +possessed, unless Maud, whom he was aware Armitage had bought stones +from in America, had not showed or sold them to him. But Armitage +believed Michael still had, and was hoarding the stones. That was the +strange part of it all. How could Armitage declare he had one of the +stones, and yet believe Michael was holding the rest? Unless Maud had +taken that one stone from the table the night she came to see Potch? +Michael could not remember having seen the stone after she went. He +could not remember having put it back in the box. It only just occurred +to him she might only have taken the stone that night. Jun had probably +recognised the stone, and she had told Armitage what Jun had said about +it. Jun might have gone to the hut for the rest of the stones, but then +Maud would not have told Armitage they were still on the Ridge. Maud +would be sure to know if Jun had got the stones on his own account, +Michael thought. + +His brain went over and over again what John Armitage had said, +querying, exclaiming, explaining, and enlarging on fragments of their +talk. Armitage declared he had evidence to prove Michael Brady had +stolen Rouminof's stones. He might have proof that he had had possession +of them for a while, Michael believed. But if Armitage was under the +impression he still had the opals, his information was incomplete at +least, and Michael treasured a vague hope that the proof which he might +adduce, would be as faulty. + +But more important than the bringing home to him of responsibility for +the lost opals, and the "unmasking" to eyes of men of the Ridge which +Armitage had promised him, was the bearing it would have on the +proposition which was to be put before them. Michael realised that there +was a good deal of truth in what Armitage had said. A section of the +younger miners, men who had settled on the new rushes, and one or two of +the older men who had grown away from the Ridge idea, would probably be +willing enough to fall in with and work under Armitage's scheme. George, +Watty, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Cash Wilson, and most of the +older men were against it, and some of the younger ones, too; but Archie +and Ted Cross were inclined to waver, although they had always been +staunch for the Ridge principle, and with them was a substantial +following from the Punti, Three Mile, and other rushes. + +A disintegrating influence was at work, Michael recognised. It had been +active for some time. Since Potch's finding of the big stone, scarcely +any stone worth speaking of had been unearthed on the fields, and that +meant long store accounts, and anxious and hard times for most of the +gougers. + +The settlement had weathered seasons of dearth, and had existed on the +merest traces of precious opal before; but this one had lasted longer, +and had tried everybody's patience and capacity for endurance to the +last degree. Murmurs of the need for money to prospect the field and +open up new workings were heard. Criticisms of the ideas which would +keep out money and money-owners who might be persuaded to invest their +money to prospect and open up new workings on Fallen Star, crept into +the murmurings, and had been circulating for some months. Bat M'Ginnis, +a tall, lean, herring-gutted Irishman, with big ears, pointed like a +bat's, was generally considered author of the criticisms and abettor of +the murmurings. He had sunk on the Coolebah and drifted to the Punti +rush soon after. On the Punti, it was known, he had expatiated on the +need for business men and business methods to run the mines and make the +most of the resources of the Ridge. + +M'Ginnis was a good agent for Armitage, before Armitage's proposition +was heard of. Michael wondered now whether he was perhaps an agent of +Armitage's, and had been sent to the Ridge to prepare the way for John +Armitage's scheme. When he came to think of it, Michael remembered he +had heard men exclaim that Bat never seemed short of money himself, +although if he had to live on what his claim produced he would have been +as hard up as most of them. Michael wondered whether Charley's +home-coming was a coincidence likewise, or whether Armitage had laid his +plans more carefully than might have been imagined. + +Michael saw no way out for himself. He could not accept Armitage's bribe +of silence as to his share in the disappearance of Paul's opals, in +order to urge men of the Ridge to agree to the Armitages' proposition +for buying up the mines. If he could have, he realised, he would carry +perhaps a majority of men of the Ridge with him; and those he cared most +for would stand by the Ridge idea whether he deserted it or not, he +believed. He would only fall in their esteem; they would despise him; +and he would despise himself if he betrayed the idea on which he had +staked so much, and the realisation of which he would have died to +preserve. But there was no question of betraying the Ridge idea, or of +being false to the teaching of his whole life. He was not even tempted +by the terms Armitage offered for his co-operation. He was glad to think +no terms Armitage could offer would tempt him from his allegiance to the +principle which was the corner-stone of life on the Ridge. + +But he asked himself what the men would think of him when they heard +Armitage's story; what Sophie would think, and Potch. He turned in agony +from the thought that Sophie and Potch would believe him guilty of the +thing he seemed to be guilty of. Anything seemed easier to bear than the +loss of their love and faith, and the faith of men of the Ridge he had +worked with and been in close sympathy with for so long--Watty and +George, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant and Cash Wilson. Would he have +to leave the Ridge when they knew? Would they cold-shoulder him out of +their lives? His imagination had centred for so long about the thing he +had done that the guilt of it was magnified out of all proportion to the +degree of his culpability. He did not accuse himself in the initial act. +He had done what seemed to him the only thing to do, in good faith; the +opals had nothing to do with it. He did not understand yet how they had +got an ascendancy over him; how when he had intended just to look at +them, to see they were well packed, he had been seduced into that trance +of worshipful admiration. + +Why he had not returned the stones to Paul as soon as Sophie had left +the Ridge, Michael could not entirely explain to himself. He went over +and over the excuses he had made to himself, seeing in them evidence of +the subtle witchery the stones had exercised over him. But as soon as he +was aware of the danger of delay, he tried to assure himself, and the +appearance it must have, he had determined to get rid of the stones. + +Would the men believe he had wanted to give the stones to Paul--even +that he had done what he had done for the reasons he would put before +them? George and Watty and some of the others would believe him--but the +rest? Michael could not hope that the majority would believe his story. +They would want to know if at first he had kept the stones to prevent +Sophie leaving the Ridge, why he had not given them to Paul as soon as +she had gone. Michael knew he could only explain to them as he had to +himself. He had intended to; he had delayed doing so; and then, when he +went to find the stones to give them to Paul, they were no longer where +he had left them. It was a thin story--a poor explanation. But that was +the truth of the situation as far as he knew it. There was nothing more +to be said or thought on the subject. He put it away from him with an +impulse of impatience, desperate and weary. + +When Potch returned from the mine that afternoon; he went into Michael's +hut before going home. Michael himself he had seen strike out westwards +in the direction of the swamp soon after he came above ground. Potch +expected to see his father where he was; he had seen him so often before +on Michael's sofa under the window. Charley glanced up from the +newspaper he was reading as Potch came into the room. + +"Well, son," he said, "the prodigal father's returned, and quite ready +for a fatted calf." + +Potch stood staring at him. Light from the window bathed the thin, +yellow face on the faded cushions of Michael's couch, limning the sharp +nose with its curiously scenting expression, all the hungry, shrewd +femininity and weakness of the face, and the smile of triumphant malice +which glided in and out of the eyes. Michael was right, Potch realised; +Charley was ill; but he had no pity for the man who lay there and smiled +like that. + +"You can't stay here," he said. "Michael's coming." + +Charley smiled imperturbably. + +"Can't I?" he said. "You see. Besides ... I want to see Michael. That's +what I'm here for." + +Potch growled inarticulately. He went to the hearth, gathered the +half-burnt sticks together to make a fire. He would have given anything +to get Charley out of the hut before Michael returned; but he did not +know how to manage it. If Charley thought he wanted him to go, nothing +would move him, Potch knew. + +"What do you want to see Michael about?" he asked. + +"Nice, affectionate son you are," Charley murmured. "Suppose you know +you are my son--and heir?" + +"Worse luck," Potch muttered, watching the flame he had kindled over the +dry chips and sticks. + +"You might've done worse," Charley replied, watching his son with a +slight, derisive smile. "I might've done worse myself in the way of a +son to support me in my old age." + +"I'm not going to do that." + +Charley laughed. "Aren't you?" he queried. "You might be very glad +to--on terms I could suggest. And you're a fine, husky chap to do it, +Potch, my lad.... They tell me you've married Rouminof's girl, and she's +chucked the singing racket. Rum go, that! She could sing, too.... People +I know told me they'd seen her in America in some revue stunt there, and +she was just the thing. Went the pace a bit, eh? Oh, well, there's +nothing like matrimony to sober a woman down--take the devil out of +her." + +Potch's resentment surged; but before he could utter it, his father's +pleasantries were flipping lightly, cynically. + +"By the way, I saw a friend of yours in Sydney couple of months ago. Oh, +well, several perhaps. Might have been a year.... Maud! There's a fine +woman, Potch. And she told me she was awfully gone on you once. Eh, +what?... And now you're a married man. And to think of my becoming a +grandfather. Help!" + +Potch sprang to his feet, goaded to fury by the jeering, amiable voice. + +"Shut up," he yelled, "shut up, or----" + +The doorway darkened. Potch saw Charley's face light with an expression +of curious satisfaction and triumph. He turned and discovered that +Michael was standing in the doorway. Irresolute and flinching, he stood +there gazing at Charley, a strange expression of fear and loathing in +his eyes. + +"You can clear out now, son," Charley remarked, putting an emphasis on +the "son" calculated to enrage Potch. "I want to talk to Michael." + +Potch looked at Michael. It was his intention to stand by Michael if, +and for as long as, Michael needed him. + +"It's all right, Potch," Michael said; but his eyes did not go to +Potch's as they usually did. There was a strange, grave quality of +aloofness about Michael. Potch hesitated, studying his face; but Michael +dismissed him with a glance, and Potch went out of the hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The sky was like a great shallow basin turned over the plains. No tree +or rising ground broke the perfect circle of its fall over the earth; +only in the distance, on the edge of the bowl, a fringe of trees drew a +blurred line between earth and sky. + +Potch and Sophie lay out on the plains, on their backs in the dried +herbage, watching the sunset--the play of light on the wide sweep of the +sky--silently, as if they were listening to great music. + +They had been married some days before in Budda township, and were +living in Potch's hut. + +Sophie and Potch had often wandered over the plains in the evening and +watched the sunset; but never before had they come to the sense of +understanding and completeness they attained this evening. The days had +been long and peaceful since they were living together, an anodyne to +Sophie, soothing all the restless turmoil of her soul and body. She had +ceased to desire happiness; she was grateful for this lull of all her +powers of sense and thought, and eager to love and to serve Potch as he +did her. She believed her life had found its haven; that if she kept in +tune with the fundamentals of love and service, she could maintain a +consciousness of peace and rightness with the world which would make +living something more than a weary longing for death. + +All the days were holy days to Potch since Sophie and he had been +married. He looked at her as if she were Undine making toast and tea, +cooking, washing dishes, or sweeping and tidying up his hut. He followed +her every movement with a worshipful, reverent gaze. + +Soon after Sophie's return, Potch had gone to live in the hut which he +and his father had occupied in the old days. He had put a veranda of +boughs to the front of it, and had washed the roof and walls with +carbide to lessen the heat in summer. He had turned out the rooms and +put up shelves, trying to furnish the place a little for Sophie; but she +had not wanted it altered at all. She had cleared the cupboard, put +clean paper on the shelves, and had arranged Potch's books on them +herself. + +Sophie loved the austerity of her home when