Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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She wouldn't fail us, we were dead sure. She had suffered a lot
by him and us too; but, like most women, the very moment anything happened
to any of us, even to dad, everything flew out of her head,
except that we were sick or sorry and wanted her help. Help, of course;
wasn't she willing to give that, and her rest and comfort,
health, even life itself, to wear herself out, hand and foot,
for any one of her own family?

So poor Aileen made her way up all alone to the old scrub stockyard.
Jim and I had ridden up to it pretty early (he wouldn't stop behind)
with a nice, well-bred little horse that had shone a bit at country races
for her to ride on. We waited there a goodish while, we lying down
and our horses hung up not far off for fear we might be `jumped' by the police
at any time.

At last we sees the old pony's head coming bobbing along through the scrub
along the worn-out cattle track, grown up as it was, and sure enough
there was Aileen on him, with her gray riding skirt and an old felt hat on.
She'd nothing with her; she was afraid to bring a ha'porth of clothes
or anything for fear they should any of 'em tumble that she was going
a long way, and, perhaps, follow her up. So she had to hand that over
to Warrigal, and trust to him to bring it on some way or other.
We saw her before she saw us, and Jim gave a whistle just as he used to do
when he was coming home late at night. She knew it at once, and a smile
for a minute came over her pale face; such a sad sort of one it was too,
as if she was wondering at herself that she could feel that pleased
at anything.

Whatever thoughts was in her mind, she roused up the old pony,
and came towards us quick as soon as she catches sight of us.
In two seconds Jim had lifted her down in his strong arms,
and was holding her off the ground and hugging her as if she'd been a child.
How the tears ran down her cheeks, though all the time she was kissing him
with her arms round his neck; and me too, when I came up,
just as if we were boys and girls again.

After a bit she wiped her eyes, and said --

`How's father?'

`Very bad,' I said; `off his head, and raving. It'll be
a close thing with him. Here's your horse now, and a good one too.
We must let the old pony go; he'll make home fast enough.'

She patted his neck and we turned him loose. He slued round
and went away steady, picking a bit as he went. He'd be home next day
easy enough, and nobody the wiser where he'd been to.

We'd brought a bit to eat and a glass of wine for the girl
in case she was faint, but she wouldn't take anything
but a crust of bread and a drink of water. There was a spring
that ran all the year round near the cattle-yard; and off went we,
old Lieutenant holding up his head and showing himself off.
He didn't get such a rider on his back every day.

`What a dear horse,' she said, as she pulled him together a bit like
and settled herself fair and square in the saddle. `Oh, how I could
enjoy all this if -- if ---- O my God! shall we ever know
a moment's peace and happiness in this world again? Are we always to be sunk
in wretchedness and misery as long as we live?'

We didn't lose much time after that, you be sure. Up and down,
thick and open, rough or smooth, we made the pace good,
and Aileen gave us all we knew to keep ahead of her. We had a good light
when we got to the drop down into the Hollow. The sun was just setting,
and if we'd had time or thought to give to the looks of things,
no doubt it was a grand sight.

All the Hollow was lighted up, and looked like a green sea
with islands of trees in it. The rock towers on the other side of the range
were shining and glittering like as if they were made of crystallised
quartz or diamonds -- red and white. There was a sort of mist
creeping up the valley at the lower end under the mountain
that began to soften the fire colours, and mix them up like.
Even the mountain, that mostly looked black and dreary, frowning at our ways,
was of purple and gold, with pale shadows of green and gray.

Aileen pulled up as we did, and jumped off our horses.

`So this is the Hollow,' she said, half talking to herself,
`that I've heard and thought so much about. What a lovely, lovely place!
Surely it ought to have a different effect on the people that lived there.'

`Better come off, Ailie, and lead your horse down here,' says Jim,
`unless you want to ride down, like Starlight did, the first time we saw him.'

`Starlight! is he here?' she said, in a surprised sort of way.
`I never thought of that.'

`Of course he is; where else should he be? Why don't you lead on, Dick?'

`Won't you get off? It's not altogether safe,' I said,
`though Lieutenant's all right on his old pins.'

`Safe!' she said, with a bitter sort of laugh. `What does it matter
if a Marston girl does break her neck, or her heart either?'

