“Macartney probably,” said another man, who was leaning against the slab wall, and intently watching the girl in the doorway. “Come, Gran, don’t be croaking; if the cards ain’t lucky, put ’em away till they are.”
He looked cleaner and smarter than the other three—Nellie’s brothers, who were young fellows, little over twenty. They were good-looking, strapping fellows, but the sweet simplicity in her face was in theirs loutish stupidity, and their companion stood out beside them, though probably he was nearly twice their age, as cast in a very different mould. He was dressed as they were, in riding-breeches and shirt, but the shirt was clean, his black hair and beard were neatly trimmed, the sash round his waist was new and neatly folded, and the pistols therein were bright and well kept. Gentleman Jim, the Durhams called him; as Gentleman Jim he was known to the police throughout all the length and breadth of New South Wales. What he had been once no man knew, though evidently he was a man of some little culture and education; what he was now was patent to every man—escaped convict, bushranger, cattle-duffer—even a murder now and again, it was whispered, came not amiss to Gentleman Jim. It was an evil face, with the handsome dark eyes set too closely together, and when there is evil in a man’s face at forty, there is surely little hope for him; but bad as it was, to Nellie Durham it was the one face in the world. Cattle-duffing—it hardly seemed a sin to her. Ever since she could remember, her grandfather, and her father, and when he died, her brothers, had driven off a few head of cattle from the mobs that passed, and she in her simplicity hardly realized the heinousness of the offence; and for the rest, she simply believed nothing against her hero. He had been cruelly ill-treated, cruelly ill-used, but she understood him—she loved him, she believed in him, in the blind unreasoning way a woman, be she old or young, rich or poor, wise or foolish, gentle or simple, does believe in the man she loves. And the old grandmother saw, and shook her head. She did not mind cattle-duffing—it was but levying a fair toll on the rich squatter as he passed. Sly grog-selling was hardly a crime; so few people passed it would have been waste of money to take out a licence, more especially since there was no one to ask whether they had one or not. But Gentleman Jim, whom the boys had taken to bringing home with them of late, was another matter altogether, and she looked on anxiously when she saw the impression he had made on her son’s pretty daughter.
“I dunno,” she said, anxiously to her husband, “whether the gal’s all there; sometimes I think she ain’t, but anyhow, she’s sweet and pretty an’ loving, an’ he’s an out-an’-out scamp, drat him!”
But the old man would not interfere. He was a little afraid of Gentleman Jim; besides he was useful to him—he was getting old, and the grandsons were not much help; they took after their mother, and privately old Durham thought his son’s wife had been more than half a fool, so he encouraged Gentleman Jim; and now came information that Macartney would be camping here to-morrow with a mob ready for the southern market, and here was the man again. The cards too prophesied disaster, shuffle them as she would.
Gentleman Jim swore at the cards and at the old woman in no measured terms, and then he laughed, and gathered them up in his hands.
“Here, Nell, Nell!—the cards are clean against us, your Gran says—come and cut, like a good girl.”
Nellie rose willingly enough, but the old woman said scornfully, “Nell, Nell, she ain’t got no luck at all. Three times I tried her fortune, and three times it came, ‘tears, tears, tears’—never naught else for Nell but tears.”
“Never mind, mother, better luck this time, eh, Nell?” and the girl took the cards, and smiled trustingly up into his face.
“Cut, Nell.”
She cut the nine of spades, and the old woman groaned. “Disaster, sure as fate; let Macartney’s mob alone, I tell you.”
“Cut again, Nell.”
She shuffled them carefully, the other four watching her with eager, anxious eyes, while the man at her side looked on with tolerant scorn. And then she cut—the ace of spades. Her grandmother threw up her hands. “Death, I tell you—death—death—death—an’ no less.”
Gentleman Jim struck the cards out of her hand roughly, and they went flying to all corners of the hut.
“Come outside, Nell—come down to the waterhole, it’s cool there, and better fun than listening to an old woman’s twaddle. The sun’s down now. Come on.”
She looked at her grandmother first, partly from habit, but the old woman was still wringing her hands over the danger foretold by the cards, and was blind for the moment to that right under her eyes. So Nellie followed him gladly, only too gladly, down the steep bank to the waterhole. He pushed her down somewhat roughly under the shadow of the western bank, and then flung himself down on the ground beside her, and put his head in her lap. With her little work-hardened hand, she smoothed back his black hair, and he looked up into her face.
“So you love me, Nellie?” he said, somewhat abruptly. “You be sure you love me?”
It was hardly a question, he was too certain of it, and no man should be certain of a woman’s love.
She made no answer in words, but the pretty blue eyes smiled down at him so confidingly, that for a moment the man was smitten with remorse. What good would this love ever do her?
“You poor child!” he said. “You poor little girl. I believe you do. Don’t do it, Nellie—don’t be such a fool.”
“Why?” she asked simply.
“Why? Because I shall do you no good.”
“But I love you,” she whimpered, “an’ you won’t harm me.”
“No, by—— I won’t.” And for the moment perhaps he meant to keep his oath, for he half rose, as if there and then he would have left her. Perhaps it was too much to expect—all his companions feared him, the outside world hunted him, only this woman believed in him and loved him; and if it is a great thing to be loved, it is a still greater thing to be believed in and trusted. And so when she put her arms around him and drew him back he yielded.
“It is your own fault, Nell, your own fault—don’t blame me.”
“No,” she said, satisfied because he had stayed. “I won’t—never.” Then she ran her fingers through his hair again.
“I saw a gray hair in the sunshine,” she said.
“A gray hair—a dozen—a hundred. My life is calculated to raise a few gray hairs.”
“But why—?”
“Why? Why—once on the downward path you can’t stop, my dear. However the path has led me to your arms, so common politeness should make me commend the road by which I came.”
“You are always good.”
“Good! great Heavens! No—only a silly girl would think that. Was I ever good? I’m sure I don’t know. If I was a woman soon knocked it out of me.”
“A woman! Did you love her?”
“Love her—of course I loved her.”
“More ‘n you do me?”
“More than I do you!—You’re only a little girl—and she—she was a woman of thirty, and she just wound me round her fingers—her!”
The tears gathered in the girl’s eyes—only one thing her simple soul hungered after—she wanted this man’s love—she wanted to be allowed to love him in return.
“She didn’t love you like me,” she said.
“She didn’t love me at all, it was I loved her, the young fool. That’s the way of the world. Come, Nell, don’t cry—that s the bitterness of it. Where’s the good of crying? Where’s the good of loving me? I wasted all the love I had to give on a woman, who made a plaything of me—oh, about the time you were born I suppose. That’s the way of the