she went to live in it--its +earthen floor, bare walls, unvarnished furniture, the couch under the +window, the curtains of unbleached linen she had hemstitched herself, +the row of shining syrup-tins in which she kept tea, sugar, and coffee +on shelves near the fireplace, the big earthenware jar for flowers, and +a couple of jugs which Snow-Shoes had made for her and baked in an oven +of his own contrivance. She had a quiet satisfaction in doing all the +cleaning up and tidying to keep her house in the order she liked, so +that her eyes could rest on any part of it and take pleasure from the +sense of beauty in ordinary and commonplace things. + +But the hut was small and its arrangements so simple that an hour or two +after Potch had gone to the mines Sophie went to the shed into which he +had moved her cutting-wheel, and busied herself facing and polishing the +stones which some of the men brought her as usual. She knew her work +pleased them. She was as skilful at showing a stone to all its advantage +as any cutter on the Ridge, and nothing delighted her more than when +Watty or George or one of the Crosses exclaimed with satisfaction at a +piece of work she had done. + +In the afternoon sometimes she went down to the New Town to talk with +Maggie Grant, Mrs. Woods, or Martha. She was understudying Martha, too, +when anyone was sick in the town, and needed nursing or a helping hand. +Martha had her hands full when Mrs. Ted Cross's fourth baby was born. +There were five babies in the township at the time, and Sophie went to +Crosses' every morning to fix up the house and look after the children +and Mrs. Ted before Martha arrived. When Martha found the Crosses' +washing gaily flapping on the line one morning towards midday, she +protested in her own vigorous fashion. + +"I ain't going to have you blackleggin' on me, Mrs. Heathfield," she +said. "And what's more, if I find you doin' it again, I'll tell Potch. +It's all right for me to be goin' round doing other people's odd jobs; +but I don't hold with you doin' 'em--so there! If folks wants babies, +well, it's their look-out--and mine. But I don't see what you've got to +do with it, coming round makin' your hands look anyhow." + +"You just sit down, and I'll make you a cup of tea, Mother M'Cready," +Sophie said by way of reply, and gently pushed Martha into the most +comfortable chair in the room. "You look done up ... and you're going on +to see Ella and Mrs. Inglewood, I suppose." + +Martha nodded. She watched Sophie with troubled, loving eyes. She was +really very tired, and glad to be able to sit and rest for a moment. It +gave her a welling tenderness and gratitude to have Sophie concerned for +her tiredness, and fuss about her like this. Martha was so accustomed to +caring for everybody on the Ridge, and she was so strong, good-natured, +and vigorous, very few people thought of her ever being weary or +dispirited. But as she bustled into the kitchen, blocking out the light, +Sophie saw that Martha's fat, jolly face under the shadow of her +sun-hat, was not as happy-looking as usual. Sophie guessed the weariness +which had overtaken her, and that she was "poorly" or "out-of-sorts," as +Martha would have said herself, if she could have been made to admit +such a thing. + +"It's all very well to give folks a helping hand," Martha continued, +"but I'm not going to have you doin' their washin' while I'm about." + +Sophie put a cup of tea and slice of bread and syrup down beside her. + +"There! You drink that cup of tea, and tell me what you think of it," +she said. + +"But, Sophie," Martha protested. "It's stone silly for you to be doing +things like Cross's washing. You're not strong enough, and I won't have +it." + +"Won't you?" + +Sophie put her arms around Martha's neck from behind her chair. She +pressed her face against the creases of Martha's sunburnt neck and +kissed it. + +Martha gurgled happily under the pressure of Sophie's young arms, the +childish impulse of that hugging. She turned her face back and kissed +Sophie. + +"Oh, my lamb! My dearie lamb!" she murmured. + +She recognised Sophie's need for common and kindly service to the people +of the Ridge. She knew what that service had meant to her at one time, +and was willing to let Sophie share her ministry so long as her health +was equal to it. + +Mrs. Watty, and the women who took their views from her, thought that +Sophie was giving herself a great deal of unnecessary and laborious work +as a sort of penance. They had withdrawn all countenance from her after +the disaster of the ball, although they regarded her marriage to Potch +as an endeavour to reinstate herself in their good graces. Mrs. Watty +had been scandalised by the dress she had worn at the ball, by the way +she had danced, and her behaviour generally. But Sophie was quite +unconcerned as to what Mrs. Watty and her friends thought: she did not +go out of her way either to avoid or placate them. + +When she went to the Crosses' to take charge of the children and look +after the house while Mrs. Cross was ill, the gossips had exclaimed +together. And when it was known that Sophie had taken on herself odds +and ends of sewing for other women of the township who had large +families and rather more to do than they knew how to get through, they +declared that they did not know what to make of it, or of Sophie and her +moods and misdemeanours. + +Potch heard of what Sophie was doing from the people she helped. When he +came home in the evening she was nearly always in the kitchen getting +tea for him; but if she was not, she came in soon after he got home, and +he knew that one of these little tasks she had undertaken for people in +the town had kept her longer than she expected. Usually he hung in the +doorway, waiting for her to come and meet him, to hold up her face to be +kissed, eyes sweet with affection and the tender familiarity of their +association. Those offered kisses of hers were the treasure of these +dream-like days to Potch. + +He had always loved Sophie. He had thought that his love had reached the +limit of loving a long time before, but since they had been married and +were living, day after day, together, he had become no more than a +loving of her. He went about his work as usual, performed all the other +functions of his life mechanically, scrupulously, but it was always with +a subconscious knowledge of Sophie and of their life together. + +"You're tired," he said one night when Sophie lifted her face to his, +his eyes strained on her with infinite concern. + +"Dear Potch," she said; and she had put back the hair from his forehead +with a gesture tender and pitiful. + +Her glance and gesture were always tender and pitiful. Potch realised +it. He knew that he worshipped and she accepted his worship. He was +content--not quite content, perhaps--but he assured himself it was +enough for him that it should be so. + +He had never taken Sophie in his arms without an overwhelming sense of +reverence and worship. There was no passionate need, no spontaneity, no +leaping flame in the caresses she had given him, in that kiss of the +evening, and the slight, girlish gestures of affection and tenderness +she gave as she passed him at meals, or when they were reading or +walking together. + +As they lay on the plains this evening they had been thinking of their +life together. They had talked of it in low, brooding murmurs. The +immensity of the silence soaked into them. They had taken into +themselves the faint, musky fragrance of the withered herbage and the +paper daisies. They had gazed among the stars for hours. When it was +time to go home, Sophie sat up. + +"I love to lie against the earth like this," she said. + +"We seem to get back to the beginning of things. You and I are no more +than specks of dust on the plains ... under the skies, Potch ... and yet +the whole world is within us...." + +"Yes," Potch said, and the silence streamed between them again. + +"I'll never forget," Sophie continued dreamily, "hearing a negro talk +once about what they call 'the negro problem' in America. He was an +ordinary thick-set, curly-haired, coarse-featured negro to look +at--Booker Washington--but he talked some of the clearest, straightest +stuff I've ever heard. + +"One thing he said has always stayed in my mind: 'Keep close to the +earth.' It was not good, he said, to walk on asphalted paths too +long.... He was describing what Western civilisation had done for the +negroes--a primitive people.... Anyone could see how they had +degenerated under it. And it's always seemed to me that what was true +for the negroes ... is true for us, too.... It's good to keep close to +the earth." + +"Keep close to the earth?" Potch mused. + +"In tune with the fundamentals, all the great things of loving and +working--our eyes on the stars." + +"The stars?" + +"The objects of our faith and service." + +They were silent again for a while. Then Sophie said: + +"You ..." she hesitated, remembering what she had told John +Armitage--"you and I would fight for the Ridge principle, even if all +the others accepted Mr. Armitage's offer, wouldn't we, Potch?" + +"Of course," Potch said. + +"And Michael?" + +"Michael?" His eyes questioned her in the dim light because of the +hesitation in her question. "Why do you say that? Michael would be the +last man on earth to have anything to do with Armitage's scheme." + +"He comes back to put the proposition to the men definitely in a few +days, doesn't he?" Sophie asked. + +"Yes," Potch said. + +"Have you talked to Michael about it?" + +"To tell you the truth, Sophie," Potch replied slowly, +conscience-stricken that he had given the subject so little +consideration, "I took it for granted there could only be one answer to +the whole thing.... I haven't thought of it. I've only thought of you +the last week or so. I haven't talked to Michael; I haven't even heard +what the men were saying at midday.... But, of course, there's only one +answer." + +"I've tried to talk to Michael, but he won't discuss it with me," Sophie +said. + +Potch stared at her. + +"You don't mean," he said--"you can't think--" + +"Oh," she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I know John Armitage is +holding something over Michael ... and if it's true what he says, it'll +break Michael, and it'll go very badly against the Ridge." + +"You can't tell me what it is?" + +Sophie shook her head. + +Potch got up; his face settled into grave and fighting lines. Sophie, +too, rose from the ground. They went towards the track where the three +huts stood facing the scattered dumps of the old Flash-in-the-Pan rush. + +"I want to see Michael," Potch said, when they approached the huts. +"I'll be in, in a couple of minutes." + +Sophie went on to their own home, and Potch, swerving from her, walked +across to the back door of Michael's hut. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders +hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut. + +"You can't bluff me," Potch heard him say. "You may throw dust in the +eyes of the men here, but you can't bluff me.... It was you did for +me.... It was you put it over on me--took those stones." + +"Well, you tell the boys," Potch heard Michael say. + +His voice was as unconcerned as though it were not anything of +importance they were discussing. Potch found relief in the sound of it, +but its unconcern drove Charley to fury. + +"You know I took them from Paul," he shouted. "You know--I can see it in +your eyes ... and you took them from me. When ... how ... I don't +know.... You must 've sneaked into the house when I dozed off for a bit, +and put a parcel of your own rotten stuff in their place.... How do I +know? Well, I'll tell you...." + +He settled back on the sofa. "I hung on to the best stone in the +lot--clear brown potch with good flame in it--hopin' it would give me a +clue some day to the man who'd done that trick on me. But I couldn't +place the stone; I'd never seen it on you, and Jun had never seen it +either. I was dead stony when I sold it to Maud ... and I told her why +I'd been keeping it, seeing she was in the show at the start off. She +sold the stone to Armitage in America, and first thing the old man said +when he saw it was: 'Why, that's Michael's mascot!'" + +"Remembered when you'd got it, he said," Charley continued, taking +Michael's interest with gratified malice. "First stone you'd come on, on +Fallen Star, and you wouldn't sell--kept her for luck.... Old Armitage +wouldn't have anything to do with the stone then--didn't believe Maud's +story.... But John Lincoln got it. He told me...." + +"I see," Michael murmured. + +"Don't mind telling you I'm here to play Armitage's game," Charley said. + +Michael nodded. "Well, what about it?" + +"This about it," Charley exclaimed irritably, his excitement and +impatience rising under Michael's calmness. "You're done on the Ridge +when this story gets around. What I've got to say is ... you took the +opals. You've got 'em. You're done for here. But you could have a good +life somewhere else. Clear out, and----" + +"We'll go halves, eh?" Michael queried. + +"That's it," Charley assented. "I'll clear out and say nothing--although +I've told Rummy enough already to give him his suspicions. Still, +suspicions are only suspicions--nothing more. When I came here I didn't +even mean to give you this chance.... But 'Life is sweet, brother!' +There's still a few pubs down in Sydney, and a woman or two. I wouldn't +go out with such a grouch against things in general if I had a flash in +the pan first.... And it'd suit you all right, Michael.... With this +scheme of Armitage's in the