She never said another word, but sat upright with a set face on her,
as the old horse picked his way down after ours, and except
when he put his foot on a rolling stone, never made a slip or a stumble
all the way down, though it was like going down the side of a house.

When we got to the valley we put on a spurt to the cave, and found Warrigal
sitting on the log in front of us. He'd got home first, of course,
and there was Aileen's bundle, a biggish one too, alongside of him.
We could hear father raving and screaming out inside dreadful.
Starlight wasn't nigh hand anywhere. He had walked off when Warrigal
came home, and left him to watch the old man.

`He been like that all the time, Warrigal?'

`No! Captain say big one sleep. Him give him medicine like;
then wake up and go on likit that. I believe him bad along a cobra.'

Aileen had jumped off her horse and gone in to the old man
the moment we came up and she heard his voice.

All that long night we could hear him talking to himself,
groaning, cursing, shouting, arguing. It was wonderful how a man
who talked so little as father could have had so many thoughts in his mind.
But then they all are boxed up together in every man's heart.
At a time like this they come racing and tumbling out
like a flock of sheep out of a yard when the hurdle's down.
What a dashed queer thing human nature is when you come to think of it.
That a man should be able to keep his tongue quiet, and shut the door on
all the sounds and images and wishes that goes racing about inside of his mind
like wild horses in a paddock!

One day he'll be smiling and sensible, looking so honest all the time.
Next day a knock on the head or a little vein goes crack in the brain
(as the doctor told me); then the rails are down, and everything comes out
with a rush into the light of day -- right and wrong, foul and fair,
station brands and clearskins, it don't make no difference.

Father was always one of the closest men that ever lived.
He never told us much about his old life at home or after he came out here.
Now he was letting drop things here and there that helped us to a few secrets
he'd never told to no man. They made poor Aileen a bit more miserable
than she'd been before, if that was possible; but it didn't matter much to us.
We were pretty tired ourselves that night, and so we got Aileen
all she wanted, and left her alone with him.

While we were away to meet her some one had taken the trouble
to put up a bit of a partition, separating that part of the cave
from the other; it was built up of stone -- there was plenty about --
and not so roughly done either. It made Aileen feel a lot more comfortable.
Of course there was only one man who could have done it;
and that was Starlight.

Chapter 39

Towards morning father went into a heavy sleep; he didn't wake
till the afternoon. Poor Aileen was able to get a doze and change her dress.
After breakfast, while we were having a bit of a chat, in walks Starlight.
He bowed to Aileen quite respectful, as he always did to a woman,
and then shook hands with her.

`Welcome to the Hollow, Miss Marston,' he said. `I can't say how charmed I am
in one sense, though I regret the necessity which brought you here.'

`I'm glad to come, and only for poor father's being so bad
I could delight in the life here.'

`How do you find your father?'

`He is asleep now, and perhaps the rest will do him good.'

`He may awake free from fever,' says Starlight. `I took the risk
of giving him an opiate before you came, and I think the result
has been favourable.'

`Oh! I hope he will be better when he wakes,' says Aileen,
`and that I shall not have to watch through another dreadful night of raving.
I can hardly bear it.'

`You must make your brothers take their share; it's not fair to you.'

`Thank you; but I feel as if I couldn't leave him to anybody but myself.
He seems so weak now; a little neglect might kill him.'

`Pardon me, Miss Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend upon it,
your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week,
though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered.
You don't know what a constitution he has.'

`You have given me fresh hope,' she said. `I feel quite cheered up --
that is' (and she sighed) `if I could be cheerful again about anything.'

Here she walked into the cave and sat down by father to watch till he awoke,
and we all went out about our daily work, whatever it was --
nothing very wonderful, I daresay, but it kept us from thinking.

Starlight was right. As luck would have it, father woke up a deal better
than when he laid down. The fever had gone away, his head was right again,
and he began to ask for something to eat -- leastways to drink, first.
But Aileen wouldn't give him any of that, and very little to eat.
Starlight had told her what to do in case he wanted what wasn't good for him,
and as she was pretty middling obstinate, like himself, she took her own ways.

After this he began to get right; it wasn't easy to kill old dad.
He seemed to be put together with wire and whip-cord;
not made of flesh and blood like other men. I don't wonder
old England's done so much and gone so far with her soldiers and sailors
if they was bred like him. It's my notion if they was caught young,
kept well under command, and led by men they respected,
a regiment or a man-of-war's crew like him would knock smoke
out of any other thousand men the world could put up. More's the pity
there ain't some better way of keeping 'em straight than there is.

