The Crooked Stick

e highest qualifications, at the most liberal salaries. Her talents for music and drawing had been highly cultivated. For the last three years of her educational term she had resided in Sy

able her, in days to come, either to perfect herself in the language by conversation or to

these rare advantages, whereas at times she was discontented with her lot in life, and professed her desire for change-which was a clear indication that she was spoiled by overindulgence, and did not know what was for her real good. That her mother, poor Mrs. Devereux, ought to have been more strict with her. These well-intentioned critics were not so far astray on general principles. They, however, omitted conside

es it seem possible for the Attila or the Tamerlane, the Semiramis or the Cleopatra of the period to escape the destiny that accompanies the birthright, whether it be empire or martyrdom, the

u

e sun tu

stars

of the Judgme

eur of heaven's own wind-harp. The 'Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood' remains not in the stern world of facts the patient hind, the brow-beaten servitor. He leads armies and sways nations. To the soldier of fortune, wh

in the rough. The red gold-fire burns in the darksome mine. Pollie Devereux, her admirers asserted, would have ruled her monde had she been born a nursery-maid or an orange-girl. Her beauty, h

woe with unsuspicious mankind. In a general way this young woman's unrest and disapproval of her environments merely took the form of a settled determination to explore the wondrous capitals, the brilliant societies, the glory and splendour of the Old World-to roam through that fairy-land of which from her very childhood she had eagerly read the legends,

f which she had read and dreamed, to see with her eyes, to hear with her ears, the sights and sounds of far lands, grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength. As the months, the years rol

qually true that there are women set apart by original birthright as clearly distinct from the tame tribes of conventional captives. But

early years, fleeted by; a too peaceful, undisturbed period had arrived. Another morning broke clear and bright, as free from c

right, dismal, destructive weather? I never realised how cruel the sun could be before. As a child I was so fond of him, too, the king of light and warmth, of joy and gladness. But that is only in green-grass countries. Here he is a pitiless tyrant. How I should delight in Europe to be sure, with ever-changing cloud and mist, even storm! I am aweary, aweary. I have half a mind to ride out and meet the coach at Pine Ridge-I feel too impatient to sit in the house all day. What

er to inaction, Pollie's light form might have been seen threading the garden paths; after which she even ventured as far as the great range of stabling near the corner of the other farm buildings. Here s

hat question. Russell himself knows no more than we do, I believe. What I really want to

nowing what may happen in a dry year. Very well he looks too, considering. You'll find him in his box. We'

I knew you'd look after him, and I wasn't m

hat a little thing you was, too, when I first know'd you; and what a grand girl you've grow'd into! I hope you'll be as happy as you deserve. You've a

r slender palm. 'I feel quite wicked whenever I feel discontented. I ought to be the happiest girl in Australia. Perhaps I shall be when I'm older a

e that stood there munching his morning meal of chaff and maize with an appetite sharpened by wee

n after the trials of so hard a season. 'And your dear old legs look as clean as ever! Was it starved and ill-treated in that nasty bare paddock? Never mind, there's a load of c

looked at the speaker with his mild, intelligent eyes, and then waving his head to

ks. The birds were silent; even the flies held truce in the darkened rooms-there was a deathlike absence of sound or motion. Hot, breezeless, unutterably lifeless, and for all less vigorous natures relaxing and depressing, was the atmosphere. To this girl, however, had come by inheritance, u

carpet to footstool, the while the elder woman sat patiently se

gusset

gusset

oors much longer. I feel apoplexy coming on, or heart disease, I'm sure. Besides, t

ly too hot to go out y

'll ride as far as the Mogil Mogil clump; you can send little Tarpo

tead was still and solitary of aspect, as a Mexican hacienda at the hour of the siesta, but for a different reason. Hot and wearisome a

ummer, no man, being of British birth or extraction, thinks of intermitting his dail

e watering-places, from which it was their duty to extricate the feeble sheep. No one was at home but a small native boy named Tarpot, with whose assistance Pollie managed to saddle her loved steed. Leaving injunctions with him to follow her as soon as he should have brought up the cows, she turned her horse's head t

un a race with the fabled coursers of that sun now slowly trailing blood-red banners and purple raiment towards his western couch. Mile after mile was passed in a species of ecstatic eagerness, which for steed and rider seemed to know no abatement. The homestead faded far behind them, and still nothing met the view but the

mustn't send along the poor old fellow so fast; he's not quite in form yet. I shall be there before the coach passes, an