wind----" + +"And suppose I haven't got the stones?" Michael inquired. + +Charley half rose from the sofa, his thin hands grasping the table. + +"It's a lie!" he shrieked, shivering with impotent fury. "You know it +is.... What have you done with 'em then? What have you done with those +stones--that's what I want to know!" + +"You haven't got much breath," Michael said; "you'd better save it." + +"I'll use all I've got to down you, if you don't come to light," Charley +cried. "I'll do it, see if I don't." + +Potch walked across to his father. He had heard Charley abusing and +threatening Michael before without being able to make out what it was +all about. He had thought it bluff and something in the nature of a +try-on; but he had determined to put a stop to it. + +"No, you won't!" he said. + +"Won't I?" Charley turned on his son. + +"No." Potch's tone was steady and decisive. + +Charley looked towards Michael again. + +"Well ... what are you going to do about it?" + +"I've told you," Michael said. "Nothing." + +"Did y' hear what I've been calling your saint?" Charley cried, turning +to Potch. "I'm calling him what everybody on the fields'd be calling him +if they knew." + +Michael's gaze wavered as it went to Potch. + +"A thief," Charley continued, whipping himself into a frenzy. "That's +what he is--a dirty, low-down thief! I'm the ordinary, decent sort ... +get the credit for what I am ... and pay for it, by God! But he--he +doesn't pay. I bag all the disgrace ... and he walks off with the +goods--Rouminof's stones." + +Potch did not look at Michael. What Charley had said did not seem to +shock or surprise him. + +"I've made a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition," Charley went on +more quietly. "I've told him ... if he'll go halves----" + +"Guess again," Potch sneered. + +Charley swung to his feet, a volley of expletives swept from him. + +"I've told Rummy to get the law on his side," he cried shrilly, "and +he's going to. There's one little bit of proof I've got that'll help +him, and----" + +"You'll get jail yourself over it," Potch said. + +"Don't mind if I do," Charley shouted, and poured his rage and +disappointment into a flood of such filthy abuse that Potch took him by +the shoulders. + +"Shut your mouth," he said. "D'y' hear?... Shut your mouth!" + +Charley continued to rave, and Potch, gripping his shoulders, ran him +out of the hut. + +Michael heard them talking in Potch's hut--Charley yelling, threatening, +and cursing. A fit of coughing seized him. Then there was silence--a +hurrying to and fro in the hut. Michael heard Sophie go to the tank, and +carry water into the house, and guessed that Charley's paroxysm and +coughing had brought on the hemorrhage he had had two or three times +since his return to the Ridge. + +A little later Potch came to him. + +"He's had a bleeding, Michael," Potch said; "a pretty bad one, and he's +weak as a kitten. But just before it came on I told him I'd let him have +a pound a week, somehow, if he goes down to Sydney at once.... But if +ever he shows his face in the Ridge again ... or says a word more about +you ... I've promised he'll never get another penny out of me.... He can +die where and how he likes ... I'm through with him...." + +Michael had been sitting beside his fire, staring into it. He had +dropped into a chair and had not moved since Potch and Charley left the +hut. + +"Do you believe what he said, Potch?" he asked. + +Michael felt Potch's eyes on his face; he raised his eyes to meet them. +There was no lie in the clear depths of Potch's eyes. + +"I've known for a long time," Potch said. + +Michael's gaze held him--the swimming misery of it; then, as if +overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it +fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before +Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had +penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and +desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come +to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given +him while they had been mates. + +"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason." + +Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that +unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith. + +He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his +hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently--unable +to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet +overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as +affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned +enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had. + +"It was for Sophie," he said. + +"I intended to give them back to Paul--when she was old enough to go +away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I +don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of +me, somehow--for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give +them back to him--kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my +mind and went to get them, they were gone." + +Potch nodded thoughtfully. + +"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ... +that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me.... +The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it +means something--that somebody must have been near and seen and heard. +Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was +no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I +think--knew I had the stones...." + +"Maud?" + +Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You +remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At +any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects--I don't know which it is +really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's +parcel--a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't +like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney; +and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel +in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead +to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the +stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and----" + +"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch +said. + +"That's what I think," Michael agreed. + +They brooded over the situation for a while. + +"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in +them. + +"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told +her." + +"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said. + +They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away. + +"There's nothing to be done?" he asked. + +Michael shook his head. + +"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done, +Potch," he said. + +They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and +Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her +face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness. + +"Michael, dear!" she whispered. + +Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she +was of his spirit, as he held her then. + +He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on +him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the +moment was beyond words. + +Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to +Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in +himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to +be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told +him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a +star--a thing of miraculous joy and beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The men stood in groups outside the hall, smoking and yarning together +before going into it, on the night John Armitage was to put his +proposition for reorganisation of the mines before them. Each group +formed itself of men whose minds were inclined in the same direction. +M'Ginnis was the centre of the crowd from the Punti rush who were +prepared to accept Armitage's scheme. The Crosses, while they would not +go over to the M'Ginnis faction, had a following--and the group about +them was by far the largest--which was asserting an open mind until it +heard what Armitage had to say. Archie and Ted Cross and the men with +them, however, were suspected of a prejudice rather in favour of, than +against, Armitage's outline of the new order of things for the Ridge +since its main features and conditions were known. Men who were prepared +at all costs to stand by the principle which had held the gougers of +Fallen Star Ridge, together for so long, and whose loyalty to the old +spirit of independence was immutable, gathered round George Woods and +Watty Frost. + +"Thing that's surprised me," Pony-Fence Inglewood murmured, "is the +numbers of men there is who wants to hear what Armitage has got to say. +I wouldn't 've thought there'd be so many." + +"I don't like it meself, Pony," George admitted. "That's why we're here. +Want to know the strength of them--and him." + +"That's right," Watty muttered. + +"Crosses, for instance," Pony-Fence continued. "You wouldn't 've thought +Archie and Ted'd 've even listened to guff about profit-sharin'--all +that.... But they've swallowed it--swallowed it all down. They say----" + +George nodded gloomily. "This blasted talkin' about Michael's done more +harm than anything." + +"That's right," Pony-Fence said. "What's the strength of it, George?" + +"Damned if I know!" + +"Where's Michael to-night?" + +Their eyes wandered over the scattered groups of the miners. Michael was +not among them. + +"Is he coming?" Pony-Fence asked. + +George shrugged his shoulders; the wrinkles of his forehead lifted, +expressing his ignorance and the doubt which had come into his thinking +of Michael. + +"Does he know what's being said?" Pony-Fence asked. + +"He knows all right. I told Potch, and asked him to let Michael know +about it." + +"What did he say?" + +"Tell you the truth, Pony-Fence, I don't understand Michael over this +business," George said. "He's been right off his nest the last week or +two. It might have got him down what's being said--he might be so sore +about anybody thinkin' that of him, or that it's just too mean and +paltry to take any notice of.... But I'd rather he'd said something.... +It's played Armitage's game all right, the yarn that's been goin' round, +about Michael's not being the man we think he is. And the worst of it +is, you don't know exactly where it came from. Charley, of course--but +it was here before him.... He's just stoked the gossip a bit. But it's +done the Ridge more harm than a dozen Armitages could 've----" + +"To-night'll bring things to a head," Watty interrupted, as though they +had talked the thing over and he knew exactly what George was going to +say next. "I reck'n we'll see better how we stand--what's the game--and +the men who are going to stand by us.... Michael's with us, I'll swear; +and if we've got to put up a fight ... we'll have it out with him about +those yarns.... And it'll be hell for any man who drops a word of them +afterwards." + +When they went into the hall George and Watty marched to the front form +and seated themselves there. Bully Bryant and Pony-Fence remained +somewhere about the middle of the hall, as men from every rush on the +fields filed into the seats and the hall filled. Potch came in and sat +near Bully and Pony-Fence. As Newton, Armitage, and the American +engineer crossed the platform, Michael took a seat towards the front, a +little behind George and Watty. George stood up and hailed him, but +Michael shook his head, indicating that he would stay where he was. + +Peter Newton, after a good deal of embarrassment, had consented to be +chairman of the meeting. But he looked desperately uncomfortable when he +took his place behind a small table and an array of glasses and a water +bottle, with John Armitage on one side of him and Mr. Andrew M'Intosh, +the American engineer, on the other. + +His introductory remarks were as brief as he could make them, and +chiefly pointed out that being chairman of the meeting was not to be +regarded as an endorsement of Mr. Armitage's plan. + +John Armitage had never looked keener, more immaculate, and more of +another world than he did when he stood up and faced the men that night. +Most of them were smoking, and soon after the meeting began the hall was +filled with a thin, bluish haze. It veiled the crowd below him, blurred +the shapes and outlines of the men sitting close together along the +benches, most of them wearing their working clothes, faded blueys, or +worn moleskins, with handkerchiefs red or white round their throats. +Their faces swam before John Armitage as on a dark sea. All the +weather-beaten, sun-red, gaunt, or full, fat, daubs of faces, pallid +through the smoke, turned towards him with a curious, strained, and +intent expression of waiting to hear what he had to say. + +Before making any statement himself, Mr. Armitage said he would ask Mr. +Andrew M'Intosh, who had come with him from America some time ago to +report on the field, and who was one of the ablest engineers in the +United States of America, to tell what he thought of the natural +resources of the Ridge, and the possibilities of making an up-to-date, +flourishing town of Fallen Star under conditions proposed by the +Armitage Syndicate. + +Andrew M'Intosh, a meagrely-fleshed man, with squarish face, blunt +features, and hair in a brush from a broad, wrinkled forehead, stood up +in response to Mr. Armitage's invitation. He was a man of deeds, not +words, he declared, and would leave Mr. Armitage to give them the +substance of his report. His knees jerked nervously and his face and +hands twitched