He was weak for a bit -- very weak; he'd lost a deal of blood;
and, try how he would, he couldn't stand up long at a time,
and had to give in and lie down in spite of himself. It fretted him a deal,
of course; he'd never been on his back before, and he couldn't put up with it.
Then his temper began to show again, and Aileen had a deal
to bear and put up with.

We'd got a few books, and there was the papers, of course, so she used to
read to him by the hour together. He was very fond of hearing about things,
and, like a good many men that can't read and write, he was clever enough
in his own way. When she'd done all the newspapers -- they were old ones
(we took care not to get any fresh ones, for fear she'd see about
Hagan and the others) -- she used to read about battles and sea-fights to him;
he cared about them more than anything, and one night,
after her reading to him about the battle of Trafalgar, he turned round to her
and says, `I ought to have been in that packet, Ailie, my girl.
I was near going for a sailor once, on board a man-o'-war, too.
I tried twice to get away to sea, that was before I'd snared my first hare,
and something stopped me both times. Once I was fetched back and flogged,
and pretty nigh starved. I never did no good afterwards.
But it's came acrost me many and many a time that I'd been
a different sort o' chap if I'd had my will then. I was allays fond o' work,
and there couldn't be too much fightin' for me; so a man-o'-war in those days
would have been just the thing to straighten me. That was the best chance
I ever had. Well, I don't say as I haven't had others --
plenty in this country, and good ones too; but it was too late -- I'd got set.
When a man's young, that's the time he can be turned right way or wrong.
It's none so easy afterwards.'

He went to sleep then, and Aileen said that was the only time
he ever spoke to her in that way. We never heard him talk like that,
nor nobody else, I expect.

If we could have got some things out of our heads, that was
the pleasantest time ever we spent in the Hollow. After father
could be left by himself for a few hours we got out the horses,
and used to take Aileen out for long rides all over the place, from one end
to the other. It did her good, and we went to every hole and corner in it.
She was never tired of looking at the great rock towers,
as we used to call 'em, where the sandstone walls hung over,
just like the pictures of castles, till, Starlight said, in the evenings
you could fancy you saw flags waving and sentinels walking up and down
on them.

One afternoon we went out to the place where the old hermit
had lived and died. We walked over his old garden, and talked about
the box we'd dug up, and all the rest of it. Starlight came with us,
and he persuaded Aileen to ride Rainbow that day, and, my word,
they made a splendid pair.

She'd dressed herself up that afternoon just a little bit more than common,
poor thing, and put a bit of pink ribbon on and trimmed up her hat,
and looked as if she began to see a little more interest in things.
It didn't take much to make her look nice, particularly on horseback.
Her habit fitted her out and out, and she had the sort of figure that,
when a girl can ride well, and you see her swaying, graceful and easy-like,
to every motion of a spirited horse, makes you think her handsomer
than any woman can look on the ground. We rode pretty fast always,
and it brought a bit of colour to her face. The old horse
got pulling and prancing a bit, though he was that fine-tempered
he'd carry a child almost, and Jim and I thought we hadn't seen her
look like herself before this for years past.

It was a beautiful warm evening, though summer was over,
and we were getting into the cold nights and sharp mornings again,
just before the regular winter weather. There was going to be a change,
and there were a few clouds coming up from the north-west; but for all that
it had been quite like a spring day. The turf on all the flats in the Hollow
was splendid and sound. The grass had never been cut up
with too heavy stocking (which ruins half the country, I believe),
and there was a good thick undergrowth underneath. We had two or three
little creeks to cross, and they were pretty full, except at
the crossing places, and rippled over the stones and sparkled in the sun
like the brooks we'd heard tell of in the old country. Everything was
so quiet, and bright and happy-looking, that we could hardly fancy
we were the men we were; and that all this wild work had been going on
outside of the valley that looked so peaceful and innocent.