ion was again roused within her. She sat upon her horse and looked wistfully, wearily over the arid drought-stricken levels. She marked the sand pillars, whirling and eddying in the distance. They seemed to her fanciful imagination the embodied spirits of the waste-the evil genii of the Eastern tale, which might at any time, unfolding, dis

ut with aimless automatic movements, or frantic struggles against the prison bars of fate? Oh! had my father not been cut off in his prime, in what a different position we should have been! We could ha

nging its bi-weekly freight of letters, newspapers, and passengers, had approached the clump of wild orange trees, on the edge of which she had reined her steed. The sens

st the spot, and revealed the unwonted apparition to the gaze of the passengers, male and female, who, from the fixed attention they appeared to bestow upon her, were much interested in the situation. Apparently the yo

fine horse too-good across country, I should say. Not a bushrang

querist in Britain, 'That's the squire's daughter.' 'She came up here to see if the coach was coming; we're past our time,

thrown her,' asked the inqu

these parts anyway. She can ride anything that you can lift her on; and she's

ense fee were the only obligatory conditions encumbering the sovereign right to use, say, half a million acres of pastoral land, th

ith the view to being mutually handy in case of a sudden call to arms when the blacks were 'bad.' More than once on either side the

hout for joy when Harold's pony came galloping up to the garden gate. He had watched the child grow into a tall slip of a girl, with masses of bright hair, never very neatly braided. He had seen the unformed girl ripen into a beautiful maiden, an enchanting mixture to his eye of much of the old darin

uined, his life blasted, because of the beautiful Miss Wharton, with her pale face, raven hair, and haunting eyes, who wouldn't have him. He broke his heart over again shamelessly within six months, after unsuccessful devo

ture there was but one sequel possible after the deliberate choice of youth had been ratified by the calm reason of manhood. If fate denied him this happiness, all too perfect for this world-the unearthly, unutterable bliss which her love would confer-there should be no counterfeit presentment, no mocking travesty of the heart's lost illusions. He had rightly judged that as yet the girl's feeling for him was th

moral suasion which he knew Mrs. Devereux gently exercised. And she had told him that he was the one man

d. I can trace her father's tameless soul in her. Poor Pollie! it's a thousand pities that she was not born a

yes that I have never seen her equal, and indeed hardly imagined such a creation. She will pass through the unsettled time of girlhood in another

ke a brother. You have seen too much of each other. Women's fancies are caught by the unknown, the unfamiliar: we are all alike. I wish I could he

oung man, as his face grew hard. 'No,

peed a mile on the hither side of the Corindah gate, it was with some surprise that Pollie descried a strange four-in-hand converging from another point. Wanderer pricked up his ears, while his

think. Such well-bred ones too! I can see the leaders tossing their heads-a grey and a bay. I can't make out the wheelers for the dust. No! Yes! Now I know who it is. Oh, what fun! I beg his pardon. Of course it's Jack Charteris. He said he was going to town. Poor Jack! I wish I was going

nge with a fixed expectation that some one might see and admire him, he was disappointed to observe no one but Mr. G

Corindah? Sad effects of a dry season and overstocking, eh? No rouse-abouts, no boundary riders, no new chums, no nobody? Family gone away too? I'm not going to ruin

the team, so that the new-comer, who had uttered the preceding remarks, exclamations, and inquiries i

well-bred, well-matched, and well-conditioned team, never intermitting a flow of bad

two feller poler. Tie 'em up long a post, that one yarraman, bimeby get 'um cool, baal gibi

aturedly. 'Tarpot, you take 'em saddle-box belong a mahmee inside barracks. He'll show y

iving in it all day. Frightful season! I'm just going down to file my schedule-fact-unless my banker takes a good-natured fit. Can't

u can work it somehow or other, whoever goes under. Besides, rain ain't far off; can't be now. The ladies are

petulantly. 'Knocked smoke out of the team

ther speculative disposition, having investments in new country as well. People said he had too many irons in the fire, and would probably be ruined unless times changed. But more observant critics asserted that under careless speech and manner Jack Char

nd of good spirits and an unfailing supply of conversation, that most of his feminine acquaintances found agreeable. He was not eas

commences the siege who is able to surprise, to interest, to entertain the emotional, laughter-loving garrison, so often in the doldrums, so indifferently able to fill up the lingering hours. It is not the 'rare smile' which lights up the features of the dark and melancholy hero of the Byronic novelists which is so irresistible. Much mor

ne of those people to whom women always listened, and never without being more or less amused. But though he would hardly have sighed in vain at the feet of any of the demo

good, laughing heartily at his good stories and running fire of jests and audacious compliments. That made it so hard to bear. The very fearlessness and perfect candour of her nature f