all the time he was speaking. He had an air of protesting +against what he was doing and of having been dragged into this business, +although he was more or less interested in it. He confessed that he had +not investigated the resources of Fallen Star Ridge as completely as he +would have wished, but he had done so sufficiently to enable him to +assure the people of Fallen Star that if they accepted the proposition +Mr. Armitage was to lay before them, the country would back them. He +himself, he said, would have confidence enough in it to throw in his lot +with them, should they accept Mr. Armitage's proposition; and he gave +them his word that if they did so, and he were invited to take charge of +the reorganisation of the mines, he would work whole-heartedly for the +success of the undertaking he and the miners of Fallen Star Ridge might +mutually engage in. He talked at some length of the need for a great +deal of preliminary prospecting in order to locate the best sites for +mines, of the necessity for plant to use in construction works, and of +the possibility of a better water supply for the township, and the +advantages that would entail. + +The men were impressed by the matter-of-factness of the engineer's +manner and his review of technical and geological aspects of the +situation, although he gave very little information they had not already +possessed. When he sat down, Armitage pushed back his chair and +confronted the men again. + +He made his position clear from the outset. It was a straightforward +business proposition he was putting before men of the Ridge, he said; +but one the success of which would depend on their co-operation. As +their agent of exchange with the world at large, he described the +disastrous consequences the slump of the last year or so had had for +both Armitage and Son and for Fallen Star, and how the system he +proposed, by opening up a wider area for mining and by investigating the +resources of the old mines more thoroughly under the direction of an +expert mining engineer, would result in increased production and +prosperity for the people of the Ridge and Fallen Star township. He saw +possibilities of making a thriving township of Fallen Star, and he +promised men of the Ridge that if they accepted the scheme he had +outlined for them, the Armitage Syndicate would make a prosperous +township of Fallen Star. In no time people: would be having electricity +in their homes, water laid on, rose gardens, cabbage patches, and all +manner of comforts and conveniences as a result of the improved means of +communication with Budda and Sydney, which population and increased +production would ensure. + +In a nutshell Armitage's scheme amounted to an offer to buy up the mines +for L30,000 and put the men on a wage, allowing every man a percentage +of 20 per cent. profit on all stones over a certain standard and size. +The men would be asked to elect their own manager, who would be expected +to see that engineering and development designs were carried out, but +otherwise the normal routine of work in the mines would be observed. Mr. +Armitage explained that he hoped to occupy the position of general +manager in the company himself, and engaged it to observe the union +rates of hours and wages as they were accepted by miners and mining +companies throughout the country. + +When he had finished speaking there was no doubt in anyone's mind that +John Lincoln Armitage had made a very pleasant picture of what life on +the Ridge might be if success attended the scheme of the Armitage +Syndicate, as John Armitage seemed to believe it would. Men who had been +driven to consider Armitage's offer from their first hearing of it, +because of the lean years the Ridge was passing through, were almost +persuaded by his final exposition. + +George Woods stood up. + +George's strength was in his equable temper, in his downright honesty +and sincerity, and in the steady common-sense with which he reviewed +situations and men. + +He realised the impression Armitage's statement of his scheme, and its +bearing on the life of the Ridge, had made. It did not affect his own +position, but he feared its influence on men who had been wavering +between prospects of the old and of the new order of things for Fallen +Star. In their hands, he could see now, the fate of all that Fallen Star +had stood for so long, would lie. + +"Well," he said, "we've got to thank you for puttin' the thing to us as +clear and as square as you have, Mr. Armitage. It gives every man here a +chance to see just what you're drivin' at. But I might say here and now +... I've got no time for it ... neither me nor my mates.... It'll save +time and finish the business of this meeting if there's no beatin' about +the bush and we understand each other right away. It sounds all +right--your scheme--nice and easy. Looks as if there was more for us to +get out of it than to lose by it.... I don't say it wouldn't mean easier +times ... more money ... all that sort of thing. We haven't had the +easiest of times here sometimes, and this scheme of yours comes ... just +when we're in the worst that's ever knocked us. But speakin' for myself, +and"--his glance round the hall was an appeal to that principle the +Ridge stood for-"the most of my mates, we'd rather have the hard times +and be our own masters. That's what we've always said on the Ridge.... +Your scheme 'd be all right if we didn't feel like that; I suppose. But +we do ... and as far as I'm concerned, we won't touch it. It's no go. + +"We're obliged to you for putting the thing to us. We recognise you +could have gone another way about getting control here. You may---buy up +a few of the mines perhaps, and try to squeeze the rest of us out. Not +that I think the boys'd stand for the experiment." + +"They wouldn't," Bill Grant called. + +"I'm glad to hear that," George said. He tried to point out that if +Fallen Star miners accepted Armitage's offer they would be shouldering +conditions which would take from their work the freedom and interest +that had made their life in common what it had been on the Ridge. He +asked whether a weekly Wage to tide them over years of misfortune would +compensate for loss of the sense of being free men; he wanted to know +how they'd feel if they won a nest of knobbies worth L400 or L500 and +got no more out of them than the weekly wage. The percentage on big +stones was only a bluff to encourage men to hand over big stones, George +said. And that, beyond the word being used pretty frequently in Mr. +Armitage's argument and documents, was all the profit-sharing he could +see in Mr. Armitage's scheme. He reminded the men, too, that under their +own system, in a day they could make a fortune. And all there was for +them under Mr. Armitage's system was three or four pounds a week--and +not a bit of potch, nor a penny in the quart pot for their old age. + +"We own these mines. Every man here owns his mine," George said; "that's +worth more to us just now than engineers and prospecting parties.... +Well have them on our own account directly, when the luck turns and +there's money about again.... For the present we'll hang on to what +we've got, thank you, Mr. Armitage." + +He sat down, and a guffaw of laughter rolled over his last words. + +"Anybody else got anything to say?" Peter Newton inquired. + +M'Ginnis stood up. + +He had heard a good deal of talk about men of the Ridge being free, he +said, but all it amounted to was their being free to starve, as far as +he could see. He didn't see that the men's ownership of the mines meant +much more than that--the freedom to starve. It was all very well for +them to swank round about being masters of their own mines; any fool +could be master of a rubbish heap if he was keen enough on the rubbish +heap. But as far as he was concerned, M'Ginnis declared, he didn't see +the point. What they wanted was capital, and Mr. Armitage had +volunteered it on what were more than ordinarily generous terms.... + +It was all very well for a few shell-backs who, because they had been on +the place in the early days, thought they had some royal prerogative to +it, to cut up rusty when their ideas were challenged. But their ideas +had been given a chance; and how had they worked out? It was all very +well to say that if a man was master of his own mine he stood a chance +of being a millionaire at a minute's notice; but how many of them were +millionaires? As a matter of fact, not a man on the Ridge had a penny to +bless himself with at that moment, and it was sheer madness to turn down +this offer of Mr. Armitage's. For his part he was for it, and, what was +more, there was a big body of the men in the hall for it. + +"If it's put to the vote whether people want to take on or turn down Mr. +Armitage's scheme, we'll soon see which way the cat's jumping," M'Ginnis +said. "People'd have the nause to see which side their bread's buttered +on--not be led by the nose by a few fools and dreamers. For my part, I +don't see why----" + +"You're not paid to," a voice called from the back of the hall. + +"I don't see why," M'Ginnis repeated stolidly, ignoring the +interruption, "the ideas of three or four men should be allowed to rule +the roost. What's wanted on the Ridge is a little more horse sense----" + +Impatient and derisive exclamations were hurled at him; men sitting near +M'Ginnis shouted back at the interrupters. It looked as if the meeting +were going to break up in uproar, confusion, and fighting all round. +Peter Newton knocked on the table and shouted himself hoarse trying to +restore order. The voices of George, Watty, and Pony-Fence Inglewood +were heard howling over the din: + +"Let him alone." + +"Let's hear what he's got to say." + +Then M'Ginnis continued his description of the advantages to be gained +by the acceptance of Mr. Armitage's offer. + +"And," he wound up, "there's the women and children to think of." At the +back of the hall somebody laughed. "Laugh if you like"--M'Ginnis worked +himself into a passion of virtuous indignation--"but I don't see there's +anything to laugh at when I say remember what those things are goin' to +mean to the women and children of this town--what a few of the +advantages of civilisation----" + +"Disadvantages!" the same voice called. + +"--Comforts and conveniences of civilisation are goin' to mean to the +women and children of this God-forsaken hole," M'Ginnis cried furiously. +"If I had a wife and kids, d'ye think I'd have any time for this +high-falutin' flap-doodle of yours about bread and fat? Not much. The +best in the country wouldn't be too good for them--and it's not good +enough for the women and children of Fallen Star. That's what I've got +to say--and that's what any decent man would say if he could see +straight. I'm an ordinary, plain, practical man myself ... and I ask you +chaps who've been lettin' your legs be pulled pretty freely---and +starvin' to be masters of your own dumps--to look at this business like +ordinary, plain, practical men, who've got their heads screwed on the +right way, and not throw away the chance of a lifetime to make Fallen +Star the sort of township it ought to be. If there's some men here want +to starve to be masters of their own dumps, let 'em, I say: it's a free +country. But there's no need for the rest of us to starve with 'em." + +He sat down, and again it seemed that the pendulum had swung in favour +of Armitage and his Scheme. + +"What's Michael got to say about it?" a man from the Three Mile asked. +And several voices called: "Yes; what's Michael got to say?" + +For a moment there was silence--a silence of apprehension. George Woods +and the men who knew, or had been disturbed by the stories they had +heard of a secret treaty between Michael and John Armitage, recognised +in that moment the power of Michael's influence; that what Michael was +going to say would sway the men of the Ridge as it had always done, +either for or against the standing order of life on the Ridge on which +they had staked so much. His mates could not doubt Michael, and yet +there was fear in the waiting silence. + +Those who had heard Michael was not the man they thought he was, waited +anxiously for his movement, the sound of his voice. Charley Heathfield +waited, crouched in a corner near the platform, where everyone could see +him, Rouminof beside him. They were standing there together as if there +was not room for them in the body of the hall, and their eyes were fixed +on the place where Michael sat--Charley's eager and cruel as a cat's on +its victim, Rouminof's alight with the fires of his consuming +excitement. + +Then Michael got up from his seat, took off his hat; and his glance, +those deep-set eyes of his, travelled the hall, skimming the heads and +faces of the men in it, with their faint, whimsical smile. + +"All I've got to say," he said, "George Woods has said. There's nothing +in Mr. Armitage's scheme for Fallen Star.... It looks all right, but it +isn't; it's all wrong. The thing this place has stood for is ownership +of the mines by the men who work them. Mr. Armitage 'll give us anything +but that--he offers us every inducement but that ... and you know how +the thing worked out on the Cliffs. If the mines are worth so much to +him, they're worth as much, or more, to us. + +"Boiled down, all the scheme amounts to is an offer to buy up the +mines--at a 'fair valuation'--put us on wages and an eight-hour day. All +the rest, about making a flourishing and, up-to-date town of Fallen +Star, might or mightn't come true. P'raps it would. I can't say. All I +say is, it's being used to gild the pill