There was Starlight riding alongside of Aileen on his second-best horse,
and he was no commoner either (though he didn't come up to Rainbow,
nor no other horse I ever saw), talking away in his pleasant, easy-going way.
You'd think he hadn't got a thing to trouble him in the world.
She, for a wonder, was smiling, and seemed to be enjoying herself
for once in a way, with the old horse arching his neck,
and spinning along under her as light as a greyhound, and as smooth as oil.
It was something like a pleasant ride. I never forgot that evening,
and I never shall.

We rode up to the ruined hut of the solitary man who had lived there so long,
and watched the sun go down so often behind the rock towers
from his seat under the big peach tree.

`What a wonderful thing to think of!' Aileen says, as she slipped down
off her side-saddle.

We dismounted, too, and hung up our horses.

`Only to think that he was living here before we were born, or father came
to Rocky Flat. Oh! if we could have come here when we were little
how we should have enjoyed it! It would have seemed fairyland to us.'

`It always astonishes me,' said Starlight, `how any human being
can consent to live, year after year, the same life in the same place.
I should go mad half-a-dozen times over. Change and adventure
are the very breath of my nostrils.'

`He had the memory of his dead wife to keep him,' said Aileen.
`Her spirit soothed the restless heart that would have wandered
far into the wilds again.'

`It may be so,' said Starlight dreamily. `I have known no such influences.
An outlaw I, by forest laws, almost since the days of my boyhood,
I shall be so till the day of my death,' he added.

`If I were a man I should go everywhere,' said Aileen,
her eyes sparkling and her face regular lighted up.
`I have never been anywhere or seen anything, hardly so much as a church,
a soldier, a shop-window, or the sea, begging his pardon for putting him last.
But oh! what a splendid thing to be rich; no, not that altogether,
but to be able to go wherever you liked, and have enough not to be troubled
about money.'

`To be free, and have a mind at ease; it doesn't seem so much,'
said Starlight, talking almost to himself; `and yet how we fools and madmen
shut ourselves out of it for ever, for ever, sometimes by
a single act of folly, hardly crime. That comes after.'

`The sun is going down behind the great rock tower,' Aileen says,
as if she hadn't heard him. Perhaps she didn't. When people have
a lot on their minds they're half their time thinking their own thoughts.
`How all the lovely colours are fading away. Life seems so much like that --
a little brightness, then gray twilight, night and darkness so soon after.'

`Now and then there's a star; you must admit that, Miss Marston,' says he,
cheerful and pleasant again; he was never down for long at a time.
`And there's that much-abused luminary, the moon; you'll see her
before we get home. We're her sworn votaries and worshippers, you know.'

We had to ride a bit to get home with any kind of light,
for we didn't want father to be growling or kicking up a row with Warrigal
that we left to look after him. But a few miles didn't matter much
on such a road, and with horses in such buckle as ours.

The stars came out after a while, and the sky was that clear, without a cloud
in it, that it was a better light to ride by than the moon throws.
Jim and I sometimes rode on one side and sometimes the other; but there was
old Rainbow always in the lead, playing with his bit and arching his neck,
and going with Aileen's light weight on him as if he could go on all night
at the same pace and think nothing of it; and I believe he could.

When we got home dad was grumpy, and wondered what we wanted
riding the horses about when there was nothing to do and nothing to see.
But Warrigal had made him a pot of tea, and he was able to smoke now;
so he wasn't so bad after all. We made ourselves pretty comfortable
-- Aileen said she'd got a good appetite, for a wonder --
and we sat chatting round the fire and talking away quite like old days
till the moon was pretty high.

Father didn't get well all at once. He went back twice because he would try
to do too much, and wouldn't be said by Starlight or Aileen either when
he took a thing into his head; then he'd have to be nursed and looked after
day and night again just the same as ever. So it took near a month
before he was regularly on his pins again, and going about as he did
before he was hit. His right arm was a bit stiff, too;
it used to pain and make him swear awful now and again.
Anyhow, Aileen made us that comfortable and happy while she was there,
we didn't care how long he took getting well.

Those were out and out the pleasantest days we ever spent in the Hollow --
the best time almost Jim and I had had since we were boys. Nearly every day
we rode out in the afternoon, and there wasn't a hole or corner,
a spring or a creek inside the walls of the old Hollow
that we didn't show Aileen. She was that sort of girl she took
an interest in everything; she began to know all the horses and cattle
as well as we did ourselves. Rainbow was regular given up to her,
and the old horse after a bit knew her as well as his master.
I never seen a decent horse that didn't like to have a woman on his back;
that is, if she was young and lissom and could ride a bit. They seem to know,
in a sort of way. I've seen horses that were no chop for a man to ride,
and that wouldn't be particular about bucking you off if the least thing
started them, but went as quiet as mice with a girl on their backs.

