This Man's Wife Part 116

"Oh, I see, then," cried Hallam, turning to Bayle; "it was you--you beggarly professor of--"

"Stay your reproaches," cried Bayle sternly. "I could not have taken steps against you had I wished."

"If it'll make it easier for Mr Hallam to know who gave information again him," said a voice at the door, "it was me."

"Tom Porter!" cried Sir Gordon.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Remove your prisoner," said Captain Otway sternly. Crellock stepped forward with a bl.u.s.tering swagger.

"Am I included in this?" he said.

"No, sir," said Captain Otway sternly. "I have no orders about you--at present. Take my advice and go." Crellock made a step toward Julia, but she shrank from him in horror, and the next minute he was literally forced out by the soldiers with their prisoner, the door closed, and a low, wailing voice arose:

"Julia!"

"Mother, dear mother, I am here," cried Julia, kneeling and supporting the stricken woman on her breast.

"Hold me, my darling, tightly," she moaned. "It is growing dark--is this the end?"

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE GOOD THAT WAS IN HIM.

"Hi! Sir Gordon!"

The old gentleman turned as a big-bearded man cantered up over the rough land by the track, some six months after the prison gates had closed upon Robert Hallam.

"Oh, it's you!" said Sir Gordon, shading his eyes from the blazing sun.

"Well?"

"Don't be rough on a fellow, Sir Gordon. I've been a big blackguard, I know, but somehow I never had a chance from the first. I want to do the right thing now."

"Humph! Pretty well time," said the old man. "Well, what is it?"

The man hesitated as if struggling with shame, and he thought himself weak, but he struck his boot heavily with his whip, and took off his broad felt hat.

"I'll do it," he said sharply to himself. Then, aloud: "Look here, sir, I'm sick of it."

"Humph! then you'd better leave it," said the old man with an angry sneer. "Go and give yourself up, and join your old companion."

"That's rough!" said Crellock with a grim smile. "How hard you good people can be on a fellow when he's down!"

"What have you ever done to deserve anything else, you scoundrel?" cried Sir Gordon fiercely. "Twenty thousand pounds of my money you and your rogue of a companion had, and I'm tramping through this blazing sun, while you ride a blood horse."

"Take the horse then," said Crellock good-humouredly. "I don't want it!"

"You know I'm too old to ride it, you dog, or you wouldn't offer it."

"There, you see, when a fellow does want to turn over a new leaf you good people won't let him."

"Won't let him? Where's your book and where's your leaf?"

"Book? Oh, I'm the book, Sir Gordon, and you won't listen to what's on the leaf."

Sir Gordon seated himself on a great tussock of soft gra.s.s, took out his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, put them on deliberately and stared up at the great, fine-looking, bronzed man.

"Hah!" he said at last. "You, a man who can talk like that! Why, you might have been a respectable member of society, and here you are--"

"Out on pa.s.s in a convict settlement. Say it, Sir Gordon. Well, what wonder? It all began with Hallam when I was a weak young fool, and thought him with his good looks and polished ways a sort of hero. I got into trouble with him; he escaped because I wouldn't tell tales, and I had to bear the brunt, and after that I never had a chance."

"Ah, there was a nice pair of you."

Crellock groaned and seemed about to turn away, but the man's good genius had him tightly gripped that day, and he smiled again.

"Don't be hard on me, Sir Gordon. I want to say something to you. I was going to your friend, Mr Christie Bayle, but--I couldn't do that."

Sir Gordon watched him curiously.

"You haven't turned bushranger, then? You're not going to rob me?"

"No," said Crellock grimly. "Haven't I robbed you enough!"

"Humph! Well?"

"Ah, that's better," said Crellock; "now you'll listen to me. The fact is, sir, I've been thinking, since I've been living all alone, that forty isn't too old for a man to begin again."

"Too old? No, man. Why, I'm--there, never mind how old. Older than that, and I'm going to begin again. Forty! Why, you're a boy!"

"Well, Sir Gordon, I'm going to begin the square. I gave up the drink because--there, never mind why," he said huskily. "I had a reason, and now I'm going to make a start."

"Well, go and do it, then. What are you going to do?"

"Oh, get up the country, sir, stockman or shepherding."

"Wolfing, you mean, sir."

"Oh, no, I don't, Sir Gordon," said Crellock, laughing. "There's plenty of work to be got, and I like horses and cattle better than I do men now."

"Well, look here," said Sir Gordon testily; "I don't believe you."

"Eh?"

"I don't believe you, sir. If you meant all this you'd have gone and begun it instead of talking. There, be off. I'm hot and tired, and want to be alone." Crellock frowned again, but his good genius gave him another grip of the shoulder, and the smile came back. "You don't understand me yet, Sir Gordon," he said. "No, I never shall."

"I wanted to tell you, sir, that since Hallam was taken, I've been living up in the Gully House. I'd nowhere else to go, and I was desperate like. I thought every day that you or somebody would come and take possession, but no one did. Law seems all anyhow out here. Then the days went on. This horse had been down--sprained leg from a bad jump."

"Confound your horse, sir! I don't want to hear your stable twaddle,"