we're asked to swallow--buyin' +up of the mines. There's nothing sure about all this talk of electricity +and water laid on; it's just gilding. And supposing the new conditions +did put more money about--did bring the comforts and conveniences of +civilisation to Fallen Star--like M'Ginnis says--what good would they be +to the people, women and children, too, if the men sold themselves like +a team of bullocks to work the mines? It wouldn't matter to them any +more whether they brought up knobbies or mullock; they'd have their +wages--like bullocks have their hay. It's because our work's had +interest; it's because we've been our own bosses, life's been as good as +it has on Fallen Star all these years. If a man hasn't got interest in +his work he's got to get it somewhere. How did we get it on the Cliffs +when the mines were bought up? Drinking and gambling ... and how did +that work out for the women and children? But it was stone silly of +M'Ginnis to talk of women and children here. We know that old +hitting-below-the-belt gag of sweating employers too well to be taken in +by it. By and by, if you took on the Armitage scheme, and there was a +strike in the mines, he'd be saying that to you: 'Remember the women and +children.'" + +Colour flamed in Michael's face, and he continued with more heat than +there had yet been in his voice. + +"The time's coming when the man who talks 'women and children' to defeat +their own interests will be treated like the skunk--the low-down, +thieving swine he is. Do we say anything's too good for our women and +children? Not much. But we want to give them real things--the real +things of life and happiness--not only flashy clothes and fixings. If we +give our women and children the mines as we've held them, and the record +of a clean fight for them, we'll be giving them something very much +bigger than anything Mr. Armitage can offer us in exchange for them. The +things we've stood for are better than anything he's got to offer. We've +got here what they're fighting for all over the world ... it's bigger +than ourselves. + +"M'Ginnis says he's heard a lot of 'the freedom to starve on the +Ridge'--it's more than I have, it's a sure thing if he wants to starve, +nobody'd stop him...." + +A wave of laughter passed over the hall. + +"But most of us here haven't any fancy for starving, and what's more, +nobody has ever starved on the Ridge. I don't say that we haven't had +hard times, that we haven't gone on short commons--we have; but we +haven't starved, and we're not going to.... + +"This talk of buying up the mines comes at the only time it would have +been listened to in the last half-dozen years. It hits us when we're +down, in a way; but the slump'll pass. There've been slumps before, and +they've passed.... Mr. Armitage thinks so, or he wouldn't be so keen on +getting hold of the mines. + +"And as to production of stone and development of the mines, it seems to +me we can do more ourselves than any Proprietary Company, Ltd., or +syndicate ever made could. Didn't old Mr. Armitage, himself, say once +that he didn't know a better conducted or more industrious mining +community than this one. 'Why d'y' think that is?' I asked him. He said +he didn't know. I said, 'You don't think the way the men feel about +their work's got anything to do with it?' 'Damn it, Michael,' he said, +'I don't want to think so.' + +"And I happen to know"--Michael smiled slightly towards John Armitage, +who was gazing at him with tense features and hands tightly folded and +crossed under his chin--"that the old man is opposed even now to this +scheme because he thinks he won't get as much black opal out of us as he +does under our own way of doing things. He remembers the Cliffs, and +what taking over of the mines did for opal--and the men--there. This +scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea.... + +"He's put it to you. You've heard what it is. All I've got to say now +is, don't touch it. Don't have anything to do with it.... It'll break us +... the spirit of the men here ... and it'll break what we've been +working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don't let us +see which side our bread's buttered on, as Mr. M'Ginnis says. Let us say +like we always have--like we've been proud to say: 'We'll eat bread and +fat, but we'll be our own masters!'" + +"We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!" the men who +were with Michael roared. + +He sat down amid cheers. George and Watty turned in their seats to beam +at him, filled with rejoicing. + +Armitage rose from his chair and shifted his papers as though he had not +quite decided what he intended to say. + +"I'm not going to ask this meeting for a decision," he began. + +"You can have it!" Bully Bryant yelled. + +"There's a bit of a rush at Blue Pigeon Creek, and I'm going on up +there," John Armitage continued. "I'm due in Sydney at the end of the +month--that is, a month from this date--and I'll run up then for your +answer to the proposition which has been laid before you. I have said +all there is to say about it, except that, notwithstanding anything +which may have been asserted to the contrary, I hope you will give your +gravest consideration to an enterprise, I am convinced, would be in the +best interests of this town and of the people of Fallen Star Ridge. I +think, however, you ought to know----" + +"That Michael Brady's a liar and a thief!" Charley cried, springing from +his corner as if loosed from some invisible leash. "If you believe him, +you're believing a liar and a thief. Mr. Armitage knows ... I know ... +and Paul knows----" + +"Throw him out." + +"He's mad!" + +The cries rose in a tumult of angry voices. When they were at their +height M'Ginnis was seen on his feet and waving his arms. + +"Let him say what he's got to!" he shouted. "You chaps know as well as I +do what's been going the rounds, and we might as well have it out now. +If it's not true, Michael'd rather have the strength of it, and give you +his answer ... and if there is anything in it, we've got a right to +know." + +"That's right!" some of the men near him chorused. + +Newton looked towards George, and George towards Michael. + +"Might as well have it," Michael said. + +Charley, who had been hustled against the wall by Potch and Bully +Bryant, was loosed. He moved a few steps forward so that everyone could +see him, and breathlessly, shivering, in a frenzy of triumphant malice, +told his story. Rouminof, carried away by excitement, edged alongside +him, chiming into what he was saying with exclamations and chippings of +corroboration. + +When Charley had finished talking and had fallen back exhausted, +Armitage left his chair as if to continue what he had been going to say +when Charley took the floor. Instead, he hesitated, and, feeling his way +through the silence of consternation and dismay which had stricken +everybody, said uncertainly: + +"Much as I regret having to do so, I consider it my duty to state that +Charley Heathfield's story, as far as I know it, is substantially +correct. Some time ago I was sold a stone in New York. As soon as he saw +it, my father said, 'Why, that's Michael's mascot.' I asked him if he +were sure, and he declared that he could not be mistaken about the +stone.... + +"I told him the story I had got with it. Charley has already told you. +That stone came from a parcel Charley supposed contained Rouminof's +opals--the one Paul got when Jun Johnson and he had a run of luck +together. The parcel did not contain Rouminof's opals, and had been +exchanged for the parcel which did, either while Rouminof and Charley +were going home together or after he had taken them from Rouminof. My +father refused to believe that Michael Brady had anything to do with the +business. I made further inquiries, and satisfied myself that the man +who had always seemed to me the soul of honour and a pattern of the +altruistic virtues, I must confess, was responsible for placing that +stone in the parcel Charley took down to Sydney ... and also that +Michael had possession of Rouminof's opals. Mrs. Johnson will swear she +saw Rouminof's stones on the table of Michael Brady's hut one evening +nearly two years ago. + +"I approached Michael myself to try to discover more of the stones. He +denied all knowledge of them. But now, before you all, and because it +seems to me an outrageous thing for people to ruin themselves on account +of their belief in a man who is utterly unworthy of it, I accuse Michael +Brady of having stolen Rouminof's opals. If he has anything to say, now +is the time to say it." + +What Armitage said seemed to have paralysed everybody. The silence was +heavier, more dismayed than it had been a few minutes before. Nobody +spoke nobody moved. Michael's friends sat with hunched shoulders, not +looking at each other, their gaze fixed ahead of them, or on the place +where Michael was sitting, waiting to see his face and to hear the first +sound of his voice. Potch, who had gone to hold his father back when +Charley had made his attack on Michael, stood against the wall, his eyes +on Michael, his face illumined by the fire of his faith. His glance +swept the crowd as if he would consign it to perdition for its doubt and +humiliation of Michael. The silence was invaded by a stir of movement, +the shuffle of feet. People began to mutter and whisper together. Still +Michael did not move. George Woods turned round to him. + +"For God's sake speak, Michael," he said. Michael did not move. + +Then from the back of the hall marched Snow-Shoes. Tall and stately, he +strode up the narrow passage between the rows of seats wedged close +together. People watched him with an abstract curiosity, their minds +under the shadow of the accusation against Michael, waiting only to hear +what he would say to it. When Snow-Shoes reached the top of the hall he +turned and faced the men He held up a narrow package wrapped in +newspaper and before them all handed it to Rouminof, who was still +hovering near the edge of the platform. + +"Your stones," he said. "I took them." And in the same stately, measured +fashion he had entered, he walked out of the hall again. + +Cheers resounded, cheers on cheers, until the roof rang. There was no +hearing anything beyond cheers and cries for Michael. People crushed +round him shaking his hand, clinging to him, tears in their eyes. When +order was achieved again, it was found that Paul was on the platform +going over the stones with Armitage, Newton looking on. Paul was +laughing and crying; he had forgotten Charley, forgotten everything but +his joy in fingering his lost gems. + +When there was a lull in the tempest of excitement and applause, +Armitage spoke. + +"I've got to apologise to you, Michael," he said. "I do most +contritely.... I don't yet understand--but the facts are, the opals are +here, and Mr. Riley has said--" + +Michael stood up. His mouth moved and twisted as though he were going to +speak before his voice was heard. When it was, it sounded harsh and as +if only a great effort of will drove it from him. + +"I want to say," he said, "I did take those stones ... not from Paul ... +but from Charley." + +His words went through the heavy quiet slowly, a vibration of his +suffering on every one of them. He told how he had seen Charley and Paul +going home together, and how he had seen Charley take the package of +opals from Rouminof's pocket and put them in his own. + +"I didn't want the stones," Michael cried, "I didn't ever want them for +myself.... It was for Paul I took them back, but I didn't want him to +have them just then...." + +Haltingly, with the same deadly earnestness, he went over the promise he +had made to Sophie's mother, and why he did not want Paul to have the +stones and to use them to take Sophie away from the Ridge. But she had +gone soon after, and what he had done was of no use. When he explained +why he had not then, at once, returned the opals he did not spare +himself. + +Paul had had sun-stroke; but Michael confessed that from the first night +he had opened the parcel and had gone over the stones, he had been +reluctant to part with them; he had found himself deferring returning +them to Paul, making excuses for not doing so. He could not explain the +thing to himself even.... He had not looked at the opals except once +again, and then it was to see whether, in putting them away hurriedly +the first time, any had tumbled out of the tin among his books. Then +Potch and Maud had seen him. Afterwards he realised where he was +drifting--how the stones were getting hold of him--and in a panic, +knowing what that meant, he had gone for the parcel intending to take it +to Paul at once and tell him how he, Michael, came to have anything to +do with his opals, just as he was telling them. But the parcel was gone. + +Michael said he could not think who had found it and taken it away; but +now it was clear. Probably Snow-Shoes had known all the time he had the +stones. The more he thought of it, the more Michael believed it must +have been so. He remembered the slight stir on the shingly soil as he +came from the hut on the night he had taken the opals from Charley. It +was just that slight sound Snow-Shoes' moccasins made on the shingle. +Exclamations and odd queries Snow-Shoes had launched from time to time +came back to Michael. He had no doubt, he said, that Mr. Riley had taken +the stones to do just what he had done--and because he feared the +influence possession of them was having on him, Michael, since they +should have been returned to Paul long ago. + +"That's the truth, as far as I know it," Michael