So Aileen used to make Rainbow walk and amble his best,
so that all the rest of us, when she did it for fun, had to jog.
Then she'd jump him over logs or the little trickling deep creeks
that ran down to the main water; or she'd pretend to have a race
and go off full gallop, riding him at his best for a quarter of a mile;
then he'd pull up as easy as if he'd never gone out of a walk.

`How strange all this is,' she said one day; `I feel as if I were living
on an island. It's quite like playing at "Robinson Crusoe",
only there's no sea. We don't seem to be able to get out all the same.
It's a happy, peaceful life, too. Why can't we keep on for ever like this,
and shut out the wicked, sorrowful world altogether?'

`Quite of your opinion, Miss Marston; why should we ever change?'
says Starlight, who was sitting down with the rest of us by the side
of our biggest river. We had been fishing all the afternoon and done well.
`Let us go home no more; I am quite contented. But what about poor Jim?
He looks sadder every day.'

`He is fretting for his wife, poor fellow, and I don't wonder.
You are one of those natures that never change, Jim; and if you don't
get away soon, or see some chance of rejoining her, you will die.
How you are to do it I don't know.'

`I am bound to make a try next month,' says Jim. `If I don't do
something towards it I shall go mad.'

`You could not do a wiser thing,' says Starlight, `in one way,
or more foolish thing in another. Meantime, why should we not make the best
of the pleasant surroundings with which Nature provides us here --
green turf, sparkling water, good sport, and how bright a day!
Could we be more favoured by Fortune, slippery dame that she is?
It is an Australian Decameron without the naughty stories.'

`Do you know, sometimes I really think I am enjoying myself,' said Aileen,
half to herself, `and then I feel that it must be a dream.
Such dreadful things are waiting for me -- for us all.'
Then she shuddered and trembled.

She did not know the most dreadful thing of all yet. We had carefully
kept it from her. We chanced its not reaching her ears until after she had
got home safe and had time to grieve over it all by herself.

We had a kind of feeling somehow that us four might never meet again
in the same way, or be able to enjoy one another's company for a month,
without fear of interruption, again, as long as we lived.

So we all made up our minds, in spite of the shadow of evil
that would crawl up now and then, to enjoy each other's company
while it lasted, and make the best of it.

Starlight for all that seemed altered like, and every now and then
he'd go off with Warrigal and stay away from daylight to dark.
When he did come he'd sit for hours with his hands before him and never say
a word to any one. I saw Aileen watch him when he looked like that,
not that she ever said anything, but pretended to take it
as a matter of course.

Other times he'd be just as much the other way. He'd read to her,
and he had a good many books, poetry, and all kinds of things stowed away
in the part of the cave he called his own. And he'd talk about
other countries that he'd been in, and the strange people he'd seen,
by the hour together, while she would sit listening and looking at him,
hardly saying a thing, and regular bound up in his words.
And he could talk once he was set agoing. I never saw a man
that could come up to him.

Aileen wasn't one of those sort of girls that took a fancy
to any good-looking sort of fellow that came across her. Quite the other way.
She seemed to think so little about it that Jim and I always used to say
she'd be an old maid, and never marry at all. And she used to say
she didn't think she ever would. She never seemed to trouble her head
about the thing at all, but I always knew that if ever she did set her fancy
upon a man, and take a liking to him, it would not be for a year or two,
but for ever. Though she'd mother's good heart and softness about her,
she'd a dash of dad's obstinacy in her blood, and once she made up her mind
about anything she wasn't easy turned.

Jim and I could see clear enough that she was taking to Starlight;
but then so many women had done that, had fallen in love with him
and had to fall out again -- as far as we could see.
He used to treat them all alike -- very kind and respectful,
but like a lot of children. What was the use of a wife to him?
`No,' he said, once or twice, `I can bear my fate, because my blood
does not run in the veins of a living soul in Australia. If it were otherwise
I could not bear my reflections. As it is, the revolver has more than once
nearly been asked to do me last service.'