Part 7

“You know I would,” he said drearily.

“Don’t be so foolish, Tom Hollis,” said Bessie sharply, rocking away faster than ever. “You know you wouldn’t do any such thing. You ‘d despise yourself if you did. Why don’t you despise me?--I’m sure I ‘m showing myself in an extremely disagreeable light for your benefit.”

“But I know you, you see. I know you so thoroughly,” he said; “and I’d give--I’d give--”

“There, for goodness’ sake, stop, and let’s hear no more of it. I can’t and won’t marry you--it ‘d be too slow. I don’t want to live on the other side of the ranges all the rest of my life. If I ‘ve got to live here at all, this is the nicest side, and I ‘ve Lydia and the children for company, to say nothing of papa and the boys--besides, you ‘ll come over sometimes.”

“I shan’t,” he said, sullenly, “I shan’t. If you don’t take me, I ‘ll not come here to be made a fool of. I shan’t come again.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said calmly; “you will; you ‘ll forget all this rubbish, and be my own dear old Tom again. I should miss you so dreadfully if I didn’t see you three or four times a week.”

A gleam of hope Hashed into his sad brown eyes, and passionate words of love and tenderness trembled on his lips, but, for once in his love-making, he was wise, and turning, gazed silently down the gully again. She would miss him--very well then, she should; he would go away, and not come back for a month at least. The only fear was lest in the meantime some one else might not woo and win her. Those brothers of hers were always bringing some fellow to the house. However--

A bell inside rang furiously, and five boys and girls, ranging between the ages of twelve and three, came racing in from all corners of the garden. Bessie rose from her chair, and shook out her skirts.

“That’s tea,” she said; “you won’t mind a nursery tea with the children, will you? Lydia and I always have it when papa’s away. The Campbell girls are here too. Harry, you know, is very much in love with Dora, and, like a good sister, I ‘m helping on the match. Aren’t you coming?”

He had intended to decline, but she put her hand on his arm in the old familiar way, and he weakly gave in.

“Aren’t you dull, all you women alone?” he asked.

“No, sir, of course not; besides, they ‘ll all be home to-morrow for Christmas.”

“They ‘ve at Kara, aren’t they?”

“Yes, that bothering old Wilson always has a muster at the most inconvenient times. They want to be home, of course, so they Ve taken every man on the place to help. Dick, at the mature age of ten, is our sole male protector.”

“They can be back to-morrow, though?”

“Oh, yes; they Ve bound to be here pretty early too. It’s Christmas Day, you know--at least--. Why, what was that?”

She paused on the doorstep and listened.

“Some one coming into the yard,” said Hollis. “They must have got away earlier than they expected.”

“No--they--.”

A sharp cry--an exclamation of fear and terror, and men’s voices raised, loud and peremptory.

“That’s not--” began Bessie, but Hollis pushed past her into the house. It was a bush house built in the usual primitive style of bush architecture, with all the rooms opening one into the other and dispensing with passages altogether. The dining-room, a big sparsely furnished room, had doors both front and back, and looked on the yard behind as well as on the garden. The table was laid for a substantial tea. Mrs. Warner, Bessie’s stepmother, a good-looking woman of thirty, was at the head of the table with the tea-pot in her hand, but the children had left their places and clustered round her; two other girls of sixteen and eighteen were clinging to one another in a corner, and two women servants, raw Irish emigrants, were peering curiously out into the yard, where half a dozen horses and men were now standing. The cook, an old assigned servant, had taken in the situation at once, had made for the dining-room followed by the other two, and was now sitting in the arm-chair, her apron over her head, beating the ground with her feet.

Hollis saw it all at a glance--the big dining-room, the frightened women, the silent children, the sunlit yard beyond, the horses hitched to the post and rail fence, the half dozen bearded blackguardly men, with pistols and knives in their belts--noted it all, even to the blue and white draped cradle in the corner of the room, and the motes dancing in the sunbeams that poured in through the end windows--noted it all, and looked down on the girl at his side.

“Oh, my God!” he muttered, “it’s the Mopoke’s gang, and--.”

He was unarmed, but he looked round vaguely for a second. Two of the men stepped into the doorway and covered him with their pistols.

“Bail up, you -----,” said the shorter of the two, a man in a dirty red shirt and torn straw hat, who was evidently the leader of the party, “bail up; throw up your hands, or--,” and he added such a string of vile oaths that Bessie, shuddering, covered her face with her hands. Hollis did not at once obey, and in a second a shot rang out and his right hand fell helpless at his side--shot through the wrist.

“If the gent prefers to keep ‘em down, I ‘m sure we ‘re alius ready to oblige,” said the little man, with grim pleasantry, interlarding his speech with a variety of choice epithets. “Now then, mate, back you steps agin that wall--and Bill,” to the other man, “you just let daylight in if he so much as stirs a finger.”

Hollis leaned up against the wall, stunned for a moment, for the bullet had smashed one of the bones of his wrist, and torn a gaping wound from which the blood was trickling down his fingers on to the carpet, but with the armed bushranger in front of him he realized the utter hopelessness of his position. Help himself he could not, but he never thought of himself, he never thought even of the other helpless women and children; his heart had only room for one thought--Bessie, pretty dainty Bessie, the belle of the country side. How would she fare at the hands of ruffians like these? He would die for her gladly, gladly, but his death could be of no avail. The men had come in now, and he scanned them one by one, brutal, cruel, convict faces, sullen and lowering; the only one that showed signs of good humour was that of the leader of the band, and his good humour was the more terrible as it seemed to prove how certain he was of them and how utterly they were in his power.

“You will kindly all stand round the room, with your backs to the wall, so I can take a good look at you, an’ you can impress my ‘aughty features on your minds--kids an’ all, back you go. I ‘m sorry to inconvenience you, Mrs. Warner, but you must just let the babby cry a bit. I can’t have you a-movin about a-obstructin’ my men in the execution of their dooty.”