said. "There's been +attempts made to injure ... the Ridge, our way of doing things here, +because of me, and because of those stones.... What happened to me +doesn't matter. What happens to the Ridge and the mines does matter. I +done wrong. I know I done wrong holding those stones. I'd give anything +now if I--if I'd given them to Paul when Sophie went away. But I didn't +... and I'll stand by anything the men who've been my mates care to say +or do about that. Only don't let the Ridge, and our way of doing things +here, get hurt through me. That's bigger--it means more than any man. +Don't let it! ... I'd ask George to call a meeting, and get the boys to +say what they think about all this--and where I stand." + +Michael put on his hat, dragged it down over his eyes, and walked out of +the hall. + +When the slow fall of his footsteps no longer sounded on the wooden +floor, George Woods rose from his place on the front bench. He turned +and faced the men. The smoke from their smouldering pipes had created +such a fog that he could see only the bulk of those on the near rows of +forms. With the exception of M'Ginnis and half a dozen Punti men who had +the far end of one of the front seats, the mass of men in the hall, who +a few moments before had been cheering for Michael, were as inert as +blown balloons. Depression was in every line of their heavy, squatted +shapes and unlighted countenances. + +"Well," George said, "it's been a bit of a shock what we've just heard. +It wasn't easy what Michael's just done ... and Snow-Shoes, if he'd +wanted it, had provided the get-out. But Michael he wouldn't have it.... +At whatever cost to himself, he wanted you to have the truth and to +stand by the Ridge ... he'd stand by it at any cost.... If there's a +doubt in anyone's mind as to what he is, what he's just done proves +Michael. I don't say, as he says himself, that it wouldn't have been +better if he had handed the stones over to Paul when Sophie went away +... but after all, what does that amount to as far as Michael's +concerned? We've got his record, every one of us, his life here. Does +anybody know a mean or selfish thing he's ever done, Michael?" + +No one spoke, and George went on: + +"Michael's asked for trial by his mates--and we've got to give it to +him, if it's only to clear up the whole of this business and be done +with it.... I move we meet here to-morrow night to settle the thing." + +There was a rumbling murmur, and staccato exclamations of assent. Men in +back seats moved to the door; others surged after them. Armitage and his +proposals were forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +When Michael got back to his hut he found Martha there. + +"Oh, Michael," she said, "a dreadful thing has happened." + +Michael stared at her, unable to understand what she said. It seemed to +him all the terrible things that could happen had happened that evening. + +"While you were away Arthur Henty came here to see Sophie," Martha said. +"She hasn't been feeling well ... and I came up to have a look at her. +She's been doing too much lately. Things haven't been too right between +her and Potch, either, and that's her way of taking it out of herself. +Arthur was here when I got here, Michael, and--you never heard anything +like the way he went on...." + +Michael had fallen wearily into his chair while she was talking. + +Martha continued, knowing that the sooner she got rid of her story the +better it would be for both of them. + +"It's an old story, of course, this about Arthur Henty and Sophie.... +When he was ill after the ball he talked a good bit about her.... He +always has ... to me. I was with his mother when he was born ... and +he's always called me Mother M'Cready like the rest of you. He told me +long ago he'd always been fond of Sophie.... He didn't know at first, he +said. He was a fool; he didn't like being teased about her.... Then she +went away.... He doesn't seem to know why he got married except that his +people wanted him to. + +"After the ball he'd made up his mind they were going away together, +Sophie and he. But while he was ill ... before he was able to get around +again, Sophie married Potch. Then he went mad, stark, starin' mad, and +started drinking. He's been drinking hard ever since.... And to-night +when he came, he just went over to Sophie.... She was lying on the couch +under the window, Michael.... He said, I've got a horse for you outside. +Sophie didn't seem to realise what he meant at first. Then she did. I +don't know how he guessed she wouldn't go ... but the next minute he was +on his knees beside her ... and you never heard anything like it, +Michael--the way he went on, sobbing and crying out--I never want to +hear anything like it again.... I couldn't 've stood it meself.... I'd +'ve done anything in the world if a man'd gone on to me like that. And +Sophie ... she put her arms round him, and mothered him like.... Then +she began to cry too.... And there they were, both crying and sayin' how +much they loved each other ... how much they'd always loved each +other.... + +"It fair broke me up, Michael.... I didn't know what to do. They didn't +seem to notice me.... Then he said again they'd go away together, and +begin life all over again. Sophie tried to tell him it was too late to +think of that.... They both had responsibilities they'd ought to stand +by.... Hers was the Ridge and the Ridge life, she said.... He didn't +understand.... He only understood he wanted her to go away with him, and +she wouldn't go...." + +Michael was so spent in body and mind that what Martha was saying did +not at first make any impression on his mind. She seemed to be telling +him a long and dolorous tale of something which had happened a long time +ago, to people he had once known. In a waking nightmare, realisation +that it was Sophie she was talking of dawned on him. + +"He tried to make her," Martha was saying when he began to listen +intently. "He said he'd been weak and a fool all his days. But he wasn't +any more. He was strong now. He knew what he wanted, and he meant to +have it.... Sophie was his, he said. Nothing in the world would ever +make her anything but his. She knew it, and he knew it.... And Sophie +hid her face in her hands. He took her hands away from her face and +dragged her to her feet. He asked her if he was her mate. + +"She said 'Yes.' + +"'Then you've got to come with me,' he said. + +"But she wouldn't go, Michael. She tried to explain it was the +Ridge--what the Ridge stood for--she must stay to work for. She'd sworn +to, she said. He cursed the Ridge and all of us, Michael. He said that +he wouldn't let her go on living with Potch--be his wife. That he'd kill +her, and himself, and Potch, rather than let her.... I never heard a man +go on like he did, Michael. I never want to again. Half the time he was +raging mad, then crying like a child. But in the end he said, quite +quietly: + +"'Will you come with me, Sophie?' + +"And she said, quiet like that, too, 'No.' + +"He went out of the hut.... I heard him ride away. Sophie cried after +him. She put out her arms ... but she couldn't speak. And if you had +seen her face, Michael----She just stood there against the wall, +listening to the hoof-beats.... When we couldn't hear them any more, she +stood there listening just the same. I went to her and tried to--to +waken her--she seemed to have gone off into a sort of trance, +Michael.... After a while she did wake; but she looked at me as if she +didn't know me. She walked about for a bit, she walked round the table, +and then she went out as though she were goin' for a walk. I told her +not to go far ... not to be long ... but I don't think she heard me.... +I watched her walking out towards the old rush.... And she isn't back +yet...." + +"It's too much," Michael muttered. + +He sat with his head buried in his hands. + +"What's to be done about it?" he asked at last. + +Martha shook her head. + +"I don't know. Sophie'll go through with her part, I suppose ... as her +mother did." + +Michael's face quivered. + +"He's such an outsider," he groaned. "Sophie'd never give up the things +we stand for here, now she understands them." + +"That's just it," Martha said. "She doesn't want to--but there's +something stronger than herself draggin' at her ... it's something +that's been in all the women she's come of--the feeling a woman's got +for the man who's her mate. Sophie married Potch, it's my belief, to get +away from this man. She wanted to chain herself to us and her life here. +She wants to stay with us.... She was kept up at first by ideas of duty +and sacrifice, and serving something more than her own happiness. But +love's like murder, Michael--it must out, and it's a good thing it +must...." + +"And what about Potch?" Michael asked. + +"Potch?" Martha smiled. "The dear lad ... he'll stand up to things. +There are people like that--and there're people like Arthur Henty who +can't stand up to things. It's not their fault they're made that way ... +and they go under when they have too much to bear." + +"Curse him," Michael groaned. "I wish he'd kept out of our lives." + +"So do I," Martha said; "but he hasn't." + +Potch came in. He looked from Martha to Michael. + +"Where's Sophie?" he asked. + +"She ... went out for a walk, a while ago," Martha said. + +At first Martha believed Potch knew what had happened. In his eyes there +was an awe and horror which communicated itself to Martha and Michael, +and held them dumb. + +"Henty has shot himself down in the tank paddock," he said at length. + +Martha uttered a low wail. Michael looked at Potch, waiting to hear +further. + +"Some of the boys going home to the Three Mile heard the shot, and went +over," Potch said. "I wanted to tell Sophie myself.... They were looking +for you in the town, Martha." + +"Oh!" Martha got up and went to the door. + +"He's at Newton's," Potch said. "Which way did Sophie go?" + +"She went towards the Old Town, Potch," Martha said. + +The chestnut Arthur Henty had brought for Sophie, still standing with +reins over a post of the goat-pen, whinnied when he saw them at the door +of the hut. Potch looked at him as if he were wondering why the horse +was there--a vague perplexity defined itself through the troubled +abstraction of his gaze. His eyes went to Martha as if asking her how +the horse came to be there; but she did not offer any explanation. She +went off down the track to Newton's, and he struck out towards the Old +Town. + +Potch wandered over the plains looking for Sophie. She was not in any of +her usual haunts. He wandered, looking for her, calling her, wondering +what this news would mean to her. Vaguely, instinctively he knew. Prom +the time of their marriage nothing had been said between them of Arthur +Henty. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he called. + +The stars were swarming points of silver fire in the blue-black sky. He +wandered, calling still. Desolation overwhelmed him because he could not +find Sophie; because she was in none of the places they had spent so +much time in together. It was significant that she should not be in any +of them, he felt. He could not bear to think she was eluding him, and +yet that was what she had done all her life. She had been with him, +smiling, elfish and tender one moment, and gone the next. She had always +been elusive. For a long time a presentiment of desolation and disaster +had overshadowed him. Again and again he had been able to draw breath of +relief and assure himself that the indefinable dread which was always +with him was a chimera of his too absorbing, too anxious love. But the +fear, instinctive, prophetic, begotten by consciousness of the slight +grasp he had of her, had remained. + +That morning even, before he had gone off to work, she had taken his +face in her hands. He had seen tenderness and an infinite gentleness in +her eyes. + +"Dear Potch," she had said, and kissed him. + +She had withdrawn from him before the faint chill which her words and +the light pressure of her lips diffused, had left him. And now he was +wandering over the plains looking for her, calling her.... He had done +so before.... Sophie liked to wander off like this by herself. Sometimes +he had found her in a place where they often sat together; sometimes she +had been in the hut before him; sometimes she had come in a long time +after him, wearily, a strange, remote expression on her face, as if long +gazing at the stars or into the darkness which overhung the plains had +deprived her of some earthliness. + +He did not know how long he walked over the plains and along the Ridge, +looking for her, his soul in that cry: + +"Sophie! Sophie!" + +He wandered for hours before he went back to the hut, and saw Michael +coming out to meet him. + +"She knows, Potch," Michael said. + +Potch waited for him to continue. + +"Says nobody told her.... She heard the shot ... and knew," Michael +said. + +Potch exclaimed brokenly. He asked how Sophie was. Michael said she had +come in and had lain down on the sofa as though she were very tired. She +had been lying there ever since, so still that Michael was alarmed. He +had called Paul and sent him to find Martha. Sophie had not cried at +all, Michael said. + +She was lying on the sofa under the window, her hair thrown back from +her face when Potch went into the hut. He closed his eyes against the +sight of her face; he could not see Sophie in the grip of such pain. He +knelt beside her. + +"Sophie! Sophie!" he murmured, the inarticulate prayer of his love and +anguish in those words. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The men met to talk about Michael next evening. The meeting was +informal, but every man on the fields had come to Fallen Star for it. +The hall was filled to the doors as it had been the the night before, +but the crowd had none of the elastic excitement and fighting spirit, +the antagonisms and enthusiasms, which had gone off from it in wave-like +vibrations the night before. News of Arthur Henty's death had left +everybody aghast, and awakened realisation of the abysses which even a +life that seemed to move easily could contain. The shock of it was on +everybody; the solemnity it had created in the air. + +George Woods, elected spokesman for the men, and Roy O'Mara deputed to +take notes of the meeting because he was reckoned to be a good penman, +sat at a table on the platform. Michael took a chair just below the +platform, facing the men. He was there to answer questions. No one had +asked him to be present, but it was the custom when men of the Ridge +were holding an inquiry of the sort for the man or men concerned to have +seats in front of the platform, and Michael had gone to sit there as +soon as the men were in their places. + +"This isn't like any other inquiry we've had on the Ridge," George Woods +said. "You chaps know how I feel about it--I told you last night. But +Michael was for it, and I take it he's come here to answer any questions +... and to clear this thing up once and for all.... He's put his case to +you. He says he'll stand by what you say--the judgment of his mates." + +Anxious to spare Michael another recital of what had happened, he went +on: + +"There's no need for Michael to repeat what he said last night. If +there's any man here wasn't in the hall, these are the facts." + +He repeated the story Michael had told, steadily, clearly, and +impartially. + +"If there's any man wants to ask a question on those facts, he can do it +now." + +George sat down, and M'Ginnis was on his feet the same instant; his +bat-like ears twitching, his shoulders hunched, his whole tall, thin +frame strung to the pitch of nervous animosity. + +"I want to know," he said, "what reason there is for believing a word of +it. Michael Brady's as good as admitted he's been fooling you for +goodness knows how long, and I don't see----" + +"Y' soon will, y'r bleedin', blasted, fly-blown fool," Bully Bryant +roared, rising and pushing back his sleeves. + +"Sit down, Bull," George Woods called. + +"The question is," he added, "what reason is there for believing what +Michael says?" + +"His word's enough," somebody called. + +"Some of us think so," George said. "But there's some don't. Is there +anyone else can say, Michael?" + +Michael shook his head. He thought of Snow-Shoes, but the old man had +refused to be present at the inquiry or to have anything to do with it. +He had pretended to be deaf when he was asked anything about Paul's +opals. And Michael, who could only surmise that Snow-Shoes' reasons for +having taken the stones in a measure resembled his own when he took them +from Paul, would not have him put to the torture of questioning. + +George had said: "It might make a lot of difference to Michael if you'd +come along, Mr. Riley." + +But Snow-Shoes had marched off from him as if he had not heard anyone +speak, his blue eyes fixed on that invisible goal he was always gazing +at and going towards. + +George had not seen him come into the hall; but when he was needed, his +tall figure, white clad and straight as a dead tree, rose at the back of +the hall. + +"It's true," he said. "I wanted to be sure of Michael; I shadowed him. I +saw him with the stones when he says. I did not see him with them any +other time." + +He sat down again; his eyes, which had flashed, resumed their steady, +distant stare; his features relapsed into their mask of impassivity. + +M'Ginnis sprang to his feet again. + +"That's all very well," he cried, sticking to his question. "But it's +not my idea of evidence. It wouldn't stand in any law court in the +country. Snow-Shoes----" + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Half a dozen voices growled. + +Because of the respect and affection they had for him, and because of a +certain aloof dignity he had with them, no man on the Ridge ever +addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley. They resented M'Ginnis +calling him "Snow-Shoes" to his face, and guessed that he had been going +to say something which would reflect on Snow-Shoes' reliability as a +witness. They admitted his eccentricity; but they would not admit that +his mental peculiarities amounted to more than that. Above all, they +were not going to have his feelings hurt by this outsider from the Punti +rush. + +Broad-shouldered, square and solid, Bill Grant towered above the men +about him. "This doesn't pretend to be a court of law, Mister M'Ginnis," +he remarked, with an irony and emphasis which never failed of their mark +when he used them, although he rarely did, and only once or twice had +been heard to speak, at any gathering. "It's an inquiry by men of the +Ridge into the doings of one of their mates. What they want to know is +the rights of this business ... and what you consider evidence doesn't +matter. It's what the men in this hall consider evidence matters. And, +what's more, I don't see why you're butting into our affairs so much: +you're not one of us--you're a newcomer. You've only been a year or so +in the place ... and this concerns only men of the Ridge, who stand +by the Ridge ways of doing things.... Michael's here to be judged +by his mates ... not by you and your sort.... If you'd the brain +of a louse, you'd understand--this isn't a question of law, but of +principle--honour, if you like to call it that." + +"Does the meeting consider the question answered?" George Woods inquired +when Bill Grant sat down. + +"Yes!" + +A chorus of voices intoned the answer. + +"If you believe Michael's story, there's nothing more to be said," +George continued. "Does any man want to ask Michael a question?" + +No one replied for a moment. Then M'Ginnis exclaimed incoherently. + +"Shut up!" + +"Sit down!" + +Men cried out all over the hall. + +"That's all, I think, Michael," George said, looking down to where +Michael sat before the platform; and Michael, pulling his hat further +over his eyes, went out of the hall. + +It was the custom for men of the Ridge to talk over the subject of their +inquiry together after the man or men with whom the meeting was +concerned had left the hall, before giving their verdict. + +When Michael had gone, George Woods said: + +"The boys would like to hear what you've got to say, I think, Archie." + +He looked at Archie Cross. "You and Michael haven't been seein' eye to +eye lately, and if there's any other side in this business, it's the +side that lost confidence in Michael when we were fed-up with all that +whispering. You know Michael, and you're a good Ridge man, though you +were ready to take on Armitage's scheme. The boys'd like to hear what +you've got to say, I'm sure." + +Archie Cross stood up; he rolled his hat in his hands. His face, hacked +out of a piece of dull flesh, sun-reddened, moved convulsively; his hair +was roughed-up from it; his small, sombre eyes went with straight +lightnings to the men in the hall about him. + +"It's true--what George says," he said after a pause, as if it were +difficult for him to express his thought. "I haven't been seein' eye to +eye with Michael lately ... and I listened to all the dirty gossip that +mob"--he glanced towards M'Ginnis and the men with him--"put round about +him. It was part that ... and part listening to their talk about money +invested here making all the difference to Fallen Star ... and the +children growing up ... and gettin' scared and worried about seein' them +through ... made me go agin you boys lately, and let that lot get hold +of me.... But this business about Michael's shown me where I am. +Michael's stood for one thing all through--the Ridge and the hanging on +to the mines for us.... He's been a better Ridge man than I have.... And +I want to say ... as far as I'm concerned, Michael's proved himself.... +I don't reck'n hanging on to opals was anything ... no more does Ted. +It's the sort of thing a chap like Michael'd do absent-minded ... not +noticin' what he was doin'; but when he did notice--and got scared +thinkin' where he was gettin' to, and what it might look like, he +couldn't get rid of 'em quick, enough. That's what I think, and that's +what Ted thinks, too. He hasn't got the gift of the gab, Ted, or he'd +say so himself.... If there's goin' to be opposition to Michael, it's +not comin' from us.... And we've made up our minds we stand by the +Ridge." + +"Good old Archie!" somebody shouted. + +"What have you got to say, Roy?" George Woods faced his secretary who +had been scratching diligently throughout the meeting. "You've been more +with the M'Ginnis lot, too, than with us, lately." + +Roy flushed and sprang to his feet. + +"I'm in the same boat with Archie and Ted," he said. "Except about the +family ... mine isn't so big yet as it might be. But it's a fact, I +funked, not having had much luck lately.... But if ever I go back on the +Ridge again ... may the lot of you go back on me." + +Exclamations of approbation and goodwill reverberated as Roy subsided +into his chair again. + +"That's all there is to be said on the subject, I think," George Woods +remarked. + +"Michael wanted his mates to know what he had done--and why he had done +it. He's asked for judgment from his mates.... If he'd wanted to go back +on us he could have done it; he could have done it quite easy. Armitage +would have shut up on his suspicions about the stones. Charley could +have been bought. Michael need never 've faced all this as far as I can +see ... but he decided to face it rather than give up all we've been +fightin' for here. He'd rather take all the dirt we care to sling at him +than anything they could give him ... and that's why M'Ginnis has been +up against him like he has. Michael has queered his pitch, and most of +us have a notion that M'Ginnis has been here to do Armitage's work ... +work up discontent and ill-feeling amongst us, and split our ranks; and +he came very near doing it. If Michael hadn't 've stood by us, like he's +always done, we'd have the Armitage Syndicate on our backs by now." + +"To tell you the truth, boys," George went on, after a moment's +hesitation, and then as if the impulse to speak a secret thought were +too strong for him, "I've always thought Michael was too good. And if +those stones did get hold of him for a couple of weeks, like he says, +all it proves, as far as I can see, is that Michael isn't any plaster +saint, but a man like the rest of us." + +"That's right!" Watty called, and several men shouted after him. + +Pony-Fence moved out from the crowd he was sitting with. + +"I vote this meeting records a motion of confidence in Michael Brady," +he said. "And when we call Michael in again we'd ought to make it clear +to him ... that so far from its being a question of not having as much +confidence in him as we had before--we've got more. Michael's stood by +his mates if ever a man did.... He's come to us ... he's given himself +up to us. He'll stand by what we say or do about him. And what are we +goin' to do? Are we goin' to turn him down ... read him a bit of a +lecture and tell him to go home and be a good boy and not do it another +time ... or are we going to let him know once and for all what we think +of him?" + +Exclamations of agreement went up in a rabble of voices. + +Bully Bryant rose from one of the back forms with a grin which +illuminated the building. + +"I'll second that motion," he said, pushing back the sleeve on his left +arm. "And his own mother won't know the man who says a word against +it--when I've done with him." + +Watty was sent to bring Michael back to the meeting. They walked to the +end of the hall together; and George Woods told Michael as quietly as he +could for his own agitation, and the joy which, welling in him, impeded +his speech, that men of the Ridge found nothing to censure in what he +had done. His mates believed in him; they stood by him. They were +prepared to stand by him as he had stood by the Ridge always. The +meeting wished to record a vote of confidence.... + +Cheers roared to the roof. Michael, shaken by the storm of his emotion +and gratitude, stood before the crowd in the hall with bowed head. When +the storm was quieter in him, he lifted his head and looked out to the +men, his eyes shining with tears. + +He could not speak; old mates closed round to shake hands with him +before the meeting broke up. Every man grasped and wrung his hand, +saying: + +"Good luck! Good luck to you, Michael!" Or just grasped his hand and +smiled with that assurance of fellowship and goodwill which meant more +to Michael than anything else in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +It was one of those clear days of late spring, the sky exquisitely blue, +the cuckoos calling, the paper daisies in blossom, their fragrance in +the air; they lay across the plains, through the herbage, white to the +dim, circling horizon. + +Horses and vehicles were tied up outside the grey palings of the +cemetery on the Warria road. All the horses and shabby, or new and +brightly-painted carts, sulkies, and buggies of Fallen Star and the +Three Mile were there; and buggies from Warria, Langi-Eumina, and the +river stations as well. Saddle horses, ranged along one side of the +fence, reins over the stakes, whinnied and snapped at each other. + +The crowd of people standing in the tall grass and herbage on the other +side of the fence was just breaking up when Sophie and Potch appeared, +coming over the plains from the direction of the tank paddock, Sophie +riding the chestnut Arthur Henty had left behind her house, and Potch +walking beside the horse's head. Sophie had been gathering Darling pea, +and had a great sheaf in one hand. Potch was carrying some, too: he had +picked up the flowers Sophie let fall, and had a little bunch of them. +She was riding astride and gazing before her, her eyes wide with a +vision beyond the distant horizon. The wind, a light breeze breathing +now and then, blew her hair out in wisps from her bare head. + +All the men of Warria were in the sombre crowd in the cemetery. Old +Henty, red-eyed and broken by the end of his only son, whom he found he +had cared for now that he was dead; the stockmen, boundary-riders, +servants, fencers, shearers from Darrawingee sheds who, a few weeks +before had been on the Warria board, and men from other stations near +enough to have heard of Arthur Henty's death. None of the Henty women +were there; but women of the Ridge, who were accustomed to pay last +respects as their menfolk did, were with their husbands as usual. They +would have thought it unnatural and unkind not to follow Arthur Henty to +his resting-place; not to go as friends would to say good-bye to a +friend who is making a long journey. And there was more than the +ordinary reason for being present at Arthur Henty's funeral. He was +leaving them under a cloud, circumstances which might be interpreted +unkindly, and it was necessary to be present to express sympathy with +him and sorrow at his going. That was the way they regarded it. + +Martha had driven with Sam Nancarrow, as she always did to functions of +the sort. No one remembered having seen Martha take a thing so to heart +as she did Arthur Henty's death. She was utterly shaken by it, and could +not restrain her tears. They coursed down her cheeks all the time she +was in that quiet place on the plains; her great, motherly bosom rose +and fell with the tide of her grief. She tried to subdue it, but every +now and then the sound of her crying could be heard, and in the end Sam +took her, sobbing uncontrollably, back to his buggy. + +People knew she had seen further into the cause of Arthur Henty's death +than they had, and they understood that was why she Was so upset. +Besides, Martha had always confessed to a soft corner for Arthur Henty: +she had been with his mother when he was born, had nursed him during a +hot summer and through several slight illnesses since then. And Arthur +had been fond of her too. He had always called her Mother M'Cready as +the Ridge folk did. Old Mr. Henty had driven over to see Martha the +night before, to hear all she knew of what had happened, and Ridge folk +had gathered something of the story from her broken exclamations and the +reproaches with which she covered herself. + +She cried out over and over again that she could not have believed +Arthur would shoot himself--that he was the sort of man to do such a +thing--and blamed herself for not having foreseen what had occurred. She +had never seen him like he was that night--so strong, so much a man, so +full of life and love for Sophie. He had begged Sophie to go with him as +though his life depended on it--and it had. + +If she had been a woman, and Sophie, and had loved him, Martha said, she +would have had to go with him. She could never have withstood his +pleading.... But Sophie had been good to him; she had been gentle--only +she wouldn't go. Neither Sophie nor she believed, of course, he would do +as he said--but he had. + +Martha could not forgive herself that she had done nothing to soothe or +pacify Arthur; that she had said nothing, given him neither kindly word +nor gesture. But she had been so upset, so carried away. She had not +known what to do or say. She abused and blackguarded herself; but she +had sensed enough of the utter loneliness and darkness of Henty's mind +to realise that most likely she could have done nothing against it. He +would have brushed her aside had she attempted to influence him; he +would not have heard what, she said. She would have been as helpless as +any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly +engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of +pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of +self-defence, as Mother M'Cready saw it, Arthur Henty's end, and that +was all there was to it. + +As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together +in wonderment, awe--almost fear. + +James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking +to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. +Although he would have been the last to forgive Sophie if she had done +as Arthur wished, even to save his life, old Henty had to have a +whipping-post, and he eased his own sense of responsibility for what had +blighted his son's life, by blaming Sophie for it. He assured himself, +his family and friends, that she, and she alone, was responsible for +Arthur's death. She had played with Arthur; she had always played with +him, old Henty said. She had driven him to distraction with her +wiles--and this was the end of it all. + +Sophie rode into the cemetery: she rode to where the broken earth was; +but she did not dismount. The horse came to a standstill beside it, and +she sat on him, her eyes closed. Potch stood bare-headed and bowed +beside her. He put the flowers he had picked up as Sophie let them fall, +on the grave. Sophie thrust the long, purple trails she was carrying +into the saddle-bag where Arthur had put the flowers she gave him that +first day their eyes met and drank the love potion of each others' +being. + +People were already on the road, horses and buggies, dark, ant-like +trains on the flowering plains, moving slowly in the direction of Warria +and of Fallen Star, when Sophie and Potch turned away from the cemetery. + +The shadow of what had happened was heavy over everybody as they drove +home. Arthur Henty had been well enough liked, and he had had much more +to do with Fallen Star than most of the station people. He had gone +about so much with his men they had almost ceased to think of him as not +one of themselves. He was less the "Boss" than any man in the +back-country. They recognised that, and yet he was the "Boss." He had +lived like a half-caste, drifting between two races and belonging to +neither. The people he had been born among cold-shouldered him because +he had acquired the manners and habits of thought of men he lived and +worked with; the men he had lived and worked with distrusted and +disliked in him just those tag-ends of refinement, and odd graces which +belonged to the crowd he had come to them from. + +The station hands, his work-mates--if he had any--had had a slightly +contemptuous feeling for him. They liked him--they were always saying +they liked him--but it was clear they never had any great opinion of +him. As a boy, when he began to work with them, to cover his shyness and +nervousness, he had been silent and boorish; and he had never had the +courage of his opinions--courage for anything, it was suspected. It had +always been hinted that he shirked any jobs where danger was to be +expected. + +The stockmen told each other they would miss him, all the same. They +would miss that wonderful whistling of his from the camp fires; and they +were appalled at what he had done to himself. "The last man," Charley +Este said, "the last man you'd ever 've thought would 've come to that!" +Most of them believed they had misjudged Arthur Henty--that, after, all, +he had had courage of a sort. A man must have courage to blow out his +light, they said. And they were sorry. Every man in the crowd was heavy +with sorrow. + +Ridge people gossiped pitifully, sentimentally, to each other as they +drove home. Most of the women believed in the strength and fidelity of +the old love between Sophie and Arthur Henty. But straight-dealing and +honest themselves, they had no conception of the tricks complex +personalities play each other; they did not understand how two people +who had really cared for each other could have gone so astray from the +natural impulse of their lives. + +They recalled the dance at Warria, and how they had teased Sophie when +they thought she was going to marry Arthur Henty, and how happy and +pleased she had looked about it. How different both their lives would +have been if Sophie and Arthur had been true to that instinct of the +mate for the mate, they reflected; and sighed at the futility of the +thought. They realised in Arthur Henty's drinking and rough ways of +late, all his unhappiness. They imagined that they knew why he had +become the uncouth-looking man he had. They remembered him a slight, shy +youth, with sun-bright, freckled eyes; then a man, lithe, graceful, and +good to look at, with his face a clear, fine bronze, his hair taking a +glint of copper in the sun. When he danced with them at the Ridge balls, +that occasionally flashing, delightful way of his had made them realise +why Sophie was in love with him. They remembered how he had looked at +Sophie; how his eyes had followed her. They had heard of the Warria +dance, and knew Arthur Henty had not behaved well to Sophie at it. They +had been angry at the time. Then Sophie had gone away ... and a little +later he had married. + +His marriage had not been a success. Mrs. Arthur Henty had spent most of +her time in Sydney; she was rarely seen on the Ridge now. So women of +the Ridge, who had known Arthur Henty, went over all they knew of him +until that night at the race ball when he and Sophie had met again. And +then his end in the tank paddock brought them back to exclamations of +dismay and grief at the mystery of it all. + +As she left the cemetery, Sophie began to sing, listlessly, dreamily at +first. No one had heard her sing since her return to the Ridge. But her +voice flew out over the plains, through the wide, clear air now, with +the pure melody it had when she was a girl: + + "Caro nome che il mio cor festi primo palpitar, + Le delizie dell' amor mi dei sempre rammentar! + Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volera, + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sara!" + +Ella Bryant, driving home beside Bully, knew Sophie was singing as she +had sung to Arthur Henty years before, when they were coming home from +the tank paddock together. She wondered why Sophie was riding the horse +Arthur had brought for her; why she had ridden him to the funeral; and +why she was singing that song. + +Sophie sang on: + + "Col pensier il mio desir a te sempre volera, + E fin l'ultimo sospir, caro nome, tuo sara!" + +Looking back, people saw Potch walking beside her as Joseph walked +beside Mary when they went down to Nazareth. + +"It's hard on Potch," somebody said. + +"Yes," it was agreed; "it's hard on Potch." + +The buggies, carts, sulkies, and horsemen moving in opposite directions +on the long, curving road over the plains grew dim in the distance. + +The notes of Sophie's singing, with its undying tenderness triumphing +over life and death, flowed fainter and fainter. + +When she and Potch came to the town again, the light was fading. Through +the green, limpid veil of the sky, stars were glittering; huts of the +township were darkening under the gathering shadow of night. A breath of +sandal-wood burning on kitchen hearths came to Sophie and Potch like a +greeting. The notes of a goat-bell clanking dully sounded from beyond +the dumps. There were lights in a few of the huts; a warm, friendly +murmur of voices went up from them. For weeks troubled and disturbed +thinking, arguments, and conflicting ideas, had created a depressed and +unrestful atmosphere in every home in Fallen Star. But to-night it was +different. The temptations, allurements and debris of Armitage's scheme +had been swept from the minds--even of those who had been ready to +accept it. Hope and pride in the purpose of the Ridge had been restored +by Michael's vindication and by reaffirmation of the principle he and +all staunch men of the Ridge stood for as the mainstay of their life in +common. Thought of Arthur Henty's death, which had oppressed people +during the day, seemed to have been put aside now that they had seen him +laid to rest, and had returned to their homes again. + +Voices were heard exclaiming with the light cadence and rhythm of joy. +The crisis which had come near to shattering the Ridge scheme of things, +and all that it stood for, had ended by drawing dissenting factions of +the community into closer sympathy and more intimate relationship. In +everybody's mind were the hope and enthusiasm of a new endeavour. As +they went through the town again, neither Sophie nor Potch were +conscious of them for the sorrow which had soaked into their lives. But +these things were in the air they breathed, and sooner or later would +claim them from all personal suffering; faith and loving service fill +all their future--the long twilight of their days. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK OPAL*** + + +******* This file should be named 36710.txt or 36710.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/7/1/36710 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/36710.zip b/36710.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..48202ec --- /dev/null +++ b/36710.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b40a4ce --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #36710 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36710) |